We heart NZ

An invitation to a wedding was as good an excuse as any to get back to New Zealand for a visit; the stars aligned, the timing was right, and the country was just finishing up one of the best summers on record so the weather wasn’t looking too bad either. The main purpose of the visit was to attend the wedding of friends, but also to catch up with friends and family. Our two weeks there were super relaxing and reminded us of the very different pace of life we’re living in London. 

During our two week stay we got to:

Akaroa: the home of Dean’s extended family and one of our favourite places on earth.

 Sunset on the bay

Our favourite tree at the family farm, Paua Bay

Wellington: the home of Dean’s family and Lou’s home for her last ten years in the country. Also the capital city and enjoying spectacular weather confiming you really can't beat Wellington on a good day.Caught up with friends and family, and visited some of the favourite old haunts including Oriental Parade and catching a Hurricanes game.

 Wellington's Civic Square

Enjoying Feijoa gelato on the waterfront where we used to go running. And by the way, why does no one grow fejoias outside of New Zealand? It's a conspiracy.

Hawke’s Bay: Lou’s hometown, known as 'wine country', and another of our favourite spots. There we saw more friends and family, and once again indulged in food and wine. This trip, while shaping up to be an excellent one, was not good for the shape of our bodies...  (Check out this cool ad about why you should visit Hawke's Bay). This was where we attended the wedding of our friends too, and had a blast at their ceremony and reception at one of the beautiful local wineries, Craggy Range.

 Supporting the local economy by bolstering our wine collection at Ngatarawa. Check out the colour co-ordination with our local guide (aka Lou's mum)

 Celebrating at Craggy Range

Auckland: for a night with friends and to mentally prepare ourselves for the 28 hour journey back to London.

In between leaving on 27 March and arriving back almost three weeks later, the UK had increased its temperature 15 degrees and gone through daylight savings, both of which made for a pleasant and mostly jet lag-free return to real life.

To our kiwi friends and family: we’ll try not to leave it so long between drinks! For now: haere ra xxx

Singapore - the perfect stopover

March 2013 saw a long-overdue visit back to the homeland, New Zealand. In the past, we’ve flown directly to New Zealand and squeezed in a short stopover on the way back to London, but this time we decided a couple of days in Singapore to shake off the London winter ahead of our kiwi break was in order, so we spent three nights there.

Singapore turned out to be an ideal stopover:

• Hot weather? Check
• Great food? Check
• Enough to do without having to visit all the tourist joints? Check
• More great food? Check
• Easy to get around? Check
• No language barriers for jet-lagged brains? Check
• And a bonus feature: two sets of friends to catch up with while there and get the inside scoop on how best to spend our time.

We really wanted to use the time to thaw out and de-stress so we’d arrive in New Zealand relaxed, and Singapore delivered the goods. From our central hotel, we managed to see the following (suprise, surprise, a von Yarrall holiday featuring lots of eating):

• East Coast Lagoon Food Market, where we joined friends and tried Singapore staples chilli crab, sting ray, carrot cake (nothing to do with carrots, rather stir fried globs of raddish and flour dumplings) and satay washed down with cold beers
• Lau Pa Sat hawker market, set in an old cast iron Victorian structure - for more food
• Breakfast each day of kaya toast (a kind of jam made of coconut, sugar and egg) and kopi (local coffee with sweetend condensed milk)
• Raffles Hotel – just the outside for a nosey
• Little India – like being in another country
• China Town – like China town in any city really
• Orchard Road – famous for its shopping, spent most of the time nipping in and out of giant shopping malls to either soak up air con, or avoid downpours
• The light show, viewed from Bar 33 (on the 33^rd floor of the Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 1) – didn’t really get the point of the light show at all, but the views were fab
• The MerLion, Singapore’s mascot
• Clarke Quay at night, a great wander down the waterfront with a stop for dinner followed by an ice cream sandwich (ice cream in bread – actually delicious)
• The Singapore Zoo, visited first thing in the morning and even then by the time we left we were melting. A pretty amazing zoo as the animals aren't in cages or behind bars, but rather separated from the public by ditches/streams of water. Included an entertaining elephant show and well worth the visit.
• And plenty of quality time pool-side in between

Three nights was plenty of time to get a feel for the city and definitely enough to relax and get over the jetlag before having one final swim and jumping on a plane. Next stop, Aotearoa.

A Skandinavian Christmas

Christmas markets had been taking a back seat since visits to Cologne/Dusseldorf and Luxembourg a few years ago, so we decided it was time to change that. Some cheap flights courtesy of Norwegian air saw us headed to Stockholm for a long weekend at the end of November, just after a heavy snowfall, perfect for getting into the Christmas spirit.

A delayed flight though meant we arrived later than planned on the Friday (the bus from the airport into town is the cheapest way to get there, and usually pretty quick without massive snow falls), so after checking into our hotel we headed straight for the Old Town markets with the sun starting to set mid-afternoon. We found them easily, but they were on the underwhelming side - only around 30 stalls. Not to worry: we tried some glogg (swedish mulled wine) and ginger biscuits to warm us up a bit, then walked around the quaint old streets with snow crunching underfoot. By 4pm it was pitch black, and our soft bodies were finding the cold, cold. 

We marched back through town past the Royal Palace and Parliament, and over a bridge beautifully lit with lights, and enjoyed a quick pricey pint (£6) followed by some traditional nosh at Pyttirian. 

Saturday we had a somewhat later start - let's call it an alarm malfunction. So we hightailed it to Skansen open air museum, the world's first open air museum and one of the oldest and biggest Christmas markets around. Friday's snow had stopped but it was thick all around, deep and crisp and even. A real picture postcard setting for the premier Christmas market maybe 100 stalls, selling a range of stuff from cured reindeer meat (not fans) to warm socks, homemade beer and assorted gifts and decorations. It wasn't long before the -10 degree weather started to bite, so we enjoyed plenty of hot food and wine, including Dean's particular favourite, a coal bun - a mixture  of flour, water and salty bacon all fried in a cast iron pan over a fire. Simple yet effective, it was like a thick doughy pancake, served with cranberry sauce. 

With warm stomachs but cold extremities, we took part in some of the entertainment on offer, a dance around the giant Christmas tree. We joined the crowds for some Swedish folk dancing which ranged from pretending we were a variety of animals to traditional womanly housework (we think). Unfortunately the video evidence of Dean being a bunny rabbit doesn't exist, as Lou pointed a camera doing nothing at him while he danced instead of pressing 'record'. Obviously the traditional housework dance didn't include women and technology... 

Invigorated and feeling the feet again (by this stage it was -5) we checked out the grounds which included traditional Swedish buildings (like a farm house and a working bakery), and the zoo complete with reindeer, wild swine, lynx, foxes, bison, wolverine and seals. The brown bear was, wisely, hibernating for the winter. There had been so much snow and at times we couldn't see nor hear another soul so it really felt like we had the wilderness to ourselves. As we walked back to the centre of the park the snow started falling heavily again, so it was all pretty magic for these two kiwis who still love a bit of snow after spending most of our lives without it.

The following day (Sunday), we headed for the Royal Palace. Rather annoyingly, in winter things are open very limited hours in Stockholm, so it didn't open until mid-day. This did make sight-seeing a bit tricky, it was far too cold to wander around outside for too long, and far to pricey to while away the hours in cafes, but when the Palace opened we enjoyed a couple of hours taking in the history of the building and the obligatory changing of the guards.

Stockholm was a beautiful city surrounded by water - and in our case snow - so we'd happily visit again, perhaps in summer to see more of the city without constantly having to warm ourselves up and battle against short daylight hours. The easiest way to get around was the metro - buy a ticket from a shop which is cheaper than a machine or the ticket guy (weird), for roughly what you'd pay for a trip on the London underground. It's also a small, walkable city, and we found that was the best way to get our bearings and keep ourselves moving in the cold.

Alicante: Late summer sun

Our holiday years are out of sync with each other, so with Lou having a few days to take, and her sister Ange having a week’s holiday as a teacher, they decided on a cheap and cheerful girls’ holiday to Alicante in the south of Spain, where they were guaranteed sunshine even in late October.

We stayed at Playa San Juan, outside of Alicante itself, but an easy 20 minute bus ride to the city. Our hotel was a Holiday Inn, purchased as a 'Top Secret Hotel' through lastminute.com in a super cheap flight and hotel deal. 

It didn’t look like the city had all that much to offer in the off-season, so we were happy with our little hotel at Playa San Juan, complete with swimming pool and 5 minute stroll to the beach cafes and bars. We made good use of them, becoming a regular at GAME bar, which offered live music on Sunday evening, and cheap mojitos everyday. Acqua bar was pretty good for food and cofe, as was Lys de France - all with beach front locations.. 

We spent a happy few days chilling out, reading, walking, and one day exploring the castle overlooking Alicante (which they clearly want visitors to get the elevator to - we walked up and with no signs, spent 2 hours circling the mountain until finally stumbling over the entrance. We got the lift back down!).

Highly recommend Alicante - or Playa San Juan - for a sunny, relaxing time.

Edinburgh tattoo and fringe: Free comedy: laugh or your money back

We finally made it to Scotland for the Edinburgh festival last weekend, with tickets to the Tattoo and nothing else locked into the agenda.

We opted this trip to take the train both ways from Kings Cross, since the time (4 and a half hours) is roughly what it takes to get to the airport, check in, wait, fly, then get into town at the other end. A great way to travel, although our 2pm Friday train was jam packed with people taking up every possible aisle space. Luckily we had booked seats in advance, but all the people made for a pretty warm, squishy trip. We were lucky with our B&B too, Kirklea Guest House, which was charging more normal (affordable) rates than many other options in town, with even youth hostels asking for £100 a night when we looked to book 8 months ago.

First up, the Tattoo. Lucky for us the forecast rain didn't arrive, so we settled in for two hours of piping, drumming, dancing and the Scots not singing God Save the Queen. Highlights were the King of Norway's Guards Band and Drill Team (all youngsters doing their national service), The Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland (drumming so fast you couldn't see their hands move), and the Aussies, who did a pretty humorous set including a spot of Kyle and a Waltzing Mathilda sing-along. There was an extensive set at the end with all the bands re-creating Queen Elizabeth's coronation which we didn't feel the Scots were loving, and it's true, they all stood for the anthem but didn't sing. Not surprising, given one of the later verses of an older version of the the anthem includes the lines "Rebellious Scots to crush, God save the King." The Castle was very cleverly lit up in various ways throughout the Tattoo - some of the best pics here.

The US band playing a superhero mash up

The Castle lit with Union Jacks after the slightly weird and very long tribute to the Queen

The locals: a bit happier at their own flag

On Saturday we grabbed a Fringe guide (the size of a phone book) and planned the day as follows:
Improv: Aaand here's another thing - at a very small room in a pub, got jam packed and very hot and lots of people missed out getting in. Very clever and funny (donation)

Play: Executive Stress/Corporate Retreat - a hilarious play with plenty of audience participation by a group of young Aussies, Applespeil. We loved this, our competitive sides came out during the audience participation. Lou ended up the winner of the crowd in the end. Here she is proudly in her t-shirt, which we like to refer to as her 'Team Building Exercise '99' t-shirt, a la Flight of the Conchords. (£7 well spent)
Combination stand up: Lolympics - a flavour of a few of the acts at the festival (donation)
Stand up: Yianni, Numb and Number - an Aussie with number-based humour (donation)
Stand up: Kiwi Ben Crellin - funny, and good to support a kiwi, but a couple of the audience got pretty offended at his padeophile/murderer set which ruined the buzz a bit (donation)
Bingo: Bogan Bingo - does what it says on the tin. Two Aussies, in mullets, rocking to 80s tunes, while we all played a good old fashioned game of bingo. Pleased to find these guys play every Thursday close to us, so we might go laugh with them again some time soon (donation)

Our train on Sunday was departing mid-afternoon, so we had time for just two more shows:
Sketch: The Tourists - a small group of Manchurians with a set of bizarre, very funny skits (donation)
Variety: Free Footlights - another super popular show featuring some of the best young talent. Stand outs were I am I am, a musical duo with an amusing song about the London underground; Johnny Lenox as an 'author' reading some of his very clever and funny stories; and Phil Wang, a regular old fashioned stand up comic (donation)

A fantastic, albeit exhausting and full on, weekend. Will happily pop back again for another weekend during the festival.

Greece: It’s all Greek to me

In 2012 we von Yarralls had our first proper summer holiday for a couple of years, as 2010 was spent partying at the football world cup in South Africa, and 2011 exploring Canada. So we were overdue for some down time in the sun - and a bit of a change from the planning involved in independent travelling. London’s rubbish weather (grey and wet for months on end) wasn’t helping matters, so when the alarm went off at 4am for our taxi to the airport, there were no complaints – the idea of guaranteed sunshine was enough to see us bounding out of bed!

Dean - not happy at the new closing hours

We first flew to Athens, as we wanted to see the Acropolis before heading to the islands. The metro to the city from the airport took about 30 minutes, and we came out to scorching sunshine and a pretty empty street – seems most Athenians are smart and stay indoors in 35 degree heat. Not us though, we checked in to our very clean and cheap hotel Athens Center Square Hotel, then ambled our way up the hill to the Acropolis, taking in a couple of markets and the atmosphere as we went. We got there at about 3.15pm to find a hand-written note saying the Acropolis now closes at 3pm on Sundays (not the 8pm on the website). We, and many other visitors, were extremely disappointed at this, and after speaking to a taxi driver, found this is a by-product of Greece’s financial crisis, with the government not able to stump up with wages for staff to keep the Acropolis open. We were super annoyed, but took ourselves off to the airconditioned, very modern (and cheap) Acropolis museum instead. Although informative and good, it wasn’t a replacement for the real thing (and let’s be honest, we’ve been to the British Museum and seen it all already, thanks Elgin). We were somewhat amused at the video which said something along the lines of ‘Elgin took advantage of the times and plundered the Acropolis’.

The following morning we were off to the ferry terminal to head to Mykonos. Again, the metro was reliable and fast, and then we settled in for the 3 hour journey. The ferry port is huge, so it’s worth getting there early to find the relevant ticket booth, we wouldn’t have wanted to be running around at the last minute.

Mykonos was beautiful, hot, relaxing, delicious, fun, and many more adjectives. We stayed in a bungalow (big room with a private balcony) at Rhenia, by the new port. This location, a 5 minute, €1.60 bus ride to the main centre rather than inside the town, meant we weren’t too tempted to explore each day and instead did what we’d planned to do – sleep, sun, read, swim, and head out for delicious meals in town most nights. Meal highlights include Jimmy’s gyros for the best gyros (kebabs) all holiday, Niko’s Taverna for fresh seafood, and Matthew’s Taverna at the bottom of our hotel’s road (for lazybones who can’t be bothered going further). We went exploring one day, hiring a quad bike and seeing Ano Mara, Elia beach, Super Paradise beach, Paradise beach and Ornos. This was a great adventure, we spent most of our day at Super Paradise, hiring loungers and an umbrella and having food and drinks brought to us. Very luxurious. And if you're into a party this is the right place to come as this video shows!

After five nights in Mykonos we waved goodbye and boarded a ferry to Santorini, a 3 hour journey away. Here we were staying at Sofia Hotel in Firostefani, a ten minute easy walk from the main town of Fira. Santorini is beautiful, perched on top of a steep cliff, with all the white buildings looking like snow (one of us thought for a moment it was snow as we pulled into the harbour, and it wasn’t the ‘von’ part of the team.) We didn’t find Santorini quite as relaxing as Mykonos, our hotel was more central and the pool smaller, but we still lazed around doing pretty much nothing each day, starting the morning with fresh fruit and greek yoghurt, and ending it with an al fresco meal around 10pm each night.

Not snow, but snow white buildings perched on the top of the cliff

 The highlight of Santorini was the day we walked 10kms to Oia, a town famous for its beautiful sunsets. The hilly walk took about 2 1/2 hours in the hot sun, but meant we got some excellent views of the island on the way (top tip - wear normal shoes, jandals wouldn't cut it). After the sun went down we visited Santorini Mou, an excellent restaurant recommended to us by family, where the owner and his friends sing all night long. Lots of wine, ouzo and food that night especially.

Both islands seemed pretty busy, but we did get the impression they were quieter than normal, and heard in Santorini during the peak season they usually have 11 cruise ships in the harbour, where we saw 3 or 4 most days. This possibly made for a more relaxing trip for us, as although both towns had crowded, narrow streets, we didn’t feel quite as squashed as we would have during a usual visitor year.

We would happily pop back to Greece for a laid-back holiday in future, definitely the most relaxing trip we’ve done so far.

Next up – the von Yarralls don their kilts for the Edinburgh tattoo, can’t wait!

New York: The big āporo

Ok, so this is going to be a long one, because while we were only in NYC for five nights, we packed a lot in, and loved the joint so have to share all the details. We haven't even ranted about the bagels or the service! You ready?
We've split this into areas of the City for ease of reading.

Lou and the famous bull near Wall St

Walking the highline on a magnificent day

Take me out to the ball game

First up, Midtown.
Since our accommodation (Candlewood Suites) was located in mid town, just near Times Square, we spent the bulk of our time in this area. We spent the better part of one day walking around visiting Times Square (didn’t find the free museum and nice clean loos until our final day), the Empire State building, the Chrysler building, Public Library, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Rockerfeller Centre, FAO Schwarz (yep we jumped around on the big piano), Grand Central Station, and an excellent tour of the UN.
We also popped into Justin Timberlake's restaurant Southern Hospitality in Hell's kitchen and stuffed ourselves silly.

Top tip: When you get to the Empire State building there’s a huge queue of people wanting to head to the observation deck and touts selling tickets to queue jump. From the 5th Ave entrance, it looks like you can’t get in without a ticket. You can though – just walk around the corner to 33rd St and use one of those entrances to have a good look around the lobby. Of course if you want the view, you'll have to queue!

The view from the top of the Met, central park

Uptown

Plenty to do and see here, and a really different feel to the rest of the city (might be all that money rolling around?) We spent a fab afternoon mooching around Central Park and having a wee nap in the sunshine before heading to the excellent

Metropolitan Museum and taking in the American wing and the view from the roof top bar, before wandering home past Park Ave.

Top tip: the price at museums (usually around $20-25) is in fact the ‘recommended’ price. You can just pay what you want – but you do have to pay something. At the ticket desk, just say you’d like to pay $10 or whatever, and that’s just fine - no snooty looks or anything!

Downtown

Downtown also has plenty to offer, including Wall Street, Southport (great for a drink in the sunshine), China Town, Little Italy (where we had the biggest pizza ever at Lombardi's), and the excellent 'Highline' walk along a disused rail track, which now provides a spot of green in the city and great views.

Around town

Brooklyn

The old girl

One of Lou’s old school friends lives in Brooklyn, so we walked across the bridge one evening to take in views of the city and the Statue of Liberty to have a meal in Brooklyn. As well as seeing a different part of New York, we enjoyed a fantastic meal at a local Mexican, Fonda, with Simone and her husband Geoff.

Top tip: None of the guide books told us how to get onto the bridge, so we had to ask a friendly Policewoman. The pedestrian entrance is right by City Hall.

Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty

We like to think we don’t act like travelling rookies so much these days, but we were the day we decided to get a boat to Ellis Island to visit the Immigration Museum. After 40 minutes in the queue to buy tickets, we did a reccie to see how long the queue through security and to the boat was. We estimated 1000+ people and an hour and a half, so we called that idea quits. Instead, we booked online that night (no extra charge) which meant no queues. In fact, we booked for a 10am sailing and at that time of the day there wasn’t much of a queue at all, so if you don’t want to book online, get there around 9am to minimise time wasted.

Lou rockin' a peace keeper's helmet at the UN

Times Square at night

The boat cruise was great, got up really close to the Statue of Liberty, but we didn’t get off on the island (you can, but there’s not much to see). Instead we continued on to Ellis Island where we spent 3 hours exploring the immigration museum and learning about what immigrants to the US used to go through. Interestingly, the questions they were asked (can you support yourself, can you work, are you a criminal) are much the same as UK immigration ask Dean each time he renews his visa, so things haven’t really changed. Also interesting was that the US really welcomed immigrants from 1892-24, so only 2 percent of those coming into Ellis Island got sent back. They have an excellent search facility so we looked up Yarralls and von Ds to see if any of them had come through, and since found out Lou's Great Grandfather went through there in the 1920s from Scotland.

Yankee Stadium

Whoop, it was free t-shirt day when we visited the Yankees. We do like free stuff! Enjoyed the game and atmosphere, and gorged on the obligatory fried foods, beer and crackerjack.

Some more tips to get the most from your stay

Getting into town from JFK: Very easy and fast on public transport. Take the air train (don’t need a ticket just yet) to Jamaica. Before exiting, purchase a combined airtrain/LIRR ticket (around $13) and exit. Get on the LIRR to Penn Station and you’re there in about 20 minutes.

Metro tickets: If you’re there for 3 or more days, it’s probably worth buying a 3 day pass. We didn’t, and even though we spent most of our time walking, we used the metro enough to warrant it. If you don’t get a pass, you can just buy one metro card and pass it through to the person you’re with – you don’t need one each like you do in London.

Tipping: a good rule of thumb is to just double the tax added to your bill (around 8%) which gives a 16% tip.

Most department stores (and certainly Macy's where we took advantage) have visitor cards, offering a 10% discount for out of towners.

Take your passport, as the kiwi driver's licence might not cut it as ID for alcohol. Dean and our friend Rod spent about 20 minutes arguing with various members of staff at the Yankees who wouldn't accept their NZ drivers' licences as proof of age. They won and we got the beer in the end, but save yourself the trouble!

And to finish, here's the locals at the 9th Ave food festival on while we were there, awesome.