Traveling Mathsman

July 2026 - Budapest

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:50:20 +0000

Ok, so 2 embarrassing confessions to start this off: I knew pretty much nothing about Budapest before going there (it was the setting for I, Spy) and I was hoping to use my Edit credit. In fact, I had no idea that it is actually made up of the Buda part, and the Pest part (along with Obuda). But, boy, was it a beautiful city! I started my trip with a (free) dinner at the hotel and then a night river cruise.

The fancy Edit hotel was very nice...they even gave me a bunch of welcoming items such as this bottle of wine. Unfortunately, I just told the guy to take it back (he even suggested that I take it home as a gift, which I probably should have).

While I thought Belgium was slightly boring (as in, didn't have a lot of stuff that interests me), I don't know if 4 days was enough in Budapest. I bought the Budapest Card, which gave me free public transport and free entry to quite a few places, plus the cruise too. I would say I probably got my money's worth, and it "made" me go check out a public baths when I may not have had it not been included.

I was very fascinated by this hand-powered swimsuit dryer

I guess the highlight would be the night views of anything around the river, but I did take a couple of walking tours during the day, as usual, to get the lay of the land and to get some of the context and history. The first walking tour was of the Buda side, which is the older part of the city. It includes the castle and the National Gallery and other buildings, quite a few damaged or destroyed in WWII and had to be rebuilt or are being built right now.

The second tour was on the Pest side. This included the Parliament building, St.Stephens Basilica, some of the bridges, etc.

Free samples to start the tour off

There is only a 5cm (iirc) gap between the church and the bridge!

Shoes on the Danube

While exploring the city on my own, I saw the Cave Church, went up the Water Tower on Margaret Island, went up to the Citadel, saw the fictional statues of Princess Pest and Prince Buda.

One of the coolest things was probably St. Stephen's Basilica to see the Holy Right, the mummified right hand of Hungary's first king, which also happened to be hosting a wedding.

And on a slightly worse note, just so I don't forget in the future more than anything, there was this drunken racist guy who followed me around for 20+ min through a metro station and a couple of trams. He asked me for my documents, told me that I must be a Chinese spy because I am Asian, told me that all Hungarians hate gypsies, etc. I started to record him, but I deleted it after I thought I had backed it up...he was so drunk that he actually (after admitting that he might be racist, though he was blaming it on how he hasn't drunk in 24 days to study for some test and just started drinking again) went up to 3 ticket checker guys to ask them to agree with him that all of them hate gypsies. I told them that he was following me and harassing me and bothering me, to which the guy was actually surprised and saddened, but I was finally able to escape him.

July 2026 - Belgium

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:42:17 +0000

This year's Europe trip (it certainly feels like I go every year now) included Belgium as its first stop. Brussels, to be exact, though I felt like there wasn't THAT much to do/see, so I ended up visiting a bunch of other cities in Belgium as well - Ghent, Bruges, and Dinant. I also went to Luxembourg, so there was that.

I described Brussels as "less" to a couple of my friends while I was there - less English than I expected, less clean, and less expensive as well. I am not really sure what I expected, to be honest, but I did manage to do the 4 "musts" - waffles, fries, beer, and chocolate. Yes, I even tried beer and I basically never drink alcohol.

maybe this doesn't count as chocolate

I did the usual walking tour (two, actually) to get some context and history, saw some of the more famous sights, slept through Belgium's 4-1 victory over the US in the World Cup, and ate at a seafood restaurant that only had Asian customers (while I was there). There were some famous places and statues, buildings, comic strip art and so on in Brussels, but otherwise, not much to report.

we are all in the cloud now

Ghent and Bruges were both on one day...super easy to take the train to Ghent and then Bruges and back to Brussels. Both were very pretty. I liked them both for buildings to see than Brussels, but Bruges was definitely the better of the two.

Ghent

Bruges

I thought that pretty much every picture from any camera would look pretty good when I was walking around this town. I also went up to the tower, like I did in Ghent, and even went to the church to see the blood of Jesus (supposedly).

Dinant

Dinant was just a stop on the way back from the Luxembourg tour, but it was a pleasant little town. It is interesting and has some Saxophone history, and there is a giant church and a fortress/citadel that I didn't get to go up (I went the wrong way, Google Maps was pretty bad this trip) and it was closed by the time I got to the entrance.

Well, I guess this is yet another lazy post since I didn't go into detail about anything. But yeah, Belgium was cool. In terms of cost, I would say it's roughly the same as Paris...meaning compared to California (the Bay Area, to be exact), it is probably about the same, or slightly cheaper. The no tax and tip really helps, even though the exchange rate was about 1.15 USD to 1 Euro. I was able to buy croissants for 0.9 Euro everyday near my hotel in Brussels and it was pretty good!

April 2026 - Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 01:23:00 +0000

I just went back for a week (I guess it's almost always for a week since that's how long the vacation is). It was mostly to see my grandma, and my mom happened to be there at the same time. I didn't really do much...went to an electronics trade show (INNOEX? and another one, happening at the same time), tried to buy the new Vivo x300 Ultra, and ate my usual meals. My aunt ended up going to Shenzen the day before I flew back and got me the green x300!

The trip actually started out really poorly. I mistakenly took my expired passport (I could've sworn they punched holes in it when I sent it in to get it renewed?). I didn't have time to go back home to get it, but luckily my friend who lives fairly closet o my house FLEW my passport to me so that I could get through security. In my hurry to go to the lounge to grab a bite to eat before boarding, I then left my jacket at the lounge! On the bright side, it was the first time I got into a lounge where they didn't bother checking my priority pass membership nor boarding pass? Anyway, I realized that I had left my jacket too late (we were boarding already), but somehow, against all odds, I was able to retrieve it at the SFO Lost and Found when I landed! Amazing!

Other than that, it was just the usual happenings in Hong Kong. Both my mom and my aunt had a get-together with their childhood friends, so that was cool. And we managed to get my grandma to go eat two meals outside of the house, so that was also nice.

I did go by the Tai Po fire site just to see...and it was as awful as I imagined. The buildings are just standing there, kind of hauntingly reminding people what happened. I think the trials were just underway when I was there and the news talked about them almost daily...

February 2026 - Dubai

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:53:00 +0000

The war with Iran broke out right after I left the draft below to be done later...it was kind of surreal to wonder what would've/could've happened had I left just 1 week and a few hours later. I know other people got out with even less time, if they were fortunate, or were stuck there, but it was a close enough call that I will think and plan more before booking a trip in the future...I hope people are safe and the war is over soon...the current admin is just so incompetent...I guess they have been blessed with the fortune of things just always seem to work out in their favor (tends to happen when you are rich), but this isn't a stupid business or a casino now and literally millions of lives all over the world are being affected...

Wow, so I haven't made a blog entry in a long time. So, a few months ago, I was lucky and found a fairly cheap plane ticket to Dubai (it was $667.XX roundtrip on Air Canada). The good - price, plus I still have access to the Air Canada lounges through the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but the bad? Layover in Toronto and LONG flight times. The layover to Dubai wasn't bad at all, less than 2 hours, but coming back was ~10 hours, so I went out to town and had a few meals.

Dubai is not my usual "type" of traveling, simply because it is supposed to be super fancy and that's kind of the opposite of what I seek. I typically want to see old buildings, learn about some history, what the locals think and do, etc. I did try to take advantage of all of the hotel credits from the CSR, so one of the hotels was actually extremely nice (the other two were quite decent and probably nicer than where I normally stay as well).

First Night - Arabian Park Dubai

It was in a decent location and easier to get to using public transport than the other two, which were in Business Bay. The staff was awesome and there was free breakfast included and it was pretty good.

Second and Third Nights - SLS Dubai Hotel & Residences

This was the fancy 5-star Edit hotel. The breakfast was awesome, and I used room service for the first time (I didn't plan things out well and didn't get to eat at the steak restaurant) because of the $100 property credit. The view was impressive, and it also had a pool at the top of the hotel. Quite impressive...they even provided dental and shaving kits, which I don't remember seeing at my cheap stays before.

I am not going to finish the blog edit...will just include a few more pictures and add a few notes about Dubai. I know most people here aren't from Dubai, but they are literally the rudest and impolite people I've seen, at least when it comes to lining up and following the rules and etiquette. Everyone rushes to the front of the line, nobody lets anyone off the metro first, etc. But I was surprised by how cheaply one could live in Dubai. I guess the wages most people who work here earn are quite low, so the everyday person still needs to be able to eat. But you can get a dinner for probably no more than $6 US. Of course, you can go as expensive as you want. But even the tours I booked were pretty reasonable - $25 for an all day tour to Abu Dhabi, with a ride and entrance to the mosque. The 2 hour yacht ride was like $50? The ticket to the Burqee Khalifa was the most expensive at like $67...and the system was really bad. I bought the ticket in advance and still had to wait 2 hours to go up. I spent 15 min up there and saw the line to come down and decided to just leave...had to stand in that line for maybe 20 min. That gets me to the feeling I got about Dubai...it really seemed like they are a worse Hong Kong. They had HK's Octopus company make their metro/payment card, which does work well, but everything was just slightly worse-designed or less efficient. For example, being a desert city, I guess a lot of their activities and businesses are open till pretty late. The beach was still very crowded after 10 or 11pm, as were the malls. BUT, the metro closed at like 10:10pm?! Like, why? I ended up having to take some random bus back to my part of town and then had to take a taxi back to the hotel...and the metro stations were all just a little dumb. I spent probably 25 min looking for a way to get to this one specific platform, asked 3 workers, and still could not figure it out. I finally had to exit the station and then tag back into the opposite side, which deducts one trip's worth of fare (?!), just to get to the correct platform.

Anyway, here are some more pictures:

July 2025 - Prague

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 21:56:00 +0000

Ok, so it's not that this was the real destination of the 2025 Summer trip, but it was definitely the one I wanted to focus on since I try to go to at least one brand new place/city per trip, and Prague was it. I probably didn't maximize my points/costs in terms of airfare, but it's fine. I've heard so much about Prague and how it is the most beautiful city and all that, so I was excited to go visit. I ended up booking a hotel that is just slightly away from the city center, but it was convenient enough and worked out great, to be honest (well, besides the first few days when they were doing construction on some of the metro stations and I had to do a bus alternative). I was little worried when I first arrived because the landscape looked...I don't know, Soviet? Reminded me of the post-nuclear war games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl. The hotel itself was good and I was even treated to a nice sunset on my way there.

On the first day, I went on two free walking tours. I ended up with the same tour guide both times, a very dry Polish guy. The second group loved him and the first group wasn't as enthusiastic. But yeah, definitely helped with finding my way around and getting the lay of the land (it is still the first thing I try to do when I go to a new city).

The first tour covered Prague Castle and the walk there (we started at the Charles Bridge). The guide was very knowledgeable and told us the secrets to getting your wish the right way, pointed out different characters and statues and hidden meanings on top of building entrances, etc. and gave us food tips and all that.

One of the interesting things I encountered throughout my time there were these professional photoshoots (engagement/wedding plus others?).

Anyway, the second tour was through Old Town, which included the Astronomical Clock, the Old Jewish Quarter, etc.

I was having trouble finding food that I liked in the first few days, but I think it was mainly because I don't know the language and shied away from the traditional Czech food. Eventually, I did eat a hearty rack of ribs (Ribs of Prague) and then another (V Ruthardce) at the small town of Kutna Hora (the taste wasn't my favorite, but the meat really did melt off the bone). Izumi's Japanese curry was quite good as well. The couple of Vietnamese restaurants I tried were just all right. The tour guide said that there are a lot of Vietnamese in the Czech Republic due to the communism relationship...but yeah, it doesn't really compare to San Jose and Orange Country where I mainly reside, probably the best Vietnamese food outside of Vietnam.

I also visited a couple of museums (Prague has A TON of the most random seeming museums!) - the National Museum as well as the Museum of Communism (MOC). I also went to Strahov Monastery for its library and some exhibits and the Bone Church (Ossuary Sedlec) in Kutna Hora. I tried to go to the nuclear bunker museum but it didn't seem to exist anymore. There seems to be another one that you can visit for free that is open once a a month. Another thing that I wanted to see but couldn't/didn't - endless elevator in City Hall.

Top tip for the Idiom Installation at the library...I waited probably an hour and 15 min, and had I known, I probably would've just taken the photos from the side and back and then left. You can skip the line if you don't want a picture from the inside (but I guess that defeats the purpose of the "infinite book tower" effect).

The main attraction is Charlies Bridge, so I tried to take photos at night as well as super early to avoid people/the crowds.

An unexpected delight was the domesticated beaver(s?) on the little island in the middle of the river. It was just a chill place to go and relax and spend some time. There was live music and dancing and everything.

Here are some more things people recommended online - Grotta, Olšany Cemetery, Trifot, Petrin Tower, Man Hanging Out, Girl with a Swallow, Kafka's Face, Dancing House, the Dripping Wall and the Lennon Wall.

The day trip to Kutna Hora was pretty painless. Prague has a really easy to use app that lets you buy tickets and if anyone needs to inspect, you just show them your app. You don't have to tap or anything, so it was very convenient. The main attraction is the Bone Church, but the lady said no pictures. Some people were disregarding it and doing all sorts of pictures. I kind of cheated and took a short video and took a screenshot from it. St. Barbara's Cathedral is also quite nice.

Here are my observations I jotted down while I was in Prague:

No street vendors/performers

Men openly check out women (way more than, say, Paris)

Lots of Thai massage parlors

Every toilet costs money pretty much (worst in Europe I've encountered)

Bus/metro schedule not correct/accurate

Streets aren't perpendicular, I almost end up going wrong way A LOT

Lots of random museums

Almost all of the churches offer concerts...?

Well, so I guess there's not much else besides random photos I took of the people there. They didn't seem to be super friendly overall, and I would say Prague just has an "edgy" feel to it. But the people are actually pretty nice and practical...it would probably help if I understand at least a little bit of the language (basically everyone speaks English, it's just that I didn't know what's going on).

I probably should've done a better job inserting links (I went back and did that) and stuff in case people actually wanted to find out more about the places (or just were more detailed and separated some of the sections out). I guess if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to help.

July 9th - 10th, 2025 - Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 20:23:00 +0000

Toronto was supposed to be just a "day trip" from choosing of the three super long layovers - 15 hours, 19 hours, almost 24 hours. I had decided to do 24 hours so I can say that I've visited Toronto, since I don't really foresee myself going there. But I guess while I was transferring points to Air Canada and booking hotels and stuff, my flight selection had defaulted back to the shortest layover of 15 hours (meaning an 8am flight out of Toronto). The time I would arrive home is the same, since the last leg of the flight from Chicago (where I am now, typing this) is the same, so it was a constant number of hours, just split between Chicago and Toronto.

So I arrived in Toronto and spent probably 40 min talking to Air Canada employees, hoping that they could put me on the later flight out so that I could eat another meal or two to no avail. I ended up taking the UP into downtown, then the Metro, walked to my "hotel," which was like a college dorm that also rents rooms to travelers in the summer when they have vacancies? It was pretty bad, not gonna lie - no AC in the room, shared bathroom and toilet, building was super old, elevators didn't seem to work (probably takes 10 min to get one to the ground floor, and they have 4!), etc.

However, the consolation prize was that they had roof deck with a pretty good view. So after dinner and a boba and walking around a bit (it randomly started raining), I went up and got some night shots.

And since I haven't really been sleeping much (jet lag? old age? who knows), I just went up again to check out the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy, but it was still a spectacular sunrise. I figured that since the metro starts at 6a.m. and sunrise was at 5:46a.m., I would get the 6:15ish metro, get to the airport a little after 7a.m. and be fine.

Nope...I swear, Air Canada has not been doing great...when I went to Vancouver, the flight attendant spilled hot tea on me. This time, a flight attendant dropped the entire tray of food that was supposed to be passed out (I only have a pic of some of the stuff left on the floor and the stain on the seat), and yeah, when I got to the airport at 7:15, I was told that I had to check in my carry-on. Fine...I go stand in line...for 25+ minutes. They had only processed like 3 groups of people in 25 min...at this point, it was time for me to board, so I asked if I could just check my bag at the gate, and they said no. They then looked into my stuff (skipping over the guy who was still in line in front of me), and it took like 4 people to finally decide that my gate was closed (it was 7:45a.m. at this point, and boarding was supposed to start at 7:40). They ended up putting me on a later flight to Chicago, which was what I wanted to to before...except I didn't have time to go BACK to downtown to eat and all that, so I just stayed at the two lounges, Priority Pass and Air Canada lounge. Thanks Chase Sapphire Reserve!

Well, all in all, the trip was more than fine. Little mishaps are kind of part of the fun, right? Unexpected surprises. I still have to write about Prague, which was the new city I really explored, so I suspect it'll take me a bit longer to process and write about, but then again, I have more than 3 hours left here still...

June 2025 - Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:40:00 +0000

Well, so I was feeling travel-envy and booked a last minute trip a week (maybe 10 days) prior to taking off. And, of course, my default trip has become Paris since I have my Brazilian friends there to visit (and a free room!). It was the third time in 4 years (I only didn't go in 2023), and I still managed to see quite a bit that I didn't see before.

I was a bit more independent this time too, after having learned the 2 or 3 ways of getting to the train from their house that gets me to Paris. I saw the the Palais Garnier (National Opera), saw the Km Cero marker (but I did not stand in line to go inside Notre Dame), and I tried to go on the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann Tour again (when I tried in 2022, I had booked the wrong Sunday)...and ended up in their VIP lounge? And I went to the Carnavalet Museum (history of Paris), which was great, and free! I also found a new place to eat (my favorite from before was not super great this time). And this was just all in the city.

What happened with the tour was that the tour guide never showed up. The tour was supposed to be me along with 3 other ladies (two from Australia and one from New York). We ended up waiting until the store opened (which was an hour after the tour's start time, but we were instructed to arrive before the tour, so between 1.5 to 2 hours) and talked to 3 different people that kept passing us onto the next person until we found a concierge who was super kind and really tried to help us get to the bottom of what happened. He even let us into the VIP lounge (apparently you "only" have to spend around 6000 Euros a year to qualify?).

I also finally got to visit a couple of the libraries (wow!) and visited the park with the peacocks (Parc de Bagatelle).

I think my favorite part was the road trip to Rouen because that's where they have a church dedicated to St. Joan of Arc (which was the name of my school in Hong Kong). We also visited the beach and the so-called "Most beautiful village in France" (they had some contest I guess).

And finally, I guess I'll just put some of the better street photos I got during the trip. I only brought my Vivo X100 Pro this time and left the "real" cameras at home because, one, I think it takes good enough pictures 90% of the time, and two, I need to learn how to better use it (I don't really think I succeeded).

Oh! And last, but not least, my friends' two kids were super kind and accompanied me to Paris for a day and showed me around. That was cool...felt more like a local. And I found the two French-est men possible...Haha

April 12th - 19th, 2025 - Mexico City

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:12:00 +0000

Even though I grew up in LA, I had never crossed the southern border into Mexico before. I have heard that Mexico City is great for music/clubbing, which obviously is not my thing, and I did meet this couple who worked in the US for a few months before heading back to Mexico City who told me to look them up if I ever go, but I didn't have their current info.

I took Mexico's version of Spirit I guess, Volaris, and I booked through my Captial One portal, except they didn't tell me that the flight times changed. I basically lost half a day due to this, but I guess at least they gave me $100 travel back. First, I had a layover in Guadalajara. The lounge there had almost no food, so I ended up getting a boba and a burger from Shake Shack. American prices, but not airport prices, so I guess it was fine.

I hadn't done much planning, so when a colleague told me that he and his family had just gone and his must-sees, I naturally just took his advice. First, it was the Ballet Folkolorico. Price was fairly pricey for Mexcio standards, around $60. Show was good - music, dancing, costumes - everything was very well done. Then again, I am probably not really the best person who can appreciate stuff like this anyway.

The second was, of course, the pyramids at Teotihuacan. I found the local bus, I want to say it was like 6 bucks, and just walked around for a couple of hours. I guess the hot air balloons are all the craze (you can see them all over viator and stuff).

Before going to my colleague's recommendations, I did a free walking tour, which is what I always try to do when I travel to a new place. Through this tour, I found that Mexico City is actually not very walkable. I avoid Uber/Lyft when I can, but I found that there was almost no alternative in Mexico City. While there is a subway and busses, they often added 30 to 60 minutes to the travel time, or they didn't get to exactly where you want to go and would have to walk a bunch anyway. Luckily, Uber was ridiculously cheap, pretty much 1/10 the price compared to the US. Ride from the airport was around 8 bucks. Trips throughout the city ranged from maybe 3 bucks to 6 bucks. The driving in Mexico City is pretty crazy, maybe not quite as bad as Lima, but yeah, I would never be able to drive there.

Another interesting fact I found through the tour was the origin story of the city and how it is recorded on the Mexican flag. But that also ties into the fact that a good portion of the city is sinking into the filled-in lake. After I found that out, I tried to capture the buildings that are leaning and tilting to various degrees, but they don't show up very well in photos.

The tour guide gave our tourists some tips on eating the street food. I was pretty good the first few days, drank a mamey shake even, but I think I may have gotten too reckless and ate something towards the end and had issues for over a week after I got back. The food was pretty good though, and CHEAP. I even went back to this torta place cause it was so good...and the giant sandwich ended up being like $4. And I got a bread thing at a corner bakery for 10 pesos I think, so 50 cents? The same bread at the Michelin star restaurant was 70 pesos (it was better, but I don't know if it's THAT much better.

Oh, I totally forgot to mention the third recommendation, which was the Anthropology Museum (Museo Nacional de Antropología). It has some really cool stuff, but what I mainly focused on was the history of the people before the Spanish arrived (and I guess also their interactions relationships afterwards). The line was actually pretty long already when I arrived a few minutes before its opening. The only knock I kind of have is basically the fact that my Spanish isn't very good and I couldn't understand most of the stuff since a lot of it was Spanish only. Otherwise, definitely a must-visit if you are at least somewhat into museums/history.

I also went to a couple of other museums and walked near the Frida one (no way I was going to be able to get tickets with such short notice). The art one (Museo Soumaya) is free (what the tour guide told me - the richest guy in Mexico set it up in honor of his wife, which is why it's free). The Postal Palace Museum is actually quite good...I think the tour guide said that a king was hosting a very important meeting and he knew everyone had to go to the post office to mail off correspondence back to their home country, so he commissioned a super fancy post office and that is what it is today.

Front

Back

VR was invented way back when

The rest is just going to be random street photos. I saw pretty interesting things such as several photoshoots, just people going about their lives in the city, random performances, vendors, couples, workers, etc.

And finally, random tidbits...I found it very interesting that they have Sears and Radio Shack here pretty prominently...like I saw probably 2 or 3 Sears. I guess it is easier to have physical retail when you're in a city...oh, and I got "mugged" towards the end of the trip. I was walking towards the bus when this little girl and presumably, her little sister, rolled up on me on a little scooter. I'm guessing the girl's like 9 years old...she said something to me and gestured towards my boba, and I thought I heard the word water, so I just assumed that she was asking if I was drinking water. I told her no, it's not water but tea. She said probably the same thing to me again, which I still did not understand. I switched to English and said something along the lines of, "What? I don't know what you're saying, are you saying you want to try it?" But before I could even figure out what was going on, she snatched the entire cup from my hand and then scootered away with her passenger in tow. I distinctly remember how impressed I was both with her audacity (going up to a strange tourist man with whom you can't communicate?!) and the skill required to hold onto her sister, control the scooter, and still, somehow, hold the cup and take the straw out to switch it around before drinking from it. I definitely counted more hands than she should have had! What! And as I continued my walk to the bus, I saw I think the little sister but not the girl. I wanted to take a picture to "commemorate" the occasion, but yeah, I didn't see her.

At least I have a picture to remind me of this incident...

The guide mentioned some areas that were unsafe, and I didn't really go there nor feel unsafe during most of the time I was there. The only time I thought that I probably shouldn't be there was on the last day when I was trying to walk towards some statue. It was broad daylight, but there was no one on the streets and the stores were all closed. I walked a couple more blocks in the direction and decided to turn back...it was only like a mile from the National Palace...so yeah, I don't know. Maybe I misread the situation.

Thanksgiving 2024 in Vancouver

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 25 May 2025 02:22:00 +0000

I totally forgot to write an entry for this little quick, short trip. I decided to go somewhere during Thanksgiving weekend and took my mom to Vancouver. I had heard really good stuff about the food there and how it is better than Hong Kong's, so I redeemed some credit card points (yes, the flights there were quite cheap). We ended up with a cheapie hotel with a shuttle pickup from the airport, but we probably had to wait 45 min or something.

We mostly just ate at various restaurants and didn't have time to do much else (first meal was a late dinner at a hk cafe next to the hotel), although we managed to get in a little Black Friday shopping at the Costco that was across the street from the hotel.

Getting around the city was fairly easy, though we did end up walking kind of a lot. We mainly just took the metro, which got us close enough to where we wanted to go. The nice thing was that you can just pay with a credit card (or phone) and not buy a card. Everyone seemed to be Cantonese in Vancouver, which was crazy. People just start talking in Cantonese and assume that you know it. We found a couple of pretty nice food courts, tried dim sum next to this casino, and walked around a giant mall also.

Yeah, so not much to talk about since we literally ate like 5 meals and left. I'll just leave a few of the more interesting photos down below...oh, and getting back to the US was pretty easy. You go through customs before you even take off from Canada and arrive as a domestic flight. We left right before Taylor Swift's convert, so we saw some of her merch.

July 8th, 2024 - Lausanne and Geneva

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Hmmm, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time in either of these two cities, which is why I am combining them into a single post. I flew into Geneva and got on the train to go to Bern pretty much right away...

On the way back from Zurich, the plan was to stop in Lausanne to meet a friend I met about 8 years ago. The plan definitely didn't work out...first, there was an accident between Fribourg and Lausanne, so I hopped onto this other train that was supposed to go around (and added an extra hour and a half or something)...luckily, Google Maps was right and I eventually arrived. But then my friend's aunt, who was also visiting the same weekend, had a medical emergency, so I ended up not able to meet my friend anyway. But Lausanne was a cute little town. I had a snack, walked around an area with the best name, Ouchy, and then was on my way to Geneva.

I stayed in a hostel for the first time ever in Geneva, and it was actually quite an interesting experience. It was a HUMUNGOUS one, probably hundreds of people, from young people to I don't know, grandparents probably. I had 3 roommates...one was in his 20s, part of the Norwegian army. Another was from Finland, and the last one was an older guy (he didn't honestly look that old, but his youngest of 6 kids is 29 years old...) from Canada. It was pretty cool to talk to random people to see where they are on their life journey and what their plans are. And sharing a room and shower and all that wasn't that bad, although I probably wouldn't actively seek out hostels (this was just for one night, plus it was like half the price of a hotel).

I didn't really know what I was supposed to check out at Geneva, so I ended up just seeing the UN, a couple of churches and like a famous square, plus the geyser fountain thing. They ended up giving me a free public transport pass again (could've saved money and not even bought the train ticket to get back to the airport in advance), so I took advantage and rode all over the city. The food really was expensive though, I looked at a couple of restaurants and a dinner would've cost $40+, so I ended up eating...yes, shamefully, Burger King. And I also tried Twix made with Swiss chocolate. My cousin said that they taste better, but no, I couldn't really tell the difference. Haha.

This was a pretty funny situation - like 4 motorcycles stopped in the middle of the street to talk to this lady. I guess she needed directions or help, or something. You can see everyone else looking at them...

July 6 - 7th, 2024 - Zurich

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 18:02:00 +0000

I was very excited to go see my cousin and her kids in Zurich. I took the train from Geneva to Bern, stayed a night, and then went to Zurich for two nights. I gotta say, they very rarely check your tickets in Switzerland...I guess the fine is pretty huge when they do catch you, either that or everyone is super honest there.

It randomly rained like crazy right before we went to dinner the first night there. But we walked around and took in the sights. My cousin knew a lot of random, tour guide-like information about everything! It was pretty impressive.

The next day was Sunday...and apparently, most places are closed on Sundays in Switzerland...like, it's illegal to be operating unless you're at a train station or super essential, or something. We had some breakfast at home, then lunch at this place beside the lake. It was...not great. Most of us ordered the ribs and all of it was undercooked. We actually got all of the ribs comped at the end, which was crazy cause that was ~$100 (90ish francs). We also saw some religious festival going on.

Afterwards, everyone split up and my cousin and I went to the FIFA museum and the Chinagarten (it was surprisingly nice, I guess since I didn't really expect them to have something like that in Zurich).

Even though Zurich is a big Swiss city, it still has that nature/beauty...really cool. Oh, and I tried some Swiss ice-cream (my cousin's daughter kept telling me that the water, air, and milk/chocolate there are the best and I needed to take in as much of it as I could).

July 9th - 11th, 2024 - London

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 17:43:00 +0000

I came to London before when my friend bought his BMW 335 twin turbo through European delivery, and the main purpose of coming this time was cause the flight back home was cheaper. I had also hoped to see another cousin here, but he and his family were traveling as well, so that didn't happen. I only had one full day here, so in the morning, I just walked around and saw the most famous sights again, plus Seewoo, which is the first Chinese supermarket in London founded by an immigrant from Hong Kong in the 70s (I think?).

The main attraction I had saved for the afternoon was Stonehenge. Since it is 2-3 hrs away from the city, I joined a tour. It was great, only real complaint was that the directions said to meet at Bus Stop 1 and our bus was at stop 2, so really not a big deal. I even sat next to a nice lady from North Carolina. Her granddaughter took her along to visit another grandkid in Germany and it was her first trip to Europe (she said that she didn't venture away from her house very much). We shared some interesting stories and insights and it definitely made the drive to and from Stonehenge seem much shorter than it was.

Spot the difference - erased the people with Google Photos

Original photo - it was already pretty devoid of people

Walking around Stonehenge was interesting. They, of course, had information for you to read, but they also gave you suggestions of funny photos to take. Some people were REALLY into it.

Here are some photos I took with a real camera:

Yeah, I really don't know how to make double exposures look pleasing

The place I stayed was...quite terrible. Sure, it was cheap, and it was in a fairly convenient location, so I can't really fault it that much...but they basically took a normal house, sectioned it off into a bunch of "hotel rooms," and even added pretty much just a box and made 2 or 3 more rooms out of it. My room's bathroom is actually the closet...?

Luckily, I really liked the neighborhood. The buildings were interesting, and I found a really affordable Japanese restaurant right around the corner. I had all of my dinners there! Surprisingly, it was cheaper than the Bay Area by quite a lot. And I also found a boba shop that opened 3 months ago (owner is from Hong Kong).

9.80 pounds (there was more to this - salad, tofu, etc.)

Breakfast was ok, but OJ was 6 pounds by itself

Oh, and it was super convenient riding the metro now that they just let you tap a nfc-enabled credit card (or mobile pay). You don't even need to get the Oyster card anymore, and supposedly, they will calculate and give you all of the discounts, as long as you use the same card. Nice!

June, 2024 - Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 22:31:00 +0000

Well, what started out as an Ebay sale has become a friendship that's going on 20 years now...and I'm the only person (one of the only people maybe) who has visited every single place of residence they have had since Brazil. It's pretty remarkable. =)

Anyway, so this time, I stayed for about 4 days. Since I went to Paris 2 years ago, I didn't really feel the need to redo all of the same touristy things. I made sure to not make the same mistake with the whole RATP 50-Euro fine (I guess it's gone up to 80 Euros now)for not having a photo on the back of my metro pass by putting it on my smartwatch (I literally brought my Samsung phone and watch just for riding the metro in France), but I did manage to see some new places (with my friends' help). The metro pass on the watch worked almost flawlessly, actually, so I was pretty impressed by that.

House of Claude Monet in Giverny

Yes, one of the most famous artists in all of history. They made his house into a museum of sorts and kept a lot of it looking the way he had it. Walking through the gardens and surrounding areas, it is easy to see where his inspiration came from.

Chateau Gaillard

Remnants of a defensive fortress. It was pretty cool to walk through and to look at the area it overlooks. Unfortunately, my friend got into a car accident during this trip...and they even took the day off just to accompany me too. =(

Palace of Versailles

Yep, I didn't go last time because I already got to see a couple pretty amazing palaces/castles, but I went this time. There was SO MUCH walking...the palace itself wasn't too bad, maybe a bit over an hour, but the gardens, oh man, I spent 2+ hours and didn't even get to walk through all of it. It was quite nice, especially if you're into plants, and it probably should warrant multiple visits then.

Paris (especially Eiffel Tower at night)

I went to the city 2 or 3 times...with one time being night time since I didn't get to stay that late in 2022. I finally got a few pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up (with the Olympics logo, no less), but I mostly focused on street photography while I was there.

I didn't catch the moment they revealed the secret trap door

Random stuff

So I got to go to Costco in France, and it was quite similar to a US one. I guess Costco has the formula down. I also tried escargot for the first time, which was...fine? It was almost like clams or mussels to me. I also met a French-born Chinese guy working at a boba shop. He was sent to Canada to learn English...and I realized that immigrants in other countries have it harder than I did since they pretty much have to learn English plus whatever language is spoken in the country. Man...I don't know how I would've fared if I had to do that...

Oh, and as an extra treat, here's a video of people watching from a McDonald's in Paris:

July 5th - 6th, 2024 - Bern

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 09:17:00 +0000

This is going to be short and sweet...I hope. Bern is such a beautiful city (town?). I am very glad that I stopped here to check out the sights. It is, after all, the capital city of Switzerland. To be honest, that wasn't that much to see...but the views though!

Just randomly walking through a neighborhood to get to a bus

Snowy White

Even the views from the train ride were pretty great

I looked up some of the stuff that a tourist should check out, and I allotted myself half a day to see everything. Perhaps it was because the city/hotel gave me a free transport pass, so I didn't have to trek it everywhere on foot, but I basically saw everything in 2.5 to 3 hours. As a matter of fact, that's why I was able to do that Madrid post. So here are some of the sites:

Rosengarten - It's also where Einstein Bank is, and it is very close to Barenpark, where the bears live.

Barenpark

Aldstadt (Old Town)

which included:

Zytglogge

Einstein's House (it wasn't open yet, too early, but I guess there's a cafe right below)

Cathedral

Check out views from the bridges

Kafigturm

I did stumble upon some cool markets (they had quite a few!)

I even found a pretty good boba place, except the cashier girl warned me that "this is swiss level sweetness" and told me to get 20% sugar...and it was pretty close to the 50% I normally get. I did also notice that they have these interesting looking openings to almost basements where they have extensions to a shop or just a stand-alone shop.

Finally, there are these interesting fountains...I guess there are 11 in all? I didn't try to find them all...not sure how many I actually encountered (I guess we are about to find out):

They also have a museum that has some interesting architectural stuff going on a little ways away from old town, but I didn't go in.

My hotel was actually quite good, even though there were shared bathrooms and showers. Since I had so much time, I wrote a review for it while I was still there, and they read it right away! Luckily, I had a good experience, and the people were super nice, so they thanked me profusely for a good review. But yes, they held my luggage, and then when I had to spend like 3 hours extra there, they were super welcoming and even told me to help myself to the water and coffee.

Elevator was pretty tight

Finally, I was a little surprised that there was a lot of trash early in the morning that had to be cleaned up. I guess it is the Euro Cup, and I saw people celebrating Spain (and cheering on Portugal during the game), but yeah, a ton of beer bottles and trash the next morning.

July, 2024 - Madrid

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 13:38:00 +0000

So this was probably the closest to an impulse buy as it gets for me...my friend mentioned that he and his family will be going to Spain later in the summer, so I started looking up prices for him. I sent some cheap prices over to him, and then I realized, "Hey, wait the minute, I can go to Spain for cheap too!" So, that's how the trip came about. I ended up booking flights to a total of four countries, with the intention of visiting friends and family in the other three countries. Well, it ended up that my cousin left London, so I won't get to see them there, but otherwise, it works out. I mainly used points to book the flights, only paying for the taxes and fees with the credit card. Some of the flights sounded really cheap, 27,000 points from SFO to MAD, for example...but I realized too late that I probably could've saved some money if I had booked the flights within the EU separately (or taken trains).

Anyway, back to Spain. I had been to Barcelona before with my cousins, but that was a long time ago (and I guess completely different atmosphere and culture, etc.). Not to mention, I feel like that my Spanish has improved since then, due to Peru and just talking to some workers at Carl's Jr. and a custodian at school (they are kind enough to humor me and my terrible Spanish). I was able to get by, basically, with that Spanish and English. Quite a few people didn't speak very much English in Madrid, so I was a little surprised (I guess kinda like when I went to Shanghai), but that really just means I need to improve my Spanish more than anything else. One person even said that my Spanish isn't THAT bad and that I would just need to live in Spain for a bit...hmmm, sounds tempting.

So I really enjoyed the city's vibe. Everyone is just kind of happy and going about their own business. I don't know if I would classify people as nice, like, I don't know how many people would stop and ask if you need help kind of nice, but they are nice enough. Very polite, and I guess fashionable. It was decently hot, got all the way up to 100+ degrees Fahrenheit one of the days, and the sunlight is INTENSE. It was also not super easy to find shade in the touristy areas, so beware if you go on a hot day. They do have drinking fountains scattered around that you can use, and in general, I found that the prices are more than reasonable and they aren't trying to gouge you just cause you are at the airport, for example (the McDonald's prices at the airport were the same as the city ones!).

I landed after 11pm and managed to get to the hotel right around midnight. The metro system is quite affordable (there's some half off promo going on this year?). I was going to do my usual and get the Madrid City Card, but apparently it is not such a great value. The city is very walkable, and I just ended up paying for 10 trips, including the two to and from the airport. There is a 3 Euro surcharge for the airport leg, and 2 Euros for the card itself, and I ended up paying a total of 14.60 Euros (compared to ~50+ Euros in Paris for 3 days of riding). The other reason I did not get the city card was because I found out that a lot of museums have free entries during certain days or hours (or if you are a teacher, for example, with proof that they'll accept). So I cheaped out and went to the Prado (gotta go line up, no need to reserve in advance) and Reina Sofia (still need to get a ticket) during the last two hours and got in for free. A lot of the other museums are only 3 Euros to get in (like the Sorolla Museum and the National Archaeological Museum (MAN). The other kind of museum I went to and REALLY enjoyed was the Temple of Debod (free admission, but still need to get a ticket in advance). I would totally recommend that, and MAN. Not much of an art person, so I guess you kinda have to go to the other two.

I got there maybe 30 min before 6?

We're going in!

I walked A LOT and did not get to see everything in 2 hours

Reina Sofia coming from Lavapies

There was still a line even with the reserved times

This was a cool, eerie room

View from the terrace

National Archaeological Museum

Most museums require a 1 Euro deposit for the storage locker that you get back

This was cool - looked like separate projectors

Temple of Debod

I guess it's supposed to have water...would've been cool at night

I didn't know you get to go inside!

Can still see the hieroglyphs

Press a button and it lights up the specific area and explains what it is

3d model of where all the temples used to be (most/all have been relocated)

After going inside, THEN we can walk around and take pictures

The thing that I normally do and did was book a "free" walking tour. I find these helpful in getting my bearings, meeting some other tourists and locals (usually just the guide), although I never quite got the directions right in Madrid and kept getting turned around for some reason). The tour guide was, as usual, super nice. I feel like he skipped some notable things that we walked past, but he did have some cool history and tidbits to share with us. Even his own story, born in France to Argentinian parents, been living in Madrid for 10 years? 12? Doing this tour guide gig for like 8 or 9 I think? He totally reminded me of one of my co-workers, actually. But yeah, the tour took us through the west side of the city where they had more of the medieval and Muslim history. Oh, and I also met a young teacher from Alabama. She was carrying the small Fuji mirrorless, and she had just finished walking the Camino in France and is now traveling all over Spain.

Joaquin, our tour guide

He even gave us a custom made Google Maps list of 100+ recommendations via QR code. You can check it out here if you want. I went to some of the places to eat (plus the 360° Rooftop Bar to check the views, 5 Euros entrance).

Calamari Sandwich, 4 Euros

Fried fish basically, I even ate a little bit of one of the tomatoes!

Spanish "French Toast"

View from 360° Rooftop Bar (Riu Hotel)

Here are some of the "must sees" for first time tourists...at least what they told me to go see, right?

Plaza Mayor

Cathedral

National Palace

Plaza de Cibeles (Palace of Cibeles)

Puerta de Alcala

El Retiro

Crystal Palace

Fallen Angel

Library of Spain

Puerta del Sol

Kilometer Zero

Bear and the Tree

Casa de Campo

Fountain of Neptune

San Antonio de los Alemanes - "Sistine Chapel of Madrid"

Chocolatería San Ginés - Yes, this was better than the other one I randomly walked by that was also old

Sobrino de Botín - oldest restaurant in the world

And finally, some sites recommended by Atlas Obscura, more the weird/hidden items than must-sees, so basically right up my alley.

Lucky Frog

Walk of Fame

Rocker Grandma

Dolmen de Dalí

Air Crash

And finally, just so I can rant...one night, they randomly closed off the exits to all of Sol's metro exits and I had to find another stop that was close to my hotel to get out. Luckily, it wasn't too bad...just added way more walking and time than my limping legs and blistered feet wanted. Oh, by the way, the hotel I stayed in was a very good value. It was right in the heart of everything and was fairly affordable and the room had ac and was decently sized. I wouldn't mind I staying there again if I go back to Madrid, and that is one of the few cities that I would consider going back (along with Rome, and Japan in general, so far).

April, 2024 - New Zealand

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 31 May 2024 06:43:00 +0000

Coolest thing: Some of the lodgings I stayed in were very fascinating, with The Prospect of Howick Accommodation taking the cake since it has a pub/restaurant downstairs, and then both temporary and permanent residents on top.

Expected: Amazing landscapes everywhere, lots of driving

Pleasantly Surprised: Very international country...I probably talked to more people who immigrated to New Zealand than not, and heck, I found Hong Kong Cafes just by randomly driving.

Biggest Blunder: Probably the fact I didn't bring my camera into the Waitomo Caves to attempt some photos of the glowworms (or following Google Maps and driving on gravel for like 30 km).

Biggest Regret: Had a chance to do some astrophotography, but I fell asleep and the clouds were back by the time I woke up.

Couldn't Get Used to: Definitely driving on the "wrong" side...mostly the turn signal vs. viper, but did drive on the wrong side of the road twice.

That was the TL;DR version of my trip above...but yes, New Zealand was pretty great. I probably should've stayed longer (well, now that I'm jobless again, I guess I could stay for as long as I want!). Of course, I went with a cheapie car rental company, and for the life of me, I couldn't get them to waive the built-in collision waiver, which meant that I couldn't get my credit card to cover the rental. Luckily, nothing bad happened, besides driving on the wrong side a couple times, getting into the passenger's side, and all of those inadvertent wiping of the windshield. Oh, and the funny thing was, I had to use a public pay phone to call the shuttle to go get me. That was when I first met one of NZ's many expats. There are quite a lot! The driver was a young woman from Argentina...I also met a young French guy on my hike, and a lot of the restaurants and gas stations and maybe just the service industry in general were run by someone who wasn't born in NZ.

Anyway, back to the rental - the car was a Toyota Aqua hybrid, and quite a few times (mornings? cold? not sure what was going on), the brakes would not work properly and would grab very suddenly and harshly, almost as if there were no brake pads? I don't know...it was not pleasant and scared the crap out of the me the first time it happened. I do have to say that the car worked pretty great overall. I drove a good 30 km on gravel (thanks Google Maps!) and the car held up fine! It was a terrible experience that I hope to never repeat again. Haha

Waterfalls

So one of my old students lived in NZ for a year back when she was younger (yet another expat I guess) and she suggested that I visit a couple of waterfalls. I actually saw three waterfalls, with the first one being Hunua Falls. They had a picture frame set up so that you can take photos of it in the background! It was pretty funny. I also liked the cleaning process they make you do before you go into the area...it's pretty cool, especially the pressure-sensitive spraying of disinfectant onto your shoes. I also had to do the shoe cleaning/rubbing before going to the volcanic island.

The second waterfall is Bridal Veil Falls (this was the one I was told that I had to go see). This one had a pretty steep walk down and back up, with many steps, if you want to go all the way to the bottom to get a different perspective.

Then I had to do the 30km gravel road thing to get to Marokopa Falls. There was a short hike, but I wasn't careful enough and my shoes got really muddy (even went through to my socks), so I decided to put them in a bag to throw away later. But, lo and behold, as I was driving to the Glowworm Caves, I saw this interesting fence with a bunch of shoes. So I just hanged mine there too, although later, I looked it up and I guess it's supposed to be boots? But I saw some non-boots, so there we go...

Oh, and there was this family that insisted on going down to where the water was, which is fine and all, normally, except that there were 3 small children! They were definitely...um, brave? Adventurous? Considering it was wet and steep and rocky...but at least they made it down safely.

Waimangu Volcanic Valley

This was a cool hike. I was super worried that I wouldn't have time to get to the lake at the end and get back in time for my tour and then Hobbiton, so I was kind of running through the whole way. Luckily, their time estimates are, per usual, fairly generous, so I had plenty of time at the end to catch the shuttle back and to make the tour.

Whakarewarewa - Indigenous Village

I wanted to see at least one indigenous village, so it ended up being this one. They originally lived on the volcano and had to relocate to this location after an eruption (I think that's right), and they have adapted and made very cool uses out of the thermal openings and geysers and hot spring water and everything.

Hobbiton

Next, I went to the Shire. It was unreal how fake everything looks. Fake as in, so pristine and unreal, far too beautiful to not be in a movie. The history/story of how this came to be was pretty cool. Apparently, they scouted the farm/ranch/land and talked to the owners, who had never even heard of nor read any of the books. And when they went back the second time to rebuild the set for the Hobbit movies, that was when they decided to make the set permanent and into Hobbiton.

Waitomo Caves - Glowworms

I lost cell service for quite a while and had to guess the correct direction to drive in after the waterfall, but luckily I guessed correctly. I also saw a random cave attraction (Piripiri Caves) thing and stopped and the couple confirmed it for me, so that was good. This is also when I found the shoe fence...sorry, this is not in chronologic order. But the Waitomo Caves (Wai means water) were quite good. You basically get a little tour through the caves and then ride a boat in the dark to see the glowworms. They almost look like LEDs, tbh, and the boat is just pulled by the tour guide with some ropes fastened to the caves. One thing I wish I could take back was the fact that I didn't bring my "real" camera since they had "No Cameras!" signs everywhere. But in reality, they allow pictures at the very end of the boat ride, so I think I could've gotten a better picture of the "worms" (I guess they are actually maggots), maybe.

Howick

I swear that I saw and ate at more Hong Kong Cafes in New Zealand than almost anywhere else. I tried one in Auckland and it wasn't that great, and then I drove through this suburb that totally reminded me of the US (and not NZ at all!) and saw another random one. That one was actually passable, and the milktea was quite good.

But one of the coolest things I saw in NZ was this place I stayed at for one night called the Prospect of Howick Accommodation. It's got a pub/restaurant downstairs, and then it's a long-term and short-term lodging place above it. The place also has a lot of history, and I don't know, it was just really cool I thought. The poor manager has to put everything down and walk each guest through all of the do's and don'ts multiple times a day though...

Hamilton Gardens

This was actually way better than I anticipated. I should've allotted more time for it...I was only there for about 30 min and I didn't get to see everything. It is a really cool, publicly funded attraction that is free to enter. They do ask for donations, and I couldn't even do that since it closed and they were shooing us away.

Auckland

The first and last nights were spent in Auckland. Downtown was fine, although a lot of the eateries were closed during the day. I managed to go up to the top of Mount Eden for the sunset on my last day there. I do have to say though, that I've never had to pay for parking as much as I did in Auckland. Man...

Rangitoto - Volcanic Island

Driving along the coast

One afternoon, I just drove along the coast and took in the sights. It kind of reminded me of the Drive to Hana in Maui, but I mainly wanted to get a good picture of the wooly cows.

Misc

I guess this will just be random pictures that I didn't put up there, but this post is getting quite long in the tooth, so here we go:

This was a medium...smaller than a US small.

April, 2024 - Fiji

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 12 May 2024 18:21:00 +0000

I am going to try adding a summary, tl;dr version of the trip to start:

Coolest thing: Seven Dollar Bill!!!

Expected: Friendly people, beautiful sunsets

Pleasantly Surprised: Pretty affordable

Biggest Blunder: Wasn't prepared and didn't even bring cash (definitely need it in Fiji)

Biggest Regret: Probably could've gotten a couple more activities in, but I didn't want to book more tours

Couldn't Get Used to: Fiji time (I did try to relax and slow down, but yeah, nope!)

Well, I didn't know anything about Fiji except that I have a co-worker and an old student whose families are from here. But when I saw that my ticket to New Zealand basically included a stopover in Fiji, I figured I would check it out for a couple of days. I was just going to lounge around, but I did end up booking one sort of intro tour. I guess the main thing I wanted to see was the largest Hindu temple in the Southern Hemisphere and some nice beach sunsets?

The people are really nice and friendly, and I found that a bunch of them want to pose and have their picture taken. It was just nice to interact with warm people who aren't trying to scam you (although there was one sus guy who followed me for a few blocks and wanted me to go to a certain area).

The tour that I booked started right after I landed. It was...ok. One of the Aussies (actually, the other 3 people on the tour were all from Australia) told me that she had better tours and that this one wasn't worth it. But I guess at least I got to see the temple, got a hike in and saw some cool sceneries, got to try the traditional Kava drink, got a ride from the airport and met some cool people. =) Oh, and the mud pools! And um, I also "exchanged" some Fijian dollars for the alcohol I bought at the duty-free shop inside the airport with the guide who came to pick me up. Apparently the price of alcohol is almost doubled outside of the airport...oh and I found that basically every place that takes credit cards will charge you a surcharge, so you definitely need to be aware of that and have cash on hand (such as when I paid the driver to take me to the airport).

Kava - old student laughed at me and told me all I did was drink "brown water"

Bula!

Waiting for guide to arrive at airport coffee shop

I stayed at a pretty cheap bed and breakfast by one of the beaches. Some weird incident happened (first night, maybe 2 am, loud screaming and yelling, almost as if there was a fight or kidnapping, or something) and we were without power for a few hours another day. But all in all, it was fine and cheap. The breakfast they provided in the morning was quite good, and there is a nice lounging area outside. It did randomly rain really hard (I guess the forecast always said thunderstorms, so those didn't really pan out).

I did try to use the public transportation to get into town and then to get to Denarau Island. The mini bus ride into town was fine, and the bus ride to Denarau was ok too (just had to wait maybe 20 min for it to fill up). I was waiting for a final bus stop to get off of, but it turned out that I should've gotten off at the pier. Since I didn't, I ended up basically just taking a joy ride back to Nadi. Unfortunately, waiting for the bus to go back to the bed and breakfast took nearly 2 hours. I guess there was some sort of a schedule because a bunch of locals came around 3 min before it was supposed to leave, but there were a bunch of locals who waited the 2 hours with me. Yeah, so I would say that you should probably take a taxi or just book tours to get around. That and the roads can be quite bad. Drivers are routinely driving in zig zag paths and onto oncoming traffic to avoid multiple potholes or roads are just unpaved.

First bus to get into town

Second bus to go to Denarau

On the way to Denarau

Saw one of the guys who waited for the bus with me (he's waiting for the bus to go back)

Finally, just a bunch of sunset photos. The sunsets weren't even super spectacular, but some of the photos came out pretty great.

February, 2024 - Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 05:59:00 +0000

Well, I just noticed that my last post is from over a year ago (although I guess I haven't really taken any real trips anywhere) and I haven't had time to even do this post from Hong Kong, so I figured I would try to take advantage of this super long layover in Fiji to do it, otherwise I will probably never get to it.

Lounge wouldn't let me in yet cause the layover is so long

I have gone back to Hong Kong during our "ski week" before, but usually it is too late to see any of the Lunar New Year stuff. This year, with the weird calendar (Easter was in March?!), I was able to catch the very tail-end of it. I think I arrived on the 10th of the new year.

Year of the Dragon

I even got to see two lion dances!

But I would say this trip's claim to fame was actually the First Class ticket I redeemed with credit cards points (I am way too commitment-phobic for this type of thing, since I think I booked this all the way in the summer?). I also would've just booked business, but the flight from New Delhi to Hong Kong would've been Economy instead of Business (they downgraded it one level for some reason), so I went with First Class. The flight was with Air India, even though I booked through Air Canada.

First, the good - the food was actually great, and the flight attendant actually made a bed for me during the flight (that wasn't the case for business class, although I am thinking it might be due to the fact that this plane was super old...). They even gave out sets of pajamas.

Now, some of the not so good...there were tech bros and an Apple Vision Pro, but in general, the plane was just ultra old and almost falling apart. I wouldn't really even expect an Economy seat to look this "tired." I mean, they had to move me to a different seat because my original seat's electronics didn't work, but my new seat's outlet and flight map didn't work, so I was kind of going between the two. Plus, since the design of the lie-flat seats are so old, it didn't really work very well and you couldn't change into the other if your tray table wasn't stowed away, which made it kind of awkward to eat if they served the food while you were lying down.

Anyway, the flight to Hong Kong from New Delhi was newer, I think, but not much better. Once again, they changed my seat and my outlet also didn't work. Plus, what's going on here?

The food was decent, but the Delhi airport was actually quite cool. I did go to the lounge, but there were some interesting sights.

I finally got to Hong Kong after I want to say 26 hours and it was like 5 in the morning. Took the trusty bus to my grandma's (it's still only ~$2.50, I really don't know how it works). The whole point of this trip really was just to visit and spend some time with her, so I didn't make any plans to do anything.

But, of course, met up with most of the relatives, and I saw all of the next generation (cousins' kids). Other than that, it was just random meals (I feel like I didn't make good choices this time and the food wasn't as good, or something).

I did go around looking for toys to buy and actually brought some interesting stuff back. The Hachi-Roku model from Initial D, a toy rice cooker that actually creates steam (an old student wanted it for her kid), a couple robot models, stuff for nieces and nephews and friends' kids, etc. And I also saw that the Transformers restaurant was open, so I went in and walked around and got the lady mad cause I didn't order anything. What I really wanted to buy was the Vivo X100 Pro (for its camera), but I didn't really see one, so I ended up buying a Xiaomi iFixit kit, pretty much.

Now, of course, Hong Kong being Hong Kong, had some new stuff going on. And a couple places that aren't new, but I had never visited before. Airside is a pretty new mall by the old airport and it has some weird stuff, such as the restaurant that also offers indoor surfing lessons...?

Airside

Display inside Airside

You want some indoor surfing with those fries?

Night view from the top/back

I think they are doing a stadium/exercise thingy here

Chubby Hearts (came from London)

Above the high-speed rail station

And here are just some random shots that I liked (nope, I didn't even bring a real cameras):

That's the wrong duck right?

Causeway isn't really known for this

I haven't had this in probably 20+ years at least

I guess they are all taking a phone break

More and more of these lemon tea places...

Wong Tai Sin Temple

Winnie the Pooh computer mouse

Found a store that ONLY sells Monopoly stuff

Way cool advertisements and posters

Finally, the lounges on the way back were quite nice. The Chase one in the HK airport was great, but the ANA one at Incheon had pretty good food plus these super cool massage chairs that raise your feet above your head and rotate and all that. Actually, right before the flight landed, the monitors told everyone to do stretches and move around and quite a lot of the passengers complied. It was quite amusing.

Chase Sapphire Lounge at HKG

ANA Lounge at ICH

Awesome chair, although idk how hygienic it is...

I realize this was just a photo dump...hopefully my posts about Fiji and New Zealand are more timely and refresher so that I can say more about them.

February, 2023 - Athens, Greece

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 23:11:00 +0000

Finally getting caught up with the travel blog posts...so this was my most recent trip. Greece was surprisingly affordable and the people were nice, but I had the feeling that I was "out of stuff to do" midway through the trip (even though that was definitely not true, I didn't really go to any museums, plus it was low-season, so they probably had fewer events going on). I did really enjoy seeing the inspirations for one of my favorite animes of all time - Saint Seiya (which is actually one of the most popular animes in Spanish-speaking countries), so that was pretty rewarding.

Yes, that's me

One of the reasons I chose Athens was cause that was on my list (but honestly, basically any place I haven't visited is probably "on the list), but it was also because I was trying to use up my travel credit from the Venture X credit card. I am way too impatient when it comes to those credits...oh well. The flight was around $560 I think? And the airbnb was ridiculously inexpensive, just under $150 for 5 nights I think. And it was the whole flat/studio apartment, so way more room than one person would need. The host was amazing and met me there and spent like an hour explaining everything about the place and the city to me. It was located in a really convenient neighborhood as well - fairly close to the subway, a couple busses right around the corner, and some of the attractions I went to were within walking distance as well. In the end, if I count what I spent to getting to and from SFO (that was a mess, clipper card not working, caltrain electrification service interruption) and the food there, then I probably went just a tad over my target of $1000 for the trip (probably like $1100 or $1150, still very reasonable I think).

Sometimes I feel like I am missing out on this whole alcohol thing

Host baked as welcome gift

Got this 6-pack at the market near airbnb for 2.15 Euros

Of course, most people go to Athens to see the Acropolis. There is a package ticket that includes 6 other attractions, and a few of them are worth seeing, plus you get to skip the line at the Acropolis if you buy it at one of the other ones, so I would say it's worth it (30 Euros I think). Oh, and in terms of getting around the city, the train ride from the airport to the city takes around 35 min and costs 8.25 Euros I believe. Then, I just got a 5 day pass that gives you unlimited rides on the subway and busses and stuff for I think another 9 Euros. Obviously, the boat ride to the islands wouldn't be included, and I took a regional bus to Sounion to see the Temple of Poseidon, and that was 12.50 for a roundtrip ticket (I believe it is 7 Euros each way if bought separately).

Ok, so the Acropolis. It doesn't take too long to go through it, I would say, no more than 2 hours for sure. It was pretty cool, and the view of it from Mount Aerogaus at night was amazing. The one thing that was slightly disappointing was the construction/maintenance going on because all the scaffolds and cranes kind of ruin the look (though it is very necessary).

The other places you can enter (you get 5 days) with the aforementioned ticket are - Roman Agora, Ancient Agora, Hadrian's Library, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Lyceum of Aristotle, and Kerameikos.

Now, Sounion is 2-hour bus ride one way, but I would recommend it if you have the time to spare. Not only do you get to get really close to the Temple of Poseidon, you also get pretty great views of the Aegean Sea on the way there (or back). The website I saw said to sit on the right hand side on the way there, and the views really were quite spectacular. In terms of the bus, it is right outside the Park, and you pay in cash while you're on the bus (they have a ticket person who rides on the bus and dispenses tickets).

Some of the strangest things I saw, I got from Atlas Obscura, of course. My favorites were the displays that they discovered while constructing a new building, such as the Roman tomb in the Zara store and parts of the fortification wall half a level down the hotel lobby.

A few other highlights that I saw included the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the changing of the guard ceremony (I didn't even know Athens had one), a few of these statues, and tiny/old churches sprinkled through the city. And there are a few good viewpoints from the top of mountains to see the city - Mount Lycabettus and Aeropagus (you can see the Acropolis really well here too).

I did go to one island - Aegina. I chose the closest island after finding out (too late) that it is an 8-hour boat ride to get to Santorini and I decided that it was not worth 16 hours plus a night's stay for that one picture that everyone takes. Apparently, they have faster boats (5 hours) in the summer, or one could also fly. The island I went to was only a little over an hour on the commuter boat (cars and even tour busses get transported on these boats too). The one thing I wanted to see was the Temple of Aphaia. Apparently, they only have one temple dedicated to her and it is on this island. Unfortunately, being low-season, the bus schedule was extremely sparse, just 3 busses a day and the return trip wouldn't really work out. I ended up just walking around the port a bit, tried a restaurant out, and then went back to Athens (yes, the taxi driver was happy to take me for 40 Euros instead of the 4 Euros for the bus roundtrip).

Finally, in terms of food. I didn't really go to super fancy places, but the food was mostly pretty good and decently cheap (compared to the Bay Area). I would say a dinner is probably around 12-16 whereas an average dinner here in Silicon Valley is probably 20 to 25? And the baklava place I went to was pretty good, a little bit too sweet. The lady in there was super nice, but she was the only person I encountered who didn't speak English. She offered me some Turkey tea and a sample, and I just laid down all of the cash I had left and she tried her best to give me as much baklava as she could (I think she gave me a bit too much).

I did have a math-teacher fail (cause we are supposed to know all of the Greek letters and all that). I was looking for "Pita Pan" and walked past the restaurant several times because it didn't occur to me that the sign I was looking at corresponded to "Pita Pan." Sad. But I even happened to be at a restaurant where they had a wedding going on (on a Wednesday?!), so that was pretty cool. And I walked past a funeral on my way to the First Cemetery of Athens, so I've experienced both now, I guess.

After being scammed in Turkey, I had no desire to interact with random people off the street anymore. I had to avoid this one dude who was definitely at least trying to sell me something at best, or wanted to somehow get me to go somewhere, so I just ignored him (yay, learning and all that). But there was one funny/good-natured racist encounter with a driver. There were two women in a car, whom the garbage truck driver next to them were staring at. The driver noticed me and just asked me, "How do you say hello in Chinese?" I was a little taken aback and said, "What?" She repeated herself, and I said, " I guess 'Ni hao'?" She said, "Oh, that's right. So where are you from?" I told her America, California to be more precise. She said, "Oooooooooo California, Hollywood!" And then yeah, she drove off. <shrug>

Hmmmm, so now I need to figure out what trip to book next. I am hoping my 2 friends who will be going to Greece in a month or so will have a good time. I think they are both gonna be going to Santorini, so I am sure their trips will be quite different from mine. Oh, and I lumped a 16 or 20 hour layover in Frankfurt together on this trip. I was mostly struck by how many Asian people I saw in Frankfurt. That, and 3 guys were drinking at a bar, at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

July, 2022 - Hong Kong During Quarantine

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 01:16:00 +0000

Wow, I just realized that I neglected to do a post for this trip and the Hawaii trip. How lazy can I be, especially for someone who doesn't even have a full-time job (at least not paid like it's full-time).

Lounge at Bangkok airport that had a little bed

The Hong Kong trip before they stopped caring about covid was quite surreal. First, there was the 7-day quarantine at the hotel. The airport looked like a scene out of a zombie movie where it's just a funnel to get you to the next test station. Then, you wait for your shuttle to take you to your already-booked quarantine hotel (as in, you had to book and pay for one before they would let you fly into HK). You were given 3 pretty bad meals a day, had to do a RAT (rapid antigen test) on your own daily, and they also came to do a PCR test on you I think twice during that week. After you obtain your freedom, you still had to go to a government approved testing site for 2 more tests (day 10 and 13? Something like that). It was pretty wild.

The whole airport was just a long line for you to get to each station

Yes, Happy Quarantine...

On top of all that, you have to scan a QR code in the"Leave Home Safe" app pretty much entering any sort of building and then tell it that you had left. It's so the government knew who was where in case they need to come nab you into a quarantine center. And, of course, mandatory mask-wearing, even outside, anywhere in public or a $5000 HKD fine (~$600ish US).

Quarantine Hotel

ven with all that to get used to, I still managed to find some cheap and good eats. That was really all I wanted to do - eat some stuff, and see my grandma. She had been having some health issues a few months before I arrived, but luckily was doing much better by the time I got there. I managed to see her once a week, so 4 times I think. Oh, and this was the first time I didn't stay at her place while in Hong Kong. I ended up getting a super cheap (and ultra tiny) little room at North Point. It was super convenient and quite affordable, although I am not sure if that's just how much it always is, or if it was due to covid and a lack of tourists.

Gotta be the smallest room I've been in, Seoul came close

But let me start over. When I was booking the trip, I saw that all of the tickets were over $1000, so what I ended up doing was using I want to say 120k points and a couple hundred dollars in fees to book a business class ticket to and from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the itinerary was horrendous. I think it was like 26 hours to get there and 31 hours to get back? Or maybe it was the other way around. Not to mention, there was also the super strict, negative PCR test within 48 hours in order to get into Hong Kong, which was pretty hard since my flight took so long. Experiencing business for the first time (except when I was randomly upgraded when I was like 11 years old because my mom didn't want to be separated from the rest of my siblings on a flight way back when) was definitely interesting. The United lounge at SFO looked pretty impressive, almost like a fancy restaurant/hotel.

Of course, they also greeted me by name when I boarded and offered me a glass of champagne to start off the flight. What a waste...it was pretty amazing - food was quite good, and well, the thing I wanted most was the lie-flat seats and the private little cove you get to sit in. Unfortunately, there was a leak, and the flight attendant kind of just played it off as something that happens with "these planes."

Could've been alcohol

Look ma, lying down

Table cloth?!

Real food

I had a layover in Seoul, which was fine. The food at the airport was reasonably priced, cheap even. There was this family who were in line in front of me to get cleared with the PCR test and they didn't have the proper timestamp, so the agent wouldn't let them go. I am not sure what happened to them. My agent in Bangkok did the math wrong at one time and I had to correct them (there were like 3 time changes), so I was able to fly into Hong Kong. The layover in Bangkok was pretty brutal. I think it was like 10 hours or something, from maybe 9 pm to 7 am? Luckily, the lounges at the airport are pretty nice. I got kicked out after the max allowed 3 hours, but I was able to get some food, nap and even shower.

The flight from Seoul to Bangkok was economy class, but luckily, it was business class again when I flew to Hong Kong.

Well, anyway, then I arrived in Hong Kong. Went through all the testing and quarantine bus ride and 7 days of pretty terrible food, and got released/discharged straight into a typhoon.

My aunt and uncle had this delivered to me...only actual decent meal that whole week

Well, so after that, it was just a lot of scanning QR codes to get into venues and food and random museums (they have a lot of like, free entrance days. They also just opened one with the old Chinese exhibits, but all of the tickets were booked up way in advance. I heard the one in Taiwan is still better).

Haven't had this egg dessert in years (decades?)

One nice thing about this trip was that I got to see all of my cousins and their kids (I had only met one prior to the trip). I was also able to visit my grandma like 4 times? It was the longest stay in Hong Kong since I was a kid (since I wasn't sure how long the quarantine would be, so I booked ~1 month just in case). It was definitely nice that I got to see everyone (I think I only didn't get to see one of my uncles, all other relatives I saw at least once).

Well, at the risk of making this too long...here are some of the cooler looking pics from the trip. It certainly was an interesting experience...hoping to score some free tickets that the government will be giving out in a couple of months (doubtful).

M+ Museum

Still crowded

I was tasked with finding a pair of pandas for a wedding cake (didn't work out)

Some celebrity sighting

yet another celebrity sightinng

On my way back to CA, stopped in Bangkok and then Tokyo instead

P.S. Btw, so I renewed my ID in Hong Kong and the process couldn't have been more different than here. Hong Kong is known for fast/efficient and just generally annoyed people if there is any sort of a wait or inconvenience. I kid you not, the first day when I went in to turn in the paperwork and to take a picture, I was in and out within 15 min. And when I went back to pick up the ID, it was even better. Just waited for one person in front of me, and then I entered my info and picked it up from the machine. Probably 4 minutes tops. So, a total of less than 20 min for both days...even the post office is super quick there (it took like 35 min for me to send a postcard from Athens to the US).

October, 2022 - Maui, Hawaii

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:34:00 +0000

Ok, so this is really late, and I haven't even done the Hong Kong post (nor the more recent Athens one), but here we go. We have a mid-semester break in October, so I made a 4 day trip to Maui out of it, with the help of some unused travel credits from my Capital One Venture X card (does it really count as a perk if it forces you to spend MORE money? I guess that's what they are banking on).

So the whole point of this trip was a make-up trip from my cousin's wedding since that was more of an "in-n-out" trip and I didn't really get to explore the island very much. In typical fashion, I tried to keep the trip under $1000. The most expensive item was the Airbnb, and it wasn't even very good. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), power went out for 2 of the nights I was there, and the host refunded me for those nights and it ended up being almost half off. The flights were decently cheap, I want to say, ~$300 roundtrip, plus I had some travel credits to cover parts of it. Unbeknownst to me, my co-worker and her husband were also there at the same time! So we met up to watch the cliff-diving at sunset and then had dinner at Monkeypod.

The Professional

I would say the highlights of the trip included the hike at the volcano (Haleakala National Park Maui) and the blowhole at Nakalele Point (the Road to Hana was kind of eh for me, it was just super windy and took a long time).

I didn't do a crazy hike at the volcano...I think I drove up to one of the parking spots/trailheads and then hiked ~1.5mi along the crater and then went back when it started getting cold and dark. I also kind of used up all of my water. The sights were quite incredible, and I was amazed to have 5g reception even!

So, the Road to Hana was ok, lots of waterfalls to see/try out, but it was what, 4 hours one way? So, if you're pressed for time, or have no car, I wouldn't recommend it.

On the last full day, I just kind of did a little beach tour and drove to 3 or 4 beaches. They all look gorgeous (though I didn't actually set foot in the water).

In terms of food, I did find a cool little ramen place (Ramen Ya) that had pretty good katsu, so I went back for a second time. Paia Fish Market was good as well.

And yeah, that was it...just a few more random "street photography-type" pics and Aloha from Maui.

February, 2023 - Buying an "Ugly" Panasonic Leica 12mm f1.4 Micro 4/3 Lens from keh.com

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:32:00 +0000

Fave pic from this lens so far

I've randomly come across some pretty decent deals on Panasonic lenses lately. There was a 12-35mm f2.8 II that was like $300 at a local Best Buy (it is only $240 plus tax, last I checked since I returned it), and there was this 12mm f1.4. The MSRP on this lens is a pretty ridiculous $1300 dollars. I was super interested when I saw one for $400 and started to do some research, both on the lens as well as what one can expect from a keh "ugly" rating.

The reviews all seem to agree that the lens is pretty great and the only con is basically the price, so the hefty discount kind of gets rid of that. Then I read some online stories about people buying these "ugly" lenses and most of them turned out better than expected. So, with keh's return policy (I would probably just be out $20 for shipping), I took the plunge. The lens came and indeed had scuffs and chips and marks, but the glass was almost perfect. Honestly, the only thing is this large-ish speck of something inside, but as we all know, it doesn't actually affect image quality in a way that one can notice.

At first, the plan was to try this lens out on my friend's blue GM-1. I was tasked with selling all of his camera gear since he only uses his iPhone now and has been for the past probably 5 years. I ended up selling his Canon T2i, 18-55mm kit lens, a broken 50mm f1.8 lens, a 50mm f1.4 and the 85mm f1.8, along with a Nissin flash that no one really wants. I still have a 430EX II if anyone is looking...haha. In terms of micro 4/3 gear, he had a blue GM-1 and the Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4, aka, the reason he bought his micro 4/3 stuff to begin with. Surprisingly, the GM-1 sold for more than I expected, and quickly too, so I didn't have it to test with the 12mm lens (I can't test the aperture ring, which is probably the only thing).

So, without further ado, some sample pics from the "ugly" 12mm on my OM-D E-M5 Mark II body. I find the images quite nice to look at. The colors are good and the bokeh is pretty great, to me. I am also pretty happy with its close-focusing ability. I am sure it's just a name brand thing, but dare I say that it, too, has that "special" look the Leica 25mm f1.4 has.

The sun spot look is pretty good, but the flaring/ghosting is quite bad. I guess it's partly due to the fact that the lens didn't come with any caps nor hood (luckily I had a 62mm UV filter sitting around, so I put that on for now). I did order a replacement cap on Ebay, I think it should be the same one, just from a different Panasonic camera? The hood is a ridiculous $100, so I am going to skip it. Even a beat up one from lensrental.com is like $50 (apparently Adorama had one for $18 a while ago, but no more).

I did have the most obvious competitor, the Olympus 12mm f2.0, but the images from that lens never really spoke to me. Or maybe I just feel like I got a good deal on the lens, who knows. I guess the f1.4 snobbery is real.

June, 2022 - Paris (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 17:41:00 +0000

All right, so let's see how much of this post I can knock out before I end my quarantine here. I guess it works out, since technically each part covers 3 days. So this part 2 will pick up on Sunday.

Totally forgot, some restaurant recommendations from one of the tour guides (there's a typo somewhere)

Started the day off with another free Paris Pass breakfast. This time was at Bistro Marbeuf near Champs-Élysées. It looks really cool and the staff was also very well. One of these pictures already got like 13 thousand views on Google Maps somehow.

Next on the agenda was my last walking tour around Notre Dame. Obviously it is still under repairs, so we only got to walk around the neighborhood, and then we got to check out the Crypt for some historical context afterwards. The guide was from Ukraine and I think she said that she escaped after the city became unsafe (but she had lived in Paris before). Oh, and I had wanted to go see the "Point Zero" where it is considered the center of Paris, but it was in the walled-off section in front of Notre Dame. =(

Official Street Vendor Stalls

Shakespeare and Company

Next, I just tried the VR Flyview just cause it's included in the Paris Pass and this was the last day. I don't really care for VR stuff, but it was kind of nice to see some images of Notre Dame and the restoration efforts. It might've been cooler to do the flying/jetpack one, but yeah, I didn't have time. Haha, as I was walking to my next boba shop, I saw a Korean restaurant and figured, what the heck, and had lunch there. The price is actually fairly cheap, compared to the Bay Area, and the food was all right. The boba shop I went to was called Machi Machi and it was actually pretty good. I had to buy 2 to hit the minimum 10 Euros to use my credit card, but otherwise, it was good.

Opera

Then, it was finally time for what (almost) everyone comes to Paris to see - the Louvre! I keep spelling that wrong...still haven't learned. <sigh> It was as massive as everyone says, and I definitely got lost more than a few times. I spent a good 3.5 hours here and still didn't even scratch the surface (of course, I also walked through a few exhibits more than once cause I was lost). Um, you NEED to do an online reservation and have to arrive early, at least it seemed like to me.

There was an amazing amount of things to see - artifacts, paintings, sculptures, models, architecture, you name it, the Louvre has it.

The signs were honestly not super clear and I had to ask for directions to see the Mona Lisa. The line was, as expected, so I didn't wait around to see it directly in front of me. I am wondering how the guy even managed to throw cake at it. Maybe they beefed up security?

Dinner was at my favorite restaurant that I found in Paris, Bouillon Chartier. Not only was it reasonably priced, the atmosphere was very Paris and the staff was a little more rude. It was great. They just randomly seated next to this couple, who was kind of annoyed and left. They then seated another random dude directly in front of me. Now, I've had this happen to me before in Hong Kong, where space is at a premium. But this place had PLENTY of empty tables. <shrug> Oh well, it was an experience I guess.

Menu (in English, yes, shame)

That's my dinner partner

Convenient luggage rack, I guess

That's how they calculate the bill

And to top it all off, I wanted to go up the Arc de Triomphe before heading home. I even did a good deed and helped this old lady up the subway stairs with her bags. It was right after I was feeling all warm and fuzzy for being a good Samaritan that I ran into trouble - the RATP (metro police) was checking everyone's tickets to make sure no one jumped the turnpike. I was totally confident since I had be tapping my card religiously, but the end result was a 50 Euro fine. Yeah, so apparently, you have to tape a photo ID to the back of the card. The directions did say to put a photo, BUT it never mentioned a 50 Euro fine! I guess they think it is to prevent sharing of cards? But seriously, they should give tourists a break, especially since, well, one, I have all of my receipts, and two, like they really did not mention the fine. AND the guy I bought the card from didn't mention it, nor did the guy I REFILLED the card with say anything to me, and it was obvious at that point I didn't have a photo and had been using the pass. Not a great experience, TBH.

Well, so I begrudgingly made my way to the Arc, took some pics and then went home. Bleh. Like I said, not my best trip. But at least I found out how they do Wordle in France?

Monday was probably the worst day of the trip in terms of accomplishing stuff. I was also still fuming about the fine, I think, but a bunch of the sites were closed or not accessible. The Pantheon was supposed to close at 6? But I got there at about 4:25 and they weren't taking any more guests because they closed at 3:45. I randomly walked by Musée de l'Orangerie and thought I would go in, but that required an online reservation. So yeah, failure all around. I ended up only seeing like 3 things and walking around A LOT.

In the morning, I visited the Conciergerie, which is right next to Sainte-Chapelle (should've planned it out better). This was a cool place, especially if you have kids. It is where Marie Antoinette was kept before she was executed, but that's not why it's cool. They made an augmented reality tour out of the whole place. They provide you with a tablet (Huawei, btw) and you scan this little globe throughout and it gives you visuals and sounds and information from different periods. There's even a secret treasure hunt. Sadly, I couldn't find the 3rd item.

Afterwards, I went back to Bouillon Chartier for lunch. The price of the steak was slightly cheaper, but most of the items were the same. Go figure. This time, I got there 5 min before they opened for lunch (11:30am is when they open) and they told me to come back. No big deal. The person they sat in front of me was an actuary from Eastern France. Apparently he was in the industry for over 50 years, now retired, but is doing consulting work. We had a nice chat. He was surprised I knew about this restaurant. I credited my tour guide. =)

I stopped by the Museum of City Architecture and Heritage. It was actually kind of cool to see what they had in there, from domes to arches to decorative statues and figures to how to engineer for the future and more. There were people sitting there sketching too, like in other museums.

There is also a really great view of the Eiffel Tower in this museum

Then I made my way all the way out to the Statue of Liberty. It took a long time, and a bad boba, after which, I tried and failed to get into those aforementioned places, and I ended up going to Les Invalides. I know it sounds weird, but this is where Napoleon is buried (and some others). They moved his remains here cause he was originally buried on St. Helena, I think? And that was it for Monday...

Tuesday, the very last day! My flight was at 6 pm or something, and I had debated whether to just go to the airport and wait in a lounge, or to drop off my luggage and see more sights. I elected to do the latter, I mean, who knows when I'll be back in Paris, you know? It was good because it finally felt more of my kind of a trip. I had a list of stuff from one of my favorite sites, Atlas Obscura, that I wanted to hit. I even told one of the women from the first walking tour about the first one I went to - the remnants of the Paris Guillotine. There are just three little indents in the road now, but the sign does kind of prove it? =)

Oh, I forgot to mention, the dropping off the luggage part did not go smoothly and took probably an extra hour compared to what I had allotted, so I really only had about 2.5 hours to hit 4 or 5 places before I had to head back to the airport. It was going to be tight, so I rushed off to the second spot - the botanical gardens where they have a statue of a lion gnawing on a human leg.

Maybe I can at these Garden Burgers...

Next was the University of Medicine where I snapped a photo of Death and hurried off.

Then, for the last stop, I wanted to go to see the Heart of Voltaire, but when I got there, the security guard said that it was closed (or he didn't want to let me in? I don't know). Paris had to hand me one last defeat before I retreated back to the airport.

National Library

Beautiful Park across the street

I got into the Airport Hotel, which is also a Priority Pass lounge, took a shower and ate/drank some stuff and then was on my way home.

Thanks to my two ex-students/friends who got me at SFO and took me to the train station. We missed the train by literally 2 minutes, so we ended up buying food at McDonald's. That was the day of the Edgewood fire, so they had no power at their place. But yeah, thanks again!

Cool community garden I walked past

June, 2022 - Paris (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:36:00 +0000

I mentioned in my shorter post about how this trip to Paris never felt right. I think it was probably just a bunch of little things, mainly the fact that I made some mistakes in booking things as well as the wrong times were put up online, which led to a feeling of inefficiency on my part. I do like to hit more things than humanly possibly when I can during these trips.

A Sample Day in Paris

Having said that, I don't feel like there was as much to see/do in Paris as there is in, say, Rome. Though, I really don't think I got the hang of the city layout like I did with Rome. I guess that just means I'll have to go back another time. Well, here's to one of my less successful trips. Like I said, we went by train into the city on Sunday to check things out, so I have a few pics from that.

Oh, and did I mention that this was my first "cashless" trip experiment? I brought no Euros (besides the maybe 4 cents I had left over from my previous trip), hoping to be able to get by with just tap-to-pay. It worked out pretty much. I think the only times I could've used some cash were - tipping tour guides (which isn't really a thing in Europe anyway?), buying stuff on the street (I just didn't), and I had to buy two bobas at one place to go over their minimum to use a credit. But that's it! It's quite doable and easy. Just make sure you have a card that doesn't charge you that pesky foreign transaction fee!

Food was quite affordable in France/Paris, especially with the Euro being fairly cheap

Anyway, so the real exploration on my own really started on Thursday. I began the day with a walking tour of Montmartre. This was one of the activities offered by the Paris Pass and run by a company called Experience First. I found out that they run most of these tours (all of the walking tours I went on, the Eiffel Tower tour, etc.). All of the tour guides seemed to have come from another country (Croatia, Spain, Ukraine, etc.) but all of them were quite friendly and knowledgeable.

I was the only guy on this first tour, which was interesting because we got to a statue of a woman where the belief is that you get good luck if you grab her boobs, and the tour guide mentioned something about having me try it. There were quite a lot of statues and traditions and superstitions on this tour...

Touch his hand for good luck

Walked to Notre Dame after being beheaded

The lady in question

I also realized on this trip that speaking barely any of the language (Spanish) and functionally none (French) makes quite a big difference. I didn't even know when someone was calling out my number to pick up my meal and often had to look at people around me to figure it out. I didn't even know moulin means windmill. Sad...I know.

But this was the windmill district, as well as where artists congregated. That was one thing I found really cool and amusing, that there were a bunch of people just randomly practicing sketching and drawing all over the city, on the streets, in museums, etc. I even saw a guy who would pose for his students(?) and then kind of debrief them on what they drew. I don't know that I've seen this large scale of artists in other cities before.

To cap off the tour, we ended at the top of the hill where there was a giant church and a fun little funicular ride. Yes, that also works with your all you can ride Paris pass. =)

Then onto the Montmartre Cemetery (apparently, the French do first dates and picnics and hang out in cemeteries) where I only saw one cat, and the I Love You Wall, but that wasn't super impressive. You can tell Paris is old because some of people were buried in the 1800s (maybe earlier? I didn't check every single one), and a lot of them were buried quite recently as well, as in, within the last 10 years.

And this is when plans started to not work out and I had to switch stuff around. I ended up going to the giant train station but couldn't get into the bunker (I guess I should've read more carefully). The fake house which is a metro vent was pretty convincing.

Can you tell this isn't a real apartment?

Never would've noticed...

Afterwards, I went to a gigantic park that goes up quite a few levels. It was actually really cool. It even has bridges and a waterfall, but that was under maintenance.

After the park, I went to yet another cemetery. This one is interesting in that there are some pretty famous people buried here. I got to see Oscar Wilde's tomb, for example.

Then it was onto boba. I had to give it a shot...and I actually ended up trying maybe 6 or 7 and around 40% of them were good? Better hit rate than NY, sad to say. I guess I'll just put all of the boba pics here. This first one is the only one I visited twice.

Sin from Heaven - Visited twice

Expensive and Not Good

Teawan in Chinatown (district 13)

Bulle - Wouldn't go back

Yumi Love - Not very good (red flag was water to make it less sweet)

Cha Time - Decent, but wouldn't go back

The one that made me buy two due to using a credit card was called Machi Machi. Fortunately, it actually tasted pretty good. I loosened my "no more than one boba" rule that I usually have at home when the first one I got for the day was really bad.

Finally, to cap the day off, I went to the top of Grande Arche at La Defense, which is actually just a giant Westfield.

I guess they were gearing up for some rooftop party...so I left. It was kind of hot too. Haha.

Sadly, I walked around the Westfield mall for almost an hour and couldn't find anything I wanted to eat, so I ended up eating McDonald's again. I probably had McDonald's like 6 times...it wasn't until one of my tour guides recommended this one place (see below) that I really got into going to restaurants. Well, that and the free meals the Paris Pass offered. =)

Onto day 2, which was a Friday. With my 4-day Paris Pass, I was also given a 4-day Museum Pass. It seems like the most efficient way to maximize everything is to get your Museum Pass on your 4th day because you then get 3 full days to use it after your Paris Pass expires? Anyhow, I went to get the Museum Pass, and that made me 8 min late for my Eiffel Tower walking tour (part of the Paris Pass). Part of that was because of a change in the bus route (again, knowing the language is super helpful), so I ended up having to pay an extra 10 Euros to reschedule the tour till later that day. So instead, I went to the first of many museums - Musée du quai Branly. It's an interesting museum close to the Eiffel Tower (there's also a Sewer Museum nearby, with drinking water that you may or may not trust? =P). It has old displays of various cultures throughout the world, from African to Middle Eastern to Asian, among others.

Sewer Museum

After Branly, I got a boba and then went to the Aquarium. It was all right; might be ok if you have kids and need to kill time, but I think the one in Monterey is definitely bigger and better.

Next is basically a must-see - Musée d'Orsay. It is known for its sculptures, but it has a lot more than that. Definitely should check it out (I wish I had spent a little more time here, but I would've been late AGAIN for the Eiffel Tower).

Finally, the Eiffel Tower walking tour (part of the Paris Pass, once again). I think they said that there are 674 steps going up? I went up AND came back down cause I didn't want to wait for the elevator. Probably should've brought more water. I ended up getting an ice-cream at floor 1 and an orange juice after descending because I was too thirsty. The tour guide told us some cool stories. One of which mentioned that nobody died from working on the tower, but an Italian did fall to his death when he took his girlfriend up to propose and drank too much.

They had to blur the glass because people were getting sick from looking down

Fake worker on the outside of the elevator is a nice touch

Second Floor (and to get to the top)

Some of the steps down (only spiral going down)

Shows all the shades the tower went through

After that grueling "hike," I just limped to the river cruise and kind of enjoyed the breeze and views. I took a bunch of random street photography type photos of passers-by, but I haven't worked on them yet.

Day 3 - Saturday

This day was going to end a little early, at least in terms of Paris, because we went to celebrate my friend's daughter's birthday with dinner and bowling and arcade games.

This was just after 10 pm, crazy bright still

The day started off with yet another snaffu. I thought I had booked a heritage tour of the department store, but apparently they had no bookings in June and threw me into July right away. I didn't notice and assumed it was June, and well, I didn't book a tour that I could attend. So instead of doing that tour, I went to have breakfast courtesy of the Paris Pass again, at Café Louise. I guess it's in a more posh part of town? The atmosphere was very good and the staff was super nice. I think the price for a set was around 15 to 18 Euros? Whereas the same bread, orange juice and hot drink would probably cost about 6 or 7 at a bakery. My friends said that's about the going price for a cafe.

I was supposed to just walk around Saint Germain des Pres Quarter, and it turns out the cafe was in the neighborhood. I didn't end up walking around much, but I did snap a photo of the church there.

Then I just kind of walked around some gardens, waiting for the next scheduled event (learned my lesson and didn't want to be late again!). Jardin des Tuileries and Domaine National du Palais-Royal were pretty close to each other. It's nice and relaxing, especially when I found some shade to escape the crazy heat wave that hit Paris.

Speaking of heat waves, it was just my luck that I had TWO walking tours booked on the hottest day. It ended up being ok, just super sweaty...but yeah, no one got hurt. The first one was the Le Marais Walking Tour, again run by Experience First. The meeting spot was a fountain that is under repair, but the area has a lot of cool street art. The guide even taught us to look out for some of the more famous street artists in the area. I believe the area is a drained swamp and was considered the city limits in the past, if I remember correctly. It is now another kind of upscale neighborhood in Paris.

MOMA

Interesting restaurant

The funny thing is, the same people on this tour ended up being on like 2 other tours together. But before that, I went to the 13th district? It's basically Chinatown. Had a boba and Vietnamese food. It was decent and the price was good.

Very typical toy/model shop, did not really expect to see in Paris

Then off I went to see Sainte-Chapelle (Museum Pass). It is definitely one of the most beautiful churches I've ever visited. Those colors!

After which I rushed off to join the Latin Quarter Selfie Tour (it's really just another walking tour). The tour guide said that she had to adjust the route to make sure we were mostly in the shade due to the heat. Fun fact, it's called Latin Quarter, not cause of the Romans, but because the university is here and students had to learn and speak Latin. The meeting point was at Jardin de Luxembourg (first few pics below).

Pantheon

Remnants of the city wall

Old Roman Arena (think Colosseum)

And I guess this is the French version of Bocci Ball? Called Pachonk? I don't know how to spell it...

Ok, and then I went back to meet everyone for dinner. And I realized in the middle of this entry that it is going to be way way way too long, plus I don't have the patience to finish the whole trip right now (last 5.5 hours of quarantine! Except there's a typhoon)...so I'll just leave it here as the end of part 1.

June, 2022 - (Outside of) Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Terry) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 13:43:00 +0000

Well, so after a tough year of teaching (should I take a sabbatical again? Go part time? Find a new line of work?), I decided to just get back into the international travel game just to get it out of the system. The first trip was a make up trip from February 2020. Even though I just saw them in New York a few months ago, I used some points and visited Paris for the first time (I've only transited through CDG prior to this).

For some reason, I never really felt this trip. Maybe it's cause I didn't actually live in the city (I stayed at my friend's, about 30ish km outside of the city), or I never got to see the night life, or the fact that I got fined 50 Euros on the third to last day because I didn't have a photo on the back of the Metro card, I don't know, probably a combination of everything. I did my usual - got the Paris pass, booked some walking tours to try to familiarize myself with the city, although the first few days I did not spend in Paris. My friend took a couple of days off and we visited places around the city (he was super nice and drove me everywhere).

They did go with me into the city to show me how to use the train and everything (it took probably between an hour and an hour and a half, really convenient, to be honest, and cheap!), but I basically saw everything again when I went in the latter part of the trip, so I'll save those for later. The first few days' highlights include:

Fountainebleau - my friend's favorite

Mont Saint Michel - my friend's wife's favorite

Saint Malo - nice little port town

Omaha Beach - you know, D-Day and WWII and all that history stuff

Fountainebleau is one of the many palaces for the French royalty. I guess this was THE palace before they built Versailles (I didn't have time to go to that one). I didn't pay to go inside, just kind of walked around the two gardens and the grounds. It was quite impressive. Oh, and parking was free cause it was a weekday? That's what my friend said.

Next, we drove to check out Mont Saint Michel. I have to admit, this place took my breath away. I saw some of the postcards and knew that there was no way I could get any pictures close to that, so I ended up buying like 12 postcards to mail home. Little did I know the cost is 1.65 Euros (luckily, Euros were cheap when I visited, barely 1.05 something USD to 1 Euro, but that still means I spent like $25 mailing postcards). It used to be a monastery and there is a little fortified town around it. We walked around it and browsed the insides as well. It was just, really cool. Again, we didn't pay to go inside.

We then stayed the night near Saint Malo, which my friend also likes a lot. It was a cool little port town. The quick little booking we found, however, was not so nice. It supposedly could fit 4 adults, but it barely fit the two of us.

The next day, we walked around the beach by the place we stayed at and then headed to Omaha Beach (it's interesting, the code name stuck), saw the museum and checked out the memorial on the beach. Then we headed home.

The next day was when I started my official exploration of Paris, so I guess I'll put that in another post. I am sitting on my quarantine hotel bed in Hong Kong right now and making long and detailed posts isn't gonna work out.