Nick and Wang's Euro-asia trip

Berlin

2009-03-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

Berlin was our second major city in Germany and the last city James would be joining us in. It was a rainy day again and we got off the train and took the metro to our hostel. We liked Wombats so much in Munich that we booked its sister hostel in Berlin. It was brand new and it was another extremely nice hostel. We had a 4 man room with one other roommate from Israel.

We were getting a little hungry but wanted to wait a little until we had some food so we decided to hit up the 7th floor bar. The bar was awesome with euro beers, a pool table, and an outdoor patio looking over the city. We all grabbed something to drink and decided to play a few games of pool. After about an hour it was time or dinner and we went to the hostel recommended German restaurant called The Marcus Brau. They brewed their own beers and served up classic local food. The food was pretty good but by no means the best German food we had the whole trip. After dinner was over we deliberated for quite some time trying to figure out what to do with our Friday night. We went back to the hostel for another recommendation and this time is was for a very local Berlin bar called CCCP. It wasn’t too far from the hostel so we decided to walk there. Inside there was a 2 euro cover and a tiny bar packed with people. We grabbed a drink and tried to blend in. There were no seats available so we stood. I was scolded for requesting Absolute because it wasn’t Russian vodka the bartender preferred so I ordered the suggested drink. He was right, it was very good vodka. A few seats finally opened up and we sat down. Like many other establishments in Europe, this place allowed smoking and it was very apparent while there. By apparent I mean it felt like you were inhaling cigarettes even if you weren’t smoking. It wasn’t the most amazing bar and we were all tired so we had a few drinks and called it a night.

The next day we planned to go on a walking tour of the city that started at 10:15 so we had a very quick breakfast and headed out on the walking tour. We had about 27 people in our group and Paulo our guide from the UK was awesome and very informative. He started the tour out right by giving a little background on the wars that Germany had fought and made mention of the relationship they had with France. The statue on the Brandenburg Gate looks directly at the French embassy and Paulo asked if there were any French people in the group and without any hands raised he said “GOOD”. With that exchange I knew that I would like Paulo! Throughout the tour we saw the Reichstag parliament building, Holocaust museum, Hitler’s suicide place, the Berlin wall, Check Point Charlie. We had some coffee halfway through the tour and after went to the Opera house and walked down the Unter Den Linden street to end in Museum Island. It was a great walking tour and we saw a lot of historic Berlin.

The tour ended around 3 so Wang, James and myself were very hungry. We headed to the river and stopped at a café with coffee, sandwiches and desserts and sat down for all three. They made a very good Club sandwich so I was a happy guy. After lunch we decided we should buy some chocolate from the famous Fassbender and Rauch. They had huge chocolate models of different buildings in the city and other objects on display like the titanic made entirely of chocolate. It was getting later in the day so we decided to just wander around the streets of Berlin admiring the blend between classic architecture and modern architecture coexisting together throughout the whole city. We walked past the TV tower (the largest freestanding building in Europe) and back to the hostel.

Dinner was at a widely recommended Vietnamese place called Monsieur Vuong. The service was great, the food was better and the price was right. It also came as a nice change from the heavy, fatty German food we had been eating for more than a week. Everyone talks about the nightlife in Berlin so we knew that we had to go out drinking on a Saturday night. The same company that organizes our tours also does a pub crawl every night so we decided to join in. It was 11 euro and we got an hour of all we could drink beer, entrance to 5 different bars/clubs and free (read: nasty) screwdriver shots between each bar. This turned out to be a great idea because we met some very fun girls and the 5 bars we went to were all great and as the night wore on got progressively more clubby. A little after three we were sufficiently liquored up and partied out and it was time to go back. The metro back was interesting. Riders can choose to buy a ticket or risk getting caught and facing the expensive fine. Many people opt to take the risk but we didn’t. Once on the train we were surprised to see a bunch of kids lighting up a big blunt and at that moment we realized there was absolutely no reason to buy a ticket next time.

We decided to spend the next day visiting an old concentration camp called Sachsenhausen. Oranien was the stop 45 minutes down the metro where Sachsenhausen concentration camp is located. Visiting a concentration camp while in Germany is a necessity. When we got to our stop there was a 15 minute walk north east. It was an eerie, grey, windy day. We headed out through the little town where the camp was located and immediately noticed an excessive amount of armed police standing around in groups. We also quickly noticed the addition of riot masks and full jumpsuits most were wearing. At first we didn’t think much of it but as we continued to walk 5 and 10 more minutes we saw more and more police. Sidewalk blockades, checkpoints, police cars with flashing lights blocking intersections, etc. we actually were feeling quite uncomfortable as we had no idea what all of this was about. It was also strange that the area seemed to be quite empty otherwise and the hovering helicopter overhead didn’t help the cause. I finally couldn’t take it any more and took my chances on a police officer speaking English to see if there was any cause for concern. He informed us that it was ‘standard’ security for a demonstration later that afternoon. It seemed a little more than that to me but I felt a hell of a lot better after talking to him. So we marched onto the camp. My words would never be able to live up to the feeling you have when entering the gates of this former place of torture and killing. The site is entirely grey and very quiet with most buildings having been torn down and only a few remaining for purposes of remembrance. We spent a few hour touring the housing, prison, line-up site, etc. It was an emotionally draining experience. I was more than ready to go back to Berlin.

Once back to the city it was dinner time and we had to figure out what to eat. James looked over the Fromers book and found an East Prussian restaurant on the west side of the city. We all agreed to go there because we hadn’t had Prussian food yet. We rode the metro to the west side and walked the 5 minutes to Marjellchen. We entered the restaurant to find what would be considered a very nice restaurant 30 years ago. Nothing had been updated and the dining room was manned by 2 people. The woman who seemed to be the owner and another older man, both in their 60s. We were seated at a very nice table in the small dining room in the front of the restaurant with 5 tables. We were offered English menus and graciously accepted. From the moment we entered the restaurant the wait staff was nothing less than utterly charming, taking pride in every second of their work. It was a wonderful place with great food. We were very satisfied after the meal and headed back to the hostel. Poor James had to wake up extremely early the next morning to catch his flight so we called it an early night.

Prague

2009-03-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

St. Patty’s day in Prague. We got to the city early evening, and saw that it was a hassle of public transportation to get to our hostel, so we decided upon a cab. Our hostel website said cabs should cost around 200 crowns, roughly 10 dollars. No problem right? We got charged over 700 crowns. Ripped off, maybe? Anyway, our hostel, Czech Inn, was an extremely cool hostel, probably one of the nicer ones we’ve stayed in. It’s been renovated recently, and had a very modern/contemporary design to it. Glossed concrete floors, rooms with high ceilings (and high bunk beds too), and just up-to-date facilities, not always easy to find when staying at hostels. We headed to dinner at U Bulini, just down the street, and had a satisfying meal and a few drinks to start the night off. Naber had the best dish of the night, Devil’s Pot, or a beef goulash served in a bread bowl.

Since it was St. Patty’s, should be plenty of nightlife going on… so you would think. Our hostel had suggested a bar called U Sudu, which was just on the edge of Old Town. We found the bar, and headed in. For the first few minutes, we could not figure out why anyone would suggest this bar. It was small and smoky, the bar being no longer than 20 feet. The room had 4 or 5 tables, which were full of older people drinking beer or wine. As it was cold and windy outside, we ordered a drink anyway. Naber had needed to use the bathroom, and when he came back, he let us in on a little discovery. Tucked away in the back corner of this room was a tiny low-ceiling staircase that lead down into a cellar. This room was much larger, full of younger people drinking. At the end of this room was another small staircase which lead into a hallway, with rooms splitting off on either side. This bar had a total of 7 rooms, each with its own DJ and different genre of music, with the exception of the bar when you first walked in, which turned out to be the wine bar. In other words, this bar was massive, and almost completely underground with curved brick ceilings. Very cool. We found a table, got a few drinks and some more, and I listened while Naber and James got into a heated argument regarding a Grosse Pointe high school choir teacher and why she was so ‘controversial,’ and whether she had an effective and acceptable way of teaching students. Enlightening.

A handful of drinks (and Red Bulls) later, we decided it was St. Patty’s… might as well hit up a club while in Prague. It was well past 1 in the morning by now, so we headed towards a couple of the clubs that had been suggested by either the hostel or some friends. One club was only open Thurs-Sat, and another was hosting some sort of private party. A bit disappointed, considering the occasion, but apparently they don’t care much for the Irish celebrations in the Czech Republic. We made our way back to our hostel, thinking to grab a drink or two at the bar in there, but to our dismay, that was closed down by the time we got back. Guess we were calling it a night.

We woke up a bit later the next day, and opted out of the 140 crown breakfast offered by the hostel, springing to go to Café Louvre in the Old Town are instead. Leave it to Naber to pick a French place. You should ask him of his opinion of Parisians some time. It will leave you thoroughly entertained for 15 minutes. But that’s neither here nor there. After coffee and some bread, we set off along the Vltava River, and crossed over the Charles Bridge and into the Mala Strana area. We wandered through the streets a bit, and made our way up to the Prague Castle. When you think the word castle, you typically think tall towers, high walls, majestic-looking building, maybe a fire-breathing dragon, etc., right? Well not this one. Since the castle already sits on top of a hill, it’s made up of several buildings that run along the top of the hill, and it has many courtyards inside. The biggest building is actually the cathedral in the middle, which was really cool, but just not your everyday spitting image of a castle. Nevertheless, we made the obligatory walk-through, and at least got some cool city views. We sat down for lunch at some place that wasn’t worthy enough to have its name remembered, as we got hit with an unexpected service charge and such for a mediocre meal. After lunch, we walked along the river, then meandered back into Old Town to the Powder Gate and Wenceslas Square up to the National Museum, and found our way back to the hostel. I should mention that Prague is a beautiful city. It has a darker aura to it, maybe because it’s just part of Eastern Europe, which doesn’t have all the Golden Age history and period that Western Europe seems to have. Or maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But either way, there’s more of a dark charm to the city.

Back at the hostel, we met our Canadian roommate, Cindy. Being from Quebec and having studied in France, she was also just traveling around Europe. Apparently Parisians treat French-Canadians badly too, as their French accent was inferior to those from France. At least Naber and her had some things in common. Being pleasant company, she came along for dinner at a place called Cheers, a very cool restaurant and bar. Afterwards, Naber, James and myself sat down at the hostel bar for a nightcap before turning in.

I had fully intended on making a free walking tour of the Old and New Towns the next morning. So I got up early, ready to hop in the shower and get the rest of the guys up. As I took a gander out the window, there was snow coming down. Not evening wanting to see Naber’s reaction to walking around in some snow, I promptly returned to bed. The snow had stopped coming down later in the morning and we went to Café Meduza for breakfast. A great little place, which served vey eclectic food including a Czech interpretation of huevos rancheros, chocolate crepes and breakfast noodle dumplings stuffed with all the fixings. Not to mention delicious cappuccinos. Afterwards, we walked to see the Fred and Ginger dancing building, and crossed back over the river to walk in the Devil’s Stream area where Mission Impossible was filmed. We also did a walk-by of the John Lennon a wall, a small area with Lennon lyrics and poem graffiti. While not significant by looks alone, it was the place where students had started protesting communism in the 1980s. While the government would whitewash the wall, overnight it was filled with graffiti again, and this cycle repeated itself almost daily, leading up to a clash between students and police on the Charles Bridge. We crossed back over the bridge into the Old Town Square, which is easily one of the more impressive squares we’ve seen this trip. As it was another chilly day out, we warmed up with some hot chocolate and mulled wine, and watched the astronomical clock go off on the hour. Afterwards, we climbed up to the top of the tower, overlooking the square and the rest of Prague. We took a stroll through the Old Jewish Quarter afterwards, completing our exploration of Old Town, and headed back to the hostel to relax before dinner. We decided upon a place called Hergetova Cihelna, a restaurant right on the river next to the Charles Bridge. It came recommended by James’ friend. No expense was spared for this dinner. Drinks, wine, beef tartar, duck, chicken stuffed with prawn, beef cheeks, etc. It was absolutely delicious, and worth every penny. We made our way back to the hostel, stuffed and ready to fall into food coma. A great dinner to close out Prague.

Vienna

2009-03-27T15:43:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Vienna around dinner time and it was dark, cold, and rainy. Not the best way to start out visit. We checked into our hostel called the Ruthensteiner. It was a very nice hostel and Wang, James and I had a three man room so the privacy was nice. It was late and we were hungry so we asked the nice Italian guy behind the counter where we could grab some good Viennese food. He suggested a restaurant called Seven which brewed seven different kinds of beer and served local food. Their beer was good and the food was better. After a satisfying meal we walked slowly back to the hostel through the quiet, Paris-like streets of Vienna.

The next day we woke and James was up first. This is an oddity as he tends to be a night owl so I figured he was a little jet lagged still. He showered up and went out to get some fruit at the corner market. He returned with some oranges and plums. We were still hungry and wanted some coffee and a smoke for James so we went to a local bakery that served coffee and delicious pastries. They also allowed smoking but this is a moot point in Vienna because you can smoke EVERYWHERE. The ladies at the bakery were very nice and again spoke surprisingly good English so the language barrier was minimal. After our very French breakfast we walked to Schloss Schonbrunn, the summer imperial palace within the city. It was a huge building overlooking a palatial garden elevated at the furthest point which provided beautiful views of the city. We walked around the Palace and up to the highest point in the garden. We then took the 35 minute walk south west to the city center. We were headed for the opera house where we decided to look for food. We found a little eatery near the opera house and settled down for some local cuisine, sausage, schnitzel, and goulash. After lunch we headed to Stephans Platz to check out the shopping street and the largest cathedral in the city, the Stephans cathedral. It was a very large structure and what set it apart from other churches we had seen on this trip was its roof. It was fully decorated in different tiles making a very interesting design. After some more walking we stopped at Manner for some famous Vienna Wafer cookies.

Out of the city a little we walked to the Donau Kanal. There was a coffee shop right on the river so we stopped in to grab a coffee and use the facilities. It ended up that the bathroom cost 1 euro so we went across the street to McDonalds and used the free one there. I am getting sick of bathrooms you pay for. Wang wanted to see the old Ferris wheel so we walked to through Prater Park to see it. James and I decided not to make it just a trip to the Ferris wheel and hopped on the rollercoaster in the park. We figured when are we ever going to ride a rollercoaster again in our lives. With that realization the 4 euros was considered well spent and the ride was better than we expected.

After our fun we went back into the city center and saw the Hofburg buildings including Alte and Neue. Then it was onto the Parliament building and the Rathaus, the old town hall which unfortunately was under construction. We walked through Burg Garden to see the Mozart monument and Opera house all lit up at night. Wang snapped a few more pictures and with that it was dinner time.

James and I were drawn into a shoe store and while there James decided to ask the guy working where he suggested we grab some local food. This turned out to be the best idea all day and he suggested a place called Alt Wiener Beisl, Zu Den lieserln, which was only a few blocks away. We walked around, passing the restaurant because it was a very small place that is not well advertised. We walked in to find that it is probably the smokiest place on earth and that the front dining room had one large table for 8 and the rear had about 7 tables for 4 apiece. We were ushered back to the rear dining room which was even smokier than the front with absolutely zero air circulation. I swear there were clouds in this room. The waiter, owner, and english speaking smart ass was the best waiter we could have asked for. We all ordered ‘house specialties’ and some drinks. James and I both ordered different schnitzels and Wang had a mixed plate of meat. All three meals were FAR too large and included a side. Our schnitzel was so large it covered an entire dinner plate. We tried to finish it all but all three meals proved to be too large. James then decided to order dessert and this shocked the waiter. He gave us hell but we ended up getting out chocolate pancakes. We were then approached by a man from another table to chat with us. He had lived in the states and just wanted to strike up a little conversation. He proved to be overly chatty but nice either way. We then started talking to the two Swiss girls sitting next to us chain smoking cigarettes. They were our age and one was studying abroad in Vienna and her friend was visiting. They proved to be great conversationalists and we stayed for about an hour longer than intended. We walked back and called it a night.

Morning came and we decided to post right back up and the same coffee shop we had gone to the morning previous. After breakfast we walked to train station to head to Prague.

Munich

2009-03-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

The train ride to Munich was S L O W. It was a seven hour ride that should easily be covered in less than 4 hours. However, the view is gorgeous going through the mountains in northern Italy and throughout Austria. We also saw a lot of snow in Austria, sure signs that our trip is about to get a bit colder. We finally got to Munich, and in my excitement to get off the train, I failed to notice which Munich train station we were in. Whoops. Got off the Ostbanhof station instead of Hauptbanhof. We had to remedy that by catching the S-bahn train to the main train station. Our hostel, Wombats, was located less than a full block away from the train station. The hostel has a very lively atmosphere. There’s a bar in the back, adjacent to a nice lounge room, which is actually an enclosed courtyard. The rooms are large and clean, and we had two Korean roommates. As we arrived in Munich pretty late, we just checked in and grabbed a few beers at the bar before calling it a night.

We spent our first day in the Munich area out of the actual city. Ingolstadt is about an hour away from Munich by train, and is home to Audi’s headquarters. If you haven’t figured out why we went there, then you clearly don’t know Naber. But moving on, we sort of didn’t look up exactly how to get there, even from the train station. Had to try to decipher German bus maps and routes to figure out how to get to the Audi complex. We made it to the Audi Forum just in time for the only English plant tour of the day. The two hour tour of the plant was awesome. The Ingolstadt plant produces almost all of the A4s, A3s, and Q5s. The Q5 is their smaller SUV, just as the BMW X3 is to the X5, and is not yet sold in the States. Therefore, it is highly likely that Naber’s car came from that very plant. They pump out 2300 cars a day, and they have incredible machinery and robots that are part of their production lines in the plant. Another interesting fact: the workers are allowed to smoke on the job, and each worker is also allowed to drink half a liter of beer per shift. As they say, Germans are good at working and drinking beer. I guess they go hand in hand in this case.

Audi’s main customer center is also in Ingolstadt, and on average, about 250 customers pick up their cars straight from the center every day. When a customer arrives, their car is brought out onto a showroom floor, where an Audi rep. shows them every nook and cranny of their car, and the customer gets to drive their car straight off the floor. It was very cool to see. After our plant tour, we grabbed lunch in a very chic cafeteria, and headed for the Audi museum, where we got to see all the Audi models from the very beginning of the company.

We got back to Munich in the evening with pretty dreary weather out; cold and rainy. We got dinner at Augustiner Braustuben, an off the tourist path restaurant. The inside of this place was exactly as I would have imagined an authentic Bavarian style restaurant. It was full of people, loud, and all drinking beer, and all the tables were shared tables. We were squeezed in at a table between two other pairs of people eating, where we ordered beer and the ‘mixed pan.’ This dish involves half a roasted chicken, a quarter of a duck, and crispy pork knuckle, with sides of potato dumplings and a red cabbage. So in other words, a man’s dinner. And also cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Probably one of the top three under 10 euro meals we’ve had in Europe.

The next day, we were joined by none other than James Fox of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Three’s a crowd right? Now I have someone to help me make fun of Naber. Not a bad deal. James got to the hostel around 10:30, having come straight from Minnesota overnight and also not having slept a whole lot. So at 11:00, we did a walking tour of the city, provided by a guy named Ozzy. It was a great tour, considering it was free, and also very informative. For instance, Bavarian beer consists of four ingredients and four only: yeast, barley, hops and water. No preservatives or anything else. Also, most locals drink beer in half liter steins because beer only keeps most of its flavor for about 20 minutes or so after it comes out of the tap. Regulars at beer halls also have their own stein locker. So drinking a big liter mug doesn’t really make you look cool, and plus, you’re in Bavaria, where half the women can probably outdrink you in beer. We also learned some Third Reich history, which a lot of the city has covered up. On another note, the Hitler salute is illegal, as in you go to jail illegal, and they’re serious about it, so if you intend on coming here, consider yourself warned. On the topic of illegal, jaywalking is also illegal and actually enforced as well, so another thing to keep in mind. Our tour group only consisted of us and one Australia dude named Al, so it was nice and a little more personalized. We saw the central Catholic Church in the city, and the noon show at the Glockenspiel in Marienplatz, and walked along part of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch March. After the tour was over, the rest of the day was dedicated to walking across the river to see the Parliament, then strolling through the English Garden before heading back to the hostel. Dinner was had at Donisl, a restaurant right off of Marienplatz, the plaza in the center of the city. After dinner we made our way over to the Augustiner Keller, one of many beer halls in the city. It was the beginning of Starkbierzeit, or the ‘strong beer festival.’ The cellar had a bit of a party going on, but we opted out of the cover charge and contented ourselves with a few beers in the main beer hall.

The next day we hopped on a regional train southbound for the town of Fussen, which lies on the Germany/Austria border. It was a beautiful sight on the train ride in, as the town lies right under the mountain range. We got lunch in the town center, then jumped on a bus that took us to a village just outside of town, where we made a short hike up to Neuschwanstein Castle, the castle that Disney modeled their signature castle off it. It was beautiful out, as the ground was still covered by snow, but the temperature was in the high 40s. The castle was built to satisfy Ludwig II’s love for fairy tales and fables, and the inside of the castle was full of paintings and murals dedicated to certain fairy tales, so it was easy to see why Disney chose this castle. After our castle tour, we had noticed a bridge over a gorge with a good view of the castle, so we decided to try to get to this bridge. Unfortunately, there was a fenced off road that read, “danger: no trespassing,” and was apparently the road that lead to the bridge. Following the lead of a couple other people, we skirted the fence and walked up the road. We were greeted with a few amazing views of the Alps and a large frozen lake behind the castle. Continuing along, there was another fenced off area. Well, we’d already hopped over one fence. What’s another? Two more no trespassing signs later, we were on Marienbrucke, or Mary’s Bridge, which spanned over a 90m deep gorge. A little creepy to feel how springy the wood on the bridge was, but it was worth see the castle in its entirety, something unachievable on the walk up to the castle.

After getting back to Munich, we headed for the all famous Hofbrauhaus, the most well-known beer hall in Munich. It was PACKED with people, and we shared a table with a German woman, her mom and mom’s friend, and also a father-son pair who were very friendly and fun to chat with for a few hours. Beer is only served by the liter at night, so that was settled. It’s an enormous beer hall with a live German band, loud people singing and being obnoxious, and pretzel girls walking between the tables, and in general a fun atmosphere. The food was good, and the company was better. A few liters of beer later, we closed down the Hofbrauhaus, a good end to our trip to Munich. Vienna up next.

How You Know You've Been in Europe a Long Time

2009-03-27T15:33:00.001-07:00

So we’ve been traveling for a while now. There are simply some telltale signs that you’ve been in Europe too long:

· Don’t even think in dollars anymore. Just euros

· Think in kilometers instead of miles, meters instead of feet, kilograms instead of pounds More or less, you do what the rest of the world does, which is use the metric system

· Call diet coke coca light

· Think in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. I guess again… use the metric system.

· Stop feeling bad about not tipping (this is SWEET)

· Lots of hand gestures to communicate

· Know how to say “thank you” and “please” in many many languages

· Always be prepared to pay for water

· Only have a single glass of liquid with your meal because free refills don’t exist

· Use cash for everything

· Use military time

· Include 'cheers' and 'ciao' in your everyday vocabulary

Venice

2009-03-27T15:11:00.001-07:00

This was my second time to Venice, but it has yet to lose its magical feeling. A fully pedestrian city, it is composed of hundreds of tiny islands connected by bridges. Venice has been sinking over the years, and it is evident as you look up and down the canals, and see the water level right at the doors leading into the houses. As you walk into some of the buildings, the first floors are abandoned, as high tides sometimes flood the streets and city. We stayed at a guesthouse situated just a couple minutes from Rialto Bridge, the main pedestrian bridge that crosses over the Grand Canal (there are only three of them). St. Mark’s Square is less than ten minutes away. We grabbed a quick lunch consisting of pizza and wandered between Rialto and St. Mark’s Square. The square is enormous, with a beautiful cathedral and tower. The square leads out to the ocean side of Venice, where you can see a few of the smaller islands outside of Venice. After a quick viewing of the cathedral, we headed to the northeast corner of Venice to catch a ferry to the island of Murano, known for its glass blowing factories. We walked around most of the island in a couple of hours, popping in and out of shops to look at glass items, much of it beautiful and handmade right on the island. The highlight of Murano was receiving a glass blowing demonstration from a local shop. Starting from what looks to be a hot molten ball, a man using a glass blowing technique and some pliers-like tool formed a small vase and also a figure of a horse. Afterwards, we took a ferry back to Venice and looked for a Venetian meal.

We had dinner at a place called Alla Botte. The menu is scribbled up on a chalkboard, but as with the rest of Italy, the waiter was more than helpful in explaining the menu options to us to the best of his ability. I ordered fresh pasta with shredded crab meat and Naber got a tuna steak accompanied by grilled vegetables, both which were excellent. For dessert, the best tiramisu I have had to date. And of course, a sufficient amount of wine which was hardly more expensive than bottled water.

We saw more of Venice itself our second day. After another quick lunch, we set off to explore more of the San Marco district of Venice, the southern section that contains St. Mark’s Square. We more or less hopped from one square to another to see all the churches and bridges of the district. The walkways are very narrow and eerily quiet, as there are actually a very low number of inhabitants of the islands part of Venice. A lot of the buildings are completely abandoned. Being off the more touristic paths makes you feel very isolated. We made our way back to St. Mark’s square to catch a vaparetto through the Grand Canal. Originally, we had wanted to take one of the many cool wooden taxi boats up and to down the canal, but the idea was quickly shot down by the 100 euro price tag associated with it. We settled for the waterbus at 6.50 euro. A bit more reasonable. Anyhow, the ride was pleasant, and we got to see all the old mansions and buildings alongside the canal. We rode the waterbus up to the train station, where we made our reservations to get to Munich. We walked along the northern section of Venice afterwards, stopping by the Ghetto Nuevo, the old Jewish ghetto, before crossing another bridge back over the Grand Canal to explore the San Polo district, or the middle area of Venice. After getting back to the Rialto Bridge, we got dinner on the go from a pizza place, which sold large slices of excellent pizza for cheap, topped off by some gelato.

I had wanted to go back to St. Mark’s to take some pictures at night, but needed to charge my camera up a bit. When I got to St. Mark’s, I noticed several large puddles of water in the square. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the water was coming up from holes in the ground. As the tide is highest at new and full moons, and there was close to a full moon out, the rising tide was higher than the lower points of St. Mark’s square, so effectively the square was being flooded. There were elevated planks and walkways lining in front of the basilica leading up to the edge of the island for people to walk. Walking up to the water, I noticed that the wakes from passing boats and waterbuses were splashing up onto the walkways, and the steps that would normally lead from a docked gondola were already covered with water. In the next two hours, almost all of the square became flooded, and the water level of the sea covered up a few feet of the walkway. It was a very cool experience to see the tide so high, and the square full of water.

Venice is a unique city to see, even though there aren’t a whole lot of exciting things to do. The city shuts down very early, so nightlife isn’t as popular here. It’s also expensive, and there is plenty of shopping on the islands. The experience of all the canals and bridges and walkways make it a worthwhile trip.

Italian Mini Road Trip

2009-03-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Our original plan for the trip was to take a train from Florence to Venice, stopping in Modena, where the Galleria Ferrari is. Unfortunately, we found that the museum is actually located in a smaller town called Maranello which is south of Modena, and there were no forms of public transportation to get us from Modena to Maranello. Not be daunted by this obstacle, we found another solution to get us to Maranello: rent a car. Why not, right? So we went and found an area in Florence with a handful of car rental companies and began the inquiries as to how to procure a car to get to Venice. We found out that technically, to legally drive, you need to have an international driver’s license in addition to your regular US State issued license. However, for a car company to loan you a vehicle, you only have to provide a passport and a US State issued driver’s license. Just don’t get pulled over. And even if you do, a lot of the time, it’s just an additional fine on top of whatever traffic violation you may have committed.

So the next morning, we picked up a gray Fiat Punto, a small five speed manual Italian four-door hatchback. We loaded our bags into the car, and with our Googlemaps directions that didn’t properly print out, we hit the road, hoping not to get overly lost somewhere in northern Italy. I drove the first leg of the trip to Maranello. About Italian drivers, they drive fast and aggressively. However, they’re rather polite. No one passes on the right, and they flash their lights at you if they think you’re too slow rather than tailgate or honk the horn. The Italian countryside is beautiful, with smaller towns on hillsides. So beautiful in fact, that Naber felt the need to lean out the passenger side window to try to get an unobstructed picture. Smartly, he forgot that he had his sweet Prada sunglasses on top of his head. So here I am driving, and I hear, “Oh, my god,” loudly as part of Naber’s body is out the window. He brings himself into the car. “Oh. My. God.” Touching the top of his head, he informs me his sunglasses fell off and instructs me to pull over. We’re now in a narrow shoulder with a guardrail with a creek on the other side on a two lane road with cars whizzing by and honking. Naber opens the door and begins sprinting down the shoulder in his Cole Haan loafers, against traffic. The Fiat is so small that every passing car creates a wind that buffets the car. We hoped the police would not drive by to the crazy American running down the highway. Shortly enough, Naber hops back in the car, sunglasses in hand and intact, minus a few scratches, and we’re on our way again.

Getting to Maranello, we found the Ferrari museum, and also several Ferraris driving around on the roads. Naber was on cloud nine for the afternoon, as we toured the museum. Unfortunately, we could not tour the actual Ferrari factory, as you have to personally own a Ferrari to receive that tour. I think we’re just a tad shy of reaching pay grades to afford one.

Naber drove from Maranello to Venice, a two and a half hour drive. The drive was a bit flatter than the first half, except that as we got further north, the view of the Alps started becoming more and more clear. Up until this point, the google directions had been pretty accurate, but we reached a point where the exit didn’t seem to existe. Looking on google maps on my phone, it seems that we were north of Venice and driving too far east. Luckily, we got off at the next possible exits to find there were other signs leading to Venice using smaller roads. The next issue was to fill the car up with gas before returning it to the car rental service. No one works at gas stations on Sundays, and because of that, you can’t use credit cards to pay for gas, even though they have the automated machines similar to the States. It was quite the annoyance as gas is expensive in Europe, about 1 euro per liter, a rough approximation of 5 dollars a gallon. Another little hiccup was that while in Florence, we were told we could drop the car off at the rental place in Venice and put the keys in a dropbox, the store was closed and we have to drive back onto the mainland and to the airport to return the car. We hopped on the bus to get us back to the islands, and then the vaparettos, or waterbuses, to take us down the canal to our hostel.

Florence

2009-03-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Florence in the early afternoon and the weather was less than ideal. From the train station we had to walk a few blocks to our hostel. Trying to carry our backpacks and suitcases through the city after some solid rain proved to be a slightly taxing experience for me. Let’s just say I got a little wet from the waist down by the time we got to the hostel. Wang and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet so we asked for a quick rec from the front desk and went out. Ending up at a completely different place than was suggested we sat down at Cellini’s for some pizza. It was the best pizza I had had to date in Italy and the wait staff was hilariously Italian. After lunch which was very near or hostel we couldn’t help but browse the market that was around the corner. We spent about an hour perusing the leather goods and other items for sale. Wang having been to Florence before and myself who had heard about the great leather markets knew it was only a matter of time until we would find ourselves shopping in one. Some of the stuff was crap but other things were very beautiful. We walked through stopping at several stands checking out mostly leather goods but decided we should shop around before making any quick decisions. Once through the market we walked around the city getting a feel for the layout and helping us create a game plan for the next two days. The city was small and we actually covered a lot of ground that evening. We headed back towards the hostel and had dinner at a very nice, very Italian place called Trattoria Enzo Piero. I was very full from our late lunch still so I had a salad, bread and some wine. Florence is full of English speaking servers so getting what you want to eat is extremely easy. After dinner we went back and hung out at our hostel. The hostel was great with a very helpful staff and exceptional services for the price you pay including a free hot breakfast and pasta for dinner which we never utilized. Our room was a 6 man in which I swear they put all of the Asians and me. The entire three nights we were there the room was filled with Asians and myself with the exception of one Italian guy the first night. I thought it was very interesting as it was the only time this had happened the entire trip. Either way I tend to love Asian culture so it was cool with me.

The next day started with our complementary hot breakfast which was very good considering the price. After breakfast we waited in the lobby for our 10 am free walking tour. The hostel does two different free walking tours every other day. Today’s was the more ‘off the beaten path’ tour guided by a blonde Italian woman. Yes I said blonde. You could tell she had an attitude and it was a great source of entertainment throughout our two hour excursion. This was the first walking tour we had done while in Europe and it was very worth our time because the things the guides tell you are things the average person might miss when just walking around. We learned all about the Medici family, the richest family in Florence and got to tour one of their palaces. All and all a very enjoyable tour. After we walked to the Michael Angelo plaza which overlooked the city and on this particular sunny day provided some amazing photos and the warmth on your body was also a welcome experience.

We walked down from the Michael Angelo plaza which was situated in a beautiful park on the south east side of the city, to the downtown area to look for food. I was getting hungry so time was of the essence as I didn’t want to get too irritable. So we picked a place that was self service and I ordered a pizza and Wang a small sandwich. They messed up Wang’s order and only charged him slightly over two euro and mine which was awful about 6.50 euro. You can’t always pick a great place. After lunch we headed out to find the Galleria Accademia where the statue of David is on display. It was an unbelievably large, perfect statue created out of marble by Michael Angelo. It was a pleasantly small museum so we didn’t spend too much time there and headed to the Duomo, the third largest Cathedral in Europe (we had already seen number one and will see number two before returning to the states). Once we walked into the Duomo with free admission to the main church and we very impressed with is size and decoration. Wang wanted to climb to the top of the dome and after my little bout of claustrophobia at the Vatican I decided to wait at the bottom for him. He snapped some shots and climbed the stairs back down so we could go buy some things at the leather market.

When we got to the leather market I knew exactly what I was going to buy. The first day we wandered into this guys shop that was full of beautiful leather goods from purses, wallets, messenger bags, etc. I was in the market for a leather messenger bag I can take to work. He had the perfect one that I couldn’t leave Florence without. I we talked price and I got him to come down to something I felt was reasonable and a price that I also knew was about half what you would pay in the states for something of similar quality but definitely mass produced. I was thrilled to not only have purchased a bag I had been wanting for months, but that it was from Florence and I had met the man who had made it for me. Wang was in the market for a portfolio he could use at work but soon fell in love with a leather travel tie holder. Wang purchased the tie holder from the same guy and completely excited about our buys we went out to find Wang two Italian silk ties to fill his new leather travel pack. The ties were very inexpensive buy any American standards so Wang bought three and I bought one too. With a few new items we were all shopped out, dropped off our stuff in our room and tried to figure out where to eat for dinner. Wang wanted a traditional Florentine steak so with the help of wikitravel (an amazing free travel guide online) we found a great place with low prices Florentine steak. It was called Trattoria Le Mossacce. It was a tiny little hole in the wall place and we were seated at a four person table with two people already sitting there. They pack people in and there is no seat unused. It was very cosy and we were seated right next to the open kitchen and were able to watch the chefs cook the food. The meal was delicious and after a great day and a great meal we decided to grab a drink before heading back. We stopped at an Irish pub and had a beer. The crowd was sparce and the music was terrible so we went back and hit the sack.

Our last day started again with free breakfast and a free walking tour starting again at 10 am. This time our tour guide was a much more typical Italian woman. I just loved her. She laughed constantly, talked very quickly, was extremely nice but I couldn’t help but notice her terrible cough and yet she still sucked down a few smokes… a true European. All guides carry some type of item to help their group keep an eye on their guide and hers was a large stuffed flower. In retrospect her locating beacon embodied her personality quite well. She suggested looking at another local market for leather so Wang could maybe find that perfect portfolio he was holding out for. We quickly looked through the goods and didn’t find anything better than what we had already seen.

Our next city was to be Venice and I wanted to stop at the Ferrari museum between these two places in Italy. Well as it turns out, there is no train to Maranello, Italy to see the museum so we racked our brains for a way to get there. Well… why not rent a car!?!? So after the leather market we went to the area of town with multiple car rental places and found the cheapest place and booked a little Italian Fiat for the next morning to drive to Maranello and then leave in Venice.

We wanted a fast lunch because we still wanted to fit in Pisa for the afternoon. Lunch was at a kebab place and was delicious. We then walked to the very near train station to book a ticket to the one hour away location of Pisa to see the leaning tower. There isnt a whole hell of a lot in the little town of Pisa, Italy. Some shopping between the train station and the leaning tower and that’s about it. We spent about an hour in Pisa and headed back to Florence on the train.
Once back in Florence we were hungry and were craving Cellinis again so we went back to visit our girlfriend. Not to disappoint, the meal was outstanding and we went back to the hostel to get a good night sleep for our next day.

That next morning we headed out to an internet café to print off directions to the Ferrari Museum and onto Venice. After directions were printed Wang and I split up so he could find postcards and so I could pick up our little car. Wang’s task proved to be slightly less taxing. It took me only 7 minutes to walk to the car rental pick-up and over 25 to drive back. This was due to an excessive amount of one way roads, excessive construction with Italian signs directing traffic and probably also because I had never driven in Italy. I finally met Wang at the hostel, we loaded up the car and headed off onto the A-1.

Rome

2009-03-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

We got to Rome by taking a train around Lake Geneva and then through the Swiss Alps. More or less, it’s a day in the train, witnessing nature’s best. The lake, as it had been in Geneva, was clear and calm, and the snow-capped Alps spectacular and majestic. The pictures I tried to capture from the train simply don’t do the water and mountains justice. Rome, like Paris, is a tourist hub. We arrived late in the evening and checked into the Yellow, our hostel. Due to their operational inefficiencies, Naber and I were stuck in separate four-person rooms, which was mildly annoying. We enjoyed a typical Italian pasta dinner across the street, a homely restaurant called Mamma Angelas. Since it was late and we were tired from a full day of travel, we sat ourselves at the bar of our hostel and enjoyed a few drinks, making small talk with two girls from Chicago (well, Naperville and Wheaton) who attended Iowa. They were catching a midnight train back to Torino, so that would be the last of them. I should mention that a full bottle of wine is 7 euros at the bar, compared to the seven dollars it would cost for a single glass in the States.

Following breakfast on our first full day, we set out to the famed Colosseum. Our lucky weather streak came to an end, as we had overcast skies and intermittent rain showers. Could have been much worse though, and the rain never lasted long. But about the Colosseum… it is an amazing structure. The amphitheater is enormous, and it was quite the experience walking through the upper levels, trying to imagine what it was like when it was full, and gladiators were duking it out in the middle. While much of the building has crumbled and been worn by age and weather, it made a lasting impression in my mind. Being in Italy, we quickly came to a consensus that pizza would be our food of choice for lunch. It doesn’t take very long to find a pizza joint in these parts. While Naber decided on a vegetarian pizza, I settled for prosciutto, better known to Americans as ham. The pizza was rather good, as expected, and we moved on to walk around Palatine and the Roman Forums. Both areas are remnants of Ancient Rome, where only parts of walls, columns and temples remain. It’s a beautiful sight. Unfortunately, I’m no history expert, so I can’t give you the intimate details of the ruins and their significance. However, the details are not needed to appreciate the beauty and atmosphere of the place.

After our stroll through the Forums, we walked past the Campidoglio, a large museum with a staircase leading up to it designed by Michelangelo. From there, we walked towards the Trastevere district, considered the “heart of Rome.” We first stopped by to see Saint Mary’s in the Cosmedin, which houses the Mouth of Truth. We stopped for some gelato while crossing the Tiber River. Gelato, or better known to most of you as ice cream, is nothing short of amazing in Italy. We walked the streets of Trastevere, stopping by Saint Mary’s of Trastevere, the oldest basilica in Rome. This district really lives up to its label, as the streets are filled with more locals rather than tourists, and there’s a distinct old city feel. We walked up part of Janiculum Hill, which has various monuments and fountains scattered throughout, as well as panoramic city views. However, the low clouds and rainy day didn’t make the views as notable as they should be.

Following the Trastevere district, we crossed back over the river and into the Aventine district. Saint Alessio Church is located on a hill in this district, but there was no obvious way up from the street we were on, so we just moved on. We walked down to the Pyramid, which holds the tomb of Caius Cestius (really don’t know who that is…) and also saw Porta San Paolo, one of the ancient gates into Rome. As some rain started coming down again, and we had wound up in the southernmost area of Rome, we caught a metro back up to the hostel for dinner at the restaurant next door. While Nick enjoyed the house special seafood pasta dish, I settled for a simple penne with a creamy pesto sauce, with the traditional Italian tiramisu as dessert.

On our second day in Rome, we headed for the Vatican. St. Peter’s Square is the largest square in Rome, and it’s also definitely more of a circle. Someone missed out on that memo, or maybe that’s me. Anyways, after standing in a line that almost went straight out the square, we made our way into the famed St. Peter’s basilica. It is massive on the inside, and impressive, I should add. Taking our obligatory pictures, we moved on to make the climb up the cupola (the dome). The climb involves 500+ stairs, the last half being very narrow and steep. While Nick opted out of the last half of the climb, I should mention it’s really not meant for the claustrophobic. As you reach the dome, the walls slant towards the middle and the passageway is about the width of your shoulders, you kind of have to lean towards the center yourself and shuffle your way up the dome. The last couple stories involve the smallest and very steep spiral stairs case. The middle of the stair case is literally a rope they drop from the top so you can hold up and try to semi-climb your way up to the top. The views are spectacular though, and you can really see that St. Peter’s Square is more of a circle.

After yet another pizza lunch, we walked along the Vatican Wall to go see the Sistine Chapel. What we didn’t know, is that you have to pay for all the Vatican Museums to see the Sistine Chapel, as it was designed in a manner that you had to walk through building after building to actually reach the chapel. It’s kind of like how 90% of the people who go to the Louvre pretty much just to go see the Mona Lisa. At least the Sistine Chapel is a whole room as opposed to a small square picture. Since there’s pretty much only one way to get to the Sistine Chapel, you do end up seeing quite a bit of the other museums, full of sculptures and paintings and beautiful artsy items.

We spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back across the city to our hostel, walking by St. Angelo’s Castle and the Navona Plazza. Unfortunately, the middle of it was under construction, ruining the effect of the huge plaza and its fountains. The middle fountain, Bernini’s masterpiece called the Fountain of Four Rivers is a beautiful work of art and was well worth the walk-through. After making it back to the hostel with sore feet and tired legs, we went to Mamma Angela’s again for dinner. On the subject of Italian food, the rest of the world could stand to take a leaf out of the Italians’ book in the restaurant service industry. Smiling, pleasant, helpful with the menus, not to mention their ability to open a bottle of wine in less than 5 seconds. It’s rather amazing, actually. And this is all before talking about the actual food. Words can’t really describe how much I love the food in Italy so far, and I don’t even eat Italian food all that often back at home (and we’ll just not count pizza at school). In our stay in Rome, never did we have a less than highly satisfactory meal, no matter how simple, cheap or quick it was. A few drinks back at the hostel bar and we called it a day.

The last day was taken at more of a leisurely pace. We set out on foot, per usual, first walking by the Quirinal Palace. The Alpha Romeo police car parked in the plaza was probably the most exciting thing here, granted we didn’t go in. Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain, the famous “Virgin Water” of Rome. It’s fabled that anyone who drinks from it or throws a coin in is destined to return to Rome. So it looks like I’ll be back sometime. We made our way over to the Pantheon, another very cool sight in Rome. Moving on, we walked through Chigi Plaza and the Marcus Aurelius monument, and turned up Via del Corso, more or less the shopping area of Rome. We walked up through Piazza del Popolo, yet another large square (and it really is close to a square this time), then up through a park. We cut through the park and ended up at the top of the Spanish Steps, or Piazza de Spagna. Taking our obligatory pictures at each location, we set out for place mentioned in the all-knowing Lonely Planet book for lunch. You should be able to guess what we had. Pizza, of course. Pizzeria Buffeto provided some of the best pizza I’ve had in a very long while. After the pizza, we crossed town and went down to the Lateran to see St. John’s basilica. Since this was pretty much the 30th church we saw in Rome, I don’t remember what made this one stand out other than it was big. However, the chapel across the plaza held the Scala Santa, the Holy Staircase. Jesus Christ Himself was rumored to have climbed these stairs, and visitors can only ascend these stairs on their knees now.

Rome is truly a great city to visit. It’s full of history, ruins, and architecture, not to forget religion. While it’s a tourist hotspot, parts of the city still retain an authentic feel. It’s a relatively small city with a lot to see. So far it’s been a great start to our stay in Italy. We head to Florence next, followed by Venice.

Geneva

2009-03-02T11:39:00.001-08:00

Wang and I planned on traveling to Geneva, Switzerland for two nights only to find out that the only hostel in the city was booked on the 28th the first night of our two nights. We decide to get a hotel for one night as to not spend too much on housing. While a hotel was about twice the cost of a hostel, we figured that on the grand scale of the trip that one night in a hotel was a small price to pay for a stay in Switzerland. Once we had worked out that we were going to go, we planned to take a night train on the 27th arriving in Geneva at 5 am so we had the whole day of the 28th to see the city. When we went to book the ticket it turned out that the train we planned on taking that night was not scheduled to run that night. Yet another difficulty in our trip to Geneva. It almost seemed as if Geneva didn’t want us there. We then asked if there were ways to make connections to get there around the same time the morning of the 28th. We were given an itinerary of three different trains to take to get there. We took the itinerary back to think it over and went back to the train station the next afternoon to book the travel. A major downside of this new itinerary was that we would have to use 2 days of our 15 on our eurail pass and not just one. After all of these additional expenses we decided to go for it anyways. The ticketing agent in Barcelona told us they would be unable to book our last train from Toulouse to Geneva because they didn’t have the French computer system to do it (thinking to myself one more reason not to like France). We would be arriving in Toulouse around 11:40 at night and we were very nervous that the ticket office wouldn’t be open because we would have to purchase the tickets right before we got on the train to Geneva. We figured let’s just go for it and hope it all works out. After traveling the entire afternoon and evening we arrived in Toulouse and there was one ticketing agent available… Finally something had gone right! We took our overnight train to Geneva and arrived with no further issues at 8 am. And as if to offset the hassles of getting to Geneva, no conductor checked our ticket to Geneva, and we didn’t have to use a day on our rail pass. The hotel was cheap and right next to the train station. Even better was that at 8 am our room was available for occupancy so we could get a hot shower before our day in Geneva.

The weather was ideal, sunny and 50. It was just like one of the first warm days after a long winter in the early spring in the Midwest. We decided to walk around the old part of the city first. We walked by the Norte-Dame, around the bay of Geneva to see the Jet d’eau. It is the tallest water fountain in the world and is quite spectacular. We then headed through the streets of old town past Saturday morning markets and some fantastic shopping. It was a very high end city with beautiful cars, stores, and restaurants. It was similar to a European Hong Kong at a slower pace (surprise surprise). Through old town we watched some locals playing checkers and chess with life sized pieces in the park as we walked down the Promenade de Bastions and up to the Cathedrale St Pierre. The city is definitely not full of tourist attractions but the scenery is beautiful. You could admire Lake Geneva all day with its crystal clear water and its backdrop of the snow capped Swiss Alps and Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in Europe. It was a necessity that we get out on the water so we took a tour boat around the lake in the afternoon which took us past some unbelievably beautiful homes on the water. Since we couldn’t both enjoy the luxury of purchasing a Swiss watch we decided to settle for some Swiss chocolate which we enjoyed on the boat. After the boat ride we took PT, which is free to anyone staying in a hotel, to the Red Cross Museum and the former United Nations World Headquarters. Both places were closed for the weekend so we didn’t get to go in. We went back to the city center and decided to walk around a grab some dinner. Food in Geneva is damn expensive and sitting down to any real meal cost at least 25 dollars so we settled on one of the many kebab places which was provides cheap food relative to other local options. After dinner we grabbed a Swiss beer at Les Brasseurs which brewed four different types of beer. It had been a long 36 hours and we wanted to get some rest in the most comfortable bed we had been in since the states. In the morning we grabbed a quick breakfast of café, orange juice, and two croissants. A very fitting breakfast as the main language spoken in Geneva is French.

We couldn’t have enjoyed our stay anymore and were very glad we put up with all the hassels and decided to go. Our train to Rome left at 11 am with a connection in Milan so we were on our way!

Barcelona

2009-03-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

Barcelona. Very much anticipated by me and hyped up by everyone else who has been there before. We arrived by high speed train in the evening. We checked into our hostel, called Albareda, where we had a bunk in a six-person room. The hostel is tucked away in the southwest corner of Old City Barcelona, more or less the downtown area. The marina and water are only two blocks away, and the famed Montjuic Hill looms overhead. All the rooms and bathrooms are located on the second floor, and the reception area, common room, and kitchenette/dining room, all of which could resemble an IKEA showroom, are on the first floor. We met two of our roommates almost immediately, sisters from Chile. They looked to be about our age, maybe a year or two younger. I’d let you know what their names were, but they were long, Chilean, and somewhat complicated. But they spoke relatively good English, and we found out that one of them had actually gone to school at IU for a short while. Being hungry, we asked the girl working the reception desk where we could find an authentic, cheap, yet good dinner, and we were directed a few blocks away to a hole-in-the-wall bar, called La Barriga. You know when someone orders a lot of food, and someone else at the table jokes that “you just ordered the whole menu?” Well, we ordered every tapa on the menu for dinner this particular night, so literally, the whole tapas menu. We even ordered one dish twice. The best part; every tapa was less than 2 euro, with the exception of their signature dish which came out at a sky-high 2.50, so dinner turned out to be around 12 euro per person with a few beers included. As the FC Barcelona futbol team had a match that night, the bar eventually filled up with fans, and we watched the start of the game of Europe’s premier sport.

We met another one of our roommates the following morning over breakfast. Chris from Austin, Texas, is the most non-Texan-like Texan I have ever met. A mechanical engineer (I remember sort of being one for a bit), he decided that after two years working a job he didn’t enjoy, he would up and travel for a few months. He seemed like good company, so we would try to see if he wanted to grab drinks at some point during our stay in Barcelona.

The day kicked off with a stroll up La Rambla, a large pedestrian street through downtown. Think of a typical large street in a city, but the lanes of traffic are for people and the sidewalk is for cars, and you have La Rambla. Newsstands, vendors of paintings, trinkets, flowers, and all things touristy lined the street. Off La Rambla is the Boqueria Market, a lively market that sells fresh produce, fruit, fish and meat. It was almost like an Asian market, except it was clean, organized, the goods looked much more presentable, and it wasn’t overly crowded. So all in all, nothing like an Asian market. We each grabbed some freshly squeezed fruit juice, strawberry banana orange for me, and mango for Nick, and moved on. The next sighting was Placa Reial, the supposed lively and busy plaza. It’s supposed to be a happening nightlife area, but since it was the middle of the day, it was rather dead. We sort of wandered through the streets downtown, walking through parts of the Barri Gotic, then catching a glimpse of the water, strolling through Parc de la Cuitadella, and walking up to the Els Encants flea market. This was a true flea market. Piles of clothes were strewn over tables, or even the ground, with people rummaging through it. Other stalls sold old and used powertools and various electronics. Not spending much time in that market, we walked towards the Segrada Familia, the signature cathedral designed by Gaudi. The cathedral was quite a sight, the towers rising well over the rest of the city. The cathedral is under construction, and will be until 2020. Opting out of the expensive admission fee, we took our pictures and moved on.

We spent the next part of our day figuring out how to get to Geneva, as the supposed overnight train we were supposed to take wasn’t running the night we needed. At the train station’s information desk, a guy was able to give us an alternative route, consisting of 3 different trains, which seemed to be our only option (Barcelona to Narbonne, Narbonne to Toulouse, and Toulouse overnight to Geneva). As we booked our reservations, we found out they were not able to book our Toulouse to Geneva train, and we would just have to hope for the best when we got to Toulouse (which would be almost 11:30PM, when the ticketing office would be closed). Should be an adventure.

After figuring out of train situation, at least sort of, we headed back downtown for a more thorough exploration. The downtown atmosphere, to me, is what separates Barcelona from Madrid, aside from the obvious geographic difference of Barcelona being on the water. The streets of the downtown area are predominantly pedestrian; narrow with an old town feel. Small boutiques, cafes, restaurants and tapas bars line the neighborhood of alleyways, for lack of a better description. It’s almost maze-like, except it’s small enough that you would eventually walk into a major street, so you can’t get too lost. We started at the Santa Maria del Mar church in the Ribera section, and just meandered our way through the streets, doing some window shopping, eventually making it back to the Barri Gotic and seeing Catedral, a gothic cathedral also under construction, which denied us the beauty of the building.

Back at the hostel, Chris happened to be in the common room, and we invited him along for dinner. He had met this girl, Kelsie, during his travels in Grenada, and she was also in Barcelona at the same time, so she came along too. Kelsie is 18, from Alberta, Canada, and is traveling for 5 months around Europe on her own. I think many of you would agree that takes quite the sense of adventure and wanderlust. Per our hostel recommendation, we had dinner at a restaurant called El Boton Charro, where they had a menu del dia. I’m going to take a few sentences and describe menu del dia for those of you who don’t know what it is. Menu del dia, or menu of the day, is where you get a list of starters and main courses and you simply choose a dish from each list. It also includes bread, dessert, and a drink (which can be alcohol) for a set price. While we discovered menu del dia in Madrid, we fully exploited the joys of it in Barcelona, as it’s usually cheap, at least for the amount of food you get. In this particular instance, dinner was 9 euros per person, and that included a full bottle of wine for the table.

After dinner, we went to the Dow Jones Bar, which I have been waiting to do for years. The bar works almost like a stock market, with the list of drinks on computer monitors that line above the bar. When you order a drink, the price of it goes up, but the price of all the other drinks in that category go down. Every once in a while, there would be a “stock market crash,” and all the prices would drop down for a short period of time. If I start a bar, it will be modeled similarly, but it’ll be a bit more sophisticated and contemporary. I’ll send out the grand opening invites in a decade, give or take a few years, so stay tuned. After a few drinks, I made the wonderful discovery that irish car bombs were 4 euros (this was a set price, not affected by the rest of the ‘stock’), so you should know the rest of the story.

The second day began without the hangover that ensued in Lisbon, so half the day was thankfully not lost. We took the funicular (read: tram) part way up Montjuic Hill, and walked around the museums in the area. The biggest one, Palau Nacional, is a Catalonian museum that, to our dismay, was also under construction. It seems that every good looking piece of architecture in this city is under construction. So sorry if Barcelona doesn’t seem like a good looking place on facebook. Walking up the winding roads, we saw the Olympic stadiums where the ’92 summer Olympics were held. And perched atop the hill was Montjuic Castle, which provided stunning views of both the city and Mediterranean Sea (at least I think that’s the body of water). I should mention that our days in Spain were sun and 60s. Couldn’t have asked for much better. We had planned on taking a gondola from the hill that crossed over Port Vell and to the beach, but it wasn’t running this day due to high winds, a slight hiccup to a great day. Instead, we walked through the marina, where some incredible yachts could be sighted. The one that caught our immediate attention was slightly further away, but a yacht that is roughly 300 feet long is bound to draw attention in a marina, even from a distance. It was too far away to read the name unfortunately. However, another yacht, the Amadeus, at a measly 220 feet, was used by Bono to cruise the world, so that was cool to know. Following the marina, we walked alongside the beaches of Barcelona, enjoying some surf, sand and sun. For those suffering cold winters back in the States, boy… that sucks. Resisting temptation to pop my head into the waterfront casino of Barcelona, we headed back to the hostel to figure out dinner.

We had a nicer dinner off La Rambla at a place called La Fonda. While it was a bit touristy, we enjoyed paella, a popular dish in Spain that more or less contains rice mixed with seafood, a rather tasty dish. Dessert was Crème de Catalona, an amazing pudding. I figured that while we were in Spain, I would have to save some sangria. So we dropped by La Oveja Negra, a bar that served sangria on tap. You should know that the smallest serving is half a liter, so in wine equivalency, over half a bottle. The bar in general was clearly a party bar, and the floor reminded me, for the Purdue-goers or visitors, of Stacks. Except it didn’t have the immediate dirty feel or the smell. But who knows after midnight?

For the last day in Barcelona, we made a trip up to the north-most part of the city to visit Gaudi’s Park. Like the rest of his work, the buildings and structures in the park were very unique and different than traditional buildings you would expect to see in a park. While browsing trinkets that vendors were selling on basically pieces of cloth on the ground, there was a police sighting, and the vendors quickly folded up their sacks, took off running, and scattered. It was a funny sight, except for people who were in mid-transaction and were disappointed they didn’t acquire their wanted items. I figured that since soccer was so big in Spain (and all of Europe, I suppose), I should try to check out a stadium. Naber wasn’t nearly as keen on that, but kindly obliged to tag along. We headed for the FC Barcelona Stadium, big from the outside and seemed cool enough. Too bad admission into an empty stadium was 17 euros. Ridiculous, by my standards. I’m not paying that much to see a field of evenly cut grass. I was a bit bummed out, but don’t try too hard to feel bad for me. A casual sandwich lunch, and we were on the way to Geneva.

Madrid

2009-03-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

Our train to Mardrid was a night train which departed at 10:30 pm and arrived the next morning in Madrid around 9 am. Our night train had four bed rooms and we were paired up with two guys from Singapore. Like us, they had just graduated from school (they went to college in Australia) and were traveling all over. For those of you who don’t know, I didn’t, the primary language in Singapore is English so communication was easy. We exchanged our travel stories and we hit the sack as to be rested for our first full day in Madrid.

Once in Madrid the weather was just as wonderful as it had been in Lisbon, sunny and 60’s. We took the metro to our exit for the Hostel and checked in. Our room wasn’t ready so we left our bags and headed out to see the city. We were hungry and tired and Starbucks sounded absolutely delicious so we stopped next door, grabbed a drink, and sat down to plan out our day.
Our first stop was Plaza Mayor which was an 18th century square that was filled with coin and stamp collectors on that particular day. The plaza was filled with tourists but we didn’t stay long as we had set our sights on the Rastro Sunday flea market which sells everything from caged birds, to books, leather goods, and clothes. This was the first market since Asia that we had been cramped and pushed around. It was a slight flashback but we enjoyed the hustle and bustle and all of the colorful vendors.

After the market we were getting hungry quickly so we found the closest restaurant that was of reasonable cost at the time. It was a diner and we sat down upstairs and were served by an older Spanish man who, to say the least, didn’t love his job. We ordered what seemed to be popular items on the menu, ate and quickly continued on with our day.

After lunch we headed down Ronda de Atocha towards the Centro Reina Sofia, the large temporary art museum in Madrid. It was Sunday which was free museum day so we were admitted for free and spent about an hour there. I actually enjoyed this museum more than the Pompidou in Paris so it was a nice contemporary art redemption. Given that it was Sunday we were shuffled out very early because the museum was closing and so we decided to head to the Prado Museum just down the road. When we arrived at the Prado it was around 4:30 and the free admittance didn’t take place until 5:30. Since we didn’t want to wait around we headed back to the hostel to take a shower and clean up. On the way back we strolled through the Puerto del Sol which is considered the heart of the city and which was conveniently close to our hostel.

A quick note on this hostel… We stayed in the RC Miguel Angel which was clean and well located and that’s about it for the positives. We were in a 6 person room and at any given hour one of our 4 other strange roommates would be sleeping. This would ordinarily not be a problem however this particular hostel didn’t have any common room for which to just sit and relax. Wang and I were also the youngest people in the hostel and not to be age discriminatory but if you are 26 or older, it’s time to splurge and put yourself up in hotel for people with fulltime jobs. We were slightly creeped out by all of this so after the second night we weren’t too sad to be leaving. We did have a somewhat normal roommate though. His name was Andy, and he was from Liverpool, taking some time off to come to Madrid for a football (read: soccer) match. It was fun talking to him because he said, “Brilliant!” pretty often, making us think of the old school Guiness commercials.

We took our shower and walked down Grand Via road with all of its shipping and bright lights and ended up at the Palacio de Comunicationes, an extremely beautiful building and a very photo friendly square. After the walked down Grand Via we headed back to Plaza Mayor and had dinner at an outdoor tapas restaurant right in the square. The food was delicious but we were tires so we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel for some needed rest.

Day 2 began with lunch at Museo de Jamon which was another diner very near our hostel. In Spain they have many restaurants with both a standup bar and then a sit down section where you can eat a meal. It is slightly less expensive to stand and eat at the bar so given we had sat the day previous we decided to stand and eat. Our waiter was very short with us and expressed his disinterest in our inability to speak Spanish with his body language. Once we ordered or food was ordered up quickly and our meals didn’t last long as we were very hungry.

The first place on our day two agenda was the Palacio Real museum. It was the Royal Palace in Madrid and the museum allows for the pubic to walk through several of the buildings 2000+ rooms. We spent quite a lot of time here because the structure truly was breathtaking in both its size and beauty. After the museum we headed to Chueca a very ‘colorful’ part of town. There were extremely cool shops and restaurants lining the streets in this popular area among the youths in Madrid. After walking around Chueca and doing a little window shopping we headed down to the Parque del Retiro. It is Madrid’s equivalent to Central park and is quite beautiful. Wang and I sat down and enjoyed the hot sun and some coffee at an outdoor café on the pond. We spent several hours in this park until it was time to head back and get ready for dinner.

We contacted Patrick Dykes, a fraternity brother currently studying in Madrid, to see if he wanted to grab dinner and a drink. He met us up in Puerto del Sol and we headed back to Chueca for a drink before dinner. Dinner doesn’t really start until around 9 pm in Spain so we had a little time to kill before we grabbed some dinner. After a beer way walked around looking for a place to eat and we stumbled on a little restaurant called Vivares 37. They had a menu del dia that was only 9 euro. The menu del dia is a brilliant Spanish idea that includes choice of a starter from a list of about 5 items, choice of an entrée from a list of about 5 other items, and the inclusion of bread, a drink and dessert all for 9 euro. Our meal was great and extremely filling for 9 euro so we were very satisfied. After dinner we wanted to grab a few more drinks so we headed to the Dubliner to drink some Spanish beer. We threw a few back and we called it a night.

Day 3 started at Café y Te for breakfast and then booked a few hostels for our upcoming stays. Our train to Barcelona was early and we headed to the station.

Lisbon

2009-02-24T14:37:00.000-08:00

Wang and I felt we had had enough of France for the trip after the 6 days in Paris so we decided to alter our schedule a little and add Lisbon, Portugal to the list. We booked a train ticket from Paris with a train change in Irun, Spain and then a second train to Lisbon. We left Paris around 4 o’clock and took a high speed train to Irun which was about 5 hours. The train change in Irun put us on a slower, older train to Lisbon. The train was to be about 14 hours and we were put in a cramped 6 person sleeper room. There were three beds on either side stacked one on top of the other. There were only 5 of the 6 filled and the other people were very nice. One guy spoke four different languages including English and was extremely pleasant, the other was from Portugal and the last woman was from France and wasn’t that friendly. Wang and I slept surprisingly well given our claustrophobic environment.
Once to Lisbon we took the metro to the appropriate stop and walked to the Hostel dragging our suitcases over stone bricked roads. The weather was great compared to Paris with sunny skies and 60+ degrees. Once we arrived at the hostel we left our bags because our room wasn’t ready yet and grabbed a quick bite at a local Portuguese restaurant and had an authentic dish called frango. Frango is a Portugese interpretation of roasted chicken. We went back and were escorted to our room. The accommodations were fantastic. We had an apartment complete with a kitchen, living room, balcony, and a large bedroom with bathroom we shared with two other people. Our roommates were from Chicago and were students traveling from Paris where they were studying abroad. Really nice kids. Wang and I only had a short time in Lisbon so we quickly showered, shaved and headed out for the city. We decided to spend the afternoon in the area of the city called Belem. It was only a short ride on the local bus which dropped us off in the heart of the Belem. A major port on the ocean, Lisbon has a long history of ocean travel and so we took a walk though the local Maritime museum admiring small models of large ships from centuries past and even a few life sized displays. I really enjoyed this museum as it was just full of historical boats and Wang was nice enough to agree to go. We then walked to the Tagus River which feed into the Atlantic right near Belem to tour the Belem Tower which sits right on the river. Once we climbed the 5 stories to see the views of the area we headed back into town for some dinner. The guy at the hostel suggested we stop at a little sandwich place for dinner and just like his suggestion for lunch, he was spot on. The food was great and it was on to the main event… Desert. Belem houses the Jeronimos Monastery which was supposedly the birthplace of the Pastel de Nata. Also know as Pastel de Belems, they are a small custard tart that was created before the 18th century by catholic monks of this monastery. The pastry shop next door called Pasteis de Belém has been around since 1837 and has been serving these delicious treats ever since. Wang and I thought it a crime not to try a few and so we ordered 4 with a glass of Portuguese Port to wash them down. We took the train back and had planned to grab a beer at the hostel bar. Upon check-in each guest receives a free drink ticket so we thought we would use it and maybe grab another after. Well there were no empty tables so we looked like lost kids and these two nice people from one table invited us to sit down at theirs. We ended up making conversation and it turned out they were from the States, Pittsburg to be exact. Luke was interning in Madrid for the past 6 months and Nikki was visiting him for the week. We ended up throwing back a few drinks and having a great time. Nikki asked if we had planned to go out and Wang and I already a few deep and enjoying the company and the weather figured why the hell not. We got changed up and headed out to Bairro Alto, the center of Lisbon’s night life. The streets were lined with bars and people serving cheep drinks and good music. We were drawn to this area like flies to a bug light. And there’s no open container laws here either. People would order their drinks and hang out outside in groups and be loud and drunk. Think Bourbon Street in New Orleans but not as dirty or trashy. We got destroyed drinking Large 1.50 Euro beers and 0.90 Euro shots. We ended up having a great time with Nikki and Luke.
The next day was rough as the hangover was killer. Too tired and to dehydrated, Wang and I decided to take it easy in the morning until our walking tour that afternoon. We again asked for a suggestion for lunch from the hostel and were led to a restaurant serving African cuisine. The food was decent but by no means the best we had all trip. After lunch we just hung out outside round the hostel taking in the sites of the ocean and the sun. When 3 o’clock rolled around it was time for our walking tour and to our slight disappointment it had been cancelled. In light of this change, Wang and I decided to make our own walking tour with the offered assistance of a staffer at the hostel. Our first stop was the Castle of Saint George which was a massive and simple complex situated on the tallest hill in the historic center of the city. We then walked around seeing both the old pre earthquake parts of the city and the newer post earthquake areas of the city. We ended up in the downtown area and walked around admiring large arches and water fountains throughout the downtown area. It was about dinner time so we sat at an outdoor table at a local restaurant. Dinner was quite good but it was time to head back to the hostel to grab our bags and make our way to the train station for our night train to Madrid.
Our stay in Lisbon was short but it was extremely enjoyable. The hostel was better than we ever could have imagined, the weather was killer, the scenery was beautiful and most things were cheap. Overall a great stop but it was time for Spain.

Paris

2009-02-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my first blog entry ever written, so I hope to be equally thorough and entertaining as Naber’s have been. Also, we both apologize for the lapse of time between blog entries. The lack of internet in Paris set us back a bit, but we’ll be up to date soon enough, so fret not. Before I do talk about Paris itself, however, there are a few things that need mentioning. First is the actual travel between Asia and Europe. We took a midnight flight from Bangkok to Paris, with a layover in Zurich. This involves about 13 and a half hours of flight time, then add in the layover and travel to and from the airports. Note that it was 90 degrees at takeoff, and 25 degrees and snowing at Zurich, quite the scenery change. We arrived in Paris around 11 in the morning, to sunshine and a brisk 40 degrees. Catching the local RER train to the metro trains, we made our way to Elisa’s place. The second thing I wanted to mention before Paris itself is Elisa. Elisa, for those of you who don’t know her, is a good friend of mine from high school, who has recently moved to Paris for her job in the consulting field. She kindly put us up in her cozy one bedroom apartment, conveniently furnished with a pull-out couch. She also provided us with bread and cheese upon our arrival, a much needed refreshment after close to 24 hours of travel. As for the rest of her biography, consult her directly. So thank you, Elisa, for the hospitality. It was much appreciated by myself and Nick.

Anyways, Paris... the first thing is that I am no longer part of the majority, which was a bit sad. I had gotten used to Asians everywhere. And finding Nick in a crowd was like playing Where’s Waldo?, only easier. I also enjoyed feeling tall, and Nick as well. But in Paris, I was just average again, and Nick short. The immediate feel of European culture was like being back at home after Asia. When we had originally planned out our itinerary for this trip, we didn’t think too hard about the dates of travel for each city. Coincidentally, we landed in Paris the morning of February 14th, or the famed Valentine’s Day. Silly holiday, really, but I won’t go into the reasons here. After a snack at Elisa’s apartment, we strolled through her neighborhood and then on over to the Eiffel Tower, less than 15 minutes away. After taking the obligatory pictures, we were presented with a minor challenge. Tucked away in the streets of Paris was a small wine store in which Matt had purchased a bottle of wine for Nick. With Elisa’s working knowledge of the city, a metro hop and a bunch of walking through random streets, we eventually wound up in a small wine shop, where Nick was presented with a bottle of Chateau Griscours Margaux 1982. Quite a nice gesture, given the occasion. The buildings in Paris are quite the sight. Beautiful buildings line almost every street in the city, almost to a point where it’s too perfect. As I’m not an architecture buff, I find it difficult to describe to you the type of buildings, whether they’re Renaissance, Gothic, etc., so words such as beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, and all other synonyms will have to suffice. But I digress. Following our mini treasure hunt for the bottle of wine, we returned to Elisa’s apartment for a breather before a Valentine’s Day dinner. Europe, as those of you who’ve been will know, eats late dinners. Around 8, with Elisa as my dinner date, or maybe it was vice versa, we headed for a restaurant right on the same block as Elisa’s apartment. For purposes of my self-esteem, we’ll call Naber a third wheel for the night. Plus, he already got a nice bottle of wine that day. This restaurant should easily seat 100+ guests. Well, there were about 5 people in there eating when we showed up. Elisa asked for a table for 3, and the seating hostesses and maître ds looked at each other questioning if there was room for us, in the empty restaurant. We eventually were seated, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner accompanied by a drink or two. Even by the time we left, which was close to 9:30, the restaurant was just about to begin its busy hour. Full and exhausted from travel, we called it a night.

Paris, day 2. After about 12 hours of sleep, we decided it would be in our best interest to get up, shower, and see the city. Elisa had a prior engagement with a friend from Northwestern to see some tennis, so we were left to figure out our own day. Breakfast, or perhaps I should call it lunch, as it was close to noon, was a French baguette. They are quite amazing, at a whopping 85 cents, and about two and a half feet long. We set off towards the all-famous Notre Dame, and after 20 minutes of walking, were greeted by the magnificent sight of the cathedral, set on a small island between the split of the river. We walked through it, taking pictures, and continued past Sainte Chapelle, known for its display of stained glass windows. Crossing the river, we walked through the Palais Royal, the area where the Louvre is located, which again, the architectural beauty leaves the tourist awe-struck. We walked on through the Jardin des Tuileries, which is a bit dull given that it’s the winter, and onwards to Place de la Concorde, where a 3300 year old Egyptian obelisk stands. I’ll pause here briefly to talk about people in Paris: They all smoke. A lot. Picture your high class woman, dressed in a large fur coat, a Longchamp (or some other really expensive designer purse) bag hanging from her shoulder, her accessory small dog trotting alongside, walking down the street, but then add a long, thin cigarette between her fingers, taking small puffs at a time to portray her classiness, and there you have your stereotypical upper-class wealthy French woman. But then maybe it’s not so much a stereotype since it seems to apply to a majority. After the Place de la Concorde, we dropped by La Madeleine, a church inside a Greek building with Corinthian columns. Then we headed for Champs Elysees, the avenue for shopping and dining. Before we could make it through the avenue and to Arc de Triomphe, however, Elisa had finished up with her afternoon of champagne and tennis, and we headed back to grab dinner. Dinner was spent in an area called Marais, where we went to a Middle Eastern place for falafel and schwarma. Dinner was capped off by some great gelato with night views of Notre Dame and the Pantheon.

On day 3, I came down with a cold, most likely the result of a combination of the lack of sleep between Bangkok and Paris and the drastic weather change. To make things worse, there was no sun today. Cloudy, dreary, and cold. I tried to fight the cold, and we picked off where we left yesterday at Champs Elysees. Since I’m traveling with Naber, it’ll be no surprise to any of you that we stopped by the showrooms for the three major French auto companies; Citroen, Peugeot, and Renault. We made it up to Arc de Triomphe, then headed back towards the Eiffel Tower, hoping to stop by Palais de Tokyo, a free art museum. To our disappointment, it was closed, so we contented ourselves by having coffee at a café, then climbing the 670 steps up to the second level platform of the Eiffel Tower for some city views (and exercise I suppose). For dinner, we went to a place called La Marina, where we enjoyed French cuisine and beer. Since we decided we loved stairs on this particular day, we climbed up to the Sacre Coeur basilica to enjoy a night view of the city before calling it a day.

Day 4 was one of those travel days on which everything kind of doesn’t work out. I guess we’ve been lucky up to this point where everything has worked out, so a day like this was long overdue. I’m still battling a cold, which seems to have set itself out to make me live in complete misery. The day started off innocently enough, as we met up with Elisa for lunch after sleeping in. She works in Place Vendome, which is ridiculously nice. It’s a large plaza that houses a Cartier and several other similar caliber stores of watches and jewelry. We got lunch at a sandwich place, courtesy of Monitor Group. Well, half of lunch, at least. Thank you Elisa, for the other half. Per Elisa’s suggestion, after she went back to work, we went to Laduree, a famous store for macaroons. And it didn’t disappoint. That would be the last pleasant experience for the day. We had reserved this day for the museums, as it was another cold and dreary day, only to find that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. What kind of place chooses Tuesdays to be closed? No worries, right? Just go to another museum. Well, the Pompidou, the museum of contemporary art, happens to be closed every Tuesday as well. So we thought we’d just go to Versailles, a huge palace just 20-25 minutes outside Paris. We caught a train around 3:30 to Versailles, which closes at 5:30. This train happened to stop two stops before Versailles, where we were supposed to catch another train. Well, at this particular station, an announcement came over the loudspeakers, and of course neither of us understood a word, but noticed that every person got off the platform. Asking someone who worked there how we would get to Versailles, she directed us to another platform, and after almost half an hour of waiting, we got on another train, only to end up at the wrong Versailles station. We hustled across the town to get to the palace at 4:55, and were denied admission tickets which are supposed to stop selling at 5. Wonderful day. We had to settle for walking around the palace and through part of the gardens. Vast only begins to describe the acreage of the gardens. Again, save your visit to the gardens for spring, where everything would be much greener. One can easily spend 3 hours in the gardens alone. After the gardens, we got back to Paris, and I was drained from my cold. Got dinner on St. Germain Blvd. Food was delicious once again, so it was rather unfortunate that I could only taste part of it, compliments of the common cold. Turned in for the night with hopes of shaking the cold.

Day 5 was a day trip outside of Paris to the town of Blois (pronounced ‘blue-a’ really fast). Or you could be like me, and call it ‘Blah’ to make things easier. About 2 hours with stops by train, Blois is in the Loire Valley, where chateaus are scattered throughout and along the river. After sandwiches for lunch, we walked around the town, which was quaint and made up of very old but beautiful buildings, and toured the chateau there, defined by a large outdoor spiral staircase. Before I go on, I will mention a little bit about food and drink in Paris. Food is generally just delicious all over the place. But beware of the prices of drinks, and I’m not talking just alcohol. Coke and other sodas cost as much as 4 euro. I didn’t pay much attention to the price the first time we went to a café for lunch, and ended up with a great sandwich for 4.60, and a Coke for 4.10. Doesn’t seem quite right. Oh, and don’t even think the word “refill.” It doesn’t exist. But everything is bottled, and the novelty seems cool enough, for a few days. Anyhow, after Blois, we came back to Paris to actually explore the Pompidou, which in my book, is overrated. Instead, I enjoyed seeing Hotel de Ville. More or less, it’s similar to the Rockefeller Center in New York, complete with a public skating rink, only much more beautiful. We dined in another random restaurant with great food, and headed on over to the Eiffel Tower to get a couple pictures at night before calling it a day.

Day 6 was short, consisting of a morning trip to the Louvre before mentally preparing ourselves for 19 collective hours on the train for Lisbon. The building of the Louvre itself is amazing, and I suppose the art is too, if you’re into that sort of thing. We practically ran through the place, stopping, of course, to see the Mona Lisa. For those who haven’t seen it, if you’re expected this huge beautiful painting of the woman, be prepared to be let down. However, the full wall-sized painting across from the Mona Lisa is much cooler. And for those art history buffs that write a 100-page thesis on a piece such as the Mona Lisa, what the hell do you write about for so long? Get back to me on that one. Anyhow, we caught a metro over to Rue Mouffetard to get a crepe before leaving Paris, another must while in France. It should be a given at this point when I say that it was rather delicious, like everything else we’ve eaten in the city. France is always a must see and must do if an extended trip to Europe is made. However, note that French people are a little cold, and don’t always expect great service. People don’t seem to smile much in this city, which is odd, given that it’s supposed to be this romantic place. We overextended our stay a bit here, which worked out given that I had to recover from a cold and we had to get over jet lag as well. However, we remedied our extended stay by cutting out Avignon from our itinerary and adding on Lisbon. More about that from Naber later! For everyone that knows me, you should know I don’t do anything short when it comes to writing, so I’m not going to apologize for the length of this entry. I do hope you enjoyed it though, and I hope to write about a few more cities on the trip. Most of you should know that pictures are up on my Facebook profile, but if you don’t, feel free to take a look.

Bangkok sorry for the delay

2009-02-24T13:06:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Bangkok at around 5 o’clock in the afternoon and Wang’s sister Jane had arranged for a car to drive us to her apartment complex in the city. She lives in a beautiful apartment complex with a large gate and guards in full uniform on duty at all times ever ready to solute you while clicking their heals together (I couldn’t get enough of it). Her apartment was an amazing 3 bedroom unit with a great view overlooking a large pond of the neighboring convention center and beyond to the city skyline. The place was huge and shortly after we settled in Jane returned home from work. We showered up and headed out for dinner. Jane wanted to try a place she had never been which served authentic Thai food. Nothing like jumping right into the local cuisine. We all ordered Thai iced teas which are like sweet tea with milk and are freaking delicious. Then in true Asian style dinner was ordered and eaten for the table, family style. I have gotten very used to and fond of this style because I can try all the different foods. The Thai people however do not use chopsticks but instead use a fork at knife. This was a slight disappointment for me as I had honed my chopstick skills quite well over the past few weeks. Dinner was very good and after it was only a quick cab ride to the local night market called the Suan Lum Night Bazaar.
This was unlike any other night market in Asia that we had been to. The first major difference was that you could actually walk around the market without being pushed and shoved everywhere. Another major difference is that there were things besides food that I was generally interested in purchasing. Everything from candle holders to shirts and shoes and let’s not forget about the ever popular knock off bags and watches. We walked around the market for quite some time and we found out quickly another large difference between this market and others we had been too, the vendors weren’t pushy and rude. They still excessively markup all prices only to be negotiated down to something reasonable and cheap by any western standard but at least they aren’t pushy. I ended up buying a collared shirt for 600 baht or 17 us collars, Jane fell in love with an awesome 9 piece original painting (which she later bought) and James escaped without being sucked in by the low priced goods. After spending several hours in the market, it was time to head back. But not before we got home we walked down Soy Cowboy, a popular red light district road in Bangkok, a city very well known for such. While you can image exactly what this road looks like… scantily clad Thai women soliciting sex, nasty white guys taking the bait and to our pleasant surprise elephants at each end for the road that were to provided added entertainment. After our trip down soy cowboy we headed back to decide what to do with our next day. We also were having our laundry done by Jane’s maid the next day. We couldn’t help but love this little convenience. Thanks Jane’s Maid!
Morning came a little later for us and we took the sky train to the last station which was the main dock on the river. I forgot to mention it is about 90 degrees and sunny, a very pleasant improvement from a couple days before in bitterly cold Beijing. We purchased two all cay tickets for what could only be called a water bus that was going to take us up and down the river seeing different areas of the city. There were about 13 different docks all with different things to see. The boats were very interesting, long and narrow, extremely old and pollution machines. They did the job though transporting us and probably 40 to 80 people on any given boatload, from dock to dock. We decided to take the boat all the way north and work our way down. The first stop was Bang Lam Phu and it was a backpacker’s paradise with several streets lined with shops, restaurants and bars. The main road was called Khaosan Road, hippies were everywhere and we loved it. We spent the better part of the early afternoon in this area checking out the sights and taking in all of the people watching.
We hopped back on the boat and headed to another dock which had the major tourist attraction the Grand Palace. It was a place of worship like other Asian temples we had seen but Thai temples are very glamorous. With extremely large structures glittering with colorful reflective stones. It was an amazing site one which I could never do justice through words. You will have to check the photos online. After this palace we took the water bus to another palace a few stops down the river. It was similar to the first but was known for a giant Buddha that was ‘reclined’. Lastly, we hit up the stop that the flower market was supposed to be at so we could buy an orchid for Jane. I say supposedly because it took us about 20 minutes to find this place as we walked through a large vegetable market before finding the flower market further than we expected off the river. It used to be a fish market but with such a foul smell it was converted into the current flower market. It was several major roads just lined with flowers for sale. I don’t know how anyone can make any money just selling flowers on the road so I assume they must be exported to other places to be sold.
That night we went to dinner with Jane at Curries and More and had a delicious meal of yup you guessed it, curry dishes. The food was great but we were instructed to save room for their even better desserts. This must be what they mean when they said ‘More’. After dinner we walked back and noticed that an intersection had been completely halted and our foot traffic to the sky train stopped. This was all in preparation for what Jane told us was a royal family member’s motorcade. They stop all traffic for any member of the royal family traveling through the streets. I thought this was very interesting to see but it was slightly anti-climatic.
The second full day was very relaxed day that started even more slowly than the first. We decided to head out and grab lunch first and then head to china town and check it out. Kind of ironic we know but it was a very popular area. We had read in our travel book that a good, cheap restaurant near Jane’s place was only a short walk away. Well it turns out that it takes an extremely helpful local to help two smart, capable and educated Americans find this place. We wandered around for the better part of 30 minutes before an older Thai man, probably in his 60’s, approached us and in decent English asked if he could help us find something. We explained to him where we were trying to go and what restaurant we expected to find there and he graciously gave is directions. When I want to thank him in my overly smiley, touristy way… he looked right at me, smiled and said, welcome to Thailand. This exchange is a perfect example of how pleasant and welcoming the Thai people are to tourists. It was very evident that a large industry in Bangkok is tourism. After lunch we hopped on a sky train to China town which to us seemed like a slight knockoff from where we had just been. While we were in Chinatown, Jane messaged Wang and said that she was going to take us to Vertigo for drinks that night around dinner time so we could see the sunset over the city. So we headed back and got showered up for drinks. Wang and I took 2-3 showers a day in Bangkok because of the heat.
Vertigo was on the roof of a very large building in Bangkok and was an extremely swanky bar and restaurant. So swanky in fact that Wang and I were underdressed in our shorts so they gave us both a pair of long pants to wear. They made us look about five times worse than the shorts but policy is policy right…???? This was made even more comical when we realized that several other men had been wearing ‘rental’ pants making a portion of their clientele look like waiters. And the icing on the classy cake was the gross, old, white men with Thai dates. Wink Wink. But appearances aside, the bar was beautiful with great drinks and snacks, decor and amazing views of the city. We also knew we were in Thailand because the railings were probably three feet tall. Anything like this in the states would have an abundant list of lawsuits on their hands. After drinks we went back to the night market were there were plenty of Thai places to choose from for dinner. We had dinner and walked around the market again. I again bought a collared shirt, Wang got a three piece picture and Jane finally got that painting she loved. The painter was so beside herself with excitement over her large sale to Jane that we all couldn’t help but be excited.
On our last day we went to Fred Thompson’s house. The man who was credited with reviving the silk market in Thailand was an American and his house is crawling with tourist. It really was a very beautiful place. After our guided tour of the Thompson house from our very pleasant English speaking Thai woman, we sat down at the café on site for a drink. Fred Thompson’s house sat on a very narrow waterway with water taxis flying up and down it all day long. I couldn’t help but want to see the river and jump on one of these boats. We timidly got on a water taxi and headed down the river not really knowing exactly where we were heading. We ended up getting off at the right dock so we could walk to the Golden Mount, a very famous monastery in the city. It sat atop a large hill overlooking the city and we climbed up to take a look around. It was a great discovery and on another 90 degree and sunny day was the perfect thing for us to do that afternoon. After the Golden Mount we hopped back on the water taxi to take us to another stop near Siam Square, a local shopping area full of little boutiques and other things to see. We walked around for a little bit and headed back for the apartment. We got back and showered up, grabbed a quick bite for dinner with Jane down the street and then packed up and got ready for Jane’s fondue party that night. The party started at around 8 and we could only stay for a short while before we had to hop a cab to the airport for Europe.
Jane was an extremely gracious host and we could not have asked for more comfortable accommodations. The weather was amazing and a very welcome change from what we were used to. The food and the people were among the best and most pleasant of any place we had been in Asia. Lastly it was very inexpensive compared to anything in the west. This is why I would strongly recommend anyone looking for a slightly more exotic place to visit for a warm vacation to consider Thailand.
With Taiwan, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Thailand visited in Asia, our 13 hour flight to Paris was the only thing separating us from our second leg of the trip in Europe.

Hong Kong

2009-02-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong
Flying into Hong Kong is a privilege with the views of the ocean, ships, and small islands. The temperature was around 72 degrees and the skies were sunny. Needless to say, a dramatic improvement from the 50’s and haziness of Shanghai. We hopped on the train to the Hong Kong station and then took a cab to Wang’s auntie Grace’s apartment in the Causeway Bay area of downtown. This is a beautiful area packed with amazing shops and tons of people lining the streets when we got there Sunday evening around 5ish. Auntie Grace met us downstairs on street and showed us up to her 14th floor apartment. My introduction to auntie grace was an interesting one. Please note the formality of her title, Auntie Grace. The first thing she actually said directly to me was “you will call me Auntie Grace”. I had been warned of her love for certain formalities and seniority so I was very happy to honor her request. She was a very blunt woman but she was an exceptional host as long as you were very aware of her rules. The layout of her place had a guest room with a bathroom in the back and that is where we put our things and planned to stay for the nest two nights. Auntie Grace quickly shuffled us out of her apartment and to Peking Garden. We took the metro to the restaurant but not before Auntie Grace gave us both metro cards and filled them up with enough money to get around the entire time we were in Hong Kong. This was an extremely hospitable gesture and way over the top, but as we learned… Auntie Grace was an exceptional host. She was also very adamant about the fact that the food in Hong Kong is better than anywhere in Asia and her first example was Peking Duck. She ordered us a dinner that could have fed 5 people and to her point the duck was actually better in Hong Kong than Beijing but the wrappers were better in Beijing.
After dinner we walked through the park and in Auntie Grace style, she shuffled us to the next thing on the agenda which was The Peak Tram. Before we had a chance to realize where we had followed her, we were standing in line waiting for the next tram. We quickly thanked her and would see her in the morning.
The Peak Tram took us up the Mountain, sometimes at a 45 degree angle, to the mall and observation deck that overlooked the entire city. The city of Hong Kong is beautiful during the day and even better when lit up at night. We spent about an hour taking pictures and just gazing over the city. The weather was amazing and the wind on our faces was just like being on a speedboat. We took the Peak Tram back down and waited in line for a bus. The double-decker bus took us though the city to the ferry docks on the very short waterway separating Hong Kong Island with Kowloon. Once to Kowloon we walked down the “Avenue of Stars” which provided a great view of the city at night across the water and who could forget the always impressive handprint of Jackie Chan.
The next day we work up to Auntie Grace literally banging on the door saying “wake up”. We had told her we usually woke up between 8 and 9 and we had slept till 10. Heaven forbid. So we woke up and the maid had set out various types of fresh fruit for us to eat before lunch. We quickly took showers and it was off to the races again with Auntie Grace. We had to take a bus to the other side of the island where we hopped on a water taxi. I think Auntie Grace had the cell phone number of her preferred water taxi driver because we sent away several before settling on a woman that Auntie Grace was obviously friends with. The driver was instructed by Auntie Grace to take us on a tour of the harbor before doping us off to lunch at the “Jumbo Floating Restaurant” which was to serve us our Dim Sum style lunch. The tour around the harbor had everything from multi-million dollar yachts to the old houseboats that many of the poor in Hong Kong used to live in. it was quite a contrasting sight. After the tour was lunch and Dim sum is generally a wide range of Chinese dishes served alongside tea. The Jumbo Floating Restaurant was delicious and the service was as Aunty Grace expected… Perfect! After lunch we headed to the expo center and walked practically all the way across the city. Hong Kong isn’t really that large so walking across a major part of it only took a few hours. After our walk we headed back to the docks to have a ferry take us back over the river. We spent a couple more hours in Kowloon and then it was time for dinner.
Our plan was dinner around 8:30 with a high school friend of Wang’s in SOHO. Her name was Kalina and she worked in Hong Kong for Morgan Stanley. We met at a restaurant and had a great time and ended up at a bar a few blocks over. We had a beer at one bar that overlook and awesome road packed with small bars and people and the set out to find the very difficult liquor to find in Asia… Crowne Royal. We actually found a bar with it, had our last drink and headed home.
Our last day was started with another table of fresh fruit and this time with the addition of coffee brewed in something that looked like a mad chemistry experiment with a burner included. Breakfast was delicious and after we showered up and packed out bags for our flight later. The maid was busy working on boiled dumplings which were to be for lunch. Once cleaned up and packed we sat down for lunch but ate quickly as to make it in time for the last attraction that Auntie Grace had on our agenda. It was the Hong Kong Noonday Gun which is fired off every day at noon in some symbolic military event.
The trip to Hong Kong was short but long enough to make it to the top of my list of cities we have been to thus far. It had great weather, amazing buildings, beautiful waterways, and the hustle and bustle of a large city that I love so much. It was also formally a British colony so there was a ton of English and having less of a language barrier is always a pleasurable experience for foreign travelers. Next is Bangkok!

Shanghai

2009-02-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

Wang and I arrived at the older shanghai airport because our flight was domestic from Beijing. This was great because it was only a short taxi ride to the place we were staying. Wang’s aunt has a cousin that lives in Shanghai and had a place for us to stay. Her name is Lucy and she manages a large office building complex and part of the complex has some guest rooms. We got our things moved in, took a shower and headed for a walk into town. The weather was extremely hazy so we hoped for some more favorable skies in the next two days. We walked around for a couple hours, getting some coffee and picking up a camera bag to replace the one Wang had left in Beijing. We got back around 6:30 so we could meet Lucy for dinner. We hopped in Lucy’s car (a BMW X5 4.8 V10… Awesome!) and she took us on a quick driving tour of the city on our way to dinner. Dinner was in an area called Tai Kang Lu, part of the Luwan District. It is an amazing development which started with a renovated factory and grew into a very artistic, eclectic area full of small restaurants with no more than 10 tables at each, art shops, wine bars, etc. It was extremely cool and a we walked around looking at all of the shops for about 30 minutes. We ended up choosing a restaurant called Miss Ginger which served very good drinks and a menu with “panoramic cuisine with a Japanese attitude”. It was absolutely delicious! On the way home I started to feel very sick. I was light headed and had a sore stomach. We had originally planned to go out for drinks after in the French Concession but instead I ask that we be dropped off at our place so I could hopefully feel better before we went out. That time never came and I walked to the corner convenience store to get a bottle of water and went to bed. Wang and I both forgot to ask specifically for bottled water and I think that’s how I got sick.
The next day we woke up and I was feeling a little better. We headed out to Peoples Square so we could go to the Shanghai Museum. I was feeling extremely tired so we went on a search for coffee. We settled for a Starbucks a couple of blocks over from the square and we ordered our drinks. While waiting I noticed another guy ordering who had a Nielsen badge. I thought that was kinda cool. We got our coffee and headed to the museum. In the museum, which had free admission, we viewed Buddhist sculptures, Chinese paintings, furniture, jade carvings, etc. After, we headed to the MoCa which is the Shanghai Modern art museum which pales in comparison to the MoMa but still had a few interesting pieces. We then headed to Nanjing Dong Lu which is the most famous street in Shanghai filled with shops, food, and don’t forget the ever pesky knock-off vendors. We stopped and grabbed a quick bite at a little stand in peoples square and we both got what I would describe as an Asian pizza which was just round dough with pork meat top. It was very good.
We walked up Nanjing Dong Lu which connected Peoples Square to the Bund. Nanjing Dong Lu was full of stores and was great for people watching. The Bund is the old financial district with old buildings lining the Huangpu River. This is also very touristy but had amazing views of the old and newer parts of the city separated by the river. Walking up and down the Bund we were kind of disappointed in the weather because it was again a very hazy day. After the Bund we walked back to the metro and headed to Xintiandi and went to dinner at Ding Tai Fung.
Xintiandi is a very upscale, trendy area and was also where Ding Tai Fung was, which Wang had wanted to go to since we got to Asia. Ding Tai Fung serves great food but we decided to fill up on their famous Xiao Long Bao which are a mix between a dumpling and a steamed bun. After dinner we had planned to head back and get ready for our Friday night in Shanghai. Lucy had texted Wang to see if we wanted to go to a party with her. It was a “Ferrari” party at a gay bar downtown. We thought it would at least be entertaining so we decided to meet her there around 10:15. We had been misinformed of the cross street so we were about 30 minutes late. The bar was underground and called Shanghai Studio. The music was good the crowd was fun. Lucy’s old friend Amy was hosting the little get together and we all ended up having a hilarious time.
Day 3 started in Old Town which was full of little shops with chopsticks, tea sets, and other traditional Chinese things that make for good souvenirs. We walked around old town and found some lunch in an alley full of little food stands. In Asia I have gotten very used to food stands and walking and eating at the same time. After we finished our lunch we headed to the Yu Yuan Garden which is an old, traditional Chinese Zen garden. It was beautiful and completely enclosed by large walls isolating it from the hustle and bustle of the city around it. We spent a little over an hour walking through different areas of the garden that are supposed to evoke different kinds of feelings like calmness, joyousness, or carelessness, etc. After the garden we walked around old town a little longer and caught a cab to Pudong.
Pudong is a very new area in Shanghai that was developed in the past fifteen years and is occupied by many large buildings on of which is the second tallest in the world. We first went to Jin Mao which has a bar on the 87th floor called Cloud 9. We got a coffee which was about 10 US dollars but the ticket to get to the observation level which is just as high as the bar costs more than 10 dollars so we figured it was a free cup of coffee. Then Wang got an email from Lucy saying if we wanted to, she was in the Shanghai World Financial Center at Century 100 having some tea and if we wanted to join we were more than welcome too. Since SWFC is the second tallest building in the world we jumped at the opportunity. Century 100 was on the 91st floor and we had some more coffee and tea. It was getting very close to dinner time and we left and walked near the Oriental Pearl TV Tower which is also in Pudong and is a very cool building from the outside.
After our visit to Pudong we caught a cab back to Nanjing Dong Lu so we could check out the street at night with all of the lights. It was an impressive scene and well worth the detour to dinner. We decided to head to the French Concession, another area in Shanghai, for dinner. We settled on Simple Thai for dinner and it was great. It was a Saturday night but we both decided to head back to our room and get some sleep for our early morning to Hong Kong.

Beijing

2009-02-04T07:31:00.001-08:00

The Beijing airport is UNREAL! They must have completely redone the place for the Olympics. Not only is it massive but it is also clean and architecturally interesting. When we got our bags we had to figure out how to get to the hostel. We had two options… one was to take busses from the airport using the instructions we had from the hostel’s website or two, take a cab. We decided to do the latter because China is so cheap and we thought it would be more convenient. Well we quickly realized that the address we had for the hostel was in English and we didn’t know how to convey the location in Chinese to the driver. We knew what district it was in so we asked that he head that direction. This was less than a great situation because not only are Chinese cab drivers known for scamming, and we are both obviously “rich” Americans, but that we also didn’t know exactly where the hell we were going. All I have to say is thank god for blackberrys and googlemaps because without these two amazing resources for use throughout the trip, well who knows where we would end up.

We made it to our hostel which I would describe as a hotel with terrible beds making it a bad hotel but also making it an amazing hostel. To make things even better, our hostel was located in a great area with tons of stores, restaurants, cafes, and parks to walk around and the staff was wonderful. Once we checked in and got cleaned up it was about 4 o’clock so we headed out and checked out the area. We walked to an awesome lake that was frozen over and packed with people ice skating and ice biking? We walked past tons of stores and restaurants noticing that there wasn’t a single chain in sight. Everything in Beijing is mom and pop with the exception of a few McDonalds, KFC’s and a Starbucks here and there. Either way, far less than Japan or Taiwan. We grabbed dinner at a place up the street that served Sichuan food which is a province in western China known for using chilies, peppers, and garlic. After, we grabbed a beer at a pool bar and I had a Chinese beer called Tsingtao. It frankly tasted like Keystone (piss water) but the price was right!

We woke up the next morning and had a free breakfast at the café next door compliments of the hostel. Have I mentioned I love this hostel? It was then off to the Birds Nest or for those who don’t know the sight of the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics. The place is HUGE with music playing everywhere. It was a very cool experience. We took some pictures and asked someone to take a picture of Wang and I together. He was happy to do so but after he took out picture he told Wang that his young son wanted to take a picture with me. It was hilarious too because they didn’t really know how to ask if it was alright with my but I quickly understood their intentions and I took a picture with this little Asian kid.

After we took in the sights at the Birds Nest we headed south to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is huge and surrounded by some very cool buildings including the Chinese National museum, the Great Hall of the People, and the largest monument in China called the Monument of the People’s Heroes.

We were a little hungry after Tiananmen Square so we found a place to eat the served dumplings. We ordered 30 dumplings, fifteen a piece. We each had a drink and ate all of the dumplings and our total bill was 7 US dollars. You have to love the food prices in China.
To call the Forbidden City massive would be a gross understatement. It was the Chinese Imperial Palace from the Ming to the Qing Dynasty. It was built in the very early 1400’s and has over 900 buildings with over 8,500 rooms. This place was huge and I really enjoyed walking through but by the end I was ready to go.

On the way back to the Hostel we walked up a near street with tons of shopping, again no chains. In China haggling is a must so in every store someone is there to sell you something and negotiate a “special price” for you. This was very irritating for me who just likes to shop and know the price of an item and whether not it’s worth it to me. This way if you actually want something you need to spend the next 3 minutes debating about how you only want to spend X and they can offer Y and so on a so forth. It just gives me a damn headache. We then caught the train back to the hostel.

I had gotten used to the polite and proper style of the Japanese as compared to the Taiwanese but now in China was like Taiwan again. The people have a complete lack of respect for personal space. It is very interesting to be bumped around all the time and cut in front of in lines when you don’t expect it.

We were heading back to the Hostel so we could be there in time for the Kung fu show we had purchased tickets for. The show was great with stunts, acrobatics and breaking of objects over bodies. After the show we got to bed early so we could get even more in the next day.
Day two came and went very quickly with three things on the agenda; the Beijing Zoo/Aquarium, the Great Wall, and Peking duck dinner, a Beijing specialty! We again grabbed some free breakfast and headed to the zoo via train. We actually had to take a public bus from the train station to the zoo and that was a very interesting experience. There is no English on local bus and apparently not a square inch of free floor space either. We got on the bus and packed in like sardines. It was a little uncomfortable but it was only a very short ride. We got to the zoo and saw the pandas, lions, tigers, elephants, and the aquarium display. The zoo was great and the aquarium was even better. We grabbed a delicious, quick lunch at the zoo and took a cab to the bus stop for the Great Wall buses.

We knew which bus number to take but the whole bus stop was so unorganized and not American friendly with little to no English. Wang did his best to communicate but it was a difficult trying to determine who was actually working there and who was just trying to hassle us for money. We got on the cramped bus and headed 2 hours down the road to the Wall. The bus ride there was less than two US dollars which is not bad for a 2 hour bus ride. The Great Wall is exactly as I expected… long and impressive. We spent a couple of hours hiking up and down the wall taking tons of pictures along the way. There were even two little Asian boys who saw me and said hello in English all excited and so I smiled and greeted them back. His mom then told Wang that they would like to take a picture with me. I of course did and appreciated how they help solidified my theory that young Asian children see me as a zoo animal over here. We grabbed a bus back to Beijing and took a taxi back to the Hostel.

Peking Duck was made famous in Beijing so we decided that we would have to try some out for dinner. We received a recommendation from Apple(the very nice girl at the front desk) at the hostel for the most popular roasted duck place in Beijing. The likes of Fidel Castro and George Bush have had Beijing’s famous roasted duck at this place so we figured why not? The food was UNREAL and being that it’s China, the bill was comparable to an expensive lunch in the states. We were tired after dinner so we headed back to pack our bags for the morning to leave for Shanghai.

Tokyo

2009-02-02T07:18:00.001-08:00

Wang and I arrived in Tokyo at around 3 and the flight was only about 3 hours but the train ride from Narita airport to the area our hostel was over an hour long. We never knew a third of our traveling to Tokyo would be in a train in the city. Once in the city we checked into our 4 person room at the hostel which resembled a clean Frat room and headed out for the night. Shibuya which is a very popular part of town for restaurants and such so we decided to get dinner there. The original draw was that the area put Times Square to shame at night with lights and excitement and it didn’t fail. The area was PACKED with people and the buildings were lit up like giant advertising light bulbs. Four lane, 4 way intersections were swarming with people at the sign of each green walk light. We grabbed dinner at a sushi bar that had a conveyor belt with sushi running around the seats at the sushi bar. It was pretty good but by no means the best sushi I have ever had. After dinner we wandered around Shibuya for far too long until we settled on a bar called Lad’s bar. It was extremely small with probably about 25 seats but all of them were filled. We sat down and had a pint of Japanese light draft. Another great thing about this particular beer was that it was only 280 Yen or about 3 bucks which would be like a tourist finding a 3 dollar beer in Manhattan. When we sat down and this Asian guy couldn’t stop making eye contact with me and it just so happened that the two seats next him opened up at the bar. The seats were way better so we sat down. This guy and his buddy immediately asked where we were from (in English). It turns out there were from Malaysia, 20 years old, and studying language at a local university in Tokyo. They both spoke 6 languages (Chinese, Cantonese, English, Japanese, Malaysian, and Taiwanese) and smoked like chimneys. It was quite impressive. We hung out with them for a few more beers, talked about places they liked in Tokyo and then headed home. We got back to our hostel and met our two roommates. They were two girls from Australia who were traveling for several months like us during their summer break. Very nice girls but really not that interesting.

The next day we woke up a little later than planned and headed to the Tsukiji fish market. This is the largest fish market in the world and each day brings in over 2250 tons of fish valued at about 1.5 billion US dollars. It was a pretty unreal sight with trucks, motorized carts, and men running around everywhere trying to ship off that mornings catch to the rest of the world. One of the very popular things to do at the fish market is to eat a sushi breakfast so that’s exactly what we did. The place we chose was a hole in the wall place that had pictures and a little bit of English on the menu. When I say a little I mean “salmon” and “tuna”. We liked both so we figured why not? Our meals were similar and started with miso soup and about 8 cuts of sashimi over a bed of sushi rice in a bowl. It may have been the best salmon I have ever had and the whole meal was only about 8 US dollars. A little better than the 16-20 it would cost in the states. After the fish market, the next place on the agenda was the Imperial Palace. It was not as interesting as we had hoped because the actual palace is only open to the public two days out of the year. We didn’t find that out until we got there… awesome!

To get around the city we used the train system which proved to be complicated for two well educated men. The train system in Tokyo is the most elaborate system in the world with way over 15 different lines that are operated by three different companies. This meant that you need to be aware of which types of trains you were taking to get where and what kind of ticket that travel required. To give you an idea… we took 3 different lines to Shibuya and returning we couldn’t take the same three lines even though the fare we paid was the same. This was due to the fact the even though our fair costs were the same and a logical person would think that going back the way you came was an acceptable approach, we in fact had to route through 2 different stations than on the way out there to get home. It was a headache every time we needed to use them which was about 4-5 times a day.

After the Imperial Palace we headed to Roppongi which is an area of town with very cool architecture and tons of shopping, none of which we could afford. We settled for a café where we had a fix of caffeine to help us through the afternoon. We happened to meet a couple from Toronto who also gave us a few ideas on where to go in the city. From Roppongi we were able to take in great views of the Tokyo tower as well.

Wang and I decided to grab dinner in Shinjuku which is supposedly the center of young, trendy culture in Tokyo. From the minute we exited the station the streets were packed with young people looking for places to eat and drink. For the most part everyone was dressed to impress! We grabbed dinner at an Udon noodle place called Noodles & Live, where we waited in a line for about 40 minutes before we were seated. The food was very much worth the wait and at the 12 US dollar price tag, you couldn’t beat it on a Saturday night in the city. After dinner we wandered around Shinjuku impressed by all of the restaurants, bars, clubs and even their red light district where we were literally accosted by people at every turn to enter their “shop”. We again went looking for a chill bar because it had been a very long day. We went to the Hub which is an English bar where we found quite a few English speaking patrons and sat down for a beer. After a couple drinks we headed back to the hostel and anticipated the great weather the next day, a huge contrast to the weather of today that was windy, rainy and grey.

The sun was shining and it was off to the Senso-Ji Temple in Asakusa which was the area where we were staying. This temple was built in the 7th century and also has the second highest pagoda in the city. It was a beautiful temple with plenty of worshippers and great souvenir shopping to boot. Akihabara is the technology center of Tokyo and was next on our list of places to see. There was shop after shop of electronics with multiple vendors yelling from each one. Five story Sega buildings and street side gaming was everywhere. It was a dorks heaven… Paul you interested?? Needless to say Wang and I only needed a walkthrough to get our tronics fix for the trip. We then grabbed lunch at a place near the electronics district and had some Sobu noodles at Kanda Yaba Sobu.

Next was my favorite part of the Tokyo trip… Harajuku. Harajuku is the area known for the Harajuku girls that Gwen Stefani made so famous. They are all dressed in crazy clothing, congregated in large numbers on a particular bridge on Sundays. People are everywhere taking pictures of the street performers whose only talent was dressing very oddly. They did however take odd fashion to an interesting new level. The rest of the area was very hipster for a few blocks with shops and such with stores selling exclusively socks or others called ‘Condomania’. Once through the hipster part of the district the streets opened up to very high end shopping and modern architecture. The streets housed stores like Harry Winston, a five story Tods, a 4 story LV with a separate men’s and women’s entrance, YSL, Dunhil, and many other stores of equal or greater status. One thing is for sure… the Japanese LOVE to shop and it is very apparent throughout the city.

A note on fashion in Japan: It felt like everywhere we went, people throughout Tokyo looked like they were all wearing new clothes. Everyone was dressed well. Most Japanese women were put together like a very well dressed American woman but the men took it to a new level. They wore jeans as tight as the women’s (sometimes tighter), extremely long pointy shoes and about half of the time carried a man purse. This wasn’t just a district or two, this style carried throughout the city and only got more extravagant as you went to the more trendy districts.

We then ended up in Ikebukuro where we when to Sunshine City which housed a place that had 23 different steamed dumpling vendors. We grabbed some dinner and decided it had been a very long day and headed back to the Hostel. Once back I walked into the main room and found about 8 hammered Australians none of which I had any interest in meeting. About 30 minutes later a few Americans walked in and we ended up chatting with them. They were all from SF but had ended up moving to NY and Shanghai. The guy who lived in Shanghai, a Harvard graduate, offered to show us a good place to have dinner once we arrived in Shanghai. We ended the night early as the travel time back to the airport was long and our flight was at 10:40 am.

Tokyo was an amazing city with a very proud attitude. Most people understood English but unlike Taiwan and China, everyone always started to talk to me in Japanese and until I told them that I didn’t speak Japanese would they try English. They don’t particularly care for imperfection so I think speaking English embarrassed them slightly. Even with this barrier, everyone was extremely nice and helpful. Also in contrast to Taiwan and China, the Japanese respect ones personal space. There is no bumping into one another with no remorse or packed markets with people pushing one another. I also found their disdain for germs very interesting. I was in a train and could see about 20 people in my immediate view… 7 of them were wearing masks like the ones worn in a doctors office. This is to protect them from germs and illness but I can help but think about how it could affect the entire country and a possible lack of immunity to certain illnesses. Overall, Japan is an extremely respectable, clean country with a great culture. I would go back anytime!

Taiwan

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After a collective 24 hours of travel Wang and I arrived in Taipei around 10 pm on the evening of the 23rd. Wang’s family lives in a town called Chingsuei that is about 2 hours south of Taipei. His mother and uncle came to pick us up at the airport and both of us were so tired that we went straight to be when we arrived. It wasn’t until the next morning, 7 am (jetlags a bitch) that we woke up and I got to look around. Wang’s family lives in a little, old farming town in which they happen to own a lot of the land. Wang’s grandfather started a manufacturing business in the shoe industry and over the years had become a very successful man in his own right. His two sons also help run the business. The family house is actually two homes, the “old house” and the “new house”. They were extremely large homes in comparison to most that surround it with 3 floors and seven bedrooms in each. All the floors were made of marble to keep the home cool during most of the year. There was also a 5 car garage and a tea house on the grounds. As glamorous as this may sound, and by every Taiwanese standard it is, there are many conveniences that a middle class American would have in their home that was not in these. An example of this would be clothes dryer. All laundry is done my one of the three maids which is very customary for wealthier families in Taiwan and consists of scrubbing the clothes in a basin and hanging everything to dry.
The night we arrived was unseasonably cold and windy. The temp was in the lower 50s and since the climate is usually extremely warm and humid, the house had very drafty windows and no heat. Needless to say the house was cold and the floors were even colder. I slept in full sweats under my comforter the first night.
As you would expect with a traditional Chinese/Taiwanese home, shoes were to be removed at the door and indoor sandals were worn whenever inside. This took a little getting used to but by the end of the week it was second nature.
From the first second I met Wang’s family they were warm and welcoming even with the language barrier. Several of them understood English but all preferred to speak in Chinese. As the week progressed I also became better at understanding tones and body language to understand what people were saying. Most everyone from Wang’s mom’s side of the family was in town at some point during the week and to no surprise all were very intelligent. For example, the second day there we learned that Kevin, 12 years old, could complete a Rubik’s cube in just a shade over a minute. Needless to say, a fun and entertaining site!
The first morning Wang’s mom took us to the local market. It was one of my favorite things we did all week. It was packed full of people doing last minute shopping before the Chinese new year. Think your local grocery store the day before thanksgiving with a twist… Vegetables for sale on the ground, whole chickens being butchered at every turn, vendors selling everything from grilled squid to red bean cookies and who could forget the token 7eleven. We walked around for about an hour stopping at local vendors to get breakfast. The first stop was for scallion pancakes which became a quick favorite. Second was a rice ball, and last was dannbing. As this was a small town, I was the ONLY white guy there any day that we went that week. The children looked at me like I was a zoo animal and often times someone who knew a little English would yell out “hello friend” as soon as I was spotted. After the market we checked out the local temple where people pray to specific gods. IT was very interesting and was the most beautiful and elaborate building in the small city.
After we returned from the market, Wang’s cousin Patrick took us to Taichung which is literally translated to “the middle city”. It was a very quick 20-30 minute drive and when we got there we headed for a very popular milk tea bar called Chun Sui Chang. We then walked around the city for a bit and ended up at Tiger City a shopping mall/arcade. Asians take their arcades very seriously and this was very reflective in its size at Tiger City. We then decided a drink was in order and we ended up at a very swanky bar called Wein. Wang, by far, had the coolest drink. It was called a smoke bomb and one round glass was placed in another that had water and dry ice underneath. It created the visual of a bomb shaped glass that was smoking from the edges of the other glass. Very cool! Then we grabbed dinner at a local chain that really has no English translation but they did have unbelievably delicious dumplings for 4 NT which is the equivalent of about 10 cents. Needless to say we had plenty to eat! We ended the night at a Cigar bar where the three of us lit up a Monte Cristo No. 4 and had a drink. The bar had great music but the drinks were average at best. *A note on Taiwanese bars… the local people tend not to drink nearly as much as westerners. What this means for a bar is that they will have very fashionable drinks available like a mojito but will not have what an average bar would have in stock. An example of this was when I ordered an Absolute and tonic with a lime. They didn’t have Absolute and they didn’t have tonic. What kind of bar doesn’t have tonic??? Taiwanese bars need a little help.
The 25th was Chinese new year’s eve and we again grabbed breakfast in the market. We then walked up a hill behind the village to a large temple that overlooked the city all the way to the Taiwanese straight, the body of water separating Taiwan with China. Once back at the house we learned how to make traditional Chinese tea. It was a very elaborate process and helped me come to the conclusion that I could not leave Asia without an authentic tea set to come home with me. After most of the family enjoyed the delicious green tea, we hopped in the car and headed to the fish market in the harbor. The fish market we so interesting that I could not do it justice through words. Check out the pictures online. On the way home we drove to a beach known for bird watching and took some amazing pictures there as well. Once home it was time to celebrate Chinese new year with a very traditional meal and fireworks. Traditional basically means that everything is cooked whole. There was a chicken dish with pieces of chicken with the skin on it and ordinarily I would have no problem eating this but when the chicken head is sitting right next to the piece you intend on eating it adds a whole new variable to the equation. While there was nothing on the table that I wouldn’t ordinarily try, I found it very difficult to get past the presentation of each type of food. After dinner the family exchanges gifts in the form of money. Wang’s family was so generous that all of his relatives gave me gifts too.
On the 26h, New Years Day we again walked to the market for breakfast. Today was a little different though. On new year’s day the locals dress up in their nicest clothing and go for walks around the city. Keep in mind that nicest clothing is not a scene from the financial district in NY at lunch time. It is a slightly different take on Sundays best. After the market we all headed to the oldest and most popular temple in Taiwan. It was PACKED with people but the area around it was very historical with beautiful buildings.
On the 27th Wang and I took a high speed train back into the city of Taipei. We checked into the YMCA and headed out for the day. We started at the day at the Chang Kai Shek memorial which was larger than life. We then moved on to the National Palace Museum which featured art from all of the different Chinese dynasties. Lastly, we went to the night market in Shilin. This is the most popular night market in Taipei and is full of street vendors selling everything from stinky tofu(NASTY NASTY SMELL) to bags and belts. The place was packed and I got a firsthand experience as to how little the Taiwanese regard personal space. It was bumper to bumper in that crowd. For dinner we met up with Wang’s uncle from his dad’s side of the family. He took us to a little place called Tu Hsiao Yueh and had a delicious dinner and then coffee and dessert at a very trendy coffee house called the Green Steps. After dinner Wang and I headed to the Brass Monkey for drinks. It was actually a pretty normal bar and I tried “Taiwan Beer Draft” and it was actually quite good. Good enough to have another large bottle.
The 28th was the last day in Taipei and Wang and I headed for ‘Taipei 101’, the tallest building in the world. We went to the 101st floor and overlooked the entire city. While this building sounds very cool, and it is, there are very few tall buildings around it. Meaning… there is absolutely no reason for something like this in Taipei except to have the bagging rights of the tallest building in the world. I spent the 12 bucks to get up there but is still seems kinda stupid to me. After lunch we headed to Danshuei which is the harbor district in Taipei. The weather was about 70 and sunny so walking up and down the edge of the water was very nice, with the exception of the occasional whiff of stinky tofu or grilled calamari in the air. *A side note on squid… I have seen enough squid on the bbq to live the rest of my life without ever seeing it again. After Danshuei we hopped back on the high speed train to Chingsuei. That night we quickly went to bed.
Thursday the 29th was the last full day in Taiwan and again we headed to the market for breakfast. We just hung out with Wang’s family for the day and headed off to a dinner with all 20 people. Dinner was a sight to be seen with 10 traditional Taiwanese courses, none of which disappointed. The best was a pan with a glass lid. It was placed on the skillet on the table and at first sight looked like shrimp... Well that exactly what they were but I was very shocked and somewhat disturbed at first to see them start jumping! Yes the shrimp were cooked right in front me and after I shelled the shrimp I felt very comfortable knowing they were as fresh as they could be! After our huge meal we went home and we learned how to play mah-jong. It was a very fun game but we all need a little more practice.
It was an early morning on the 30th and true to Wang’s families generosity and hospitality they had a driver and a Mercedes S-class ready to drive us the 2 hours to the airport. We checked in and took off at 11 am local time to head for Tokyo. The Tokyo entry is soon to come!

San Francisco - Jan 16 - 22

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Well San Francisco was amazing. T was an amazing hostess and I couldn't have imagined a better time there.

Day 1 :January 16, 2009

Dinner at La Mediterranee on Fillmore and I ate way way too much!
Drinks in the Haight at Moltovos. The Haight kinda reminds me of Detroit.

Day 2: January 17, 2009

The first full day in the city and I was still feeling the effects of the time change. T took me on a City tour:
- Union Square
- Ferry Building
- Pier 39
- Fisherman’s Wharf
- Ghirardelli Square
- Cable Car Ride
- North Beach
- China Town
- Financial District

Dinner at Ten- Ichi on Filmore
Drinks in the Marina with Carolyn and T and T's friends: Christain & Celeste – City Tavern, Matrix. The Marina is my kind of place... Imagine that

Day 3: January 18, 2009

Drove down Lombard Street - the crooked one

We decided to go to Napa Valley on a whim and it was the best idea we had the whole time! We went to two wineries:
- Darioush - Sonoma County
- Duckhorn – Sonoma County
and before leaving we had a very late lunch at Zuzu in downtown Napa. The tapas were out of this world!

Dinner at Orphan Andy’s
Drinks in the Castro - Gay district, if the whole city isn't
- The Bar
- Badlands

Day 4: January 19, 2009

WANG ARRIVES!

Dinner at the Woodhouse Fish Company. Had artichokes stuffed with Dungeness Crab and Shrimp.

Drinks in the mission and we bar hopped to; Casa Nova, Truck, Luck 13.

Day 5: January 20

Wang, T and I decided to head back over the Golden Gate and check out Sausalito in Marin county. The views of the city across the bay are unreal. Wang has a few we will post later.

Lunch at Bridge way Café

After lunch we saw Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen filming for the movie Funny People.

T took us to Coit Tower afterwards, a 21 story tower on the top of one of the many hills of the city for more great views of Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge as well as the city itself.

Met up with Wang's friend Melissa for dinner at Slow Club in the Mission. Great drinks and Wang ordered a Kettle One Gimlet 3:1 shaken very cold, compliments of his favorite author Stuart Woods.

Day 6: January 21

Wang and I had another city tour. This was the first day the weather wasn't 65-70 and perfectly blue skies.

Lunch at the Ferry Building at San Francisco Fish Co.

It was raining a little in the afternoon so we caught a movie on Pac Heights. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie. Everyone should see it.

Dinner at a little Greek place called Myconos and in true greek style my meal could have fed two large men.

Drinks at Tonic with T, Wang and Wang's HS friend Melissa

Day 7: January 22

T drive Wang and I to the Airport for our flight to Tokyo at 11 am. Since Wang's dad is the man, he upgraded both of us to business class and let me assure you... it is the ONLY way to fly across the ocean.

Wang and I are currently sitting in the lounge at Tokyo's international airport waiting for our connecting flight to Taipei.

More to come when we get to Taipei.

Our tentative Itinerary

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City Arrival - Departure

DET/BOS
San Fran 16-Jan - 22-Jan
Taipei 22-Jan - 30-Jan
Tokyo 30-Jan - 2-Feb
Beijing 2-Feb - 5-Feb
Shanghai 5-Feb - 8-Feb
Hong Kong 8-Feb - 10-Feb
Bangkok 10-Feb - 13-Feb

Paris 14-Feb - 18-Feb
Tours 18-Feb - 20-Feb
Madrid 20-Feb - 23-Feb
Barcelona 23-Feb - 26-Feb
Avignon 26-Feb - 28-Feb
Geneva 28-Feb - 1-Mar
Milan 1-Mar - 2-Mar
Rome 2-Mar - 6-Mar
Florence 6-Mar - 7-Mar
Venice 7-Mar - 10-Mar
Munich 10-Mar - 14-Mar
Vienna 14-Mar - 16-Mar
Prague 16-Mar - 19-Mar
Berlin 19-Mar - 22-Mar
Franfurt 22-Mar - 26-Mar
Amsterdam 26-Mar - 29-Mar
Brussels 29-Mar - 1-Apr
London 1-Apr - 5-Apr