Spider's World

Spent a spectacular weekend away just North of Dungog in Chichester state forest which neighbours Barrington Tops National Park.

Travelling from Cass's place gave us some extra time but I was so keen to get out there that we left early anyway. Up the freeway and via Raymond terrace we were soon sitting on a hill looking of the town of Dungog.

The first service station we came to brought memories back of the days when I used to 4wd in the area. At least its easy to find and sells ice for the esky. After meeting N and S we soon had to chase after L and P as mobile reception was not available and they had driven straight passed us.

We were soon following Salisbury road out to the park entrance, which would take us to the camp ground. My car being in the class of 2wd and fairly low, didn't really enjoy the dirt, pot hole ridden track, but it made it into the park without any problems.

Driving along Williams Top forest road and looping back down Lagoon Pinch Forest Road was a simple but long drive for my vehicle, however once at the junction of Allyn River Road we had several options for campsites which were all along the Allyn River. The camp sites furter south and south of the water hole appeared larger but as we arrived after 12pm most of the good spots had already gone, so we headed onto the loop road of Patterson Forest Road only a few hundred metres up the hill from Allyn river road we found a great open area for camping. We were the only ones there and it was equipped with a male/femail pit toilet and water tank.

After setting up camp we headed back down the the Allyn River road and went for a swim in the Ladies Well water hole. It was a fantastic part of the river with multiple watering holes that were several metres deep. Not that I wanted to find out but I still couldn't touch the bottom even when jumping from the clifftop above the water. There was a rope swing and smaller rockpools and a small water fall which offered a great way to cool off in the heat. Many of the locals appear to bring their kids up for the day and have a picnic on the side of the banks. I will have to ensure I visit this place again soon as it is truely spectacular.

For dinner that evening Cass and I decided to give my Camp oven a go, and cooked up some mean Lamb Shanks. I put the lamb shanks in the oven for about 40 mins all up with some read wine, tomato paste , water and vegies. I probably needed to cook them a little longer as they meat didn't quite fall off the bone, but the stew that came out was delicious. mmmm Yum.

The next day, we explored the Barringtops National Park, by first hopping into S's 4WD and headed to the top of Mt Allyn. The view was amazing and the track followed a fairly narrow knife edge style ridge.

We also visited the Burraga Swamp, which the swamp itself wasn't that much but the forest leading to it was truly amazing. Some of the flora would have been hundreds of years old, with towering ferns and Orchards high in the trees. Some very tall and larged trunked trees surround the area. We ended up finding a nice shady spot to sit for a picnic lunch before getting back into the car and heading back to Ladies Well for some swimming.

A great weekend overall, and makes we want a 4WD again even more :-)

Well its been a few weeks since I have updated my blog, mainly because I've been busy catching up with people , xmas or just doing something else.

I managed to catch up with a lot of SES people at the Christmas party a few days after I got back. It was actually a good opportunity to see some new faces and see how many people I still remembered. It was great being welcomed back as I had only been in the country for a couple of days. It was also good to see that some form of the year in review has been carried on since I have left and a slide show presentation was put on.

Continued on after the party at Hornsby, but after being used to larger and much busier party environments we headed home after a few hours.

For Christmas and New Year Cass and I headed up to the Gold Coast. Taking turns in the driving we arrived in the early afternoon a few hours before a storm came through and cooled things down. Most of the time that we spent up there had beautiful weather with a few late stormy afternoons. We even got caught out one night when walking back from cavel avenue where heavy rain forced us to seek shelter for a fair while.

Was able to catch up with my brother and sister who I had not seen for over 2 years. Even got a visit from my mate Jason who was on a round Australia road trip.

Watched the fireworks on the beach for New Years, as well as watching the skinny dippers evade the police.

Eventually headed back to Sydney via the New England taking a more scenic and adventurous route. At least I enjoyed driving it, but the car would have been better on the dirt if it was a 4WD. anyway....

Haven't really gotten into the full swing of job hunting yet, but things do look a little slow in the job market. but hopefully as people start going back to work after the break things will start to pick up again. I'm in no rush, so I may as well enjoy the time off while I can.

After a long 9 hour flight I finally touched down in Sydney. I was glad to finally be off the plane. I felt the Qantas flight was a dissapointment and found that the BA flight from London to Hong Kong had much better food, service and just general better staff. I don't know if it was due to an older style A330 Airbus which appeared to be a last minute swap over from the original 737, but what ever it was I felt Qantas let the passengers down. Apart from not being able to get my preferred meal which I wasn't to concerne about, it was more the time it took for the meals to be delivered, It was almost as if they only had one trolley and only two staff members to look after each side of the air craft. At one point the service was so slow on the colletion of trays that passengers had to carry them to the rear of the air craft just so they could get up from their seats and use the rest rooms. Utter discrace I thought.

However the flight itself was smooth and comfortable, but we did get delayed coming in due to lots of air traffic. Then once on the ground we had to wait for ages before our bags even came out of the plane. I was going to spend more time in Duty Free but had already spent a bit of time in there and thought my bag would be ready by the time I came out. Oh well. Delays because of weather I guess.

Eventually got my bag and headed into the customs area. I had a small wooden Mayjong box that I purchased in Hong Kong and had to declare. It was actually faster declaring items as I was able to skip the x-ray machine.

Came out the gate and met Cass and my parents. Cass was holding a welcome home sign and balloon and was very excited to see me, so were my parents. It was hugs all around for everyone , before I set out into the wet Sydney weather and headed home. Though wet it still was nowhere as cold as London.

As expected nothing much has changed from the sites in Sydney. There are just a few new houses or developments, specially the new unti blocks in saw in St Ives. Wow it sure looked different. What seemed to confuse me the most was the changes to the hosue that my parents had made. The new extensions have added extra space and are still in the final stages of painting and last touch ups, but the changes that these extenstions have brought has required some re thinking on my part. Once where a doorway stood is now a wall, hence I have to get to the kitchen via a newly created hallyway. I still almost walk into the wall everytime, expecting to find a door. The stair case has also been reversed, so where a wall once stood, is now the staircase, so I still attempt to climb the stairs from the old location. Thankfully I don't sleepwalk (That I'm aware of) otherwise my mind may remember the old layout and I could be in trouble. With new bathrooms and exterior rendering the house is a new place to explore and had made coming home something different. I'm sure in a couple of days I will have things sorted and be back on track.

So far not not feeling to bad, but did hit the wall slightly for a few minutes after a quick power nap. Would have been better staying awake at that point, but now that the hours have passed I'm feeling that the power nap probably did good in the end anyway.

Cass is cooking me some dinner this evening which I will enjoy. Yum

On my last and final day I thought I would go and check out some further section of Hong Kong where the computer markets are located. I was planning on buying some radio equipment and maybe some computer bits if I saw anything I liked. I caught the MTR to Sham Shui Po however arrived a few hours to early, so I had to explore the streets as everything was being opened up. This gave me a good opportunity to see some of the fresh produce markets which are very interesting to explore. On the markets I saw live frogs, turtles, fish and other Chinese delicacies. It was amazing to see how many there were and I wondered who actually eats turtle.

After exploring the large Dragon centre shopping complex which contains a roller coaster at the top, I headed back to the computer markets which were a little more open now. These markets were huge and consisted of floors and floors of mni stall like shops selling everything you could ever need for a computer. I didn’t really see anything of interest that qualified for a impulse buy, also the prices didn’t give much incentive either.

I did manage to find my radio shop and purchased myself a small HH tri banded to play with when I get home. I would have preferred to have it when I was in the UK, but not to worry now.

Headed back to Kowloon where I visited ‘Kam Lam Moon’ which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Hong Kong. I wanted to try some Dim Sum, and thought this place would have to be tried. The food was great, but still of the food I have tried in Hong Kong I always feel that the Chinese food back in Australia is about the same if not better.

Completed some final shopping and headed back to the hotel where I grabbed my bags and caught a taxi to the Kowloon Airport express station. At the train station you can check your luggage in which was great and saved me having to take it on the train. Hopefully they don’t loose it.

From the airport express station to the airport only takes about 20 mins but the journey is a smooth comfortable ride. Now I am at the airport at a place called wild fire, which has free Wi-fi. So thankfully I can connect with my laptop and fill in some time.

It won’t be long now before I’m in the air and heading back home. I can’t wait.

On my third day in Hong Kong I decided to head over to Macau after waking up in the morning feeling extremely jet lagged it took me a little while to get going. But once on my way I started to feel a lot more awake. I walked over to the terminal and bought a ticket for the ferry which was the next to leave. The entire journey is about 50 mins and you have to sit down for the entire time as you head out into the China Sea which can be extremely choppy on bad days. The windows of the ferry were extremely dirty with salt residue from the sea spray, so you couldn’t see out the window that well anyway.

Arrived in Macau and walked across to the fishermans wharf, which seemed to be empty. There were not that many people around at all. I walked over this theme park which was called Aladins Fort which offered a great view from the top of the neighbouring concrete volcano.
The fishermans wharf consisted of many copied buildings from around the world, they even had a mini coliseum with a built in stage area. Walking to the end of the wharf there was a hotel and the Babylon casino where I grabbed some food.

After lunch I headed across the road into the Sands casino to try my luck at some black jack. To enter the casino I had to walk through a metal detector, but first passed my camera bag to the guard. As I walked through the metal detector it beeped loudly, which I assumed was not a good indication, however the guard didn’t seem to care and just looked in the smallest compartment of my bag and sent me on my way. I hope that the security in the hotel wasn’t this lapsed for everyone. The casino wasn’t anything that spectacular inside, but they did appear to have some singers dancing and singing on one of the bars. Most of the casino seemed to be baccarat and the usual craps tables. They only had about three black jack tables with a minimum HK$100 limit. So after walking around checking things out I had a flutter. After winning the first three hands things went south as it almost appeared that the dealer had the upper hand of luck. So eventually left.

Overall I didn’t find Macau very exciting and the casino’s were nothing like Vegas. Maybe it livens up at night or something. On my strolls I cam across what is probably one of the only green spaced within Macau city centre. It was funny to see almost gym like fitness equipment. These would have been great if we had something similar at home, but I feel that OH&S would soon put a stop to it.

Caught the ferry back to Hong Kong just as it was getting dark the trip back took a little longer as we got delayed about 10 mins waiting for the wharf to free up.

For dinner I decided to try the hotel buffet, which was going to cost a lot more but it was my last night so thought it would be nice to splurge. The buffet had a fantastic assortment of sea food, Chinese delicacies. I think I tried about everything but left the tripe alone. I did have some great crab and cray fish, For desert I just had the Haagen-Dazs Ice cream, I could have had a pancake, but the ice cream was my preference.

After dinner I walked along the Promenade and the avenue of stars taking pictures with my tripod. It made it a lot easier to get shots of myself with the city lights in the background, otherwise it gets a little difficult. After several hours I returned back to the hotel for another much needed sleep.

After a decent nights sleep , in a bed that was so much more comfortable then the bed at 372, I awoke to start my day. First I headed downstairs to the Hotel café for the buffet breakfast.

The Buffet breakfast had a fantastic selection of food with various cultures covered. You could have an Asian style Congee of Miso Soup or even have steam pork buns or dumplings. But they also have the standard hot breakfast with Eggs, bacon , sausages etc. You could even order you eggs to be cooked as you liked them from the chef.

After breakfast I wanted to head over to Hong Kong island where I was going to visit the peak and some street markets. I decided to catch the MTR which is the Hong Kong Metro, I also thought that getting it at the peak rush hour may also be an experience. Most of the subway entrances to the MTR stations never appear to be close to the actual station entrance. Also due to Hong Kong being prone to monsoons, a lot of it is under cover or underground , hence you can usually walk a fair way underground before you get to the platform. I had purchased a Airport Express travel card, which gave me an Octopus card with three days of free MTR travel, so I could catch the MTR during that time without it costing me any extra. This proved very convenient as all you do is swipe the card as you enter or exit the station.

Standing on the platform Tsim Sha Tsui I could see that peak hour was going to be a challenge, there were at least groups 40 people standing at each position along the platform, where the train doors would open. These groups of people extended the entire length of the train and every single train was crammed packed. I thought London was bad at peak hour, but this beats it hands down. Basically you have to stand at the marked platform points and squeeze onto the train when it arrives. Usually there is only room for a handful of people to get on, but thankfully another train arrives within seconds of the other train leaving. It appered to be a very efficient service despite the overcrowding. When my turn came up , I took a deep breath and squeezed aboard. Thankfully I have been used to the London crowding on a tube train, thankfully these trains have much more standing room. But I have never seen as many people on a train as was the case here, I was amazed. All you could see down the entire length of the train where black heads of hair all squeezed together like sardines in a can. However after a couple of stops most people got off, the next station after that was central and I was able to get off very easily.

Came out of the station to start exploring as was immediately walking on one of the monsoon walkways that went out to the sea port, these walkways also link you through to the many shopping malls, hence you can remain undercover at all times in bad weather.

Apart from the markets in the streets that sold everything from fresh fish, meat and vegetables, I also wanted to see the worlds longest set of escalators.. These escalators though not in a continual length take you from the base of central, Queen Victoria street up towards the higher streets of Central. When I begun my walk the stairs were in the morning peal mode, which was in the down direction, however I only just started walking before the 10am turn around, and hence at 10am they changed direction and I was able to get a ride up. Though the escalators are nothing special they do make getting up the hill a lot easier as the terrain is very steep.

Next I headed over to The Peak which is the mountain that looks over Hong Kong Island. To get to the top I caught the peak tram , which is a funicular rail road, that is pulled to the top by cable. The journey up only takes a few minutes but once at the top you get spectacular views all over the island I took several photo;s etc from the top and checked out a few shops before heading back down.

Central would have to be Hong Kong’s main business district, with many of the large buildings being the home of banks and other financial institutions. It is also the home of the Hong Kong stock exchange.


As I still had plenty of time up my sleeve I decided to head over to Tung Chung which is on Lantau Island so I could see the big Buddha. Taking the MTR took me directly to the island where I then had to catch a cable car to the mountain top monastery. The cable car gave a fantastic view of the island and you could see the entire airport as you ascended the mountain which took around 25 mins. I was lucky enough to have an entire car to myself, so I managed to get heaps of photo’s etc on the way up. Once at the top of the mountain you arrived in the shopping village which had a few exhibits including a Monkey animated show and a walk with Buddah exhibit, which was interesting but neither of them worth it really. Leaving the village you can head towards the Buddah statue and walk up the hundreds of steps in the final climb to the top. The statue itself is humungous and over looks the island. Once at the top you can walk around the statue and underneath it through the exhibit.
Back down the steps I headed over to the monastery just as the monks were walking out. It would have been good to see them chanting or meditating but it was getting late and the sun was setting. As the last cable car was for 6pm, I had to hurry to get back to the cable car, but I made it back with plenty of time to spare and was soon back on the train heading back towards Kowloon.

Decided to check out the famous Temple Street night markets which extended for what seemed like miles along the road. There were a number of items that I would have liked to have purchased, but with a bag that was already close to the weight limit I was a little restricted as to what I could buy. Cass would have loved the markets as the majority of the stuff probably appealed to girls, but I still got to see a lot of cool things.

For dinner I found one of the outdoor seating restaurants and ordered some salt and pepper calamari and a bowl of noodle soup with chicken. It tasted great. There were a lot of these outdoor style eating places, and though they lacked any aesthetics the food was good and service decent.

Along a section of the markets there is a street dedicated to fortune tellers and the like. There were so many that the entire street was full of them on both sides of the road, several of them spoke English. I decided to go for a palm reading to see what would be said. Basically the results seemed good, coming up as being healthy and strong minded, but I should be careful with my money when around the age 40. I should have video taped the reading if allowed as it would have been very interesting to keep.

As I had boxed my tripod for the trip home I ended up buying a small cheap one in the night markets, only cost me about AUS$20 and much better for carrying around then my other one. It is really cheap and not that sturdy but hey, it does the job.. Just..

After the markets I walked back to the hotel. The streets were very quite as it was after midnight. It had been a long day and I was in need of a good nights sleep.

After spending most of the morning cleaning my room and ensuring I had everything packed into my cases I still had one thing on my mind before I could leave. That was the dodgey BT phone line. Now why did I leave it to the last minute you may ask, well the fact is I didn’t and had begun the process weeks ago, but was having more problems finding someone transfer the account over to. I was on the phone about a week or so before to BT attempting to cancel the account, however the gentlemen I spoke to advised me that I could just transfer the account over as long as I had that persons details. As I couldn’t do it much earlier I of course had to call up on Saturday morning, and in true BT fashion they stuffed me around. The people I spoke too told me that I was unable to transfer the account over to another person. Again a typical demonstration of how BT works, stuffing you around. As I had no time to be messsing around , I just arranged for it to be cancelled at the end of Dec. I just hope that the guys in the house can get it sorted.

After saying a few goodbyes to the gang at 372 I was off to Hammersmith to meet Leigh for lunch. Hammersmith is direct on the Piccadilly Line which runs to Heathrow, so lunching at Hammersmith made things a lot easier. Wheeling my cases along the footpath of the A40, I soon arrived at Park Royal Tube and was on my way to Hammersmith.

We met up at the same pub Leigh and I used to go to when we first arrived in London, as it always had good cheap food. I ordered a Guiness with a BBQ Beef and Bacon burger and the yummy curly fries. Mmmmm Yum. Poor Leigh was on a Detox trying to get rid of a stomach bug, hence had to be careful what she ate.

After a quick lunch I was soon on my way to Terminal 5 with plenty of time to spare. I had already checked in online so my seat was already allocated, so no need to rush. Had a quick cold drink before saying a final farewell to Leigh and headed into security.

The T5 security seemed to be working farely well, however I believe the reason it was working was the fact that it was not that busy. However though it took only about 5 - 10 mins to go through, I think this would not have been possible if the amount of passengers were high. Either way , apart from having to remove my shoes it was rather trouble free. I didn’t even have to remove my laptop from my bag, which for some reason some airports require you to do this.

Wandered through Heathrow T5 shops for a short while but didn’t really have any space left in my bag to buy anything. Its terrible these days that the airlines restrict your baggage to 24 Kilos. Long Haul flights you tend to take more as you usually go for longer, now the airlines just use it as an excuse to charge you more and make the plane lighter to use less fuel. Whilst these are good arguments, it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

I had been given seat 49C which was in the aisle towards the back of the plane I thought that the aisle my offer a little more space and allow me to get up and down for the toilet or to stretch my legs anytime I wanted. Still the 11 hours in a cramped seat played havoc, as I’m restless at the best of times and no matter which way I sat I ever got comfortable. I did however have a nice couple sitting next to me on the plane which were English heading to Adelaide for a wedding, but were breaking up the journey in Hong Kong first. During the flight I watched several movies, of which appeared fairly recent, as I had not heard of some of them. It was a good mix of movies, but some that were classed as comedy hardly tickled your humour. The plane food was as good as plane food gets with a chicken option or beef lasagne for dinner and a choice of English breakfast or Egg fruit Tate or something similar.

After a rather smooth flight I was existing the aircraft and heading towards the gates. I had to wait in the queue for immigration which is typical at most airports before I could get my bags. I had to complete a landing card, but the customs guy hardly even looked at what I had completed. I suppose the passport records most things these days anyway.

Grabbing my bags I was soon in the queue for my airport express pass, which allowed for three days of MTR travel, which I thought would be benefical for getting around Hong Kong. Within minutes I was on the Airport express heading to Kowloon, which is the area of my hotel. Once at Kowloon I decided to get a taxi for the 2Km trip to the hotel.

The taxi’s in Hong Kong are hardly modern. With the red paint work they are easy to spot, but despite the column shift gears and a old interior, the ride was rather hassle free and the cab appeared clean.

After arriving in Hong Kong the vast scale of commercial and residential buildings are evident across the skyline. Its hard to imagine what life would be like purched high up in one of the older style apartment buildings.

The Taxi driver took me directly to my Hotel ‘ The Royal Garden ‘ and soon after checking in I was in my room. The hotel itself appears as an older building but the interior has been done up very nicely, with a large atrium creating an air of space between the floors. Even the elevators are glass, so you can see the foyer and restaurants below as you rise towards your floor.

For some reason my room was upgraded to an Executive suite, I wasn’t complaining but was just happy to get a nice room. It has a massive King Size bed with a giant flat screen TV on the wall, and a small couch, side table and a desk in the corner, even had a fax machine which I guess where the executive part of the room comes into play.

After freshening up, I headed out into the streets for a quick explore of the Kowloon area, first heading onto the Victoria Harbour side and walking along the prominade or the star walk. The weather was a little muggy but rather mild and I was able to get many photo’s as it began to get dark. I walked around the central shopping area and Nathan road which as soon as I walked into it , I was hassled to buy Rolex watches or other goods. Things looked rather similar to how they look in china town or just parts of Chatswood. (I hate to say) All the restaurants or noodle style bars are exactly the same as we have at home. However unlike home when you walk past a Chinese restaurant and get the fantastic smell of cooking food, its seems to be a small you get all over. So I walked around feeling hungry most of the time. I even stopped into a small restaurant for BBQ port with rice, Yum.

Walking around Kowloon there is a continual display of lights and colour whether it be for a shop or restaurant or even just advertising its all over the place. I walked back along the star walk prominade and took lots of photo’s of the building and their lights. I even got to see the Symphony of Lights, which was a fantastic display of lights and sound. All the buildings across the harbour were wired up into the music and would flash on and off in time and laser lights would shine from the top. Something different but it sure was impressive.

Being Christmas time there were many buildings that had Merry Christmas lights and messages on the buildings. It was not just a small sign but a hugh light display encompassing the entire building. I took a lot of photo’s of these before returning to the hotel.

Whilst I was walking around Kowloon, it brought my attention to the amount of cameras that everyone had. Unlike in London where I felt out of place walking with a camera, this place it was not the case. I think every man and his dog was out taking photos. The amount of tripods I saw was over whelming if only I had mine.

Its been a busy week, finalising my time here in London. I've packed boxes, cleaned my room and tried to remember everything that I needed to do before I left.

I headed out to Ealing on Monday to get my hair cut, thought I would make it a little surprise for Cass, whom is probably reading this now and will now not be surprised. :-) After the hair cut I headed to the Southern Star pub for some lunch. This consisted of a nice London Pride Ale and a Beef Pie. The Pie was a little dry as it had real thick pastry but it was still good. I can't wait to head to the Pie in the Sky when I get home as they are my real favourite.

Decided to purhcase a video camera so I could get a few last shots of London before I went home. So the day after buying it i went on a quick exploration mission of London, covering Big Ben , South Bank , Trafalgar Square and picadilly circus.

Today, I headed out to Shepherds Bush, Putney and Fulham. I got delayed on the bus so by the time I got to Fulham it was dark, but I still got a few shots.

Earlier in the week my boxes were collected and I began living out of my suitcase, and now U have finally packed everything and ad of tomorrow it will be my offical last day on London.

Caught up with Peta and Brett in Shepherds bush last night for a drink. Planned to go to Defectors Weld, but it was packed so ended up at Bullushi's.

Overall getting excited about heading home , but will still miss some things in London.

After sleeping for a fare chunk of Saturday due to getting home so early in the morning. I spent the most of Saturday checking my packing boxes and ensuring I wasn't taking to much in my suitcase. I have three boxes full of stuff so far, I;m sure most of it I will need to have at home at some point. A fare bit of it is clothing that I will need in a few months or didn't really want to toss out.

On Sunday I met up with the old 372 gang and headed down to 'The Thatched House' in Hammersmith for a sunday roast. The place itself was very well layed out and did actually feel more like a cosy home then an actual pub. I guess it was a pub with table service so more like a restaurant then a pub. I arrived early with Mitch and managed to get a table close to the fire so it was really warm. When the others arrived we soon ordered and before we knew it a shoulder of lamb was on my table. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm Yum the meat just fell straight off the bon and went down a treat. I finished it up with some delicious ice cream.

It was great to catch up with everyone, but I was unable to see brett as he was working, so I will prob find time during the week to say farewell.

After lunch we headed back to the old 372 gang's new place in Hammersmith. Had a quick coffee etc then headed back home.

The working week was very slow with the amount of work that I could actually do very limited. Most of my normal taskshad either been finished for handed over to someone else to look after.

On Wednesday, Tim from the South Coast office came up to London so I could do a hand over and fill him in on anything before I left. It was also a good opportunity to head out for a group lunch as I have worked faily closely with Tim covering the networks in London and the South Coast.

For lunch we grabbed most of the people within out London Team and headed to Leicester Square for some quick Chinese food. Our place of choice is Wong Kei's. Its not the flashest of restaurants but the food is cheap and above all always good. Located on the end of China Town , its one place we can usually get to and from within a lunch break. After eating my delicious mixed seafood with Uton noodles we were soon back in the office.

The rest of the week appeared to be mini lunches or at least that was a good excuse. Darren one of the work collegues was taking off for South Africa, so it was a last drink with him before he headed home for a few months. We happened to find another pub/restaurant that serves italian food. Its probably the closest pub to the office, but you don't realise it is there until you actually go inside. Its a shame we didn't know about it earlier as the pool table is decent and the place is never too busy so you don't have to worry about it being crowded. Maybe a little too empty for our liking but still they do good pizza's. (The Nelson)

Friday, we headed out to the Prince of Wales Feather for another lunch, this is the place that we rarely eat food at , as its usually cold or takes for ever to turn up. Once again the food was no exception, cold..

Friday night was my actual farewell drinks from work, so after saying a few good byes around the office to those who couldn't attend we headed off to 'The Green Man'. The pub itself was only a short walk from the office, which made it convenient. Usually when we have visited it during lunch it is empty, however on a Friday night it was packed full. Not a bad place for a drink of several. I put some money on the bar for a tab and continued to celebrate my finishing up of work with a a handful of people from the office. Several hours later we decided to head off to the Beeradrome in Holborn, which was a belgium beer cafe. I wasn't exactly a big fan of the belgium beers after drinking bourbon most of the night, but I still managed to have something called a dilerium.

Got home very early in the morning, which once I got home would be the last time I would have to walk have to walk home instead of standing at the bus stop freezing whilst waiting for a bus that would have for ever to turn up.

Felt strange saying bye to the guys from work, I'm sure some of them I will see again, who knows...