Niki's travel's 2007

KANSAS

9:25 AM, 17/6/2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

I might have mentioned that Providence has been my favourite place so far on this whole tour, but Kansas definitely gives it a run for it's money. This is a place that is in the midst of a beautiful summer, has luscious green lawns and parks and sculptures, water fountains and beautifully manicured garden beds everywhere. I feel like I've stepped onto the movie set of "The Stepford Wives", for those of you that understand. We are here for a week and I'm very excited. The show is being performed at the Starlight Theatre, which is an outdoor theatre. It has the same feel as Moonlight cinema. Probably my one of my favourite venues to date. We even had an Aussie barbie last night which topped off the week! Nothing like a sausage in bread with tomato sauce....Yes I ate a whole one John. It's been a great week here so far with many highlights including the 3:30am firedrill. We all had to evacuate the building, so there were frantic people everywhere running up and down the hallways of the hotel. We were all so tired and we were running up and down looking for the lift.....But then had a light bulb moment realising the elevators had been shut off so we needed to use the fire escape stairs. This is how memories are created. We all got to take photos with the firemen jsut before they left. I have just over a week to go here and am all shopped out and travelled out. Oh, and if you're wanting to go shopping, come to Kansas City Missourri. The Plaza has the best collection of shops all within walking distance of eachother. For those that have expressed interest, I haven't found Toto, and on Monday I can finally say "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore"......

FLORIDA

9:11 AM, 11/6/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

What a week this was. We performed in 4 different cities of Florida in 5 nights. First off was Jacksonville, followed by Tampa, Melbourne and West Palm Beach. Melbourne in Florida is nothing like home, very wide open space with big roads. So that wasn't very exciting. Jacksonville was nice, with a great little place called the Jacksonville Landing. Here I had my first experience at the Hooters restaurant. And yes, all the girls wear little orange satin hot shorts with the splits on the side like 80's running shorts, and a tucked in little white singlet. Let's just say it was interesting. Jacksonville Landing is on a wharf and has outdoos bars and music and reminds me a little of Darling Harbour. West Palm Beach is really beautiful. It is a pretty new city with gorgeous shops and cafes, and has a very beachy feel about it. It was by far the nicest part of Florida, and I would love to go back there. The best thing about Florida was the weather. Unlike my very cold hometown in Melbourne, here we get by in shorts and bikinis, so am trying to get a little sun before I return home for my dose of frostbite. I've already asked John to turn the heater on high from now because it is not less than 30 degrees here every day. Well all the one nighters that we do are taking their toll. My bags under my eyes touch my chin at the moment with these 4 or 5am hotel check ins. Am looking forward to settling in the land of "The Wizard of Oz' for a few days!

BASEBALL - BOSTON RED SOX v's NY YANKEES

11:12 AM, 7/6/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Baseball I had to go to a Baseball Game in Boston. Cost a packet, but definitely worth the experience. WE went as a large group and watched one of the biggest games between Boston Red Sox and the NY Yankees. The stadium is massive with crazy American fans. I must say I’ve never seen so many people take sport so seriously. It’s a bit like cricket crazed fans crossed with AFL grand Final day. Only everyone gets really messy because alcohol is allowed at the game. My favourite player was Coco Crisp. That’s really his mane. I think that’s why I liked him. I got to wear the finger proudly for the Boston Red Sox. I’ve always wanted to do that. The game goes for hours and hours, so we froze to death then got caught in the rain, but definitely worth the effort.

NEW YORK NEW YORK

11:10 AM, 7/6/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

New York New York!! Finally some rest days. 5 days off, so have headed of to NY for 2. Where do I start. With such a short space of time I have travelled here with Alana, Max and Elvia, some of our dancers. We’re doing the real touristy thing and jumping on the red bus to see Uptown, Midtown and Downtown NY. It is so ridiculously busy here. More taxis and traffic jams than I’ve ever seen. It’s so much cheaper and quicker to walk everywhere. I think my favourite area is Central Park and Times Square. I love the noise and little venders and vibrant colours and lights. It’s a 24 hour city, and there is so much happening all the time, that I feel I need to go back to absorb it all!! Broadway was fantastic. You could stay here a month and watch a different musical every single night. There is an unbelievable amount of shows on here. We ended up watching Hairspray the musical. Great fun and very talented singers. We stayed at a place called “The Pod’ Hotel which is right around the corner from where Sex and the City is filmed. Manhattan is great. I think I like Downtown best though. The streets are mostly numbered and the city is divided by 5th avenue. It’s a very confusing grid to me, and I’m still not sure if I get it. I’m definitely directionally challenged. But, check out “Thr Pod Hotel”, www.thepodhotel.com. It’s such a great little place, very funky and cheap. Like a very clean and posh backpackers style place. I loved it.

WORCESTER/ BOSTON

11:10 AM, 4/6/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Worcester/ Boston Yes…..as in Worcestershire sauce….We are here because we couldn’t get very good accommodation in Boston. This is where we are performing the show, so everyday we are having to drive to Boston and back which is an hour each way. This makes the day that bit too long, but what can you do. Boston on the other hand is gorgeous. If you ever get the chance to go, you must eat on Newbury St. It has a New England feel, and the street is covered in fairy lights and has wonderful restaurants. The buildings are beautiful and the city has a great buzz about it. There are the best seafood restaurants here and many great boutique shopping districts too.

BUFFALLO

11:08 AM, 21/5/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Buffalo I finally tried the famous Buffalo wings. I only tried them because they are served with celery!! They are really good. I have the recipe for anyone who wants it. Not much to see here, it’s a bit of a dead end town, and we’re here for a very short amount of time.

AMERICA

11:08 AM, 17/5/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

America Welcome to the land where everything is oversized. Even the small drink is as big as a large one in Melbourne. Everything comes with butter, fake cream and fries. Not really my cup of tea. It’s a big change from the other countries where everything is small and cramped. There si definitely a huge contrast. First stop is Rochester NY. Not very safe here…we’re in ‘the hood’. Not many white people here, so guess who stands out when walking in the street?? We have been warned not to walk alone even during the day here as a safety precaution. We get started at because we dress so differently. They seriously stop their conversations and stare at us. Very strange. I have seen 4 different arrests in 2 days so far, and sat in the social security office for 2 hours. Now that’s an experience. You get all sorts in there. It’s definitely comaparible to sitting in the Centrelink office.

NIAGARA FALLS

11:07 AM, 15/5/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Niagara Falls I think this was one of my favourite parts of this trip. Definitely a highlight so far. The falls are quite impressive and very cold!! I took some great photos and film here, because we got to go right up close in ‘The Maid of The Mist’. This is the boat that takes your under the falls, so you get completely drenched, but get an awesome view. We all go to wear the funny blue raincoats, that didn’t really keep us warm or the water out, but made us look really stupid, but great for those Kodak moments. The falls are really beautiful and definitely worth a visit if you ever get the chance.

TORONTO

11:01 AM, 13/5/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Toronto I love love love Toronto. It reminds e so much of Melbourne it’s not funny. It has made me very homesick because it almost feels like I’ve been here before. It’s also great because it’s the first time we have serviced apartments, so we can actually cook dinner for a change. I’m really sick of eating out. Finally fresh fruit an vegies….This makes me really happy as you all know. I have managed to go out for a few runs through all the beautiful parks here, and also got the CN Tower Toronto view form the observation deck. This tower has a glass floor that you can see all the way to the ground on the observation deck. Most people lie across it and take photos, as did I. It takes a minute to feel safe enough to walk on it because you really feel like you’re going to fall through to the ground, but I lay across and have a photo attached. I also got to meet up with Jonnny’s cousin Nick who lives in Toronto. It was so nice to relax at the pub with a familiar face. We watched the show together too, and I think he was quite impressed. I am sad to leave Toronto, I could easily stay here a while longer.

HONG KONG

10:55 AM, 5/5/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Hong Kong Japan is a lovely country, but I am so glad to have left. I really need a change of scenery after 10 weeks in Japan. Was starting to go nuts there. Finally, have entered the hot weather and the hustle and bustle lifestyle of Hong Kong. It’s a bit humid and smelly, but am loving the hotel room here…and I wouldn’t even mind if we stayed here for a month. So far I’ve been to the ‘lady’s markets’, which are great, but you get over it quickly. It’s all copies of designer brands and souveniers. and bargaining, down to get everything as cheaply as you can. Once you do 1 lap you’ve seen it all. Unlike Thailand they get really angry and aggressive if you don’t end up buying anything. I also watched the light show by taking the ferry across the river. Hong Kong is filled with hundreds of tall buildings with great designs that have more neon lights than a chinese restaurant! At 8pm each night they put on a light show to really tacky music, but it’s really great to watch. The lights and laser show goes for about 15 minutes and is choreographed to the music. I think my favourite day in Hong Kong was when we went to the Stanley markets and had lunch by the beach side. It really felt like we were on holiday in Europe. It was really beautiful and very hot.

Japan Part 2

5:15 AM, 20/4/2007 .. 0 comments .. Link

Hi everyone, It has been a very long time since I updated this blog. I never was good at keeping a journal, because I always start off well, but get slack in keeping it up. Anyway, I hope everyone is well. I have now been away since 5th March, so that totals about 10 weeks in Japan. I will just go into the highlights and low lights of some of the cities I have visited so far. There were 10 Japanese cities in total that we visited and performed our show in. We started in : Osaka Tokyo Matsumoto Hiroshima Fukuoka Nagoya Hamamatsu Toyama Niigata Sendai The cities are all beautiful, well maintained and very clean. I've already talked a bit about Tokyo and Osaka in Japan Part 1, so i'll focus more on my favourite bits. CHERRY BLOOSOMS Obviously I loved all the cherry blossoms. They have the most amazing pinks, reds and whites, and all the city streets, bridges, houses and hotels are lined with them. When the wind blows it looks like there are snow flakes all over the road as the petals fall off. My favourties are definitely the white ones. They are really pretty. See photos attached. FOOD Before I went on this trip, I thought I'd have a wonderful time with all this gorgeous food that the Japanese eat. Let me tell you, my experiences were not always great. I liked rice before I left, but now I will hardly touch it. Here it's very gluggy and glutinous so it makes you feel tired and lethargic. Even the dancers were putting on weight!! I should know, I get to check this on their weekly weigh in sessions. You'd think for a very thin and cellulite free country full of people, they would have an abundance of fresh vegetable dishes and sashimi available. It was a rude awakening for me. Most things are deep fried, extremely salty, or full of noodles or rice, and have little if any vegies!!! I think I had sashimi 3 times in 10 weeks. There was a whole lot of occasions where I thought I'd end up at McDonald's for dinner, but thank god for room service. Sooooo, the moral of the stroy is Japanese food in Melbourne is much better than Japanese food in Japan. HIROSHIMA This was one of my favourite cities. It is amazing how the city has been rebuilt in just 50 years since the bombings. Here, we went to the Hiroshima memorial site and museum. I went back a second time on my own, because there is just so much to take in. I learnt about the story at school, but it doesn't really affect you until you see the museum first hand. At times the pictures and life like models and remanants left behind from the bombings were a bit too overwhelming, and quite emotional. There are many pictures of people in the midst of the war, and all you can see is the utter terror in their eyes. I could not and would not ever like to imagine being in that sitiuation. You can take many photos inside the museum, but there some distressing sections that I preferred not to remember. We also had a peace memorial presentation with the media, where Damon and Rebecca placed some flowers at the site. I got to se the A Dome and have and the everlasting flame. This flame will only be distinguished when the last atomic/nuclear weapon is destroyed. FUKUOKA For those of you having trouble with the pronunciation of the word it's: 'Foo-kwo-ka'. This city was great. This is also where I bought my new apple mac computer!! Here we went out to a litle cuban/salsa restaurant where they had big projector screen, and had the dvd of the show playing!! It was a strange coincidence, but we had a great time. We all go to sign a section on the wall that was labelled Floorplay, which I have photos of. I also had a great Cuban meal too. Lots of dancing and a few drinks. The kids get so funny when they drink. It's like giving an endless amount of red snake lollies to 4 year old children. It can become quite a zoo. BULLET TRAIN We travelled on Bullet train or 'Shinkansen' (for those of you who speak fluent Japanese like I do now), for most of our moving from different cities. It goes so fast it actually feels like you're on an aeroplane. If I'm not wrong it travels 275km/hour. It's pretty cool, the seats swivel around so you can face eachother. We tend to play cards, or listen to music or share food. Travel time is either sleepy time and recovery for our alcoholics with hangovers, or food time. Mostly the first one. And yes let me tell you trying to aim in the whole in the gorund toilet while the train is moving or worse still turning a corner is a real skill. You just gotta have a great aim. JAPAN CREW I will really miss our Japanese crew. Especially Yoko our interpreter, Ysuke our KTV guy and clown, Taka our KTV girl, Miho, Cisco, Aiko, Cho and Take. These guys made the tour so smooth and enjoyable for everyone. I have photos attached of all of them. SENDAI This was the last city of the Japan leg. Here we had beautiful spring weather and our farewell party. This was a great night, and I even got to put on a dress!!! I know what you're thinking, but I seriously have only gotten dressed up 4 times while I've been away. These guys only know me in my trackies. It was so much fun. Our Japanese crew and interpreters, performed the last 2 numbers in te show for us which I filmed. It was hysterical. We also had an awards ceremony and massive photos session. Although it was sad to leave, it was nice to leave Japan, but sad to say goodbye to our fantastic and well organised crew.

Osaka, Japan

9:26 PM, 16/3/2007 .. 3 comments .. Link

Hello everyone,

What an experience the last 10 or so days have been for me! Everything is so foreign, but I'm gradually adjusting. Where do I start......

What's been happening so far:

My luggage was lost as soon as I arrived!! So much for buying bright orange baggage. So for 2 days I think everyone thought I owned a red top and 1 pair of track pants.

It's absolutely freezing here!!! Have had to buy a jacket, 2 beanies, 2 woolen jumpers and another pair of jeans. I'm not complaining about the shopping though, because everything here fits. I've come to the land of the little people, so sleeves are not too long, and waist bands sit at my waist, not at my hips. The girls will understand what I mean.

Am hoping it warms up soon so I can send you all photos of the beautiful cherry blossoms.

The Japanese girls are gorgeous. Everyone in the shopping district wears hotpants or little skirts, boots and beautiful jackets. Big hair is definitiely in, with velcro roller curls. I'll try to post some photo's in my album for you all to see. It's really expensive here to buy property, so apparently, everyone looks immaculate because they rent, so they can buy designer clothes.

I've so far learnt 3 Japanese words "hello", "thankyou" and "excuse me". Very poor on my behalf, but I've been flat out busy with my 24 adopted children (dancers). The people here are so cute, helpful, respectful and polite. There is a lot of pride and perfection in this country, that even roadworks are disguised with fairy lights and plants, so they are not an eyesore.

THE SHOW!!

So far the show has been fantastic. We've had a couple of injuries, so I've been busy. This week alone I have been to the hospital 3 times and have even riden in the back of the ambulance!! All is okay now, but nothing like been thrown in the deep end from day one!! Yoko our interpreter and I are the best of friends. we seem to be spending a lot of time together.

I am extremely busy and am working hard, with many late nights. I think all the excitement and adrenalin are keeping me focussed. Everyone here has welcomed me into the "Floorplay" family with open arms, so my transition has been quite smooth.

For a country that is quite conservative, we have been getting standing ovations with every show. This apparently is unusual in Japan, as they would usually clap politely and remain seated. For those of you who have seen the show, most of the second half has changed, which is pretty cool. I think it's my favourite part at the moment. I am at every show, and have had a great insight as to all the workings of backstage.

We have dancers from Ireland, Sweeden, Slovenia, Italy, England, Russia, Germany, America and Australia in this show, so quite a diverse cast. They all get along really well, and I've even mangaed to get a posy of boys to train with me at the gym.

CAST DAY OFF

Our first night off, we celebrated Veera's birthday, so we had a hotel party, then went out to this little place called "Sam and Dave". I officially had my first dancing lesson with Sasha, Carmello and Robin. So much fun. We all had a few drinks, but some people had a few too many. A few sick puppies and tears, to end the night. Dancers can be very emotional people. These guys work really hard all week, and then go nuts on their day off. It's like being in a children's playground.

I have already been asked for my autograph at least 3 times, and the little Japanese people chase us to the lift of our hotel with cameras and things to sign. I'm not even cast and they are going mad here. These guys are really big here, appearing on KTV which is fantastic for publicity. There is a pop group here called "Smap Smap", which are as big as Brad Pitt. We did a publicity appearance with them the other day in Tokyo which will air in 2 weeks.

So, I will stop writing now. There's more to tell, but I'm relly tired. Please write to me on email, and I will do my best to catch up with you all.

Missing everyone!!!

Love Niki

About to leave

10:02 PM, 4/3/2007 .. 1 comments .. Link

Hi everyone,

It's now 10:30pm, and going over the last minute things before takeoff.
8 hours to go before my journey begins!!!
I'll keep you all posted, so stay tuned!!

Love Niki