Which is not to say that we are ready to hit the tracks, not by a long shot. Thanks to Dee’s hard work on the weekend, we have a good idea of times and trains for the “Orient Express” leg, all the way from London to Moscow; the “Asia” leg is somewhat more … flexible. Not just because it’s my task and I was too busy mucking about with a website, but also because (from what we read) you can’t buy China train tickets more than 10 days in advance, unless you want to pay a premium (sometimes double) to a Chinese travel agency. Which we don’t, have you SEEN the exchange rate for the pound at the moment?!

Working out where we go in China is the next step, obviously, and while I’m doing that Dee is comparing the prices of individual tickets versus a Eurail pass. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia is mostly a set route, copied from every package tour ever run (Ha noi, Hue, Ho Chi Minh City … Vietnam is a thin little slice of countryside, so there’s not really any other way to go), while we still need to confirm the flight/ship back to Australia — Dee just got a response from the freighter people who said the ship is all booked out for the rest of the year. She also said that everyone online seems to know a guy named Hamish who organises this kind of thing…

We also need to finalise shipping our stuff back down-under. The idea is to get a container, or part there-of, and fill it with those few items we own (and Dayna’s Wii if we can pack it before she notices ). By the time we get home, then, it’s waiting for us somewhere – mostly probably at Mum’s (Ann) or at Mum’s (Tricia), but we should probably get the okay from them before a bunch of boxes show up on their doorstep I guess. The packing/shipping gives me a chance to write a little home inventory web-app, since all the open source ones seem to be lacking in some way. It’s mostly working now (for a single user with access to the database), but I’ll polish it up and drop it on SourceForge before we go.

Meanwhile, it was an early start this morning, with a 5am incident call for Dee (ongoing). We will not be missing these, that’s for sure.

We’re still hoping to get it back before our next holiday, because I’d like to visit Marrakech. If we don’t, it will be a week in Wales instead!

In the meantime we’re keeping out of trouble. Last weekend we got up earlier than usual to bus down to the London Eye for a speed-boat tour out to the Thames Barriers.  Dee has always wanted to see them, and it was either than or a lunch tour — and we both decided we always do foodie (or drinkie) things. Besides, “a lunch cruise on the Thames” sounds a little more … mature … than either of us are willing to act!  So it was a speed-boat, travelling up to 45 knots (which I think is around 40mph) in the cold morning weather. They gave us warm rain-jackets along with the life-jackets, and we were glad they did! Frozen fingers from holding on (you have to — we jumped over a few small waves and rounded corners dramatically) but at least nobody fell in.

After the cruise we had breakfast nearby, then went looking in electronics shops — Dee wants a netbook like Dayna’s!

After a few hours walking around and bussing between shopping areas (like Oxford Street) we still hadn’t found the “new” netbook, a Samsung NC110. It’s the next version of the NC10, which was very popular (and therefore out of stock all over the place). I think the difference is the battery — the NC110 is meant to get 9 hours battery life on a single charge, which is pretty amazing. But it’s not in the shops anywhere (and Dee’s been waiting for ages) so this week she ordered it online.

(It is meant to arrive today! She’s very excited.)

After that we headed home for a nap. No kidding! We were on the speedboat at 9am, and had a long evening planned, so it was really just being practical. A couple of friends who have moved to London showed up at about 5pm (Martin — he was in Jack The Ripper The Musical! with me; and Helen, his girl), so we headed in to China Town and had a delicious meal.  (I tried “crispy shredded beef”, and it just tasted like batter and sauce … some of the more interesting items on the the menu included squid, braised eel and (I was so tempted) pigeon. The only thing that stopped me is the state of pigeons in London!)

With dinner settling we took our leave of Martin and Helen and wandered towards Leicester Square and the Empire Cinema — we had tickets for the new Star Trek movie!  Empire Cinema is great — it’s where they had the London premiere, apparently, with a bunch of famous actors and whatnot — with extra comfy chairs and an incredible sound system. The Enterprise flew past and we rocked in our cushioned places; photon torpedoes exploded on the hull and we shuddered with the screeching metal. Very much fun!

I should probably upload some photos from the speedboat, huh?