Christmas has been a different story for us this year. We always knew it was going to be touch and go as to whether or not our due date of Boxing day was going to be realised but when it got closer to the time it seemed more and more likely that Helen would be going into labour sooner rather than later. The build up to Frank’s birth was quite long, Helen was in and out of hospital 6 times in 10 days with 1 overnight stay due to high blood pressure concerns. The only thing to cure this problem was to get this baby out! However we had our own plans as to how this would happen.

Thanks to a dedicated yoga practice and some hypno-birthing techniques throughout Helen’s pregnancy we were very keen to have a natural birth and if possible have access to a birthing pool. One reason why we chose Stepping Hill hospital over others was due to the amount of birthing pools they have available – 4 in total. However with all of the blood pressure concerns our dreams looked likely to be squashed, but we kept positive and made sure anyone who was working with us knew exactly what we wanted birth wise.

So on Christmas Eve and after 24 hours in hospital under observation Helen was dis-charged with a cervical sweep which revealed that we were 2cm dilated already. It looked favourable that a natural labour would proceed and straight away Helen noticed things had changed down there, the pre-labour pains seemed to be more intense and by the time we were home the contractions had began.

A Christmas Day baby was upon us and below is another up-close visual diary as to how things progressed. Let’s just say we had the birth we wanted, beyond and above all of our expectations. Upon arriving at hospital at 6.30am we discovered Helen was now 6cm dilated and our midwife Kay guided us through the rest of the labour and Frank Leo Rutter, weighing 6lbs8oz was born at 9.41am in a birthing pool using gas and air only and the all powerful breath. Kay was like an angel waiting to take us under her wing. The experience of the birth of our beautiful baby boy was so powerful and one we will never forget.

Thank you to Stepping Hill hospital.
Enjoy.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Nikon D600 35mm f1.8 & 105mm f2.8 Macro)

We wanted to do something a little different this Christmas. This is our first Christmas in the UK with our families for 2 years and this we are excited about! We wanted to share something with you this Christmas that we hope each day will make you smile, be intrigued or take you to that time and place! We’ve designed an Advent Calendar but it’s a little different from the norm…No chocolate behind each door, just a little slice of escapism from the chills, sharp shopping elbows and endless Christmas songs. Starting from the 1st of December and leading up to Christmas Day we will be unveiling a new print every day as part of our Advent Calendar. The images selected for the advent are little snippets from our Notworkrelated travels.

To get in the spirit of it all we are offering 25% discount off all prints throughout the month of December! Just to get you in the spirit we’re offering a special discount this festive season…25% off all prints featured in our shop until the 31st December 2012 this includes those featured in the advent as well as Collection #1! We’re also donating 5% of all profits to charity. Currently we are donating towards building a school in Ghana, Africa. This project is being led by good friend Neville Maggs who has done an amazing job so far! the children are in and classes are being taught but still there is so much to be done and all of his fund-raising is done through initiatives of his own. Sign up to our email newsletter to receive the advent calendar direct to your inbox. Don’t forget that 5% of each and every sale goes to charity.

Check out the calendar and find out more details here.

We left the Otago Peninsula early so that we could get to the Otago Farmer’s Market taking place at the Dunedin Train Station. We wanted to get ourselves some fresh greens for our Christmas Dinner. We didn’t quite tick all the boxes but we did pick up a few extra treats such as delicious home-baked mince pies, vintage award winning blue cheese and Dave got himself some Vennison mince so he could make some tasty burgers. We had a look around the famous landmark that is Dundein Train Station, although perhaps not as impressive as some we have visited over our travels it was nice enough. We continued to buy the rest of our Christmas food from New World where we stocked up on booze, bought some lovely fresh salmon and a pudding! We were ready!

We couldn’t check in until after 1pm so we spent our time exploring Dunedin’s city centre. It’s a steep ascent from Hogwartz where we were spending our Christmas to the Octagon that is the centre of the city and it was a very hot day with busy shops keeping us slightly hot and bothered. We visited the Dundein Art Gallery which with free admission completely exceeded our expectations with the current exhibitions on show. The star attraction being the ground floor’s ‘The Beloved’ exhibition playing host to classic and contemporary pieces with our favourite artists being Gordon Walters, Ani O’Neill and Heather Straka.

When we left the gallery we took it upon ourselves to buy a few Christmas gifts for each other with the maximum spend being $20 and neither of us would know what the other bought! Exciting!! So off we went for an hour and when we met for a coffee later at Perc we sniggered at our gift buying experiences.

After checking into Hogwartz we were in our new home for the next few days which looked out across the city and St. Joseph’s Cathedral stood straight in front of us. Later on we joined the rest of the travellers staying there in cooking  a dish to go into the barbecue that the hosts were holding that night on Christmas Eve. So armed with a cous-cous salad and some booze we joined everyone else at the barbecue and enjoyed a great feast with some lovely company. Thanks to the owners Gilbert and Maja for putting in so much effort, they had so much meat and beer on offer. We ended the night with a Skype call to Karl, Em and Sukie who were all in good form and Emily had been doing her own skills in the kitchen in preparation for the Roscoe’s coming over for dinner on Christmas Day! Missing them loads!!

So Christmas morning came, and we started the day with the grand unveiling of our presents! Dave enjoyed the entertainment that was opening a whoopy cushion, a packet of poker chips, a selection of choccie goodies and a notebook (this would be useful!). Helen received a cadbury’s creme egg, 2 variations of the New Zealand classic peanut slab (milk and dark chocolate) but the pinnacle of her presents was a Shewee!! At long last Helen will no longer have to squat to have a wee when hiking, or being stuck on the back of a boat with nowhere to go! This was a fantastic present from Dave, it did stretch the budget though, but we think it will come in very handy!

So excitement over we took a few snaps and then a problem occurred! The leica froze, it got stuck on a card reading error and no matter what we tried we couldn’t get it to read any cards inserted into the camera! Hmmm! This was not good news and it definitely dampened our festive spirit for the rest of the day! There was nothing we could do so we picked ourselves up and drove out to St Clair beach where we enjoyed a lovely picnic and some very hot sun. It didn’t last very long though so we got back to the hostel late afternoon and decided to watch our Christmas movie of choice – Little Miss Sunshine. With the Leica at the back of our minds we enjoyed the film immensely and then decided to cook our Christmas dinner and eat with Kris and Kay our new found Xmas buddies.

Dinner was delicious, here’s what we had:

• Salmon fillet – baked (devine!)
• Honey roasted carrots and parsnips
• Roasted potatoes
• Broccoli and a few boiled potatoes
• Pam’s stuffing balls (from a packet)
• Lemon butter sauce

• Dave also enjoyed a pig in a blanket (sausage wrapped in bacon)

And for the pud:

• Pam’s Passion Fruit Cheescake! What a treat!

This was all enjoyed with a bottle of Monkey Bay’s Pinot Gris.

So with our stomachs stuffed we went on to enjoy a few more Skype calls home, one to Barb with Louis joining us live from Perth, and one with Jan, Den and Alice! Merry Christmas all!

Boxing Day was a shopping day which saw us take advantage of the discounts on offer. We bought our trekking rucksacks from Bivouac who had a 40% discount off two Osprey packs perfect for our trip in Nepal, and Helen bought a pretty loaded sleeping bag from Mac Pac. Never more will she moan about feeling the draft at night as this 800+ loft sleeping bag will keep her snug at temperatures as low as -7. Fingers crossed for the Himalayas.

After enough of the shops we went back to Hogwartz and made a few plans for travel connections and had a plan of action for our camera repair. We decided to stay another night at Hogwartz to take advantage of having a room and some space to spread out. We also designed and printed a poster to advertise our van for sale. It’s easy to get used to having a little bit of luxury but we’d be back in the van as of the 27th. Christmas in Dunedin was nice, the weather was fantastic which is a change for us Brits, but we did miss our home offerings! Looking forward to being back with the family next year!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We packed up and were ready to check out at around 11am. We’d read that we could leave our bags in luggage storage at the MTR station at Kowloon’s Hung Hom so that we could make the most of having some more time in Hong-Kong. Getting there is fairly easy on the metro with a few stops and walking distance. There is a little problem in that when you buy a through ticket to Hung Hom from Causeway Bay you’ll have to go through an unpaid walking zone to reach the connection to the western line. You wont find this out though until you’re ready to change lines at Tsim Shu Tsha and the machine takes your ticket and you have to buy another one way to Hung Hom!! We tried to explain that we didn’t know about this but they didn’t really want to know and told us we would need to buy another ticket to get there!! So we lost some more dollars on this and gritted our teeth in fury! Well Helen did but the moment soon passed and we found ourselves at Hung Hom with a decent one off fee of 20 HKD per bag for the day which isn’t too bad.

We walked across to the main strip in Kowloon via the Hollywood stars walk along the sea front. It was good to have clear views across to Hong-Kong Island and we enjoyed this along with several other tourists. The sun was out and it was very pleasant indeed. As we wandered through the streets and endless shopping malls we found ourselves a good little knife shop and bought us a wee Christmas gift in the form of a Swiss army pen knife. Sad but these things do make your lives a little easier when traveling and having those practical items to hand. It didn’t stretch the budget too much either which was a nice bonus.

After the excitement of buying our little present we went on the search for some food before our over night bus journey. We found a street that had a mix of establishments and chose Red Ant, which appeared to have some nice rice, noodle and soup dishes. The food was average with Helens particularly bland. Not what you expect really but it did the job. Afterwards we made our way back to Hung Hom station, collected the bags and went for the next train to Shenzen. It’s a much cheaper method of getting to and from Hong Kong than using the Kowloon express from Guangzhou. For 33 HKD each we got the MTR to the furthest stop on the line Lo Wu, from here it was clearly signposted to get to Shenzen and the bus station, there are exit and entry points from Hong Kong to back into China and the whole process took around an hour and a half from leaving Hung Hom. When we arrived at the bus station we had another hours wait, so we proceeded to play some more card games. We thought we’d lost our other pack and managed to pick up a new pack of cards for around 20p! Bargain! The bus left at 7.30pm and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the bus wasn’t as bad as the reports we’d heard and also seen on the roads. We didn’t realise but this was the luxury bus and not the cheaper 3 tier sleeper option. The bedding was clean and fresh on and it was only a two tier bunk bed layout with only a handful of people on there. You need to use the seat belts as you’ll get jerked around quite a bit and there were a few stops coming out of Shenzen before we were well on our way.

Our destination was Guilin and we were told the bus would get in at around 6am, but we were way ahead of time and arrived at 4.15am. Luckily the station was very much anticipating the arrival of the buses so we weren’t alone at the drop off. It was a little confusing but we walked out of the station, found ourselves a taxi driver who knew where we were going and landed at the Wada hostel at around 5am. The hostel was all locked up and in the dark but eventually someone came out to let us in, fortunately the room was available and she checked us in at no additional cost. This is one thing that we’ve found to be really helpful in China, you can arrive at pretty much any time of the day/night and get into your room as long as the date is the same as your check in date then there’s no extra charges for getting your room early. So we were able to get some sleep and set the alarm for 10am.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Well we can’t all say that we’ve spent Christmas in Hong-Kong…but WE CAN!! He he! Although to be fair we could have been anywhere in the world and still made this a day to remember. It was a slow start to the day with our customary oats, yoghurt and fruit breakfast followed by some prancing around in our Christmas hats. Dave slept in a little longer and enjoyed the cosyness of the apartment. We got ourselves a little pack up so we could go to Victoria Park for a Christmas picnic. We were also downloading a Christmas film that we would watch later in the day; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and strolled out with our Christmas hats still on.

The park is just around the corner from Causeway Bay and was packed full of the local overseas contingent mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines, we’re pretty sure they are mostly maids and restaurant workers and had read prior to going that it’s a very common sight to see them all to get together in public spaces, hanging out with each other on their days off. We assumed this was the case. We walked around and found the central open air swimming pool which is an Olympic-sized pool left empty in the park. Its really eerily located right at the foot of sky-rise apartments and office blocks and left us with a great photo-opportunity.

Moving on from this we continued to walk and found a nice quiet spot in the park where we would have our picnic. For Christmas brunch we opted for the much anticipated and longed for hummus and carrot, a good tomatoe relish, rivita crackers, posh crisps, dark chocolate and cider. Oh how we enjoyed this sipping cider with the local monks passing by and just simply enjoying our little moment.

After this satisfying and overpriced picnic we went back to the apartment via the shipping area, photographed more of the locals and went back to settle in for some Ferris Bueller action. This was Dave’s first time…Can you believe it?? It was enjoyed along with a bottle of white wine and dark chocolate…oh how the other half live!

After the film we got ready for our Christmas meal we had booked the previous day. Most restaurants offer a set menu from day to day and they tend to be good value for money. We had noticed a little pub underneath our guesthouse offering a Christmas menu that didn’t look to shabby at all and was at a relatively good price considering the cost of other things on offer. So we didn’t venture very far at all, we did get a few Christmas presents to enjoy with our meal of which you can see us modeling the best below! The meal started off okay, but it just went from bad to worse and by the end Helen felt like it was the toilet that was calling her rather than the local dessert. Hmmm! You can’t win them all!

So after a slightly disappointing meal (although the picnic did make up for this!!) and a good Skype call to the Roscoe’s we went off to Victoria Peak via the metro so we would take in the Hong-Kong skyline by night. It was a good little journey, packed with many other tourists waiting to go up to the Peak, and the tram ride up was fun. Once we were up there it was really cold, so it was a good job we’d put on some extra layers. We experimented with slow shutter work on the Leica which provided us with an alternative view take of the skyline. Helen’s dinner didn’t do her many favours so she was not a happy bunny but after a good hour or so we got the tram back down and made our way back to Causeway Bay.

You can walk down from the Peak and on a nice evening this would have been a good option and alternative to getting the tram. We didn’t buy tickets to the highest viewing platform and the main building contains a lot of shops which we more or less bypassed to get outside and photograph the views.

Back in Causeway Bay we walked around a little longer, took in some more neon and then went back to our little room to enjoy the rest of our Christmas evening together.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After a little lie-in we got ourselves ready and headed out into the hustle and bustle of Hong-Kong. We wanted to explore the area on foot so we hit the streets and wandered the many little alley ways and roads. Far more Christmas decorations were here than in China and it started to make us feel a little bit seasonal especially around Times Square. The streets are very much alike to those in London with the same traffic lights, double yellow lines on the roadside and even double-decker buses. We headed to Soho as the Lonely Planet had recommend the area for something a little different and more creative. There are hundreds of trendy restaurants and bars situated around Hong-Kong and you have a good choice to pick from, with many all ready very full with patrons.

We found a cool little place at the top of Soho so we sat inside and enjoyed a few drinks. Helen’s pear Halmsted cider (from sweden) was lovely and made for some easy consumption. Just up the road we popped into a small gallery and also found a Canon powered photography exhibition at the former jail in the centre of Hong Kong island. We could feel a lot of history here and quite a few areas were sealed off, we have spotted a fair amount of asbestos in China and we bet this place could have been the same. The exhibition (hkphotofest.org) was ok with a selection of old photographs showing the old Hong-Kong in its Colonial days and also some more modern photographers exhibiting their work. The building for us was the highlight, both wanting to use the space for a photography shoot. We even took our Christmas card photos of each other here, ready to be comped together with our Christmas best wishes.

After purchasing some Santa hats for some festive fun we continued to explore the streets on foot and found a great local restaurant that specialised in Wonton. We had a clear broth, with a free refill, and then started on the noodles. Helen’s wonton was packed with around 5 or 6 prawns and the lemon and honey cold beverage was great. Jumping on the underground network we made our way to Kowloon were on Christmas eve we were informed by the Alison Guest House that there would be fireworks on the Hong-Kong island and looking across the bay was the best way to see them. We asked a local police officer and they told us no fireworks, but there is an event taking place up the road, a street carnival.

People in the Hong-Kong territories really celebrate Christmas Eve more so that the actual day and there were lots of people walking the streets as a lot of the roads were sealed off to traffic. For a few hours we wandered around Tsim Sha Tsui and were absorbed further into chaotic streets and neon, they were getting ready for street parties and around the pier looking across to Hong-Kong Island thousands of people were waiting and photographing the Christmas decorations. It was rammed!

Not wanting to get stuck on the wrong side of the bay once the street procession had passed we headed back to Causeway Bay via the Star Ferry. For 1 HKD it’s a great view of the skyline and an essential part of any Hong-Kong visit. Not far from our accommodation was City Super which is like a food hall at Selfridges in the UK. They had some very nice items to buy so we invested in some Christmas Day luxuries and a really good smoked salmon wrap and a chicken caesar salad.

The streets were packed with people at any time of the day or night, maybe last minute shopping, some carol singers and others just out to feel the Christmas vibe. Once the sun had gone down the streets were even brighter with neon fluorescent and shop interior lights. We felt like we were inside the indent for Channel 4 in the UK which uses neon lights and signs to create a big number four. The inspiration must have come from here.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Last day in Shanghai and we had some catching up to do with the blog so we stayed in the hostel cafe until midday and then went out in search of some older looking parts of Shanghai. On our way to Shanghai old town and the YuYuan gardens we bought some fantastic street food in the form of potato noodles, chives and spice…yum! This definitely set us up for the rest of the day and we walked onwards to YuYuan. Shanghai does have historic sites but many of them have been very modernly updated, it’s difficult to see past the sparkling gold exteriors and more plasticy looking brick work.

In amongst the streets here are hundreds of tourist shops selling typical Chinese craft and souvenirs along with famously long queues for the most well known dumpling restaurants and tees houses around. It seems to be the place for tourists to swarm towards and have their photographs taken. We did however find the less frequented YuYuan gardens, perhaps because you have to pay 30yuan to get in…? Who knows, but it really isn’t a place you should miss if you do visit Shanghai because it contains it’s original features, stone work and gardens, it does take you away from the crowded streets and manages to keep a sense of serenity about it.

On our way back we walked by People’s Square, which wasn’t very busy and then caught a quick tube back to East Nanjing rd, back at the hostel more pool was played, more defeats but not for Dave. We stepped out for some local cuisine, experience the troff style toilet and we packed ready to leave the following day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We arrived Shanghai at around 7am and having being inspired by Rick and Beth (from the Japan to China boat trip) we proceeded to eat our breakfast of oats, banana and raisons out of thermos cups! Really nice! We went straight to The Mingtown Hiker YHA which is based close to The Bund in central Shanghai. The hostels are great over here as we always manage to get an early check in. This hostel is quite large, is in a good location and has a good social cafe for meeting people. The four person dorm was a good size, clean and the shared showers down the hall were steamy hot!

The Bund is a popular attraction in Shanghai with views over the river to Pudong’s famous skyscrapers. We walked from Mingtown to the Bund which takes around 10 minutes and strolled along the paved promenade. We were looking forward to some famous Shanghai heat and humidity after the chilly spell in Beijing however the clouds, wind and rain had moved in and it felt very much like a cold and damp December in the UK. Not happy! We followed The Bund walking tour as outlined in The Lonely Planet and walked by some art deco style buildings and famous hotels that play host to historical stories surround the gang of 4 and other war time events. One such place called the Fairmont Peace Hotel has a pretty impressive entrance way and interior. Following on from here we came across a temple in the middle of the shopping area in Shanghai. It houses a large silver Buddha statue which is quite impressive, but it’s all a little surreal placed in between large electronic ad campaigns and department stores.

The Propaganda Poster Art centre had some good reviews in the Lonely Planet and we were interested to see the collection which is located in a basement floor underneath a 20+ story block of flats. It was a little tricky to find but the security guards pointed us in the right direction. It was a great collection of art and design with some interesting historic information to back up the messages and put the posters in context with the political and social movements of the time.

Traveling for a year has its limitations on budget as you can imagine, so on the lookout for some cheap eats, we wandered around the streets looking for just that. This can be difficult if you end up in the wrong area of Shanghai so we chose a fast-food chinese food restaurant chain which had some fairly substandard food. It was cheap and filled us up but that is all. Back to the hostel we had a couple of beers and got chatting to a couple of Scottish girls who are teaching over here in China.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Helen needed to do some work for a client back home in the UK which required lots of uninterrupted internet speed! Our place of choice for this was the TimeZone 8 Cafe at the 798 art district. Prompted by the Chen’s we took our first bus in Beijing from the closest tube stop to 798, so our journey to get there cost us 3 yuan each! (around 30p) When we did this by taxi last time it was around 30 yuan to get to a tube station so we could get home. (The apartment has definitely become a little home for us whilst staying in Beijing!)

Between 11am and 5.30pm we took it in turns to sit and let the work upload via an FTP system whilst editing and writing for notworkrelated. After enjoying a very good lunch, Helen had a tofu sandwich which was quoted be one of the ‘best’ sandwiches she’s ever eaten whilst Dave opted for a meat one which was ‘Okay’, we took some time out individually to walk around some of the art exhibitions on show. Dave went first and found an amazing factory blasting out steam against the blue sky whilst en-route to some interesting gallery spaces. Then Helen went off for an hour or so and found an exhibition featuring David Salle and Robert Rauschenberg which was a pleasant surprise. We have included some imagery from our favourite exhibitions and the beast of the factory steam that day.

After we’d done as much as we could on the upload front, with still an hour or so to go, we got the tube to Sanlitun and met up with Jess once more. We went to her apartment to start with and drank a very nice bottle of Chilian red wine. The expats do get to pick out some amazing properties here whilst working in Beijing, her apartment has loads of personality, is pretty huge and set in a retro 70′s apartment block. Yum!

We got a late tube back after some tasty local Macau food.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Ho Ho Ho…Merry Christmas to you all!

Thanks for following our journey and supporting the notworkrelated adventure! We really appreciate your comments and look forward to more in 2011!

We hope you enjoy some fabulous New Years celebrations and we’ll see you sometime next year!

All the best from Hong Kong!

David & Helen xx