The trip took 15 months and I was still blogging. It became a habit and continued again when I returned to stay at Buffy's apartment in Winnipeg and over the next 15 months I travelled across Canada and visited all 50 states of America. Just under 3 years later, after leaving home with no real plans, I moved back to Manchester with my future wife, so she could meet family and friends.
This time we stayed for 20 months and even though we loved Manchester, it was sensible to move back and settle in Canada - we have been back here over 3 years now and couldn't be happier. The one constant over all this travelling has been this stupid little blog. Honestly, I love that people read this thing, but it is meant for me. It is here so that I can look back at memories and read what happened, knowing that hidden within the words and photos are lots of secrets that no one will ever know about! I also cannot believe I have been so lucky, to have been to some of these places and travelled so comprehensively.
But why am I mentioning all of this today? Well, its because after 8 and a bit years, there have been just short of 110,000 visits to the page and this is the 500th blog post.
I never thought it would last so long, but after all this time I thought it would be nice to let you see some of my favourite posts. These arent all about travelling to exotic places or doing amazing things. Some are just quite ordinary days, but days I like to remember and the reason I started the blog in teh first place..... so here we go, in no particular order, the good, the funny, the weird and the other ones!!
One of the best few days of the original trip was spent in Nepal, swimming with elephants and being chased by Rhinos....
Here's a link
Nepal is ace(Click this)
The next one just had to be included. We were in Indonesia and next to a volcano. We were told not to climb it as it was due to erupt (it started 9 days later). Anyway, we ignored the warnings and had an amazing experience. Don't forget to watch the two short videos on this post...
Volcano
I could go on about the trip to Australia for ages but there have been so many other good posts that I would like to share. This one was from a few months later, back in Thailand. I had been felling ill for a week or two and ended up in a Thai Hospital for a week with an unknown disease!!
Dying in Chang Mai
This next one is sad... It was Buffys last day with me in Vietnam, I didn't know if I would ever see her again.... But that turned out OK...
Bye Bye Buffy
This next one is just weird. When I was travelling in China, I experienced the weird way the Internet works out there. There are genuinely Chinese people from the China Government reading everything you write on the Internet as you type and if they don't like they delete it. I experienced this in an airport and watched as my newly written blog was deleted before my eyes. I wrote about this in my next blog when I thought I was free from the spies. I called the entry- Being watched by Pandas. I though it would be a good blog to re-post here, but when I looked..... well, just follow the link and see. This is genuine. I have not changed anything from my original post which was quite thorough...China has eyes everywhere!!
Being watched
While I was in China I visited the Great Wall. Not the normal touristy bit, but a part way away from the normal heavily beaten track. Here I met a Canadian French girl whose head I shaved to reveal a globe tattoo and we walked the great wall for a full day seeing just a handful of other people. I also got up in the early hours of the morning to watch the sunrise in one of the most awe inspiring places you could imagine. I would return to this place tomorrow or any other day. It left me speechless...
THE WALL
One of the best parts of travelling about for years was when old mates could catch up in a new and interesting place. This happened in Christmas 2011 when me and my old mucker Sid spent Christmas in New York...
New Yoik Christmas
Later that year, after being back in UK for a couple of months, I headed off around the states again and spent an few weeks on a road trip with Dan and Max. Here's a highlight of that trip!!
Dan and Max
Two things stick out about the next post..
1. A sunny day in Manchester - It doesn't always rain.
2. Getting to see the Queen!
Queen on a sunny day
Then there was the time I made it to Alaska... The 50th and final state to get ticked off my list. While I was there I fucked up my driving licence and broke my knees!
50th state
This next one is special. It was a pretty ordinary day a week after arriving in UK. A nice day out with my mum and dad, but their first meeting with Buffy. They all got on really well and it was the day I told my mum that me and Buffy would probably get married. She and my dad both knew me well and I could tell that they were overjoyed. But they never really showed their emotions. We sat and had a hotdog for lunch and then went home. Nothing special from the outside looking in, but for me a huge day as the first time I ever really showed my parents that I was an adult!
With mum and dad
That's all the celebrating I will share with you today. There are 488 more posts to read if you ever get bored. Just scroll to the bottom of the blog page and you will see a link saying - 'Click here to see all the posts'. They are in date order, so feel free to pick one at random and see what happens.
I did take a minute to see what would happen if I wanted to print out all the pages and turn them into a very boring book..so I found a website that prints out Blogs. I uploaded the blog and the website said....
Thanks for reading. I wonder of anyone out there has read all the posts? I don't think I've even done that!
Anyway, Ill be posting again soon with photos of something other than babies or snow! Cant wait!!
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