maistreview's PhotoBlog

谢谢, Xièxiè

2011-02-18T05:36:27Z

: Officially our last day of vacation. We walked around Da an park and revisited the dumpling place before heading to the airport. Flying first class is so wonderful. The lounge in Taiwan served dumplings, dim sun, and noodles made to order. We flew Malaysian air home, which was really nice too. Madame approves. Some quick impressions of Taipei: scooters are everywhere, lots of people wear masks (a little disconcerting at first), subways are the cleanest i've seen anywhere, people are very nice but don't pay us too much attention so we didn't feel too much like outsiders, and many people don't speak English. If I could read Chinese, i'd probably feel like all of the signs were screaming at me (like times square), but instead of finding them overwhelming, I really liked the way they looked. The hills surrounding the city were nice, so I bet the island of taiwan is quite beautiful. We felt perfectly comfortable as soon as we made our first metro trip. I like it here! Overall, this has been an amazing trip - my favorite we've had, actually. We've done so much! And eaten so much - I think we're each coming home with a few extra kilos... Traveling is the best - it puts things in perspective, clears your head, teaches, inspires, challenges, and changes you. We are so fortunate to be able to do it. We've had some great experiences over the last three weeks. Xièxiè = thanks.

ON day in taipei

2011-02-18T05:28:48Z

when vacationing, you don't typically have bad days, but you do sometimes have "off" days where things just don't go smoothly or don't quite meet expectations. Today was not one of those days. Today was definitely an ON day. We easily learned the metro system this morning (I love subway systems so much), and took it down to Taipei 101 (the world's tallest building before Dubai surpassed it - we've seen them both now). We went up to the observation deck, which helped us get an idea of the city, but it was pretty cloudy. We tried the buy one get one taiwan beer ice cream float, which was pretty much like what you'd expect. Then we ate a fabulous Japanese buffet lunch at a place called Wasabi. Next we strolled through some parks and stopped by the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Then to the beautiful Longshan temple, which was filled inside with people burning incense, praying, making food offerings, and singing. We hung in the back and observed for a while, having yet another surreal moment. I don't have any photos from the inside, but I didnt think it was inappropriate to take photos in the courtyard because I saw others doing it. In the courtyard, a very nice 83-year old man said "welcome to taiwan" and chatted with us a bit. We next went to get dinner at the world-famous Din Tai Fung, which specializes in delicious little taiwanese dumplings filled with pork and (lava hot) broth. For dessert, we walked around the corner for some giant piles of snow cone ice drenched with real fruit juice and covered with fresh strawberries and kiwi. To end the night, we went to taipei's most famous night market, and I got some cute cheap sweaters. Fun fun!

Nihau

2011-01-03T16:15:32Z

Another airport adventure early this am. Landed in Guangzhou nice and early and went through customs. They took our passports and didn't return them and told us to just "go over there". After about 15 min, they returned with the big pile of passports and proceeded to hand them back to the crowd of ~50 by holding them up and showing the photo. No talking, just squinting to see if the photo is you from 50 ft away. Then, they tell some of us to go upstairs, but when we get there, security is closed. We wait, in the unheated, freezing cold, bathroom-less area for over an hour, wondering what time they will open. Finally, when we go through security, we get the most extensive pat-downs you can imagine, and are finally allowed into the airport. All this, just for an international transfer; we're not even entering China. We found all of this process extremely funny at 6 am. Luckily, we got to spend the rest of our layover in the business lounge, which thankfully had heat. The flight to Taipei was quick, we bused it to our grand hotel, explored a bit around the place, and crashed hard again.

Crowds drive me batty

2011-01-03T16:13:27Z

1/2/11: Nearing the end of our vacation now, and Chris and I are bummed to be leaving Sydney. Three days certainly isn't long enough. This am was great though- we walked through Hyde park and the botanical gardens. The highlight was the hundred of huge bats that hung from the trees. They fought with each other and made a lot of noise. I've never seen anything like it, and I've never seen such big bats. We walked over to mrs macqueries point to check out the view, then ferried back to darling to see the aquarium (also in our 4 activities pass). It was decent, but incredibly crowded, so we didn't stay there very long either. We grabbed some much needed food at the restaurant below our hotel and headed to the train to go the airport. I'm grandma robot for the second time in our trip now because I pulled a back muscle when I set my backpack down at the airport. We're flying 1st class to Guangzhou China and to Taipei on Southern China airlines, and we're in the first row of the whole plane right now. It's not nearly as nice as the awesome first class on our delta flight to sydney (aren't I spoiled now), but at least my seat has a back massager. :)

No Worries, Mate

2011-01-03T16:12:05Z

1/1/11: slower start today. We went to the animal world thinking we could hold koalas there, but it was just a cheesy picture in front of their tree and a pat, so we didn't do it. We didn't stay very long there - we thought the zoo was heaps better (look at me using NZ words). We took the afternoon ferry over to manly where we saw the beaches, checked out ocean world, ate a tasty dinner (corn and sweet potato fritters with smoked salmon and creme fraise, garlic bread, and silver dory which I thought was too oily) on the road across from the surfers beach, and just barely made it onto the ferry back home bc all the beach-goers were returning then too. We went to the Sydney tower for some great views and called it a night. It was an incredibly relaxing, worry-free kind of day, but the title of this post comes from the aussie way of saying "you're welcome."

NYE in Sydney is a zoo

2011-01-03T16:10:57Z

12/31/10: Today was wild (pun intended). We started the day at the Tarango Zoo, which we thought was great. Animals we got to see for the first time included kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, the cassowary bird, and yes...a wombat. There was also a great view of the harbor from the zoo, right behind the giraffe area. In the evening we had a drink at the casino before boarding our party cruise boat, the super cat. We sat with an English couple on their honeymoon and a couple from the gold coast (originally from zimbabwe) who flew down literally just for the night (they were going to stay up all night and fly home at 7). They were interesting bc they've lived all over the place - their favorite was the whitsundays. We drank, ate, talked, and danced. C and I went out on the front deck for the midnight fireworks - they were spectacular and all around us. Certainly a great way to kick off 2011.

Just me and my darling

2011-01-03T16:08:08Z

12/30/10: 3:30 am wake up to catch our flight at 6. we got into sydney early, so we wandered around paddy's market a bit until we could check in. The fruit looked great, with avocados nearly the size of our head. We bought some for a picnic at our hotel (we had to check in at the bar again, but this time the place was great). We had a lazy afternoon, then walked around darling harbor. Tapas and sangria for dinner, then we crashed hard.

Sweet As!

2011-01-03T15:39:56Z

12/29: Sweet As! (a NZ phrase) We did our favorite tramp of the trip this morning - the hooker valley hike up to the glacier lake. It had two very cool swing bridges, a precarious ledge walk, and flooding over half the trail so we did a lot of boulder jumping. It was a fun one, and just hard enough to feel satisfaction but still love the whole thing. It ended at a lake that had an iceberg floating in it and a glacier flowing into it. We shared a massive (as usual here) top-quality hamburger and headed back to Christchurch, stopping for photos at lake tekapo, and back-tracking for a "Tired Drivers Die" sign. We arrived at our lodging for the night (I had chosen it based on it's cheap price and proximity to the airport) and found...a truck stop. In retrospect, the name "Highway Inn" should have given me a clue. We checked in at the bar, and since no one seemed to know how to check us in, we had to wonder how often people stay there. Also, there was 1 female toilet for all of the rooms and any female bar patrons, but somehow, i seemed to be the only one who used it. We ate chicken/Brie/plum pizza at a microbrewery, Twisted Hops; chatted with Joe and Roxy when we dropped off their tent; joe helped us drop off the Platz; and we settled in for about 4 hours of sleep at the truck stop. We absolutely loved New Zealand and are sad to say goodbye, but until we make it back again, Cheers, Land of the Long White Cloud

looking up

2011-01-03T15:38:17Z

12/28: we had a ferburger for breakfast, with hopes and dreams for conversation. We stopped at mount difficulty vineyards to taste their Pinot Noir (the best wine of this region), then drove up to Twizel and ate some delicious pizza at a place called Poppies. Though it was still gray and raining, we decided to gamble on the weather and drive up to mount cook for the night. With rain and gray clouds, mount cook and the other mountains were completely hidden - luckily, as we got to mount cook village the skies cleared and we found ourselves surrounded by massive mountains and glaciers. We had a dinner of fresh smoked salmon that we bought from a salmon farm, and we looked out over the mountains and watched cricket in our hostel's bar. We had time for a two hour hike to kea point, where we saw the setting sun play across the snowcapped mountains, then we had a beer until it got dark and went out to see the southern sky for the first time. It's ironic that today we had such awesome views looking up (sky and mountains), because I somehow pulled a muscle in my neck and have been moving like a grandma robot all day.

The Sound of Silence

2011-01-03T15:37:00Z

12/27: an early rise this morning, and more rain and waterfalls. We had a "moment of silence" in which they shut off the engines and generator and no one spoke. The only sounds were the waterfalls and rain. On the boat ride home across lake manapouri, I went on the top deck to avoid the diesel fumes and had it all to myself for my own half hour of silence. It was wet and chilly but lovely. We lucked out and got to jump on a glow worm tour at 2pm because a group of 30 had cancelled. The glow worm cave had thousands of little blue light specks on the ceiling - each little speck was a glow worm butt. I thought their fishing lines (they contain paralyzing saliva) were particularly beautiful. We did a silent boat ride in the pitch blackness, so we could see the ceilings. It was so cool, unusual, and disorienting. No one spoke for the whole 15 min, which added to the surrealness. It was a bit like looking up at the stars on a really dark night. The glow worms dim their lights after they've eaten, but if it's been a while since they've caught anything, they shine really bright. I found myself feeling kind of bad for the hungry ones. After the worms, we drove back to Queenstown, ate lamb pie at the pub on the wharf, drank some tasty hot chocolate from patagonia, and went back to the hostel to do laundry.