The Incomparable James Hannan

So, after a very tiring 12 days of skiing in Whistler, it was time to head to LA before boarding our cruise to Mexico.

I had never been on a cruise, but always wanted to - I like the idea of visiting multiple destinations without packing bags and changing hotels every few days.

We were cruising on a Princess cruise, on board the Sapphire Princess. We arrived at San Pedro pier, and made our way to the ship. We boarded very smoothly, much easier than navigating international airports, and quickly found our room - which was just extraordinary. We had a sitting area, a bar, big bathroom and bedroom with a study, not to mention a huge balcony.

Every few rooms share a ‘butler’ of sorts, someone who will take care of any need you may have - ours was Rex, and he was the best. First stop on the cruise was Puerto Vallarta after two days of cruising, followed by Mazatlan, then Cabo San Lucas. You generally dock early morning, and then have from 8am till 5pm to do what you like in each destination, before getting back on the boat. Personally, the destinations where fantastic, but I couldn’t get over how good life on the ship was. You get breakfast served in your room on the balcony, with nothing but ocean to look at, you then go for a swim or a walk around, perhaps a coffee or a movie before lunch, then you relax all afternoon before picking one of 6 restaurants to dine at for dinner. You are so relaxed by the end of the cruise, you don’t want to return to reality.

Here are some pictures of our room;

Sapphire Princess Suite

Sapphire Princess Suite

It truly was sad to have to get off, but, all good things must come to an end - I am just happy we have another cruise booked for early 2010 through South America and the Panama Canal!

Last week, I had to travel to Paris for business. Sounds great in theory, but let me tell you, it was one jam packed trip…

We were flying out on a Friday afternoon from Sydney. We chose to fly Virgin Atlantic in to London - the fare was cheap and the offering looked excellent. We boarded on time and took off on schedule. The first leg was Sydney - Hong Kong. An easy leg to start off with. Virgin Atlantic was excellent - would definately fly them to London again any time. We arrive in Hong Kong about 10pm, and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost midnight. We went for a walk around Hong Kong, found a little noodle place and had a nice dinner and a beer. Back to the hotel and in bed by 2am. Woke up the next morning, went and had an Orange Juice at the Penninsula Hotel - which was nice, and then straight to the airport for our Hong Kong - London leg. Plane left Saturday afternoon Hong Kong time, and due to some heavy head winds, got us in later (14.5 hr flight time) than expected to London. In the end, we arrived in London about 8:30pm Saturday night.

I had a dinner planned with some friends in London, so went back to the hotel (a little hung over from the on board bar in plane) and had a shower, then went and met my friends at Wild Honey in London - a great restaurant that I would pass on to anyone… Details are;

12 St George Street, London, W1S 2FB - View on a map
Telephone: 08717032787

Dinner was great, was good to catch up with some friends, but I was jet lagged, it was 1 am, and I needed to sleep before tomorrows commute. 6 hours later, I woke up and raced to catch the Eurostar to Paris - a 9am train that got us into paris around Midday. Train was excellent - beats a plane any day of the week. We arrived more or less on time and grabbed a cab to our hotel.

Dinner with Amber and Katie

The hotel we were staying at, while reasonably priced, was rated #2 on tripadvisor. We arrived and the staff were excellent - free wifi, big rooms, great location - very pleased indeed - details are below.

Hotel Elysees Regencia
41, avenue Marceau
75016 Paris, France
+33 1 47 20 42 65

We had the afternoon to ourselves before we started work the next day - so we went for a walk around Paris. This proved to be the only time we would have to oursleves!

Me in Paris

The next day, we started work near Gard du Nord station - long day but productive. Our schedule over the next 5 days was the same;

Mon-Fri, 8am bus to office, work till 8pm, bus back to hotel. Quick dinner near hotel, then Sydney work over email until early hours of morning. Sleep. Do it all over again.

Friday night came, we went and had a nice dinner (I will write about the restaurant later), and went to sleep. Saturday morning, we woke up to catch the Eurostar back to London, then a train to Heathrow. We made our flight with 40 mins to spare, straight on to Hong Kong. We then had 6 hours in Hong Kong airport, which actually went faster than expected, then a 9 hour flight back to Sydney, landing 7am Sydney time - and I was headed straight to the office.

Wow - it was exhausting just writing about it! As you would imagine, I am now trying to kick the flu - planes always make me feel sick - all those germs circulating in the air con can’t be good!

Anyway, a successful trip and a reminder of how good Paris is in winter and how I will definately be spending several weeks there next time rather than just 1!

Well, I finally did it. I have been thinking about it for a while, but last week, I got a good price, so I placed an order. A brand new Holden SS, black, with black leather is on its way from Adelaide by rail, and should be in my garage by Tuesday or Wednesday.

I will let you all know how it drives later in the week, but from the reviews I have read, it is apparently a pleasure to drive, and I must say, I do like the new shape…

I recently made the transition to a Mac at work, a 17inch Mac Book Pro, and have been loving it. They offer a cleaner and easier to operate OS, as well as a consistently fast environment - PC’s used to slow dramatically if you were doing too much, but this Mac always flies. The new OS is available in a few days, and it offers some awesome new features.

Check out the video here, at Mac

Quite a while ago now, Mark, Brad and I went down to Balmain for a shoot. It was a nice afternoon, and it was right on the water. We took quite a few shots - I took quite a few HDR’s (none were very good) - but these shots I liked, so thought I would post them…