Christmas is sneaking in on us, Chinese fast-trains and much more

For anyone who does not want to listen to the podcast, we have a transcript of episode 4.
Anders
00:10
Recording in progress. Well, yeah, things are good. Temperatures are falling and it’s getting into the normal average temperature for the season. And it’s just with that comes the Christmas atmosphere here, you know, in this area.
Anders
00:28
Because the old school Christmas footage you typically see from, you know, all these… When Christmas is romanticized, it usually comes from central European history, you know, old castles in the snow and old landscape, alpine landscapes in the snow and all of these things. So once temperatures here drop, I tend to get into that specific mood and we’re actually going to decorate our house this coming weekend.
Mark
01:05
Very good. The glue vine comes out.
Anders
01:09
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. It’s sort of an Advent tradition.
Anders
01:15
And I know it’s not the first advent this coming weekend but we’ve sort of gotten into the habit of doing it the week before the first advent.
Mark
01:26
Is the first advent like, is that the first of December?
Anders
01:29
Yeah, it’s around the first of December. The fourth Advent is usually the last Sunday before Christmas. And sometimes Christmas falls on fourth Advent.
Anders
01:41
The 24th is in Europe, the 24th is the big day. We don’t really celebrate. Well, the English do celebrate the 25th. But to us, it’s the 24th in the evening.
Mark
01:56
I always found that strange, like, yeah, because in Australia We celebrated on the 25th as well. And like I’ve been to Europe a few times. Yeah.
Mark
02:06
So obviously, and I’ve celebrated Christmas in Poland a couple of times. Yeah. They have a big dinner on the 24th as well. And then, So yeah, so that was a little bit strange for Australians because obviously we follow heritage from the British, I guess.
Anders
02:22
Yeah, you do.
Mark
02:23
And colonized this and yeah, and Christmas Day is the 25th.
Anders
02:27
I can see advantages from both traditions actually because, you know, we’re used to the 24th. But when Anton was very little, it was actually, there was 1 Christmas we spent in London with Alex’s family And she’s been living there for like 25, 30 years. So she’s kind of with her family, obviously they celebrate on the 25th.
Anders
02:55
And that has advantages too, because the thing is with small kids, you know, We don’t open presents until in the evening on the 24th. So it’s a long day for kids. And if they’re just… Definitely.
Anders
03:09
25th, okay, we start right away in the morning with the presents. First thing. Yeah, that’s obviously they have a hard time fall asleep in the evening before and we’ll get up early. But you know, that excitement, it’s really a long day.
Anders
03:26
I can remember when I was a kid, you know, in Denmark, it was the same thing 24th in the evening and it was just what a long day.
Mark
03:35
I hear you. Okay, so in Australia, traditionally, we put the Christmas tree up on the 1st of December. Yeah.
Mark
03:44
What most people do here anyway. But yeah, but Christmas Day obviously is Christmas Day. But hey, like if you can celebrate on the 24th and the 25th, then we have a public holiday on the 26th as well in Australia for what we call Boxing Day, I think, which is another British tradition. And that went back to, I actually looked this up once, and it went back to the old days when they had staff, like in their manor houses and things like that.
Mark
04:13
And what they would do
Anders
04:14
is They
Mark
04:17
would box up all the leftover Christmas food and give it to the staff in a box. So it was Boxing Day and that’s celebrated in England. I don’t know if England have a public holiday for it.
Mark
04:29
I guess
Anders
04:29
they might. I think they do. In Australia
Mark
04:32
it’s probably most well known in Australia because there’s a famous cricket match that starts every Boxing Day in Melbourne called the Boxing Day Cricket Test, which is probably the most attended cricket match in the world. They generally have 100, 000 people there on boxing turn out and they watch the cricket. This year Australia is playing India but it could be England or it could be the West Indies some years.
Mark
04:58
West Indies is a gun off target here, it’s not even actually a country, It’s made up of about 4 or 5 countries in the Caribbean and it is called the West Indies. So I don’t know how that happened.
Anders
05:09
But it’s usually a Commonwealth nations isn’t it?
Mark
05:12
I think it’s commerce sport most definitely. So yeah India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, England, New Zealand, that sort of troop. Even though they did play the Cricket World Cup in the United States this year and the United States have now got a cricket league.
Mark
05:33
So, Cricket’s world governing body, I’m sure would be happy about that because there’s a big untapped audience there, I guess for them.
Anders
05:40
Yeah, yeah. Well, and the US people, they’re used to these slow games. You know, American football is also very slow to me.
Mark
05:49
Oh and baseball. But then again being Australian too like I can’t dig the fact that you know soccer or football you know you can have a nil or draw There needs to be a winner in every game. Yeah.
Mark
06:03
If you’re going to play for 90 minutes, then you’re going to pay all that money to go and see it. Someone needs to win. Like there needs to be a penalty shootout at the end or something like that, but there needs to be a winner.
Anders
06:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, let’s dive in. Hello to the listeners.
Anders
06:21
As usual, Mark and I just start chatting right away. But you are listening to Southern summers and northern winters. And this is our fourth episode. Time flies, Mark.
Mark
06:32
Most time flies. Yeah, I look forward to our time every Monday night having a chat.
Anders
06:37
Yeah, it’s becoming a very cozy and cherished habit here to start the week off. I really enjoy these 2.
Anders
06:49
And well, we’re hoping to attract more and more listeners. Mark, I saw, you know, statistics are starting to slowly sort of come in. That’s good then. We are having listeners on…
Anders
07:07
As long as
Mark
07:07
you tell me someone’s listening, that’s the main thing?
Anders
07:10
It is. And there are people listening in. Still not many, but come on, this is the early days.
Anders
07:18
But you have-
Mark
07:21
It’s just a byproduct, isn’t
Anders
07:24
it? Yeah. But you’re really, and to the listeners, hats off to Mark for doing all this because He’s really doing a lot in terms of social media. And I saw you’ve opened a YouTube channel for us this week.
Mark
07:39
I have. There’s about 7 or 8 videos up there as of today. I went a bit crazy and uploaded as much as YouTube would let me until they said, now you need to stop for the next 24 hours.
Mark
07:51
Yeah, before I can upload anymore. But yeah, so just enough tidbits. Hopefully the people might say it and then go, Hey, I might click a link and come and listen to the podcast.
Anders
08:04
Yeah, it’s small appetizers and then they’re well made. So it’s got, we’re coming with all these golden sentences, Mark. I hadn’t really noticed.
Anders
08:16
We just chatted away and you seem to find the little seeds there here and there you know so it’s nice.
Mark
08:24
Hopefully I’m hitting the sweet spot for our conversations but I must admit the computer software does help me a little bit there. I’ve got a program, like I
Anders
08:35
said, that I can run
Mark
08:36
a podcast through, and it picks out some nice little juicy bits that make it easier to produce that way. And hopefully that engages the audience if it helps us pick out some nice topics of conversation that we were talking about that, yeah, that might include the audience a little bit more.
Anders
08:54
Yeah, yeah. The sound is a little bit on and off with you, Mark. I don’t want to jinx it, but it could also be the connection today.
Anders
09:04
I don’t know. I can hear you all the time, but it’s just sometimes it’s very, very, very low. And then it’s
Mark
09:18
Microphone around the right way. I think it is.
Anders
09:21
I think it is, yeah.
Mark
09:23
I’ll just sit a little bit closer then.
Anders
09:25
Yeah, that’s that’s the can you hear me loud and clear?
Mark
09:28
I can not as loud as the other week, so so I don’t know.
Anders
09:31
Maybe just that’s just there you go. OK, A little bit. I’ll also move closer to the microphone.
Anders
09:38
We are, we are still learning as we go. This is in Europe, you say you pave the road as you drive. So this is what we do. We do not have like a fancy media house or a whole staff of technicians to work with us.
Anders
10:00
We just do this ourselves. So yeah, bear with us. Bear with us. Marc, something you posted this week on your Wild Family Travel channel was something about Chinese fast trains.
Anders
10:18
And I found that extremely interesting. Was that the last time when you visited Villa, you went riding with 1 of these trains?
Mark
10:29
Yes, we definitely did.
Anders
10:32
Obviously you can watch the video on Mark and the family’s channel, but tell me and the audience, what was it like? I mean and how fast was it and all of these things, impressions?
Mark
10:45
I think it went a top speed of around 330 kilometres at 1 stage, but basically it sits at about – looked like to be sitting around 305, 310 kilometres most of the journey. We covered about 650 kilometres in a little over – just around 3 hours. There were a couple of stops along the way and it slows down a bit when it goes into towns but basically it chugs along really, really well the Chinese rail system.
Mark
11:15
1 of the things I really did like about it is it’s really quiet like you wouldn’t even know you’re moving Unlike when you get in a plane, and you know there’s that hum when you’re in a plane, but in Chinese rails fast trains is No humming at all you wouldn’t even know that you’re actually moving. The rails are as smooth as anything, hardly any bumps at all. So I quite actually like their high-speed rail.
Anders
11:41
They’re not like these magnetic rails. That’s not what it is.
Mark
11:47
No, there is a Maglev in China, but it’s in Shanghai. It’s only got a short section at the moment, but the Maglev goes, I think, 450 kilometres an hour.
Anders
11:58
That’s crazy.
Mark
11:59
That would be interesting to ride on, for sure. But China’s by far the world leader in high-speed trains. They’ve got, I think, 80% of the world’s high-speed network is located in China, because it’s a vast country in the end, and they need an affordable way for their population to get around.
Mark
12:18
I wouldn’t say it’s overly affordable. I would say middle class upwards could probably afford it. But you can also have the choice of going on a normal slow train. Not everyone has to go on the high-speed rail.
Mark
12:30
There’s normal rail as well. So you can choose to do the extra long trip on the rickety and rackety normal train system, or you can jump on the high-speed rail. So for us, we went from Qingdao, China into Beijing. And it was around $70 Australian a ticket so I’d say that’s probably around 35 euros or something like that, 30, might be 40 euros, Something around there anyway, just on a rough conversion, so it wasn’t too bad But the issue is that it’s cheaper than flying because in China they don’t actually have any What I would say established budget airlines such as you know easy jet or if you’re from Australia jetstar or something like that So they’re all the flights.
Mark
13:18
I checked were standard There’s about 10 airlines and the price varied by $5. And the price to fly was closer to $200 than it was to the $700 to
Anders
13:29
catch. Well, anyway, you know-
Mark
13:30
Because there was 4 of us.
Anders
13:31
Yeah. But in these sustainable times, it’s riding by train is probably better. And in terms of time, I mean, with check-in and security and everything, you’re probably there just as fast anyway with train by train
Mark
13:53
I guess. The amazing thing about about China’s train stations is they’re about the size of a football stadium or bigger any high-speed rail station is huge And it’s actually much like an airport. You go in, you’ve got to put your bags through a scanner.
Anders
14:10
So there’s security anyway.
Mark
14:12
Yeah, there’s security anyway. And then you go, generally you go up to a big mezzanine area, a big flat area, and what happens is, much like an airport, airport, airport, as well, you actually have boarding gates. So they have like a number of boarding gates.
Mark
14:31
This 1 we’re in had about 28 boarding gates. So what happens is you look at the board, it gives you a gate, you go line up and they check your ticket and then you go down to the platform from there. So it does it nice and orderly so there’s not too many people all at the 1 time. I’m standing on a platform, so when your train’s coming 20 minutes beforehand, you go to your gate, they check your tickets again, and you go down the escalator to your platform.
Read the transcript of Episode 1
Mark
14:58
And then you line up at your carriage number, which is on your ticket. They’ll have carriage numbers on the platform and you stand there where your number is and you wait for the train to arrive and on you go. All takes under 5 minutes once the train arrives. People are on and the train is out of there.
Mark
15:14
So really, really high functioning system the way they do it I guess when you got millions of people you’ve really got to be or when you got a billion people a lot of them
Anders
15:24
Yeah, you’ve got to be organized
Mark
15:25
gonna be yeah, the system’s gonna work and it’s gonna work really really well
Anders
15:30
Yeah,
Mark
15:30
and it seemingly and it seemingly does in China A lot of things work really well in China. Yeah. Like that.
Mark
15:36
So yeah, so I quite enjoyed the rail. I’ve done a bit of high-speed rail in China when we were there previously. In 2019 we used high-speed rail as well in China and yeah, very, very, very efficient.
Anders
15:49
I have, I’m looking forward to try this eventually. I mean, because in Europe, well, we have what they call high speed trains, but it’s not like, you know, it’s not like that. I think in France, they are actually pretty far in terms of high speed and they go to about 300 kilometers an hour on some stretches.
Anders
16:17
And here in Germany, I think the max is 250. I’ve been on
Mark
16:23
the Eurostar. When went on the euro star. I’m pretty sure which was obviously Paris to London I think it got up.
Mark
16:31
Yeah, I think that got that line gets up to about 300k. Yeah, that was definitely fast, but there’s a lot of TGV the TGV that’s what’s going on. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark
16:40
Yeah, I think yeah, apparently it gets up to the 3 350 as well Yeah, they got some the TGV trains hold some of the world’s records for some of the fastest trains ever. If you look on YouTube, I think they did a speed test at about 450 kilometres an hour 1 day heading down to Avignon in the bottom of France from Paris there. So yeah, I quite like, watch a fair lot of transport video. So yeah, It’s quite interesting and people seem to resonate with them like I make a lot of different Content for our YouTube channels, but people love videos about airports planes trains train station
Anders
17:20
Yeah, we probably recommend a couple because I’m watching these as well. There’s this there’s 1 guy on on on YouTube. There’s I’m following several actually, some that are always checking into 5 star hotels around the world.
Anders
17:38
Some are checking into cruise ships and luxury airline tickets. They try Qantas First Class or Qatar Airways or whatever. And they try the luxury, the best tickets they can possibly get on the plane and stuff like that. And it’s always crazy expensive.
Anders
18:09
And I always sit back and say, oh, that’s not worth the money. But well, to some it is obviously. And I don’t know how they can afford to make these videos. Well, obviously they have many subscribers, but still, I don’t think you make that much money on YouTube.
Anders
18:28
But anyways.
Mark
18:31
Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you in a few months.
Anders
18:34
Sometime, yeah.
Mark
18:35
I’ve got 1 YouTube channel that’s about to hit monetization stage in the next month, so hopefully there’ll be some money starting to come in from YouTube. Oh yeah. But I’ve got no idea, I’ve got no idea how much they make.
Mark
18:48
I can only assume that you make money through how much, how percentage of ads that are watched. Because if you watch YouTube and you watch a long video, the first ad is generally 5 seconds. And then as you watch further, the next 1 might be 30 seconds and then another 1 Could anywhere be up to a minute So I assume the further you get into the videos and the more ads that are played the more money you make
Anders
19:14
Yeah, the more and the more tedious it gets for the for the viewer.
Mark
19:18
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Anders
19:20
Yeah. I
Mark
19:21
say it’ll be interesting to see.
Anders
19:24
I have, well we have for the past 2 years because that was exactly what happened here in the household. I was getting so annoyed with the ads. So for the past 2 years, we’ve had a YouTube premium family package.
Anders
19:42
So whatever profile is watching here, we don’t see the ads. They do have the in video, like channel sponsors. So if they’re talking about something, you know, there are many, usually, Usually the same type of video have the same type of sponsors for some reason. Yeah, so we see those and if possible, I just scroll through them because I mean, it’s just In Europe, we have, you know, from way back when Flow TV was still the only thing we had, we did have commercials, but they were in blocks.
Anders
20:29
Usually Before a movie would start or before the news would start they would never interfere with a program a running program It’s just not a a thing. We’re used to here Yeah, I
Mark
20:45
noticed that I’m as on prime is doing that in Australia now I don’t know
Anders
20:51
yeah They are here as well
Mark
20:52
about there at the start of the show you get a 30 second ad block these days or maybe a minute Where that’s only something they’ve introduced Sometime this year. I don’t watch much on prime because sometimes it’s fairly average Yeah, but I’ll use it obviously for the free postage and the other benefits you get you get with Amazon So but but which is which is good. I think Netflix is still ad free at this stage anyway
Anders
21:17
Yeah, depending on on which subscription tier you’re on. Yeah, I’ve seen that on Amazon. We’re paying for Amazon Prime and the product is getting worse and worse.
Anders
21:32
Because for the past 20, 30 years, since not only the state financed channels were the only, when that was the only thing, we didn’t really see these commercials. The commercial TV stations, obviously, they have advertising blocks and they will… But we never watch these at home here because we all just hate being interrupted in watching whatever we’re watching. It’s just Annoying.
Anders
22:02
So we avoid these. And I remember back when you could videotape things, or when you would videotape things, I would do that. I wouldn’t see it live. I would tape it so that I could scroll past the commercials because it’s just annoying.
Anders
22:24
It ruins the flow of a good movie, a good story.
Mark
22:27
I hear that.
Anders
22:29
Well, anyway, That was a bit of a side step there. But 35 euros to go from 1 place in China to 350 kilometers away. I think that’s…
Mark
22:43
650 kilometers. 650 kilometers. Yeah, it took 3 hours.
Anders
22:48
Wow, yeah. You know what? That’s actually 35 euros.
Anders
22:51
That actually, for Europeans, it’s a good deal. Yeah. It is a good deal.
Mark
22:58
Even Australia, it’s a pretty good deal as well, I think. But yeah, so much Chinese would be able to afford that. Obviously there’s a lower class in every society that that’s probably too much for some people.
Mark
23:10
But hey, there’s always the option of a bus or the slow train. What would
Anders
23:16
the slow train take? Just out of curiosity.
Mark
23:20
It was around 12 hours. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark
23:24
It had a lot of stops. It was probably stopping every town along the line. Whereas this train that we went on, I think it stopped maybe 3 times in 650 kilometres. So because they have a dedicated high-speed line, it would only stop at major cities along the way, and there was only a couple in between Qingdao and Beijing.
Mark
23:48
Had to stop in Jinan, which was the capital of Shandong province, which is where Qingdao is. And then I think it stopped in 1 other major city, Dishai, of Beijing. So it was quite good, very good and yeah very well I’ll tell you a funny thing about it okay so Toronto Rail so what you can do there’s an app okay and with this app you can order if you order quick enough if you know you’re coming up to a station you can get on this app and you can order KFC or McDonald’s and they will bring it to the platform for you and then a stewardess from the train will go out and pick it up off the Uber driver and bring it back onto the train for you.
Anders
24:25
Wow. Cool.
Mark
24:29
Yes, that is very cool. Like, well, because I’ll sit down and go, what are these people doing? Like, they’re all getting, we’re getting KFC delivered.
Mark
24:36
Like, this is all these drivers, all these bags of KFC sitting on this station platform Yeah, and the stewardesses from the Train were going out to collect them and bringing around to people in their seats So yeah, they were able to order it through the Chinese rail app of KFC or McDonald’s or anyone that’s, you know, a part of this app. And if you ordered it by a certain time, it’d be at the station waiting for you to eat, Which I thought was absolutely crazy. Yeah.
Anders
25:07
Speaking of eating whilst travelling, we used to bring our own food on board a train or you can’t do it on a flight, but on a train. And also when we go by car, we would prepare like a bag of food and drinks and all. We kind of stopped that because we realized that the minute we sat in the car or the train, you know, it became sort of a bad habit to just start eating right away.
Anders
25:44
And we found ourselves eating all the way. We had chips and biscuits and sandwiches. And then, for instance, going by car from Munich to my mom in Denmark, it’s like a 13-14 hour drive and after like 2 hours we were, we’d eaten everything and we were just like 4 and it was just a bad habit. So we stopped that.
Anders
26:17
How do you sort of deal with that?
Mark
26:26
We had some food that we took on the train only because we’d bought some food in China that we were taking with us anyway, so that was okay. But generally on a plane we don’t take much. I might take a bag of lollies or something like that, eat them, and that’s about it.
Mark
26:40
And then just wait for the weight to be fed because you’re right, if you sit there and you’re bored, you tend to eat if you’re bored yeah you know and you don’t you don’t you don’t eat because you’re not actually burning off any calories what you know it was it was nothing
Anders
26:55
yeah
Mark
26:56
are you
Anders
26:56
it was it was it literally we would we would start the car here in our street and by the end of the street by the intersection, it was, well, I could eat a sandwich now. Literally 1 minute after we left home, it was just, oh, come on.
Mark
27:13
Yeah, I hear. I mean, there’s enough services along the road to stop
Anders
27:19
at.
Mark
27:19
Oh, yeah. You know, they’re expensive, aren’t they? So yeah, I guess if you can control yourself, it’s cheaper to take some food from home.
Mark
27:28
Yeah, it’s definitely. It is. And especially if you’ve got to eat at the airport so like we got an early flight Well, not early early, but it’ll be early enough for us next month when we fly to fly to China I think our flights at 1030. So we’ll probably be at the airport at 730 because That’s just something I do.
Mark
27:46
I’ve got to be there 3 hours early. That’s why I like it when I go on international flights.
Anders
27:49
That’s what you call well-prepared. That’s…
Mark
27:53
Yeah, so I will take some yoghurt and stuff like that because we’re staying in Melbourne in a hotel the night before and I’ll eat that.
Mark
28:01
We’ll have some breakfast at the hotel and then go to the airport because if I know if I go to the airport I have to buy us all breakfast it’ll cost you know 60 or 70 Australian dollars Yeah, you know a cup of coffee and a sandwich or something like that,
Anders
28:13
and it’s not even good food. It’s just you know Yeah, what? Factory food
Mark
28:20
Yeah, most definitely most definitely So speaking of airlines, I got a message from our airline today and I dread dread it when I say this, see this email pop up and it says there has been a change of schedule.
Anders
28:35
Oh yeah, oh 1 of those.
Mark
28:41
Because this happened to us in September when we went to China. We got a change of schedule and actually changed the day, the whole day.
Anders
28:47
It’s not only airlines who do that, even the Deutsche Bahn, they do this all the time as well. So when you get these changes in your booking mails, it’s just… Oh, so I’ve seen it today.
Anders
29:00
What did they say, Mark?
Mark
29:03
Actually, they were changing our scheduled landing time and I was going to be 30 minutes earlier. So that is very good. I must be going to fly the plane a little bit faster.
Mark
29:13
Might be a tailwind on that day. I really don’t know. But they could have made it, you know, 2 hours quicker. That would have been nicer.
Mark
29:20
Instead of being 11 hours, 9 hours would have been nicer, but hey. Any quicker is much better. So I find that a little bit comical. I mean, there’s obviously a law that they have to send it out and you have to accept it but you know I’m pretty sure anyone who’s seen their flight was going to take off at the same time and land earlier than what they forecast would be more than happy to accept the change.
Anders
29:44
Yeah, yeah. As you say it’s probably some law saying that you need to do this. 1
Mark
29:53
good thing though, I did notice about this flight we’re going on, we’re flying with an airline called Beijing Capital Airlines. I’ve never really heard much about them before but they’re 1 of the Pan or so airlines that fly to Australia and they fly An airbus a 330 which is a 2-4-2 configuration Which I really like if I start off the news to find an airline anymore that has the 2 seats on the side They’re normally 3333 and 3 everywhere these days. Yeah so I’ll be looking forward to trying to get a window seat in 1 of them so.
Anders
30:25
what are you you’re you’re a window seat? I’m more of an aisle I’m
Mark
30:29
not I’m an aisle but Rebecca’s a window so it works well for us. My wife loves the window because she she’ll sleep even if it’s during the day she puts her head against the window and goes to sleep but I’m a little bit fidgety and I like to stretch my legs out and I like
Anders
30:44
to get
Mark
30:44
up and things like that if I’m tucked in if I’m tucked in then I’m annoying someone if I have to get up all the times. Definitely aisle for me. I couldn’t even count on, I could count on a 1 handy amount of time.
Mark
30:59
I’m sorry, I can set on a window and you know, I’ve probably flown 100 plus times internationally, but yeah, my wife sits on the window definitely. There’s no option there, that’s what she wants. And as we all know, happy wife is a happy
Anders
31:11
life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, goes without saying.
Mark
31:16
It does.
Anders
31:19
Yeah.
Mark
31:19
That’s definitely.
Anders
31:20
Yeah. We, we still have a lot, to talk about, you know, we still have many topics that we, that we want to dive into. But do you think 1 of them is an overall topic is what keeps people from traveling. Do you think that that…
Anders
31:44
Well, I’m trying to find a segue into this here, because 1 of the things, these long haul flights where you are not, well, if you want to choose your seating, then they will charge you extra money for that. So you just want to go with the flow and sit wherever you’re seated. You might very well end with something in the middle where you can’t get up and stretch your legs or you can’t look out the window or stuff like that. Do you think, because This is something that sort of takes my joy of traveling a little bit away when the airlines are kind of treating their passengers like cattle, you know, in mass transportation terms.
Anders
32:34
I think it’s not really comfortable, you know, flying anymore. It’s, and I think you thought already 5 years ago, it couldn’t be worse, but still it gets worse. I mean, it’s just they want to shovel more and more people into these planes, obviously to make more money. That’s the reason.
Anders
32:59
But do you think that keeps people in general away from traveling? Or is this just you and I as experienced travelers we’re just saying let’s try
Mark
33:09
I would say it’s possible because if they’ve had a bad experience or they know someone who’s had a bad experience well then that can certainly flow over to their attitude about flying. But like 10 years ago, there was no such thing as booking a seat. Like you just rolled up to the airport and you got allocated a seat.
Mark
33:26
So you’d get there, you’d try and get there early so you could get a good seat if that’s what you, if that was a real concern to you And and like I said if you’re flying with kids most of the time they would put you With them, but now obviously you can’t guarantee that now because they want you to pay for the seats but
Anders
33:43
yeah,
Mark
33:44
planes have definitely got smaller and and definitely more cramped like I said I have a real preference for 2 two-oil 2 or 2 compared to the one-oil yeah or even or even 333 it’s not as good but but I just don’t like the ones that have only got single aisle down the middle like they’re really really cramped especially if you’re flying long haul like you really want a wide body compared to a narrow body plane, I think, because the narrow body with just the 1 aisle, because you’ve got to fight, so it’s stewardesses and drink carts and you’ve got to fight past them and you know, and the aisle’s not that wide as it is. And I’m probably on the bigger side. So for me, it’s even harder again.
Mark
34:26
So if you’ve got the 2 aisles, it tends to make it a little bit easier. And that provides a little bit more extra room up at the back of the plane near the toilets too So you can sort of stretch and stand there for a little bit and you know do some stretches and some toe stretches And you know swing your arms around a little bit or just to you know Just to loosen up after you’ve been sitting down for a long time. So, but yeah, I think, look, if you’re, every time I get on, every time I book a flight, I go, I hate flying, I don’t want to go on another plane, but you know, You get on it and you go, yeah, okay, that sucked. And you get off the other side and then you get off and you go, it wasn’t really that bad.
Mark
35:07
Was it like, you know, I’m sure I’ll do it again. And I certainly do obviously continue to because, you know, in Australia, there’s no option. We’ve just got to fly everywhere if we want to fly out of the country. So yeah, that’s the only ones that some airlines are better than others as we, as we all know, but most of us are, I driven by price and I’m no different than that.
Mark
35:28
So, so when you get what you pay for sometimes. If you, I’m sure if you booked good quality airlines like Qatar and Singapore and things like that all the time, you’d probably have a far better experience, but I’d prefer to spend my money on the ground.
Anders
35:44
Yeah. In the air. Yeah. Yeah, I find that it’s, I’ve never had fear of flights ever.
Anders
35:52
I was never nervous about going up in the air. Some people have that and that’s a legit concern. I find what annoys me the most is really all the stress around it. It’s really not and the pricing, the booking, the rigid systems that they have in the airports and the airlines.
Anders
36:16
It’s not actually the flying itself because that doesn’t bother me at all.
Mark
36:23
No, for a lot of people travel is outside of your comfort zone because there’s a lot to be said for knowing what you’re doing every day and having a set routine where you get up at 07:00 and have your coffee and have your toast and then at 09:00 you go to work and then you come home at 05:00 and you have dinner and you watch TV and you go to bed and everyone’s nice and happy and comfortable with that routine because that’s what they know. So travel can be a scary prospect for people and that’s another reason why people maybe don’t travel because you know you don’t know what it’s like, where you’re going And that’s a substantial fear for some people because I know a lot of people from where I live who’ve never been overseas and have no desire to go overseas. They’re like, I’m happy here because I, you know, what happens if I, my mum used to always say, why would you go over there?
Read the transcript of Episode 2
Mark
37:18
It’s so dangerous. You know something could happen to you And I’d say something can happen to me here in Australia or in Melbourne or anywhere
Anders
37:24
absolutely you got all these poisonous animals
Mark
37:28
Or Asia like you know everywhere is just as dangerous as everywhere else. And that’s just, that’s the sort of maybe ignorance or just the fact that you as a general feel safer in your own country. The thought is that you’re safer in your own country than you are in another country.
Mark
37:47
And, you know, that’s not really true. And, but these days, like, you know, you can do things to mitigate that. Like you can get on Google street view and you can have a look where your hotel is and-
Anders
37:58
Yeah, familiarize yourself. It’s actually a good, it’s actually a good advice. You know, if, Because I can relate to what you’re saying.
Anders
38:06
There are people who are not comfortable with uncertainty. And if it helps you to go into, like you say, Mark, Google Street View and see the front of your hotel or maybe even the nearby beach or park or whatever. So you can, you know, just get comfortable with that and familiarize yourself with it. That’s a good, That’s a good advice actually.
Anders
38:32
That’s
Mark
38:32
it. Yeah. There’s a lot to be said for being, just to have some sort of familiarity about where you’re going even if you’ve never been there. Like, you know, if you’ve had a look at the street you’re staying on, you know, even on your taxi on your way up to your hotel, you can go, OK, I remember seeing that on street.
Mark
38:49
Yeah. You know, so this must be just around the corner and that must be just over here. And so, yeah, this neighborhood looks as good as what I thought it would be on on Google Maps. Yeah.
Mark
39:01
YouTube’s another good 1. Sometimes if you’re staying at a half decent hotel, someone will someone will definitely have a review on that
Anders
39:07
hotel and
Mark
39:08
things like that. So that’s just a by-product of technology these days, I guess. When I first started traveling probably 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, there wouldn’t certainly not have been any of that.
Mark
39:21
I remember the very first time I used Google Street View was when we went on a holiday in 2013, and we went to Helsinki. I looked it all up, I knew where the street was, I knew where the supermarket was around it, I knew where there was a coffee shop, I knew where the park was because we had kids, you know, all that sort of thing. So when we arrived it was really good and it was the first overseas trip we’d taken with our kids that were of age where you know they needed not needed but they were you know they were walking age and able to get around a bit when they’re in a pram it was probably a bit easier we could just wander around but so yeah so it was really it was really comforting for me to to know where everything was in relationship to where we were staying.
Anders
40:05
It’s a good thing when traveling with kids because we were away for a long time with our then three-year-old son and Alex would always research whether it was a park or a playground or stuff like that. So we knew where we could go because 1 thing about traveling as a family, sometimes you need to make room for just hanging around and let the kids play and be kids, you know. So we would plan that.
Anders
40:45
And Google is your friend in that regard.
Mark
40:49
Definitely. But there’s nothing worse than over-planning, I guess, when you’ve got kids, because that can only lead to disappointment. I think like disappointment, there’s no planning full days when you’ve got kids and saying, okay, I wanna go and do this in the morning, I wanna go and do that in the afternoon. And if you’ve got that sort of plan going on for say a week or more, you’re certainly not gonna be able to do all that.
Mark
41:13
I would think not in a happy frame of mind anyway. So generally we used to display in something in the morning and that would be concrete and we would go and do that and then depending on how the kids were going in the afternoon we’d either just go to a park or you know go back to the apartment or whatever but if they were feeling fine well then we would certainly go and do something in the afternoon. So you really need that level of flexibility.
Anders
41:38
Absolutely. When
Mark
41:38
you’re travelling with kids. So yeah, so you don’t over plan or you’re gonna get disappointed and they’re gonna get angry.
Anders
41:45
Exactly.
Mark
41:45
So We had 1 thing planned today.
Anders
41:49
We did it similar to that, what you’re saying. I specifically remember a week we had in Bangkok and the heat was exhausting and Anton was really struggling 1 day with the heat. So we did something in the morning and then we went back to the hotel, air conditioned and with a pool.
Anders
42:17
And then in the afternoon, we actually went to a shopping mall nearby, which was also air-conditioned, but they had an indoor playground. We hadn’t planned for that, but it was just like, let’s do something where he can feel comfortable. He was really struggling with the heat that day. And so we just, you know, we had that flexibility and it’s also for the parents.
Anders
42:45
It’s not really, you’re not comfortable when your kid is not comfortable. It’s just, you know, you just want to make it easy for everybody. So yeah, flexibility is really a key.
Mark
43:03
Heat makes things really difficult no matter where you are, especially in Asia, like especially in Thailand or Vietnam or places like that, because Asia’s well renowned for its, not just its heat, but its humidity. Yeah. As well, so You’re sweating all the time.
Anders
43:20
Yeah, you are.
Mark
43:20
As well, which makes it worse. So. Yeah.
Mark
43:25
So like air conditioning at a hotel is a non-negotiable for me. No matter where I’m going or what season it is actually, It’s the first thing I look at is they’re an air conditioner in the hotel because I guess not so much in winter, but it can still get hot in rooms where they have heating. I prefer to get a sleep in a cool room than a hot room, so I tend to sleep better. So air conditioning is pretty much my 1 non-negotiable when I bought a hotel.
Anders
43:54
1 of the things in modern architecture is if you go to Scandinavia, modern architecture dictates large windows. So all the hotel rooms have these huge windows with panoramic views and that’s all good. The problem with that is when the sun is shining all day long, it heats up that room.
Anders
44:21
And in Scandinavia, they don’t have shutters or something to isolate for the sun. So Yeah, even in Scandinavia where people think, yeah, well, it’s not really a hot region. Yeah, well, the hotel rooms can certainly get hot because they capture the sun in all these rooms.
Mark
44:40
And the problem is with a lot of hotel rooms, they have these big windows, but the windows don’t open. Like There’s no option to open a window. It’s yeah, it’s so it’s so it’s not really a window It’s just a wall of glass really because that’s
Anders
44:52
what it
Mark
44:52
is window window in retrospect opens doesn’t it to allow you to? You know to cool the place so yeah
Anders
45:00
There might be like a small narrow something you can open. Yeah. Yeah.
Anders
45:08
I don’t know
Mark
45:08
why that is. I don’t know why that’s an insurance thing or whether people have thrown themselves out of windows.
Anders
45:13
Yeah, they want to make sure people don’t jump. You know, in Russia, people fall out of the high buildings all the time, you know, particularly if they don’t agree with Putin, then they just, you know, there’s a tendency to drop out of tall buildings. But yeah, no, we don’t want that.
Mark
45:28
Someone drop them out of a tall building. Maybe someone drops them out of a tall building.
Anders
45:32
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Anyways, I found it funny that your mom said, you know, why do you want to go overseas?
Anders
45:46
It’s dangerous. We have a saying here in Europe that going to the moon has about the same level of danger as going to Australia because everything on the moon will try to kill you. In Australia it’s pretty much the same with all the poisonous animals but you have a different approach to that in Australia because you’re from even toddlers they learn you know shake your shoe before you step into it and don’t walk into the tall grass and all these things. So it’s just funny these cultural differences we have in terms of how we see things, right?
Mark
46:28
It is like from all the, you know, it’s no wonder because I’ve watched all these shows like with Australia’s Deadliest Animals that they show overseas. And I reckon I’ve maybe seen a dozen snakes in my life. I’ve probably seen 2 up close.
Mark
46:46
And they were when I was a kid and we had a house where I lived with my parents and it was on the edge of town at that stage so there was grass paddocks around it.
Anders
46:54
But my
Mark
46:54
dad would just walk out the back with a shovel and chop the thing in half, you know, just straight over and chop its head off with the shovel. But other than that, you very rarely see snakes. I’ve seen a few that slither across the road, but none is like they show on TV where they’re sitting in your toilet and out on your back veranda and things like that like so yeah that sort of play it up up
Anders
47:21
yeah yeah so what what do you have in in in Victoria you have redbacks right that’s
Mark
47:28
spiders
Anders
47:29
yeah spiders redbacks
Mark
47:30
snakes yeah redback spiders and red belly black snakes they’re another snake That’s I think Australia has like 19 out of the top 20 poisonous snakes in the world So my I was reading I was reading the other day like tiger snakes things like that But but like I said, you don’t you don’t really see him and it’s not They’re not gonna attack you unless you’re doing something to them. So, you know, so yeah, it’s not as if a snake just wants to come and bite you. You know, like,
Anders
47:57
but if you do, God, you do wear gloves, don’t you? I mean, you because of the spiders, you don’t want to use that new nonsense.
Mark
48:13
No, no, no. I don’t know. I want a garden often, but Rebecca gardens, but she doesn’t.
Mark
48:18
I don’t know many people that got lucky. I’ll tell you what, if I was probably, if I had a pile of wood I’d probably wear some gloves only be to prank my hands from split his but they could be probably not snakes But they could be spiders living in in there, But like we have spiders in the house fairly regularly. I generally don’t kill them. I get them on the end of a broom and let them go because we’ve got a really famous 1 called a huntsman.
Mark
48:44
And He’s a fairly big spider, but he doesn’t bite you. He’s just in your house to catch bugs and flies and things like that. So I always put him on the end of a broom and I take him outside and let him go because he’s not hurting anyone. So once again, he’s not gonna just jump off the roof and and jump on you and bite you like, you know Like he’s possibly made out in places So and even the redback like you won’t really find 1 of them inside They’re likely to live about the backyard like I said in the wood pile Yeah, and there’s some under a bit of tin if you’ve got some you know bits and pieces hanging around your backyard they might be under a pot you know things like that but they’re not they’re not living in your bedroom or anything like that no they all live outside yeah
Anders
49:27
no the huntsman is is yeah It looks uncomfortable to me because I’m not used to that size of spider here in Europe. We don’t have that. But yeah, I know it’s not dangerous and it’s very common in any household.
Anders
49:42
It’s just, they can get up to like a toilet size. I’ve seen that it can get really big.
Mark
49:48
I’ve never seen 1 that big, but I have seen pictures of them I don’t know whether that’s real or not or whether someone’s Someone’s using a bit of Photoshop magic to blow to blow them up like you know you might Good shape you know like maybe I’ve seen once in a probably as round as say a pie, like a small meat pie, like we have in Australia, maybe a muffin, muffin size, but that would be, that wouldn’t be his body, that would be his legs stretched out like he’s yeah Yeah,
Anders
50:19
yeah,
Mark
50:20
so so yeah, I’ve never seen 1 I would think any bigger than what would be yeah the size of like a you know Breakfast muffin or an English muffin or McDonald’s muffin, you know that you’d get on a egg and bacon McMuffin or yeah sausage muffin or something like that. So that could possibly be up to that size, but that would be, yeah, legs, legs stretched out. That
Anders
50:38
wouldn’t be
Mark
50:39
body. So.
Anders
50:40
And if
Mark
50:41
you go
Anders
50:42
to if you go to Sydney, you can have the Sydney Funnel Web. They also found a web. Yeah, that’s quite dangerous, actually.
Anders
50:50
It’s yeah. Yeah. So again, if you dive into all these YouTube videos, you just going to get, you’re just going to get yourself some anxiety, anxiety there because they were, they would, I don’t know, somehow it had crawled into the house and hidden under the TV. And it was just, you know, they had to get a professional to come and get it out.
Anders
51:14
And yeah, but you know, Maybe it was even staged for entertainment. I don’t know
Mark
51:21
They could but yeah, the final web obviously is really poisonous. He’s not in my part of the world I think I know whether it’s too cold in Victoria for him.
Anders
51:29
Yeah
Mark
51:29
or not, but they’re yeah, but they mainly They mainly over there, but they’re saying a telly show not long ago They said that there was a population of redback spiders in Japan that had stowed away in a container, and they were finding them throughout Tokyo. So I don’t know how many there was or whether that’s happened. It’s still happening, but yeah, they were finding some redback spiders in Tokyo.
Mark
51:54
And I reckon they come from a shipping container where some had stowed away. So yeah, that’s quite interesting, I guess.
Anders
52:01
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark
52:03
Not for the Japanese,
Anders
52:04
maybe. Not for the Japanese, no. I find comfort in the fact that, because when we were leaving Australia, I was kind of relieved that you know, because we didn’t see anything either. It was just really nothing.
Anders
52:16
And we spent 3 months there. So as I went to New Zealand afterwards, I was Googling what dangerous animals would you find in New Zealand? Absolutely nothing. It’s the Same thing as in Denmark.
Mark
52:31
They don’t have a snake I think, do they?
Anders
52:32
No. I’m pretty sure
Mark
52:33
they don’t have snakes in New Zealand. I’m sure I read that when I was going there last year too. But yeah, so no 1, don’t be afraid of Australia.
Mark
52:41
Don’t worry about the spiders and the snakes because you are very, very, very unlikely to see 1 unless you go to the zoo and see 1.
Anders
52:48
Yeah, or specifically look for them in nature. I mean, we went on a crocodile safari sort of into a creek and all. And yeah, but you know, that was a guided tour and the guides knew what they’re doing.
Anders
53:04
And so, yeah, apart from that, nothing.
Mark
53:10
Really nothing. Out of any Queensland?
Anders
53:11
Queensland? Yeah, it was up in Queensland. Yeah. But I would say this, you should respect the signs on the beach saying you shouldn’t swim here because crocodiles have recently been seen and stuff like that.
Anders
53:28
So don’t ignore those.
Mark
53:31
Most definitely. Beach safety is really important for tourists that come to Australia because a lot of countries have beaches that are more like lakes, I guess, that don’t really have waves, and the amount of foreigners that come to Australia and drown, like in the ocean, especially once they go to Sydney and think they can just go and run into the water in Bondi and places like that and actually die because they’re not used to them sort of surf conditions and rips and undercurrents and things like that is important to remember for any person that comes to Australia is to swim between the flags as we call it. Like life savers will be on duty and I’ll have some red flags out and you should swim between them because then you’ll always be monitored by Life Saving Australia and yeah then if you need help you’ll get help but yeah ocean in Australia I don’t worry about it like I’ll swim in the ocean happily but I grew up swimming in the ocean like most Australians did so we sort of have a sense of what it’s like from a young age but for people who’ve never swum in oceans that have got waves and currents and things like that it can be quite a…
Anders
54:41
That’s actually what we’ll… …the last
Mark
54:42
thing you want.
Anders
54:43
Yeah, that’s probably the most dangerous thing is you know, currents, undercurrents and you being surprised by a current of some kind is actually not the animals. Because in Victoria it’s mostly sharks. You don’t have saltwater crocodiles.
Mark
55:02
No. But then again, you never really hear anyone getting eaten by a shark in Victoria either. It happens in Western Australia. Probably Western Australia is the hotspot for great white sharks.
Mark
55:15
It’s quite bizarre because I live near a beach, well, when I say near, probably 50 kilometres away, and this stretch of beach is called the 90 Mile Beach. And it’s renowned for catching sharks at this place called Sea Spray in Golden Beach, which is along the coast each year. They catch a lot of sharks down there. Not great whites, but yet I’ve never ever heard of anyone getting attacked by a shark there.
Mark
55:41
So they’re generally what they call a gummy shark, which they don’t really have much teeth, or a bronze whaler, but they get ones that are up to 10 to 12 foot like these oh
Anders
55:49
okay that’s fairly
Mark
55:51
they don’t actually yeah big sharks but yeah but I’ve never actually heard of anyone in the 50 years I’ve lived in this area actually being attacked by a shark along the stretcher coast that famous for fishing for sharks so so yeah it’s just 1 of them things and it’s like everything you know They’re the dominant species in that water. So if we go in there, you know, that’s what it is, isn’t it? That’s just an element of risk And if you want to take that risk, that’s the way it is.
Mark
56:21
We have to make all precautions again.
Anders
56:24
Any, I think, yeah. The takeaway advice here is really just, you know, if you go to the beach, you’re in the elements of nature, right? And that’s just, you know, you need to be to take care.
Anders
56:38
And that’s, as you say, Mark, there are lifeguards on duty. We have the same in up along the North Sea coast in Denmark, all beaches in Denmark, really. During the summertime, there are usually lifeguards on duty. And in Denmark, really, the only danger is currents and I wouldn’t say big waves, some larger waves can pull you away from the coast and further out into the ocean.
Anders
57:09
That’s where it gets dangerous. That’s where
Mark
57:10
trouble happens.
Anders
57:11
Yeah, yeah. Because eventually you will get cold and you will get tired and cramps will happen and all these things. And that’s really the big danger.
Anders
57:23
Usually, obviously accidents happen, but usually it’s mostly tourists here as well. Germans in fact, going to Denmark and not really understanding the advice and not being used to swimming in the ocean. Because the Germans, well, they’re more like mountain people. And so, so it’s, yeah, tourists not being used to swimming in the ocean, they should really take, take advice.
Mark
57:58
People who think they can swim, they can swim. They go, OK, well, I can swim, you know, so I’ll be right. But yeah,
Anders
58:02
that’s not enough. You put
Mark
58:04
in a rip and get dragged 200 meters offshore and then at the doggy paddle for 2 hours like Cinderella you’re gonna get tired and that’s when you are getting strife
Anders
58:14
that’s true that’s true yeah so last week did you get your new car or is it still pending?
Mark
58:23
I haven’t got it yet. It’s still pending. Okay.
Mark
58:25
Pending arrival at this stage. So they’ve still only got $500 off me at this stage. So I keep waiting for the phone call. I assume I’ll get a phone call I’m better anyway, and yeah, and then have
Anders
58:37
they given you an estimation estimated delivery time He said
Mark
58:41
he said up to 3 weeks. That was his thoughts when I am when I ordered it It was in I was in a holding yard in Melbourne, but I guess they only get a, they have to put it on a truck, so they’re probably waiting till they’ve got an order possible.
Anders
58:54
Probably, yeah.
Mark
58:55
Yeah, on this way to load a few of them up, and then it had to go into the garage there and get the towing kit put on the back so I can tow me trailer out to the rubbish dump or camping or anywhere I choose, things like that. Or maybe even tow a caravan that I’ve got sitting in the backyard that I bought 2 years ago and I’ve never actually taken out of my backyard at this stage, So that would be something different as well.
Anders
59:20
You’re from an area, you’re from an area where a tow bar is important. So am I, I’m, you know, rural Denmark, you, you would never even think of buying a car without being able to pull a trailer after you. I mean, that is standard equipment.
Anders
59:37
But living in a big city like Copenhagen, it’s just, or even here in Munich, it’s just, why would you need that? And the thing is, If you’re not aware, if you’re like a city person coming, driving into the countryside and you want to like park or turn around, you can actually hit that tow bar on the road.
Anders
01:00:00
Because you’re not aware of that hook, you know, standing out from from behind the car. You
Mark
01:00:12
know, getting hit in the shins and kneecapping themselves on the way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s
Anders
01:00:18
a dangerous tool because it’s a massive iron, you know, it hurts and it can scratch your car. Exactly. So, Mark, have you anything else we want to say this week?
Mark
01:00:39
No, I haven’t got much else I’ve been up to. I’ve got a couple of new tattoos today, but other than that, that’s, oh, 0, that’s about all I’ve been
Anders
01:00:50
doing. New tattoos, okay. Yeah, well, are you into, are you getting some Chinese tattoos maybe when you go
Mark
01:00:57
there? I did get a, I did get a tattoo with some Chinese writing on it today. So that was when I added to the collection. I’ve got it.
Mark
01:01:04
I’ve probably got now a dozen small tattoos and they all represent travel. So, oh cool.
Anders
01:01:14
Yeah, I can see a passport stamp there and yeah.
Mark
01:01:16
Yeah. So they all represent places and things I’ve been. I can’t see that 1 around there.
Anders
01:01:24
There you
Mark
01:01:24
go, yeah. Yeah, so they represent things and places I’ve been to and things I’ve done either by myself or with my family and things like that. So I add to the collection every now and again when I can afford it.
Mark
01:01:37
Yeah. Well, not when I can afford it. Just when I can justify it is probably a better idea. It costs about $130 Australian an hour to go and get a tattoo.
Mark
01:01:48
So I don’t know what’s that, 60, probably 50 euro, 60 euro for an hour to get some ink done. So I don’t know whether that’s cheap or dear, but I only get smaller ones, so I can get 2 or 3 done at a time. So today I got the city that Willow lives in, I got that written in Chinese on my arm.
Anders
01:02:07
So that
Mark
01:02:08
was 1. I got a tram, a little tram, because Melbourne is famous for trams. And so is Lisbon, I’ve been to Lisbon 3 or 4 times as well.
Mark
01:02:17
Yes. And on the other hand, I got a little cityscape of Amsterdam with a windmill and a couple of them nice little buildings that they have. So yeah, I’ve got a little 1 of Prague here and I’ve got a bowl of noodles getting eaten which was from Asia.
Anders
01:02:34
Also nice.
Mark
01:02:36
Wine glass and some cheese which represents when we stayed in France
Anders
01:02:38
for a month.
Mark
01:02:39
So yeah, so I’m not really into this willy-dilly gun to get skulls and you know Indians and things like that because they you know they look cool. I want my tattoos to actually mean something or be part of a memory
Anders
01:02:51
Yeah,
Mark
01:02:51
I’ve had with with my kids and my wife and on our travels. So yeah,
Anders
01:02:56
it’s cool
Mark
01:02:56
So that’s what
Anders
01:02:57
we know in about 40 years time. You should you should be completely covered
Mark
01:03:04
Well, I should pay but I might run out of room. I’m not really a big fan of them on my legs, so I won’t get any on my legs. My arms are fine.
Mark
01:03:13
But then you go, well, once you get past the edge of your sleeve and you can’t actually see them is it really worth getting any more done like that’s the you know sort of thing and I don’t sort of wander around bare-chested or anything like that in summer here because you know the sun’s really hot and people tend to get skin cancers and things like that so there’s not really besides the sleeves on my arms there’s not really anywhere else so I’ll get 1. So once they’re filled up, that will be it for the tattoos. But I’m only really new to this. I only sort of started probably 2 years ago.
Anders
01:03:44
Actually
Mark
01:03:45
I’ve got a tattoo on my arm that I got when I was a teenager, when I was about 19. It’s a tattoo of a ghost. And me and a heap of guys, they’re like, I’ll get the same tattoo, you know.
Mark
01:03:56
So crazily enough, I did that when I was about 19. And it took me till I was about 49 to get my next tattoo. So, might have been a mid-age crisis that I’ve started getting tattoos, but hey, I like it. So, yeah, so I’ll get some more in the next 6 months.
Mark
01:04:12
So I might even get something from Bangkok. Since we’re going to Bangkok, I’ll have a look at a nice temple or something and I’ll get a small tattoo of a temple as well.
Anders
01:04:20
Or a climbing Buddha or something.
Mark
01:04:22
Yeah, something like that.
Anders
01:04:23
That would
Mark
01:04:24
be cool as well. So I’ve got like a tram from Melbourne and I’ve got a tuk tuk and a few different bits and pieces of snorkeling mask because we went snorkeling with the kids in Bali and we all really enjoyed it. It was a really fun experience.
Mark
01:04:40
So as long as they mean something to me and they prompt a good memory of something we’ve done, then I’m happy to wear them.
Anders
01:04:47
Yeah, I don’t have tattoos. I guess I’m too chicken to get them. I’m afraid I will regret it.
Anders
01:04:54
I’m not really afraid of the pain because people say there is no pain. But obviously there will be if you really into like delicate skin, but, but, but, but I don’t have, but we, we, we, we have, Alex and I, my wife and I, we have discussed, maybe we should both have like a small a because Anton our son, me, Anders and Alex. So we’re all a, it could mean anything, you know, so it’s just a small a somewhere, you know, on the wrist or something. But
Mark
01:05:30
yeah, definitely.
Anders
01:05:31
Yeah. We’re still too chicken to do it.
Mark
01:05:37
Well, you’re right. They’re there forever. So, you know, if you don’t like them, it’s not really much you can do once they’re there.
Mark
01:05:44
But I guess if it’s only an ache, you can sort of get it on the inside of your finger or
Anders
01:05:48
anything like that.
Mark
01:05:50
Yeah, where no 1 can really see it and even you won’t see it after a while.
Anders
01:05:55
Exactly, and I might consider a music note or something like that because I’m into music. Yeah,
Mark
01:06:02
something like that. That means something to you because you’re very passionate about your music So
Anders
01:06:06
yeah exactly so
Mark
01:06:07
I think yeah as long as it means something to you. It’s it’s alright But yeah, like I said, I wouldn’t just you know, my boss he’s got Indians and body Skulls and all sorts of things done like why he’s like they looked good in the shop. I’m like, yeah, no, that’s not for me, mate.
Anders
01:06:24
Yeah, exactly.
Mark
01:06:25
I want 1 to, when I look at it, when I look at my arm, I go, you know, it’s always prompting a memory of something, something that I’ve done. So, just another way I’m over the top about travel.
Anders
01:06:36
There are cultures where tattoos are… I recently saw something happening in the New Zealand Parliament and there are serious politicians with tattooed Maui, the Maui culture.
Mark
01:06:49
Yeah, the girls, they get ice tattoos and everything.
Anders
01:06:54
Yeah, when you’re not used to that, it’s just, whoa, that looks rather dramatic to me. But, you know, it’s really just a matter of culture. What are you used to?
Anders
01:07:07
So obviously, there’s not there’s no right or wrong here. It’s just, you know, it’s different and it’s just, oh, I didn’t expect that, you know.
Mark
01:07:15
I don’t think there’s the, you know, like when I was a kid, people who had tattoos were generally, you know, classed as, you know, bad asses or bikers or, you know, gang members or things like that. Sailors? Yeah, I think that sort of stigma’s, you know, sort of disappeared With people who have tattoos because they’re fairly, fairly mainstream now.
Mark
01:07:36
Lots of people have tattoos. It is. Or as once upon a time, you know, there was not a lot around. And yeah, and I remember when I was a kid, yeah, if we’d seen someone with tattoos, you’d be like, boy, you know, what a lay into, you know.
Mark
01:07:47
Yeah, he’s a tough
Anders
01:07:47
guy. Or
Mark
01:07:49
don’t get tattoos you know things like that again yeah be scared
Anders
01:07:54
yeah exactly
Mark
01:07:56
so yeah okay so that’s my week yeah
Anders
01:07:59
yes yeah
Mark
01:08:00
just going on Exactly.
Anders
01:08:02
Well, you’ve been listening to Southern summers and Northern winters. Our fourth podcast episode here. Do find us on the Facebook.
Anders
01:08:17
I saw, you know, scammers have discovered us Mark on Facebook. I was going to tell you to just ignore me and delete the messages. I
Mark
01:08:29
did, I wrote, go away scammers.
Anders
01:08:31
Yeah, it’s just, you know, I have a couple of other websites, Facebook sites, and the more you interact with them, the more annoying they get because they know that someone is there behind them. But yeah, we are.
Mark
01:08:46
Don’t send me an email pretending you’re from Facebook when it’s at a hotmail address.
Anders
01:08:50
Yeah, exactly.
Mark
01:08:51
Stuff like that. I think it’s so silly to think that anyone’s going to fall for that sort of thing. But yes, we are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, and we are on YouTube now, So you’ll be able to find us and all of them and I actually bought a domain for our name So I’m gonna build a website as well in the next
Anders
01:09:07
oh, that’s cool That’s gonna be cool
Mark
01:09:09
when I
Anders
01:09:09
yeah when
Mark
01:09:10
I get around it So we’ll be we’ll be certainly covered on on all all platforms. So definitely look us up I’m sure and as a link to all these in the show notes for
Anders
01:09:20
you We do yeah
Mark
01:09:21
any questions you got to would be great drop by ask some questions so we can address them in the podcast We always are always looking for new and interesting things to talk about especially from readers
Anders
01:09:33
Actually,
Mark
01:09:33
yeah Well, you could be readers and listeners, depending on… And watches, depending on what channel you’re on.
Anders
01:09:39
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we are…
Anders
01:09:43
I think that Mark was probably… Let’s invite the listeners into like an open editorial meeting here. We could take advantage of the different seasons because on the Southern Hemisphere, I’m on the Northern Hemisphere, for instance, the difference in Christmas. Christmas is coming up, we’re now mid November.
Anders
01:10:06
And we already discussed Advent and all the traditions here. But but you know, it’s very different. And and, you know, people traveling across the hemispheres and so they’re going to be in for a cultural difference there.
Mark
01:10:25
I will be in China for your European Christmas on the 24th and I’ll still be there for an Australian Christmas on the 25th. Yeah. So that’ll be interesting to see what China’s like.
Mark
01:10:35
I believe it’s not a big country for Christmas. I think it’s more a shopping season. It’s an excuse. But I’ll be able to gauge that when I hit the ground on the 18th of December to see if there’s You know lots of Christmas decorations and Christmas stuff happening or whether it’s just a you know shopping sales season
Anders
01:10:55
and exactly
Mark
01:10:56
There’s an excuse to to do this. So yeah
Anders
01:11:01
How does the internet and Zoom work in China? Are there any restrictions? Do you know that?
Anders
01:11:07
Because we could actually make a podcast from China.
Mark
01:11:10
Yeah, we’ll try that. If I’ve got a VPN, it should be fine. So I don’t even know if Zoom’s banned.
Mark
01:11:18
So I could ask Willow that, but like I know Google and that is, and I had to have VPN last time to get around it, but I’ll have VPN again this time. We might have to do a big test run 1 night when I land and see if I can get Zoom working on my phone along with my speaker. And if that works, well then we can certainly be good to record an episode. It would.
Mark
01:11:40
And hopefully I can get my daughter on as well.
Anders
01:11:42
Yeah, absolutely.
Mark
01:11:43
And chat about what things are like in China. So we’ll definitely plan that. And we can definitely do 1 the week after when I’m in Bangkok.
Mark
01:11:50
Yeah
Anders
01:11:51
Suddenly suddenly
Mark
01:11:53
it taking it to the road.
Anders
01:11:54
Yeah exactly Like a like an infield reporter.
Mark
01:11:59
Yeah Northern winters hits the road.
Anders
01:12:03
Yeah, exactly.
Mark
01:12:04
In Asia,
Anders
01:12:05
in Asia. Well, thank you very much for listening. We we do enjoy this and we do encourage you to spread the word, you know, if you like what you hear and see.
Anders
01:12:16
And until next time, take care, safe travels and bye bye for now.
Mark
01:12:22
See you next week. Bye.
The Team
