Starting the day After a late night, I was now scheduled to meet the tour guide at 8:30, so I meandered down at 7:40 to check out the hotel breakfast buffet. It was an amalgam of cultural breakfast foods, from Western bacon, toast, and sausages to Chinese breakfast items like dim sum and congee, but also Chinese dinner items like black pepper beef…even baked beans in case an Irish person shows up. I tried to stick with things I’ve never had before, but I’m pretty particular about breakfast food and I don’t consider things that are dinner foods good as breakfast foods. I even saw 2 Italian guys, so I…
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The Big Day – Flying to Beijing
Ok, travel days are never fun, but wow, this was a long one. My flight from San Jose was delayed, so I spent a few hours fretting at work about what time to leave for the airport. I have zero chill. Finally, it was time to leave for the airport. Now, I had to pack 3 weeks worth of winter clothes into a carry-on size bag, so I *thought* it would be a great idea to wear the bulkier items so they didn’t take up so much space, as my suitcase is jam-packed as-is. Well, it isn’t so cold in San Jose, so spending a few extra hours in my…
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What to Wear
Planning Excursions In the Tour Planning a 4-week multi-country trip is no easy feat. Arranging visas to Russia and China, as well as buying tickets to trains in foreign languages, was daunting. So, for the first time ever, I signed up for a tour group. Hotels, train tickets, even visas are included. It is a tour for ‘independent’ travelers, so all of the day-time excursions end by 4 p.m., leaving ample evening time to explore solo. There is one small ‘problem’: no one else signed up for this group tour. So it looks like it’ll be just me and the tour guide. Extra excursions Since evenings after 4 p.m. are…
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Where and Why
Itinerary I will have almost 4 weeks to explore the world, beginning with a flight from San Jose to Beijing. During my 3-day stay there, I will visit landmarks such as Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, and numerous palaces and delectable dinners. From there, I will board a train and make the 26-hour journey to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, sleeping for 1 night on the train. In Mongolia, I will stay in a national park, in a Ger camp, and enjoy some Mongolian cuisine, culture, and history, before returning to Ulan Bator for 1 night in a hotel. Then it’s back on the train and off to Russia! After another 24-hour…
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Thailand
Here are some of my favorite photos from my trip to Thailand in 2008. The resort has some baby elephants, and everyone flocked to the babies. But the adult ones, like above, were just wandering the beach with a handler. Since I was the only person there, I got to have a very c The handler asked the elephant to kneel, and it held out a front knee for me to use as a step up. It was super gentle and soft and treated well. At one point, the elephant just started wandering off. The handler said “Hey, come back here!” and pretended to be concerned that the elephant was just…
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My First Trip -Part 1
So, I know the whole point of this blog thing is to have interesting, easily digestible chunks. This… isn’t that. I want to write about my first experience traveling abroad and my life at the time. However, I don’t have any of the numerous emails I sent home during that time. So I have nothing of my own writing, and I have very little in the way of photos. I actually had with me only film cameras, from which I now have physical photographs, but no digital images at all. So bear with me as I reminisce and share a very different time in my life. –On second thought, I’ll…
