Where, When, and What Happened?

The last substantive trip was to China and Malaysia last fall.

Fate and personal choice determine what we do in this life. My partner and I choose to do a lot of travelling. Everyone has unique priorities, and having opportunities to see the planet on which we were born seem important to us. Furthermore, the memories and education of travel provide more satisfaction than accumulating objects. Shiny things soon tarnish, and new cars only seem new for about a month. Memories, however, seem more akin to gold.

Lots of our meandering occurred a long time ago. The 1980's are the stuff of history books nowadays. I've tried to capture and collect some of those times and places here in my eJournal and images. The loose structure and open-ended organization of a blog make that possible for a lazy writer such as myself.

However, I've been able to be a little more religious about documenting travel from September of 2003 when this ever-evolving document first went online. For during this time, I've, for the most part, been able to write about the trips as they've occurred. And to add further organization, I can link to them from one location.

Today's entry is merely a means to recap the journeys taken during my last eight years and four months of blogging. The majority of the longer trips are on multiple pages and, true to blogging format, they're in reverse chronological order. So reading an entire, lengthy past trip requires going to bottom of the page and using the Older Posts link. That's a bit of an annoyance, but at least it gives me quicker access to a particular location or event.

A List of Longer Trips Since Blogging

China / Malaysia - September / October 2011
Central America - April 2011
Spain / Portugal / Morocco - September / October 2010
Puerto Vallarta / Guadalajara Mexico - April 2010
New York City- December 2009 / January 2010
Siem Rep, Cambodia - October 2009
Sri Lanka - September / October 2009
Washington DC - March 2009
Las Vegas, NV - December 2008
Italy - August / September 2008
Phoenix / Grand Canyon / Palm Springs - May 2008
Mexican Cruise - February 2008
Europe / Eastern Europe - September 2007
Los Angeles - May 2007
New Hampshire - February 2007
Hong Kong - October 2006
Sri Lanka - September 2006
Pacific Coastal Cruise - May 2006
Europe - September / October 2005
New York City - May 2005
Singapore - October 2004
Sri Lanka - September / October 2004
Calgary, AB - December 2003
San Francisco - October 2003

Ghosts of Christmas Past

I keep adding an entry right here every day, even though I sometimes I wonder why. Of course, it doesn't cost anything other than my time. The payback for the time spent is the ability to keep track of what has gone on in my life.

If not a direct journal, then at least this space may hint at what I was thinking at a particular time. For example, I can quickly locate specific events that would have just "rushed into the mush" we call memories. I can quickly do a search to see what I included in my eJournal and images on the past eight Christmases.

2003   2004      2005        2006
2007      2008       2009       2010
Actually it looks like I have mostly used those days as a type of virtual greeting card. I now know what to include tomorrow. All the old blog entries may not be of much interest to others, but at least it allows me to keep track of personal events. If you'd asked me which recent Christmas we visited NYC, I might have had to think about it. Here, I can review with a vivid image. I took this picture of Jay and his brother on a Staten Island Ferry on Christmas Day 2009.

Personal Quote #6

"Within a span of less than two days, it's physically possible to visit nearly any destination on our globe. So, what has been keeping you from going there?"

Dennis Sylvester Hurd (1959- )

In front of Cambodia's Angkor Wat complex in October 2009.

Shravanabelagola

Shravanabelagola is one of the most important Jain pilgrim centers. It is about 150 km from Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. I was standing near the famous statue of Gomatheswara dating from 978-993 AD. The photo is looking back at the Chandragiri Hills and Tank. It was taken in July of 1994 during a two month journey that Jay and I took through India.



I did spend quite a bit of time thinking of a topic today. I have added quite a variety of things to my eJournal and images over the years. I reckon that if you're reading this at the blog, then you're looking at just one of approximately 2650 days of eclectic text and images. That is approaching the size of a hefty novel, isn't it? One good thing about creating electronic musings is there needn't be any particularly structured or well-thought-out format. It is possible to create an organization after the fact.

Today's photo gave me the encouragement to add a new tag. I will be adding a "tourist shots" pages. This entry will turn up as the very top today as it's the most recent. Many other pages will follow as I apply this tag to the previously-written entries.

The Kodak Hula Show

I was just about a month old when Hawaii officially become one of the United States. It got a lot of press in the 1960's. I watched, Hawaii Five-O, the original TV series from about the age of nine (most probably on a black and white television). If you know me at all, you are also aware that I like the tropics. So, of course the Pacific-Ocean island was one of the first big vacations we took after coming to Canada.





We were witness to the Kodak Hula Show in Waikiki in 1998. That particular event had celebrated its 60th anniversary the year before we got there. The show was started in 1937 by Fritz Herman, then-vice president and manager of Kodak Hawaii. At the time, visitors had few opportunities to take pictures of hula shows during the daytime. The show was held for decades at Sans Souci. During its final years, it took place on the grounds of the city's Kapiolani Park at the Waikaki Shell. We saw it there. Less than a year later, in June of 1999 Kodak pulled funding. Although the show operated without their sponsorship for a few more years, it was eventually closed for good in 2002. I feel fortunate to have directly witnessed this part of history.

Try to Picture That!

I am pretty good at uploading my Daily Picture Parade photos to Flickr. In fact, since July 1, 2005. I've added one for every single day. That's almost five an a half years of daily photographs. Yeah, I'm special and amazing. There's something of a unique number coming up in this regard in a next few weeks.

What's truly weird is that I don't do so well when returning from a trip. I have hundreds of photos from Italy, Mexico, and this year's trip to Spain-Portugal-Morocco that are languishing on an external hard disk.



This seemed seasonal enough. It was taken on December 27, 2009.

Never-Ending Self Promotion

Our local, hometown newspaper regularly promotes their postcards section. When travelling afar, tourists bring along a copy of the paper to hold in a photograph. A year ago, they published one taken in Sri Lanka. We often see other families and groups standing in front of famous or exotic locations with a copy of The (New Westminster) Royal City Record.



I expected to open today's edition to see the photo above. Actually we sent them two, both taken on our recent trip. In this one, Jay and I are standing in the Jemaa El Fna square in Marrakech, Morroco. My entry about this day was, of course, blogged. You may look at that day, September 29th, by clicking here.

Neither this picture, nor the one shot in Fes, Morroco were in today's issue. I emailed it to them rather late. I guess, we'll have to look to Wednesday's issue.

Journeys That Were Blogged

I really enjoyed our six days in Barcelona in September.

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Just before leaving on our recent vacation, I celebrated the fact this blog had existed for seven years. In 'blog years' that's an eternity, I think. If one is to then consider that I have created an entry every single one of those days, then this endeavor becomes even more unique. In fact I feel bold enough to make this bet: You will not be able to find a personal blog that has more entries than my eJournal and images.

That means I should be able to quickly locate all the vacations taken in the last seven years. I've surely mentioned about journeys earlier in my career many times, but the following trips were written while we were taking them.

Spain / Portugal / Morocco - September / October 2010
Wenas, WA - Weekends w/ Joel & Lynne - July 2010
Puerto Vallarta / Guadalajara Mexico - April 2010
New York City- December 2009 / January 2010
Siem Rep, Cambodia - October 2009
Sri Lanka - September / October 2009
Wenas, WA - Weekends w/ Joel & Lynne - August 2009
Portland, OR - June 2009
Washington DC - March 2009
Wenas, WA - Weekends w/ Joel & Lynne - February 2009
Las Vegas, NV - December 2008
Italy - August / September 2008
Phoenix / Grand Canyon / Palm Springs - May 2008
Mexican Cruise - February 2008
Europe / Eastern Europe - September 2007
Los Angeles - May 2007
New Hampshire - February 2007
Hong Kong - October 2006
Sri Lanka - September 2006
Pacific Coastal Cruise - May 2006
Europe - September / October 2005
Okanagan Winery Trip - June 2005
New York City - May 2005
Victoria, BC - February 2004
Singapore - October 2004
Sri Lanka - September / October 2004
Calgary, AB - December 2003
San Francisco - October 2003

I am pretty sure I have included a majority of times we were away for more than a weekend. The trip's lengths range from a few days to several months.

Cigar Guy

Back when Crasher Squirrel was running around, he popped up in a personal picture. I don't know if you've heard about Cigar Guy, but he has become an Internet meme after showing up in a Tiger Woods photo. I didn't know that he was also in Times Square with me back when we visited over the Christmas / New Year break.



He was quite far away, so I hadn't really noticed. (In fact, in order for you to see him, you many have to click the photo to load it on Flickr and then look at the largest image available.

Day 26 - Fes to Algeciras

If it's Thursday's child that has far to go, then today was Thursday for us.

I set the alarm on my phone for 5:55 am. We had to skip breakfast in order to check out of the hotel at about 6:45. We bought bread and cheese last night as we planned for this in advance. We assumed that the 'petite' taxis would be roaming the Bab area at this time of the morning. It was a little worrying at first, as not many were out and about. Yet, we had bought train tickets for the 7:10 back to Tangier.

After a few minutes a driver came past. He took us to the station in the new part of town. Although probably about four miles, he went quickly as there was no traffic. We were on the train by 7:58. The taxi driver gratefully left with an extra tip of $1.25.

We ate breakfast in our empty compartment somewhere on the other side Meknes. At one point there was a change of train. All the passengers had to get off and wait for another to arrive. The scenery rushed past as the trains in Morocco make good speed on many parts of the line.

We arrived at our destination at about 12:30 and grabbed a taxi back to the port area. We ate lunch at our 'favourite' restaurant near the hotel where we originally stayed in Tangier. (I like being able to say things like that.) It was within walking distance to the port. We walked.

The fast ferry costs more and promises to cross to Spain in 35 minutes. We paid 380 Moroccan Dirham each. The boat was more than 35 minutes late leaving the port, so I don't think that it was money well spent in terms of speed. We did want to check the city of Tarifa, Spain though. The fast ferries land there and a gratis bus will shuttle passengers to Algeciras. We thought we might stay the night in Tarifa, but it is not really our type of tourist town. We'd been to Morocco, so there was no need to be impressed with expensive hotels in narrow market-like streets.



I'm writing this from the Al-Mar Hotel again! It's late as we had to wait an extra hour for our bus and all the food in Morocco has now apparently caught up with me now that I've departed the country. Tomorrow, we will head to the other end of the Costa del Sol and much nearer to the airport from which we'll take off for New York on Tuesday.

Day 25 - Walking Miles in Fes

I'm very happy we came to this city even though we had only two nights to spare. Fes is one of those places that makes a visitor think deeply about life itself. I have finally, in my fifties, started to grasp the ebb and flow of humanity as people crossed continents, and sailed into foreign ports. I have always been a 'big picture' gestalt learner. There really is no need to learn facts about history unless one has the necessary 'scaffolding' to hold it in place.

Today as we walked miles up and down the old medina, I thought lots about people and life. I guess this is why we travel. This trip has taught me as much in a month as college did in four years. It's a shame that nobody's offering me any credits for today's studies.

Day 19 - On The Rock

Why are there charges on my cardit card in Pounds? Oh, we spent today in Gibralta. After finishing the best buffet breakfast of our trip, we walked to the bus station. A local bus runs around the this bay to La Linea, Spain. From the bus, one can walk though the border, over an airport runway, and into the town of Gibraltar. It is obvuious bythe long street of shops that this is a duty-free or low tax area. Spaniards were looking in windows full of cigarettes, booze, and electronics.

We walked half way around the mountain to the goldola and bought tickets to ride up only.The views were grand. Isn't there an insurance company that uses The Rock of Gibraltar as its logo? The tail-less monkeys are keep on tourist handouts but that would cost a fine of $500 if caught. We walked down incredibly speet steps. I almost think climing up would have been easier on my knees.

Imagine rather than having a ploughman's lunch or even fish and chips, we ate at a Subway(tm). We were back at four o'clock in the afternoon after a very nice day.



On to Morocco tomorrow!

Day 17 - At Al-Hambra Palace

We'd see the little buses going buy with the name Al-Hambra on them, so we kew it would be easy getting up the hill behind the city. We ate breakfast in the room from supplies we bought last night at a Macadona. (I'm surprised to not see more supemarket chains in Spanish cities.) A bus load of American tourists got onboard our bus a few stops from ours. There were a genial bunch but, wouldn't you know,got into a conversation about where to buy the best restaurant burgers when at home! This surely proves why we 'never' travel with tour groups. Even though we got to the gates plenty eary, the tickets to the palace itself were already sold out. We had to buy just the Generalife garden tickets. They really did afford a good morning's worth of activities. We completely walked up the castles and through 600 year old gardens but about 1:30 or 2:00 pm. We walked down into the city via a very steep pedestrian-only road. Sharawamas were lunch and after a long nap we walked back to the same shop to buy a hgalf chicken that we made into sandwiches for dinner.

During our nap, it rained a lot whereas the morning had only been a little cloudy with a few little drops. I like the city of Granada a lot but it's time to go back to the 'sunshine coast' tomorrow.

Day 5 - Seeing More Barcelona

After our typical breakfast of supermarket staples brought back to the room, we headed out to see Park Guell. We didn't have exact directions but have gotten used to the subway system here. It's daily passes for a city this size. A city of any worth, provides a system of complex lines to get one most anywhere. I'd rank Barcelona's somewhere between New York's and Singapore's. After a false start in El Camel, we ended up going to the right stop within walking distances of L3. The park is a world heritage site because it was one of works of Antoni Gaudi. You might want to read about him. Although the park was a failed business venture, it is a stunning addition life in Barcelona and one of the must-see places. This is especially true on a stunningly beautiful day, such as today.



Maybe tonight, we will head to Las fuentes Magica, some fountains from the 1929 World Exhibit. Or something else interesting.

Day 2 - Malaga, Spain

This was the first day that really counted as we awoke in Malaga. It was our only day at this side of the trip as we intend to make a big circle ending up here for the return flight to Vancouver. We had bought bread, marmalade, and bananas at a supermarket and just had these in the room as this hotel doesn't have breakfast. Then, out in the sunshine!



We're right in the historic center, so we of course, we walked up and around. The weather is beautiful but is during most of the year in the Costa del Sol. We had a leisurely lunch at a plaza cafe. The siesta was relatively short today. The were some sort of procession in the evening at the central Cathedral. Lots of people out and about always.

Up at 6:00 tomorrow for an early flight to Barcelona.

Climbing Sigiriya (Over 4,000 Times)

I feel a little lazy putting a photo here which was taken on September 18, 2004. It is to prove a point though. I want to mention how interesting it is to me to have images on the Flickr website. After returning from a two-month trip to Sri Lanka in 2004, I hadn't even heard of Flickr. In fact, I originally uploaded this image to a service called Webshots. (For all I know, it may still exist there today as well.) After joining Flickr the following year, I went back through and uploaded 320 photos from that trip.

The power of Flickr, to me, is that it then became available for others to view. I just discovered that the images has been viewed over 4000 times. Of my 6,667 images presently on my Flickr account, this photo takes the cake. I used to think that getting my name in a local newspaper was fame. Now, I know that people from all over have the opportunity to look at something I photographed.

Visiting Sigiriya Rock was amazing. I was a bit heavier in 2004 and it seemed like quite a climb too. I do realize I've talked about this subject before, and even wrote blog entries at the time of the visit. To read more about this topic, load this special page (which will have this entry as the top one and a Duran Duran video.)

Irony: Burning Them to Visit Their Fossils

My original goal for the truck was to have it last ten years. I figured that $US 1,000 per year was a reasonable cost for transportation eqipment. Well, 2006 has come and gone and I'm still lumbering around in my Ford Ranger. I have enough cash on hand to go and buy any new, replacement vehicle that I want. Yet, I cannot justify the expense as, at the moment, my truck has a measly 79,000 miles on it. Although it would be nice to have that fleeting new car smell, it simply doesn't seem necessary at this time.

The truck used to travel. In 2001, Jay and I took a seven-week, camping road trip. We left Vancouver and didn't turn around until after hitting Cape Spear, Newfoundland. In the past few years, we've not taken any substantial road trips. I like the feeling when pushing out in the morning with at least 400 miles of tar to cover. Maybe we can take several weeks this summer just to slide up the Canadian Rockies and visit Northern British Columbia. We could easily travel 3,000 miles and hardly leave our own province.

On the 2001 cross-Canadia trip, I'm standing helpless 'neath a menacing dinosaur in Drumheller, Alberta. It's in the Canadian badlands and is considered the dinosaur capital of the world.

A Trip's Always on the Back Burner

Okay, I'm just being plain lazy today. Trolling Flickr for a picture to upload prevents me from having to come up with any new idea for today's entry. I found this one. Jay and I spent the summer of 1994 in India. Sixteen years is a long time; it's time to make a return visit.

I'm always racking my brain for travel itineraries. In some ways, I fear not being able see all the parts of the world I want. I mean even though we most always take around eight weeks of vacation a year, that doesn't seem like it will be enough. We've never travelled south of Mexico and there are other, entire continents we've so far missed.

Rather than getting all depressed, I guess it would be better to think about just one break at a time. I hope we have the chance to go away for a couple of weeks in May. We've been doing a lot of research on Costa Rica. Still, I bet it's more likely that we will hit Puerto Vallarta for a few days, then spend a week or so in Guadalajara, and finally go back to the coast for a return flight. This would be new territory for an adventure. After all, we only spent one day in Puerto Vallarta when our cruise ship docked there.

A trip to Mexico can be classed as local. We usually manage several shorter vacations somewhere in North America each year. I don't have a clue yet as to where we might go for the big, yearly overseas sojourn.

Out in the Sun

It seemed as though the weather was trying to make up for the amount of rain which fell yesterday.  From the room, we could see blue sky and sunshine upon awaking.

Still no real plans for today although we got a lot of things to pack in this week.  It just seemed nice enough to run outside with all the others who were taking advantage of the sun.  We rode up to Columbus Circle just to walk across the south end of Central Park.  Lots of others had the same idea as there were more people, kids, and dogs than I could count.  I really like all the pedestrian walk space in Times Square nowadays.  We check TKTS for matinee shows but the line, if stretched out, wouldn’t gone to the Statue of Liberty and back.  (Oh speaking of Lady Liberty, we have reserved tickets for the crown for tomorrow at 1:00 pm.)

The weatherman said it was supposed to be 50 degrees Fahrenheit today, but it didn’t feel that warm to me.  I guess as the week continues the temperature are headed down again.  We did want to just walk today.  We went to Chinatown for lunch, then headed to Pier 17 on the downtown east side.  We should’ve walked across the Brooklyn Bridge but were satisfied walking under the Manhattan side of it.

We’re back in the room now.  I think we’ll get back on the “L Line” to get back under the river and see the tree at Rockefeller Center after a bit.

Could You Take Our Picture?

Instead of actually keeping a journal and relaying what's currently going on, I tend to talk about the past or future. That's probably for the best unless you really care to know I mixed kamut into the oatmeal for breakfast this morning. Okay, it's not such a secret that daily blogging can become somewhat boring. On a weekend, I often just scrape the barrel for a picture to include. It's easy to create a few lines of text around it.

I am happy to be in planning mode for a trip to Washington, DC. We leave on March 21st from Seatac airport. We'll arrive back after a week.


So, why'd I put a picture taken in Holland? It's because I like the whole concept of how tourists need to snap a picture taken standing in front of world-famous sites. Who are we to argue? Many trips which I take with Jay have had those must-have photos. I should make a collage. For example, in Paris there was the Eiffel Tower. In London, stood Big Ben and us. During last fall's trip to Rome, the Colosseum is a photo backdrop. The Bank of China in Hong Kong, looked stunning as our background from the Kowloon side. We've still got some grainy photos standing youthfully in front of the Taj Mahal in India. I guess I'm happy to know the list will never stop no matter how long we're around.

We'll next be in front of the Washington Monument or the White House in a few weeks time.