11th-16th September So the 30 hours on the train weren't as bad as what we'd thought. We made good friends with Natalia and had some nice conversations with the 2 elderly couples from Bundaberg in the cabin next to us. We are eternally grateful for SunPath for dropping off our food bag that we left behind at the hostel as there wasn't a food cart on this train, so we would have starved without it. The border crossing from Mongolia to Russia was much more pleas...

Thursday 4th September - Ulan Baatar (UB)Let's just say that the crossing of the border from China to Mongolia isn't what you would call pleasant. So you arrive at a place called Erlian at about 11.30pm on the China side. This is where they change the bogies under the carriage as the tracks are narrower in China compared to Mongolia and Russia. Before they get started though, immigration board the train and take your passports for processing. Fair enough. S...

Wednesday 27th August - Shanghai After 3 fantastic years in the Philippines, at 10pm on the 22nd August, we flew out of Manila for the last time. We can't thank the people of Manila enough for making our stay so memorable. So as per normal we booked the s***tiest flights we could find leaving from a small rundown terminal that we didn't even know existed. AirAsia leaving Manila at 10pm, arriving Shanghai at 1am - we continue to punish ourselves for no appare...

OK, so we're a little late with this blog entry but we thought we better put it in before we move on with China, Mongolia and Russia. Easter 2014. 2 weeks off. Trekking in Nepal. We can thank Rochelle and Jasmine for this idea, we saw their photos from when they visited us and decided we had to do it. Day 1 - BangkokSo we've finally learnt about these early morning flights. Turns out we have a 1pm flight - lovely. Slept in a bit, packed in the morning, tr...

We'd been looking forward to this trip for almost a year now. Jodi had 2 weeks off for school holidays and Brenden had a s*** load of leave he needed to take. Bonus was that our holidays timed perfectly with the Cherry Blossom season in Japan. Sunday 24th MarchSo we got a direct flight from Manila to Osaka with Jetstar. Pretty good actually, 3 1/2 hours, around $200 each way, cheaper then going to Perth from the east coast. First thing we notice is the wea...