First of all, the whole trip almost started from the left foot (or actually almost hasn’t started) due to the volcanic ash that covered Australia & New Zeland and cause some flights havoc, but I guess we’ve got lucky and flew out of Sydney right on schedule and after about 9 hour flight landed in Honolulu at Oahu island. We’d landed in the morning and headed right to Waikiki beach, where our hotel was, but apparently the whole Hilton reservation system was down for half a day and we couldn’t get our room, so we “had” to stroll on the beach and the surrounding area.
Can’t say that I really understand what’s all the buzz around Waikiki and to us it looked like some sort of mix between Key West, Gold Cost & Eilat…

In the evening (after finally getting our room), we went to hunt for some action, well, we were mainly interested in a place that has pool tables and some decent food and following recommendation from one of the bell boys, ended up at Da Big Kahuna bar, where the umbrella decorated drinks tradition started:

On the 2nd day, after waking up at about 2pm, we decided to stretch our legs a bit and went to the Diamond Crater (the reserve is 10 min. by bus from Waikiki), climbing all the way to the top spot and apparently you can make it all the way with flip flops The scenery from up there is very nice, definitely a worthwhile climb.
Afterwards some beach time, but again, can’t say we liked this beach that much. We ended the night at the P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, which was actually pretty good.

On the 3rd day, we’d tried to  wake up earlier, but it didn’t really work out… We caught a bus to Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve and got there just on time to hire some snorkeling gear and jump into the water for some local fish encounter and even a cute green sea turtle.

The 4th day (after eventually managing drag ourselves from bed before midday) we decided to dedicate to Pearl Harbor, Arizona Memorial and the Pacific Aviation Museum. All in all an experience that is recommended, especially if all you know about Pearl Harbor is based on the movie…

We left Oahu the day after and flew to Maui (22 min. flight), got our rented Wrangler Unlimited (yeah, yeah, we became Jeep lovers) and started the famous Road to Hana, not before stopping at Cafe des Amis at Paia for lunch (great place, delicious crepes, kinda reminded us Squat & Gobble in San Fran). The Road to Hana – we’ve read in dozen of places that this is the most beautiful road in the world and now after spending 2 days on the road to Hana and a bit beyond and back, we definitely recommend it to anyone who comes to Hawaii, it’s truly magical!

On the 3rd day I went with Andrey to the exhibition and from there we went to see the Imperial Palace and were very disappointed to discover that you can only view it from the outside – meaning : you can see the gates!
In the evening we went with Yoav and 2 of his friends to an Izakaya called Daibutsu korokoro – a Japanese “tapas” bar, a beautiful place with intimate spaces, good food and great atmosphere… we felt like we entered old Japan.
These are the Pics from the 3rd day (and more to come below):

The next evening we went out to have dinner with Phillip at the most famous part of Shanghai – The Bund. located on the western part of the Huangpu River and overlooking the amazing skyline of Shanghai – this is by far one of the most beautiful places we have seen. On the one hand you see old European buildings with different architecture styles as Baroque, Renaissance, Gothic etc. , and on the other side of the river you have all those sky scrapers with their new (almost out of space) architecture design. The most famous one there is the TV building – “The Pearl of Asia”. Seeing all of this lights up is breathtaking!

The next day we decided to go back to The Bund, this time to cross to the other side and go up the Pearl of Asia to get a full view from above. We started at the pedestrian Nanjing street that is leading to the Bund itself (it is a long street so if you want to rest you can take the local tiny trains that goes back and forth). Once at the Bund, we crossed the river using the underwater SightSeeing Tunnel. It takes about 2 min. to cross and you go through a light & sound show on the way which is kind of psychedelic but nice (and if you do that skip the museums at the end…it’s a waste of time).

We left the tunnel and headed straight to the Pearl of Asia. We bought the full ticket (150 RMB per person) which gives you access to all of the tower’s 3 viewing platforms (90m, 259m and 350m) + entrance to the rollercoaster inside the building (which is for children) and an entrance to their history museum (which is very interesting as it is a miniature city of the historical Shanghai). The view from the top was amazing and the amount of photos grew bigger and bigger. After fully using our ticket and accessing every part of the tower, we headed back to the Bund, had a quick dinner and ended the night at the Hyatt’s top floor Vue bar (another tip from Phillip) having a drink and relaxing our tired feet.

The next day we went for a meeting downtown and afterwards strolled at the Tian Zi Fang area – which is a beautiful art galleries, coffee houses and restaurants quarter (that was recommended to us by Cooley from Ctrip and now recommended by us ).

To sum things up – you don’t need more than 2 days to see Shanghai but be sure that these 2 days will be unforgettable! just make sure to always carry a map with you cause no one (including taxi drivers) speaks English and its easier just to show it on the map…

Since 1 day is not that much I didn’t quite see a lot of it but my main impression is that this city is one big mall – a heaven for shopaholics… It is also a very impressive city as the buildings are big and very interesting architecture wise and still you see a lot of green trees & plants on the streets and even on the highways (feels like a tropical cement jungle).

So as you can understand I spent most of the day getting lost at huge Orchard Street which is the famous shopping  area. Since prices are not cheap and we were already facing an overweight problem I left my credit card safe and sound in the wallet…

In the evening we explored the beautiful Clarke Quay – a riverside area with lots of restaurants, pubs and bars. We had some dinner and finished the night at the Marina Bay Sands Casino – located near the famous new and oh so impressive icon of Singapore – the 3 towers hotel with the Skypark on top of it shaped like a boat. Let’s just say we had better nights at the casino and leave it as is.

Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to go up to the Skypark but we will have to try it next time we are here. Now we are in Hong Kong after a small overnight stop at Bangkok.
These are the few pictures I managed to take during my short stroll around the city:

The Racha is a luxurious resort located on a beautiful small island near Phuket (30 Min. by speed boat) and is so secluded and romantic that 80% of its customers are on their honeymoon!
If God is in the little details he probably lives in The Racha because they think about everything: whether it’s the smell in the room (which you get to choose), the amazing staff, the room design or the iPod you get with chill out music – they thought about it all!!! It was our second time there and everything was just as good as we remembered (and much more).
Well I can go on and on about this place but you really have to try it for yourself !

Since this island has a lot of great diving sites we decided to take a PADI open water diving course at The Racha’s Diving Center. We found ourselves studying theoretical material (felt like I am student again), diving in the pool and then doing the real thing – the open water dives! This was truly an amazing experience that opened a whole new world for us. I must say that for me it was a little bit more difficult than for Andrey as I fear the water thing… but I am proud to say I had overcame it and even enjoyed it eventually!
We also made new friends (Eduardo & Lauren from Mexico and Lucia and Patrick from Germany) which was another benefit of taking this diving course. Thx to Patrick and Lucia and their underwater camera we also have some underwater photos to share with you (below).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful dive instructor Singha for the patience and professionalism!

What else did we do there? Rested, had great food, I took a Thai Cooking class so now I know how to cook some Thai dishes (wish me luck) and for the grand finale we took an ATV tour to see the sunset around the island. A challenging experience I must say, but a very rewarding one.
Well, 7 days flew by and it’s our final day in Phuket, leaving tomorrow to Singapore.

We promise to keep you updated and here are some pics from Thailand (it was really hard to choose…):

Right as we went out of the airport we had a warm welcome from the sun, the beautiful sunflowers and the pool at the entrance. Then, while we were riding the taxi to our hotel we discovered how beautiful and unique the city is – with its great water canals, old architecture, colorful streets, tons of bicycles wondering around and a generally happy atmosphere.

We couldn’t wait to start exploring the city so we left our stuff at the hotel and started wondering around (with ,may I say, the best map I have ever seen). Since it was already early evening we just walked until the NES dining and nightlife area (trying not to get hit by one the many bicycles riding around) and ate a very good dinner at the Brasserie Harkema which is a well designed and tasty restaurant.

On our way back we stopped at the Casino (for those of you who are following us its probably clear by now that a Casino is a great part of our traveling experience) for a successful night and headed back to sleep:

Day 2 – Museums , Canals and the Red Lights District

We started the day with a great pancake on the Leidsplein and then went to the Museumplein which is a park surrounded by museums. We decided to visit the Van Gogh museum which was nice but we are not a big art\museums fans and then we checked out the Bols Experience (kind of) Museum. Bols is the manufacturer of famous liqueurs and Genever and they build up a tasting/smelling/seeing experience based on their historical story. It was actually fun and tasty but mainly because they let you choose 1 cocktail and 2 liqueurs shoots at the end so it’s worth the price…

Since we already walked around so much we decided to use the Canal Bus to explore the streets of Amsterdam from the waterside – this was a great journey and gave us tons of photo opportunities while sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the view. We also learned the city’s history and some interesting facts.

Fueled up with energy we started walking towards Rembrandt Plein to have some dinner, the way there was very beautiful but dinner was kinda lousy…

From there we went on, to the Red Light District to enjoy an “educational” experience and finished the night at the Casino (yes, the casino again).

It was a long, full of activities great day:

Days 3-4:

We started our third day with a visit to Anna Frank house – it was very moving and it’s a must when you are in Amsterdam! From there we just wondered around in the beautiful streets and markets, including the flower market and took another ride in the bus canal, this time on another route.

For our last day we’ve choosen to see another market (Albert market) – which was not that interesting and then we visited the cool Nemo museum – a science and technology museum where it is forbidden not to touch… it’s an amazing place for children and a nice one for “older” kids like us…:

And that’s it – we are now in the airport, about to finish this RTW trip and come back to our loved ones!

See you on our next RTW trip…

We had arrived to Helsinki in the morning and tried to explore the city, but the rain didn’t allow us to enjoy the walk so we just stopped for tea and went to catch some sleep. On the evening we did a bit of night sightseeing as the rain stopped for a while and saw the beautiful lighted castle and cathedral – the 2 most famous landmarks in Helsinki:

The next morning we drove all the way to Lappeenranta which is located in the heart of the lakes land. We expected to see lots of lakes on the way but we didn’t see anything due to the forest on the side of the roads.
In Lappeenranta it was also raining most of the time so we took a dinner-cruise to see some of the lakes and the Saimaa Canal – it was very nice, although a bit too long.
The next day we tried fighting the jet leg without any success and ended spending most of the day sleeping…
On our last day in Lappeenranta we went to see the beautiful local attraction of the sand castle and although we really wanted to visit Imatra we decided to skip that due to the fact that all major attractions were closed (and it was raining…). We then drove back to Helsinki, going through Porvoo on the way (as recommended by Kineret) and it was so cute and beautiful… it was like walking inside an old theatre set with boutique shops and coffee houses along the way (kind of reminded us of Zichron), we were so glad we finally got to enjoy the view (and with no rain!!!):

We came back to Helsinki the same afternoon and took advantage of the beautiful weather to take a look at the famous landmarks again but this time in daylight – these are the result (we actually discovered how beautiful Helsinki is when the sun is shining):

And that’s it, we spent the next 1.5 days working and resting and we are now on our way to our next destination – Amsterdam and counting down till we will back home hugging our friends and family!!!!

First Week: Affiliate Summit and Central Park
Our first few days in  NY were all about the Affiliate Summit conference – we got to meet a lot of our friends and colleagues from Israel, mingle around, do some important networking, get some update from the industry etc..

So most of our time was spent either in meetings or cocktails oh… and… of course – some dining. And once and for all we can establish that between NY’s famous steak restaurants (Peter Luger, Benjamin & Del Frisco) there is only one true winner – Del Frisco!!!

We also walked around in the area (5th avenue, time sqaure etc…) and went out to some clubs but we didn’t have our camera on.

After  5 days in the center we moved to Roie & Shirrah’s appt. on the financial district and on Friday night me and Shirrah even cooked dinner for some friends and had it on their fabulous roof top over looking the whole area.

The next day we joined Idan & Paulin for a ride on central park. We took a tandem bike (for 2) which was very funny and wondered around admiring the size and the peacefulness of the park. On our way I even saw an old colleague of mine from ICQ  – Danny Razinski (who lives in Washington…) – what are the odds? Here are some pics from the park…

Day 8 – New Jersey & Time Square

On Sunday we took the bus to New Jersey to have dinner with my family at Sam & Yivon’s house. We met everyone (most of them came especially to meet us) and it was very nice and tasty. When we came back to the city we got to Time Square and decided to have a look around. It’s truly amazing – such a touristic place, full of flashy advertisements and yet has its magic – it was 23:00 and everything was still open. We went into some stores and visited M&M’s famous store – was very fun.

We ended the evening drinking beer at Stone St. near “our” appt. – this is one of the oldest sreets in NY which is now closed to cars and is packed with bars, thus have a unique atmosphere.

Last 2 days – High Line park  and around

On our last days in NY started at Pier 17 and the Seaport area. Then, Idan took us to see some new things that we didn’t see so far. First stop was the High Line park – this is an old railway that was originally built on top of the city and was converted to an urban park – so you walk on some kind of a long bridge which is actually a park with vegetation, flowers, trees, sitting places and some of the old railway tracks. It’s very noisy and not so peaceful but very interesting and gives a great view of the city from above, statue of liberty etc..

From there we continued walking to Chelsea Market – which is an old factory (or something like that) that was converted into a beautiful market with lots of boutique’s restaurant and shops.

After walking around we met Paulin, went to see a movie and then have some beers in the upper west side.

On our next and last day we walked around the financial district and ground zero.

and this is the final set of pictures: