Minnie: Hello other Candle Wasters!
Claris: Hi guys! M: It's you guys, and also the fandles.
I'm doing big arm movements like it's a real vlog.
C: Wassup guys. M: I'm a vlogger.
C: Yeah, welcome! Welcome to this video.
We are right now in a little village - I think it's a village -
called Freshford. Which is near Bath.
This vlog is about leaving New Zealand through to our visit at Oxford.
[car driving sounds fade into music]
M: First stop, was in Sydney. Sydney airport. For twelve hours
C: You may ask, why didn't we leave the airport and go into Sydney?
The answer is:
M: We got a bit of work done before we left.
We also watched some of 'Anne with an E'.
After 12 hours, we were finally on a plane to Tokyo. And we arrived in Tokyo safely.
C: Very, very tired and we were just like taking a new transport system.
It was a lot cheaper. M: So much cheaper.
C: It was like taxi: a million dollars. Monorail then train: two dollars.
And we were like, "Mmm, sounds great"
M: Surprisingly easy. Which, great for us as scared lil anxious beans. Not so great, I guess,
in regards to colonialism and how that must've affected Japan.
Because being in England now - on this train system - everything's just English!
It's all just English! In Japan there were like English and Japanese
C: I think there might've been Chinese. M: Or Korean?
M: The other 3 were different characters to the alphabet that we know.
Journeying around Japan in general, I sortof found
that the buildings and the trees all looked like
anime architecture. It was like "oh my gosh you've really
captured what this place looks like." Which is just very different from New
Zealand's buildings and greenery. C: I found it really interesting just the
volume of people. M: "We gotta go see the famous crossing!"
C: It's one of the busiest street crossings in the world. We crossed it!
We crossed that street. M: This is us crossing the street.
You can see it. On your screen. [laughter]
In Japan we stayed at an AirBnB, with lovely hosts Jon & Koichi. They're wonderful.
We still need to write a review for them. It's fine. C: It's gonna be a great review!
M: It is gonna be a great review. They were so helpful
and we were so socially anxious.
C: It's hard being shy sometimes
you just gotta go at your own pace, not force yourself to interact with people if you don't feel like it.
M:So our last full day in Tokyo we went to the
Studio Ghibli Museum!
So at the museum you're not allowed to like film inside
or anything but it was great! Um, there was themed food at the restaurant, so you
could feel like you were eating the real food and there was slightly more themed
food than usual because at the time that we were there one of the special
exhibits was about the food in the films so like the really memorable scene in
'Howl's Moving Castle' with eating bacon and eggs with a spoon or in 'Ponyo' with
the noodles, the ramen C: With the ham.
M: Ham! C: HAM!
If you have children, take them to this museum.
I reckon you could just watch one Ghibli film and that would be enough to
go to this museum. M: Best Ghibli films for kids:
'My Neighbour Totoro', 'Kiki's Delivery Service', and 'Ponyo'.
C: You have to book in advance but it's so cool.
It's designed kinda like a maze. So you're supposed to get lost. You know, not have a
camera and not have your phone out so you really just immerse yourself.
It's like stepping into a Ghibli film in real life. So worth it. I loved it.
M: Elsie, Sally, Robbie. Wellington: so windy. So rainy. Using an umbrella? Terrible idea.
Japan - or at least Tokyo - or - C: The time that we were there.
M: And everyone had umbrellas and we were momentarily taken aback because we were like,
"No! They'll blow away and you'll die!" But no. These umbrellas are fine because
there is no wind. It's all just rain. And you can walk around in what you're gonna
be wearing, not with a big raincoat over yourself. C: It's the kind of thing
that you wouldn't expect to be so surprised by, but I was very surprised.
When we left Japan we flew out from Osaka, so we had to take a train
from Tokyo to Osa- C: You say A train, I say 4 trains.
M: Eventually we made it. C: It was four different trains.
From Osaka we flew to Dubai where we had a 2 hour
stopover for Claris and a 4 hour stopover for me because we were on
separate flights arriving in different airports - In England I'm traveling with
Claris and we're travelling to all the people that she knows and I don't really
know as many people. Customs was like "you know it sounds real weird that
you're travelling and the person you're traveling with isn't here and you're
staying with all their family." C: The customs lady asked, "what day
are you leaving?" and I was like, "uhhh" M: I know that date.
Because Claris and I work as a team.
C: Traveling with Minnie is so easy, I find because it's like if I forget to do
something or if I'm like too tired to deal with something, Minnie takes it on
and then it works exactly the same the other way around. M: We've been staying in
London with Claris' uncle and his wife and his daughter.
We went for a walk through Hampstead Heath. With Claris' family and that was
really nice. C: My dad and my stepmother and my little sister who's 9 are also here at
the same time. M: Claris' uncle and his family were having a big party at Oxford
which we were invited to go to. So it was really cool because we sort of got to
stay in the student halls and - C: I felt like I was a student at Oxford college.
M: We looked out at the Deer Park. C: Yeah, there were deer! [laughter]
Our last morning in Oxford we walked across
the road to the Botanic Gardens, because we really wanted to visit Lyra and
Will's bench from His Dark Materials. And we found to the bench and we sat on the
bench and we got emotional at the bench because Philip Pullman is a master of
words. C: It was really cute like I just really liked how lowkey it was.
There was no discernible plaque being like "this is the bench from His Dark
Materials". It was just when you sat down on the beach people had inscribed like,
"L + W". M: "Every atom of you and every atom of me".
C: Ha. I'm getting emotional again. Those books are so good.
if you haven't read them, get on it! M: Candle Wasters! Revisit Philip Pullman
today. C: Talk to me about all of this beautiful world building.
M: What do you think the other three's dæmons are? C: I feel like I need to think long and hard about this.
M: We're gonna have a think about what Elsie, Sally, and Robbie's dæmons are, and if
we think of it, it's gonna appear above our heads
as we're thinking...
C: So yeah this has been a really great start of our journey. I've enjoyed
it being summertime in the countries that we've been in.
It's question time! What are our dæmons? Guys? You can answer this in the comments, anyone.
But Sally, Elsie, & Robbie, you need to think about this hard. You need to focus group it. You
need to figure it out. You need to tell us in the next vlog, alright?
M: Can we see some 'Happy Playland' drafts? C: Yeess. Tell Bailey to send us some videos.
We want to see stuff! and yeah I hope all the 'Tragicomic' writing is going well.
You guys are amazing. So creative and talented and -
M: We love you. C: We do. It's true. Both: We love you.
M: Yesterday we traveled from Oxford to Bath, and we're not gonna talk about any
of that because that's the end of the vlog for now. C: Oh my god! M: Calling an end to it.
C: Goodbye! See you in two weeks! Oh. It's confusing. You'll see us in two weeks but
we'll see you next week. M: In your vlog. C: Yeah!
Both: C'ya, c'ya later! It's time for us to end! C'ya, c'ya later! We'll be back again (in two weeks time in reply to your vlog)