Devon in Winter 2008: Day 2 – Dawlish

Day 2, March 11th 2008.

The original plan was to visit Holcombe and explore this hilltop village, however the high winds and torrential rain made this not so appealing, and we ventured to the Dawlish Sea Front while pondering the next move.

Waves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wall

Waves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wall

The waves were quite strong and coming up high on the wall, taking a few passers by a little by surprise, 2 were almost washed off the wall right on that very corner. The seagull was not too concerned however.

Waves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wall

This one took all of us by surprise, and came a little close, but not enough to get wet however.

Waves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wallWaves on the sea wall

We moved a bit further along, and slightly further away from the edge. I should point out that these shots were taken with an certain amount of zoom, and so I was not as close as it appears from the pictures.

The sea wall.Sun on the sea.Sun on the sea.

Pondering complete, we made our way to the station, the high footbridge provide a good photo op…

View from the station footbridge.View from the station footbridge.View from the station footbridge, our train approaches.

We then awaited the South West Trains Service to Paignton, provided by the 3 car Class 159 no 159108. This would take us just one stop to Teignmouth.

SWT Class 159 no 159108.

Devon in Winter 2008 – Dawlish in a Storm

Day 1 London to Dawlish, March 10th 2008.

Early March is not the time most would choose for a trip to the seaside, however this was a property scouting trip, and the idea was simple – see a place at its worst and if its good, then it can only get better. Thats a fine plan, except 2 days before we’re due to depart the news headlines are filled with severe weather warnings and the prediction of the worst storms for 30 years, and Devon is where its going to hit full force first.

With no option for a refund on cancellation, and taking the above idea to the extreme, we set off early morning on March 10th by train. It took some 4 hours to make the trip to Dawlish, first to London, then across to Paddington, then down to Exeter St. Davids and finally the short hop to Dawlish. Upon arrival the weather was not soo bad, however we were assured that earlier that day the main line had been closed due to the sea coming up onto the track, and the proof of this was the amount of debris laying all over the street, mostly sand and gravel washed up from the beach. A few hours were taken up by the need to search for a power cable for the laptop having discovered it had been left behind, and then there was time to check-in and sort a few other things out, which basically meant not alot was achieved that evening, and so dinner was taken in a local pub just up the hill.

New Old Stuff and the Gallery.

Its been a busy weekend behind the blog, trying out lots of photoblog plugins, trying integration of existing gallery software – which in the end I gave up on – for now – and finally, yes, the Photo Gallery is back!

At the moment it has all of its original content, which is over 1,700 photos, covering events such as the Harry Potter Film Premieres and the release of Book 6 in London, and the Great Gathering at Crewe (railway) Works as well as landscape and other artistic photography I have done.

To enter the gallery click on the “Forever Love Dreams Gallery” page on the Navigation to the right of this post, or click here.

Other new old stuff just added are the Wallpapers from my old Andromeda fan site, the site has been closed for a good couple of years and the domain is no longer registered either, and therefore wanted to give them a new home on here. Again the link is on the right, or here.

Singapore Mobile – Active Again.

Finally got my old Nokia 6230i unlocked, and its now the home of my Singapore number with StarHub, which means those of you in Singapore can call / txt me on that number. If you call me and it cuts off mid-conversation it will be due to running out of credit (as its roaming in UK) But I’ll call you back from the UK number until I get a top-up. Just another note, my Japanese number was a rental phone, so don’t call that any more as its probably with someone else now!

StarHub Logo

Asia Tour – Kyoto, Japan

Jan 6th – First full day in Kyoto. And unfortunately the day my cold decided it was all out war, leaving me bed ridden for almost the entire first day, I didn’t even get get the hotel breakfast. I finally forced myself out for the late evening, and was so hungry when I emerged from the hotel, I had a Mc Donald’s to make up for no food that day – it was slightly better than the standard cardboard in the UK, and clearly the Japanese version actually had meat in the burgers, although was not even close to MOS Burger (a Japanese burger chain, where everything is made fresh and tastes like real food). I then decided to take the subway one stop, change lines and end up in the down town area. In reality, I went one stop, couldn’t find the line to change to, decided to walk instead, walked about 15 minutes only to emerge back at the hotel, turned around and went back in the opposite direction and got to the right area some 30 minutes later.

I then came across the one thing you can never fail to find in a far off land (except for a Chinese restaurant) the good old Irish Pub. Yes, its Kyoto, Japan, cant get much further from Ireland, yet theres an Irish Pub. I went in and got a Guinness. The Gael Gion as its called, is pretty authentic, fantastic décor and nice selection of drinks, and the Japanese bar staff spoke good Irish (well English). Currently owned by an Englishman from Liverpool who wasn’t in that night, but am told it was once owned by an Irishman some time before. This turned out to be an excellent night out, and made good friends with 3 of the regulars, one who kindly gave me a tour of the near-by area.

Most people headed home by this time, but on the way back a particular bar caught my eye as still being open, and after a beer and some chatting with the staff, I decided to stay out a bit longer. After spending about an hour chasing down a foreign compatible ATM, I ended up at the highly recommended Sam & Dave night club. Quite a nice venue and was quite enjoying the atmosphere. Shortly later a Japanese gentleman approached me, and after a couple of minutes I discovered he wanted to challenge a westerner to an arm wrestle “because westerner’s are meant to be really strong” now, me knowing a thing or 2 about Japanese strength, namely that even the smallest of Japanese seem to have amazing strength, I really wasn’t expecting to stand a chance, but I thought I might as well have a go anyway. Sure enough I lasted about 4 seconds. By the 5th second we were already bowing to each other furiously, by the 7th second he’d taken my beer. Fair enough I suppose, he did win fair and square. That little manoeuvre had me laughing to myself for the rest of the night, a very intuitive way to get a free beer if ever I saw one. About an hour later it was 4am, and I headed back via a taxi to the hotel.

Jan 7th – This was meant to be the day I visited Nara, and also I was looking at a trip to the Steam Locomotive Museum, unfortunately my cold decided it was having none of it – probably not helped by the previous late night admittedly, and lost most of the day again feeling quite ill with a cold and even a fever thrown in for good measure. Opted for dinner in the hotel with the intention of going out again that evening, however following the long meal I really wasnt up for it and ended up having an early-ish night.

Jan 8th – Got a nice early start, hotel breakfast finally, packed and headed off to the JR Kyoto station to make my way to Hiroshima. After just missing my train I got to watch several of the really high-speed Nozomi trains leave for Hiroshima, and then I got my Hikari superexpress which took me the majority of the journey to Okayama, where I then changed to a Hikari RailStar superexpress for the final section to Hiroshima. Upon arrival in Hiroshima, it was a 5 minute taxi ride to the hotel, the Sunroute Hiroshima.