The Holidays Thread

[TomPNE94]

I was going to start a travelling thread but I just found this so I thought I'd post here instead. Great story.

Anyway, I wanted to post to see if anyone on here had ever been to or worked in South Korea before? I know SonOfCod off of TFF worked there teaching English for a few years (does he post on here too?) and I'm now looking at doing the same and was wondering if anyone on here could share their experiences and possibly let me pick their brains about it. Cheers.

Son of Cod

 

[BlueBee]

Take a lot of money with you. I went in the summer, one can of beer in a supermarket was 40KR, about £3.50.
I've got Dublin then Edinburgh booked up for May. Hoping to get out to Germany and Italy at some point in the summer as have friends there. Parents are going to Croatia as well so may gate-crash that holiday too.

I'm not sure why people go to Dublin...it's not particularly nice and it's pretty expensive. If you're going to Ireland I'd suggest Cork/Galway/Mayo. The West Coast of Ireland is the shizzle.

 

[Tilbury]

I'm not sure why people go to Dublin...it's not particularly nice and it's pretty expensive. If you're going to Ireland I'd suggest Cork/Galway/Mayo. The West Coast of Ireland is the shizzle.

I have family there and am going with a load of Europeans who wanna see it, there's a fair bit to do there. Got family in county cork as well and agree it's amazing. Not done the west coast before but I'm going a few days early so was actually planning on checking out Galway for a day or two.

 

[T.A]

I'm not sure why people go to Dublin...it's not particularly nice and it's pretty expensive. If you're going to Ireland I'd suggest Cork/Galway/Mayo. The West Coast of Ireland is the shizzle.

It's only expensive in the touristy bit, I have a friend that showed me around the other areas and there were some nice pubs and a lot cheaper.

 

[Robert Molenaar]

Off to Riga tomorrow for the weekend, heard good reports.

 

[markwwfc1992]

Off to Riga tomorrow for the weekend, heard good reports.

Riga is great, was over there when the World Cup was on. Has some great restaurants, and beer gardens if you're going for a visit with your mates. You should check out their football team Daugava Riga too, they lost 8-0 to Aberdeen in their biggest ever game...

 

[TFF_REG]

He is on here and still out there so send him a message as he might not see this post.

Cheers, I've sent him a PM.

 

[Robert Molenaar]

Riga is great, was over there when the World Cup was on. Has some great restaurants, and beer gardens if you're going for a visit with your mates. You should check out their football team Daugava Riga too, they lost 8-0 to Aberdeen in their biggest ever game...

Cheers, have heard it's quite good. Going with 4 mates so should be decent.

 

[Jen420]

Just booked for Lisbon in Portugal for a week in June, flights were only £69 and I'm staying with a friend over there so cheap holiday looking forward to it, I've never been but heard good reports.

 

[Libertadores FC]

Off to Brazil soon.

 

[gashead88]

Off to Dominican Republic for two weeks later on in the year, been Egypt twice in the last year really love it over there

 

[Abertawe]

Close to booking a villa in St Vincent. Most fertile soil in the world, gonna be high sooo high.

 

[Techno Natch]

Just booked for Lisbon in Portugal for a week in June, flights were only £69 and I'm staying with a friend over there so cheap holiday looking forward to it, I've never been but heard good reports.

I've only spent a couple of days in Lisbon. Both times on the way back from a festival but we really liked it and had a good feeling when there.

 

[Oaf]

Well, as you all know because I never shut up about it, I’ve recently spent just over 3 weeks on the west coast of the USA. I spent 4 nights in San Francisco, 3 in San Jose, 8 in Las Vegas and 7 in Los Angeles. Here is my obligatory massive write up for you all to read/ignore.

I’m going to do this as a two parter across the forum… I’m going to start my write up in here for the holiday side of things… but then for the wrestling part, I’ll post that stuff in the wrestling section (with links in both this post and the one in the wrestling section, to connect the two)… this way, people who are only interested in reading what it’s like in the US can ignore the wrestling stuff, the people only interested in the wrestling stuff can ignore the holiday stuff, or if you want to read about it all you can just use the link. Or just ignore it all, in which case, fuck you too.

Anyway…

San Francisco!

After the 3 or so hour trip to Heathrow, a night in a travel lodge and then a monstrous 11 hour flight, I finally arrived in San Francisco and took a BART train to Market st, a matter of minutes from my hotel. Upon emerging from the subway, it was one of those moments where, despite the time spent getting there, I could tell instantly that it was all going to be worth it. It was beautiful. And I continued to adore San Francisco for the 4 nights I was there… my only regret being that my time spent there was so short.

Alcatraz was superb, the street cars were a whole lot of fun and Pier 39 was your typical touristy trap type area that some people will probably hate. I also managed to spent most of a day in Golden Gate Park (a beautiful, massive park that I’d highly recommend visiting, you could legitimately spent a couple days just seeing everything it has to offer) and the Golden Gate bridge, which is an incredible thing to behold.

Lots of crazy people though. More than you’d expect. Beggars, too. Walking around the streets for an hour, you’d probably come across about 15 beggars/homeless people and 2 or 3 crazy people. Some people who are in both columns. They all seemed perfectly harmless and inoffensive (unlike those in LA… which I’ll move onto later) though from what I saw.

But yeah, in general San Francisco was great. By the time I left I was yearning for more, even though I knew of the awesome ness to come in the following days…

San Jose!

Yeah, this is the wrestling stuff. Click here:

http://www.onefootballforum.co.uk/i...015-discussion-thread.2625/page-8#post-106969

to read about that. Or don’t.

Las Vegas!

As I said before, I spent the first day or so here feeling pretty underwhelmed… basically, everything that had come in the days before was so fucking great that it simply could never measure up. And it doesn’t help that one of the first things I did there was watched the Bellagio fountains… and having seen the Dubai fountains at the Dubai Mall a while back, they were pretty unimpressive by comparison.

However, Vegas did win me over in the end. I stayed at the MGM grand which was superb… adverts for Pacquiao vs Mayweather EVERYWHERE! They’re hosting that fight and had to make sure that EVERYBODY KNOWS. They even had a boxing ring set up in the lobby toward the end of my stay. Another cool thing… they had a bunch of Mayweathers various attires up on the wall in the lobby as well, including that ridiculous thing he wore to the ring at Wrestlemania 24 when he fought The Big Show.

After not being sure if I wanted to gamble or not going in, I did so in the end and I’m glad I did as it was a heck of a lot of fun. Though I had some SHOCKING luck at times… I went on a run of playing roulette betting on 3rds and managed to get it only TWICE in 18 fucking tries. I ended up about $10-$15 down, which isn’t too bad when you consider all of the free drinks (well, minus a dollar tip each time) I was given while gambling.

I also had a trip to the Grand Canyon while there, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. A long trip to get there made interesting by stops at the Hoover Dam and Seligman (the town that inspired Cars… yeah “the shit Pixar film”) which were both pretty cool. But shit, the Canyon is every bit as impressive as it’s billed to be. Awe inspiring size to it.

Besides that, I did the High Roller (largest observation wheel in the world, for what that’s worth) and the Stratosphere… my advice to people planning on going to Vegas… Stratosphere is cheaper and FAR superior. Better views, and you spend as long as you like up there, as opposed to the half an hour you get on the high roller (only 10 minutes or so of which are from nice high viewpoints). Had a generally great time just wondering about the various hotels/casinos/resorts though. You could have good time in Vegas without spending a penny on anything besides food.

About my only regret is that I never got around to watching a proper Vegas show… but at about $100 a ticket at the cheapest (for good shows, at least) I’m actually happier to have held on to my money I reckon.

When I arrived in Vegas I was disappointed to have left the “WWE environment” of San Jose, but by the time the final day rolled around I was sad to be leaving.

Los Angeles!

After spending a week there, I see LA as pretty much being 1 part amazing to 5 parts shit hole. Some places truly are fantastic. Santa Monica is perhaps the best beach I’ve ever seen in terms of how it looks. Hollywood boulevard is great. The Getty Center has great views (though is dull as fuck inside) and the Griffith Observatory has even better views (and is actually a very interesting place inside as well)… but holy crap. Some of it is an absolute dump. And I’d heard a lot of bad things about LA’s public transportation leading into the trip, but it still surprised me. The first two trips I made on the underground stunk of piss and there were more crazys on those trains/buses than I could count.

On one trip in particular, a dude sat near me spent the entire talking (not to anybody in particular) about stuff (I tried to listen in… all I heard were things along the lines of “I knew a guy at school called Wallace” and “why? Is it the colour of my skin?” followed by pulling down his hood for some reason… before putting it back up so he could perform that part again 5 minutes or so down the line)… but yeah, he also, once in a while, would cough up a nice big bit of phlegm and spit onto the back of the seat in front of him. Now, in front of him was a nice normal seeming guy (who I felt so sorry for…) and… yet another crazy. She didn’t really say anything, just kept making random noises… and spent the entire time doing some weird over exaggerated blinking thing with her eyes. The guy sat on her left must have had a horrid time of it all… sat next to this crazy woman, with another crazy dude behind him spitting on the back of his seat.

But yeah, these fucking nutcases were everywhere; some of them seemed pretty aggressive too compared to the crazys in San Francisco. I never really felt in danger, but if I were a woman on her own for example, I think it’d have been pretty intimidating.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d still highly recommend checking out LA, there is still plenty of cool stuff. Just… use a rental car or something. And look up which areas to avoid…

For an example of cool stuff, I really enjoyed Universal Studios. Some superb rides… the best thing in the park for me being the studio tour, which features a 360 degrees 3D screens used to create “ride” of sorts based on King Kong. It’s an incredible experience… your tour trolley basically gets attacked by dinosaurs on every side with King Kong turning up to save the day, but it uses motion to rock the trolley around/water effects/wind effects and shit. For example, Kong jumps over the trolley at one point, and when he lands on top of it, the thing rocks like a fucking great gorilla just jumped on it. It was so good I did the tour twice so I could do that part again

But yeah… other stuff there was cool as well, another standout for me being The Simpsons Ride as the biggest Simpsons fan on 1FF.

I also did a Warner Bros studio tour which was cool… had some great exhibits of things/costumes/shit used in Batman movies/Harry Potter movies. They even had a garage with all of the batmobiles in it! Seeing that tumbler up close… and knowing that it’s actually a fully functional vehicle… to quote Comissionor Gordon, “I gotta get me one of those”.

I went and watched the Lakers play the Timberwolves, too, which was great. Honestly, going in, I’d never actually watched a single basketball game start to finish in my life… but I loved it! Very entertaining, plus even though they’re shit this season, The Lakers won (it’s actually their only win in 8 games right now, I believe) so I’m their lucky charm it seems.

Oh, and yeah, ok… I did get a nerdy thrill at times just seeing areas that I recognised from GTA V. It was like being on the damn set for it at points!

So yeah, that’s it. Looking back, it seems there’s a fair bit of negativity in there from what I’ve put, but still, the positives FAR outweighed the negatives. I went into it calling it the “holiday of a life time”, and it absolutely was. Granted, the Wrestlemania stuff alone would have done that… but even taking that out, it was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on all in all. If I had to pick a favourite city of the lot, I’d probably say San Francisco, but that may just be because I spent so little time there.

if you’ve ever thought of doing the San Fran/Vegas/LA trip, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. All three places have loads to offer. I saw a lot of people saying 8 nights in Vegas seems to be too many, but I didn’t think so. And a bloke from Leeds I was speaking to in Vegas seemed to think I was nuts for going to LA for 7 nights as well… but again, if anything, I’d have wanted to stay there for even longer!

 

[MSB92]

Oaf the West Coast in general is a pretty awesome place. You should have visited San Diego as well, a pretty wonderful place. Are you planning on going next year to the US? If yes then you should consider going to Orlando. The theme parks over there are crazy, even better than the LA ones.

 

[Oaf]

Yeah, I wish I had gone to San Diego now, looks like a great place. But I intend on going back to the west coast one day... and next time I'll definitely include it!

And yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll go back to the US next year... Mainly because Wrestlemania was so awesome I want to do it again Gonna be in Texas next year.

 

[Oaf]

And by the way, the fact that I'm sat here posting at half 5 in the fucking morning is no coincidence. After being up for about 31 hours, and then sleeping for about 10-12 hours last night getting up at 11ish, my body clock is fucked And I have work in like 25 hours as well. Fuck it all.

 

[saddler_andy]

Off to Dominican Republic for two weeks later on in the year, been Egypt twice in the last year really love it over there

Which resort ? We're going back in Jan.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mistermagic]

Friend of mine who's visiting San Fran, LA and Phoenix said the exact same thing about LA, Oaf. One neighbourhood is ace, the others are shitholes.

 

[Techno Natch]

The people with possible mental health problems needed help by the sounds of it OAF. I'm not sure that the term "crazies" is very empathetic. Maybe some of the billions that pass through LA could be spent helping these people?

Enjoyed your trip report though and the wrestling reports sounds like you had a great time.

 

[Oaf]

Friend of mine who's visiting San Fran, LA and Phoenix said the exact same thing about LA, Oaf. One neighbourhood is ace, the others are shitholes.

Yeah, it's strange like that. Sort of reminds me of Plymouth in a way... if you came here and only saw the barbican/the hoe and stuff, you'd probably think it's a pretty nice little city. Travel around the rest of the city though, and you'll soon see it's an utter shit hole.

The people with possible mental health problems needed help by the sounds of it OAF. Maybe some of the billions that pass through LA could be spent helping these people?

Enjoyed your trip report though and the wrestling reports sounds like you had a great time.

Yeah, I was generally surprised at the sheer vast volumes of homelessness and crazy people around though. It wasn't really that apparent in Vegas... mainly just the two Californian cities I went into. I was only in the state for like 2 and a half weeks in total, so I'm hardly an expert on exactly what's going on there, but it sure as hell looks as if they could be doing more to help out the people who need it.

Also, something I didn't mention... LA is the strangest "big city" I've ever seen. It's VAST, it goes on forever in all directions. You look at it from the Griffith Observatory well above and the city stretches beyond the horizon... but at street level, it never really feels like a big city. Like... there aren't that many tall buildings and stuff apart from places like down town... it's like an endless supply of suburbs. You go to San Francisco, Dubai, London, Paris, and you're surrounded by massive buildings in every corner... LA is unique. And I sort of liked that about it.

 

[MSB92]

LA is indeed huuuuge! Plus the traffic over there is a bitch, might be the worst traffic that I have ever experienced. Plus Oaf have you used the hotwire website that I gave you or not? It's the one with the great hotel prices

 

[Mustard]

I did SanFran/Vegas/LA about 6 years ago but I was underage and it was with my parents so expect my experience was very different to Oaf's (especially given that LV as a 16 year old is pretty pointless). I actually didn't like SanFran so much, thought it was a bit tacky although Alcatraz and the Golden Gate were really good. I much preferred the non urban parts of California. I wasn't in LA long enough to really pass judgement but again I thought Hollywood was tacky. Malibu was nice though. Yosemite was incredible as was Zion National Park and Monument Valley (both in Utah). Death Valley was interesting too, nothing better than eating Ben and Jerry's in the middle of the desert. I vaguely remember the areas around Monterey and Carmel being nice too (Big Sur)

I probably need to go back, I want to travel in South America after Uni and depending on money may stop off on the West Coast of the US en route to Canada.

 

[Oaf]

Regarding being underage in Vegas actually... I was surprised at how many kids were there. I always thought it was sort of a place mainly adults would visit, but it actually came across more as a family resort type place. Not sure why exactly people would bring kids there...

LA is indeed huuuuge! Plus the traffic over there is a bitch, might be the worst traffic that I have ever experienced. Plus Oaf have you used the hotwire website that I gave you or not? It's the one with the great hotel prices

God yes, the traffic was horrific. Especially during peak time. 40-45 minute flight from Vegas to LA... 2 hour transfer to the hotel!

And yeah, I do intend to check out hotwire when looking for stuff for next years US holiday!

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Vegas made a deliberate move towards a more family friendly (scare quotes) image in response to a downturn of the late 80s/early 90s, in advertising and development. A bit of a Disneyfication, if you will. King Arthur themed resort hotels and shit.

Didn't really work like they were hoping (and I suspect the emergence of a gleefully bilk-able class of Global Super Rich™ uber-consumers had more than a bit to do with the change of tack too), so a more adult, watered down Sin City idea came back to the fore when they introduced the "What happens here, stays here" slogan in the early 2000s.

But the legacy persist, to some extent.

FASCINATING, I KNOW

 

[Blitzballer]

Thinking about dipping into my savings account and treating myself to a month in Thailand. Been before with parents but was very young and didn't really appreciate all the temples and stuff, that was a week in Bangkok and a week in Pattaya. Thinking about Ko Samui , has anyone been before?

 

[RavenBish]

I want to go on holiday with Carel.

 

[T.A]

Carel doesn't go on "holiday" he just lives his life.

 

[Stagat]

Thinking about Ko Samui , has anyone been before?

Yeah. What do you want to know?

 

[Luke_1884]

Off to Berlin in two weeks, anything/anywhere anyone would reccomend doing/seeing apart from the obvious?