To expand on Queenslander's excellent thread on cities, lets have a go on top things to see if you have the chance....no number restrictions, I want to see what I have been missing...... In no particular order, and excluding many amazing UK places/things, and some of the obvious ones - Rome, Venice, Florence, Grand Canyon etc - Kyoto, Japan, at least 3 days required for beautiful temples, lively bars Himeji, Japan, the most stunning castle I've ever seen North coast of Queensland, from Cairns up, including the reef Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, primeval Pagan, Myanmar - a plain full of buddhist temples and nowt else Guilin, China - amazing limestone scenery, blokes using cormorants to fish for them Montalcino, Tuscany (representative, could be any of dozens of hilltop towns in Tuscany or Umbria) perfect for the good life, food, wine, coffee and great scenery everyway you look San Christobal de las Casas, Mexico, again representative of many Mexican small cities, great mix of colonial and indigenous in look and culture Toledo, Spain - great town and El Greco, you can do it easily from Madrid Dalmatian coast An Indian hill town - Darjeeling, Simla, Ootamacund, including train ride there Sancta Sophia, Istanbul Routeburn, Milford or Tasman tracks South Island NZ Spend some time in a real desert to get a sense of scale - Great Western in Oz will do the trick Wander around the west coast of Ireland, Cork to Connemara ....loads more, I'll stop there, at least temporarily. So much time, so little to do, as Willy Wonka said. Anyone been to Iceland? I have a hankering..... oops, have to add, a trip to the battlefields, Ypres especially, in the presence of an expert who also knows the bars, is highly recommended, especially the last post played every night at the Menin Gate since 1918 (brief gap in WW2), guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye
Grand Canyon - beautiful and so peaceful. Ariau Amazon Tower Hotel...fascinating and right at the heart of nature. Krabi + island hoping off the coast of Krabi - the most beautiful white sand beaches I've ever seen. Loftus Road - stunning architecture, emotionally moving atmosphere, never a dull moment. Yosemite National Park - I wish I lived close enough to pop to Yosemite for the weekend as it is the most peaceful and beautiful place I've ever been. I loved falling asleep listening to the bears roar.
My favourite places tend to revolve around food so in no particular order - Fernando's, Hac Sa Beach, Coloanae Island, Macau - Great Portugese / Chinese fusion right on the beach - great lost nights on the white port with a plate of tagliatelle vongle. Busy, especially on Macau GP week L'Encarnacion, Los Alcazares, Murcia - Again slap bang on the beach, superb tapas in a colonial setting. A dip in the mar menor and then a large plate of calamares with a crisp white Albarino The Gallery, Tong Fuk Beach, Lantau, Hong Kong - A great South African style braii place right on the beach. Great after a bang over the hills on your mountain bike. Big steaks, boerewors and a big big Stellenbosch. L'Huitriere - Lille, France. Just superb but sadly not on a beach. Seafood properly served as it can only be in France. Try it. Cookies Crab House - Salthouse, North Norfolk Coast. Seafood so fresh it probably swam into the restaurant minutes before. Enjoy a bracing walk on the beach, grab a pint and sit outside with a plate of freshly dressed crab and get a weak tan from the wind battered sun. England at its best Le Café Saint Honore - Edinburgh. Superlative and tucked away in a quiet back street mews. Go to see the rugby at Murrayfield and then ensconce yourself away here for the evening. Classic French food served by gruff jocks. Anyway, must nip off now, early lunch scheduled in Chesterfield. Won't feature on the above list sadly...
God I had forgotten all about Fernandos. Best potatoes I have ever eaten! I wonder if it is still there or has it been overshadowed by the multiple hotesl and casinos! Did you ever go to Pengchau WBA?
Did I ever go to Pengchau??? I played football for PengChau Fisherman! We trialled Gus Ceasar when I was there but he couldn't be arsed to turn up and stayed in the bar at Discovery Bay
I lived on DB and we used to go across to Pengchau most Sundays on that old boat. I am trying to tremember the name of the pub/restaurant there. Was it the Seabreeze??? When I was out there Neil Webb and Mike Duxbury were out there living as well
Tikal- I mention it again 'cos its the best place I have ever visited on earth EVER. Sat at the top of a ruined temple for an hour or so listening to the monkeys screaming and thinking to my self how the f*** did the Mayans build it all and why did they disappear (Aliens took them some say ) StoneHenge (When not busy) - again walked around for hours wondering why it was built and how they moved the stones all that way. Koh Phangan - As a bit of a raver, the full moon party was awsome (although a bit too busy). Shame about the mess left on the beach the next morning as that really saddened me. Machu Pichu - One I havn't visited but from the many people I know who have been, it's one thing that really should be experienced. Fuego volcano, Guetamala - The experience of climbing up the side of a live volcano is amazing and the journey down (running down loose volcanic rock as fast as possible) is not for the faint hearted .......so many more.
Was it Peng Chau or Cheung Chau where you hired a junk full of booze to get to, ate a mountain of seafood when you were there, and drank more on the way back? So that's three of us who have eaten at Fernando's, what a great place. Macau is somewhere I'm reluctant to go back to, it's charm was its lack of development, sure that's all changed. Used to stay at the Boavisata, both before and after it was done up, outstanding in both versions for different reasons. We need an 'historic meals/ restaurants' thread.......
Yes Cheung Chau was a bit further out (the other side of Lamma I think) I did that a couple of times. We used to walk over the hill from DB (near the Amahs village) over to Silvermine Bay, get pissed and stuff ourselves with food then get the ferry back. Happy days!
Then you were there exactly the same time as me! Neil Webb lived in the flat above mine for a while. I lived L/G Floor, Block 4, Parkvale - heading up to the golf course. I had a garden and everything! Were you working on Cheppers like most of us? It might have been the Seabreeze - memory fading I'm afraid
I lived initially in Silvermine Bay but the bar (can't remember the name) on the waterfront was terrible and the ferries to central were slow. It was defo Cheng Chau for restaurants & a cruise back. Sometimes whilst completely ******* in Central I took the wrong ferry from Outlying Islands Terminal and ended up in Cheng Chau rather than Lantau by mistake
Did you ever try 'Lucy's' in Stanley, just off the market square? Really nice place Used to stay at the Pousada de Sao Tiago hotel in Macau for the GP. All a long time ago. Now its chips & gravy in Rotherham
26 years since I left mate, memory fading, haven't been back since '92......need to sort that soon, still have mates there but tend to meet them in Europe when they come over. Had some excellent Peking Duck ready made pancakes off a stall in Kobe's very small Chinatown on Wednesday evening......was it the American or Peking American restaurant in Wanchai that used to specialize in Peking Duck?
I missed my chance with Tikal in '86 Staines - was wandering around Mexico (very safe at that time) got to Palenque, another Mayan jungle temple, everyone told me that Tikal was even better, but not safe to travel in Guatemala at that time (at least for the amount of money I was prepared to spend - local buses) For the list I think. Chichen Itza most definitely worth a visit. My sister in law passed out after climbing the pyramid there, unfortunately I wasn't there to see it. Machu Picchu - have to do that one day.
The American Peking Restaurant in Wanchai was bang next door to my office (also opposite the Firehouse Club but that's another story). It specialised in minced pigeon wrapped in lettuce with a black bean sauce
sb/WBA I stayed at that Pousada de Sao Tiago once. It was a great place. I seem to recall the guy who owned it wrote Faulty Towers or some similar connection. That American Chinese was a great restaurant in Wanchai but I did see a rat run along one of the beams which put me off my food a bit one night. Did you guys ever brave Chungking mansions? There were great curry houses in there. Cheap as anything but it was a lads night out rather than anywhere to take a girl (or a fussy wife in my case!) When I first moved out there in late 93 I stayed in The Regal Riverside in Shatin. Shatin was famouse for the minced pigeon you refer too.
I used to frequent the Chungking Mansions at least weekly, the Deep Mess or Nanak Mess especially. Great fun and outstanding value, if you can live without a menu. Got over being put off by rats and cockroaches in restaurants pretty quickly....
Blimey what a co-incidence. I lived in Flat 4a Caperidge Drive but we had quite a few guys living in the Parkvales. We were all working on Tsing Ma Bridge but I am a beancounter so nothing clever like an Engineer! I just had to look after the finances.
Shame you missed out on Tikal mate, really is one of the unknown wonders of the world. I was lucky when I travelled around Guetamala and Colombia in that the girl I was seeing at the time was local and sorted all the busses etc for me. If it wasn't for her I think I might of been a bit more nervy. Around the main bus station in Guetamala City was meant to be VERY dangerous but it didn't seem too bad to me...that's until I realised it wasn't a car backfiring across the street but yet another robbery Would live to travel around Mexico but seems a bit too dangerous now to travel of the beaten track.
It's a real shame mate, I've been lucky enough to go to lots of amazing places, but Mexico was hard to beat. Not part of my patch for work, but colleagues who go there (Mexico City) are advised to walk nowhere, have company arranged cars to take them everywhere.
