Panorama

Does anybody know of a good Panorama program? I've tried about 5 or 6 and there all crap.

Don't buy crappy slim cameras

I rang up Kodak today and told them of all the problems on their camera:

Error E45 appears on screen
Pictures blurry
Constantly Zoomed in
Images sometimes white and grey outline
Lens doesnt come out or back in

They told me that I could get it fixed for free. It will take 3+ weeks. After I get it back I'm going to sell it on Ebay so it can help cover the cost of my new one $432.318 AUD (Below)

http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_PowerShot_A610/4507-6501_7-31475448.html?tag=sub

Kodak EasyshareV530

I visited Gawthorpe Hall today its pretty close so I just walked. I would have taken photos except when I tried to use my camera I realised it was broken because it wouldn't turn on and when it did the photos were blurey or weird coloured.

Therefore I spent the rest of the day online searching for a new camera since I'll be going away in 10 days! All thats left to do now is wait for it to come and send the other one back to Kodak. It should be here by Fri or Sat cause it had it send express, so I have plenty of time to test it first.

Townley Hall

This afternoon I went to Townley Hall. It was nice inside with lots of statues and art, but unfortunatly I couldn't get any photos because everywhere I went there were staff telling me not to take photos. However I did take many photos of the outside which was just as nice. (In Burnely Folder)

Tickets

Yeah, today I finally got my Eurail tickets. Which gives me unlimited rail and some ferry travel through out the 18 countries of Europe for 1 month. I've already planned the places I want to go to, so all thats left is to find out the exact times of travel.

I'm also spending 3 nights in Paris before I start my rail trip. As well as a few extra nights in Switzerland and The Netherlands, but by then the tickets will probably run out so I'll have to pay for the rest of the tickets individually. Hopefully it won't be too much if i plan the times correctly.

I'll post a list of places soon.

Updated Manchester & Burnley

This week I went back to Manchester again via bus (5 pounds) mainly so that I could go buy some things from Chinatown. While I was there I was just lucky enough to catch one of the last days of the Dutch festival. I was also able to get my necklace blessed by a priest at St Ann's Church. Which many of you know I have wanted for a long time.

Today I went to Clowbridge which is just outside of Burnley. There are lots of hiking trials and a reservoir with a 2.2 km diameter. I chose to walk all the way around the reservoir cause its not that far then I walked 300 m up a hill which lead me to another path. About 15 minutes up the path I turned around because the path dissapeared and was getting too rough. Afterwards I just stayed around and read a book for a while. (Below is a sloth)

Still bright at 9 pm

I've just added more photos of our town, street and house in the Burnley section. The photo below was taken at 9:10 pm.

Manchester, Leeds and Preston

Wow, the last few days I have been to so many places. On Wednesday I went to Piccadilly Manchester. The pedestrian traffic there is crazy, with people walking all over the tram tracks not noticing when the trams are coming, unless they sound the horn. I think I walked the whole city that day seeing the G-Mex, China town, another church, Printworks, Triangle. Urbis, The Museum of Science and Industry. Of all the places I went to my favorite was the Art Gallery. The Manchester Art Gallery was the best one I've seen so far on my trip. It even has a cool restoration room (see picture).

One Thursday I went to Leeds. Again walking the whole city in one day. Leeds is also really big, so luckily its main buildings like the Art Gallery, Town Hall, Library where all close together so I didn't have to waste too much time finding them. Some other places I visited include the mayors office, Park Row which was the main shopping area, the markets. and my favorite place in Leeds the corn exchange. The corn exchange is like a small market place with a circular roof, and has lots things for young people to buy.

Lastly on Friday I caught the train to Preston so that I could plan my next big trip to France, Italy and Greece visiting all the big cities. I plan to leave as soon as the next European Train Timetable comes out in June. But in the mean time I’ll have to get a job to fill in time cause its like 2 to 3 weeks until I leave. Darrens not coming, so I’ll be going by myself.

Anyways Preston was ok, not much to see though. The best place was the train station. It looked very old and was huge. I went to the art gallery, but there was much to see. The best place was probably the market place.

Beaverly

Today Raymond and I went to Beaverly. He had a meeting there so I walked around town by myself. It was a small town, but it was very posh and also interesting.

My first stop of the day was to the Beaverly Minster (church), which was only one of two remaining churches which has a removable roof above the nave (Intersecting point of the crucifix shaped church).

After taking a few photos, my next stop was to the art gallery, however it was closed on Mondays. For the rest of the day I basically just walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere and taking a few photos. (Late post)

Liverpool

Today I went to Liverpool and meet my other grandparents for Yum Cha. Darren couldn't come though cause he had to work. After Yum Cha we all walked to the Liverpool Cathedral and had a look around. On the way we saw a really nice looking china town entrance.

Later that day Raymond took his son Brendon and I to Albert Dock. There was a Beatles exhibit there, but we didn't go in cause we didn't have much time. We also saw old abandoned buildings that have been turned into apartments. Lastly there was a modern art exhibitation, which was boring so we left after a few minutes. (Late Post)

Burnley - Day 2

Today we finally got to sleep in after ages, and found that its really cold here in the morning. Later on we went into town and explored. I dropped my jumper but luckily someone found it.

We also went to Sainsbury to buy lunch and dinner. After that we found this pub called the “Walk About” Pub which is an Australian Pub. and Darren went in and immediately got a job and starts tomorrow night at 6. So we went and bought him some new shoes and pants for only £13.

London - Day 7 and Burnley - Day 1

This morning we checked out of the YHA. And went to catch the bus to the coach station. I missed the bus that Darren got on, because of a ticket misunderstanding, but I found my way anyways. After all of that we finally caught the coach to go to Manchester it took 5 hours.

My Uncle Raymond picked us up in Manchester, than we went back to his town of Burnley, where he let us stay in his second house. Its in a very nice neighbor hood and looks a lot like Sydney. Also just down the road are the shops. And further down at the town center there’s more shops and shopping centers..

For dinner Raymond took Darren and I out to this olden style restaurant/hotel called “Mitton house Country Hotel” so that we could try some of the local foods.

Our House

London - Day 6

We woke up early this morning to go have breakfast. Then it was straight to our “quick start meeting, where we got our sim cards and listened to a whole bunch of other stuff.

After that we went to another museum, this time it was the Science Museum. It was pretty interesting, and once again it took up the whole day. Later on that night we hung out with Daniel for a bit and had some drinks in the laundry room.

YHA Laundry room

London - Day 5

This morning we missed out on breakfast because we slept in. When we woke up Daniel, one of our weird roommates had told us that in the middle of the night one of the other guys poked Darren through his bed because he was snoring to loud, and just as Darren was about to wake up the guy said “shit!” and ran back to his bed.

Later on in the day we went to the Natural History Museum and saw exhibits about space, the human body, basically things that have to do with Earth. This museum also took up a whole day. For dinner we went back to that vegetarian Chinese buffet place again, mainly cause I liked it a lot.

Hyde Park

London - Day 4

Finally after waiting for ages we finally checked into our new room at the YHA St Pancras. It was better than I thought it would be. The room we’re staying in has 3 bunk beds. I’m sleeping on a bottom bunk and Darren is sleeping on a top. However he finds it hard climbing up to his bed since there is a big part of the roof sticking out right where the ladder is.

After that, we went to the “Camdon Markets”, again it was packed due to the bank holiday weekend. Its much better than our markets and a lot bigger. I even found one of those long green New Zealand necklaces I’m always talking about, but I didn’t buy it yet cause its too much.

Me in a locker

London - Day 3

Today we spent most of the day looking at stuff in the British Museum. That place is huge! You would need days to actually go through and read about everything. Some of the different exhibits include Ancient Art, Greek Gods and Deities, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Asian artifacts, pottery, Coins. Basically anything that has a significant historical relevance.

Right after we left the Museum we stumbled across another called “The Cartoon Museum” and inside it had many British cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation. Some with today’s leading political joke or others which were classics from the 80’s and 90’s.

After a few hilarious minutes in the Cartoon Museum we walked for a bit until we came to this extremely packed street, which turned out to be Oxford St, one of London’s main shopping areas. It was pretty cool but way too busy. Did I also mention a lady was hit by a car doing a U-turn. Luckily only the mirror hit her arm, but it could have been worse.

For dinner we found this cool vegetarian Chinese buffet for only 6 pounds. Which is $15. That’s basically it for today. Tomorrow we move into a YHA.


Natural History Museum

London - Day 2

Today we decided to go on a walk around London. First we visited British Library but soon left cause we needed a readers pass, so we decided to come back another day.

Followed by a train ride to Westminster Station were we saw Big Ben and Parliament House, and took some photos. Afterwards we walked to West Minster Abbey. Where we saw many statues and memorials of famous kings, queens, and various heads of states from through out the ages of British history, who were buried underneath where we were standing.

After some spending at the souvenir shop we went to Bucking Ham Palace just in time for the changing of the guards. The funniest thing happened while we were there. Not knowing that we were actually there already, I asked this policeman where it was and to my embarrassment we had already stood in front of it for 25 minutes.
We then walked back near Big Ben to go ride “The London Eye” only to find out it was too expensive. Maybe next time? So we went back towards Buckingham Palace to see Hyde Park. On the way we stopped at West Minster Cathedral and I got a bottle of holy water. Followed by another stop at “The Marble Arch”, built in commemoration of Duke Wellington. Not only that there was also an Anzac memorial. I think Darren got a bit patriotic there.

Finally we reached “Hyde Park” it was huge and took about half hour walking around one half of the outside and another half hour to walk back through it. Finally we had enough for the day and caught the train back and had dinner at the same pub.


BIG BEN

London - Day 1

On the plane ride to London Darren sat on the aisle seat and as he was sleeping he got ran into by the food cart over and over again.

Darren - “That bloody hurt!“

13.5 hours later we arrived in London. When we got off the plane. Darren was wearing his boardies, thongs and a singlet and it was about 14c

Everything had started off good until we had to pick up our luggage and realized how heavy the backpack was mostly for me. Followed by and excruciating walk to our hotel. However things were fine as soon as things were setup at the Langland Hotel. So we went and got dinner and got our first beer in London.

Hong Kong - Day 3

We nearly missed our hotel pickup to the airport the this morning because we were too plastered to hear the alarm going off, we only woke up when my mum rang. We had breakfast at the airport. Darren ate at “Burger King” and I ate at “Chicken and Biscuits”. Both our meals were terrible! Darren couldn’t even finish his burger, which must have been a first.

Hong Kong - Day 2

The next morning we went on a half day tour around Hong Kong, and visited both the poorer and the more high class places to see the contrast between both. It was pretty cool except when we went to this jewelry making shop where we spent 45 long and boring minutes watching people buying jewelry.

We spent the rest of the day with my aunties shopping, followed by lunch more shopping and then dinner with the rest of the family then going back to their house for some drinks and photos. Later on when we got back to the hotel we had more drinks at the Sip Sip Bar and got plastered.

On top of Victoria Peak

Hong Kong - Day 1

8.5 hours later we finally arrived in Hong Kong. Man everything was so different. We began the night by driving with my uncle to his village in Yuen Long, to see my grandma. But we didn’t stay that long.

After that we drove another 35 minutes into Kowloon where our hotel was. It was pretty funny because after the porter took our bags up to the room he just stood there waiting for a tip, but I didn’t have any change and offered him a orange juice instead. So he left, probably pissed off.


Our first beer in Hong Kong