In less than two weeks, I am headed to Costa Rica. The second half of 2011 was an emotionally draining and stressful one for me. Initially I was planning to go solo in November for a week but instead I delayed a bit and decided to go for 2 weeks in January (and a friend [...]

Here are some funny signs I’ve seen so far. Japan The Japanese love to use cartoons in all their signs. Sometimes it seems inappropriate! China The best signs are definitely found in China. Instead of using a translator which are in abundance, they seem to use a dictionary and do a word for word transation. [...]

Overall, I found the Kiwis to be affable and friendly. They often said hello when you walked past them on the street. They were also quick for a smile which I found disarming. I did, however, find the Kiwis to be overall simple-minded when it came to ethnicity and nationality. They seemingly had difficulty reconciling [...]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I travelled NZ with a backpacker bus called The Magic Bus. In hindsight would I do it again? I’m not sure I would but I’m not sure I wouldn’t. Here are the Pros and Cons: Pros • They drop you off at a select list of hostels which [...]

After 5 weeks on the South Island, I made it back to the North Island. I stayed in Wellington for another 3 nights. I thought about staying longer but the city lacks any good hostels – in fact, they are downright disgusting. I visited Napier next which is unique for having a large collection of [...]