Cheap Thrills in London - Ice-Skating in Queensway

It may not be as glamourous as ice-skating at Somerset House, at the Natural History Museum or in Hyde Park, but Queens Ice-skating & Bowling is the cheapest place to hit the rink in Central London.

On Monday nights it’s only £6.50 to ice-skate from 8 - 11 pm.  The disco lights and pop music gets you warmed up and doing figure eights in no time.

For beginners, an ice-skating rink can be a daunting place. The urban myth of getting your fingers chopped off if you fall and someone skates over them is highly perpetuated. If you do fall, this is pretty unlikely, mostly you’ll just end up with an icy bottom!

The only thing to be careful of is avoiding the wannabe pro’s that speed skate around the rink like they’re extras from the Mighty Ducks movies. 

For the price alone, it’s lots of good natured fun on a usually quiet Monday evening, without the crowds at the outdoor rinks. 

QUEENS Iceskating & Bowling, 17 Queensway, London W2 

Tips for travelling on a budget in Japan...and not going hungry!

View of Tokyo Tower

Japan isn’t known as a budget travel destination. However, it is possible to stretch your yen without going hungry. When I backpacked Japan, I managed to eat more than just ngiri.

My tips for budget travel in Japan:

• Get a Japan Rail Pass – I travelled on the 14 Day pass which now costs about $600AUD. On the pass we travelled extensively throughout Japan on the high speed bullet trains. You can jump on any JR train including the JR Yamamote line in Tokyo.
• Eat at food stalls - the hole in the wall eateries in train stations and off the street. A steaming bowl of udon noodle soup is usually only 120 yen with seaweed and tofu.
• Have a breakfast at a bakery. The self serve Bread Talk-style bakeries are everywhere – in shopping malls and train stations. Stock up on the buns for snacks on a train ride as they're cheaper than buying goods from the singing waitresses on JR trains.
• Drink coffee from a vending machine. It’s out of a can, but coffee is still coffee, right?

• Eat dinner from a vending machine. This perhaps isn't as appealing as drinking coffee from a can.

• Buy a bento box dinner. I admit buying a bento box meal in Japan is like getting a Happy Meal when you're a kid. It's strangely exciting, particularly as you don't quite know what pickled vegetable you're eating and you half expect to find a toy inside the box.
• Take an overnight train. We took a train (with three changeovers) from Sapporo all the way to Kyoto. This was a crazy 13 hour journey but we did save on one night's accommodation and saw some beautiful scenery along the way. 

One of my readers asked about seeing more budget travel posts just as I was drafting this article. I promise I'll be doing a lot more budget travel posts regularly. Follow my tweets and stay tuned!