Travel plan idea blog

Seeing and hearing whales in Iceland and why we travel articles

This article is mostly about hydrogen power in Iceland, but since the story focuses (in part) on a whale watching ship I thought it was worth mentioning here. Especially because the hydrogen power allows the ship to shut down its engines when whales are spotted. This means that tourists get to hear the whales swim and blow water.

I don't know what whales sound like, but if you're going to see them it seems to me that you might as well hear them as well.

Iceland is the first of 17 slides in this article. I really like this article which has pictures and positive travel experiences from real people. Of course one slide is a passage from Robert Byron's (1933) from “First Russia, Then Tibet” but mostly these are ordinary people sharing happy travel moments. Besides Iceland and Moscow we have Tokyo, Mexico, Sweden (where we get a genealogical travel experience - cousins showing a traveler the actual house where her grandmother was born), Montenegro, Kyushu, Peru, China, India, Turkey (Cappadocia - a place I really want to visit), Macedonia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Rome (one of my all-time favorites).

Anyway, this article put me in a great mood and certainly left me looking forward to some more travel experiences. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Mother & daughter vacation in Fiji

Here's an interesting story from a woman who took her 16-year-old daughter to Fiji. I don't know that most of us can afford to imitate her experience though:

Navutu Stars Resort and Spa, an exclusive and stunningly beautiful property on an uninhabited island. Six smiling staff members greeted us from the beach with songs, fresh fruit cocktails and leis of pink hibiscus.

The author talks about another resort, diving and snorkeling, how friendly Fijians are, and more.

Tax free shopping in Europe and getting out with the refund

Remember how we didn't have tome to get our tax refund in Zurich? We figured we'd get to Barajas Airport Madrid early since we had over 200 euros coming to us with all our tax refunds from shopping in Spain. Pluse we were going to try to get the Zurich receipts stmaped and submitted as well though we figured that would be more complicated.

By the way, if you don't like long stories the short version is that we didn't get the refund on our first two tries, missed our flight from paris to Seoul, and then had plenty of time waiting for our next flight to try again...

I'll start the story in Barajas. We arrive nice and early, check in at terminal 2, walk to terminal 1, get our recepts stamped, smile at how easy everything is, and then try to figure out where to get the actual refund.

Information tells us we have a problem. Our flight from madrid to paris leaves from terminal 2 but the refunds are issued in terminal 1. We're told there is no way to get from terminal 1 to terminal 2. Once you enter terminal 1 there is no way out except on a plane. We can not possibly pass through security into terminal 1, get the refund, and then catch our flight from madrid to Paris. The only way is to do the refunds in Paris.

My wife explained that we had a short connection in Paris. Too bad. Not quite believing what she was hearing from the information guy, my wife asked several passport control officers if we could go in and then come back out. They all said we'd never be allowed to leave. Reminds me of the song Hotel California actually.

Now hopefully passport control would check your ticket before letting you in terminal 1. If we hadn't talked to information and had just gone into the terminal to get the refund, it sounds like we would have been stuck in terminal 1 forever, kind of like Tom Hanks in that movie.

So we go back to terminal 2, through passport control, and see signs for the terminal 1 gates A, B, C, and D. The refund place is near B, so we start following the signs. Eventually we get to another passport control area. They don't care about our problem and tell us that if we go in to get the refund we will not be allowed out.

We turn around and trek back to terminal 2, find our gate, wait, board the plane, and wait some more. We leave over 30 minutes late, obviously giving us very little time in paris to handle the refunds.

What happened next was pretty confusing and my wife and I were running around like crazy pretty much the entire time. At the security line for connecting passengers we ask the Air France or security person (not sure who she worked for) where the tax refund office is. She tells us it is outside security. That makes no sense since in madrid it is inside security so we think she means the place you get stamps. We explain we already have stamps. She doesn't speak much English. We show her our stamped receipts. She confers with her colleagues and tells us to go inside.

We knew it was inside but were looking for directions as to where it is inside. Our tax free information pamhlet says it's in the gates A,B,C area but that's pretty big so where is it? Obviously this lady can't give us decent directions so we go through security and start looking for information.

We are running because our flight should be boarding now. We don't find any information but ask every shopkeeper we see (plus a few other people) and the ones that speak English tell us we have to leave and go outside. We keep telling them we have stamps but they say we have to go outside to get the refund even if we already have stamps. We start to believe them.

I say it's time to give up and go to the gate, which we do. They haven't started boarding yet but the flight should leave in less than 30 minutes. My wife says I can wait at the gate but she is getting the refund.

I follow her. She might need my help and I don't want to leave her alone in case she gets stuck outside security or something. Unlike in Madrid, the passport control people here are happy to let us leave the secure area to go get the refund. We leave, go through and empty baggage claim area, through customs (there were no customes people there), and start asking for directions.

The directions we get are mixed, conflicting. Eventually my wife agrees to give up so all we have to do is get back to our gate. We get directions, but there's a soldier blocking the escalator up to where we need to be. We ask how to get to our flight? "You don't." Our flight is leaving in a few minutes - can't we pass? "No." How do we get up there to our flight? "You don't".

We run to information - we need help badly at this point. We hear a gun shot or explosion or something. Then the information lady tells us to go up that escalator. We explain about the man with the gun but she says we can go up now because the explosion is over, some kind of security check or construction thing we figure. We run back to the escalator but they guy with the gun still won't let us up.

Close to tears, my wife asks if anyone can help us get up to the departure area. A construction worker actually knows where the stairs are so we run up, go through security. When they see our ticket they rush us to the front of the passport control line where wwe get the slowest immigration lady ever. She is talking on the phone, talking to the person on her right, and talking to the person on her left. My wife tries to rush her but this seems to slow her down even more.

We get through and run to our gate, arriving 8 minutes late. It's totally empty. I run down a few more gates and find someone to ask - they tell us that boarding is closed. I explain that we need to get on that plane. "No, boarding is closed. All you can do is go to the transfer desk."

My wife starts running but I tell her not to bother. We missed the flight.

Now I know it's our fault for being 8 minutes late. We shouldn't have gone looking for the tax refund especially since it meant leaving the security area. I accept the blame for that.

But still, a few things really bother / amaze me.

1. Getting the tax refund is too damn hard. I have some brains and some travel experience. My wife is a tour guide in Seoul who has lived in Rome and London. If we can't get our refund something is wrong with the system. Even a novice traveler should be able to take advatage of tax free shopping if European countries and stores are going to advertise it / offer it.

2. How can an airport block the path to departures without telling people the detour. I mean this just blows my mind. What genius thought to put a guy with a gun in our way and no information about an alternate route up to departures?

3. I'm surprised the plane left without us. We were 8 minutes late but how many times have I sat on a plane for 20-30 minutes only to see someone get on so we can depart? And I don't think I've ever been to an airport without hearing announcements pagigf passenger so and so, final boarding call for flight x, passenger so and so please report to gate whatever. They often page the same person over and over again. Serioulsy, I'm 8 minutes late for the one flight they don't do that? They knew we were checked in, and knew our connecting flight had arrived (late I might add) 45 minutes ago or so. Maybe waiting for the late people isn't as common as it seems.

So a lot went wrong in Charles de Gaul. We got sent the wrong direction, we couldn't find directions, we couldn't get back to our gate because of some soldier, we got more bad information, and we even got the slowest immigration officer ever. Not to mention our flight from Madrid had been delayed.

Anyway, the transfer desk people were kind and didn't charge us. They said they should have made us pay because they knew we were here and had left to go get the tax refund (they were some of the many people my wife had asked for directions since there was no airport information booth around).

So we thanked them and sat down to wait 8 hours or so for the next flight to Seoul. After a few minutes my wife left to go get the elusive tax refund and I started writing this. I'm just copying it from my notebook now since I was traveling without my laptop. I've already taken that later flight and gotten back to my dogs.

It took about an hour for my wife to find the tax refund office and half an hour to get back to our gate. She got lots more bad directions on the way but eventually found a directory (seriously Charles de Gaul - if everyone who works in your airport is an idiot how about a few more directories?) that showed her where the office really was.

She showed the guy the receipts but he said he wouldn't give the refund because the shopping was done in Spain. Spain had to issue the refund. So my wife had to put the envelopes in the box there.

And another thing. If all you need to do is put the envelopes in a box, how about putting a few more boxes around? One inside the departure area would be nice!

So we think we're getting a refund but it could take a while.

By the way, as I was waiting for the later flight I saw 3 people get on a flight to London 5 minutes after boarding had closed. Why did Air France wait for them on that short flight but not for us on our 10 hour flight?

And one last complaint. As I listened to the announcements (not that they made one for us), I noticed that the Charles de Gual PA system is about as clear as the old New York City subways. I can only make out an occasional word even when listening closely.

Anyway, vacation is over after a very weird ending. Back to normal life. And I wonder - has anyone else here missed a flight? If so, what happened?

This will eb one of the last times I ask you to ignore my typos. Soon I'll be back to my computer that has spell check...

Wrapping up my vacation

After nearly a month of living in hotels and eating 2 meals a day in restaurants (the other in the hotel), my wife and I are ready to go back home. We miss our regular social lives (we´ve talked to a few people in Europe but it´s not the same as talking with friends), our pets, even our real-life have to make some money work. Tomorrow we will do some things like packing and laundry. The day after we leave for the airport at 7:00 AM.

Today we went to Museo del Prado, a huge art museum. It was Sunday and we showed up around 1:00 but we were still surprised to see a long line of people waiting to get in. The live moved pretty well and half an hour later we paid 8 euros each for our tickets.

I´m not an art affcicionado, so for me visiting an art museum means bypassing many works for the few that catch my eye. I found some, and it was certainly nice to take a break from walking around and shopping, but I actually preferred the one other museum I saw on this trip, the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

Looking back over the past 3 or more weeks, there are definitely a few things I would have changed. I suppose I should have visited more than 2 museums on the trip, but with basically no advance planning I arrived in each city with no idea of which museums would be more interesting for me and my wife. And since we came to Munich for the Christmas market, I don´t care about missing the museums there. Then by the time we got to Madrid my wife was obsessed with finding an affordable (meaning on sale) Burberry coat so we had to spend a good amount of time shopping. We bought heres yesterday by the way.

I would have changed the itinerary to include more than 3 cities. Certainly 12 days in Madrid seems like a bit much. There´s plenty to we haven´t done yet, but staying in the same hotel for 12 days and all that just isn´t ideal. A longer stay where we could kind of settle down and make friends would be one thing. Otherwise a shorter stay is best. I think in the future it will be fewer than 7 days or more than 30 days in each city.

I guess that´s all I have to say for now. I´ll probably be back in Korea next time I blog but I think there is a guest entry from Mancunian on the way.

Self made tour of Toledo

So yesterday was our first day trip from Madrid. I wanted to take a tour of Toledo which would have run about 50 euros each. My wife wanted to travel on our own and spend the money we saved on clothes. My wife won.

I didn´t mind losing this time because we got to choose our own train and leave at 10:30 in the morning instead of 8:30... We ended up spending about 30 euros each instead of 50 though we spent about three times our savings on clothes.

We didn´t go into any of the museums, but we did see the Cathedral. It was beautiful outside and caverous inside. At 7 euros to get in it is fairly expensive and inside was impressive but not breathtaking to my untrained eye. I don´t think the tour actually went in there but it´s hard to be sure from the brief description in the pamphlet.

The ticket said no flash, but inside a guard told us no pictures at all. He couldn´t guard the whole place and was alone so we ended up with lots of pictures. If the ticket says no flash I´m pretty sure I can take pictures (without a flash of course).

Anyway, I don´t mean to sound like I´m complaining about the price. I may never be in Toledo again and I´m glad I saw the inside of the Cathedral. I was looking for a better, more descriptive name but everything - even my map of Toledo - just says "Cathedral".

We also went in Iglesia de los Jesuitas where you can pay 1.90 euro to climb to the top of the tower and get some good views of Toledo.

We spent hours walking around the city, much of that time trying to figure out where we were. Obviously if we had a guide that wouldn´t have been a problem but exploring on our own was good too. We saw most or all of historic Toledo I´m sure.

We only spent an hour or so shoppping. Basically after we had seen enough of the city we turned our attention to the shops. We didn´t buy any swords, chess sets, or black and gold jewelry despite one high pressure store where we were told to buy soon becase they were closing in 10 minutes at 5:00. They were still open at 5:30...

Interesting most salespeople in Spain are the opposite, very polite and they really don´t bother you until you ask for help. Today in the supermarket the lady at the olive bar didn´t even want to bother with us after we asked for help but that too was unusual...

I guess that´s about it for Toledo. I´ll be on again soon to tell you about the Royal Palace in Madrid.

As usual, please excuse any typos while I´m on vacation.

Hello from Madrid

I´ve done so much and had so much happen to me in the last few days I´m not even sure where to begin.

I guess I´ll start with our last night in Zurich - we shopped until the stores closed and managed to spend all our Swiss francs. The next morning we woke up early, checked out of Goldenes Schwertz and waited for the airport shuttel to arrive (we had booked through the hotel and already paid so we didn´t need any cash).

The shuttle didn´t come. I suppose I´ll save the details for my review of the Goldenes Schwertz hotel, but for now let me just say that the front desk did nothing to help us solve the problem. We had only planned on arriving in the airport an hour in advance (this was actually based on advice from the hotel front desk as well though I did know better and should have insisted on an earlier shuttle). So after 20 minutes of waiting for the shuttle we were pretty stressed out about possibly missing the flight.

The shuttle service itself was another experience as the driver backed the luggage trailer into a building, droppped us off at the wrong building, and sent us in the wrong direction.

When we did eventually find the SpanAir checkin (it was actually Swiss Air) we didn´t have much time. My wife got online while I tried my luck with the machines. I wasn´t making much progress when they all crashed. Every check in machine went down.

So we waited on line - they sent us to a special line which we later learned was the wrong one. Then we founf that Span Air hadn´t sent us an eticket number - I thought that my reservation number was all I needed since that was the only number in the only email I got from them.

So check in took a while and then the guy said he couldn´t give us the tickets and told us to run to a lufthansa counter at the other end of the building to get the actual borading pass. We get there and there is another line. At this point we have a little less than 30 minutes until the flight departs.

As we were waiting online they called out our names and gacve us the boarding passes. We ran to passport control, got through and then faced a problem. My wife really wanted her tax refund from all the shopping we did but we didn´t have much time. We still had to go through security. We found a refund counter but they said you have to go to customs first to get some stamp or something.

My wife was getting directions to wherever the office was upstairs while I tried to convince her it wasn´t worth the stress. We must have looked pretty funny with my wife running to the escalator and me chasing her begging her to come through security with me and forget about the tax refund.

Eventually I convinced my wife (or maybe she was just tired of running) and we went through security. We got to the gate just as they were boarding. Then we waited on the plane for half an hour thinking we should have just spent that time getting our tax refund...

But we did get to Madrid. Today was our second day here. I won´t go into details yet, but let me say that our hotel Francisco I, will probably get a pretty bad review and certainly no recommendation. It is by far the noisiest hotel I´ve ever experienced.

We also haven´t had great luck with Spanish food, although we did get some excellent Italian tonight.

We continue to shop and spend money at an alarming rate but we think we´re buying clothes that we want and that we would have to pay much more for in Korea or America.

Well let me save Madrid for another blog entry. I´m fairly tired and probably will be the rest of the trip considering how much noise we have to endure at the hotel...

Happy New Year & New Year's Eve in Zurich

Happy New Year

New Year's Eve in Zurich started the same as many other days in Zurich - shopping. After some MaxMara for my wife and Hugo Boss for me (I think we've spent our clothing budget for the next two years or so) the shops closed at 4:00, including the supermarkets. We did stock up on yogurt and pasta before they closed.

Interestingly, the crowded Zurich supermarket reminded me a lot of Korea, although it was one old lady in particular who really is responsible for this digression. She kept pushing her cart into my back in an effort to get me to move the crowds faster. After turning around and voicing my displeasure for the second time I managed to let her pass me and then followed her through the crowd as she cleared a path by banging her cart into everyone nearby including a very frail looking old lady with a cane.

Anyway, after dropping off our new clothes and food in the hotel we went out for dinner at around 4:30 since we had skipped lunch. The Swiss restaurant I've been meaning to try was reservation only so we went to an Italian place. I'll have a review of the 2 Italian places I've tried so far in Zurich one of these days but the food was quite good at this one.

Then we went back to the hotel and got in a quick nap so that we'd have enough energy to stay up for the fireworks. Now Zurich already has miles of pedestrian shopping streets, but they banned cars from some more streets so that New Year's Eve revelers could watch the fireworks safely.

We left the hotel around 10:00 and were very surprised that crowds were not bad. There were also lots of tents set up, mostly small ones selling food (we had some bratwurst and some beef on a stick - both quite good). A couple of larger tents served as night clubs.

At 11:00 we went to the bridge nearest Zurich's lake to find a spot where we could see some fireworks. It still wasn't all that crowded and we got a spot right on the railing with no one in front of us. By 11:30 it had gotten a bit crowded so if you really wanted a good spot it would have been best to find it by 11:00 or shortly after.

At midnight a few loud fireworks went off and everyone said "Happy New Year". Then we waited as it got colder and we wondered if the fireworks display was coming or if the few loud ones and the small ones coming from various spots on the river bank were all there was to New Year's Eve in Zurich.

At 12:25 or so we talked about going back to the hotel room to warm up our toes but then the fireworks started. It was a very nice fireworks display but I won't actually recommend it.

The reason I am not recommending fireworks in Zurich is because when I pictured fireworks in Europe I pictured old buildings and things beneath them. In Zurich you face the lake, which means you face away from the historic part of Zurich. So yous see the fireworks, but not the city. At least not the historic part of the city.

I saw pictures of fireworks in Berlin, London, and Moscow - in all 3 cities it seemd that fireworks happened right above major historical landmarks, which to me would be the point of seeing fireworks in Europe.

Now I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. My wife and I both think this was our best New Year's.

Tomorrow will be our last day of shoppping in Zurich, which is good since we spend too much money here. Then we have nearly 2 weeks in Madrid - I'm trying not to worry about the money but as this vacation gets more and more expensive it does creep into my mind every time my wife picks up another pair of shoes or a bag or wahetever. At least half the time she's looking to get me something but I don't know if I can afford to upgrade my wardrobe right now...

As usual, when I'm traveling I need you to overlook any typos as I haven't figured out spell check or got time to do my usual proofreading.

Sunday in Zurich

I'm guessing that some of the people who said Zurich was boring visited on a Sunday. Cafes and restaurants are open but everything else seems to be closed. That's fine with me - I'm perfectly happy not shopping and not spending money. However, my wife isn't content just walking around taking in the sights again (we've already walked through most of the pedstrian areas). I'm starting to think that 7 days in Zurich is a bit much, especially since shops will also be closed Jan. 1, 2008 and at least some are also closed Jan. 2. Tomorrow (shops are open from 10-4 on Dec. 31st) might be our last day of shopping in Zurich...

I hope that the New Year's Eve fireworks are impressive enough to keep my wife happy for a few days. We're in Zurich until Jan. 3rd when we fly to Madrid.

Shopping in Zurich

I will not write much today because I want to save my internet time (10 francs an hour is the cheapest I have found so far) for when I have more to report.

But I do want to talk a little bit about what we did in Zurich today. We shopped. My wife called Zurich a shopper's heaven (wow just found the apostrophe on the keyboards here). There are lots of pedestrian zones with shops all over. As travelfan noted in his comment on my previous entry, some of the window displays are really excellent and some of the shops are really neat.

However, as you might have guessed, there aren't too many bargains here in Zurich. You need to have money or enjoy window shopping to really appreciate Zurich's shoppping. Burberry and Louis Vitton are more expensive here in Zurich than they were in Munich or Salzburg according to my wife who keeps track of these things. We did find some big sales at Ferragamo. It helps to think that you're saving money as you push your credit card closer to its limit...

Of course you have to be careful in Zurich because you could look at a cappucino that costs 6 francs and say it's a bargain since it is cheaper than other places like Starbucks. But anywhere else in the world that is an expensive cappucino. I caught my wife doing this with shoes or boots a few times. 200 francs might seem like a bargain in Zurich after seeing all the way more expensive boots but it's not a bargain where I come from...

Anyway, I still say that visiting Zurich was a good choice. My wife is happy walking around shopping and I'm happy walking around this gorgeous city. Ciao.

From a Zurich restaurant to a Zurich spupermarket

So we left Munich today and are now in Zurich. The castles we saw yesterday were amazing and when I get back from vacation I have pictures to show and some general commentary on tours, the people who take them, and the guides.

But for now I want to talk about Zurich. The Goldenes Schwert hotel is excellent so far. Unless they happen to know this blog they do not know I am anyone but a regular traveler so I was pretty surprised when they told me I would be in the junior suite for my 7 night stay. It is a great room obviously.

By the way, I will not be using contractions in this blog entry until I find the apostrophe on this craazy Swiss keyboard...

So our room has a living room, bedroom, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchenette. The kithchenette turned out to be absolutely huge and that brings me to the title of my blog entry: From a Zurich restaurant to a Zurch supermarket.

We had dinner tonight in a very mediocre Italian restaurant. We had a soup, a salad, and 2 main dishes (not to mention the water you always pay for in Europe). It cost us 90+ Swiss Francs. Obviously doing this 2 times a day for 7 days would get way too expensive - that is why I say the kitchenette was huge for us.

After our expensive but below average meal we went straight to a supermarket we had noticed on the way from Zurich main station to our hotel. We spent 30 Swiss Francs and probably got 5-10 meals worth of ham sandwiches, gnocchi, tortellini, arrabiata sauce, basilico sauce, yogurt, and water (we accidentally bought the kind with bubbles).

We do plan to try a couple os Swiss restaurants that the guy in the hotel recommended, and we might try another Italian place or get some Chinese food (my wife and I make sure to try Chinese food in every country we visit because it is usually different). However, for at least half our meals, probably more, we will be cooking for ourselves.

A few people asked why we chose Zurich - it seems that most people are not real impressed with the city. My wife and I think it is gorgeous and so far I have to say it is worth a visit. I suppose there are plenty of other beautiful cities in Europe and I do not yet know why Zurich would be better than any of them since I have only been here a few hours but we chose it for the New Year (no apostrophe) fireworks.

If you do visit Zurich for more than a few days, I strongly recoomend a kitchenette. Eating out here seems to be very expensive.

Confusion in Munich on Christmas day

Merry Christmas again!

We spent Christmas day in Munich and a few useums had reopened. Unfortunately, the BMW museums wasn't one of them even though the tourist information place outside the Munich train station told us they would be open. So after a short subway ride to Olympic Park and a long walk around in cold during which we got directions from several locals and spole to several other cold, confused tourists (lots os people expected the museum to be open and no one could find the actual entrance) we found out that it was closed. We never did find the entrance - I was pretty surprised there were no signs except for one that said 'BMW museum' in front of an empty parking lot.

Confused and cold, we got back on the subway and headed toward Marienplatz. There we found the toy museum which was a waste of 10 minutes for us. 3 euros each seemed like a fortune considering to the size of this place. I suppose if you really liked teddy bears or toys you could spend 20-30 minutes in there...

Then we went to Stadt Museum which was quite good. Surprisingly for a large museum almost none of the signs had English translations but we enjoyed looking at the musical intstruments and puppets anyway. This museum was free on Christmas day so that made up for the 6 euros we wasted on the toy museum.

In between museums we had more Bavarian food and Munich beer in a beer hall. We're not sure what we'll end up doing for dinner. Last night we had kebab since nearly evervthing was closed. We noticed many places closing at 3:00 today so we may be in for some more kebab or something...

Tomorrow I probably won't get to blog as we'll be at the castle all day...

Salzburg day trip and a bit more from Munich

This entry may not be too detailed since I seem to be in the worst pc room ever. I can't find the relatively nice one I was in 2 nights ago and this one has people speaking loudly with the employees and someone singing into a mic to someone almost as unfortunate as me...

Salzburg is beautiful. Apparently it is popular for movie tourism thanks to The Sound of Music (we saw the 'do re mi' steps and the cemetery that inspired the Hollywood set in the movie) and Motzart. We didn't go into either of the 2 Motzart museums or buy any Motzart chocolate.

We did eat in the oldest restaurant in Europe while we were there, Stiftskeller St. Peter. Apparently they started serving food in 803 so they have had enough time to get it right. The food was excellent and at about 15 euros a meal not unreasonable. The dessert wasn't as good and seemed overpriced but then again, the desert we really wanted, Salzburger Nockerln, took 25 minutes to prepare and we hadn't ordered in advance...

We also saw the the inside of St Peter's plus the Salzburg Christmas market and my wife almost spent way too much on a Louis Vitton handbag.

As for Munich, I did visit Nuremberg Palace and Neue Pinakothek today. The palace is pretty neat inside with some fancy clocks and chandeliers. The Neue Pinakothek gave us a nice surprise when we found that admission is only 1 euro on Sundays instead of the usual 5.50. We enjoyed our hour there looking at paintings from the 1800's. I'm no art afficionado but the museum is fairly small so an hour might be what it takes a normal person to walk through. Of course I saved time by walking by every portrait in the place - I really don't like portraits. There were a few Van Gogh's and some excellent works by people I've never heard of.

And I finally tried Ghluwein in the Munich Christmas market. But if this entry seemed poorly organized it probbaly had more to do with this PC room than the alcohol. Ghluwein comes in .2 liter mugs which is enough to warm you up but not get you drunk.

As usual, please excuse any typos - German spellcheck isn't helping much...

Hello from Munich (Air France, Germania, beer halls)

Well I knew I'd be cold in Munich and I am. It's probably similar or only a little colder than New York or Seoul but since I was outside pretty much all day I really feel it. I almost spent 100 euros on boots with hopefully fake fur lining inside (on sale from 200) but I don't think I'll get to use them much and don't really want to carry them around...

By the way, typing on a German keyboard is an entirely different experience - several keys are different but the biggest difference is the y key down in the bottom left. It's a QWERTZ keyboard instead of QWERTY... Anyway, please excuse any typos... And I can't seem to link for some reason but I'll do my best with these unfamiliar resources.

So far I can tell you a few interesting things:

Air France is fine. I'd put the service somewhere between the Asian airlines like Korean Air, Asiana, JAL, etc. and the American ones like Northwest and Spirit. This means that while the flight attendants were never rude or mean as American ones sometimes are, they were't nearly as attentive as Asian flight attendants. It was pretty clear that they were as interested in talking to each other as they were in serving the passengers. Still much better than I've seen on many Northwest or American Airlines flights though.

I did hear one interesting story from the interpreter on board (since the flight had lots of Koreans on board but none of the French flight attendants spoke Korean they had a Korean - French translator who happened to be seated right next to us). She said that lots of Korean passengers complained about the service and the food. The service complaint will probably remain until they get a taste of American service; as long as they are execting Korean Air service they will be disappointed with any western airline. However Air France did solve the food complaints by serving kimchi with every meal.

Hotel Germania in Munich is fine. I can't remember what I had to pay so I won't talk about value but the hotel is in a great location - we haven't used any public transportation yet because everything is within walking distance. The rooms are small and old but it's not bad. The beds are too soft but most people complain about the hard beds I prefer. The room wasn't warm enough for my wife (I thought it was good enough) but they gave us some extra blankets and we're OK now. The taxi fare from Munich airport to the hotel is about 60 euros.

Munich has some beatiful architecture. It#s not spread out all over the city like in Rome but the New City Hall in Marienplatz was almost worth the trip all by itself. We've also seen some great churches, a former royal residence (I'm not sure why they don#t call it a palace) and other neat old buildings scattered around.

Munich's Christmas market is great. It's not real big but there are some stalls selling different kinds of food (we had some bread covered in salty cheese topped with bacon) and ghluwine. I haven't tried it yet because it smells kind of sweet and I haven't been in the mood for a warm, sweet, alcoholic beverage in the past couple of days. We also had some bratwurst from one of these vendors with Heinz mustard and ketchup. Others sell fruit, nuts, Santa things (I'm told that in southern Germany no one cares about the Santa myth so this is strictly for tourists from the north and from other countries), nativity sets, and other little craft-type things.

Munich beerhouses are great for dinner. They serve Bavarian food. It comes fast, portions are large, and prices are reasonable. The two I've tried so far had English menus available upon request. I also tried some local beer (apparently lots of breweries are or used to be run by monks). I don't like beer but this seemed like good beer to me. I kind of liked it.

Well that's about it for now. Tomorrow we take a day trip to Salzburg - I'll let you know how it goes as soon as I get a chance.

Who can you trust regarding the Explorer in Antarctica?

The other day I linked to an article about a British woman who said evacuating the sinking Explorer was pretty easy, no hassle, no panic, etc.

Apparently this woman found the experience a little more frightening:

"I literally was shaking from the inside out," she recalled. "There is no word in the English language to describe the terror. You're just thinking only about your family. I was sending e-mails out to everyone, a good-bye letter. It never occurred to me I'd make it out of this."

Of course since she took videos of the event and now has a publicist and an agent it is pretty clear she wants to make some money out of her story so you have to wonder if she isn't embellishing it some...

But I didn't entirely believe the British passenger either:

Ms Plant said the passengers had been "nervous" but that none gave any sign of fear.

"There was no panic at all."

Now in the BBC article they say that everyone had protective suits to help keep them warm. But this American woman with the agent and publicist tells it differently:

"When I was actually being rescued, my boots had fallen off in the ocean. I had nothing," she recalled. "You have your camera and the clothes on your back."

Now obviously I don't have all the information so right now I'm not believeing anyone but something doesn't make sense here. Maybe they got the orange suits after being rescued, maybe only some passengers got the suits, maybe the real story is somewhere in between the two I've linked to so far...

Bulgarian ski vacation experience + ski travel deals

Matt Gross has many complaints about Bansko in Bulgaria but ends up calling them petty thanks to one good day of snowboarding. The two main complaints, while conflicting, didn't seem petty to me though.

First was what the author called "anarchy" and second was that many lifts remain closed for no good reason. I say they are somewhat conflicting since someone decided not to run the lifts to the better snow so someone was in charge. However, that didn't seem to help much on the ground where the best way to get on the lift was to outmuscle the rest of the skiers.

The author decided to forgive Bansko when the lifts were all opened at the end of his vacation. Besides that one day of good snow and trails, he notes that skiing in Bansko is affordable - $60 to $100 a day should be easy according to the author (including lift tickets, steak, and beer).

Speaking of cheap skiing, here's an article that starts off with some "overlooked values" but also goes for some more expensive heli-skiing. This one focuses on US destinations (the heli-skiing is in Canada).

Sinking ships and vacation proposal

A few days ago I wrote about The Explorer in Antarctica. Well, here's an article about the vacation experience from one of the passengers. Certainly not your typical vacation experience, but it seems to have been a happy one for this passenger.

And for all you romantics out there "there was some unexpected good news as a Danish couple got engaged while in the lifeboat." I guess that will be a good story when people ask about the proposal. Who wouldn't be impressed to hear about a proposal in a lifeboat in Antarctica?

Does anyone here have a vacation proposal story to share?

Lanzarote: not ruined by tourists yet

I hope this doesn't offend anyone but ZI thought it was kind of funny that this author uses the analogy of God spilling his cat's litter to describe the beauty of Lanzarote.

The author praises the island for not letting tourists ruin traditional towns and notes that most tourists are content to stay in the resorts so lots of places are still very authentic. Apparently you can even find a secret surf spot that the locals will want to protect from foreigners. Not that conflict with the locals sounds like fun.

Anyway, the article is a pretty good description of the author's experience in Lanzarote, including the "weirdest bar in the world".

I found a Youtube video which has photos from a Lanzarote vacation. It's not ideal - they keep showing pictures of the same lady over and over again but I watched a few videos and this one had the best landscape shots, mostly in the last 30 seconds. If you skip the first 3 minutes or so you won't miss too much but there are a few interesting pictures mixed in with all the lame "I'm modeling at the resort" pictures.

Have you ever been to Lanzarote and was the nature really spectacular?

Pyeong Chang Korea travel experience

So I just got back from Pyeong Chang. This was a good experience for me because it’s a real Korean vacation spot, meaning that Koreans go there to visit. I didn’t see any other white people so I’m thinking that foreign tourists don’t usually make it there.

Of course, the only reason for a foreign tourist to go would be to see an actual Korean vacation spot. The activities themselves are nothing too exciting.

The first place was a school turned art gallery. My wife really liked it. I thought it was OK - certainly different, but there were only afew artists represented despite the fact that Mooee Art Gallery could have packed a lot more art into the school. One artists had about 50 paintings of Memil flowers. Most of the rest were crazy modern sculptures - never really did learn to appreciate modern sculpture.

Then there was the home of a famous Korean author – Lee Hyo Suk - the sign said he was born there and lived there until he was 13. It also said that another family lives there now so you can’t actually go inside. We spend less than 5 minutes there.

Then there was a memorial to Lee Hyo Suk. The information signs there said that his birth house had been destroyed – weird since we thought we had just come from the house where he was born. They also had his former gravesite. Apparently he’s no longer buried there. We walked around for about 30 minutes because the place was pretty big but we didn’t actually see much. Korean tourists like to pose for pictures by the sculpture of Lee Hyo Suk sitting at his desk writing. There’s also a museum – it looked pretty boring and we wanted to go to the next big attraction.

Herb Nara (Herb nation) is basically an herb garden. We had fun walking around and sniffing all the different herbs which are labeled in English and Korean. There are some nice picture spots in the gardens there and you can buy plants, herb bread, herb cookies, herb candy, etc.

Then we went to try some of the local beef; Haeng Sung (next to Pyeong Chang) and Bong Pyung (part of Pyeong Chang) are famous for beef. Now Koreans think that Korean beef is superior and are willing to pay for it. At the butcher, 600 grams cost us 42,000 won, probably $45 or so. We also stopped in another store and got some cooked rice, some side dishes, some sauce, etc. and went back to our hotel for a feast.

Now the hotel was Memil Flower Valley Pension. The area is famous for Memil as you can tell from the pension's name and the paintings in Moose Art Gallery I already mentioned. Plus one of Lee Hyo Suk’s novels was titled (this is a rough translation) When the Memil Blooms. Anyway, the place was dog friendly so we went there.

A pension, by the way, is just a hotel where the rooms have little kitchen areas.

Our room was spacious and we were, I’m fairly certain, the only customers last night. Pretty bad for a pension that I estimated had about 50 rooms but my wife guesses had 10 at most. Anyway, we were the only ones there and it would have been very quiet and peaceful if not for the construction next door where they seem to be building another hotel. Still, they stopped around 7:00 PM so it was quiet at night. Of course they started before 7:00 AM so the morning wasn’t so peaceful... The room was about $130/night.

Anyway, we cooked our local delicacy but the beef was tough. Anyway, we had fun walking the dogs and watching Animal Planet (the only channel with English programs we could find). And we did spend some time looking at the moon and stars. We couldn’t see many stars because of some clouds but those clouds did look pretty when they passed in front of the moon.

All in all it was nice to get out of the city and experience a place I had never been before.

Birthday getaway

I won't be writing much today, but hopefully will have something to share in a couple of days. We're going away for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. I'll give you details after I experience it, but the plan is to get out of the city, go somewhere quiet, ruin the quiet with our two dogs, enjoy the fresh air (dogs can't ruin that), and look at the stars at night.

It's been a long time since I saw and took the time to enjoy a really beautiful starry sky. Since the summer really in Vermont and before that in Cebu in April.

Last full day in Punta Cana's Sirenis resort

This day was much like the previous ones in that it was very relaxing. The only thing out of the ordinary today was when we gave away $30 worth of toy cars we had brought for children (we never took a tour or saw a rural village or school so it was either give them to Sirenis employees or bring them back home).

Otherwise it was pretty normal. Wake up and go to the beach to find a good spot (got the best spot yet today), eat breakfast, make dinner reservations, exercise, shower, go to the beach...

Actually that reminds me of what I did differently. At first I went to take a free scuba lesson. They do this daily but I kept putting it off. The guy asked me when i was flying and I told him tomorrow.

He said scuba would be dangerous because of the nitrogen if I was flying within 48 hours. I had read 24 hours somewhere, but I'm not about to take risks to go scuba diving in the hotel pool (though it would be nice to learn one day). So I didn't scuba dive.

I did go snorkeling, however. Actually this made me quite nervous as I read somewhere that you can cut yourself pretty seriously on coral. I felt that I was very close to the coral and the water was slightly rough so sometimes I'd kind of be pushed too close for comfort.

Maybe I felt more exposed because this was my first time snorkeling without a life vest but I figured the risk of bumping an arm or a leg would be much greater. Anyway, before I saw anything cool I gave up. Nex time I'll wear a wet suit or something to protect myself from an accidental scrape. Yes, I know this makes me a wimp.

So I asked the guys in charge I asked what I should have seen. Apparently there's not much to see unless you take the tour. I missed that opportunity.

But other than snorkeling it was a normal day. We went to the spa after the beach. Then we had dinner in the buffet - it was really excellent tonight. There was a great creole chicken, good ribs, roast beef at the carving station, etc.

Our main dinner tonight was at the Italian place. Things were looking good when we saw the menu. They had some interesting pizzas, several types of pasta and several types of sauce that you could mix and match, and veal.

So my wife had tortellini arrabiata and I had the veal. Her meal was good, though the sauce was made more with tobasco than the peppers favored in italy. My veal was not so great. It was deep fried and tasted it (greasy) and was a little tough to chew.

The other new thing we did today was go to show. They have one every night but this was the first one I saw. It was better than I expected, a dance variety show. Some skits were better than others, but it was neat to see so many people we recognized among the performers. Most of them actually work at the resort by day and perform at night it seems.

Those are my notes for the day. To prevent the confusion I caused with other daily Sirenis blogs, let me warn everyone that this is not conclusive at all. I'm just writing down everything I remember now and want to remember later...

Day 4 in Sirenis Punta Cana

Well we managed to stay up late enough to visist the disco last night. It was pretty different from any nightclub I've ever seen. The dance floor was a circle with a wall around it. People would hang out by the wall and watch the dancers.

The dancers were very skilled - I think they were dancing merengue to the Spanish langugae dance songs being played. I tried tog et my wife to try it out, but she knows how bad a dancer I am and the people out there really seemed to have had a lot of practice. No doubt she saved me from looking like a dancing fool (any Frank Zappa fans catch the reference there?).

We also went to the beach last night to reserve some good lounge chairs in the sahde. I wanted to wake up early to do this - going at night felt like cheating somehow. But we did it at night and it worked; we had a nice spot today.

So today was much like other days. Breakfast, Spanish lesson (painful for a professional educator), exercise (the trainer in the gym is very friendly and he really knows his stuff), lunch, beach, lunch, pool, beach, spa, snack, dinner. I think I got the order right there.

Dinner was in the crepe restaurant, which was an interesting experience for me. I had seen my grandmother get crepes in IHOP when I was in college, but never really experienced them for myself. As always, dinner was good. I had the soup with tortillas - the best soup I've had here at Sirenis by far. Then a chicken crepe and a crepe suzet for desert. My wife liked her Sirenis crepe and her desert, a crepe with caramel and ice cream.

I'm really impressed with the food here at Sirenis. The buffet is pretty luxurious (for our snack before dinner tonight we had prosciutto). Then there are the restaurants including Chinese, seafood, vegetarian, steak, crepe, Italian, Mexican, and one other that I plan on checking out tomorrow). You really can't get bored with the food here.

We also tried a new drink, blended cherry brandy (cherry brandy, freshly squeezed lime juice, ice, mix it all in a blender). It's great tasting, cool, tropical-looking, and just perfect for us here in Punta Cana on the beach.

Speaking of drinks, my wife has been struggling with the coffee and cappuccino our whole stay. The coffee is very very strong so she always asks for half coffee and then just extra hot water. Even then it can be too strong for her. That's tough for someone who relies heavily on coffee. The cappuccino on the other hand is too sweet.

That's about all I have to tell you about today. Except to note that we still haven't gone for our night swim. We could, but my wife hasn't felt like it and I don't enjoy it much alone. It's just funny that I tried so hard to find a resort that permits night swimming, ended up in one accidentally, and now haven't done it...

Tomorrow I might be a bit more active as I try to do some activities I've been skipping in order to write a more complete review.

Day 3: trying to decide on taking an excursion

Sirenis continues to impress and my wife and I are trying to decide if we should do one of the excursions. We don't see the need really because we're having a very good vacation just sticking around the resort.

Today we woke up at 8:30 because our wake up call never came. We easily found a spot with shade, actually the same one I got an hour earlier yesterday morning. This was surprising because starting Friday night the resort seemed to start getting more crowded.

After breakfast we took a 30 minute Spanish lesson. I won't bore you with the details but speaking as a linguist I wasn't impressed with the teaching. Nevertheless I'm returning tomorrow.

Then my wife hit the beach and I hit the gym. We didn't meet up again until 12:30 or so. We spent a little time together on the beach and then got lunch. As always the food was fine though my ham steaks were a bit salty. I ate a bunch of them anyway since I'm on a high protein diet.

After lunch we went swimming in the pool. There are always kids splashing abput in the parts of the pool with shade. If you're willing to hang out in the sun it's easier to avoid them.

I don't like sun so I endured. There's a swim-up bar in the shade. My wife and I generally don't drink but I've probably tried 5 or 6 different cocktails since I've arrived here. They've all been good. When I get a black russion here it's bigger than you get for $6 in a regular bar. They may use no name liquor but I don't taste any difference...

Then we went to the beach for a while longer and then to the spa. I had to pick my seat in the sauna carefully because there was a topless woman in there and I didn't want to look.

American parents might consider this before bringing children here. There are certainly some cultural differences evident. Today my wife and I were surprised to see a topless mommy putting sunscreen on her kid. How many American males see their mom's breasts after they are (I'm not sure) 3? This kid was at least school age I'd guess...

Anyway, cultural differences are part of traveling.

We definitley like the big jacuzzi style bath here. After the spa we went the steakhouse for dinner at 6:30. It was good. My wife had the sirloin and I had chimichurri or something like that (beef tenderloin apparently). Those were the only steaks on the menu. They also had ribs, BBQ chicken, hamburger, and a few other choices.

I'm not sure it's so much better than the other restaurants but there's no denying it's the most popular and the hardest to reserve. When I think about how well we eat here, Sirenis is an excellent value. My all-inclusive in Cancun wasn't serving food half this good and it wasn't any cheaper...

After dinner we hung around on the beach for a while and then in our room. Then we went to the buffet around 9:00 so I could get some more protein. I ate a lot of turkey while my wife found some big shrimp or something and some passion fruit (we think).

Well we have to go relax in order to stay up late enough to visit the disco tonight. I'll tell you if we made it when I blog tomorrow.

It looks like we won't be doing any excursions but I'll let you know about that if we decide for sure.

Is there anything anyone wants to know before I leve Sirenis?

2nd full day at Sirenis Punta Cana experience

Just so you know, I will be taking these various experiences and creating one big huge definitive review of Sirenis Punta Cana. But I don't want to do that while on vacation so I'm just going to keep posting my daily thoughts, kind of like notes for my future big review.

Anyway, our second full day at Sirenis is coming to a close. We left off last night with me about to go to the Chinese restaurant. This was fine, a nice change from the buffets and as far as I know the only place to get duck (roast Pekin duck) at Sirenis. My wife got shrimp with something. The main dishes and deserts were good. The starters were pretty weak as was the rice that came with the main dishes.

I had some noodles cooked in soy sauce (very salty) and my wife had sweet and sour soup (ridiculously salty). The rice was also cooked in soy sauce I think.

But overall the meal was good.

This morning I woke up at 7:00 instead of 7:30 and went straight to the beach. The shade spots closest to the ocean were taken but I easily found some shade. People reserve their spots by putting the hotel beach towels on the lounge chairs they want. I guess these never go missing which is good since the hotel charges 20 ucks if you lose your towel.

I listend to the ocean for a while and then went to the lobby to make reservations. At 7:55 I was the second person on line. 10 minutes later, there were more like 25 people on line...

The steakhouse was already booked up. Clearly you have to book in advance (you can book 3 days in advance) to eat at the steakhouse. This means you'll have no choice but the buffet at least once during your trip. That's beacause you can only make one reservation each day. So for example, if it's Monday and I make reservations at the steakhouse for Tuesday, I can't make any reservations for Monday night because I've used my reservation for the day.

Now the hotel management knows I'm doing this review, so they are letting me bend the rules a bit so that I can review as many restaurants as possible for my readers. But eating at the buffet is fine - I always enjoy it.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll tell you if the steakhouse is worth the trouble. When I found out it was booked for today, I chose the seafood restaurant instead. We had a good meal there tonight. I don't actually like seafood so I tried the only non-seafood choices: beef carpaccio and stuffed chicken breast. Both were good. My wife had Spanish style octopus which she said tasted more like scallops. She liked it though.

Before and after the seafood restaurant we were in the buffet as my wife is on a mission to eat all the mango in the Dominican Republic.

Tonight we might try out the resort's entertainment (a theatrical performance of dirty dancing) and or go night swimming. I don't know if it's officially allowed but we did see one couple swimming at night and there doesn't seem to be anyone there to stop you.

Interestingly, there never is anyone there - no lifeguards at all at the pools or the ocean. Lots of seemingly unupervised children too.

Another note about the pools / ocean is that since the resort is so popular with Europeans you see several women (not most but a few) going topless.

Anyway, I'm nearly out of batteries on my laptop so I'll have to continue tomorrow.

1st full day at Sirenis Punta Cana experience

Sirenis is definitely growing on me. Last night I was talking about the key for the room's safe. Well they gave me the wrong one originally, sent me back with the wrong one when I complained, then the third time they admitted that the keys were all messed up and I couldn't get the right one until tomorrow morning.

So now I have the right one, but I paid for 6 nights of safe key and I'm only getting 5. I don't think I'll waste valuable vacation time complaining, but the fact that they didn't offer me a refund speaks volumes.

But like I said, Sirenis is growing on me. When we arrived last night we had to kill 5 or 6 mosquitoes in our room, but we haven't gotten any bites so that's a positive.

Our day started with a wake up call and a trip down to the beach to get a spot in the shade. At 8:00 AM the best spots were taken, but we did find a nice spot with shade. It was fairly far back on the beach so we couldn't see the meeting the sand, but I pretty much slept and read all day anyway.

After securing the spot on the beach, I sorted out the safety deposit box stuff I mentioned. Then we got on line to make reservations at one of the restaurants.

We figured that getting a reservation would be easy since last night none of them looked really crowded. But at 8:40 AM the steak house was all booked so we ended up in the Chinese place. I'm going there in a few minutes at 9:30.

Then we ate breakfast. The buffet was fine and they had custom made eggs. My wife went to the beach while I went to the gym. The gym is OK, but the equipment isn't impressive (it works and everything - it's just not as nice as a modern gym with new equipment) and there's not that much of it.

After the workout, I showered and hit the beach. We also did some swimming in the ocean and the pool. The pool gets crowded in places but it is huge and has 2 swim up bars.

We had lunch in a restaurant by the pool - this was a small buffet. Then we went back to the pool and the beach. We also tried out the spa (the water in the whirlpool type things wasn't too hot which is great for me. We hung out there until it was snack time at 4:00. Then we did some more swimming, laying out on the beach, jogging on the beach, etc.

At 7:30 we had another snack at the buffet. And now we're just killing time (well I'm blogging) until our reservations at the Chinese restaurant at 9:30.

I've left out plenty of details but I do have to go eat soon. Anyway, I like the food. It's not the best I've ever had but there are lots of good choices. And I like that I can eat any time. I believe there's at least one place to eat open 24 hours a day.

I also like swimming in the pool and relaxing on the beach. I still haven't decided if I'll recommend Sireins or not. I mean you should be able to enjoy the pool and beach pretty much anywhere.

And I just remembered that I left a note for housekeeping to leave extra bottled water in our fridge. The note is gone and I only got 4 little bottles of water - not nearly enough. I'm thinking I might not leave a tip since I now have to go track down more bottled water from somewhere...

After I go try the Chinese food. More tomorrow!

Buying travel insurance, La Costa Resort, 7 wonders of the world voting finished

A few people commented on travel insurance on a recent post about travel agents. Apparently the issue is more confusing than I thought according to this article:

Don't buy travel insurance, says Consumer Reports. Do buy travel insurance, say consumer advocates Clark Howard and Ed Perkins. Don't buy travel insurance, says the Consumer Federation of America. Do buy it, says your travel agent.

What's crystal clear though is that you can't afford to get really sick on vacation without insurance. Fore example, medical evacuation costs a fortune. If you remember that lawyer flying around the world with TB, an air ambulance between Denver and Atlanta cost $12,000. Make it an international flight and you're talking about a lot more.

This writer talks about La Costa in Carlsbad and while it doesn't sound like my kind of thing (especially at $400/night) the author says it succeeds as a family vacation spot. Even though the author enjoyed, any praise is lukewarm:

Sure, it's a big resort that demands planning, but it's navigable if you work the system.

Still, great hotels shouldn't force you to attend to matters on your own. Just ask my aunties.

So that La Costa place isn't on my to do list, but I suppose the new 7 wonders of the world ought to be:

Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Christ the Redeemer, Brazil
The Great Wall, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India

So far the only one I've seen is the Colloseum in Rome. I'll actually be seeing one of the losers this summer (Statue of Liberty) and another this winter (Eiffel Tower). And Angkor Watt in Cambodia is another loser pretty high on my list.

Which of the new 7 wonders have you seen?

Pagudpod, the Philippines: A Hidden Paradise in The North

Imagine traveling by land from 11 in the evening to 2 in the afternoon the following day, during the Holy Week at that, just to go to a beach that friends and family swear to be as marvelous as Boracay; one of the most popular beaches and tourist destinations in the Philippines. Well, if traveling for hours on end will get me again to Pagudpod, Ilocos Norte so be it. Pagudpod's powdery, white sand and crystal clear blue waters can rival any beach in the world. Plus, it isn't that commercialized yet, so the beaches are very clean and even if the resorts are all booked, you wouldn't notice it.

As it was the Holy Week and we didn't have a reservation, we ended up staying at a house which we rented from a local near the beaches so we didn't have the view of the beach. We had to pay an entrance fee of 30 Philippine Pesos (about $0.80) to get into Saud beach resort. The beach was nothing short of dazzling. There was an assortment of locals and tourists swimming and soaking up all the heat the sun could offer. Thankfully, it wasn't like Boracay where you have to fight for sunbathing space since Boracy's sand is literally littered with sunbathers.

There were several beaches there that offered only sand space where you can bring your camping gear and set it up right on the beach; though that option is only perfect for those who don't have kids as it gets very hot during the nights and the bathrooms were relatively far from the camp site. If you do decide to bring kids, make sure to bring mosquito nets and mosquito repellents.

Our second day called for fresh water, so after a few hours on the beach, we headed to Kabigan falls, a 15 to 20 minute drive from where we were staying. An affordable fee of 15 Philippine Pesos (about $0.40) per head will get you in. We had to trek for 30 minutes through not-so-steep steps and some streams on the way to the falls which made it even more exciting. The falls itself was nothing short of majestic as it falls 120 feet into a natural basin where you can swim or just relax on the surrounding boulders.

On our third day, we decided to visit the famous Blue Lagoon or Maira-Ira beach where surfers hangout. Oddly enough, we didn't see any surfers and we didn't see anyone who rented out surf boards - maybe it's not surfing season. Nevertheless, we rented an open cottage where we ate our food. There are no hotels surrounding this area so renting cottages is your only option.

The waves there were higher and more aggressive than the ones in Saud so we spent the whole day body surfing until our bodies ached. What sucks about this place though is that there are no bathrooms, so we asked to use a local's bathroom near the area and gave them a generous tip.

Sadly, all things must end at some point and we had to go home the following day. On the way home, we decided to stopover the neighboring town of Bangui, where you can see for yourself the magnificent wind mills that provides sufficient amount of the electricity in Ilocos Norte.

For those who haven't been to Pagudpod, I strongly suggest that you book reservations at least 2 months in advance, especially when you plan to go there during the Holy Week as there are only a few resorts. You can also opt to travel by air by catching a plane from Manila to Laoag and then catching a 75 km bus ride to Pagudpod.

Guest entry submitted by a Filipino reader who wanted to share his vacation experience.

Past entries somehow related to the Philippines.

Antique Nash Automobiles Visit Boston Area

The Nash Car Club of America’s 2007 ‘Grand Nashoinal’ event was held in Andover, Massachusetts the end of June. Many car enthusiasts are in clubs that promote enjoyment of their antique, special interest and collectible automobiles and although there is no Nash car company today, there are still many people who love Nashes.

We drove our 1955 Nash Ambassador from New York. The weather was beautiful and the car ran great. It was about 225 miles but we weren’t even close to getting a long distance award!

People come from all over for an event like this. One member flew from Australia for the show! Some folks have known each other for years through the car club, so there’s something of a reunion feeling in the air. The good fellowship is extended to new members and everyone who comes to appreciate the cars, so it’s a really pleasant experience.

The event was held at the Wyndham Andover Hotel. There was plenty of parking so the old cars could stay together. The rooms and amenities were quite nice and everyone at the Wyndham was very helpful.

The car club members who organized the event did a wonderful job. They put together a terrific itinerary. There were pre-show events to tour Concord and Salem, Massachusetts, Canobie Lake (amusement) Park in New Hampshire, a bus trip to Boston, Massachusetts to see the USS Constitution, Old North Church, Paul Revere’s House & Bunker Hill (part of the Freedom Trail), and a bus trip to Maine & New Hampshire to see Wells Auto Museum and Stonewall Kitchens among other attractions.

Of course, the main attraction was the cars themselves. The Hudson, American Motors and Rambler clubs were also invited. There were cars from the 1920s through the 1970s. Besides the cars, there were vendors with hard-to-find parts and special items. Of course, no car club event would be complete without the commemorative T-shirts and this year's was
one of the best.

On Saturday, the cars were arranged by ‘class’, based on the year and model of the car. You can see pictures of cars at the 2007 ‘Grand Nashional’ (and lots of other antique & collectible cars) at the Nash nut.com photo blog. These are 1957 Rambler Rebels.

Everyone was given a ‘goodie’ bag when we signed in, and this contained a ballot to vote for your favorite car in each class. The ‘goodie’ bag also had a program with restaurant & gas station info, some maps and car stickers, as well as some local products – Cape Cod Chips, Table Talk mini pies, Stonewall Kitchens jam, plus candy from NECCO, Yummies, and Sleepy Mountain Maple. Sweet.

Saturday night the Grand Nashional concluded with a Banquet at the hotel. Some donated memorabilia was auctioned off to raise funds for next year’s meet in Indiana, and the awards were presented. The awards were unique. They were hand made by one of the club officers and truly represented the spirit of the Northeast. We went home happy because the weather stayed fine and our car got a 2nd place award in its class!

This article was written by my parents. You can see their other work by reading the Liberty of the Seas reviews: day 1 and day 2.