(CANCELLED) Toby and Mangomagic's Eurovision Sep/Oct 09

[^toby^]

Mango Magic and I were going to visit Hong Kong for a week (to visit my folks)

later this year. She's found that it won't cost much more to get a round the world

trip.

We are thinking about:
London/Paris(1 week)-> Portland/San Fran (1 week) -> Hong Kong (1 week)

I guess I can stay in my folks' place in HK.

Any cheap okay-ish places to stay in London, Paris, San Fran and Portland?
Any fun things to do you recommend?

(I will search for the threads here for food but if you have special recommendation, let me know too)

What I expect:

London: Vintage/op shopping.. Camden Market... buy cheap Fred Perry (ha!)...See

Pete Doherty/Morrissey (kidding)... Stalk forgotten Britpop stars like Sonya Aurora Madan, Donna Matthews (LOL)

Paris: : Vintage/op shopping, buy stuff from A.P.C., people watching.

San Fran (the stop closet to Portland that we can pick):
visit my friend/Amoeba Records

Portland
: Vegan stuff? Stalking bands (For MangoMagic, ha!)


And I've just realized I have a short poem about Paris on facebook few mths ago:

"sipping on my long black
watching time fly
on a bed with white linen
in a cheap hotel in paris
AS-F**KING-IF"

[vCLaW]

Any cheap okay-ish places to stay in London, Paris, San Fran and Portland?
Any fun things to do you recommend?

(I will search for the threads here for food but if you have special recommendation, let me know too)

What I expect:

London: Vintage/op shopping.. Camden Market... buy cheap Fred Perry (ha!)...See

Pete Doherty/Morrissey (kidding)... Stalk forgotten Britpop stars like Sonya Aurora Madan, Donna Matthews (LOL)

If you're at Camden Market you should go to the Ha Ha Veggie Bar. They do rather good vegan burgers and falafel. That's about all I can recommend for food in London. Plus there's Maoz Falafel in Soho.
I've stayed in a few hostels in London which were not bad, and cheapish (well about as cheap as you'll get in London anyway), I could try and find details of them if you want.

[^toby^]

I've stayed in a few hostels in London which were not bad, and cheapish (well about as cheap as you'll get in London anyway), I could try and find details of them if you want.

cheers!

[Long]

My advice for London:
I don't want to assume that just because you're Chinese you prefer Chinese food but I personally prefer Asian food.
I don't like fake imitation of meat dishes like soy hot dogs(yuck) or anything made out of soy meat while I do like tofu and vegetable dishes.

That's why I usually just eat at restaurants in Soho(China town). There are quite good ones that serve vegetarian(actually vegan) dishes. There is a vegetarian dim sum restaurant in that area too.

One of my favorite restaurants is Wong Kei: rude, fast and cheap but there are better ones.

There are a lot of hotels in Kensington that often have good offers if you order a room online from their website.

[puppydog]

San Fran (the stop closet to Portland that we can pick):
visit my friend/Amoeba Records

Yes Amoeba records! So cool. There's also Tweekin records near there if you are into house/techno.

If you can, I'd go to millenium restaurant. Gourmet Vegan at it's finest! They're usually a bit overpriced as I recall but right now they have some deals on I think to help w/ the slower times now that economy has slowed.

Definitely go and see the seals at the harborfront and if you can make it out to Muir Woods, and you're into 'nature' then check it out....

Portland
: Vegan stuff?

That shouldn't be hard!

[^toby^]

One of my favorite restaurants is Wong Kei: rude, fast and cheap Very Happy but there are better ones.

There are a lot of hotels in Kensington that often have good offers if you order a room online from their website.

ude, fast and cheap sounds very typical Hong Kong style.
Kensington... noted

Definitely go and see the seals at the harborfront and if you can make it out to Muir Woods, and you're into 'nature' then check it out....

Portland
: Vegan stuff?

That shouldn't be hard!

The seal! yay.

Portland is Mango Magic's

[KC Masterpiece]

How long will you be in SF for?

[sosso]

Millennium in SF is great! Definitely the nicest vegan restaurant I've been to.

[barnz2k]

There is a vegetarian dim sum restaurant in that area too.

Where Where?! In china town? Do you know the name?

There was a recent thread about places to eat in london - loads of good veg places.

Depends what your into.. Imperial war museum is good. If you like Camden markets you could go to brick lane also. If you like art (i dont) theres a few big galleries, walk along the thames to the wheel, big ben etc..

accommodation is fairly average here.. Bang for buck i go for Astor hostel in bayswater. Buy an Oyster card first time you get on a bus/tube (prepaid card, half price of cash)

[^toby^]

thanks for all the input!

I'm looking at the ticket where I have to fly via Helsinki.
Where is the best place to visit? Or should I just visit the airport
(more stop = more transport $$ = more hostel/hotel $$)

Should I go to London or Manchester? (Mango Magic and I are really keen on meet up with VF-er in the area..eating, not training )

And then we might get a train/bus/flight/submarine to Paris, I guess...

And then Helsinki again.

(I might give SF a miss )

[JP]

helsinki = solid idea! make sure to have a bit of time to also visit the finnish forrests (only a shirt ride away from helsinki, like Nuuksio where the VF week was held)

and you have a place to stay here if you decide to come via manchester mate.

[Rochellita]

You could visit Manchester and London, here's a cheap train ticket website

http://www.mobitix.thetrainline.com/vt/ ... chase.aspx

It's only a couple of hours on the train and you can sometimes get deals for £9 single, which is quite cheap by UK standards.

[laura76]

Portland ideas: Multnomah Falls, Powell's Bookstore, Voodoo Donuts, Blossoming Lotus Cafe. I hope you have a great trip!

[mangomagic]

Thank you so much for all of your tips, you are awesome

Sadly I don't think we will get to Portland or America at all, it's a shame because I really really really want to go Portland.

But since it is only a small trip (3 weeks) we would waste quite a lot of time traveling.

Instead we are now thinking:

London (maybe with a day trip to manchester and/or day trip to brighton)

Paris

Berlin or Rome or whatever city we want really (but need to organise the one-way flight ourselves)

Helsinki

Hong Kong

Would love to meet up with any vfers around those areas. I have lots of questions too for those who live or have travelled to each place (except for hong kong which we know about). Like:

* how much does it cost on average for food-travel in each of those cities? (not including accommodation)

* how cold will it be in each place around end of sept/early oct?

* how vegan friendly is each place? (I know london and brighton are super vegan friendly)

[^toby^]

Thanks JP! It will be a party of 2 if it is ok?

It will be great to see Manchester cos lots of the band that I like are from Manchester .

We can do Melb>london (and train to manchester)>paris>Helsinki>Hong Kong>melb

We can add a stop between Paris and Helsinki. (berlin?rome?) Need to make our own way there but the flight includes the stop from here to Helsinski.

There is also a special
Melb>singapore (visit my uncle)>paris>london>paris (again!)>hong kong>melb

We ditich us cos it will take way longer to fly.