Published by Brett on October 22, 2009
under Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China
Dates Traveled: September 2009
This past break illustrated how spoiled Rhona and I are when it comes to the time we have to travel. I only had a 5-week break rather than my standard 6. I finished work on August 26, flew from Hammerfest, Norway, on the 27th, and arrived in Kashgar, China on the 28th. I flew back to work from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 29, so we had almost exactly a month to travel. And it wasn’t nearly enough. We felt rushed…forced to make decisions on what we would see and do…pressured…always under a deadline. And yes, we realize our month was at least twice as long as most Americans get in a year. It’s similar to the vacation time of most Europeans - again in a year. Yet Rhona and I have come to expect at least 4 or 5 breaks of 6-weeks each in a year. We’re spoiled, we realize it, we admit it…but we still feel we didn’t have enough time to do Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan justice. We’ll definitely be heading back to the area. Continue reading…
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Published by Brett on August 27, 2009
under China
Dates Traveled: June-July 2009
Beijing
While in the Beijing airport Rhona and I both commented that we weren’t looking forward to running the gauntlet of taxi drivers. In the past, dodgy characters would approach you and steer you to a ‘taxi’, and then charge an exorbitant rate. When you stated you were taking the bus, they’d say it wasn’t running, or that it costs as much as the taxi – anything to get you into their cab. Amazingly enough, that hassle had been cleaned up for the Olympics, and we had a stress-free walk to the bus we knew we needed.
It had been 2 ½ years, and one Olympics, since either of us had been in Beijing, so we encountered many changes. On our first full day a friend told us to take subway line 10 to get to his place. “Uh….there are only two subway lines.” Not anymore. And while getting to line 10 we turned a corner and saw a long escalator in front of us – and everyone was standing on the right-hand side in single file! Both of us let out an audible gasp and a, “Wow!” at that. We saw it while trying to buy train tickets as well. In the past, everyone would push, shove, and force their way to the front of the line. We used to sharpen our elbows to beat them back – to hold them at bay and keep our place in line. You can still see lining up is a new concept for some – they start to head to the front of the line, and then realize that’s less acceptable now, and grudgingly step to the end. We were impressed. Continue reading…
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Published by Brett on August 26, 2009
under South Korea
Dates Traveled: April-June 2009
Busan
We left Shimonoseki on an overnight ferry to Busan, Korea. Once again we paid for the cheapest room, and it was more in line with what we expected – a room, sans beds, with space enough for 6 people to sleep on the floor. We expected the other four to pop in at any time as it was a full ferry, but as sailing time drew near nobody entered - we once again ended up with a room to ourselves. Who were we to complain? We spent the night reading, went to sleep, and awoke the following morning in a new country - South Korea.
Our first encounter with Koreans was with an extremely helpful woman at the information counter. She provided us with some maps and other brochures, pointed out areas of interest and how to reach them, and pointed us in the direction of the nearest subway station. While trying to figure out the ticket machine at the station an elderly gentleman mysteriously appeared and helped us navigate the buttons. In fact, if we were a bit slow on the buttons on subsequent trips, an elderly gentleman always seemed to appear to offer help. I never noticed them in our normal transits through stations, but dally too long at a machine and poof – there they were.
After checking into our hotel we went for a wander. We were in a great part of town with interesting side streets. We popped into a small local restaurant and ordered our first meal. Now having just arrived we weren’t exactly fluent in the language, but that’s never stopped us before. We employed that time-honored trick of traveling – we pointed at someone’s food and held up 2 fingers. Voila! Lunch is served. Continue reading…
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Published by Brett on August 19, 2009
under Japan
Dates Traveled: March-April 2009
When will I learn? It’s been far too long since I last updated, and I find myself now scrambling to write updates and post photos before I start the next adventure in just over a week. I’ve vowed that this time I’m going to write a little bit every few days, and set aside a few photos every time I download to my laptop. I won’t post them right away, but at least I’ll have them written and can post a bit more timely. We’ll see how I go.
For those of you who need reading material more regularly, Rhona has been pretty good at posting roughly every week. You can check out her take on our travels at http://www.fouroceans.org
For my sanity, and yours, I’ve decided to break the most recent 4 months of travel into their individual countries, so first up…Japan. Continue reading…
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Published by Brett on March 25, 2009
under Wedding, Australia
Just a quick update in order to post a few photos from the Big Day! We had a perfect weekend, which began on Thursday night when our respective families met for the first time over Chinese food. Everyone seemed to get along extremely well, and the conversation flowed easily across the table and followed us to a relaxed little bar. Continue reading…
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