Day one
Day two
Day three
Day four
Day five
Day six
Day seven
Day eight
Day nine
Gallery1
Gallery2
Gallery3
Gallery4
Gallery5
Gallery6
Gallery7
The holiday diaries: Day one:
Day One:
Well, I missed my train to the airport. That was a good start.
In school, some of the teachers call me elatest-man' (not justelate-manf, or edoesnft quite make it on time-manf, mind you, butelatest-manf). Guess I live up to my new name.
So, what did I do? I missed my transport to the airport. Ifve got to get there somehow. I figure I go to the bus station and try to catch a bus. I was lucky - a bus was just leaving!
I took the YCAT(Yokohama City Air Terminal bus) to Narita airport.
I checked in my backpack and the nice lady at the check-in counter gave me a nice seat on the plane, with lots of leg room.
It was about an 11 hour flight - I got no sleep (there goes the anti jetlag plan down the shitter). I watched two movies: James Bond (Die another day) and... I forget the other one. It can't have been very good then. I flew on a nice, big 777.
I had a connecting flight in SanJose, California. I had to wait about 2 hours in the airport. I had a wonderful sandwich from some nice Mexican American ladies. It was so big, even I couldnft get my mouth round it! It was well worth buying. I'm sorry, I forget the name of the sandwich bar, but if you ever go to San Jose Airport, try the place. Itfs easy to find. You can choose from a wide variety of ingredients and bread. I choose rye bread and it was good! The ladies are nice and friendly too. It was good to talk to them. They reminded me of people back home in Wales.
Well, I got on my connecting flight to Austin. As I was going through the security checks, I noticed that there were a lot of security people around. The man in front of me even had to take off his shoes! (do you remember the Britsh man who tried to blow up a plane, using explosives in his shoes?). I was wearing sandals, so it was no problem.
Our plane was a smaller plane. I managed to talk to the pilot and co-pilot. They were nice people.
The captainfs sister used to teach English overseas!
You can see them in this photo, on the right.
I arrived in Austin and waited at the airport. I was supposed to meet James at the airport, but we hadn't arranged a place and time to meet! Also, I forgot to get Jamesfs telephone number - whoops! I wait... and waited... and waited. He told me (in an e-mail I managed to read at Narita airport) that he would meet me at the entrance to the parking lot.
I asked a nice lady at the information counter if I was in the right place. She told me I was and that if my friend didnft show up soon, that I could make an announcement on the public address system. After about an hour or so, I was just about to make and announcement, when I saw him walk in. He told me he thought my flight was getting in at 6:30 (my flight came in at 5:30!). He had been waiting in his car since 5:30!!!!
Typical.
Never mind
We drove back to the city of Austin. It was about 7. We were hungry.
We went to Chuys!
My nickname is Chuwy, so we though that this would be an apt place to eat. Chuys is a famous chain of mexican restaraunts in Texas. I had my first beer there! James and I had our first beer together! It was good! He drank DosXX and I had... I think it was 'Bohemia' (I know it was delicious!).
The mexican food was good! I had chicken enchiladas (I ate a lot of chicken enchiladas on my trip!). You can see me eating my enchiladas, in the picture on the right.
We got back to James place and I took a well needed shower (I donft mean that I stink. Just that I was very tired and a shower helped me to refresh myself). I made it! I was in Texas! Stage one completed! Later, I met Jamesfflatmate, Jose. He is from Argentina. Nice guy.
That night, we went out to the town. At that time, there was a big music festival in Austin. Itfs called SouthbySouthwest. Itfs huge! It's one of the best live music festivals in the world. Lots of people come from all over, just to see the live bands.
We went out and walked around. Austin is a lovely place. It is also famous for music. You can see some photos of the festival. Ifm sorry, the quality is not so great. It was night time and it was my first time, using the schools digital camera, so some of the photos are a little strange. Got some cool effects going, though! We couldn't take cameras into the bars to photo the bands, so you donft see any bands, sorry (but they were very good!).
Well, that's about it. Quite a lot of travelling for me that day. We got back to James' place at about 1am. We were both very tired and James had to work the next morning, so we crashed - I slept on his couch (man, I slept like a log!).
Don't forget to check out my collection of day one photos,
at the picture gallery!
