Tokyo Trip!

I have my first post about my trip to Tokyo posted, but not here:

In order to keep Bells and Bows about wedding themed things, I have started a personal blog for all the other stuff I want to write about!


www.athomewiththehinkleys.com

Hope you will continue to follow! 

Honeymoon in Bermuda: Royal Naval Dockyards

 We spent our last day in Bermuda in the Royal Naval Dockyards, which was where our ship was docked.  We had to be 'all aboard' by 4pm so we wanted to stay close by.  After our snorkeling excursion was cancelled yet again, we proceeded with plan B.  Go to the Clock Tower Mall, eat at the Frog and Onion Pub, and go to the National Museum.  And, go!

The mall was cool to walk around, but pretty small.  We got through it in about 30 minutes.  There were about 14 stores, and 13 of them were pretty identical souvenir shops in a flea market-esque setting.

The term 'Mall' used loosely.

Aaron with a novelty anchor

Aaron eating a comically large candy bar

After the mall we went and ate at the Frog and Onion Pub.  It was really cool.  The pub itself isn't too old, but the building it is in dates back to the 1800s.  There are some good pics of it on their website here.  Mine didn't turn out too well unfortunately.

After a big lunch we went to the museum and saw lots of cool things!

Why isn't this cannon firing...?

Then we had to get back on the boat back to America.  We had a good time!



Honeymoon in Bermuda: Hamilton

For our next installment of the honeymoon, I give you:  Our second day in Bermuda - which was spent in St. George and Hamilton!

On day two, and our last day before our bus and ferry pass was expired.  I really really really wanted to go to the Swizzle Inn, which was in St. George and also hit the beach.  The Swizzle Inn was in St. George, and we just didn't get to it the day before.  The plan was to take the ferry to St. George, and take the bus to Hamilton to go to the beach.  On the bus ride we would stop by the lighthouse that I wanted to look at.  And if we have time we can go see the Crystal Caves.  We can end the day in Hamilton and souvenir shop, since we were in the big city.  I realized just now that I am really over-ambitious with the amount of stuff I plan to do in a day... 
Anyway, we got off the ferry and got to the bus stop to take us a roundabout way past the lighthouse and then to the swizzle inn.

But not before decapitation!  -Aaron is a good sport :)

And snacks - Ginger Beer and a Bounty Bar!

Waiting for the bus

Doesn't Aaron look so dapper in that hat??  Anyway, we learned of the bus schedule a little late in the game - and that it would drop us off at the light house, but not return for a whole hour.  We didn't think we could occupy ourselves for an hour, and we have a lot to see, so we just saw the lighthouse from the bus.

Now as you probably know, Bermuda is a teeny island 100% surrounded by water, so there are like 10 different beaches one could go to.  We planned on going to Horseshoe Bay which is the nicest and most touristy, BUT we overheard this couple on the bus talking about going to the beach too - but a different beach.  A probably much less crowded beach....  so we decided to throw caution to the wind and follow them while trying to appear as though we had planned to go to that secret beach all along too.  They totally bought it...lol.  It was quite a walk from the bus stop, but well worth it!

Walking to the beach

Empty!!!!!!

No one will see me in a swimsuit!!!!&^&*%!!!

Beach day was the best!

Soon after we got to the beach and swam a bit we were mega starving, so we went back to catch the bus to the Swizzle Inn.  This place is the birth spot of the Rum Swizzle, which is a delightful fruity-tropical rum drink.  It is also a tourist trap kinda place, but oh well!  They let you eat there when you are still wet from swimming, so that was good enough for me!

At the Swizzle Inn

Proof that I was on this vacation too, lol - getting my Rum Swizzle on!

We left our mark as best we could

Food was pretty good, but pricey.  The drinks were really good and strong.  I don't know if I would go there again, but I am glad to say I've been.  The Swizzle Inn was right by the Crystal Caves, so we walked there in our sandy shorts (ouch!)  only to find that admission was $20 a person!  So we passed on that.  But here is a cool tree we saw:

We are way tired at this point, so we took the bus to Hamilton so we could take the ferry back to the boat.

This is the city of Hamilton.  It is just like a real city, so there wasn't anything especially cool about it.  I wish we could have spent more time exploring in Hamilton is probably a pretty neat town, there was just not enough time, and too much sand in Aaron's shorts.  We did stop in a few places to get souvenirs like we had planned.

Hamilton from the ferry

That was day 2 in Bermuda, a very good time!











Honeymoon in Bermuda: St. George

We got to Bermuda in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, and docked at the Royal Naval Dockyards.  We decided to go to St. George on the first day since it was the furthest, and seemed like it was the coolest town we'd see since the weather cancelled our shipwreck snorkeling (boo!).  Our main gameplan was to spend a day in each of the three cities so we would only need a two day bus pass, since we would spend the last day in the town where the boat was docked.  We saved 10 bucks that way!

So anyway, took the ferry to St. George. 

Waiting for the ferry

On the ferry

All the pastel houses

St. George might be a contender for the quaintest town ever. It was the first settled town(?) when the settlers were coming to America from Europe, so the whole infrastructure of the town is like 400 years old!  The first thing we did coming off the ferry was get some lunch.  The ferries are a great way to get around Bermuda, but it is a 45 minute ride to get from the Dockyards to St. George!  We ate at the White Horse Pub which was right off the pier to the ferry.  We had to sample the famous Bermudan Dark N' Stormy.  Preeeety good, and very strong!  The food was very good, the prices were steep, but that is to be expected when you are a tiny island 600 miles from any mainland place.  Aaron says it was the best fish and chips of his life!

Don't even think about snagging this book as a free souvenir!  lol

Aaron having a Dark N' Stormy

After we refueled we did some exploring.  We didn't have an exact gameplan of stuff to see, but winging it was pretty easy.  The place is small and you can walk to all the places pretty easily, and there are signs galore pointing you to places worth seeing. 

Lots of tourists.

We were welcomed by a steel drum band :)

Once we walked past the main town square area, we found St. Peter's Church which was founded when the settlers got there.  It celebrated its 400th birthday this year!  Needless to say, it was really neat, and Aaron the history geek was in heaven!

Wow!

The Hinktinez's were here.

So very old

Pretty places to kneel

Cemetery out back.  The weather took all the names off the headstones.

I suppose that while the men were at sea back in the day all the ladies did was go to church, because we passed by nearly a dozen different churches while in town.  We also went to the unfinished church which was really cool.  A big giant storm ripped the building's roof off ages ago and no one ever finished building it.  It was cool and a little bit spooky!  We couldn't go inside because it was structurally unsound.  Bummer.

After walking about some more we decided to have a sit in a park we found.  We saw a legit Bermudan in the official Bermudan business attire - your top half is a regular suit, bottom half is Bermuda shorts and knee socks.  Oh, British people!  lol

It being baby blue makes it that much better, huh? :)

We were pretty beat after all the walking around town and such so we caught the ferry back to the boat and ate a free dinner there.  The food in Bermuda is pretty much all pub food, so once a day for fried stuff is good enough! 

I promise I will be more timely with the remainder of our trip updates!