Howard On the Run

Return

2007-08-14T11:30:00.000-04:00

Locations: Singapore; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Stockholm, Sweden; New York

At 4:00 am on Monday morning, I got ready to go, said goodbye to Ben, and grabbed the cab to the airport. My flights home actually went back west rather than east over the Pacific Ocean. First, I flew to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Then I flew to Stockholm, and then took the same plane to Newark airport. All told, the entire trip took 24 hours, and I landed in New York at 7pm local time. However, the flights went by pretty fast, because Malaysia Airlines is a very good airline; plenty of leg room, comfortable seats, good entertainment options, and good service. During this time, I read the last Harry Potter book cover to cover, and watched Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 on the plane.

It's been a great 5 weeks. Ben and I both had a great time. In the end, I ended up visiting or passing through 22 cities and 12 countries, using 9 currencies, and hearing 12 languages. I'd have to say that my favorite place I stopped was Istanbul, Turkey (sorry Ben). I definitely want to return to Turkey one day, stopping in Istanbul again, and perhaps seeing the city of Ankara and the Cappadocia region.

I know it's a little cliche to say so, but I definitely gained a new perspective on the world from this trip. I feel a lot safer than I used to. For all the things you hear in the news about terrorism, and anti-American and western sentiment, most of the people you meet when you travel just want to live their lives and ensure prosperity for themselves and their families. Not once was I given a dirty look, poor service, or a hard time because I was American. Whenever we were asked "Where are you from?", and we responded with "New York", the local then told us what he liked about the city, or about the relative that he had living there (or tried to sell us something; a lot of salesmen ask that question to every tourist they come across).

I hope everyone reading this blog enjoyed the posts, the pictures and the videos. I enjoyed all your comments, and hope your summers were enjoyable. I'm going to be in New York for one week; next Sunday or Monday, I head out to Pittsburgh to start business school at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. I do not know if I will continue to blog or not; I guess I'll see if there's something interesting to write about. Bon Voyage!

Singapore

2007-08-14T10:35:00.000-04:00

Location: Singapore

Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Singapore. We picked up our bags and took a cab to Ben's apartment. Ben's going to be living here for the next 6 months, attending INSEAD Business School. His apartment was very nice; a high rise building with pools and tennis courts, right across from the school.

We dropped off our bags there, and met his roommate. Then we decided to head into the downtown area for a little bit. We went to a mall that sold mostly electronics and technology, so Ben could start looking into cell phones. Both here and in Thailand, I saw malls that were organized by theme-an electronics mall, a home improvement, etc., where all the shops fit the theme. Interesting way of shopping.

After eating lunch here, we ventured out to the City Hall area. In this area are some of the famous buildings built during British ownership, including City Hall, the Supreme Court, and the Singapore Cricket Club, built in 1852. This area also had great views of the skyline along the Singapore River:

After this, we took a cab over to the DHL shipping center to pick up our suits that we had sent from Hong Kong. This place was by the port of Singapore, which is the largest port in the world. We got our packages in short order, and headed back to Ben's apartment. As it started to rain and thunder towards the evening, we decided to just order in a pizza. I went to sleep at around 11, having to catch a 4:30 cab to the airport the next morning...

Chiang Mai, conlcuded

2007-08-13T09:27:00.000-04:00

Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Our final day in Chiang Mai was pretty low key. After resting at the hotel for a while, we decided we were bored. So we hired a Tuk Tuk to take us to the Bo Sang market. This is a market outside of Chiang Mai, dedicated to the manufacture and sale of Asian-style umbrellas. The place was smaller than I expected, but we did get to see various stages of the umbrella-making process:

Ben and I declined to buy one, being low on cash, and not wanting to stretch the weight limit on flights anymore. Still, it was neat to see these umbrellas being made. We then basically repeated the previous day, seeing The Bourne Ultimatum in the mall (once again standing for the video of the Thai royal family). By the time the movie was over, it was night, and we made our way to the Night Bazaar for dinner. We were able to get seats in front of a small theatre, hosting traditional Thai dances:

Here's a short video:

And some photos of the Night Bazaar:

Finally, we headed back, to get some sleep. The following morning, we caught our flight into Singapore...

Chiang Mai, continued

2007-08-12T10:13:00.001-04:00

Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand

On Friday morning, we headed out to Doi Suthep. This is a Buddhist wat built high above the city. It took about one hour to get there; we had to first take a Tuk Tuk to the Chiang Mai Zoo, and then a Songthaew up the hill. A Songthaew is like a Tuk Tuk; instead of a cab mounted onto a moped, a cab is mounted onto a pickup truck. At the top, we reached the wat. This one was built with a large staircase leading up to the temple:

Like most of the staircases at these temples, the statues at the base of the steps were very cool looking. This one was of a large naga, a long snakelike river creature, swallowing several smaller nagas:

At the top, we walked around the temple grounds. This temple has an iconic pillar, which is actually the symbol of the city of Chiang Mai. All in all, this temple was very impressive, and had great views of the entire city of Chiang Mai:

There were a lot of young Buddhist monks at the temple as well:

I don't know much about Buddhist tradition, but I did see several monks and other Buddhists sound the numerous bells around the temple:

I'm sure this has an important significance, but I don't know what it is. I did take a short video of the bell ringing though:

We then walked back down to the foot of the stairs. There were small shops here, and Ben and I bought some paintings for good prices. I bought one for 250 baht, only to find another woman selling them a minute later for 100 baht. That bothered me a little, but I bought one of those as well, getting both for 350 baht, which is a little more than 11 dollars.

Also at the foot of the wat entrance was an elephant. Cucumbers were on sale for 20 baht. I decided I had to get in on this, and bought some cucumbers to feed the elephant. He seemed to enjoy this very much:

After this, we decided to have lunch at a mall, and then see The Simpsons Movie. One interesting thing about that experience: right before the feature presentation, there is a short video with images of the Thai royal family, and the anthem of Thailand playing in the background. It is customary to stand in respect during this video. We were definitely not expecting this, but I guess it's similar to singing the Star Spangled Banner at ball games in the U.S.

We then headed back to the hotel, and later went out to dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We walked around the Night Bazaar afterwards, and I was able to get a good deal on a nice Chinese style lamp. One more post on Chiang Mai coming up...

Northern Thailand and the Golden Triangle

2007-08-12T07:25:00.001-04:00

Location: Northern Thailand, Laos

On Thursday morning, we woke up early to get on our tour bus into Northern Thailand. Our first stop on the tour was a natural hot spring. However, we were expecting something more grandiose. What we got was basically a pit stop at a shop along the road, which had a hot spring; however, this really just looked like a little fountain with some water shooting out the middle. I put my hand in it, and it wasn't even hot. I had to be told later by Ben that that was the hot spring we were supposed to visit. Pretty disappointing.

Our next stop was the city of Chiang Saen. On the way, we passed through Chiang Rai. Our tour guide had told us about a monument in the city, in honor of King Mengrai, who founded Chiang Rai in 1262. However, we did not stop here, and sped right past it. I'm not sure why the tour was designed in that way; it would have taken maybe 5 minutes to stop at the monument. I managed to get a photo of it as we passed by though:

Upon reaching Chiang Saen, we made a stop at another temple, Wat Chedi Luang. This one was built in 1291, and very little of it still stands. However, it has an impressive stone pillar, and is in the process of being restored today:

Next, we headed to the Golden Triangle. This place is along the Mekong River, and is where three countries meet: Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. It once was a very important location for the growing and trading of opium; very little of that remains today. It is known as the Golden Triangle, because gold was used as the currency for the opium trade in this area. Some views of the Mekong River:

In the first picture above, the three countries are visible. On my side of the Mekong is Thailand. Immediately ahead is Laos. In the distance is Myanmar.

We were escorted to a longtail boat, which took us around the river a little bit. We passed by some sights along the way:

The first photo is a monument built in Thailand with a large Buddha statue, marking the Golden Triangle. The second is of a casino in Myanmar, and the third is of a small Laotian island in the Mekong. People are allowed to enter this island from Thailand or Myanmar without needing a visa stamp; however, to enter the rest of Laos, a stamp is required. We disembarked at this island for a little while:

This is clearly a tourist stop, with little shops selling some of the same things we've seen elsewhere. However, there were some items for sale more specific to Laos and the Golden Triangle:

The two photos above show sets of opium pipes, made of various materials. They looked very nice, so I bought one for 200 baht (~7 dollars). I suspect that some might actually be made of ivory-I didn't try to get one of these, as I didn't want to risk a hassle at U.S. customs (perhaps more importantly, it's not really morally kosher in my mind). Ben had bought some pipes as well, on the Thai side of the river. He was a little bothered by the fact that he paid a lot more for them there than I did in Laos. Below are two more pictures of another local specialty.

This is Laotian whiskey. Those are real snakes and scorpions in the bottle! They soak them in the whiskey, giving it a distinct flavor. Needless to say, I declined to give it a try. I can imagine what the look on the custom officer's face would be if I presented that in Newark Airport.

After about 30 minutes, we took the longtail boat back to Thailand. This longtail boat itself was not covered like the ones in Bangkok and Phuket. Here's some video of the ride:

We then headed up to the monument on the Thai side. The Buddha and other statues here were very impressive:

We ate lunch by the Golden Triangle, and then proceeded to the city of Mai Sae. This is the most northern point in Thailand. The main attraction here is a border crossing with Myanmar:

Since we only had about a half an hour, and the border crossing visa cost 500 baht, we decided it wasn't worth it, and just hung out in the city for a little while. We then made our way to two different villages in rural Thailand. Here, people lived in huts with straw roofs in the hills. Of course, they also sold crafts to tourists passing through. Chickens ran across the narrow dirt roads, and kids played by the huts. Although not so exciting, we arrived to these around sunset, and the atmosphere was very beautiful and peaceful:

By this time, it was around 5pm, so we got back into the bus and headed back to Chiang Mai. Along the way, we passed by many farms growing rice. It was hard to get a good photo from the bus, but I managed to get one:

We were pretty tired when we got back to Chiang Mai, so we just took it easy for the rest of the night.

Chiang Mai

2007-08-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand

On Wednesday morning, we headed out into the downtown area of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the largest city in northern Thailand, and was once the capital of the Lannathai Kingdom. The ruler of the kingdom constructed a moat and a wall around the city to protect it from attacks. The moat and parts of the wall are still visible today:

There are plenty of temples in the city, and they are generally much older and of a different style than the ones in Bangkok. Since we didn’t really know what else to see, we decided to head to a temple called Wat Chiang Man. This was the oldest one in the city, having been built in 1296. It was nice to see this one, as it lacked the tourist presence that existed in Bangkok. It was a smaller, quainter site, and there was no admission charge as well. Some pictures of the wat:

The inside of the main building had some beautiful artwork on the doors and walls, which was probably recently restored:

In the back was a large cheddi (pillar). The pillar was built on top of amazing statues of elephants:

After this, I walked over to another wat, Wat Phra Singh, which had a white cheddi, and old, unrestored paintings on the walls of the temple:

We took it easy for the afternoon, as it was raining outside. Later, we headed out to see the Night Bazaar, which is the main market of Chiang Mai. This market is similar to the others (of course), but has more indoor areas and a neat food court like area. In this food court, you bought coupons from one desk for a certain amount, and then exchanged the coupons for different courses at different stands. Each stand specialized in a different type of Asian food, from Middle Eastern to Japanese. I got a pad thai, a soda, a bottle of water, and a dessert of sticky rice and mango for 100 baht , or about 3 dollars and 33 cents.

After walking around some more, we headed back to the hotel, to get some sleep.The following morning, we got up to go on a tour of the north of Thailand, and the Golden Triangle…

Bangkok, revisited

2007-08-09T11:49:00.001-04:00

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

On Tuesday, we headed out of Phuket early to catch our plane to Bangkok. We got into Bangkok at around 10:30 am, and had a flight out to Chiang Mai at 8:40 pm. Ben decided he wanted to just stick around the airport area for the layover. I however, did not have this choice, as I had lost my cell phone, and believed it to be in the hotel in Bangkok. So I headed to the hotel, and sure enough, I had left it under the bed. After convincing the hotel staff to let me search the room and recovering the phone, I decided to head out and explore some areas that we had missed earlier.

First, a word about Bangkok's transportation systems. Bangkok has two methods of mass transit: a subway system, and an above ground system similar to Chicago's L system. However, these two systems don't have stops in useful places (at least not for tourists) and there is no airport connection, for now. Add to this a ridiculously inefficient way of timing the traffic lights, and it makes for a terrible mess of traffic at all times during the day. I decided to take the above ground system for a few stops:

Upon entering the train, I noticed a sign above one of the seats for preferred seating:

I wonder if we should offer preferred seating for priests, rabbis and ministers on subway systems in the United States.

I ended up taking this train to the Victory Monument, constructed in 1941 to commemorate the Thai victory against the French in the French-Thai War. The whole area was a wide open roundabout:

After this, I walked over to the Chitralada Villa, which is the official residence of the royal family of Thailand. The palace is surrounded by a large fence and a moat, and I could only walk around the outside:

I then walked across the street to the Marble Temple, Wat Benchamabophit (quite a mouthful). This temple was made of Italian marble, and houses many images of Buddah, made of different materials. There is also a stream running through the grounds. The whole area was quite beautiful. I managed to get some pictures before my camera battery died:

After seeing this, I walked around for a long time looking for a place to eat, before giving up, buying some pineapple, and taking a cab back to the airport. I met up with Ben around 6:30 pm, and we headed for our flight to Chiang Mai...

Phuket

2007-08-08T10:37:00.000-04:00

Location: Phuket, Thailand

Phuket is an island in the southern part of Thailand. It sits in the Andaman Sea, and is known as a prime beach vacation spot. This quickly became apparent, as we walked around the Patong Beach area at night. Plenty of hotels right on the beach; with open air restaurants and bars, serving up all manner of bad rock tribute bands and Elvis impersonators. We saw a lot of tourists here, especially from Australia. Perhaps this is a vacation spot for Aussies, just like the Bahamas or Bermuda for Americans.

On Saturday, we just took it easy. This was very easy to do: the hotel we had was very nice, and had a pool that basically ran the whole length of the hotel. It was also right on the Patong Beach, which was very nice, stretching for about 1.5 miles, facing the Andaman Sea:

On Sunday, we took a half-day trip to the Phang Nga area, which is actually on the Thai mainland, north of Phuket. This is probably the area that Phuket is most famous for. If you see pictures of Phuket, you'll probably see pictures of the Phang Nga Bay.

This was the best tour we'd been on so far. The tour guide spoke English very well, and there were no souvenir stops along the way. Our first stop on the trip was the Monkey Temple. This was basically a cave with a reclining Buddha statue. Plenty of monkeys scurried around the grounds of the cave, and people operated stands selling bananas and rambutans that you could buy to feed the monkeys:

After this, we were driven to a dock, to get on a longtail boat. This boat was much bigger, holding about 20 people. We took this boat into the Phang Nga Bay, which truly lives up to its hype. This was one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen in the world. Limestone cliffs rise majestically out of the water, with no slopes leading up to them. Water erosion makes the cliffs skinnier at the bottom than in the middle, and trees and shrubs grow precariously out of cracks in the cliffs:

After sailing through the water for about half an hour, we reached a Muslim fishing village, situated at the foot of one of these cliffs. This village was basically suspended over the water:

We docked at the village and walked around a bit. Shops sold local crafts and souvenir items. We walked past an elementary school with a ball court as well:

Tourism obviously helps sustain this village; women walked around with gibbons for tourists to take photos with; since Ben had already had one monkey experience in Marrakesh, he was not particularly interested in having another one here. As we walked around, I heard a sound familiar to ones from earlier in the trip: the muezzin's call to prayer (I didn't get a video with this one). After walking around for a while, we had lunch in one of the restaurants in the village, and headed back to the longtail boat. Now, we headed through the bay area for another 20 minutes, underneath one of the limestone cliffs at one point:

We then reached Ko Tapu, also known as James Bond Island. It has this name because it was the chosen location of Scaramanga's lair in "The Man With the Golden Gun". The island was beautiful, and we got there at around 5pm, after most of the tourists had left and the shops had closed. The island is rather small, and the most famous landmark on the island is a smaller limestone cliff rising out of a shallow pool of water, shown in the last picture below:

After exploring this island, we were taken back to the port on the longtail boat, as the sun was setting. This made for some nice photos as well:

All in all, this was a great tour, and I recommend it to anyone who visits Phuket.

At night, we walked around the Patong Beach area, and on the main street of Bang La. Here were plenty of little shops, and go-go bars in similar fashion to the ones in Bangkok, though they seemed a bit more tame. More of the bars were open-air here, so it was easy to just walk through. Obviously, the whole purpose was for men to decide which girl they wanted to take home. There was one twist here though: to "flirt" with the men, the girls would play connect-four with them. I guess when you can't really speak the same language as the girl, it's a good way to "get to know her".

On Monday, we went into the downtown area of Phuket. There wasn't really much going on here, and we ended up going to a mall to have lunch. Still, we did pass by some interesting fruit stands, and pottery stands:

That last picture is of a very interesting Thai fruit. It is called durian. Supposedly, when fully ripe, the fruit is the most foul-smelling fruit in the world, and many hotels will actually forbid guests from bringing it into their rooms. I bought some-it definitely had a smell to it, but I must not have bought a piece at the peak of ripeness. It tasted okay, nothing too special.

At the mall, we had lunch at a shabu-shabu restaurant. Here, you order ingredients off the menu, and cook it in a pot of vegetable flavored water sitting on the table. Definitely a fun way to eat; because we only had veggies though, it wasn't very filling, but it was a good bargain, at only about 4 dollars.

Anyway, we headed back to the hotel after this. I decided to walk around, and took some pictures of the beach area around sunset:

The last photo is of a small Buddha shrine; these exist all over Thailand, and other Asian countries. I guess Buddhists can offer their prayers here if need be.

Anyway, on Tuesday morning, we woke up early and flew to Chiang Mai, stopping off in Bangkok again for a long layover...

The Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

2007-08-04T01:30:00.000-04:00

Location: Bangkok and Damnoen Saduak, Thailand

On Thursday, we woke up early to head out for our tour of the Floating Markets of Damnoen Saduak. These markets are located about one and a half hours outside of Bangkok. These river markets used to be a traditional way of selling goods, until people moved to the cities. They have since made a recovery as tourism has come to the area. So, while not being wholly authentic, it is pretty neat to experience.

Our tour bus picked us up from the hotel at 7:15 am. The floating market closes at 11:30am, so we had to get there early to see them. We headed out, and about an hour later, our tour guide told us that we were ahead of schedule, and could make a stopover at a coconut farm. While not exactly what we paid for, we still thought it was interesting, and walked around for about 10 minutes. Our tour guide let us sample some pure coconut sugar, which was very tasty. We got to see the pots they use to make the sugar, and many wares made of coconut wood:

After this, we made it to the drop off point of the floating markets. At this point, we departed the bus and took a longtail boat to the markets. These boats were basically long canoes, with an attached long pole sticking out the back, which had a motor at the end:

The ride to the market was pretty neat-the boat went really fast at points, and yet the design of the boat basically prevented any water from splashing inside. Here's a video of part of the ride:

Once we got to the floating market, we disembarked, only to get on a smaller, paddled canoe. This was the canoe that led us through the market. The market is very chaotic-plenty of canoes shifting their way through the very narrow canal, each one holding different wares, including fruits, meats, soups, crafts, and hats:

Some of the salespeople even had hooks that they used to tug our canoe towards their "shop". At this point, we had been through so many markets in so many countries, so we were used to turning down aggressive salespeople, and we did pretty well here also-but this setup presented a new challenge-we actually could not walk away from these salespeople, and the canoe went at a very slow pace-so we were actually stuck staring at them after we turned down their wares, which was a little awkward.

After seeing the markets for about an hour, our tour guide decided that we were still ahead of schedule, and that we would be visiting an elephant farm. I decided to take an elephant ride, which was definitely a very touristy thing to do, but still kinda fun:

The "driver" actually sat directly on the elephant's head, and would make a series of grunts to direct the elephant where to go. At one point, there was a stream that the elephant crossed-it was almost too deep for the elephant to walk through; and he had to lift his trunk up out of the water. This area also had a monkey exhibit, but Ben had already had enough experiences with monkeys in Marrakesh, and so we declined to take a look.

After this, our tour guide took us to another stop: a snake farm. Here the offer was for what was billed as "The Most Exciting Show in the World": basically, a man fending off an attack from three poisonous snakes with his hands and his mouth. At this point, we had started to notice a theme to these stops: they were to random stops along the road designed to separate tourists from their money. We and the other people with us were getting slightly annoyed, and so we decided not to see the show, satisfied that we had made the right decision. Then, we were taken to another stop-a wood carving place. This was basically a souvenir shop, with some guys carving wood at the front. The carved pieces looked very beautiful, but we did not buy anything here.

After this, we were driven back to Bangkok, with yet another stop at a souvenir shop in the city. Billed as the "Largest Gem Store in the World", it was very boring and useless to us. Finally, we got a bus ride back to our hotel.

In the evening we walked around the Patpong area again. We bargained some pretty good deals here, as we've become seasoned pros at this point. I got a nice polo shirt for 25o Baht (8 dollars), down from 950 Baht (31 dollars). Ben later got the same polos for 150 Baht, but still good deals both. I also got a nice set of wooden candle holders for 400 Baht, down from 1200 Baht. We then once again decided that the neighborhood was too sketch for us, and just went to a bar in a hotel for a little while. The following day, we took it easy, and flew to Phuket in the afternoon. We got an bus shuttle from the airport to our hotel in Phuket. The bus stopped at a tourist booking shop along the way. These stops seem to be the name of the game in Thailand. I was fed up with all the extra stops at this point, and flat out refused to look at their offerings, even though I knew I'd want to do one at some point in the next couple of days. I figured I'd get a better deal somewhere else as well.

Our hotel was the last stop on the bus. It is a very nice hotel, right on the Patong Beach. Post on Phuket coming soon...

Bangkok

2007-08-02T08:48:00.001-04:00

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

We arrived in Bangkok at around 4pm local time, 1 hour ahead of China. We took a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel, which was located in the Silom district-and just as we were getting out of the bus, we got something that we hadn't really had on the trip before. Rain. Lots of rain. This here is the beginning of monsoon season in Southeast Asia, and it decided to pick the moment we got off the bus to start. We had some trouble finding our hotel in this, and got completely drenched as a result. When we found the hotel, the Trinity Silom, I decided that it was the best hotel we've stayed in so far. I mean, after all, it had a roof.

After we dried out a little, we ventured into the neighborhood. We walked over to the Patpong District, which has a market set up in the middle of it at night. There were plenty of people walking around (mostly tourists), and some pretty good deals to be had. The stuff was pretty similar to what we found in China, with one notable exception: the elephant featured more frequently in the art, crafts, and shirts. The elephant is the national animal of Thailand; picture people riding them around during the days of Siam.

Patpong's most famous reputation is more sinister; it is the red-light district of Thailand. It definitely shows. Go-go bars line the streets, and pushy salesmen try to entice you into coming in to the bars. They all have the same card showing the different "shows" you can see; I won't go into the details, because even if I wanted to explain what the shows were, I wouldn't know how. These places were definitely very seedy, so we steered clear. I also declined to take any pictures of the bars, because a) It doesn't make for interesting photography, and b) I don't like being beaten by bouncers. Here is a picture of the market though:

We had dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant in the area, which had a great deal. 400 Thai Baht (~13 dollars) for all you can eat sushi made fresh right in front of you. It was really good sushi, perhaps the best we had on the trip so far. After this, we walked around some more, and then headed in.

On Wednesday morning, we headed out to go see some of the temples and palaces of Bangkok. We took a taxi over to the historical area. As soon as we got out, we were met by a random Thai man, who told us that the temple wasn't open until 1pm. He took our map and said that if we wanted to see the Marble Temple instead, he could take us there. Luckily, we had read about such scams, and were seasoned pros by this point. We forcefully said "no thank you" and walked away. This is a common scam in Thailand-telling tourists that either the sites are closed, or that they are only open to Thai citizens-the goal being to get you to pay for a guide or go to souvenir shops.

Our first stop was the Wat Po, a massive temple complex. The architecture of the temple was amazing; large, ornate spires rising high into the sky. The level of detail on the spires is truly impressive, and must have taken a very long time to do:

In the main temple of Wat Po, is the Reclining Buddha. This pose of Buddha is very common in Southeast Asia, and this particular one was huge-too big to really fit into one photograph. The whole body of Buddha is shown, down to the soles of the feet, which are also ornately designed (shown in the third picture below):

After walking through Wat Po, we crossed the street, and walked into the Grand Palace. This was also very impressive, with three main spires, one carved, one covered with golden tiles, and the third designed to look like Angkor Wat. In addition, there is another temple here, that houses a very famous Emerald Buddha. Actually made out of pure jade, it was supposedly created in India, discovered up near Chiang Rai centuries ago, captured by the Laotians, before being recaptured by the Thais in the 18th century and brought to Bangkok. There were no pictures allowed inside the shrine, but I managed to take one from outside. The whole complex was very beautiful, with more of the spires around, and large statues of warriors:

After this, we went over to have lunch in the Bang Lampoo district. We took a Tuk Tuk over there. A Tuk Tuk is like a taxi; it's a moped with a wheeled cart attached to the back:

Defintely a fun way to get around the city.

We then walked around the area, and bought some DVDs. I also bought some rambutan. This is a local fruit, which is kind of like a lychee, only larger, and with more spines. Here's a picture of the rambutan:

To eat one, you break open the shell, and squeeze the fruit into your mouth. The shell is a little difficult to crack, but with a little effort, you can get it. When I asked the salesman what it cost, he said 20 baht, which is about 60 cents. I figured it would be 20 baht for maybe 1 or 2 rambutans, but instead, he produced a plastic bag and filled it with about 40! I could only get Ben to eat 1, I ate the other 39 over the next few hours.

One interesting thing about Thailand is the "welcome" hand gesture. Thais will welcome you or bid you goodbye with their hands clasped in front of them, fingers touching their chin, and do a slight bow. Here's a picture of Ronald McDonald getting into the act.

After this, we headed in for an early night. The following morning, we woke up at 5:30 am, to catch a tour bus to the Floating Markets of Damnoen Saduak...

Macau

2007-08-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

Location: Macau SAR, China

On Sunday night, we took a boat from Hong Kong to Macau. The boat was very fast, covering about 40 miles in 1 hour. It actually took the amount of time it said it would, which is more than can be said for the ferry from Spain to Morocco.

Macau was a territory of Portugal following the Opium War, and was returned in full to China in 1999. It is one of the most densely populated places in the world, second only to Monaco in Europe. Today, it is fast becoming a place for gambling in Asia. Steve Wynn has built a virtual copy of his Las Vegas hotel here, and there are several others, and more slated to be opened soon, including a hotel similar to The Venetian in Vegas.

We were staying at the Casa Real Hotel, which is a casino hotel near the ferry port. The hotel was very nice, and the gambling was very old school-none of the glitz of Vegas. People played in quiet, smaller (relative to Vegas) rooms. It was cool to see-some of the games, I had never seen before, as they were local Asian games. Baccarat was very popular here, as was Sic Bo, which I have no idea how to play. A game called Fan Tan looked like fun-it involves a set of shirt buttons. After each betting round, the dealer shakes up and dispenses a random number of buttons. He counts them out by sets of four. When he gets to the end, however many are left in the last set determines who wins. Bets can be placed on any one number (1 to 4), groups of numbers, odds, evens, etc. It looked like fun, but without knowing much about it, I declined to play. I did however play some slots, and roulette. I ended up about 280 Hong Kong dollars (which are pretty much accepted everywhere in Macau) in the hole-about 40 US dollars.

Pictures were not allowed inside the casino areas-security is enforced very strictly here, with all the casinos having metal detectors at the entrances. If they see you have a camera, they will put a "no pictures" sticker on the strap. Crazy.

Anyway, the next day, we decided to head into the center of Macau to see the San Senado Square. The Portuguese architecture and styles really show, and it was quite interesting to see:

All around the San Senado Square, there are shops selling food in a similar manner to the fish shops in Hong Kong. These shops sold meat pressed into a square, which was very strange. I would describe them as looking like Fruit Roll-Ups, or "Meat Roll-Ups", if you will:

We walked through the square, and eventually ended up at the Ruins of Saint Paul's Cathedral. Only one side of the Cathedral is still standing. The Cathedral was built in the 16th century by the Jesuits, and is a very beautiful structure:

Next to the Cathedral is the Mount Fortress, which used to be used for defense of the Jesuit buildings. Some cannons line the openings of the fort, and the Museum of Macau is now located there:

After this, we took a cab over to the Macau Tower. It's a standard observation tower, which gives great views of practically all of Macau (the whole place is only 11 square miles). Some of the features of this tower are not for the faint of heart-you can actually stand on top of thick glass, and look directly down to the ground:

You can also pay extra for a bungee jump off the top, and a skywalk: they strap you into a harness, and you walk on an outside ramp that has no handrails, and no fences. Ben and I both declined to participate.

We then walked over to the Hotel Lisboa and the Wynn. The Hotel Lisboa is an older casino hotel, and has a beautiful ceiling and chandelier. I actually came out ahead at roulette in the Wynn, before losing it later that night.

Ben then went back to the Casa Real Hotel to go swimming. I went out to the Guia Park, which was near the hotel. There's an old light house in this park, a great running path, and good views as well:

I later also went swimming in the hotel, and then joined Ben for dinner in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. We then lost some money at roulette, and called it a night. All in all, Macau is interesting, but unless you enjoy gambling, it's not really good for an extended stay. The next day, we headed to the airport for our flight to Bangkok.

Hong Kong, concluded

2007-07-30T10:58:00.000-04:00

Location: Hong Kong SAR, China

On Saturday night, we headed over to the Lan Kwai Fong Food and Beer Festival. The Lan Kwai Fong area is a popular night spot, and the festival made things even more crazy. They were selling beer in tall glasses by the yard, 50 HKD for the first one, and 40 HKD for a refill. The streets were filled with people, and even though it rained for a little bit, the energy was high. We had some dinner there in a Malaysian restaurant as well.

Our final day in Hong Kong was quite eventful. After checking out of our "wonderful" YMCA hotel, we went to drop our stuff off at a left luggage counter in the Central metro station on Hong Kong Island. This is actually a pretty neat station; it has counters for checking your bags for a flight, even before you take the train to the airport. Pretty efficient. Anyway, after this, we took a bus ride out to the Stanley, which is on the other side of Hong Kong Island.

One note about the metro trains: they're a group of connected train cars, like anywhere else, but on the inside, they look like one long train. It's really neat:

What's really amazing about Hong Kong is that the Kowloon Peninsula and the north side of Hong Kong island look like one of the most modern, busy metropolises in the world. But the south side of Hong Kong is very peaceful. It almost seems like a different place entirely; I felt like the sun shone brighter on this side of the island:

We walked around the Stanley Market area for a little while, checking out the shops. The Stanley Market is basically a semi-covered group of alleyways, with shops selling local paintings and crafts, as well as clothing, backpacks, watches, and electronics. It was a neat area, and we picked up some nice stuff. I got a nice painting, and Ben got some as well, and a t-shirt that said "Black Belt Jones vs. Noodles of Death", with a picture of a dude with an afro on the front. I don't really understand it.

After this, we headed over to Jumbo. Jumbo is located in the Aberdeen section of Hong Kong Island. It is a gigantic floating restaurant:

You actually have to take a small ferry boat to the restaurant, passing by a marina on the way. Jumbo is 4 stories high, and each floor has a different restaurant, taking up the whole floor. We ate at a restaurant that had local cuisine. The wait was very long, and the prices were slightly high, but the food was really good.

Finally, we headed back to the northern side of Hong Kong Island. We hung out in the malls here for a little while, before making our way over to the Mid-Levels Escalator. This is a very unique Hong Kong method of transportation. It is a series of outdoor, covered escalators, that take you up a steep hill on Hong Kong Island. It carries the record for the longest covered escalator in the world:

It's pretty neat to go up, as you pass right through local alleys, which are filled with restaurants, apartments, and shops. We took this escalator all the way to the top, and walked around some more, before heading over to the JCC, for an amazing buffet dinner. Kosher food, lots of options, and only 30 U.S. dollars.

Finally, we retrieved our bags, and took the ferry over to Macau. This ferry actually took the amount of time the company said it would, unlike the one from Spain to Morocco. The ferry goes really really fast, and gets to Macau in one hour.

Hong Kong, continued

2007-07-29T13:42:00.001-04:00

Location: Hong Kong SAR, China

Friday morning, Ben went back to Shenzhen to pick up the suits; he had a multi-entry visa into the mainland. I used the morning to walk around some more. I walked through a park in Kowloon, which was very nice, and had an aviary. The birds were behind a caged in area, not surprising given the bird flu scare. There were some neat looking birds in the area:

After this, I walked over to the ferry area, passing by the clock tower that was once a part of the Kowloon station of the Kowloon-Canton railway (the station is no longer there):

I took the ferry again over to Hong Kong Island. The skyline is just as impressive during the day:

I took a walk over to Hollywood Road, which actually was named before Hollywood, California came into existence. It is a street lined with antique shops, and is well known for being in the film The World of Suzie Wong. I wasn't that impressed with it, honestly. I eventually reached the Man Mo temple, which is for Man, the god of Literature, and Mo, the god of war, and is used by adherents of Buddhism and Taoism. The building itself wasn't very large, but the inside was interesting, as I had never been inside a Buddhist (or Taoist) temple before. There was a lot of incense burning, and people hitting drums. What I found the most interesting were the incense burners hanging from the ceiling. Long sticks of incense had been curled up into the shape of a cone, and were slowly burning away. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures; I'll try to do so if I see more of them.

After this, I met up with Ben, and we shipped the suits to Singapore. They came out really nicely; I'm glad I had the opportunity to buy them. We then decided to see another Buddhist temple-the Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas. This temple lives up to its name, and in my opinion, it is a must-see for anyone visiting Hong Kong. It's a little off the beaten path-you take the suburban train route from Kowloon into the New Territories, and get off at a stop called Sha Tin. Once we arrived at Sha Tin, we walked over to the entrance to the temple. The path leading to the temple consisted of many many steps. Lining these steps were statues of Buddha in different poses, with different faces, different styles of dress, etc. This actually makes sense, as Buddha is not actually one particular individual, but rather anyone who has attained enlightenment and experienced Nirvana. "The" Buddha is Siddharta Guatama, who founded Buddhism. Some pictures below:

Some of the poses were really funny. A few of my favorites below:

Once you reach the top, you enter an outdoor shrine area, with even more Buddha statues around, the temple on one side, and a beautiful 8-story pagoda on the other. You can climb this pagoda, though you can't really see out the windows, as they are all blocked by more Buddha statues. Here are some pictures of the outdoor area and pagoda:

Finally, I walked into the temple. There are small statues of Buddha lining all the walls, all the way up to the ceiling. This temple is still functioning, and people were offering their prayers here as well:

This was one of the coolest places I've seen in my life. It is a great stop for anyone who wants a break from the energy of Hong Kong, as it is on a hill with great views of the surrounding area, it has a very unique and entertaining presentation, and it is relatively undiscovered by tourists. The staff of the temple were also very very nice and welcoming. At one point, I asked Ben to take a picture of me in front of the pagoda. One of the staff members started coming over, motioning about something. Ben thought that she wanted us not to take a picture. In fact, she was offering to take a picture of both of us (Ben declined; we were both kinda gross looking after sweating through the walk up).

Anyway, after this, we headed back to the hotel, and spent the night and the next day taking it easy. One more post coming up...

Hong Kong

2007-07-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

Location: Hong Kong SAR, China

I'm glad I went to Beijing before coming here. Had I not, I would probably have been less impressed. This city is really amazing. It is very modern and worldly, but at the same time, distinctly Asian. There are probably more malls in this city than any other city in the world, because pretty much each large office building has its own upscale mall. This city is a shopper's paradise, with designer brands like Zegna, Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, and others all over the place.

Hong Kong is made up of 4 main regions: Kowloon, the New Territories, Hong Kong Island, and Lantau Island. Most of the tall buildings in Hong Kong are on Hong Kong island, which is to the south of Kowloon. Ferries run every 15 minutes between Hong Kong and Kowloon.

We got into Hong Kong in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday. We were staying at the YMCA International House, so we took the train to what we thought was the right stop, a YMCA location right near the water in Kowloon. However, the concierge told us that the YMCA International House was actually 30 minutes walking distance north of that location. So we took a cab there. This hotel was not pleasant at all. It had a nice lobby, but the room was small and old, and the beds were hard as a rock. It may have been more comfortable to sleep on the floor. So let me just say, the Village People got it wrong-it is not fun to stay at the YMCA.

Thursday night, we ventured out to Hong Kong Island by ferry. We then made our way to the Peak Tram, which takes people to the top of Victoria Peak. From the top and from the ferry we got amazing views of the Hong Kong skyline:

As much as it pains me to say it, Hong Kong has a much nicer skyline than New York. What's more, every night at 8pm, a light show is held, with large spotlights and lasers shooting off the roofs of some of the taller buildings. We had dinner at the top of Victoria Peak, and headed back to Kowloon afterwards. The main street in Kowloon is Nathan Road; this area shows a different side of Hong Kong than Hong Kong Island. Here, the area is more distinctly Asian, with less of an international and pristine appearance. Local shops and restaurants sell local wares and foods. There were plenty of shops that had buckets of dried seafood things sitting out front, as well as restaurants cooking all kinds of weird things:

Those things in the second picture look like dried figs or dates or whatever, but they're actually dried seafood of some kind. Every time I walked past one I caught a whiff of whatever it was. It was kinda freaky; I don't know who's buying this stuff, but I hope their stomachs can handle it.

The Kowloon Peninsula is also where the hundreds of neon signs are located. It really is quite amazing; the streets are just full of them, advertising everything from Indian restaurants to electronics to foot massages:

We walked into a video game arcade off of Nathan Street, and stayed for about an hour or so. I don't know what it is, but video games are just on a whole different level in Asia. The people playing in this arcade were just so much better than I could ever hope to be at video games (that may be a good thing, depending on your point of view). I now understand why Nintendo decided so many years ago to release a "fake" sequel to Super Mario Brothers in the U.S., because they thought the real one would be too hard for Americans. The only thing I was good at was a horse race betting machine. I put in 2 Hong Kong Dollars, which gave me 20 credits. I did some betting, and won big on one of the races, putting me up to 138 credits. Unfortunately, I had not gotten a card for the game, and couldn't collect my winnings. So we called over a worker, who said something in Chinese that we didn't understand. So we decided it was just for the fun of betting-Ben then made some ridiculous bet, placing all the credits on all but one horse. Of course, that horse went on to win, and I lost all my credits. Just then, the worker came back with a card that would have allowed me to collect them. At least I learned that I'm not a bad gambler by skill; I'm just unlucky :-)

Anyway, we headed back to the hotel after this, ready to see more of Hong Kong on Friday...

Shenzhen

2007-07-29T12:25:00.001-04:00

Location: Shenzhen, China

We flew early Wednesday morning to Shenzhen, China. This is a city in mainland China, on the border of Hong Kong-sort of like the last outpost before Hong Kong. The city has sprouted up practically overnight since the reunification between Hong Kong and China, and is definitely up and coming-there are many tall office buildings and fancy hotels being built, with many more under construction:

We stayed the Century Plaza Hotel, which may be the nicest hotel we stayed in so far. It was very close to the train station to Hong Kong, and also very close to the Luo Wu Market. This is the main market of Shenzhen, very similar to the Hongquiao Market in Beijing, except much bigger. This market I was able to get some photos of:

There are great deals to be found here-prices are a fraction of what they would be in the U.S. Ben had been here before, and knew about one of the best deals around-custom suits. The way it works is, you enter the fabric section of the store (shown in the third picture above). There are salespeople for different tailor shops mulling around the area, luring potential customers to a fabric stand. Ultimately, you find a stand, and start looking at the different materials available. These fabrics are pretty high quality; some are only available from better designers in Europe and the U.S. After picking out a fabric, you pay for it at the stand, and follow the tailor salesperson to the tailor's shop, on another floor of the market. Here, you specify the design elements that you want; single or double-breasted, 3 buttons, 4 buttons, pleated or flat pants, etc. The tailor then takes your measurements, and gives you a receipt. The following day, you come for a fitting, and then the suit is ready the day after. The total price turned out to be about 850 yuan for each suit, or roughly 113 dollars. These suits would probably be worth about 6-700 dollars in the U.S. Ultimately, Ben and I each got two suits. I got a very nice double-breasted chocolate colored suit, and a standard single-breasted gray suit. Here's a picture of us with the tailors:

Ultimately, we had to head into Hong Kong the following day, and we couldn't pick up the suits that day, so Ben had to go back to Shenzhen from Hong Kong to pick them up. Unfortunately, I shipped them to Ben's apartment in Singapore right after I got them, so no pictures of me in the suits!

The rest of the time in Shenzhen, we took it easy-walked around the market, and looked at many many different knockoff Omegas and Rolexes, DVD's, and other things that you would expect to find in a haphazard Chinese marketplace. Thursday, we headed to Hong Kong by rail.

The Great Wall of China

2007-07-25T13:59:00.001-04:00

Location: Beijing, the Ming Tombs, and the Ba Da Ling section of the Great Wall, China

Tuesday morning, we made our way back to Tiananmen Square to catch a bus. The tickets cost 160 yuan, or about 23 dollars. They included a round trip coach bus, entry into the Ming Tombs, entry into the Great Wall at the Ba Da Ling area, and lunch. Our coach bus left at 9:30, for the Ming Tombs.

Most of the time, I try to stay away from organized tour groups. I did not think it was possible for a tour group to be more of an excruciating experience then I was used to. However, this one topped all others-the guide spent the entire hour and a half on the way to the tombs talking loudly on the microphone in Chinese.

After finally making it to the Ming Tombs, we were steered towards a cafeteria type room, and seated at several round tables. Of course, all the Westerners sat at the same table. Staff members brought out the food-various vegetables, noodle dishes, and the biggest bowl of rice that Ben and I had ever seen:

There were ten people at our table. By the time we had finished eating, we had not even put a dent in that bowl of rice.

Moving on, we moved into the Ming Tombs. The premise of the tombs is pretty interesting-these are the burial grounds of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty. However, the presentation was pretty bad. You go towards the main temple area of the tombs, and descend down into what is known as The Underground Palace. It looks more like the laundry room or basement of an apartment building than anything else. The tombs are encased in large red square boxes on one end-not very interesting, and a far cry from the mosques where the Ottoman sultans were buried in Istanbul. Other than that, there really isn't much to this area. Nevertheless, some pictures:

More fun then the actual tombs and temples of the area were the warning signs on the grounds, and their English translations. Notable ones include "Luxuriant Grass Don't Trample", "Cherish the Cultural Relic Please Don't Scribble" and "Environmental Sanitation of the Scenic Spot Needs Your Conserve". There was also this little gem:

Anyway, by 1:10pm, we were back on the bus, headed for the Great Wall. After another 50 minutes of bus travel, including 30 minutes of loud explanations in Chinese, we made it to the Ba Da Ling section of the Great Wall. Here, we were given 2 hours to explore the wall. We had the option of walking up, or paying for the cable car up to the top. We chose the cable car option.

As we were walking towards the cable car, we passed by a makeshift "zoo" set up at the foot of the mountains the Great Wall was on. This consisted of 3 different pits in the ground, in which black bears were held. Some bowls of crackers and cucumbers were left on the side of the pits, for people to toss towards the bears. This was a free attraction, and I'm sure it is probably a PETA member's worst nightmare:

After buying our ticket for 30 yuan (~4 dollars and 50 cents), and waiting on line, we got on the cable car. However, this was not actually a normal cable car, but the strangest method of conveying people from one place to another that I've ever seen:

Each person was seated in a plastic car, shown above, probably salvaged from a Chinese amusement park ride that would break several U.S. safety codes. The cars were transported up a steep section of the hill, one by one. The pictures above show this method, and how excited everyone was to be on it.

However, all the slightly strange, slightly kitschy, and slightly annoying things about the trip so far melted away once I reached the top. It didn't matter that there were thousands of tourists around, that we were in the most popular viewing spot, or that there were several shops hawking souvenirs. The Great Wall was truly an awe inspiring sight. Miles of stone wall snaking their way through the mountains, with lookout towers posted at various points. It was an amazing thing to see:

At one point along the trail, I was stopped by a group of young Chinese tourists. They motioned me over, and started to ask me about taking a picture. I said sure and held out my hand, expecting that they wanted me to take a picture of them. Instead, the actually wanted to take a picture with me. I have no idea why; perhaps I was the tallest red-headed westerner they had ever seen (this was Ben's guess-he found the whole episode pretty funny). I spent the next 5 minutes wondering what they would tell their friends when they showed them the picture.

As everyone probably knows, the Great Wall was built in order to keep Mongol invaders from advancing into Chinese territories. I was left wondering why the wall was really needed; after all, it was built high into mountains that look very treacherous to cross-I can't really fathom how Genghis Khan would have gotten his armies across. In the end though, the Great Wall was very impressive, and I definitely recommend that people see it at least once in their lifetime.

After taking the bus back to Tiananmen Square, we decided to get dinner nearby. We went to the Laoshe Tea House, which turned out to be a pretty fantastic meal. We were seated at a large table that sat eight people (though we sat by ourselves). The meal was standard Chinese fare-bean curds in sauce, mushrooms and bok choi, and other rolls and noodles. The tables had decks of cards and sets of Chinese chess, for use while waiting for the food. In addition, there were some shows on a stage in front-first of live music played by a quartet, and then, a Chinese shadow puppet show. Below are some pictures at the Tea House, and a short video of the show.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel, and got some sleep, for our early flight the next morning to Shenzhen, China...

Beijing, continued

2007-07-24T08:32:00.000-04:00

Location: Beijing, China

The last two days have been pretty crazy. On Monday, we were all set to go to the Great Wall, with a tour bus leaving from Tiananmen Square. However, we got there at 11:30am, and they told us that if we wanted to see both the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, the last bus leaves at 10:30am. So we decided to wait for Tuesday, and just take it easy Monday.

First, we decided to take a subway from Tiananmen Square, and get off at a random stop. We ended up in what looked to be an affluent middle class suburb, with not much to do. Still, there was a very nice and well decorated Thai restaurant nearby. The restaurant was interesting-the seats were cushioned benches, that could seat 3 on a side. The bathrooms were very weird-the urinal was one transparent plastic trough, with enough room for 4 people side by side, and there were different colored rocks on the bottom. A stream of water would wash over the rocks. I guess it truly was a "waterfall grotto".

After that, we went over to the Hongquiao, or Pearl Market:

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the inside. It looks like a regular mall-but don't let the look deceive you! Inside is one of the craziest shopping experiences you can have. It's almost as if they took the many different shops of Morocco, with their open stands and various items for sale, and put them in a normal looking mall. As we walked through the different aisles, full of knock-off watches, fabrics, Chinese chess sets, and other things, we were accosted by every shopkeeper we passed-this time even if we didn't stop to look. The difference from Morocco was that these shopkeepers were mostly young women, and they were very pushy-some would even grab you by the arm and hold on like grim death, pulling you into their shops. Every brand imaginable was being knocked off and sold here. Bargaining was also the name of the game here. I got a very nice cashmere scarf for about 175 yuan, or 25 dollars. I could have done a lot better though.

After buying the scarf, we walked over to the sneaker area. Ben dared me to check it out, and see if they had my size (I wear a size 15 sneaker). So I said fine, expecting that they wouldn't have it. We walked over, and were greeted by a very eager Chinese woman. She thrust a pair of (fake) Nikes and (fake) Timberlands in my face, and told me to choose. So I picked the Timberlands, and told her my size. I expected her to be shocked, but instead, she brought out a pair. This pair said that the size was 12.5-but they were actually bigger than that. However, when I put my foot in the shoe, my toe went all the way to the front, with some space by the heel. So I said it didn't fit, because I really had no intention of buying them. After checking the toe, both the woman and Ben saw through my little ruse though, and told me to push the foot back. I did-it was still tight, but could have worked. At this point, the woman told me that I wasn't being a fair customer (or as she put it: "You bad man! You bad man!"). We walked away with her shouting lower and lower prices behind us.

Later that night, we found a sushi restaurant and took a cab there. This sushi place had some of the freshest sushi I had ever tasted-at prices that were high for China, but still very reasonable. We had the fun of ordering from a group of waitresses that did not speak any English at all. However, we managed to do pretty well; we were able to get dishes without meat or shellfish. Satisfied with our dinner, we made our way back to the hotel, prepared to wake up early the next morning for the Great Wall.

After being in Beijing for 3 days, I have learned the following things about the city:

-Practically no one speaks English. The government is apparently trying to change this for the Olympics next year, but it has a long way to go. Hotel concierges do speak limited English, and if you get them to translate an address for you into Chinese, you will do pretty well with cab drivers.

-The city is huge. You can't really walk from one place to the next, and the subway system is not big enough to serve the city yet. Buses are very confusing, but luckily, cabs are fairly cheap. We took cabs the whole time here. You don't tip the cabs either.

-There is considerable pollution in the sky. Not one day did I see blue-there was a constant haze over the city.

-When you walk into a restaurant, you will be seated, and a waitress will wait by the table while you look at the menu (I imagine that this is true in all of China). It was actually a little unnerving, and when we tried to tell them we needed more time, we usually got into a 5 minute discussion because of the language barrier. Best to just take your time and let her stand there.

Post on the Great Wall coming up...

Beijing

2007-07-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

Location: Beijing, China

What a different world. After spending about 9 hours on planes, with a stopover in Dubai, U.A.E., we arrived in Beijing at around 3pm. We grabbed a taxi to our hotel-it was an hour's ride, for about 83 yuan, or 14 dollars. The first thing that struck me about Beijing was how big the city was-it is about 6,500 square miles in size (by comparison, Los Angeles is about 500 square miles). The streets are also very wide; the main streets are all around 10 lanes in length.

After getting to the hotel, we crashed-the flight took a lot out of us. The next morning, we made our way over to the Temple of Heaven. This temple was used by the Qing and Ming dynasties, for prayer for a good Harvest (in fact, one of the buildings is named "The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests." Today, it is located in a public park (though there is an entrance fee). We got there around 10am, in time to see many locals finishing up their morning Tai Chi.

After spending some time at the Temple, we made our way by cab to Tiananmen Square. The square was also very large-it would take about 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other at a normal pace. We were stopped by two "art students" along the way, who told us that they had some "paintings on exhibition nearby". Of course, this was a way of getting us to a painting store. Still, the paintings were beautiful, and Ben bought a nice one on rice paper, bordered by silk, for 150 Yuan, or about 20 dollars. The square itself was quite a sight, and had several buildings and museums in it and surrounding it:

The third pictures shows the National Museum of China. There's a counter on there for the 2008 Olympics. The energy for the Olympic games is very clear here; the city (and country) is very excited about hosting them: signs for the games are everywhere, Chinese companies are sponsoring the games left and right, tourist venues are being renovated, and signs for streets and other notable areas are being translated into English.

After buying a painting, we had some lunch in the square. We found a very good Chinese restaurant there; the food was delicious, and very similar to Chinese food in the U.S., though definitely not as heavy. Then, we went into the Forbidden City. This place was huge-the whole area is about 1 million square meters. It would be easy to spend two days here seeing everything, and that's with half of the place under restricted access! Some of the main spots were under scaffolding, unfortunately, but we still got to see the Imperial Gardens, the Golden River Bridges, and the Hall of the Supreme Principal. Some pictures:

After finishing up at the Forbidden City, we made our way back to the hotel to rest up. Later, we went out for dinner-we actually found a restaurant that did a very good job of approximating an American style diner! Since I had not eaten food that I am used to for a while, this was a welcome place to eat.

Tomorrow, we'll be journeying out of the city to see the Great Wall.

Istanbul, concluded

2007-07-20T08:30:00.001-04:00

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

We saw so much in Istanbul, that even this third and final post is not enough to describe it all. After visiting the Topkapi Palace, we decided to look for a place to eat lunch. We ended up going back to the Beyoglu section of the city. This is definitely the most European section of the city, and it shows. It actually felt a little like San Francisco, with hilly cobblestone streets, posh restaurants, and even a trolley car system running down the Istiklal Caddesi, the main pedestrian mall:

We found a nice place to eat lunch along the Istiklal Caddesi, and then walked back across the Galata Bridge towards our hotel. The Galata Bridge is somewhat interesting, in that there are many fish restaurants under the bridge lining either side (not in the middle of the span though). We came back here for dinner later; I had some grilled salmon which was quite good.

Finally, on Friday, the last day in Istanbul, we went back to the Grand Bazaar. Ben got his watch fixed in the Bazaar, and I bought a very nice Turkish tea set, complete with 6 tea glasses, a kettle, and a platter, for only 50 dollars. We decided then to make our way to the water, and cap off our time in Istanbul with an hour and a half ferry cruise around the Bosphorus. It was a beautiful cruise, with Turkish music being piped through the speakers of the boat, and a great view of both the European and Asian side of the water. Some pictures of notable sights on the Bosphorus:

The Dolhambace Palace

The Beylerbeyi Palace

The Rumeli Fortress

The Ortakoy Mosque

The Bosphorus Bridge - Connects Europe to Asia!

All in all, Istanbul was amazing! I definitely recommend a visit to anyone. After the cruise, we went back to the hotel, and got our stuff together, for a 7:30pm flight to Beijing, China, through Dubai, U.A.E. We'll be in transit for about 9 hours, landing in Beijing around 2:30pm local time.

Istanbul, continued

2007-07-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

The last two days in Istanbul have been very interesting indeed. On Wednesday morning, I ventured over to the Grand Bazaar. This was much bigger than the Spice Bazaar I had seen earlier, and every section held a different type of merchandise. What was interesting was that parts of it almost felt like a Western mall, with expensive jewelry stores housed in modern looking store spaces, right next to older shops selling local trinkets and food. Either way, the pace of the place was frantic:

Outside of the Grand Bazaar another notable mosque in Istanbul: the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. Suleyman was known as one of the greatest sultans of the Ottoman Empire; under him, the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching into Eastern Europe, towards Germany. The mosque dedicated to him is just as grand as the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque:

The last picture shows the floor of the mosque. Each of those red spots on the carpet represents a spot where a person can pray. As there is a lot of kneeling and bowing involved in a Muslim prayer service, this allows for control of spaces and numbers of people in the mosque, which can reach into the thousands in the bigger mosques.

This mosque also contains a graveyard, in which several notable sultans (including Suleyman) are entombed. I got to see these tombs as well:

The first tomb is of Suleyman the Magnificent. The second is of Hurrem Sultan, who was the favorite concubines of Suleyman. Originally named Roxalana, and coming from what is today the Ukraine, Hurrem Sultan is one of the only concubines that was able to actually marry a sultan. Suleyman was very much infatuated with Hurrem Sultan, and as a result she was able to have a very noticeable influence on his ruling of the Ottoman Empire. She bore Suleyman 5 children, one of whom (Selim) became the next sultan of the Empire.

After this, I walked towards the Istanbul University, opposite yet another mosque, the Beyazit Mosque. I didn't go inside this one, as a prayer service was going on then. I did capture a video of the Muezzin's call though. As mentioned in the previous post, this call had a more sing-song like quality than the ones in Morocco:

After this, I met up with Ben at the hotel, and we decided to head over to the Beyoglu section of Istanbul. This is north of the area of Sultanahmet and Old Istanbul, across the Golden Horn. We took a tram across the Galata Bridge, and made our way to the Galata tower. This is a tower built as part of a citadel by the Genoese, when they were building their presence in Constantinople. One can see all of Istanbul from the top of the tower:

The following day, we made our way over to the Hagia Sophia, to go inside. The inside was really amazing, a mixture of different religions, cultures, and designs within a gigantic building. There was a lot of scaffolding up in one spot, but that didn't take away from appreciating the building's scale and history:

After this, we walked across the street to the Basilica Cistern. This place was truly amazing. Built during the Byzantine Empire to bring water to the area during the summer and in times of siege, it was later consecrated as a basilica. It fell into ruin until the modern period, when it was restored and opened up. Today, it still has water flowing through it, and the effect of the water and the lighting make it a truly eerie and awesome experience:

The second picture shows a medusa head; there are two of these that serve as bases of columns in the cistern. Why they were placed there, and why one is on its side, and one is upside down is still a mystery to modern archaeologists.

We then went over to the Topkapi Palace. This was the home and state palace of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and it sits in a large park, overlooking the Bosphorus. It was quite grand, and interesting to see the rooms in which the sultans lived, and received state visitors from all over the world. Also interesting was the Harem of the palace, which was in a separate section, and required a separate fee.

Some pictures of the Harem:

That's it for now. More coming in one more post on Istanbul...

Istanbul

2007-07-17T16:28:00.000-04:00

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Walking around in Istanbul (not Constantinople) today, I was struck by the massive scale of the city. About 10 million people live within the metropolitan area, and the city is divided into two sections: The European, or Thrace section, is further divided by the Golden Horn into Old Istanbul and Beyoglu. The Asian, or Anatolian section is on the East side of the Bosphorus, which is the name of the strait that flows from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. I ate lunch in a park in Old Istanbul, that sits right on the water. This park is the location of the Topkapi Palace, which I wanted to visit, but was closed today. I'll check it out tomorrow. From this park, I could see all the sections of Istanbul. It was really quite a sight:

For lunch, what I ate was nothing special; just a grilled cheese and some french fries. But to drink, I had Turkish tea. This was neat: the server gave me a small, rounded glass. He had a dual tea kettle; in the top kettle was the tea, which he poured into the glass with a strainer. He filled the glass halfway with the tea. Then, he filled up the rest of the glass with hot water from the bottom kettle, and added two sugar cubes. It was very interesting, and very good; it cooled off pretty quickly, and was not difficult to drink, even in the summer weather. I can see why it is so popular with locals; in fact, the Turks drink more tea per capita than the British. I didn't take a picture of the tea glass and kettle; I'll make sure to do this over the next few days.

After lunch, I walked to the Eminonu section of Old Istanbul. In this area was a spice bazaar. It was very different from the markets in Morocco-much more orderly, clean, and housed within an Eastern-European style open air building:

The last photo above shows something unique to Turkey. Well, actually two things unique to Turkey I guess. I'm sure taking Naturel Turkish Viagra is very interesting, and it's nice to have the long, chocolate covered things next to it to help drive the point home. But what I'm talking about is the white, pink and green stuff above and to the right of the "Viagra". Those are pieces of Lokum. You may know it better as Turkish Delight. This is a sweet jelly-like candy, usually containing different nuts. It was popularized in the West in the C.S. Lewis novel, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I remember reading that book for the first time, and wondering what exactly Turkish Delight was, and what it tasted like. Today I got to find out, and I can understand why Edmund liked it so much. It's really very good. I bought a package of it for 15 Turkish Liras, which is about 12 dollars. I probably overpaid a little, but the man who sold it to me was very nice; he offered me free samples, as well as some Turkish tea, while he packed my box. He also vacuumed sealed it, and told me that it would stay for 5 months. I may try to get it home somehow.

After walking around the bazaar, I understood why every tour book about Istanbul talks about the mix between the East and the West. Istanbul really is the link between these two worlds. The city streets have a very cosmopolitan, European feel, with narrow cobblestone roads, trams, and nice restaurants with outdoor seating everywhere. On the other hand, the city also has bazaars, carpet shops, and a middle eastern ambiance.

And mosques. There are so many mosques in Istanbul-almost all of them designed in the distinct Ottoman style of a large domed building surrounded by minarets. The muezzin also does his call here; it was interesting to hear the difference between this one and the ones in Morocco. The one in Istanbul has a more sing-song like quality; I'll try to get a video of it tomorrow.

I walked over to the Hagia Sophia after this. This massive structure was built during the days of the Byzantine Empire, by the emperor Justinian, as a church. It was later converted to a mosque, and then made into a museum (there are no longer religious services held here). Some pictures, day and night, of the Hagia Sophia:

The Hagia Sophia sits at one end of a large and beautiful courtyard, that has many other historical structures in it, including the Basilica Cistern, which I will visit in addition to the inside of the Hagia Sophia tomorrow, and the Sultanahmet Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque. This is still a functioning mosque, and sits directly opposite the Hagia Sophia. I went inside this one today; in order to go inside, you must be wearing modest clothing (no shorts, and women's arms and hair should be covered). You must also remove your shoes before entering, and non-muslims are not allowed into the prayer area of the mosque. They provide plastic bags for you to carry your shoes in though. This mosque was also very big, and very beautiful:

Finally, after visiting the Blue Mosque, I passed by an outdoor restaurant just below it, and caught the tail end of a Whirling Dervish show. The Whirling Dervishes were members of the Mevlevi Order, and used their dance as a religious practice. They were outlawed during the secular revolution of Turkey, but this ban was removed in the 1950s. Here's a video of part of the show:

That was it for today. More on Istanbul coming tomorrow...

Cologne

2007-07-17T05:32:00.000-04:00

Location: Cologne, Germany

This is a short post, because we spent most of Monday relaxing at our hotel in Dusseldorf. We had a late flight leaving from Cologne/Bonn airport. Cologne is very close to Dusseldorf; only about 40 minutes by train. So we took a train to the main train station of Cologne.

As soon as we got outside the train station, we were in full view of the Dom, which is one of the largest churches in the world. Construction started in the 1200's, and took over 600 years to complete! We walked around inside for a little bit; the architecture and size of the Dom was very impressive:

After hanging out in the area for a while, we took a train over to Cologne/Bonn airport. Our flight to Istanbul got in at 2:40am local time, and we took a cab to our hotel.

Dusseldorf, continued

2007-07-15T18:39:00.001-04:00

Note: with this entry, I am now all caught up from not having available internet. Hopefully I'll be able to blog in real time going forward.

Location: Dusseldorf, Germany.

After a late night last night, we woke up around 1pm today. We ventured out of the hotel to grab some lunch in the Altstadt, or old city. Because of the sheer number of bars on this street, this is sometimes referred to as the "Longest Bar in the World". We got to see that the previous night.

On the way back, we passed by the Konigsallee. This is the 5th Avenue of Dusseldorf, with big name fashion designer stores lining a street with an stream running through the middle. I'm not so into high fashion, so I snapped a photo of the stream instead:

After this, we went back to the hotel. Ben decided he wanted to get some rest, so I decided to head to the Schloss Benrath. This is a nice park in southern Dusseldorf. Its centerpiece is a mansion built for Karl Theodor, the Prince-Elector and Count of Electoral Palatine during the waning days of the Holy Roman Empire. It is a very beautiful building, and the surrounding gardens are also amazing. The building houses three different museums today; a Museum of Natural History, a Museum for European Garden Art, and the Corps de Logis, which gives a look at life in a palace court. I did not get to the park until after the museums closed, but there was enough to see in the park itself that it didn't really matter. I took a lot of photos here, and I definitely recommend stopping by for anyone who goes to Dusseldorf:

We were both very tired, so we decided to turn in early tonight. We'll be heading into Cologne tomorrow for the day, and later that night, we'll be on a plane for Istanbul, Turkey.

Dusseldorf

2007-07-15T18:12:00.000-04:00

Location: Dusseldorf, Germany

Upon arriving at Frankfurt Hahn airport, which is actually 70km outside of the city of Frankfurt, we hopped on a bus going to the city of Cologne. From there, we took a train to Dusseldorf. After checking into our room, the concierge told us that this week was the week of a huge summer carnival in Dusseldorf. We made our way over there that night. It was a lot of fun, with all kinds of carnival rides, booths, and food stands. It was pretty much like an amusement park in the United States, with one obvious difference: there was a lot of bratwurst being sold, and more importantly, plenty of beer being sold. We walked around, and had some drinks:

In one area, there was a boxing match taking place, with volunteers from the crowd. We decided we had to see this:

In the third match, the "volunteer" knocked out the professional. It was pretty clear that both of them were professional boxers. Some more photos:

This man standing next to us is a German man named Andy. Why is Andy wearing such a ridiculous getup? Because he's getting married next week, and he's enjoying his bachelor party (the costume is a British tradition, that has made its way to Germany, and that should, in my opinion, be adopted in the States as well). I saw a lot of people having bachelor and bachelorette parties as I walked through the city and carnival; at least 10. Andy explained to me that a lot of people in Germany had chosen the weekends of 07/07/07 and 20/07/2007 (written with the date first) as lucky weekends to get married. An interesting idea as well.

After enjoying the carnival, the food, and the beer, we made our way back to the hotel, and went to sleep.

Marrakesh, continued

2007-07-15T16:58:00.000-04:00

Location: Marrakesh, Morocco

After leaving the Majorelle Gardens, we had lunch, and then returned to the Djemma al Fna. We decided to look around the shops a little more, and ended up entering an artists' store. We both saw paintings we liked. I bought a painting of an alley of the medina, and Ben bought a painting of a trio of Arabian horses. We both did fairly well bargaining; I got mine marked down from 600 to 350 dirham, which is about 42 dollars. Ben got his marked down from 700 to 400 dirham, or about 50 dollars. These paintings are fairly large, and would have cost a lot more in the States. I did not take any pictures of the artist's store, because I figured he'd get mad if I did, seeing as he was selling things that people are supposed to look at.

Later that evening, we decided to try to find the kosher restaurant in Marrakesh. I had looked it up online, and got the information that it was next to the main Marrakesh synagogue in the Mellah-a section of the medina where the Jews of Morocco live, or rather, used to live. Today there are very few Jews left, and it is now pretty much a slum. We got there around dusk, and started looking for the synagogue. However, because it was dusk, and the alleys were very narrow, we could not find it. Every single person we passed by assumed we were looking for the synagogue, and would shout "sinagoga, sinagoga!" and point the way. The problem was, nobody pointed in the same direction. We got through without having to pay anyone, but we didn't find the synagogue.

So we tried to instead use the name and address of the restaurant, "Le Palmier Club". We asked a Moroccan traffic cop where this was. He said it was in the Gueliz section of the new city. So we got a taxi, and showed the driver our information. He said he knew where it was. After he drove around for an hour, and asked several random people on the street, it became clear that he had no clue where the place was. We gave up, and asked him to take us back to the square. He did, and then doubled the fare. I had no small bills, and got into a huge shouting match with him. Finally, I had to just pay him. I got very angry, even though later I realized the doubled price was 40 dirham, or about 4 dollars.

We made our way back to the square, where the night was in full swing. Because it is so hot in during the day, a lot of the vendors don't come out until dusk. In addition, at dusk, a huge number of portable restaurants open up on the square, making for quite a scene. There were plenty of people about, sitting and eating at the restaurants, browsing the shops, and playing games in the square. Some pictures:

After eating at one of the restaurants overlooking the square, we ventured over to an area where people were playing games and music. I tried one game for 5 dirham. The game involved a long pole with a string attached to the end, and a donut-shaped ring tied to the string, hanging down, with the hole facing me. There were full coke bottles on the ground in front of me. The object of the game was to get the hole onto the neck of the bottle, and pull the bottle towards me. It was very difficult, and I did not succeed in even getting the ring around the bottle (most other people couldn't do this either). All in all though, I'd have to say that this was one of the more fun carnival games I've played.

After this, we walked around some more, and saw, among other things, a man with a chicken on his head, playing a banjo:

After I took these pictures, a guy came over to me with a basket, demanding money. I had been fleeced for the taxi ride around the new city and accosted by hundreds of shopkeepers. I was fed up. I shouted "No!" and walked away. He may have shouted something after me, but I just kept on walking, and I couldn't hear him anyway. From my point of view, any picture that I take in a public place with my camera, and my memory card, is my property. No one asked the guy to stand in a square with poultry on his head.

The next day, we found that one of the maps we had showed the location of a synagogue in the new city. Since we had decided against venturing out of the city for a trek of the Atlas Mountains or the Sahara, or a visit to the city of Ouarzazate, we tried again, and failed again, to find the place. We then decided to just spend the rest of the day relaxing. We had a meal in the restaurant part of the square before dusk as well:

The next morning, we woke up really early, and headed for the airport, to catch our plane to Frankfurt, Germany.

Marrakesh

2007-07-15T07:37:00.000-04:00

Location: Marrakesh, Morroco

We arrived at Marrakesh at 12am on Thursday morning. Our hotel was a riad called Dar Marhaba. A riad is a type of hotel that is unique to Morocco, and especially Marrakesh. It is a home that used to belong to a rich Moroccan family, that has since been bought, and restored in a bed and breakfast style. As a result, all the original designs have been kept, and they are very beautiful. Anyway, we gave the information to a taxi driver, who at first did not know where it was. He took us to the main square, and then passed us off to a boy who had a wheeled cart, who walked us to our riad. It turned off to be fairly close to the main square, called the Djemma al Fna, but tucked away enough that it was nice and quiet. Here are some pictures of the riad:

On Thursday, we ventured out into the main square, the Djemma al Fna. It is a large open space, with a semi covered market in one spot, and plenty of vendors setting up spots on the open square. There were a lot of shops on wheels, selling things like dates, apricots and figs, as well as fresh squeezed orange juice. There were also many snake charmers, and men walking around with monkeys. One guy was sitting at a table that had nothing but teeth on them. I have no idea why. As Ben and I were walking, I saw that he was about to walk right into a man with a monkey. I told him to watch out, but it was too late. The man proceeded, uninvited, to put a monkey onto Ben's arm. I could not stop laughing. I snapped a photo and paid the man 10 dirham. I don't believe in paying people for photos, but it was so funny that I decided it was worth it. Some of the pictures below you can find on Ben's blog as well.

The differences between Fes and Marrakesh became quickly apparent. While both cities have medinas with plenty of shops, selling roughly the same things, Marrakesh is much more of a tourist city. There were many foreigners wandering through the medina and souqs (shops). The locals of Marrakesh were much more experienced with dealing with tourists, and therefore were more aggressive about demanding money and sales. I found it to be a little annoying, but I guess that's the way of the world.

After walking around the Djemma al Fna, we decided to head out to the Majorelle gardens. These gardens were designed by the French artist Jacque Majorelle, who settled in Morocco to paint during the 1920s. The gardens were bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent, and today are a beautiful collection of cacti, lotuses, and other exotic plants, as well as Majorelle's house, painted in a strikingly blue color. The building houses an Islamic art museum, which we didn't go to (it cost extra). Here are some photos of the gardens.

On the way to the gardens, we passed by one of the big mosques in the medina. Just as we were walking by, the muezzin sounded his call to prayer. This call is recited 5 times a day, for the 5 times that Muslims pray. In fact, Ben told me that he was woken up by one of the calls at 3am, since there was one very close to our riad. I guess that's one advantage that I have for being hearing impaired :-) Below is a video showing the minaret of the mosque, during the muezzin's call.

We were in Marrakesh for another day as well; I will be writing more about the city in another post.

Fes

2007-07-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

Location: Fes, Morocco

Our hotel in Fes was right by the train station. We woke up on Wednesday morning and found a taxi to take us to the Medina (city-refers in this case to the older cities). Every town in Morocco has a medina. Newer developments have sprung up outside the medinas, but the way of life inside has remained fairly constant for hundreds of years. Fes has what is considered one of the largest, and most complex medinas in the world. There are about 9000 different alleyways, and each one has a variety of shops, selling things like fruit, spices, grains, electronics, clothing, animals, leather; practically anything you can think of. Some pictures of the medina of Fes, known as Fes el-Bali:The first picture shows a Bab (gate) to the medina. The alleys are very narrow, but that doesn't stop people from driving donkeys or mopeds through it. It is very easy to get lost inside. This is something that the locals know, and brings us to a fundamental truth about Morocco: as a tourist, you will be accosted by everyone you walk by. They all want to help you out, show you the way, encourage you to buy things-all for a fee, of course. In order to successfully not get fleeced at every turn, you must be comfortable with saying "no", ignoring their entreaties, and walking away. If you so much as show a fleeting interest in any single shop, the proprietor will spring to life, and aggressively beckon you to the store. However, you can get some great deals on some very nice things. We saw plenty of stores that had beautiful lamps made of camel leather, great Moroccan rugs, some amazing art; even one store that housed Jewish artifacts. In this store, I saw a copy of the Passover Haggadah, written with ink onto a book made entirely out of leather. It was beautiful, but expensive. We also didn't know where it came from; whether or not it was ransacked from a Jewish home, or something similar.

Leather is the predominant commodity of the Fes market. There are leather tanning pits inside the medina that have been in existence since the 1400's:
We got a great view of the tanning pits by following a guy up to his leather shop, overlooking the pits. Of course, we were then expected to look around and buy something. This brings us to the second truth about Morocco, and most other Middle Eastern and Northern African countries. Bargaining is a must. A good rule to follow is, whatever price you are given, divide it by half, or possibly even lower, depending on what it is. You'll go back and forth for a while. If you don't think your price is low enough, start to leave. They'll start coming down to another price, or may even give you the last price that you suggested. I did some bargaining for a belt, though I didn't go low enough initially. Still, I got a nice handmade leather belt for 200 dirham, or about 21 dollars. Ben had had some experience with the barganing in Cairo a few weeks ago, and got a leather jacket marked down from 3500 dirham to 1365 dirham, which is about 150 dollars.

Overall, the markets of Fes were amazing. It was very hot, but the shade of the alleys and the several 1 liter water bottles we went through made it tolerable. The people were not as pushy as I was led to believe in the guidebooks. There were very few other tourists here, most probably opting to go to Marrakesh, which we left for that afternoon at 4:50pm. The train to Marrakesh was comfortable, but long, and we arrived at Marrakesh at midnight.

Trains, Buses and Ferrys

2007-07-12T14:14:00.002-04:00

Locations: Madrid, Algeciras, Tarifa, Tangier, Fes

On Tuesday morning at 6:00am, we got up to get to the main Madrid train station. The plan was to take the train from Madrid down to the coast of Spain, get on a ferry that goes across the Straight of Gilbraltar, to the Moroccan city of Tangier, and then take a train from Tangier to the city of Fes (famous for the hats-which, by the way, no one from Fes actually wears).

So, the first part of the ride went pretty smoothly. The train from Madrid left on time, and was a very comfortable ride in second class. The train took us to the town of Algeciras. To get to the ferry, there was a complimentary ferry from the city of Algeciras to the city of Tarifa, where the ferry left from. Some photos of that:

On the bus to Tarifa, we drove through a very hilly area. The entire area was full of wind farms, with more turbines in one place than I had ever seen before-I saw around 10 in the rural area of the Netherlands a few months ago, and maybe about 5 on the way to Pittsburgh from New York. Here, there were maybe around 100 turbines. They were all spinning very fast too. I guess there's hope for wind power yet...

Once we arrived at Tarifa, we got on a ferry going across the strait. The ferry was advertised as a 35 minute ride, but in reality, it was really 2 hours and 35 minutes. It was still a pretty neat ride; the boat was a decent size, able to carry cars and buses as well as passengers:

Unfortunately, docking at Morocco took a very long time-the captain of the ferry did not align it right the first time, so we had to re-enter somewhere else. As a result, even though Morocco is 2 hours behind Spain in the summer, we missed the 5:05 pm train to Fes, and had to wait for the 10:05pm train. I took the chance to walk around Tangier a little bit:

There were a lot of construction projects going on in Tangier; it looks like the city is preparing pretty heavily to become the site of the 2012 International Exposition. Meanwhile, there are still many open areas, older homes, and cows grazing right next to the roads. The last picture shows the brand new train station, with the older homes in the distance. It's interesting to see the mix of the two, and Tangier is sure to be a very different place if and when they hold the Exposition.

Finally, we got onto the train. It wasn't very comfortable, even though we got 1st class seats. The A/C was not so good, and the cabins were very narrow. We had to transfer at a city called Sidi Kacem, and continue on to Fes-with only 3 people in our cabin at that point, it was a lot more comfortable. We made it to Fes and checked into our hotel at around 2:30am. The total cost of all the trips was about $145 per person. We got to Fes exhausted, and annoyed. However, the next day made it all worthwhile. Stay tuned..

Madrid

2007-07-09T16:42:00.000-04:00

Note: It's been a while since I was able to get internet access on my laptop. The next few entries are being written after the fact.

Location: Madrid, Spain

Its about 11pm here in Madrid. The sun is just going down here-Spain is on the same longitude, give or take, with Greenwhich, but it's time zone is two hours ahead. I guess that fits with the Spanish lifestyle, which was especially apparent in Madrid. People generally start their days at around 10pm, break for a siesta from 1-4pm, and then stay out quite late.

We had a hotel on the Gran Via, the main throughfare of Madrid. We were able to get around pretty easily, as the Madrid Metro is very efficient, clean, and easy to understand. We did not get to see any museums, because Monday is the day that they are all closed. Still, we saw some neat stuff. We walked through the Retiro Park, which is the equivalent of New York's central park. Here's some photos of that:

The second picture shows the Palacio de Cristal, inspired by London's Crystal Palace. Overall, the park was very nice, and definitely had a Central Park feel to it, in terms of the way people spent the day there.

On Monday, we saw some neat things, including the Templo de Debod, an Egyptian temple rebuilt in a small park. We also stopped by the Palacio Real, the official residence of the King of Spain, and the Plaza Mayor. We also went to see Ocean's 13, but unfortunately it was dubbed into Spanish, not subtitled. My Spanish was not good enough to pick up what was going on, so that made for an interesting viewing experience. Anyway, some pictures of the above stops:

We did not get to meet up with the Ralu, from Romania. She had work to do for classes, and we had to leave early on Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, we woke up at 6am, and made our way to the train station, for a long day of travel to Fes, Morocco.

Airports

2007-07-08T10:09:00.000-04:00

Location: Madrid, Spain

I've reached my first destination today, after leaving JFK Airport in New York, and connecting in Dublin, to reach Madrid. The first thing that struck me in both airports was how old-fashioned they seemed. There were wooden doors in places, and the airports generally seemed run down, with signs slightly crooked, the ceilings exposed, and whatnot. Also, both airports were insanely crowded, and highly chaotic. I´m glad I picked up my second boarding pass in JFK, so I didn´t have to deal with the lines in Dublin. I really shouldn´t complain; after all, I´m coming from New York, which is serviced by such marvelous specimens of air travel like JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark.

I´m going to be traveling for the next 5 weeks, starting in Madrid, and ultimately ending up in Singapore. I won´t be revealing all the destinations here, because what´s the fun in that? I´m going to be traveling with a friend of mine from undergrad; Ben Weiss. I met up with him today in Madrid.

On the way into Madrid, I struck up a conversation with a girl from Romania, who was actually starting business school at Wharton, and participating in a program with the school in which she takes several short courses in various cities in Spain. She was actually planning to head out to Pamplona to see the Running of the Bulls today; she invited me to join, but I lost a lot of time trying to find Ben at the Madrid airport. Hopefully we can all hang out tomorrow night, before Ben and I leave for the southern coast of Spain.

Ok, so right now I´m in an internet cafe, about to run out of time-that´s why there are no pictures on this post. Hopefully I´ll get a better connection soon.

Suitcases

2007-07-06T22:59:00.000-04:00

Location: Great Neck, NY, U.S.A.

I'm currently sitting in my room at my parent's house, trying to figure out what bags I'm going to pack. There's the humongous 28" pull suitcase, which will probably incur extra fees on the airplanes, and be a pain to carry on the various trains I'll be taking from Madrid, Spain to Marrakesh, Morocco. There's the smaller 21" wheeled duffel that I bought this morning, which instead of fitting into most overhead storage bins, fits neatly in that category of being too big for carry-on and too small for checked baggage. The rest of my floor is littered with smaller briefcases, backpacks and messenger bags. I'm sure whatever I decide to do, I'll make things unnecessarily complicated for myself.

So I haven't really decided what to do with this blog yet. After working for Premio Foods, Inc. for the last 4 years, I've decided to leave to pursue an MBA at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. Before I head out to Pittsburgh though, I'm taking 5 weeks off to travel around the world. So while this blog will start out being about the different places I'm going to end up in, I may continue it once I return.

A little about myself. As I said, I just left my job at Premio Foods, Inc. Premio is a NJ based sausage company. I worked for them as an Industrial Engineer. This means I concerned myself with the efficiency of the sausage-making process. Certainly not what I expected to be doing when I left college, but I really enjoyed the job, and leaving to go to business school was a very tough decision to make. Some of my friends told me I was crazy, though I suspect they're just going to miss the jokes they like to make about my job. Ultimately, I'm still going to be working for Premio part-time while I'm in school, and I may decide to return once I've completed my degree.

I've always liked to travel. I'm a sight-seeing kind of traveler; I'm the guy that will stop to read the plaques next to the buildings, and toss out the random fact that I may know about the location I'm visiting. I'll probably blog a little bit about that (wait, where are you going?). One thing's for sure: there will be plenty of pictures. Here's some I took at Coney Island on Tuesday.

I had never been to Coney Island before, and my grandmother always talks about all the good times she spent there as a girl growing up in Brooklyn. So I decided to go with my brother and sister before I left on this trip. Coney Island was once the largest amusement park destination in the country, until Disneyland was built. There's not much left of its former glory, but its home to the original Nathan's hot dog stand (where they have the 4th of July hot dog eating contest), as well as Keyspan Park, which is where the Minor League Brooklyn Cyclones play. Most importantly, its still a fun place to spend a nice summer's day. I went on the historic Cyclone roller coaster (pictured above) as well. There are rumors that real estate developers are going to tear it down next year, so if you live in the New York area, you should definitely pay a visit to the area before they do. It's easy to get to, just take the N, Q, F or D subway lines downtown to the last stop.

So, I'm leaving from JFK Airport tomorrow, headed for Madrid at 5:40pm. That is, assuming I figure out which suitcases to take...