Blog, blog, blog it all...

Hong Kong

2010-02-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

This is way overdue, but Hong Kong was the last stop on the trip, so I wanted to put something up. We were there for 3 or 4 days and just kind of bummed around the city and checked some stuff out.

Here are a few pics:

View of the city for a popular peak - Victoria peak maybe?

Traveling in a boat across the harbor

Thought we were going to the horse races, but it was wrong track! So we had to watch it on giant TV's.

Last dinner of the trip. Enjoying a glass of wine at an "outdoor" table of an indoor restaurant.

'Round The World - '08

2010-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Pick a country!

Australia
Indonesia
Malaysia
Thailand
Laos
Vietnam
Cambodia
Hong Kong

Cambodia

2008-12-05T03:41:00.000-08:00

-December 5th, 2008

Cambodia is a pretty tough place to travel through, so we took the easy route and flew in and out of Siem Reap, the home of the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's biggest tourist spot. It is listed as a "must see" by lots of people and I wasn't disappointed.

The first day we went to the floating village where these people spend their entire lives living on boats in this very small community on a large lake. They have a basketball court, church, restaurants, houses, all floating on a lake. Totally unique.

Here's some pictures:

Naked kids helping their mom with something -

It's hard to see the ropes but this guy is towing his whole house with that little boat in front.

A little girl that wanted to sell us some bananas. (We went for a Coke and Sprite instead)

The second day we visited the temples at Angkor with our guide, Surat. He did a good job of explaining everything that we saw as we went along. Our first stop was also my favorite of the temples that we visited. It was built in the 14th century but the jungle overgrew it a few hundred years later so that it would be hidden from the invading Siamese. It wasn't uncovered until the 1800's by French explorers. In the time that the jungle overgrew it, dirt was piled up all around the walls and buildings, giving trees a chance to take root. When the French found it the trees had formed these massive roots that grew into the buildings and walls. They cut some of it out but found that the buildings depend on the roots to stay standing, so most of them were left in place.

Here you can see where they cut the roots out but then had to reinforce the wall since it started to collapse-

The crazy green pond at one end of the temple-

After that we stopped at another temple before going to Angkor Wat. All the stones that you see laid out are tagged with a number. The French were attempting to restore a temple so they took it apart, carefully labeling each piece and keeping a diagram of how to put it back together. Then there was some war (this area of the world has been plagued by them) and the documents of how it goes together were burned and nobody knew how to put them all back together. Apparently they are now digitaling analyzing them and using computers to try and figure out how to put it back together. The moral of the story...always backup your data.

Finally, some pictures of Angkor Wat itself:

Vietnam

2008-11-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

- November 27th, 2008

Our first stop in Vietnam was Hanoi, the capital, at the far northern end of the country. We had our place arranged before leaving, and were greeted at the airport by our driver who took us to the hotel, the Hanoi Phoenix. It was in the middle of the Old Quarter, where there is a lot of french influence.

The first thing I noticed about Hanoi in general, and the Old Quarter specifically, is that it's crazy. The streets are all pretty narrow with unusable sidewalks because of the vendors and motorbikes parked on them. Plus, the streets all come together at weird angles, making navigating pretty difficult. Here's a small map of the area we were staying to give you an idea.

To make matters worse, the intersections are constantly plugged by the endless stream of motorbikes that zoom throughout the city. Here's a picture of one of the intersections.

Not wanting to try our luck by renting a motorbike, we decided to jump on one of these little bikes that a guy pedals around (that's him looking at the map trying to figure out where we want to go). They'll fit 2 Vietnamese, and barely 2 6-foot Westerners such as ourselves.

The other thing about the guys pedaling these bikes is that they are crazy booze hounds. They're constantly asking for more money than agreed upon so they can buy beer. We had one "take us for a ride" that we didn't want through the city. I kept showing him the map and pointing the way, but he would just laugh and go the opposite direction. We weren't sure if he was drunk, lost, both, or trying to extort more money from us. We finally got to the hotel and found out it was the latter. After an unfriendly exchange he managed to get an extra 5000 dong (about 35 cents) out of me. Oh well.

Some more pictures of Hanoi, one of the view from our hotel balcony and one of a street vendor (women like her are everywhere carrying goods they want to sell).

We spent our last 2 days in Hanoi on a side excursion to Ha Long Bay about 3 hours outside of the city. It was an overnight boat trip with 20 or so other people. The first day we cruised out and stopped off to do some kayaking and then cave exploring. Here is a picture of the bay and one of these ladies that row their boat up to ours wanting to sell us cookies, beer, or whatever else.

After Hanoi, we flew down to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), which is at the far southern end. HCMC is quite a bit different from Hanoi. It's much bigger, hotter (due to being further south), and just seems more "grown up" in general. The streets are much bigger, although still just as crazy. We found some really good tailors, so we've spent quite a bit of time getting some custom clothes made for cheap cheap.

We also went to the War Remnants Museum. It was an interesting and disturbing perspective of the Vietnam War (American War if you're Vietnamese). It graphically shows war crimes the US was responsible for such as the use of chemical weapons and killing of women and childern. I think that the Vietnamese perspective (albeit influenced by government propoganda) is that the US invaded Southern Vietnam and that Northern Vietnam came to their aid. Indeed, what we call the Viet Cong army, they call the Southern Vietnam Liberation Army.

After that sobering experience it was time to gamble! We set off for the New World hotel to roll the dice in a desperate attempt to refill our wallets. The plan worked and we took the house for almost $100! That's not to mention all the free drinks and food that we took full advantage of while gambling for a couple hours. It works out well because the same hotel is having a Thanksgiving Dinner tonight that costs $45/person. So, we'll give most of the money back to them, but still be ahead.

Tomorrow it's off to Cambodia and Angkor Wat for a couple days before returning here to fly to Hong Kong, our last city before returning home.

Laos

2008-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

- November 18th, 2008

I've been a bad blogger and haven't written any updates the whole time we've been here. Since we're flying to Hanoi today, I guess this will be the only entry from Laos.

First of all, is it Laos, or Lao? Apparently it's actually called Lao, but due to French colonization, it became known as Laos in English. However, adjectives to describe it are just Lao. Hopefully I'll get that right through the rest of this...

We first flew into Luang Prabang in northern Laos 10 days ago. Our plane from Chiang Mai was really delayed, so we didn't arrive until about 11 PM. The first thing I noticed was how different the climate is. Even though nighttime, it was much cooler than Chiang Mai and a lot less humid as well. A good start that was short-lived...

Our first problem is that you need cash to pay the immigration officers for a visa to get into the country, which we didn't have. At the time in Chiang Mai, it seemed like a good idea to spend all our money on Chang beer since the plane was delayed, but that left us with only pennies to give to immigration. The other travelers in the line said there are only 3 ATM's in the whole country, so we were screwed. Fortunately, they were wrong as there was one right outside immigration, which the officer let me go use.

After forking over 650,000 Kip (about $84) for our visa, we were on our way to town in the back of another modified pickup truck. We arrived in the middle of Luang Prabang, a town of only about 30,000, when everything was closing so we searched quickly and found a decent place for the night.

The next day we were looking for a better place to stay for a few nights, which we eventually found. Unfortunately, Chelsea wasn't feeling good at all and ended up throwing up that afternoon. She started getting better the next day. But the evening of the next day is when I started feeling bad and ended up throwing up as well. It happened for me again that night and the next day after trying to eat lunch too. So far, we were having a rough time in Laos.

Since I couldn't keep any food down, we were concerned that I may need to get to a hospital and being that Luang Prabang is in the middle of nowhere, Lonely Planet suggests finding medical care elsewhere. Being cautious, we decided to try to get on a flight to Vientiane, the capital, that night, which we were able to do. Fortunately I started feeling better and keeping food down the next day, so a trip to the hospital wasn't necessary.

Although it sounds like we spent most of our time in Luang Prabang in the bathroom, we did manage to get out a bit. Here's a few pictures:

A street in LP:

Two women selling some lemons on the banks of the Mekong:

The stairs on the climb up a hill in the center of town:

The view from the top of the hill:

Once in Vientiane and feeling better, we went to the Budda Park at the edge of town. I didn't really know what it was all about, so I didn't expect much. It turns out to be a bunch of really cool Buddas in different poses, doing different things. I didn't understand any of the symbology of the statues, but it was really neat nonetheless. One of the structures you could climb inside and out to the top. The light that day was really good, so here are some of the better pictures that I took.

After the Budda Park we went to the golden temple (I don't know it's proper name) in Vientiane where I captured this sweet photo:

Another thing we did in Vientiane...my birthday! It was time to celebrate the big 2-8, so Chelsea put together a special surprise for me. She managed to fashion together a birthday card and bought and wrapped a totally sweet elephant tie. Plus, we went out to dinner where she had previously arranged for them to deliver a cake (my favorite kind no less) to our table with candles and writing that said "Happy Birthday Justin!" It was really cool. I don't have any pictures of the celebration, but check out her blog for them.

We left Vientiane for a 2 day excursion to Vang Vieng, which we had intended to come through on the way down from Luang Prabang. We took a kayaking tour on the way up, which made it a nice way to break up the 3 hour drive. I'm not sure what river we were on, but we hit some nice rapids, ate a tasty BBQ lunch along the banks, and jumped off a cliff into the water (some of us anyway).

They put 8 kayaks and 7 people (including us) in that little truck you see behind Chelsea. It got us from the take-out point to Vang Vieng.

Arriving in Vang Vieng, we checked into our hotel that sat alongside what I think is the same river that we kayaked down (picture below). That night we went to dinner at one of the local places that server pizza and endless reruns of the show Friends, which we read about in Lonely Planet.

Vang Vieng is a strange place that is overrun with backpackers that just want to party. We went tubing down the river (another popular thing to do) where they have these bars setup along it. They all blast out the music and have rope swings, zip lines, and waterslides to play on while you get crazy drunk. Even if that's not your scene, it's definitely an experience not to be missed.

We got back to Vientiane last night and fly outta here in about 4 hours on the way to Hanoi. Hopefully it won't be so long before I have an update from Vietnam.

Thailand

2008-10-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

-10/30/2008

After leaving Railay Beach we decided to get to Chiang Mai "the hard way" which is also the cheap way. It involved a total of 6 vehicles and 41 hours. Here's how it went down:

First we took a long tail boat to Ao Nang and caught a "taxi" which was really a modified pickup truck to a staging point (30 minutes)-

Next was a big bus that was pretty comfortable (3 hours)-

Then we were finally on the overnight "VIP" bus. We had crappy seats at the back so I slept on the floor (10 hours)-

We had a 12 hour "layover" in Bangkok so we got a cheap hotel and rested for a bit. Then we took a taxi to the train station and caught our overnight train to Chiang Mai (13 hours)-

We decided that we'd rent a place in Chiang Mai for a month to get some work done and to have a home that we could do other traveling out of and come back to. Finding the right place was harder than expected, and after a couple days of looking we finally decided. We have a one-bedroom apartment with some space to hang out. There's a nice view, fully-equipped kitchen and it's pretty close to stores and restaurants.

Since we're planning to take mostly day trips around the city and to be getting some work done I might not have any new posts for a while. But you should be able to find me online or send me an email and I can give you a call.

-10/22/2008

We've been in southern Thailand for about 1 week now, and are currently on our 3rd island - Railay Beach.

We flew into Phuket from Kuala Lumpur and stayed 4 nights in Kata Beach. My fellow laid-off co-worker, Eddy, joined us just a few hours after getting there, so we decided to kick off Thailand the right way by celebrating with some Mojitos and Chang beer at the pool bar.

The rest of our time in Kata we spent just hanging out on the beach and by the pool. We also rode around and checked out the island on our motorbikes. Here's a picture of Kata and Karon beach from a viewpoint just out of town.

Our next island from Kata was Phi Phi. It's really two small islands joined by an isthmus where most the development is done. So it's 2 big beaches separated by a few hundred meters of shops, restaurants and hotels. There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the island since it's so small, just walking paths around all the shops. It's also more of a party island with a much younger crowd than Kata. It's fun for a couple days, but all the yelling through the night does make it hard to sleep.

The first day on Phi Phi the 3 of us went on a snorkeling/sight-seeing trip on a long-tail boat. There's lots of long-tails in this part of Thailand and actually make up a big part of the transportation to and from the islands. They are just a small wooden boat about 20 feet in length with a repurposed car engine mounted in the back.

Here's some pictures of the boats and our snorkeling trip:

The next day Eddy and I went on a morning scuba diving trip. The dives were pretty good, especially the second one. We dove down and circumnavigated a small island that has a bunch of coral and sea life on a sheer underwater cliff. What made it really unique was that the reef was oriented completely vertically instead of horizontally as most are. I don't have any pictures of diving, but it was sweet.

That afternoon the 3 of us caught a boat to our current stop here at Railay. I'd say Railay is my favorite so far. It's a nice quiet place to hang out by the ocean, swim in the pool, and just relax after all these hard days of traveling. =) The other cool thing about Railay is the scenery around the island. There are a bunch of sheer cliffs that go directly into the water (as is very common around this part of Thailand) with a small stretch of beach between them. Yesterday we decided that it should be called "Yosemite-by-the-sea".

Here's some pictures of our resort and my corner office by the beach where I wrote this blog:

Eddy has already moved on to his next destination (he's doing the reverse of us and going to Kuala Lumpur and then Bali) but Chelsea and I will be here the next 2 days before going on to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Malaysia

2008-10-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

-10/13/2008

Our time is short in Malaysia, so this will be my only post from here. We had 2 days to see the city of Kuala Lumpur during our stop-over from Bali to Thailand.

Yesterday we went on a "hop-on, hop-off" bus and toured around the city to see what there was to see. That afternoon we went on a shopping spree for hours at one of the local malls and in the Chinatown Night Market, which is right outside the door of our hotel.

I got a couple of really awesome purchases: a remote controlled helicopter for $28 and a new laptop back for $24. My helicopter is super awesome, but I had to ship it back today, so I only got to play with it once.

Today, we hopped back on the bus and rode out for a brief visit to the Islamic Art Center before heading on for lunch at the KL tower (think Space Needle). It was some tasty good food with a killer view.

I didn't take a lot of pictures shopping, but here's a few from of the tower.

View of the Petronas towers in the background...

The Health Care Mess

2008-10-05T23:27:00.000-07:00

“The Health Care Mess” is a book I just finished during some downtime here in Chiang Mai. It’s written by former Surgeon General, Julius Richmond, and Rashi Fein, a professor of Medical Economics at Harvard. It’s extremely well-researched but not an easy read. Here’s a sample sentence: “As a consequence of the considerable and, more recently, private investment in research, medical practitioners have moved from an earlier period when, as in the first half of the twentieth century, few specific therapies were available to a period in which innovative and potent diagnostic and therapeutic technologies are burgeoning.” Having chewed through 263 pages of similar text and taking a few days to digest, I thought I’d pass on some of the more interesting points for everyone else to think about. Also, hopefully in writing it all down, I’ll stand a chance of remembering some of it two months from now.

Prior to reading the book, I had a lot of assumptions about what was wrong with our medical system. I assumed that the high costs are due to exorbitant medical malpractice claims and shareholders profiting from medical companies. I’ve also heard a lot of opinions from others, such as: “Big pharma” can set any price they wish for new drugs. While all of these are contributing factors, it’s not the cause of the crisis.

The authors of the book lay out much of the history of the medical industry and tie it together with our current situation. Here are a few of their “basic points”:

1) There are essentially two problems with American medical care. The first problem is that people don’t have equitable access to care, meaning people in rural areas of the country don’t have the same access to doctors and specialists as those who live in or near large cities. The second problem is the way in which medical care is financed, resulting in ever-rising costs (I think it’s this issue people are most concerned with). These problems are not independent nor are they fully coupled.

2) For a number of reasons, our country chose to tie health insurance to employment back in the early 1900’s. One of the benefits, it was thought, is that it eased administration by allowing employers to enroll their employees into programs.

Unfortunately, this didn’t provide equal access to care. What about the young, old, and unemployed? This central problem has been around for a long time and many attempts have been made to fix or alleviate it.

One successful such attempt was Medicare, and later Medicaid, being enacted by congress in the 60’s. While it was successful, it wasn’t easy. Passing Medicare took over 10 years and many revisions and compromises had to be made along the way. As the authors state, it required a lot of “political will” which was more abundant during that period of change in America.

The next attempt to provide equitable care wasn’t until the Clinton administration in the 90’s. In trying to find a solution that worked for everybody, the Clinton plan became very complicated. As a result, it was quickly attacked by lobbyists and, in fact, never even made it to a vote in either the House or Senate. What was missing this time was the determination and political will to keep the issue in the spotlight. The country became distracted and the agenda lost inertia.

The current problems aren’t new, nor will they go away quickly and easily.

3) As technology and science continued to advance, medicine became increasingly effective. That is, you stood a much better chance going to the doctor and getting better than you did 50 years prior. Medical successes lead to more people using the system and more dollars being spent in the industry, in turn, attracting venture capital and big business. The government didn’t do much to intervene (if fact, many believed that “the market” would increase competition and lower costs) and soon patients became “customers”, doctors became “sellers”, and care became “services”. In 1985, 75% of people in managed care were in non-for-profit plans, and in 1999, two-thirds were in for-profit plans.

In addition, the finance system became more complicated overall. Patients received benefits from their employer, who bought group plans from an insurance company, who negotiated with managed care providers, who paid physicians for their services. There became a lot of administrative complexity and people making money just by a simple visit between a patient and a doctor. Not only is this bad from a financial perspective, but from a care delivery standpoint as well. Both patients and doctors feel like the system gives them very little choice.

So what do we do about it? The authors promote, above all, a single-payer system to help solve the financial problems. They believe this will be easiest by leveraging existing organizations such as the IRS and Medicare. In short, raise taxes and incrementally roll everyone under a single “plan”. Sure, your taxes will be higher, but that will be offset by the absence of payroll deductions.

My argument to such a plan has generally been: Who is going to pay for it? A free lunch sounds nice, but where is the money going to come from? Well, according to the authors, the insured are already paying for the uninsured. In fact, the increase in required spending to provide comprehensive health care to the uninsured would only increase total national spending by 3%.

All of this is interesting, but there are still some philosophical questions surrounding the whole issue.

The book’s central axiom is that health care is “right” and that everyone is entitled to equal treatment. Unfortunately, equal health treatment is contradictory to equal financial treatment. Should those of us that make good decisions and work hard have to pay more for the same service as someone who makes poor decisions and is lazy? If you want equal care that is paid for by all (a national health plan), logic requires the answer to that question to be yes.

While I want fairness, I also want efficiency. The authors think that government, since it’s a single-payer entity, will operate more efficiently than our current system of multiple middlemen. While I agree with this, I remain skeptical of the government’s ability to truly operate efficiently. Organizations whose goal it is to make money (corporations) tend to operate more efficiently than those that spend a budget (governments). At the same time, capitalism and market forces seem to be at odds with good health care. I don’t want open-heart surgery from a doctor who is motivated to save money.

So, if we can’t have the best of both worlds, what’s the best solution? Your thoughts/comments/facts/opinions are all welcome.

Indonesia

2008-09-23T03:26:00.001-07:00

-10/10/08

As I mentioned in the last blog, after leaving Ubud we headed to another island called Lombok. There is also a town called Kuta on the island of Lombok (not to be confused with Kuta Bali, where we are currently) that we were told is pretty sweet. It turned out to be not that great so we only stayed on Lombok for a couple days before coming back to Bali.

The people on Lombok are a lot more pushy, and there just isn't much going on. We were told that the scenery was really beautiful, but the reality is that it's not better than Bali.

The good news is that it didn't cost much to get over there. We took the ultra-cheap ferry for 32,000 rupiah (about $3.50). It took a few hours but really wasn't a bad ride. Here's a picture of Chelsea on the way over.

We've mostly been hanging out back here in Kuta-Bali buying stuff we saw when here last, getting it all shipped home, and just getting ready to go.

Tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpur and will be there 3 days. After that it's off to Phuket to hang by the beach and just take it easy for about a week or so.

-10/2/08

Since my last entry we’ve relocated to a new place called Talidandan. It’s basically the guesthouse on the property of an American woman, Christina, who has lived here the last 7 years. It’s a great location set further out of town, so it’s quiet and a really nice space with our own bathroom and kitchen. Chelsea posted a quick video of it to YouTube, which you can check out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q69A0zI3zs

We’ve done a lot this past week…where to begin…

In general we’ve spent parts of a few days riding around on the motorcycle looking at art, furniture, and all the other great things you can buy here in Ubud.

On Tuesday we went on an “eco tour” where we rode bikes down from the top of the mountain, stopping at various points along the way to learn about the local way of life. The tour was very informative and fun at the same time.

Our first stop was at a local farm where they make coffee, grow fruit, and raise beef. There they make “The most expensive coffee in the world” which I was able to try for the low price of 30,000 rupiah (about $3) per cup. The most interesting part about this coffee is where the beans come from. You see, there are these small weasel looking critters that eat the coffee off the tree, digest the fruit around the outside and poo out the beans. The farmers gather up the beans (yes, it's weasel poo) and roast it just like regular coffee. It fetches a fair price at $55 for 100 grams, where regular Bali coffee is about $4 for 250 grams. Anyway, I suppose it’s a little nasty that the coffee comes from weasel poo, but I had to try it. It’s a little strong and the blend I had was kinda grainy, so I’d say it’s definitely not worth the price.

Our next stop was at a family compound in rural Bali. We learned that an extended family lives together in a “compound” which is a walled area about a half an acre in size with 3-4 structures. They have everything in this small area including pigs, chickens and a small bamboo “forest” which they can use to make anything.

Young or old, everyone works. We saw a girl that couldn’t have been older than 3 washing clothes in a bucket, and a woman of about 75 carrying bricks on her head. As a Westerner it seems shocking at first, but you come to realize that it’s just the way of life here.

We also stopped at a spot where the locals were harvesting their rice. They take the rice grains and beat them against a wood plate to shake off the kernels and then the stalks are stripped of grass. The stocks are fed to the cows and the grass burned to be used for fertilizer.

Christina, the woman we’re staying with, volunteers a lot of her time and money supporting the school in her local village. With the help of family back home, they managed to get a library and computer lab setup in one of the rooms at the school. Being computer nerds ourselves, Chelsea and I offered to help in any way we could. Christina took us up on the offer and arranged for us to teach a special 2 hour class to the 6th graders (the highest level at this school) which we did yesterday.

We put together a photo editing class for the kids. They took pictures with a digital camera and started learning the basics of editing with a program called Picasa. The day before, we made an adventure into the main city in Bali – Denpasar – and got each of the kids a 1 GB thumbdrive that they can use to keep all their pictures and other school work on throughout the year. All in all the class went really well. The kids picked it up fast and helped each other out. Here are a few pictures:

Some of the pictures taken by the students themselves:

An action shot of class in session:

Christina also introduced us to her friend Victoria that owns a store here in town. Today she took us to some of the shops she knows. We looked at lots of furniture, stone carvings and water features, marble sinks, etc. If you’re planning to remodel or build a home, I highly recommend a shopping trip to Bali first. =)

Tomorrow we’re planning to make our way back to Kuta for the night before heading to the island of Lombok, which is about a 2-3 hour ferry trip. Lombok is supposed to be less touristy, which should be a nice change. There might not be as much to do there, so we’re not sure how long we’ll stay before coming back to Kuta to fly on the next location.

-9/23/08

After staying in Oz (I still don't know why people call it that) for almost 7 weeks, we made it here to Bali, Indonesia as our second stop.

We were told how amazing Bali is by people that have been here, and so far it's completely true. Our first few nights were in Kuta, which is close to the airport and on the beach. We took a couple days to get our bearings and arrange transportation to Ubud- the town where we're currently staying. Kuta is pretty touristy but a nice place to start since there is everything you need and it's not too difficult to get around.

However, Ubud is much better than Kuta. It's not as crowded and has much more natural beauty. We spent today looking at the local crafts (paintings, furniture, sculptures, etc) and still have days more looking if we want.

We're staying in a "cottage" with a great view of the rice paddies. It's close to the center of town but far enough away to not be too noisy. We may find another place that's a little cheaper and stay there for a week, but still checking on that. We also rented a scooter for a week at the rate of $3/day, so we can ride around and check out whatever we want or stay further from town if it's better.

The other great thing is after the budget-busting days Down Under, it's nice to finally be a land where things are cheap cheap cheap. Approximate costs - Beer: $1.50, a place to stay with a view: $35, lunch for 2 w/ drinks: $8...it goes on and on.

Here's a few pictures for all to enjoy:

A hut in Kuta that you can eat at -

First stop in Ubud - lunch and Internet to find a place -

Our place in Ubud -

Rice paddies -

Australia

2008-07-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

Australia - Our first stop on a journey of unknown length, to unknown destinations.

-9/16/08

Our first few days in Cairns were rainy, but also productive. We went straight to work making fliers and posting in a local hostel so that we could sell The Ultimate Backpacker Wagon. I won't go into a lot of details as you can read the whole story on Chelsea's blog.

After that the weather cleared and we took a couple tours. The first was of the Atherton Tablelands - an area to the west of Cairns that has a lot of beautiful waterfalls and such.

This picture is of Josephine Falls - a series of waterfalls that ends just below where the picture was taken. There is a natural waterslide that you can slide down about 30 feet right on the rock. It's really fun and a definite must for anyone visiting Cairns.

We jumped in the water here and swam underneath this waterfall.

After the tablelands trip we took a one-day diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We both went on 2 dives and did some snorkeling also. We saw lots of coral, fish and a small manta ray. Unfortunately no pictures of the dive trip.

We ended up leaving Cairns about a week earlier than expected because we essentially got kicked out of the sharehouse that we were staying in. Apparently there was a "booking mishap" and someone else was scheduled for our room. We are both ready to move on though, so we decided not to fight it and change our flight plans.

Today we arrived back in Brisbane and are staying with the Starks for a night. Tomorrow we'll hit a waterpark on our way down to the Gold Coast Airport to fly to Kuala Lumpur for a night on our way to Bali for 3 weeks. So...this will probably be the last post for Australia! The next time you check it will likely be a whole new country.

-9/9/08

We made it! After setting out from Sydney 4 weeks ago, we've arrived to Cairns - the farthest point we're going in Australia. We plan to stay here for a couple weeks to see the local attractions (Great Barrier Reef, Atherton Tablelands, etc), sell our car, and just hang out.

After leaving Fraser Island our next real stop was the Whitsunday Islands. We took a 2 day/2 night tour around the islands. We both did one dive to get our feet wet, but not the rest of them since the diving will likely be much better on the outer reef that we'll go to from Cairns. The Whitsunday's were beautiful and we had fun on the boat eating some really good food and hanging out with our shipmates. We were always on the lookout for critters and were lucky enough to see some whales (I think they were humpback's) on our last day on the way back to harbor. A mother was teaching it's calf how to tail slap and breach. We got within a couple hundred meters and had a pretty good view of the show. Here's a couple picuters, but check out Chelsea's blog for more.

-9/1/08

A lot has happened since my last post before leaving the Starks. We headed up to the Sunshine coast not quite knowing where we would camp that night. Campsites weren't as abundant up there as we had hoped. We ended up down the end of dark road at a ferry crossing and asked some locals if there was camping on the other side. They said there was, so we took the quick 2 minute ride over to Great Sandy National Park. We found the campground, but it was rather dark and deserted. Plus there were lots of kangaroos lurking around, which Chelsea found a little unnerving. So, we decided to stay in backpacker's accomodations at the local "resort" instead. Chelsea quickly got over her fear of the 'roos and put on a little show for one the next day that was outside our door. Here's a quick clip:

That same day we went horseback riding through the bush and down on the beach. It was a 2 hour ride with a family from England plus 2 guides. My horse's name was Joey...all in all he was pretty good, even though he constantly wanted to stop and eat grass along the way.

The following day we left Great Sandy and drove up to Rainbow beach. It's a small town just across the point from Fraser Island, which we had been planning to go to before we left. We found a 4x4 to rent for the next 3 days and got everything in order for an early departure over to Fraser.

Fraser Island is really a destination for fisherman, 4x4 enthusiasts and tourists. Many of the local hostels put together a "self-drive" tour where they cram 8-11 kids in a Toyota Troop Carrier and send 'em out for 3 days. We were lucky enough to find our own Troop Carrier for 3 days and have it cost only a little more than it would have been for both of us to go on the self-drive tour. It was a really burly vehicle that we never got stuck in (even though we helped push lots of other people out). Plus, it was big enough for both of us to sleep in, just like we do in our station wagon that we left back at Rainbow Beach.

The first day we drove from the far south end to the far north end where we camped for the night. It was lot of fun getting there - we made a few stops along the way at a creek and a place called Champagne pools, both of which we swam in.

The next day we attempted to drive to Lake Mckenzie, but got a little lost on these narrow, horrendously bumpy sand roads. We ended up camping in the rainforest at Central Station and went up to Lake McKenzie on our last day on the island.

We left the island yesterday and made it up here to Bundaberg. We've spent today getting errands done and relaxing after a long adventure through the wilderness. Tomorrow we're heading up to Rockhampton (free zoo!) and then on to Mackay and the Whitsundays.

-8/26/08

As much as we'd like to stay here with the Starks forever, today will be our last. We've been here a week and a day and gotten lots done. We've also seen a fair bit of Brisbane such as the West End, Fortitude Valley, and the Powerhouse whenever we managed to tear ourselves away from our computers . But, honestly, I'm sure our best memories from Brisbane will be of sitting around the campfire in their front-yard talking about the differences and similarities of Australian and American culture.

Today we're planning to head up to the Sunshine Coast to camp for the night. Fynn has given us a handy list of places to see and camp along the way to Cairns, which we're expecting to take a couple weeks to get to. Internet access will likely be spotty along the way, but I'll post some more with pictures when possible.

-8/19/08

After leaving Newcastle we headed up the coast to Port Macquarie, where we stayed for 2 nights at the Hastings Valley Motel. It had free Internet, a queen-size bed, and friendly staff...all at an affordable price.

On Saturday we went to a place for Koalas (don't call them Koala Bears to a local or you'll get a 5 minute lecture about how they are marsupials NOT bears), toured around Port Macquarie, and took a river cruise for 2 hours during which we learned how oysters are farmed. Turns out that it takes 4 and half years for an oyster to be big enough to harvest (and then of course eaten in a couple seconds). Later that night we celebrated 6 fabulous months over some thai food and far too much champagne at a b.y.o. restaurant in town (meaning we got to bring our own champagne in to drink that we previously bought in Hunter Valley).

We needed to get to Queensland to get our car registered so we had to drive for about 5 hours on Sunday and camped out in Byron Bay. Apparently it's a place were a lot of famous/rich Aussie's live, but we didn't see any. In any case, we didn't spend much time there before continuing on toward Brisbane.

We're here in Brisbane now staying with a family that has opened their home to backpackers and all sorts of travelers. We're having a great time with them so far and are planning to stay here for about a week to see the city and get some side-job work done. You can see pictures of the family and read about their house on their blog: http://brisbanehomeexchange.blogspot.com/

-8/14/08

Alright, we found some wireless finally (although we do have to pay for it). I've added some pictures to the previous post.

We stayed a total of 3 nights in Hunter Valley. The first 2 were at The Australia Hotel Motel. A "Hotel Motel" is pretty common here. It usually means that they have "pub-style" lodging upstairs of a bar and restaurant. Pub-style is the most affordable, so we tried that out. The first night was pretty loud because of the bar downstairs, but they closed it down early the second night so we slept pretty well. The good parts of the Australia Hotel Motel is the free brekky (australian for breakfast) including Cocoa Pops! The other good part is a totally sweet slide they have in the back. I highly recommend you check out this video of Chelsea enjoying it:

We spent our last night in Hunter Valley camping in our car at a rest stop. All in all it went pretty well. We cooked up some tacos for dinner and pancakes for breakfast, both of which were excellent. We met some cool people - truckie (australian for trucker) haulin a load on his way home and a mining inspector on his way to work.

Yesterday we got excited about a campsite with Internet access out here on the beach, but it turned out to not work very well. So, tonight we're staying a hostel in Newcastle instead, which is has it's other benefits (showers, free BBQ dinner and trivia!, a warm bed, etc).

-8/12/08

It's been some time since I've posted. It turns out that Wi-fi is harder to find than we hoped, so we had to come down to the local library to check email. It's been a busy couple days getting the car outfitted, seeing more of Sydney, and hanging out with Susanna and Nate (friends from back home that happened to be in Sydney at the same time).

On Thursday Chelsea and I went to the Australia Museum, Botanical Gardens, and then met up with Suz and her advisor Jim for a sunset dinner cruise in the harbor. It was a lot of fun. The views were really cool and this guy named Robert kept giving us all the free wine we could handle. =)

Friday night Nate was in town so the 5 of us went for pub crawl through an area called "The Rocks" which is apparently one of the oldest areas of Sydney. We ended up with a free night on Saturday, so we stayed a day longer than expected and left for the Blue Mountains on Sunday.

The mountains were nice although way colder than expected...in fact, it snowed a bit on the first day we were there. The next day we took a train/cable car ride down into the valley and then headed for Hunter Valley, where we are now.

Hunter Valley is a wine region so we'll be here for a couple days and then off up the coast.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I'll come back and post some once we find wireless.

-8/7/08

We got a car! We spent most of Tuesday looking when we ran across a guy outside the Kings Cross Car Market who had one in pretty good shape. He seemed eager to make a deal and lowered his price from 3500 to 2700 straight-away. We still had another one to go check out, so we told him we’d get a hold of him later. The other one turned out to be too small, so we called him up, came back out, did a test drive and closed the deal for 2500. It’s a 1994 Toyota Lexcen Wagon. Stayed tuned…I’ll add some pictures of it soon.

He had some camping gear with it, but we still needed a couple more things, so yesterday (Wednesday) we ran some errands to get the car outfitted with what we’ll need for camping. I had the pleasure of learning to drive on the left-hand side of the road for the first time. It’s not overly difficult, but you definitely have to pay attention at all times. I have to constantly remind myself “left side, left side” at intersections. Driving from the right side of the car is just as confusing as driving on the left – you use your right hand for the blinker (I’ve turned on the wipers by accident more than once) and shift with your left hand (fortunately it’s an automatic). Anyway, we’ve only ended up in the wrong lane once or twice, so I guess I’m getting the hang of it. =) The guy we bought it from is from Holland where they also drive on the right like in the US. He said that he got used to it in a couple days so hopefully I’ll learn as quickly as he did.

Today we’re going to hang out and see some more of Sydney even though we have a few more errands before leaving town. We’ll probably get those done tomorrow as we are out of our place and on the road Saturday morning.

-8/5/08

We've spent most of the last few days searching for cars and seeing a little bit of Sydney. On Sunday we went out to Bondi Beach for the afternoon. It's a little touristy, but a really nice area. We've also had great weather so far, with most of the days being bright and sunny.

Finding a car has been a little tricky figuring out how the registration works. It turns out that personal insurance is included with the resigration on the vehicle, not the owner. So if you buy a car with 6 months of regisration left, you still get half of that value, which is about $600. So, the trick is to find a low priced car that has enough registration left for us to use it and still have enough to be able to sell it. Getting another year of registration will be about $1000 by the time you pay all the fees and insurance. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that including a "rainbow" of slips - green, blue, pink - but I'll skip all that.

Today we're going to keep hunting for cars and take a ferry over to Manly (hopefully as part of the hunt) because we've been told it's a cool place to check out.

-8/1/08

We arrived in Sydney yesterday morning after 14 hours on our flight from San Francisco. The flight was good and we both managed to sleep for several hours, so we weren't too exhausted.

We're renting an apartment from a lady we found online while she is out of town. She had some time yesterday to show us around the city a little bit before heading out. We took the monorail down to Darling Harbour and caught a ferry around and saw some sights.

We're both really excited about our place to stay in Sydney this week. It has an amazing view and is plenty of space for just the two of us. We keep talking about how lucky we feel to be here.

Today we plan on finding some SIM cards and taking an initial look at some backpacker cars. We've been up since 3 am since we went to bed at about 4 pm yesterday, so we'll see how long we last today. =)

Greece

2008-07-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

This blog is pretty much a copy and paste of "journal" I wrote along the way. I've added pictures in where appropriate.

Day 1-
The flight took me from SFO to Washington where I met up with mom and dad for the flight to Zurich. The layover in Zurich was quick and we boarded the plane to Athens. I sat next to a crazy old woman that was all elbows and talked in Greek the entire time. Even when the man she was with was talking, she didn’t stop herself. Heather met us in baggage claim and we all got our stuff and met our taxi driver. The trip over went smooth for all of us with no problems.

Our driver, Mikel, told us about Athens as we drove the 30 minutes from the airport to our hotel downtown. We got to the hotel at about 3 PM and got unpacked and settled. Being as we were on vacation, it seemed appropriate to immediately get a drink up on the rooftop terrace. I had the local beer, Mythos – it was really only alright.

Our time in Athens was short and there were several things Mom wanted to do, so we decided to take the tour to Cape Sounion to see the Poseidon that afternoon. Mikel came back to get us at 4:30 and we started the drive along to the coast out to the cape. The water and coastline was beautiful, although most of us had to struggle to stay awake since we had been up for over 24 hours, had just finished a drink, and were now in a warm car.

We got out to Cape Sounion by 5 and made the short walk up to the temple and took some pictures of it and the surrounding area. Then we hung out briefly at the café before getting back in the car to head back. On the way back we stopped for dinner at a fish restaurant and we got an open-air table right by the beach. Dinner was fantastic – we had olives, bread, and Greek salad to start, then shrimp and red snapper for the main course and finished with dessert of fruit and cake. After dinner we got back in the car (Mikel hung out while we ate) and headed back to the hotel. All of us were falling asleep on the way, and then passed out immediately after getting back.

Day 2 –
The first night of sleep wasn’t very restful since there were chairs sliding on the roof above us, drunk people in the hall, and loud cars and sirens outside. In any case, mom woke me up at about 8:30 and we met for breakfast before heading out for the day. Mikel told us to check out the changing of the guard at parliament at 11 am, so that was our first stop. It consisted of a little parade of armed guards and lots of people there to watch. After that we wandered back through town and then up to the Acropolis. We hung out up there for about an hour looking at the temple and taking pictures of the surrounding area.

What’s interesting about looking out at the view of Athens was not only how dense all the buildings are, but the fact that they are all the same color. What I also noticed is that there are no main roads or freeways of any kind. In fact, the buildings are so dense that it’s difficult to see any roadways at all.

After the Acropolis, we wandered down and found a shady place for lunch. I had a chicken skewer with rice and French fries. An interesting combination, but I’ll never complain about eating carbs and meat.

I was still a little sleepy after lunch, so I headed back to the hotel and took a quick nap. Mom, Dad, and Heather stayed out and went and looked at some other sights. Mom woke me up again about 6 and then we headed down for some gyros and ice cream, which was pretty tasty. We wandered around the streets a little bit and then headed back to the rooftop terrace at the hotel to look at the Acropolis at nighttime with the lights on. I had some of the local red wine (only ok) and then headed down to write an email to Chelsea and go to bed.

Day 3-
We had to wake up at 5:30 this morning to have time to get down to the dock and catch the ferry to Santorini. This morning dad and I walked down to a local coffee shop to get breakfast. On the way back a local pack of stray dogs escorted (stalked?) us back to the hotel where we ate in the lobby and waited for the car. Heather tried to eat her panini outside, but decided to come back inside once she had an audience of stray dogs.

We’re currently on the ferry as I write this. Mom was writing in her travel journal, which encouraged me to start one for this trip since she was recounting details of our previous family trips that I’ve since forgotten. We were laughing at one entry of our trip to Hawaii. She wrote that Heather stayed in the hotel to read and I headed out to find some skyscrapers to see if I could get on the roof of them. This was when I was 15 - long before the OSU 4 Story Club - so I guess the tendency to seek out the rooftops of tall buildings is just in my genes.

The ferry arrived at Santorini yesterday at about 3 PM and we got off the boat, found our driver and made the 30 minute drive to our hotel. Santorini is amazing. It’s hard to describe in words or get a picture good enough to explain how stunning the view is of the ocean surrounding the sheer cliffs. Houses dug into the hillsides cling to the top of all the cliffs. It’s an amazing sight coming in from the ferry and even more amazing when up high on the cliffs themselves.

We’re staying in a town called Oia and there is a walk path through the main part of it. It has shops and restaurants all along the path, so we shopped our way through town toward the far end where the cliff drops to the sea. Once we got to the end we found a restaurant and ordered some drinks to watch the sun set into the ocean. Again, it’s an amazing view and one of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen.

Day 4 –
Heather and I woke up late today since it is so much more quiet here than Athens. It was nice to get a good night sleep since we’ve still been pretty tired. We ate breakfast out on the patio looking over the view and then I rented a 4 wheeler and rode all around. I found the road that went up to the top of a cliff and made my way up there to find about 3 tour buses and old people all over the place. I stayed for a few pictures and then headed down. I also found the local winery and tried a couple wines still in search of a good local one. Next I rode out to the far side of the island which can be seen off in the distance from our hotel. I stopped at place and had lunch and then rode back to the main town of Fria. In Fria I bought a couple things and then continued back. Along the way I did some “off-roading” on the 4 wheeler and went down this crazy road that turned into a crazy path. After that I made it back to the hotel by about 5 and then talked to Chelsea on her Tuesday morning.

For dinner tonight we walked the 200 and something steps down to a harbor on the ocean where there are a few restaurants. I started with a glass of Ouzo (Yamas!), the local hard alcohol. It tastes like licorice but has a stiff kick – the waitress said it’s about 40%. Then we had appetizers of Saganaki - fried cheese, fried tomatoes, fava – mushed up yellow peas. My main course was a fish called Red Mullet and everyone else had grilled calamari. Grilled calamari isn’t as good as the fried kind you get back in the states, but I guess it all depends on what you’re used to. So far I’d say the Greek food hasn’t been my favorite, but then maybe I got spoiled in Japan. =)

Day 5 –
Didn’t do too much today expect sail from Santorini to Milos, the next island on our trip. We mostly just got around, had breakfast, did some shopping and caught the taxi to the ferry. The ferry was a long trip and we didn’t get into our hotel in Milos until around 10.

Day 6 –
Today I went for a run this morning…finally. Then we rented a car and explored some of the island. We first went to a high point in a town called Plaxa and checked out an old church. Then we drove down to a beach where the waves were crashing from the wind being so high (it’s been very windy since we got here). It was really awesome since the waves were coming in so hard and crashing against the shore which was made of pumice. The rock had a lot of cool shapes from the constant waves.

After that we drove further down the beach and had a couple drinks and snacks at a tiny little bar/café right on the water. We had some wine, bread, sausage, and this stuff called “rusk” that is dried bread with tomatoes and feta cheese on top.

Next we continued down the beach and checked out a couple small towns and beaches along the way. Our rental car handled the unpaved, rocky roads like a champ, and try as I may, I couldn’t get us stuck. Oh well.

We finally made it back to town around 8:30, got some wine and pizza and came back to the hotel to eat it on the terrace and look at the lights out on the water.

Day 7 –
A day at the beach. First we went down to check out another beach on Milos and then headed to the south end of the island where we thought there would be less wind and a nice southern exposure. We found a pretty nice beach that was basically deserted, so we had it all to ourselves. We did some snorkeling, although there wasn’t that much to see and just laid out in the sun. After a few hours we headed back to the room, got some dinner and called it a night.

Day 8 –
I started the day by going for a run. Mom and Dad went shopping back up in Plaxa and Heather and I hung back just sat out on the balcony looking at the water and reading our book. Once the parents got back we were forced to watch this video they took when we first moved into our house on Sunderman back in 1988. In the video, Heather and I were acting like obnoxious little kids and Dad made a comment about how we were going to be embarrassed when we saw it in 20 years. Well, the 20 years was up, so they made us watch it. We all laughed quite a bit, even though we’ve seen this particular video a few times since ’88.

Day 9 –

Today was mostly spent getting from Milos to the last island on our trip – Sifnos. We were on another slow ferry and had the enjoyable diesel smell the whole way. It also rained a little bit during the trip and once we got to Sifnos. Sifnos is a very mountainous island with even fewer people than Milos. The main town is only a few shops, so it has a nice country feel. For dinner we went to a “traditional” greek restaurant and I had the “Traditional Greek Lamb” dinner. It was basically a hunk of lamb (still on the bone) served with potatoes (really just French fries). We also had some chickpeas (what I think of as falafel) for an appetizer. Again, I’m not a big fan of the greek food…it’s really just alright.

Day 10 –

Today was another relaxing day of just hanging out reading a book on the patio and enjoying the sunshine. Mom and Dad went for a couple hikes and Heather and I hung back. Once they got back we rented a car and drove to a remote fishing village on the north side of the island. There was a small restaurant down by the water and we had the usual meal of fish with salad and some appetizers. The food was pretty good but mostly it was cool to sit in the little town right by the water’s edge.

Day 11 –

After breakfast we went for a quick drive around the island since we still had our car until 7. We let Heather drive (even though she has had a nickname of “Crash” in the past) so that we wouldn’t have to hear her complain about being car sick. =) The other towns we drove to were also really small with not much to do. After a couple hours of driving we came back to the hotel and I finished my book before dinner. There was an Italian place along the path recommended by the travel agent so we stopped in there for some wine, pizza and calzone. It turns out that in Greece, your food options are really Greek food or Italian – I like the Italian options better. Dinner was good and then we did a little shopping, had ice cream and came back. Tomorrow we head back to Athens for our last day in Greece on Thursday (also Mom's birthday) and then it’s back to the States.

Japan

2008-07-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late in writing about my trip to Japan, but thought I should include it anyway since I've got the new travel blog going.

My trip was about a week and also work-sponsored, just like Singapore. However, I will say Japan is much more exciting and interesting than Singapore for a lot of reasons. More culture, more architecture and more interesting food are just a few of the reasons.

The people in Japan are also part of what make it so unique. The custom of greeting and saying goodbye is very structured and never forgotten. Everyone is extremely polite, well mannered, well dressed and focused. In America (as they call it), people dig a frayed business card out of their pocket and throw it on the table. In Japan, exchanging cards feels like a ritual. Want a second drink with dinner? Be prepared to bow and say 'domo'. Despite it's repitition, the customs feel genuine rather than a force of habit as is often the case back home.

My first night in Tokyo was at the Nikko hotel in the Shinjuku district. The flight from SFO wasn't bad so I wandered around and took a couple pictures before dinner. Here's one of my hotel room and of a street near the local mall.

After wandering, I headed up to the restaurant at the top of the hotel. Another thing about Japan...it's very expensive. I had the "steak" dinner and couple beers, which ran about $130. I guess I could have found something cheaper, but how was I supposed to how much 10,000 yen is on my first night? =) Most of the time I wasn't sure what I was eating or how to eat it, but I managed left with my hunger satisfied, so I guess it all worked out. Here's a picture of the appetizer course.

The next day we got some work done (a couple meetings) and then flew down to a city called Kumamoto at the southern tip of Japan.

Turns out that the local cuisine in Kumamoto is horse meat. We tried some raw and cooked (the raw is better if you have the opportunity). The second night we went to a benihana type restaurant where the chef cooks the food in front of us. This meal was probably the best food I've ever had. It started with a salad, and then lobster. The chef took the lobster out of the shell, cooked it on the grill while whipping up some special sauces. Then he put it back in the shell, poured the sauce on top, and served it up. So good. Then we had a couple different kinds of steak all which was accompied by red wine. Ok...as memorable as it all was, that's probably enough about food.

After the conference was over on Friday we had a few hours before heading back to the airport. We killed the time by driving up to an ancient castle. A picuture of the castle is below, which is unfortunately the only one I have from Kumamoto.

We flew back to Tokyo from Kumamoto where I stayed in the Yokohama district for the weekend to be a tourist. On Saturday I took the subway in and caught a guided tour of some of the city highlights.

Our tour guide - Pikachu

The city - Shinjuku at the far end

Outside the gates of the Imperial Palace

A famous temple (forgot the name) that is very crowded

Later that night I went out with a different co-worker and had some real Japanese sashimi and lots of beer. Then on Sunday I headed back home over the Pacific.

Singapore

2008-06-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

Singapore - Sept '07

Last night I returned from my week-long, work-sponsored trip to Singapore. After sleeping 13 hours and lying around all day I now have enough energy to tell everyone the tale. Read on for some fascinating pictures and witty prose (or at least some random pictures and a description of the trip).
I left for Singapore knowing only what I could learn from the Wikipedia article and brief descriptions my co-workers gave me. That's to say I knew where it was on map and that most of the people would speak English, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting around. I expected an enchanted land filled with exotic people, food, and buildings. What I found was a place that reminded me of Florida. That's not to say I didn't like it, only that it wasn't what I expected. Things that are the same: the tropical climate, every sign is in English, all the people speak English (some better than others), there's lots of high-rise hotels and apartment buildings, it's all too easy to find a McDonald's. Things that are different: lots of Asian people, they drive on the wrong side of the road, crazy people flying around cars on scooters, if you avoid the McD's the food actually is quite a bit different.
I also found out that Singapore is a rather expensive place to visit - housing costs are similar to here in the bay area, you have to pay the government $15,000 dollars just to have the privilege to buy a car, and we never ate out for less than $50/person…but that could be our fault. =)
Now, enough yammering, here are the chronological details of the trip, complete with pictures.

Sunday - Monday -

My flight left SFO at 1:20 am last Sunday morning. I flew on The World's Best Airline, aka Singapore Airlines. Why the "world's best" you ask? First, they give you 3 full course meals between San Fran and Singapore plus all the snacks you could ever want. They have no less than 2 hot towel services (not that I really wanted a hot towel) and a mini TV for every passenger. Unlike most airlines, the mini TV had tons of channels with all the latest movies…FOR FREE. Now, it could be that service on most international carriers is as good and I just don't know it because I usually only fly domestic. However, there's another aspect to Singapore Air that makes it the best. You see…it turns that a hiring requirement for the stewardesses reads something like: "Must be or have been a model for a major Singaporean fashion magazine." So yeah, Singapore Air is fantastic. Here's a picture of my plane and the endless concourse at the Hong Kong airport where I had my layover.

I arrived in Singapore at 11:30 am Monday morning and hopped a cab to my hotel. My cabby had a pretty sweet ride, so I thought I take a picture of the inside…

Despite being tired I only had time for a quick shower before heading down to meet the folks from our partner company to do some training. That took all of the afternoon and then I returned to the hotel where I snapped this picture of the view from my balcony.

Next, I met my co-worker, Peter, and then headed out to Indian food for dinner. Then we went to a bar/restaurant district know as Clark Quaye which is along the Singapore river. Here's a picture of me at Clark Quaye.

Tuesday
On Tuesday, Peter and I went back to see the non-technical people at the same reseller and to talk more about our company and product. Then we went to lunch and then off to see a different company in the afternoon. Later that night we went out for dinner at Long Beach restaurant and had the black pepper crab dinner. I'm not sure, but I think an entire field of pepper plants went onto this crab. When we were done I had pepper up my nose, under my fingernails and other places I won't mention. It was quite tasty.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from Tuesday.

Wednesday

We spent the entire day at a trade show with the same people from our reseller. Later that night the whole group of us met up at Zoux – "the hottest club in Singapore" (or so they told us). Here's a picture of the group of us. From the left: Albert, me, Sandra, Peter, Lionel, Danny, and Kelly.

This next picture is an attempt to capture the hilarity of how the people dance at this particular bar. The guys stand on a tiered, raised table and move their arms and hands in a ways that describes the song lyrics. For example, if the song lyric is "I love you" they point at themselves, make a heart, and then point out. They all do the exact same move at the same, but I don't know how they do it because I didn't see a choreographer anywhere. Anyway, it may be something that is only funny if you see it.

Thursday

Thursday was pretty relaxed. I had some time to walk around in the morning and see the area before we headed off to see one of our customers that afternoon. One exciting thing that happened at about 1 PM that afternoon was I realized I was very near the equator, very near the autumnal equinox. Being at the right place at the right time, the sun was nearly perfectly overhead (89.9 degrees). Here's a picture of a "shadowless" Justin that captured the event.

Later that night Peter and I went out Japanese BBQ for dinner back at Clark Quaye. Here's a picture of Peter enjoying a brew and the crazy "wheelchair bar" that I saw when we were walking around. I guess the old saying "Everything is more fun in a wheelchair" really is true.

Friday

I had the whole day off on Friday and my plane didn't leave until 5 PM, so I decided to catch the City Tour bus. We made 5 stops along with way. Here are some of the highlights.
Notice the laundry hanging out to dry. Everyone does this in Singapore because it is so crowded that there isn't enough room for washers and dryers. Seriously, it's that crowded.

Little India

A cool building

The local snake charmer – yes, that's a yellow snake around his arms

The financial district

The "Merlion" – Think Mermaid but with a lion instead of a woman. I think it's the national animal of Singapore…or something like that.

Buddhist temple in Chinatown

Inside the Buddhist temple (the picture is a little blurry)

Last stop, the orchid display at the Botanical Gardens.

After that it was back to the airport and a short 18 hours back to the US!