funni stuff from vegas

messy room
"Excuse me, can you make up our room?"

bluffed
"Show him!"

Is that 5k or 500 ?
"German guy says 5, means to bet 5k but because he said 5 dealer will only accept the lowest bet so 500 is the bet, opponent calls, hits gutshot straight. German guy outside yelling into his phone"

shit juice
"Dude, there is a problem with the house"
"The shit juice was everywhere"

time out
kid at wynn buffet, was being naughty, parents had him standing in the corner of the room facing the wall.... surely harsh punishment when there is all you can eat ice cream.

baseball

went to oakland v boston.

inception

saw inception.

walking around san fran

walked from hotel down post to market, then to the piers then back up to filmore.

back in san fran

Staying at Hotel Kabuki, in Japantown.

trip so long

7 steps and 38 hours to get to vegas:

(0) Wait for flight out [2 hours]
(1) Johannesburg -> Kuala Lumpur [7 hours]
(2) 3 hour wait in KL airport [ 3 hours]
(3) Kuala Lumpur -> Guangzhou [3 hours]
(4) 8 hour wait in Guangzhou airport [8 hours]
(5) Guangzhou -> LA [13 hours]
(6) 1 hour wait in LAX [1 hour]
(7) LA -> Vegas [1 hour]

When we boarded Guangzhou -> LA flight a man was in my seat, he wouldn't move. I had to go sit in another seat.

Shower and bed at Ballys was sooooo good after that long.

Vegas felt like home.

joburg

argentINA v mexico

ghana v usa

Drive to rustenburg from nelsprut

ghana v usa (22 mins late)

return to obramra

extended KPL

atv riding.

on safari @ kruger park

lions !

aus v serbia in nelspruit

Big day... aus needed many goals and either ghana to win by 1 or germany to win by many.



Neither happened, but it was a good win anyway. Holman wonder strike.



It was about an hour drive to park and ride from KPL.

blyde canyon

Driver had no idea how to drive manual... cooked the clutch attempting to backout the driveway.

Went to god's window, the pinnacle, lisbon falls, bourkes luck potholes

Accidental podolski in the photo.

Watched bafana bafana v france (2-1) couldn't get the required 5 goals (urguay def mexico 1-0) bafana bafana out on goal difference.

decompression day

shops, washing, bbq for dinner.

KPL and LOL Italy.

Drove from Rustenburg through Nelspruit to where we were staying near Hazyview at Kruger Park Lodge http://www.krugerparklodge.co.za.

Pretty easy drive considering what we've seen so far.

Dropped our bags and immediately drove back to Nelspruit for the Italy v NZ game.

Scalped some tickets outside the game. "wait we had a deal!"

Fckin Smeltz scored early, Italy were lucky to scrape through with a draw after they drew a contentious penalty.

another game another red card

Pre-game went to the hood, so rk could buy crazy sth african shoes.

Watched netherlands v nippon at the ground before the game.



Aus started well, then red card, then played well to get through with a draw.



During the AUS game monica returned from the food stall, to the wrong section and sat in the corresponding seats. The guy behind her tapped her on the shoulder:

aussie fan: "excuse me your sitting in Ron Barrassi's seat".
monica: who ?
aussie fan: Ron Barrassi, aussie rules legend!

LOL referee

Went zip lining during the day, you are attached to cable via harness and you repeatedly slide from one side of a small canyon to the other side. Not bad the first few gos, then it gets a bit boring.

Watched Germany LOL vs Serbia

Drove to Sun City to watch USA v Slovenia, disallowed last min goal cost USA victory, on replay the commentator said I can see 3 penalties there, but why the goal was disallowed we will never know).

Casino with dinner paid for by the infamous 23 on roulette.

Then watched England v Algeria.

tg arrives

Picked up tg at joburg airport at 730am.

Today was passport day drove to:

- US consulate in Sandton
- Aus consulate in Pretoria
- US consulate in Sandton
- Rustenburg (via Pretoria)

Ended up at camp 32 , and realised we'd been shafted with prices. Oh well, tents for 3 nights, how bad can it be.

Not so bad, just really cold ! and no hot showers.

boutique lodge

Day safari at boutique lodge... then elephant feeding.

Booked the F1 hotel at East Benoni in Johannesburg. It was a long 9 hour trip due to road conditions/potholes/road work.

Arrived at F1, they gave away our booking as we hadn't paid (there was no way to pay via phone) and they cancel bookings at 6pm, even though we told them we were arriving late.

So we had smoking rooms just like san diego .... "imagine a guy smoking in a room for 15 years".

moving day

Waved the cursed house goodbye.

Went past the police station in stanger to pickup "the report".

About 30 mins in to the drive realised that we left the table from the van in the garage.... doh. We realised this was the beach house trying to lure us back, we weren't going to fall for that.

We had a booking with a lodge called Rhino River but when we called up to get directions, they told us our booking was gone. They were nice and found us what sounded like a better place nearby for the same price. http://www.bayetezulu.co.za

As soon as we arrived we headed out for a night safari. Some quotes from the guide:

guide: "if these hippos decided to charge I wouldn't even be able to start the car in time"

guide: "it can be really dangerous to be in the middle of a herd of buffalo"
rk: "err like this
guide: "ja, but they seem calm now"

Dinner was a choice of lamb or steak, but you could choose a bit of both, which turned out to be a lot of food.

Watched brasil v north korea in front of open fire ... so tired.

the day after

Slept most of the day recovering from the day from hell. Nandos for dinner. Internet stooped working, this is the house from hell. Detective came around to talk to us, he was pretty nice about the whole thing.

We had an armed guard at the front of our house all night.

game day

Big game.... disappointing result, even worse when we go home.

Started off the day at the beach...there were a few german supporters on the beach also relaxing before the big game.






Oh oh the tv is gone.

Came home at 230am after the worst game ever... the longest wait at the park and ride, then a 45 min drive back to the house.

House broken into... the tv gone, a couple of bags missing, with ipad, laptop, cash and 2 passports.

picked up our tickets

picked up our tickets at gateway shopping centre.

durban fan fest.



gateway to india for dinner (recommended by the beer guy at the durban fan fest).

drive to durban

arrive in durban... watch bafana bafana v mexico.

go shopping late at night in stanger.

getting ready

rk and monica arrive.

noticed the van didn't have the correct wheel brace so went to autozone to pickup one that would fit.

attempted to find the apartheid museuem. failed.

stayed at F1 in east benoni.

our van

lol

touchdown sth africa

arrived around 9pm

dude supposed to pick us up from airport wasn't there... prob due to flight delays.

eventually we were picked up in our van 'marley'.

lap and flight delays

met lap at airport after catching KLIA express.

at 12am for 120am flight find out it's delayed until 4am.

at 3am find out flight is delayed until 5pm the next day.

airline packed us into buses and around 5am we arrived at the palace of golden horses.



check in was quick.

sleep until 9am, free buffet breakfast.

sleep until 1pm, free buffet lunch.

bus back to airport flight takes off on time.

packed & waiting

Packed. My bag weighs 9.4KG my laptop bag 5.8KG.



I tried to pack as light as possible, but I still have too much stuff. I'd like to fit everything in the rucksack.

Now...In hotel lobby waiting....

Day 4: more mall action

Low Fat Plaza... 6 stories if IT goodnes. Also petronas towers and some sort of shrine... no photos. :(

many malls

Day 3... went to a few of the malls. Lot 10, pavillion etc. pretty big



Night time went to the petaling st market. Lots of shoes, DVDs, watches for sale. They should sell the DVDs on cheap USB sticks ... I'd be in. who has a DVD player ?

another post ... another trip

Day 1 ... Adelaide->KL

Flight direct from Adelaide. Express train to KL sentral then two monorails trips + short walk to hotel.

home

made it home.... trip home looked something like this:

- caught JFK shuttle at 11am from midtown to JFK
- shuttle driver insisted i needed terminal 3 i thought i needed terminal 2, checked in at terminal 3 lady told me to catch shuttle to terminal 2.
- 3 hour delay due to late plane, weather change, removing people who were on the wrong plane (hostess explaining to non english speaking italians they were on wrong plane...LOL)
- about 50% of entertainment systems were borked no sound
- arrived LAX with 2.5 hours until my AUS flight was to take off.
- first bag at carousel took 15 mins second bag took 35 mins
- walk to terminal 3 check in at vaus
- arrive syd check in at vblue, shuttle to t1
- arrive adel

carnegie deli

Final day in NY.

Hit the carnegie deli for a pastrami sandwich... got some pro advice from ed, make sure you order extra bread and pickles. LOL. it looked somthing like this :

grimaldi's

Pizza... well it's supposed to be good so I thought I should give it a go.

Caught the subway down to the start of the brooklyn bridge, walked the bridge and then down to Grimaldi's. Queued for 40 mins in the rain. Waited for another 20 mins before I was served. They don't serve anything smaller than a 17" pizza so I guess i had to man up and order one.

Pizza came out pretty quick and it was pretty good.

Not sure if it was worth the wait but you gotta give it a go right ?

U.S.A v. Mexico: 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup Final

Went to the final at the Giants stadium, even though both the NY Jets and NY Giants play there the stadium is actually in New Jersey.

So to get there from Midtown I caught the subway -> subway -> PATH -> Giants stadium train.

Apparently this was the first time they used the new train line to Giants Stadium and it seemed like the driver was going very slow.

I didn't have a ticket so it was a bit of a gamble to go so far... and possibly not be able to get in. I walked around for a bit and there wasn't a lot of scalping action going on. Eventually I a dude with some tickets paid like $100 for a seat way up in the nose bleeds that was about 3 times the list price.



Mexico drilled the USA's "b team" 5-0.

yankee stadium

Went straight from empire state to Yankee stadium to see Yankees v Oakland A's.

Yankee chef demonstrated how to cook "emoo" on the big screen. I think he meant emu.

Yankees won 8-3.






The new stadium is pretty nice, it's right next to the old stadium which i forgot to take a picture of.

empire queue building

Empire state building should just be called the empire queue building. Once your inside all you do is queue.

I counted 8 seperate queues (escalator, security check, ticket, first elevator, 2nd elevator, 2nd elevator, sovenir shop, 1st elevator) to get up to the observation deck and get back down again.

I bought the express ticket so I could just walk straight past the queues, I really really hate queues so it was $20 well spent, even with the express ticket it still took well over 2 hours to do the whole thing, including about 20 mins actually outside on the deck.

tour

So bit the bullet last night and booked myself on a tour... I thought it would be a good way to see a few things fairly quickly.

And like most things there are 100s of tours to choose from but one that caught my eye was a called "OnBoard". So I locked that in.

Tour included strawberry fields, upper east side, empire state, statten island, 30 rock, wall st etc.

NYC

arrived NYC today via train from DC. pretty good run on the train to union station to penn station. i was on the business express, i recommend this option as you get comfortable seats with power for laptops.

the craziness of NYC hit me the second I emerged from the top of the esculator.

people, cars and a large number of dogs, everywhere.

my room is like a jail cell. fits a dbl bed and a very small desk. it's kinda good though i don't feel like i need any more space.

dumped my bags and went for a walk around, walked for a long time never made it out of the high-rise jungle. thinking about going on a tour or two, pizza tour, sopranos tour, or a general NYC tour.

museums

Hit the museums and monuments, today and yesterday. Ratings :

Natural History - good but too many russells

American History - too much star spangled banner, but a reminder of how much fighting there was to get everyone into the "united" states. exhibit on the Appalachian through hiker guy.

Holcaust museum - lame, missed a couple of exhibits coz they were "full". exhibits i did see were lame.

Space and Air - pretty good. lots of aircraft and space rockets. some good demonstrations. too many russells.

Lincoln - solid, bigger than you expect

Washington - pretty big

Vietnam wall - big list of names

Whitehouse - it's kinda smaller than expected but also white.