If your coming to SF....here is how you can do it "in these times"
San Francisco: The original '49ers came armed with pickaxes, but it's possible to mine the pleasures of the City by the Bay without striking gold. Jump aboard a ferry or streetcar for a cheap tour of San Francisco's scenic splendor, grab a burrito from a Mission District taqueria and catch a glimpse of wildlife, from the sea lions barking away at Fisherman's Wharf to the two-legged denizens of the Haight Ashbury District.
Getting around: A seven-day adult pass for San Francisco municipal transit including cable cars is $24. For $59, you can buy a City Pass that also includes a ride on the Blue & Gold fleet and entrance to a number of museums, including the California www.citypass.com/price/sanfrancisco.html. Free guides and maps are available at the Visitor Information Center of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau (SFCVB) -- www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com -- at the cable-car turnabout at the foot of Market and Powell streets. The center also has information on free walking tours of the city. For more information, go to www.sfcityguides.org.
Famous places: If you're going to San Francisco, you may or may not want to wear some flowers in your hair, but you will definitely want to put comfy shoes on your feet, as a lot of the city is best seen by foot.
Walk the winding outlines of Lombard Street between Hyde and Leavenworth and appreciate its steep curves.
Take a daytime stroll in the green oasis of Golden Gate Park or amble along the kitchsy but still entertaining Fisherman's Wharf. At Pier 39, sea lions bark for free and a few blocks away, at Pier 45, the Musée Mécanique -- www.museemecaniquesf.com -- offers old-time thrills with an antique arcade that includes famous Laughing Sal; fork over 50 cents to hear her creepy cackle. Ghirardelli Square on the west side of the wharf at Beach and Larkin streets has a collection of shops, restaurants, an ice cream shop and two wineries.
From the wharf, you can take SF Muni Route 30 and transfer to Route 28 at Laguna & Chestnut to reach the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, where you can snap pictures and walk across if you're feeling spry.
Sightsee like it's 1967 with a visit to the Haight Ashbury District and poke through the area's eclectic mix of head shops. For a foggy interlude, visit Ocean Beach and stroll the wide sands or trace the outlines of the ruined remnants of the Sutro Baths, an old pleasure ground, oh and BRING A WARM JACKET! The restored Cliff House, 1090 Point Lobos Ave, offers a variety of options from an upscale dinner at Sutro's to more casual fare at the Bistro or a drink at the bar.
Turn over a new leaf at City Lights Books, the independent bookstore co-founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 261 Columbus Ave., www.citylights.com.
Visit the Ferry
Enjoy a fresh, soft tasty loaf of bread at the flagship Boudin bakery at Fisherman's Warf. Or admire the produce, sip a hot cup of java from the Blue Bottle coffee co on Tuesdays or Saturdays at the farmers market, You can pick up a hefty burger from Taylor's Refresher and, weather permitting, eat it on the picnic benches outside, watching the ferries come in and out. www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com
Chinatown starts with an elaborately decorated gateway on Grant Avenue and unrolls from there, a dense and bustling neighborhood threaded with tiny alleys.
Cheap eats: Get some java with a kick at the Buena Vista Cafe near Fisherman's Wharf, said to be the home of the original Irish coffee, 2765 Hyde St.
Pick up a slice of pizza in North Beach, or a burrito from one of the many taquerias on 24th Street in the Mission district. Eat potstickers in Chinatown or get some takeaway crab and sourdough (or clam chowder in a bread bowl) from Fisherman's Wharf.
Another al fresco option is to stop at the deli at the Marina Safeway, 15 Marina, and picnic across the street on the grassy expanse of Marina Green.
For a high-low experience, window shop the boutiques of Union Square in downtown San Francisco and then pick up a latte at the Emporio Rulli right on the square. Go ahead, have a pastry, too, it's a well-known fact calories consumed on vacation don't count.
And besides, you'll be doing all that walking.
For an underground version of what to do and NOT do in the city...ping me and I'll give you the inside scoop!
Byron Bay Australia.....One Word.....AMAZING!
Dec 18th - Byron Bay
One word: Amazing. Much like Hawaii is pretty remarkable, BB is just the same. How? Well combine Hawaii surf, water temp, weather and laid back attitude with a bit of Santa Cruz hippie, aussie accents and incredibly beautiful people and you have BB. It's a sleepy little surf town that is absolutely fantastic. Let me tell you more.
I flew into Coolangatta also known as the Gold Coast picked up my rental car and managed my way, without any incidents to the freeway. When I got on the freeway I realized I had to call the woman whom I was renting the apt from so while driving on the freeway I did what all Californians do and I pulled up her number on my bb and then tried to call - the only problem is I didn't know what the country code was for this part of the world so i couldn't get through. Its like going from SF to SJ and you don't realize that all numbers start with a 408. Uh oh so i turned to my next best option - email - not the best idea to do while driving and trying to watch the signs so I don't end up in Brisbane instead of Byron but it all worked out. The apt is part of a cute little motel, she bought one of the units right in front. It's not your typical motel 6, it's more like surf motels in santa cruz or san diego. It's very simple, clean and it has a washer and dryer in the unit - so nice since I just recently washed my clothes at the hotel and that cost me a fortune! The best thing is the apt is literally right on the main street and is only a 5 min walk to town. So i threw my bags down and ran into town - had to check out the surf! The town is exactly how you would imagine a surf town, a 4 block radius of shops selling art, surf gear, expensive clothing from local designers and other sundries that one might need while on vacation here. There are also a ton of fantastic eateries with delectables including vegetarian food, lots of fish (happy me) ice cream and beer / wine. You can't buy beer or wine at the local Wooly's (Woolworth - which is their local grocery store out here) and its the place to see or be seen - it's like the local meeting spot - much like the old diners were back in the 50's. Anyway to buy beer and wine you go to a bottle shop and in fact many restaurants expect you to go eat (it's mostly byob).
After wandering around a bit I checked out the surf and realized my new 6-4 board wouldn't cut the little surf so I went and hired a mal as they say here (a longboard) and off I went. The waves were little, but the water was so warm that it didn't matter. For 2 hours I played next to an old shipwreck (called wrecks) and it was a blast and yes I got a bit of sun. Don't worry mom no sunburns ;) It was exactly what i needed, time in the water to do nothing but surf and relax. Afterwards I decided to go get some staples for my apt, you know my typical groceries including: salad fixens, salmon, healthy snacks like almondsand some soy mile! It was a typical grocery store experience except that it was at 'Wooly's. The reason I did this is Byron is unlike other surf vacations that I have taken in far away lands (like Bali) in that it is priced like Sydney which means its really expensive and i am no longer on 'expense' so I figured I'd balance out my expenditures especially since I just finished my expenses and still need to get paid out from SFDC.
After the grocery store I went home made a big salad watched a bit of tele, read my book and went to bed. I wanted to get up early to surf because the winds have been kicking up here and the surf is awful later in the afternoon. So this morning I was up at 8, had a bowl of cereal and off I went. The surf was fun but I still have a long way to go on my new board, it's just so little and fast and sadly the water today was colder. I was still in board shorts and a long sleeve rashy but I got cold. Now I find myself at this little cafe on the main street 100' from the water drinking coffee and writing to you about the luxuries of travel and far off places. Life isn't so bad right now, I think I'll go get some more sun and read a bit! Tonight I am meeting up with my friends Ted and AnnMarie (whom I'm going to stay with in Melbourne) friend here in Byron - she is the operations manager at the Beach Hotel, a local hotspot so it will be nice to meet someone local to find out what to do and where to go, although it was really really nice doing nothing last night!
Oh one note for all of the guys reading this: WOW the female surfers out here not only RIP but they do it in bikini's! Nice!
Singapore to Sydney.....
Dec 16th - New Pictures from Sydney updated......
So it’s been some time since I’ve written on my blog. That is mostly due to the fact that I’ve been busy. I mean imagine this – you spend your entire day on an airplane from India. Land at 5pm get bags deal with customs, find a cab and manage your way through traffic to get to your hotel. Get checked in and then you realize – damn I’m hungry – probably because on the singapore airline flights I took I requested the fruit plate meal. Why? Well it’s better than the other vegetarian options like indian food (not so good for breakfast) or some weird tofu concoction that I couldn’t even put down – so fruit plate seemed like a good call. Well not so much because it’s not what you think. It’s basically 3 little plastic dishes, you know the ones with the hard plastic covers that are impossible to take off without making a mess, anyway all 3 little dishes have the same ‘fruit.’ You know melon, pinapl, and apple and maybe a grape or two. And that’s IT – nothing else. So after 2 of these meals on my 5 hour flight, because I also had the fruit plate snack I was pretty hungry. Now instead of changing out of my comfy warm cloths from the airplane and since I had been in an air-conditioned car and hotel I decided I was too hungry to change. So off I went in my jeans and a t-shirt and work shoes (too hard to pack). Well in case you didn’t know Singapore goes from 28 in the winter to 35 in the summer – that’s c – so it’s about 88 with 90 percent humidity (in the winter) and well lets just say within 2 blocks of my hotel I was sweating bad. Sadly I still had another 5 blocks to the strip on Orchard. You know the street chock full of malls it makes the great mall in Minn look like the kiddy pool next to an olympic sized pool.
After I managed to make my way to an air-conditioned sushi spot I relaxed with a beer and some sushi and my book – ahhh. Then it was back to the hotel, do a bit of work, and off to bed. Mostly because I had a presentation to deliver the next morning and then it was on. You see Singapore for me is a ton of work because of the fact that all there is to do in Singapore is eat, drink and shop! Couple that with the fact that I have amazing friends in Singapore and well you can imagine 5 days of eating, drinking, and shopping!
Some highlights I remember from my time in Singapore:
* Guy and aaron’s soccer x-mas party at the Singapore cricket club complete with boat races (usa vs the world)
* The stag party afterwards at orchard towers (not pretty)
* The sat afternoon recuperation at guy and Aaron’s building sitting by the pool in the sunshine napping and enjoying deep discussions about world politics and the issues in Russia and South America
* Sat evening dinner on the river in the warm breeze – brilliant
* Sun evening movie in the gold class (complete with fully reclining lounge chairs, blankets and our own waiter) luxury!
* Hearing Nelson call me dougie – love that – I think it had to do with the time I spent throwing him in the pool – in a very safe way ;)
* The 90’ weather – damn it’s hot in singapore – there is no respite from it all – it’s just hot and hotter!
* Singapore is a boring country – it’s like a really hot NYC with a ton of Asians – not that’s its bad but there’s nothing too exciting about it – nice that its westernized and all but still nothing to write home about!
* Shopping in Singapore is kind of addicting because you can't get away from it however the prices are WAY better in Hong Kong so if you have to choose - pick HKG, besides it's a bit more like NYC.
Then guess what – it was back on a plane for another stellar 8 hour flight to syd (+3 hour time change) complete with 2 more fruit plates! Off to Sydney.....
Sydney was full force gail winds and rain when i landed. Which was nice change from the humid blow dryer weather in Singapore. My biggest concern however was the weekend, as all I wanted to do was sun and surf. My first few days here were once again full of 'work - dinner - work - bed' until Friday night. Friday night as most of you know was Frank's b-day - you know ol blue eyes. In SF we celebrate in style with black tie, steaks, good wine, good friends, and sinatra on the radio! This year was one of the first years that i missed because I'm in Aus but i managed to make my own party here. See pics - my friend Sarah who lives here took the oppty to throw on the a little black dress and got a few of her friends together so we could do it Aus style. We threw on our black ties (yes I brought mine with me, hit up a steakhouse, bought some good wine, and we were off!
Sadly I must admit that the service in Australia wouldn't make Frank very proud. It took 20 min just to order our drinks (wine) and then after spilling the water on our table they didn't even clean it up. Come to find out that the service industry is not tip driven, they are all paid via a base hourly rate and at $24/hr its tough to afford to live in Syd. They have living rates that are in line with SF so you can imagine how hard it is to survive here. That said, the service was atrocious! Actually it started before diner when we came in from the rain, walked to the bar and got kicked out because it was booked for a x-mas party. The crazy thing is no one from the restaurant offered a suggestion or another option or a drink for that matter - mind you we are in tuxedo's and little black dresses. It was ridiculous! Needless to say we managed through the service, the mediocre food, amazing wine with Sinatra style. Things continued after dinner at an establishment that served up Absinthe - not a good follow on drink after 3 bottles of wine and cocktails. Net result, very very hungover on Sat. What made it worse, it was 90' and sunny on Sat and I couldn't get out of bed. Couple that with the fact that my friends from Salesforce were having a party on their deck in Bondi complete with swedish bikini models (or at least that's what they were telling me) and i still couldn't get out of bed. Eventually I made my way to the beach in hopes that the cold water would help my head. It did but the wind didn't help, esp when it was blowing so hard that we soon became an ice cream cone coated with sprinkles (sand). After wiping off the layers we managed (my friend Sarah who had a car, and I) to make our way to a surf shop so I could buy a board because i was intent on surfing on Sunday!
After buying a new 6'4 short board I crawled back to my hotel and then went to bed. Sunday morning got up early, my friend came over picked me up and then I drove her to her house and off I went to Bondi. Yes you assume correctly, I drove her car to the beach. Stick shift, left hand side of the road complete with turnabouts. I was freaked out but confident that the years of practice shifting with my left hand in moms old bmw would serve me well. Within 100' of sarah's house I found myself confused for the Garmin told me to turn right but since i don't understand round abouts I i though I had to drive around it and then go right so i started to go right and almost ended up head on with another car - of course I slammed on the breaks, without pushing in the clutch and as you know - stutter stutter and stall! So here I am facing traffic, stalled and sweating. I managed to get out of there without any problems but I can't say I was very relaxed. The hardest part of driving was the other side of the road thing - knowing where to look, like to your right instead of left was very daunting. I managed to make my way to Bondi, parked grabbed my new board and off I went. I joined the hundreds in the water and tried to get control of my new little board. It was tough and the water was a bit cold (70 - but it's still chilly with a strong breeze).
Surfing was a fun adventure. Can't say I caught much other than a sunburn because my new board is a bit faster than I am used to but the good news is I am spending 7 days in Byron Bay to practice! I spent all day hanging on the beach with 1000 other people, because it was 80 and sunny. Sunday evening it was an easy dinner and early to bed (sun and surf tends to wear me out).
Monday and Tuesday were both was chock full of work, however tonight after work I'm going to surfing again in Bondi (oh it's 80 and sunny again today and the surf is perfect and since it's summer it's sunny until 8pm. Tomorrow morning I'm up at 5 to fly to Byron Bay and vacation begins!
Ahhh - life is good!
Miss you all - more in a few days once I get settled into my little apartment!
My B-day in India...
Dec 4th - my b-day officially, at least on this side of the world! Yesterday was a long long day chock full of security inspections, long walks in the airport, layovers, dead laptop and cell phone batteries, 2 movies, and lots of BO (yes body oder). Leaving Hong Kong was tough. Here I was at a phat hotel with beautiful views, great shopping and all of the amenities of friends, amazing food, and incredible public transport. In fact i checked in and checked my bags at the train station below my hotel which gave me a chance to sit back, relax and enjoy the 30 min ride and guess what my bags made it to India. Impressive! One more observation about HKG before I tell you about India - they have an AC unit on EVERY building in EVERY ROOM. So imagine NYC but the high rises are apartments and on the outside all you see are those AC units. It's kinda ugly (of course they mostly exist on the Kowloon side of HKG). I got to thinking though - with that many units the guy who built those is RICH, and I got to thinking what about pollution :(
So flight to Singapore from HKG was easy and quite comfortable minus the fact that I sat next to a very old Chinese couple that smelled of weird ancient herbs, you know a mixture of tiger balm and lemongrass but not that nice. Oh and then there is the coughing, what's with the coughing without covering - never understand how people can do that - yuck. Ok so the flight wasn't that bad so long as I stuck to my side of the row. Where it got interesting was in singapore. We land and i have 20 min to get to my next flight and of course my laptop battery is dead and i have work to do so I run to my gate, get all hot and sweaty, plug in my laptop for the 5 min that I think I have and rest. Turns out the 5 min was a little longer because of the security check at the gate - I think they were stripping people down to their undies, I mean it was taking forever. I was ok with that of course because it meant more time to charge. However, once i thought about it realized yeah getting down to the short shorts wouldn't be so good for me, if you know what I'm saying! It was taking so long to check everyone in that they had to open up 2 more lines. Oh and this was odd, they didn't have the metal detecting wands so they would do the 'hand' search. Amazing what you can get a away with in other countries. The 5 hour flight to Delhi got me in at midnight although it's 2.5 hours behind Singapore, just found out that Delhi sits on the 4' longitude or something like so it gets the extra 30 min.
Getting through the airport wasn't bad at all I think because i've done it before but i can imagine how daunting it might be for a newbie. People walking around with guns, everyone yelling instructions in a dift language and people who are dressed as your everyday street guy walking around shaking hands with security guards (while passing a few bucks) and cutting in the customs lines. It all just seemed a bit shady but hey who am I to stand up and shout "hey he's cutting." Through customs and bag in hand I did the 'walk' you know the one where you exit the baggage claim door and there are 1000 people screaming at you with signs in 4 dift languages and your just trying not to draw too much attention, while finding your driver and hoping it's not a scam and your going to end up in a bathtub missing a kidney. Well guess what, I guess because i was the last person to get my bags, probably because they were sifting th through my stuff in the back looking for gifts for their friends, there were only 5 people waiting. Thankfully one of them was my guy and then he took me outside and handed me off to another 'guy' that was weird but I just rolled with it. Turns out he was legit but for a minute there as we were walking to the back of the parking lot I thought I was in trouble. The best part was his car was blocked by another car so he 'pushed' it out of the way - literally pushed it - guess they don't believe in parking brakes.
Car drivers here are like many other parts of the world - they love to talk so I found out that Truck drivers only drive at night btwn 9pm and 5 am because of the regular traffic. Delhi has 14 million people AND The Taj Mahal is CLOSED to white non Muslims - so much for my decision about going or not - glad I found out before I left.
The hotel is fine, it's in the embassy quarters of New Delhi which has LOADS of security and 2 metal detectors when you walk in although I beeped like crazy because of my laptop and other gear and they just smiled at me - hmm nice security! I gotta say, when traveling to a new place trust your friends advice. I was supposed to stay at the 6 star Trident hotel but that's really expensive and I am trying to be fiscally responsible so I went for the starwood points but not all starwood hotels even those that are a part of their luxury series aren't that great - the beds area ll twin beds and when I asked for a King they said, ok we'll just push these two together. Hmmm!
After a few more hours of work I got to bed at 2 not looking forward to my 6 am wake up call (because i had to leave by 7 or i would sit in 2 hours of traffic) and now it's time to train! Tomorrow, it's off to Singapore - ahhh big city life once again - how I miss that ;)
Night time - Dec 4th - more stories to tell......had a fantastic day today full of so many well wishes - the entire Indian office wished me happy b-day and they bought me flowers and had cake for me - it was so sweet and fun - the people out here, minus the crazy radical terrorist Muslims, are GREAT! Really genuine, caring, thoughtful and funny! After a full days work I jumped in my cab and took the ride of my life - it was like the cartoons or the movies - swerving in and out in and out honking, flashing lights - I was laughing in the back of the cab and my driver and I were talking about how 'different' it is here vs 'california' (which he believes is a city in the state of United - honestly). We had to make a pitstop at the airport to change my flight, since the Taj is closed and there was another bomb in Mumbai and they have received terrorist hijacking threats of the airports, I thought I'd leave early. I tried all day calling to change my flight but the folks in the US couldn't change it and the one person in the Delhi Sing Air office decided to take the day off today. So I had to go to the airport which was a bit risky. I thought for sure my driver was going to bail and leave me there to try and get my way to the hotel just for fun but he ended up coming back for me. Back at the hotel I realized that I happened to be staying at the "Embassy" hotel and everyone here was a high ranking official of some sorts either in India or some other country. I ran into some US military with more strips and medals on their uniforms then I had seen even in the movies. With that of course comes security. As I got off the elevator on my floor I was greeted by 20 men with badges and some with heavy artiliary and they all looked and me as if to think, is he a terrorist, is he packing? Of course they quickly realized that I could cause as much harm as a coffee stain, perhaps it was the pink shirt I was wearing. I made my way down to dinner at one of the more famous traditional Indian joints and this is where I sit, on my b-day, by myself. Enjoying a glass of wine a full belly of grilled prawns, Dal which is like Indian Chili and some tasty Naan happy as can be. Don't be sad that I'm alone I've had such a great day and it's really nice to sit alone and reflect and think about how lucky I am to have some many wonderful people in my life. So on this day of days, the day of celebration I sit here and think:
Life is GOOD! Cheers!
India....days after the bombing in Mombai
Dec 3rd - hmm missed a day Guess my Dec 1st was actually the 2nd. Oh well Today I am off To India! Have a 12 hour flight to Delhi through Singapore - brutal considering I get in at 11 and it will prob take 2 hours to get through customs and security. Then it's sleep for a few hours and then in the cab for the hour long drive to the office, which is only a few miles away - chalk that up to traffic! Still undecided about visiting the Taj on Friday. Probably not going to happen given the fact that India could go to war with Pakistan any day now so I think i'll get out of there - sadness for sure as I was really really looking forward to my visit. Another reason, it's a 4 hour drive 1 way to the Taj so that is 8 hours of driving for a 2 hour tour - hmm might need to do that another time when I have more time and some company to enjoy the drive with!
Adventures the Hong Kong....
Dec 1
Went to the Peninsula Hotel tonight for a drink at the Felix bar. A friend told me that the drink of choice for the GI's during the war was a Pimms #1. Turns out it's not on the menu so I asked for it. Also turns out it's a bitter aperitif - tasted fine but gotta say it was more about the experience. Some observations about HK: they LOVE to shop here and no matter where I go I feel like I'm under dressed. Driving here isn't as hectic as other Asian countries like Vietnam. It's seems to be a more civilized chaos. Shopping is great here because of the dollar and their sense of style - oh yeah! They love their neon lights. All of the buildings are covered in Neon with horrible pictures and pseudo happy messages like 'merry christmas' sorry the message looses meaning when it's 100' tall in neon across a building. The Peninsula Hotel is seriously fancy but it kinda feels like a Vegas hotel. It's not as smoky as I was expecting, it's not allowed inside most places. Overall it feels like Singapore but with more water!
The Story Begins....
Nov 29th – 30th
My trip got off to a bit of a rough start considering how I raced to the airport stuffing everything I could into my carryon, yes can you believe it I had a carryon sized bag, expanded for a 34 day trip – hmmm maybe that is why yesterday I bought new luggage that was check in sized. Anyway, raced to the airport only to find out that we were delayed – by 3 hours! So my midnight flight actually didn’t leave until 3 am and as you can imagine because of that the lounges were overcrowded and hot, felt like I was already in Asia actually. Once on the plane problem #2 appeared: Babies! Holy cow I’ve never seen so many babies in my life on one plane. Probably 40 of them just in my section and come to find out they don’t all cry at the same time – hmmm. So I had my own little chorus group to hum along to, only wish I had wanted to! Thankfully my sleeping pills and the 3 am take off kicked in and that helped me to get some sleep. Problem #3: my seat neighbor. While we didn’t have anyone in the middle of us I did happen to be sitting in the aisle of a woman who had to pee every 3 hours. On a 14-hour flight well you do the math. The real issue wasn’t her getting up it was the frequency – made trying to get consistent sleep a little tough!
Landing in HK I must say was a breeze. The airport is quite clean and well organized albeit everything is in Chinese and it’s a little tough to figure out where to go but I must admit they have the public travel thing down. A quick stroll through customs – no problems there and then a short walk to the train to Kowloon Station and it just so happens that my hotel the W is above the station – nice!
The W as you can imagine is PHAT. It’s brand new and they haven’t missed anything. From the little plasmas at the end of the bath tub to the sliding mirror that hides the big plasma to the central lighting and air control by the bed and when you hit ‘night time’ all of the lights dime together – ahh luxury.
I had a great $250 breakfast when I arrived with of course some shrimp and vegi dumplings. No Asian meal would be complete without some Asian twist to it, not even a mushroom and cheese omelet.
After my delicate little omelet, definitely not American sized portions, I decided to get some work done so I walked through the mall to Starbucks. Hmmm Soymilk here doesn’t quite taste the same – can’t tell if it is rotten, old or just the way they like their soy flavored. Man I am going to miss my vanilla flavored latte’s this month!
After a bit of work I hit the gym, on the 73rd floor overlooking all of HK not so shabby then I decided to go ‘shopping.’ The concierge told me to go to the ‘ladies’ market and the electronics market in Kowloon. Now I know what your thinking but the ladies market is all of the knockoff stuff like handbags etc not the ‘red light’ district. I decided to take the subway there – WOW – craziness. Imagine being in grand central station and you can’t understand English. My concierge didn’t tell me which way to go or which train (east or west) to take so I had to bust out the map and do my best deductive reasoning and it wasn’t like I could stop someone to ask for help because they all move as if they are walking on hot coals – gotta move gotta move!
Thankfully my years of travel and a little bit o luck I ended up on the right train. Seriously just thing you walk down the stairs to take bart to the airport and you look at both sides of the track and you have to guess which way to go – well try doing that when everything in is Chinese – it was fun.
When I got to my stop I couldn’t believe the chaos – see the photos! It was nuts people everywhere and the smells of freshly fried some dead animal and I was loving it. Ok not really but it was fascinating. I did manage to find the ladies market where I bought some luggage. It will probably fall apart on me at the end of the trip but that’s ok because my other bag was falling apart already and now I can buy more stuff (for all of you) and bring it with me for before I had NO room.
After about 30 min of the zoo and I had it so I hopped on the subway again – did some more deductive reasoning and found my way ‘west’ and then it was time for an early dinner. So I hit the mall and went to a local sushi spot – ahhh it was soooo good and only $220 HK dollars (which is about $25). Then on my way back to the hotel, after doing a bit of shopping, hey I needed a new brown sport coat that has a vest built inside (so hip and inexpensive) I found a grocery store – in the mall – weird but great because now I am thinking Breakfast! No more of the $250 breaky for an omelet the size of a mc d’s burger I can actually get cereal and some rice milk – oh yeah they have it – the kind I like! NICE!
I grabbed a pack of tim tams (an aussie thing) and off I went to watch a bit of footy on the tele before I passed out. Good news in Asia, soccer is as big as football is in the states so it’s all soccer all of the time – what a perfect way to fall asleep (at 830 pm)
Dec 1st – up early (430) hit the gym and now it’s starbucks – yuck this stuff is gross why do I keep drinking it – bad habit I guess - where is my peets? Now it’s work time. Good news is I don’t have to be at the office today I get to build content all day from my office away from home – Starbucks! Tonight it’s dinner with my good friend Steve from the US. He lives out here so I am sure he’ll have some fun local spot for us to go!
Ok new addition. After my starbucks run this morning I hit up the grocery store for some lunch goodies and just travel snacks and then decided to go have the buffet at the hotel. HOLY CRAP this buffet is insane. They have everything including their own little pre-made bottles of mango, watermelon, honey dew melon juice. Pre-made poached eggs on crab cakes, a full crepe station with ANY fixings you could desire and just about anything else you can imagine. It will probably be $500 HK but damn if I am not going to gorge out here – this will be breakfast AND lunch ☺
Ahhh the beauties of business travel!
Where I am....
Travel Schedule
Nov 30th - Dec 3rd - Westin Hong Kong
Dec 3rd - Dec 6th - ITC Mayura Delhi India
Dec 6th - Dec 10th - Sheraton Singapore
Dec 10th - Dec 17th - Sheraton Sydney
Dec 17th - Dec 24th - Apt in Byron Bay Australia
Dec 24th - Jan 2nd - Ted & Ann Maries' in Melbourne