Round Up Time!

I’ve taken a few minutes to pick my favourite 50 shots from my trip. They’re not necessarily the best technical shots but rather a collection of favourites because I got a buzz from capturing them or they bring back very happy memories. They’re linked directly below this paragraph.

My Favourite 50 Tour Shots – A Flickr Set

I’ve also gathered all of the Tokyo, Sydney and San Francisco photographs in a Flickr collection. If you’re really bored some day have a flick through.

The World Tour Collection

I would heartily recommend any of the cities I visited to anyone thinking of taking a trip. The Japanese, Americans and especially the Aussies I met, were all, without exception, lovely people. I’m looking forward to my next major trip, when Mrs P is 50 in 2014. I may need to take her with me on *that* occasion though 😉

Thanks for reading!

The Second Last Post

My last day was a very long one as one might imagine. I was up at 08:00 on Friday morning to get ready to check out of the hotel, and by the time I climbed into my bed on Saturday night at home, almost forty hours had elapsed. Once I had checked out, I went for breakfast and a last walk around the area between Market and Geary, and then walked over towards Yerba Buena Gardens. This chap, Jamie, is part of the Circus Bella, who were putting on a show for the kids (young and old). I had a chat with a few of the artistes before starting. They’re an impressive bunch, especially Natasha who was ring mistress and hoop dancer extraordinaire!

There was a fairly large crowd, all enraptured by the circus – a really nice way to end my time in San Francisco. The band were very good too.

The train journey out to SFO was simple enough and once I got there, I checked by suitcase through to Belfast which allowed me time to have some lunch.

It turned out that my aircraft for the trip to London was a BA 747, which I was pleased about. There is a certain beauty in their design that pleases me greatly.

Unfortunately, I had the seat from hell – 37H. It was up against a bulkhead and couldn’t recline properly, and was situated right beside the toilets which meant that there was a queue of people either standing over me or bumping into me throughout much of the flight. Added to that, the two large chaps beside me, although they were very peasant, took up more space than expected, so I ended up feeling pretty sore and uncomfortable.

I watched The Descendants again, Safe House and some other movie I cannot remember the name of. The food was pretty good and the couple of JDs and Gingers helped me pass the night.

The flight was delayed a bit and by the time I arrived into LHR, it wasn’t practical for me and my cousin to meet up as planned before I caught my next flight to Belfast, which was unfortunate. We’ll be FaceTiming this week while playing chess though 🙂

And apart from the journey home and the nice welcome I received from everyone there, that was the end of my month long photographic holiday, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The good news was rather unexpected – I only put 4lbs on since I left home. REALLY surprising to me as I was rather bruised from falling “off the wagon” repeatedly on my trip, especially when I discovered sweet potato fries in San Francisco. Delighted.com!

Thanks to everyone who has read this blog over the last few months. I’ve got a buzz out of writing it and seeing (on the statistics page) the various countries around the world in which it was being read on a daily basis.

My final post will have two purposes. Firstly, I intend to pick my favourite ten or twelve photographs from my trip and highlight them, and secondly, I’m going to condense my thoughts into a couple of paragraphs around each city I was in for the purpose of recommending or otherwise, certain aspects which future travellers may find useful.

The Last Flickr Set

Colin