rirawin

Had a great two weeks in Toronto. Did axe throwing at Batl grounds, sunset cruise, rooftop dining at Kost and wine tour/tasting at Peller estates with a trip to Niagara falls thrown in all courtesy of the company.

On the food tip, managed to get a reservation at Alo for one, but (stupidly) declined it as I didn't fancy doing a 9 course taster sat at a bar. Stumbled upon Pai and thought it was great.

I met up with an old school Toronto based Sufu'er and spent the afternoon walking around Chinatown/Kensington Market area taking in the sights and food (highlight was Blackbird Bakery), which was cool. 

On the shopping front, didn't realise the bigger Arcteryx store was out in North York where they had women's Veilance as well. Haven was a nice space and also checked out Blue Button Shop, which I don't think has been mentioned in this thread?

Will probably be heading out again next quarter so look forward to exploring more of Toronto, and probably look to tag on a holiday afterwards to travel west and check out Vancouver.

Thanks for the recommendations! Like the looks of The Little Jerry a lot! Admittedly, I'll also probably go check out Tim Hortons as a guilty pleasure (despite having branches in the UK).

Thread resurrection.

Looks like I'll be in Toronto first two weeks of October for work. My company is HQ'ed on 325 Front St. West, so some recommended eateries in that area would be appreciated. I'm also surprised to see no michelin star restaurants!

Less interested in shops and fashun these days (still rocking tatty old Visvim from the noughties) but will probably check out Haven and Arcteryx. On the latter, and this may be a dumb question, but I'm guessing their flagship store on Queen Street stocks Veilance? and is not exclusively carried by independent boutiques when it comes to a physical presence.

Word.

Got married, bought a house, re-homed a rescue dog and named him Nemo

A GMT-Master II is on my next to buy list. I can then complete my "land, sea and air" collection 

Who offers denim repairs in Europe? Is Mr Handy still operating?

I'm based in the UK and I'd like to avoid Denim Doctor if possible, having not been impressed by his previous repair efforts.

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@WillKhitie afraid I don't, the sushi above was the new joint in KL.

What did you think of Noma?

Taka by Sushi Saito

Went for the Omakase menu

Asam Laksa

Durian

Roti canai and teh tarik

Roti tissue

On 2017-3-20 at 10:39 AM, WillKhitie said:

@rirawin No worries. You can find my comments below. Thank you all the kind words as well. More than happy to share this with you (and Superfuture).

The guides/maps have become a sort of habit for me and the wife prior to travelling. She does the sights and instagrammable bits – I do most of the food and coffee.

We're working on one for a road trip around Italy this April which would make it Guide no. 09 to date (Iceland, Copenhagen, Malmo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Cebu, Korea, and Tokyo).

 

 

I did have one other question Dettifoss, did you take the paved route 862 to the west, or the more bumpy (from what I've read) alternative 864 to the eastern side? I hear the views from the eastern side are better... but the travel time to get there is a lot longer.

Tickets http://www.ticketsbar.es/ca, one of the best places I've eaten at in Spain, and in my opinion better than El Cellar De Can Roca.

Best tapas https://www.pinotxobar.com/ - has Bourdain's seal of approval.

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Anyone looking for a cheap UK proxy, get in touch http://proxy.myembers.com !

Visvim Slim Chinos, Nike Bruins and United Athle tees

Macbook Pro with Touchbar, 3.3GHz, 16GB, 512GB storage

Dongles
 

@WillKhitie Wow that really is great, thank you.

Both the Wife and I are investing in loads of outdoor gear (my Visvim wardrobe is way too fashion and not practical enough to go out hiking on glaciers with). Surprisingly the wife is already ahead of me in these stakes so far.

Thanks for the sim card tip. Fortunately though we've got a couple of sim cards that can be used in Iceland at no extra cost. We've also got a 4G unlimited data mobile WiFi router which was thrown in with rental.

We should be good for money too. All UK credit and debit cards are chip and pin. Nevertheless, did you bother taking any small amounts of cash at all, like to pay for the hot dogs? 

We've gone with Blue Car Rental as well and have opted for a 4x4 GLC. We thought we'd stick with a 4x4 as we plan to go up to West Fjords and didn't want to be restricted when driving about. I trust you had no issues with Blue Car Rental, especially when returning the car? 

Thanks for the Booking.com advice. We've had a look on Airbnb for accommodation and it looks quite sparse outside of Reykjavik. Either way, I feel that we need to start booking some places as the Wife has found that some places are already booked out for dates in October, despite being an off-peak season.

For getting around I'm taking a good old fashion foldout road map of Iceland. In addition to that I'll be prepping Google Maps (I like the star idea, so imma steal that) and I have Nokia HERE (offline country map packs). Would Waze be the preferable one to use? Did you bother with coordinates or did Waze handle Icelandic place names okay? Also what's the 3G/4G reception like out there when you're on the road, is it patchy?

Coincidentally I stumbled upon Alex's blog after posting on here and a blog entry from A Continuous Lean (http://www.acontinuouslean.com/2016/11/11/escape-iceland/). I decided to mush the two together, and sprinkle our own ideas into the mix. Between the Wife and I, we managed to plot around 70-80 spots (a lot were waterfalls haha) that we wanted to visit but felt this wasn't humanly possible to squeeze all of that in 13 days, so we reduced that number down to around 50.

What we discovered when plotting the sights on the map is that driving from the North, to the North West and the West Fjords area involves a lot of driving along routes where sights are few and far between. Looking at your map you might have experienced the same thing?

For food we're definitely doing Baejarins. We also have Pakkhus on our list as well as Cafe Sumarlína, Noa Seafood Restaurant and Fish Company. My Wife is pretty keen for us to take packets instant noodles and pasta, as she has heard from her friends who've been to Iceland that there isn't much else when you're out on the road - would you agree?

I would like your thoughts on a couple of sights. Firstly, Sólheimasandur plane, since the locals closed the road off to it is it worth the 8km round trip hike? Secondly, Blue Lagoon, which I've read is a tourist trap (note we will be going to Myvatn Baths). Despite the tourist trap comments we have this penned in on our last day as we will be dropping our rental off in the morning and will have around 4 hours to kill before we catch our flight, so we thought about taking a shuttle bus from the airport to the Blue Lagoon to kill some time there. If you recommend against it, do you have any suggestions on what to do instead that's easily accessible and not too far from Keflavik airport?

Out of interest were there any sights you went to that you felt wasn't really worth the drive/effort?

Lastly, what time of the year did you end up going? sounds like you went around winter time? Did you manage to catch the Northern Lights at all?

P.S. Congratulations on tying the knot and posting one of the best and most useful Superfuture posts in recent times

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Bump. I will be heading there early October for two weeks, going to rent a 4x4 and do the whole ring road. Any tips/pointers/must sees/dos?

Appreciate that this thread is titled Reykjavik

My biggest tip for anyone considering to travel to Bali is to avoid Seminyak (Eastern Bali) and Kuta (Southern Bali) full of Aussie expats and European tourists. The Wife and I walked down a strip in Seminyak one evening to head to Mamasan, and it was just full of drunken Aussies everywhere. I know drunken Brits abroad are bad, but drunken Aussies are just as bad. While I don't have anything against Australians, it's not something I really want to experience when I go on holiday to unwind and relax. Also it completely ruined the dining experience at Mamasan.

Sanur (West) and Ubud (North) are far nicer areas. Quieter, more relaxing and less spoilt. Having said that Sanur is still a little touristy, but nowhere near as a cluster fuck as Seminyak and Kuta.

I highly recommend hiring a driver. I personally recommend http://www.balirentalcarwithdriver.com/. We hired Ketut Yudi, who took us to Ubud for the day. 

We did use Uber quite a few times when in Seminyak and Sanur. While it is extremely cheap, a lot of the drivers are part time, so there aren't many in certain areas of Bali such as Ubud (hence hiring a driver) and especially during the day time. 

The night markets were disappointing, but maybe I've been spoilt having been to the night markets in Taipei.

My top three places were:

- Monkey Forest

- White Water Rafting on the Ayung river. Book and go with http://www.raftingbali.net/bali-adventure-rafting/. Scenery was spectacular, and if you have a GoPro be sure to bring it with you

- Locavore Restaurant (http://www.locavore.co.id/) - one of the Top 50 Restaurants in Asia

Next time I'm there I'd like to go to the Volcano and do more island hopping.

Getting married in Bali in September and having the honeymoon there too. Will be moving about a bit, wedding will be in Nusa Dua, then we'll be going to Seminyak, and then finishing off in Sanur. Leaving the Northern part, Ubud, etc. for another trip.

Does anyone have any must sees and must dos in those areas? Not looking at nightlife or clubbing, more restaurants, activities, etc. The Honeymoon has been left for me to plan and at the moment I've only planned white water rafting 

I'm sorry, but I can tell you now for a fact it was all about immigration, and closing the borders to foreigners, i.e. anyone who isn't white and not born in England. It was about kicking out "Johnny foreigner" and keeping "English jobs for English people". The whole breaking from Brussels so we could govern ourselves was a smokescreen, or should we say a convenient lie to put in front of people.

Why do you think Farage released a huge Leave poster campaign two days before the referendum which had a photo of refugees and the words "Breaking point" if it wasn't about immigration? Why was immigration such a hot topic for the months leading up to it. Why did the Leave campaign keep banging on about how the NHS and other services are under strain due to the free movement of workers. Pointing out that terrorists could enter freely through our borders, and because of this we shouldn't be accepting refugees. 

Perhaps in the US you received the "filtered" version of the campaign's media coverage.

Also unfortunately, the majority of the British voting population that did push it through were uneducated. The Financial Times released trend graphs of those who voted leave and remain, the sad fact is those who had a degree or a higher qualification heavily leaned towards Remain, while those who didn't have a degree heavily leaned towards Leave.

Want further proof?

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024634/brexit-supporters-regret-vote

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3658563/Meet-Bregretters-Public-backed-Leave-vote-say-want-STAY-EU-one-admits-didn-t-think-vote-count.html

Like I said, at least the fishermen are happy.

I felt perfectly independent and free being in the EU, the EU nor Brussels governance never interfered with my everyday life nor my future. I didn't see the reason for change, nor did 48.1% of those who voted. In fact I liked being in the EU. I had freedom to move around and work in 27 other EU countries without a need for a visa, I was also entitled to free health cover across EU states should I fall ill abroad. In two years time, unless we have a competent leader to negotiate the exit, this will all disappear overnight. Not to mention our UK economy was starting to recover and the £ was gaining strength.

Within 24 hours, our Prime Minister (while not perfect, is certainly better than the potential shitsters that are lined up to replace him) has stepped down and the public won't get to vote who our next Prime Minister is, not until the General Election in 2020, so we might be stuck with the likes of Boris Johnson, or worse Michael Gove. The latter is very keen to privatise the NHS. We've lost £40bn in an hour alone on the stock market, the £ has lost it's value, 10% against the $USD, and the losses is shared similarly with other currencies. Certain pension schemes have taken an incredible hit, the BOE may raise interest rates, yay for savers, but sucks if you have a mortgage or renting from a "buy to let" property, along with income tax rises.

Our low paid agricultural/services EU workers (at least they contributed NI and paid taxes, unlike our own unemployed) will probably go back to where they came, prices will rise for basic products such as potatoes because our own people are too proud to work for just "the minimum wage". Leave voters bang on that our exports will get cheaper because of the low value of the £, and foreigners will jump to buy our stuff, but fail to realise that we import more than what we export. Fuel will rise by 3p per litre as of tomorrow, and probably continue to rise. Scotland want a second referendum so they can leave the UK and join the EU, NI are calling for a united Ireland. Oh and the leaders of the Leave campaign are already backtracking. Johnson says let's not be too hasty in exiting the EU, while Farage has admitted that the £350m a week that could be saved and spent on the NHS was a lie.

Oh and if we want to join the EU again, all 27 member states have to agree - like hell that's ever going to happen.

Rather than watching a Leave propaganda video, how about watch a more unbiased impartial levelled argument from an academic

The sad fact is, the majority who voted leave were the "working man", unfortunately for them they'll be the punished most. Particularly as people like Farage and Johnson don't even care about the working man, which is made very clear in their policies! 

Also, I'd rather have more red tape than less. The more judges who can judge laws the better. The EU has done so much for equality in the UK, and has in fact saved and protected us from a lot of the stupid laws the current UK Government has tried to push in.

For the record the majority of the young voters, over 60% voted to remain (70% of those aged 18-24 voted remain), because they weren't narrow minded bigots and saw a future in the EU. It was the older generation, from the baby boomer years, aged 50+ who fucked up the the whole thing. Fortunately for them they only have 20-30 years to live with their stupid decision, in contrast the young people will have to deal with the shit storm their predecessors created for decades more.

Putting the facts and figures aside, just look at the people who were representing each camps. The leaders of the Leave camp were renowned grade A xenophobic racist cunts. Who would want to aspire to leaders like that? Oh but wait, isn't Trump popular in the US?

I guess at least the fishermen are happy.

51.9% of the 71.8% of people who voted in the EU referendum.

Embarrassing. I'm actually ashamed to be British. Country is completely fucked. Britain is no longer "Great", nor United.

EDIT: Well only united in hate.

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