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Going Down Into Egypt

It has been a while but since it is stay inside tonight for #exTCDebbie, I thought I might put up another one of Effie’s articles. Reading this really makes me want to go and visit Egypt!

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Going Down Into Egypt
By Euphemia Tory
Published in Volume 50 (1928-1929) of the Girl’s Own Annual, pages 223-225

THE first question of the would-be visitor, how to reach Egypt, admits so many answers that I can only suggest asking one of the well-known agents for a complete list of sailings and prices. Mail steamers from London, Marseilles or Naples; Italian lines from Genoa, Naples and the Adriatic ports (some of these provide slow, inexpensive boats with much interest at different ports of call) ; M.M. boats from Marseilles , there are ships of every nationality and varying degrees of luxury, but I do not think that any providing reasonable comfort and cleanliness cost less than about £25 each way from London, and of course more luxury can be had at higher fares.

The height of the tourist season is from January 15th to April 1st, but before and after this period the weather is glorious without being overpoweringly hot, and those who wish to economise will find prices lower and accommodation easier to obtain out of the regular season.

From October 1st to January 15th, and again from April 1st to May 31st, the Egyptian State Railways quote favourable combined hotel and railway rates for visits to steamship lines serving Egypt also give reduced out-of- season fares.

Please, click here to continue reading 🙂 “Going Down Into Egypt”

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Why Not Visit Greece? By Euphemia Torry

Whilst I was in London on my way home from Iceland in January this year, I dedicated some time to family history. Not the family history I plan on committing some time to in the next couple of years, by spending a good month or two in England researching the Lawrence Stephenson line of our family. It is the one arm of our family which I can’t trace back past my great-great-great grandfather Lawrence Stephenson DD with any reliability. That is a story for another time.

The person I spent time researching in London was Cousin Effie. Cousin Effie will be the subject of a series of blog posts as I chronicle her adventures and tales.  She is one person in our family, that I would have dearly loved to have met, however since she was born on the 9th of July 1889 and died on the 12th of September 1976 that was never going to happen was it? Please, click here to continue reading 🙂 “Why Not Visit Greece? By Euphemia Torry”

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The goings-on

Well.

Hanging out with Nemo lots of Clownfish  at Reef HQ.

I went up to Townsville last week for work and I had planned on putting a few posts up on the nights that I didn’t catch up with dear Townsville friends but that didn’t happen did it! I was so tired on those other nights that I managed a little bit of study (yep, took just near 5kg of uni books with me) and then it was straight to bed. So here I am a week since I got home from Townsville and I’m finally sitting down to type.

Apart from uni work, the other reason for the radio silence has been this.

The house is getting painted at the moment and repairs are about to start to the ceilings in this room and the kitchen. Once that is all done then the floor sander will start and then when he done it will be the laying of new carpets in the bedrooms. My vacuum cleaner is getting quite a work out and I’m forever dusting it seems. The house is going to look a treat when it is all done.

Back to Townsville though. Townsville was lovely.

I was staying in the Sugar Shaker so the views were very nice.

Looking towards Castle Hill and work.

I had a dip a few times in the roof top pool, I always had it to myself which was also quite nice.

I was picked up from work on Friday by Sam and then it was back to her house for a weekend of lazy fun in the ‘ville. BBQ next door on Friday night, Reef HQ and Herveys Range on Saturday with girls night out at Cactus Jacks on Saturday night, markets on Sunday and then flying back to Brisbane on the same plane as Bob Katter on Sunday.

Sam at Reef HQ.

Nemo.

The Seahorses were very cute.

These upside down jellyfish were very pretty as well.

As was this fish.

The chocolate nachos as Cactus Jack’s were as always fantastic.  They are soooooo good.

Thumbs up from Townsville.

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Hello Tokyo

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Well we are now at our third night in Tokyo and whoa what a city it is. People watching, shopping and walking has been done not so much “proper sightseeing” but that is coming.

We had rain through the night last night and woke up to it snowing this morning, it continued up until midday’ish. The snow melted pretty quickly but it was nice for that little while.

The shops, whoa. It as all about variety and then some more. In some way I like the limited ranges of things back home. For example you want a pair of nail clippers; back home you probably have about 5 or so to pick from in a shop, here we were in one big electronics store and I kid you not there would have been at least 70 different types!

Still we’ve been having a ball and tomorrow is the halfway mark 🙁 :-).

Mum, the baking powder photo is for you, does it look familiar?

Cherry blossom season is getting quite close and the shops are filling with cherry blossom/sakura themes items (no Kit-Kats yet 🙁 )but I have had the cherry blossom frappacino from Starbucks and mmm it is very nice, will try the lattes soon.

Tomorrow we are doing more of the sane from the last few days and going to karaoke tomorrow night with a bunch of people from the hostel.

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Snow, snow monkeys, food and more snow.

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Today, we are certain will be the most memorable day in Japan. It started with waking to snow falling softly outside our window and just continued.

We rugged up and had a stroll round the streets of Togura Kamiyamada Onsen, where we are staying on a traditional Japanese ryokan. The snow was so peaceful and pretty.

We then packed up for the day. 2 layers of thermal bottoms were the key. We were going to see the snow monkeys!  Our hosts very kindly lent us gumboots – 2 sizes too small but they would prove to be a godsend in the snow.

It kept snowing lightly as we left Togura station and was getting heavier as we came into Nagano. We grabbed coffees on the way through the station and got the bus heading to Shiga Kogen. The snow got heavier and heavier and most importantly the outside got whiter and whiter.

After about 40 mins we were dropped at the side of the road at Kanbayashi Onsen Iriguchi and quickly piled on more clothes and the gumboots as the snow was everywhere.  We walked up th hill to the start of the trail that heads up to Jigokudani Yaenkoen where the monkeys hang out and stopped for many photos along the way.

Oh the snow.

We walked through a pine forest which we just kept saying things like “whoa” “It’s so pretty” “sigh” “look at that snow” it was quite possibly the most beautiful track I’ve walked on.

The snow continued to fall and we stuck our tongues out from time to time to catch snow flakes.

Then we came to the monkeys, OMG so cool seeing them swimming, bathing, playing and grooming in the Onsen. They were such posers.  We walked back down the other side of the river on a road that is closed in winter. Oh so pretty. We made an armless snow person, snow balls and generally enjoyed the moment.

This took us down into a real old fashioned Onsen town – Shibu Onsen.

We then got the newly opened Snow Monkey express train into Nagano where we had a good preliminary look in a book shop and a department store. Oh the stationary! We grabbed a late lunch from the food hall and then got the train back to Togura where we had a cup of green tea then we walked round the corner to a foot Onsen to revive our sore and weary feet (the gumboots were great but they were tight).

Back to the ryokan where we would be having an amazing traditional meal served in our room. There were 12 different dishes/courses ! OMG it was incredible and it cost us about $35. Similar in Brisbane would be $200 plus we guess. We are getting the matching breakfast in the morning 🙂

I will post photos and more text about the meal when we get home. Tomorrow we are going to see a piggy bank museum and some other local shops before we get on the train to Tokyo.

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Kit-Kat update

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This is my Kit-Kat currently as it stands on day 4. We have 5 regional packs, 1 standard and a fun size bag which has two types of green tea Kit-Kats.  We will pick up a miss soybean paste regional pack when we head back through Nagoya in a couple of days.

We are really hoping to find cherry blossom Kit-Kats in Tokyo as we can get cherry blossom frappacinos at Starbucks and pink noodles at some grocery stores.

Here us to Kit-Kats