Concert

Chamber Music in Nice as reported by Cindy

I suppose it’s to be expected that there is a price (beyond monetary) to be paid in order to hear some of the most glorious chamber music in the world.  I accidentally found information about a string quartet concert to be given at the Nice Opera on Monday at 12:15.  The tickets were only 7 Euros (US$9) and the timing was right, so off we trudged along the lovely bay on a beautiful sunny day, arriving at noon.  We knew that the seats were not assigned but we were not prepared for near mayhem! 

The lobby was absolutely crammed with people forming a loose line from a stairway on the far left side where 3 ushers were blocking access.  The good news was that all the people who kept arriving after we did moved to the right and to the end of the line – this in a country where they don’t understand lines! No one tried to cut in and at about 12:10 the ushers finally let us pass … up 4 flights of stairs.  Our reward was a beautiful ornate “concert hall” – so to speak – it was long and narrow with about a hundred chairs in rows, and there was no stage.  Since we were at the back of the line we ended up at the back of the hall, which means we could see nothing more than the backs of the heads of other concert-goers.  If I sat up very tall and craned my neck I was able to see the tops of the heads of the two violinists.  Hmmm, if I’d only wanted to hear the music and not watch the musicians, I would have purchased the CD and repaired to my boudoir to listen!  It didn’t help to have noticed on our way up all those stairs that there was a gorgeous empty concert hall (the main opera venue) that was empty.  I have no idea why the concert was not offered there.

But I digress slightly – the musicians - two violinists, a violist, cellist, and oboist - were from the Vienna Philharmonic and they were absolutely fabulous.  The sound was incredible – yes there was the lack of visual accommodation but the acoustics were truly outstanding.  They played string quartets by Schubert and Dvorak and in between the Mozart oboe quartet.  We even got an encore.  If you closed your eyes – oh, wait, you couldn’t see a darn thing – you’d think there were 20 string players up there.  It was a lovely concert and well worth it.

Afterwards we walked to a nearby favorite restaurant, D’Acchiardo, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch.  More on that in the food section of the blog!

-Cindy

Nice

Nice, December 22, 2014

After one week of living in Nice we have settled into a rather nice pattern.  We sleep late, walk long, stop for an espresso at one of two places we prefer, pick up some fresh bread and a pastry of some sort and come back to the apartment for breakfast.  We have been blessed with perfect weather. Yesterday, the first day of winter, our afternoon walk along the Promenade was in full bright sun with a temperature of 65!

Our apartment is just perfect for this six-week experience. It is relatively compact but large enough to have some space to spread out. The bed is comfortable and there is a lot of light in the apartment until the afternoon.  The kitchen requires a lot of flexibility when cooking but I’ve made several decent meals without issues.  Shopping is lots of fun here and for the first time I’ve used a French shopping cart, which is a big bag on wheels.  I, and my fellow old farts, walk around the market looking things for our dinner.  The Niçoise are not a very tall people and on numerous occasions Cindy and I have been stopped by other shoppers and asked to get something for them from one of the top shelves.  The inner city supermarkets do not have the same space as those in the suburbs so they pile things up high and hope for the best.

We are still exploring our neighborhood seeking out the best places for coffee, Kirs, oysters and wine. When stores are closed here, they are really closed and you could never tell there was a restaurant or café until they open again, and then we are greatly surprised that we didn’t notice it before.  Two nights ago we were wandering around looking for a place to have dinner.  We had walked to the old town to watch the light show and see the new Marché de Noël, which really was a bummer since it consisted of only two stalls selling homemade soap and a huge crèche, but at least it smelled nice.  Anyway the place we thought we would eat was closed, closed on a Saturday night before Christmas!

We had a very interesting Friday. As we were leaving the apartment to go on our walk along the water, we saw an electrician entering the foyer.  Upon our return we found out that we had no electricity.  Calls to the manager got us nowhere for three hours until everyone realized that the electric company had turned off our apartment instead of the one next to us that is unoccupied. Forty minutes after that someone came and pushed the right buttons to give us juice, which meant we could now use the Internet again, not to mention keeping our wine cold.  At lunch I made sandwiches, nothing fancy and certainly nothing that would cause my tooth to chip, but that is what it did. Luckily, it doesn’t appear to be anything but a minor annoyance and I’ll wait to get it repaired when we return.

We are now off to a concert at the Opera House, more later.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

And lo, it came to pass that today at 13:11 (7:11 Long Beach NY time) I welcomed my 69^th year as I was seated next to the most beautiful woman in the world who was toasting me with ice cold Rosé, in a sun filled room with doors flung open to allow the warm breeze of Nice to waft over our semi-clothed bodies.  And it was good!  (from CCE:  OK, dear readers, try to figure out which phrase is not quite true.)

After a well-deserved night’s sleep, we awoke late for a walk along the Baie des Anges, the Bay of Angels, where fishermen hauled their nets and pleasure boats cut through the emerald waters of the Med.  I was in heaven as we joined the multitudes enjoying a long morning walk in Nice.  After awhile we stopped for a coffee and then hit the supermarket for the basics: paté, mousse de canard, a lovely baguette, fresh butter, cherry jam, water, wine, and milk.  After our breakfast in the apartment we cleaned up and wandered around getting familiar with our new neighborhood, which has the delightful name of Quartier Musiciens and all the streets are named for great composers or performers.  This is a new area for us and we are enthralled.  For lunch, fate placed us right back at the very restaurant where we dined last night and we shared mussels and frites and a grand salad, with a bit more Rosé.

We stopped at a high-end wine shop and Cindy insisted on purchasing me a few marvelous bottles of wine despite my severe protestations. (Now try to see which phrase is not quite true.) More walking, a bit of a nap and now we are ready to hit the Christmas Market before we find the perfect restaurant for a birthday dinner.  Best wishes to all on this the best holiday of the year!  Wm

Milan to Nice

December 12-14, 2014 – Milan and onward to Nice, very slowly

We arrived in Europe on Thursday morning having been up most of the night flight with screaming babies, so when United finally deposited us at Milan’s Malpensa airport we were delighted to get off the plane.  We headed for the nearest café for a real espresso, which was as good as it gets and washed away a lot of the aches and pains of a long coach flight.  We took the train from the airport to downtown Milan and then walked to our hotel, which was only five blocks away.  We were thrilled to find that our room was ready and we didn’t have to wait until 3 pm to check in, so we hastily unpacked and took a long walk around town to stretch our muscles and prepare ourselves for lunch. We found a nice little bar called Aperitivi, which was what we needed and we enjoyed a glass of wine before heading to another little spot for a light lunch followed by a long nap.

Our friends Roberto and Maria came to the hotel at 18:30 and we wandered around looking for a good restaurant and enjoying a few glasses of wine on the wander. Dinner was unexpectedly delightful and tons of fun.

While in Milan we saw the labor protests on Friday and we knew that there could be problems due to strikes over the weekend.  However, on Sunday when we were scheduled to take the train to Nice the day started with the same guarantees that the night before had ended with, “Yes, your train to Ventimiglia will go as scheduled.”  We were of course concerned but since this was a high-speed train, it would go as scheduled at 9:10 AM.  We arrived at the train station in plenty of time and sure enough our train was at the assigned platform and loading passengers.  We settled into our cabin along with three others traveling to Ventimiglia.  At 9:00 it was announced that the train would depart on time but that it would terminate in Savona due to the work action of the striking railway workers.  We quickly established from our new friends in the cabin that Savona was about 120 KM away from Ventimiglia, but they thought there would be buses to take us there so that we could get a French train to Nice.  Besides, the notice was too short to get off the train and we didn’t have a backup plan, so we departed for Savona right on time.

Savona has no bus service to Ventimiglia, or anywhere else that we can determine. The station itself is modern and filled with marble and glass but doesn’t have a place to wait for trains so everyone sits on luggage with nothing to do. If you gamble, there was a large casino but no restaurant.  A taxi to Ventimiglia would have cost 240 Euros so that was a no-brainer.  There is one hotel nearby but no one was quite sure where and we really didn’t want to stay in another hotel when we were trying to reach our apartment in Nice.  We were promised that a train would run at 17:29 which meant we had a lovely five and a half hour wait – what a kick-off to the birthday weekend!

As of 17:15 and we had been there for five plus hours and we headed to the platform where the train to Nice was supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes. And then we were finally on the train and moving in the right direction, oh joy unbound.  Got as far as Ventimiglia and thought all was well for our arrival in Nice at 8 pm but Lady Luck seemed to be deaf, dumb and blind to our needs.  Seems the Italian workers got one more jab at us before we headed into France because the train engine needs to be changed at the border due to different track gauges.  Normally this is a five-minute operation but after a half hour of sitting at the border we were told that there were no Italian work crews to do the changeover so the French had to handle the entire operation.  Finally, en route again and in France thinking we would be arriving at 8:30 pm but the French had a surprise for us and we stopped at Menton where three of the largest, blackest police officers in the country boarded our carriage and went right to four young men and demanded their passports.  After about ten minutes they took all four off the train and we were finally underway again. Such drama!  (We asked a French train official but he didn’t know what the problem was; the men didn’t look all that threatening but you never know!)

Arrived at the apartment at about 8:45 and were met by the manager who showed us all the tricks - and then we raced to a bistro arriving at 9:15, a mere 12 hours after departing Milan. For the record, you can drive from Milan to Nice in a bit over three hours.  However, we were delighted to sit down to glasses of Champagne, a hot meal and cold wine, and all was well with the world.

Cindy and Wm

Back in Charles Town

Back in Charles Town

After twenty-five days, fifteen flights, eight hotels, and twenty thousand miles, we are home.  It was a great trip, perhaps a few days too long and a bit too ambitious in terms of cities visited, but one that we’ll cherish for a long time.  The flights and the hotels were universally great, typical of what you can expect in Asia compared to the USA.  We were talking about our likes and dislikes on the trip and really didn’t come up with any dislikes. Of our fifteen flights, not one of them departed or landed late and that is really a staggering statistic. 

On our last full day in Hong Kong, we woke up to breathless news accounts on CNN, Asia News and BBC about how the police had moved in and removed barriers at the Pro-Democracy encampment.  We looked out our window and everything seemed to be the same as the day before, so after breakfast we walked over to the camp to see what had changed. There were lots more cameras and news crews, and we even walked past the CNN newsperson who had delivered the big news that morning, but we saw nothing different from our previous visits.  Turns out the police and bailiffs had simply enforced a judgment by the courts that allowed them to remove one barrier to open up about two hundred yards of roadway to allow trucks to get into and out of a place called Citic Tower, hardly news at all, but enough to capture some morning headlines.  Having had enough of the media hype, we were drawn back to Hong Kong Park and visited the Conservatory, filled with tons of cool plants, waterfalls and lily ponds before heading for a repeat visit to the Aviary. We saw lots more birds whose technical names were things such as:  bright green bird with red eyes, huge white bird with pale purple crest, etc. It was like being in Jurassic Park, everything was so foreign to us and so very exciting to observe.

Upon departing Hong Kong for an overnight at Narita, they pulled a switcheroo on the type of aircraft we were to fly. Instead of an Airbus 330, Asiana used a 747 that had the business class seats on the upper deck, which is our favorite configuration. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane and the service was spectacular. We arrived at Narita at 9 pm, got to the hotel at about 10 pm and departed at 8:25 am, so it wasn’t a very long stay at the hotel. Our ANA flight home was very comfortable but I had changed our seats so that we were sitting side by side rather than one in front of the other. The seats were 1-2-1, which meant we had no window, which bothers me a lot since I really need to be able to look out at the horizon.  The first thing that everyone in a window seat did was to close the shades, and they kept them closed until ten minutes before landing.  Other than that it was a really delightful flight that allowed us plenty of time to watch some movies, eat some elegant food and savor lots of good wine. As it turned out, we really couldn’t interact with each other without having to lean way forward since these seats are designed for privacy as opposed to intimacy.

Now it is time to adjust to the real world of shopping, cooking, cleaning and catching up on household issues.  I don’t understand how things break while we are gone, but our humidifier doesn’t work, the chilled water in the refrigerator door is on the fritz, and I’m still checking out other systems.  These are things that will have to wait until we are over jetlag, which has slowed us to a crawl and fogged our brains to the point that reading newspaper articles requires two attempts. The rule of thumb is that jetlag lasts for one day for each hour of time difference, so that should get us over jetlag the day before we depart for Europe. Good timing!

Once rested, we’ll turn our attention to Thanksgiving, which we are calling Thanksmas since we’ll be combining Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.  Cindy’s mom will be visiting, as will Colin and Meagan and Patrick and Hannah, so we’ll have a full house for a few days of fun and frolic. Tomorrow I begin menu planning so that I’ll have a plan for shopping on Monday.  Looking forward to all of it.  Best wishes and happy Thanksgiving, Cindy and Wm

Hong Kong, Part Two

Hong Kong, Part Two

We have been real tourists for the past few days.  We had a delightful al fresco luncheon at The Pawn with some friends we met in Moscow who are now working in Hong Kong.  It was a glorious day, with bright sunshine and clear blue skies, quite unusual for Hong Kong.  It seems that the Chinese government decided to close most of their factories in and around Beijing before the big meetings there last week.  That action coupled with not allowing two thirds of the cars and trucks to operate cleaned the air over the conference and had the unexpected benefit of cleaning the air in Hong Kong due to the favorable winds.

After lunch we walked around different markets and ended up at the ferry terminal where we said our goodbyes as they boarded their ferry to Discovery Bay.  We continued to wander around the city and were almost able to walk home without going outside by hopping from enclosed mall to enclosed mall on elevated walkways.  The malls are all decorated for Christmas with lots of fresh Christmas trees and wreaths scattered around the lobbies. Every mall seems to have a Christmas Village with all the trimmings, including the fake snow. I have never seen so many designer label stores so concentrated in my life and it seems that each mall has the same stores with nothing low end. I guess that is what the street markets are for.

The Pro Democracy protestors have done a bang-up job of setting up their camps.  They are very clean and well organized and there seems to be a command structure, at least I assume those with walkie-talkies are commanders.  They have a media center, a first aid center, a recharging center (can’t give up their screens), and a food distribution center.  It seems that many of the merchants have been donating food and water to the protestors, much to the dismay of the local government.  They have taken over a very large central roadway that leads to the tunnel to Kowloon and the airport so that all of this traffic now has to take the surface roads, which have streetlights, and this really slows things to a grinding halt at rush hour.

Our friends had told us that on Sundays all of the Philippine nannies and housemaids have the day off, a Hong Kong law, and that we would see them sitting together on flattened cardboard boxes around Hong Kong.  That did not prepare us for what we saw. There were thousands of these mostly young women who were gathered in clumps of five to ten, sharing food, massaging each other’s feet, grooming one another’s hair and just having a grand old time. They were everywhere, not just in parks and city squares, but gathered on walkways, sidewalks and curbs. It was truly an amazing thing to observe.

After wending our way past the picnickers, we decided to take the ferry over to the Kowloon side to see how things have changed over there in the 15+ years since we were there.  Equally amazing, but not in a good way, was Tsim Sha Tsui, the main shopping area of Kowloon where the Star Ferry stops.  From the moment we stepped off the ferry we were assaulted by countless Pakistanis trying to get us to buy custom made suits, shirts, dresses, and ties.  When that wave passed a new group would come at us trying to get us to buy knock-off watches, handbags and suitcases.  And so it went for the entire time we were in Kowloon and it made for a less than pleasant experience.  We took refuge in the Hyatt Regency for a bit of a break and then decided that we would rather just get back to the Hong Kong side as soon as possible, so rather than having to fight off more hawkers, we opted for the subway, which was fast and clean and took us right to our hotel.  We felt like we had just been to Cairo and not Kowloon.

Today, in keeping with our desire to be tourists, we took a long and lovely walk through the Hong Kong Park, an oasis of calm and green in a landscape of mirrored glass skyscrapers and the constant sounds of construction.  Here our souls were soothed by fountains, waterfalls, streams, and small ponds filled with turtles and koi. There was a butterfly garden filled with some of the most beautiful and large butterflies we have ever seen. At the marriage registry there were several weddings taking place with lots of photographers capturing every moment of the events.  We soon exited the park and got in line (with a hundred of our dear friends) at the kiosk to purchase tickets to take the Peak Tram to the top of Hong Kong.

The tram is a fixture of Hong Kong and has been around since the late 1880s, carrying tourist and residents up to the top of Victoria Peak. From there you have marvelous views of all of Hong Kong, Victoria Harbor and Kowloon. They have interactive tablets with earphones that allow you to choose what you want to learn about using their photos and icons, all very high tech and really well done.  We had a great time just looking around and hearing about the history and buildings of Hong Kong - like I said, we were just being good tourists.

Told you we were tourists!

On the way home we took a different route through the Hong Kong Park and spent a lot of time in the Aviary, which is a huge outdoor cage with 600 bird species.  We marveled at some of the colorful birds we had never seen before and we followed the grasshopper lady who dispensed grasshoppers onto tree leaves for the birds to eat, and boy did they eat.  We were about forty feet above the stream at the bottom of the aviary and the walkway twisted and turned and dropped about fifteen feet by the time we got to the exit.  It was one of the coolest places we have visited on this trip.

Time to rest!  Cindy and Wm

Hong Kong

Hong Kong, November 15, 2014

Here I sit on the top floor of our Hong Kong hotel. We are on the 35^th floor and all the buildings surrounding us have at least 70 floors, which means we are surrounded by glass and steel and if we want a view, we need to look at the reflections in the windows of our neighboring buildings.  I haven’t been here in fifteen years and the city is a stranger to me. Kowloon looks like the Hong Kong side did fifteen years ago, massive skyscrapers and dense housing developments, all amazing to me. 

Our flight here was painless. We had to get up early, for us, since they told us we needed to depart the hotel by 8 am due to heavy Friday traffic. Indeed it did take us almost an hour to get to the airport, but it was an amusing drive as we watched whole families on small motorbikes navigating the chaos of Hanoi traffic.  Check-in was another chaotic affair taking much more time than anticipated, but we still made it to the gate on time and the flight was lovely.  The train from Hong Kong Airport to Hong Kong Central Station is a marvel of efficiency and comfort.  For about $12 we got a ticket for two and in 24 minutes we were in the middle of Hong Kong. Things got sticky from this point on due to the Pro Democracy protests and demonstrations, which closed down the major road to our hotel.  There is normally a shuttle bus but it has been suspended and we were told to take a taxi.  There were four taxi lines with at least twenty folks in each line and only one taxi came in the first ten minutes – one for all four lines!  We bailed, found our way to the subway, and thanks to Cindy’s reading subway maps and charts on the fly, finally got to our destination about an hour after getting off the airport train.

We received a lovely note from our Hanoi guides (the Hanoi Kids) thanking us for taking the tour with them.  We visited an old traditional home on the tour, one that had belonged to a wealthy silk merchant in the early 1900s. In one of the rooms there was an old Olivetti manual typewriter and our guides were amazed that we knew what it was and even more amazed that we had learned to type on instruments just like this one.  We pointed out some of the features and they kept asking questions like, where is the delete button, where is the return button, etc.  Ah, youth!

We are off to have lunch with a couple that Cindy taught with in Moscow who are now working in Hong Kong. Hope to get some suggestions for our next three days of touring.   Cindy and Wm

Hanoi, Part Two

Hanoi, Part Two

We started our first full day in Hanoi with a walk around the hotel just to get our bearings. The first thing we noticed was that unlike Chiang Mai, Hanoi actually has pedestrian streetlights at major intersections. We were delighted since the traffic is horrible, mostly motorbikes and buses, so we waited until the light turned green and started to cross the street. Unfortunately, it appears that the green pedestrian sign seems to indicate that it is okay to hit pedestrians!  Not a single bike, bus or car stopped for the light and we feared for our lives since we were stuck in the middle of the street with traffic coming from what appeared to be three directions.  So much for a long walk before breakfast. 

We celebrated our safe return to the hotel with a wonderful Vietnamese breakfast.  Strong black coffee, made with 100% Vietnamese coffee beans for me, and Vietnamese coffee for Cindy, which is iced black coffee mixed with sweetened condensed milk and spices.   Cindy said it tasted more like a liquid Tira Misu (and we later found out that some brands of coffee have cocoa butter mixed with the beans, even though they don’t normally add chocolate to the beverage).  We had lots of local fresh fruit, pho noodle soup with chicken and chopped greens, vegetable spring rolls, rice and egg and chopped salad with ginger and mint.

Fortified with this fine breakfast we decided to try once again to conquer the mean streets of Hanoi and with a bit of choreographed moves involving running, yelling, closing our eyes and praying, we made it across all of the major intersections which led to Hoan Kiem Lake in the middle of town. This is a peaceful place amidst the noise and craziness of downtown Hanoi and we had a lovely walk around the lake, where we noticed many couples getting married and having their pictures taken at the lake. We later found out that 11/11 was a very lucky day to get married and if it rains it is even luckier since that means great wealth will descend upon the couple. As if on cue, it started to rain lightly and everyone seemed delighted. (That was the only rain of the trip.)

We wandered over to the Hotel Metropole, which has been a landmark in Hanoi since 1901. It is a beautiful place and I wanted to see the bar where Graham Greene drank and wrote The Quiet American; it is a good bar! The hotel has a “walk of history” with old photos of all those who have stayed at the hotel, including Jane Fonda and Joan Baez. It was fascinating, including seeing John McCain’s photo when he returned to North Vietnam, as well as war scenes from the various wars Vietnam has endured. Outside the hotel were two 1955 Citroens which hotel guests can rent to get around town; they are incredible machines.

Prior to our arrival I found out that there was a performance at the Hanoi Opera House on the 11^th so I wrote to the hotel and asked if they could get me two tickets, best seats available, for the performance.  Sure enough they had the tickets waiting for us upon check-in and asked that I pay them cash in the morning. When I asked how much they said, “one million Dong.”  Upon recovering my tongue from the floor, I asked how much that would be in US$ and the answer was US $47.00.  I was really shocked to realize that two tickets for the best seats in the house had only cost $47.00 and that the exchange rate was 21, 276 dong to ONE US dollar.  Needless to say, doing the math on restaurant prices has been a challenge.  How quickly we forget about currency exchanges. When we lived in Germany we always kept enough French Franc, Austrian Schilling, and Italian Lira in our exchange purse to make sure we would have enough for a good dinner and a night’s lodging since credit cards were certainly not widely accepted, especially at the places we stayed.  Now with credit cards and a Euro Zone we don’t pay much attention to exchange rates, but here in Hanoi, cash is king and you really need to carry a heaping helping of dong.

We got all snazzed up for the Opera orchestra concert and stopped at the lounge for a glass of wine before walking the short distance to the Opera. The lounge was filled but a nice couple from England offered to move a bit to make room for us. We thought that was very nice and even I was prepared to make small talk, but they went right back to their respective tablets and continued to argue over which seats to take on their return flight. It used to be that you could always tell the Brit couples since they would each be reading a book as opposed to talking with one another; now everyone is on a smartphone or tablet and the lines are blurred, but you can be assure that the Brit couples are still not talking to each other.

The Opera House is a jewel, rather small, about 600 seats, but ever so elegant.  There are soaring marble pillars capped with Corinthian metal decorations, a huge crystal chandelier and a ceiling of delft blue and white clouds.  The seats, I do believe they are original, were covered with red velvet and the armrests were intricately carved mahogany. The seats still had the heavy metal counterweights that made sure they came up when no one was sitting in them. The orchestra is very young and very professional and they played two pieces - Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Dvorak’s Symphony #9 From the New World - with great élan, mostly due to the ever so energetic conductor.  The second half of the Autumn Gala was the Firebird Ballet Suite by Stravinsky and I was very disappointed that when the curtain opened the orchestra was nowhere to be seen. Instead it was a stark stage, devoid of any fancy sets, and just 17 dancers, one of whom was painted as the Firebird. The music was canned and I was quite prepared to not like the production, but their skill and obvious passion hooked me and I truly loved the performance. (PS from Cindy:  The hard part is getting Wm to agree to a concert; once he gets there he loves every minute!  It was a magical evening, and I have to give him credit for finding the opportunity in the first place and then making the arrangements.)

The next morning I had arranged a tour with the HanoiKids. This is a remarkable organization - they call it a club - which allows English speaking visitors in Hanoi to arrange to have college students provide free tours of the city.  The ‘kids’ get to practice English and make new friends - and we get to interact with locals, visit places we would never have found, and get a much better feel for the city, its culture and its residents.  Our two ‘kids’ were 20 years old; Huyen was an experienced guide and Linh was on her first tour. 

Our Hanoi Kids

We had a ball with them and they with us as they showed us around their town and even showed us the proper way to walk across the street. (It appears that if you make believe you are a bullfighter and challenge the traffic as if they were bulls, you’ll do okay.) We ended our tour having coffee overlooking the lake and allowed them to ask all the questions they wanted about life in the USA. We gave them little gifts that we had brought with us and allowed them to help us cross the street one more time!! If any of you come to Hanoi, I really recommend HanoiKids for a lovely day of touring. Off to Hong Kong tomorrow, early, last night for great Vietnamese food!  Cindy and Wm

Hanoi, 11/11/2014

Hanoi, 11/11/2014

We have been trying to determine what we did to offend the travel gods at Bangkok International Airport.  Whatever we did, it must have been horrible because BKK got us again yesterday. Our flight from Chiang Mai was spot on time in departing and it landed a few minutes early so we weren’t terribly concerned about making our connection that was 75 minutes later.  But we taxied for far too long and passed all the gates, which meant only one thing: a remote parking slot with a bus to the terminal.  We then had to deplane down a rather steep stairway, which caused a lot of back-up since so many people had carry-ons with wheels, which of course were of no value on these stairs.  Then it was a bit of a walk to the waiting busses and more delays while they waited to fill them to capacity.  We now had only 45 minutes and we were still on the bus, which was waiting for another plane to cross the threshold. 

We got to the domestic arrivals area and those of us with international connections were herded to another security area, despite the fact that we had cleared security and immigration in Chiang Mai.  Finally through all the formalities, we were in the middle of the international departures D gates and had to look for a departure board to find out we needed to be in C concourse, a long ways from D.  Off we went on our long fast march and finally up to the C concourse where there was yet another security check.  We made it with a few minutes to spare but we were once again hot and sweaty as we got on the plane.

Our flight was on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which I had been looking forward to flying for quite awhile.  It is a lovely looking airplane made with composite materials, which makes it much lighter and more fuel-efficient.  By coincidence, we had met about five Boeing flight instructors at the Manager’s cocktail part at the Pan Pacific last week.  Boeing has a training facility there for the 787 so these guys were the experts and gave me lots of insights into the plane.  One of the cool things is that this plane does not need to ‘step up’ to cruising altitude. On normal big jets you need to burn fuel to lighten the plane to climb, which means going to 15,000 for awhile then to 25,000 for awhile, etc. With the 787 we were at 41,000 feet in 22 minutes!!  Two other things are unique to this aircraft. The windows, which are huge for an airplane, use an electronic shading system instead of a physical shade to control light, which means you can always see outside.  This craft also has a much better humidity and air flow control. The trainers told us that the flight attendants love this plane since they feel so much better after a long flight. Our flight was only 90 minutes but it was surely comfortable.

We arrived well after dark and had to process our Visa Applications, which was a bit of a farce.  It reminded me of the old days in Italy when we had to pay our utility bill. It involved going to four desks, getting four stamps and then being allowed to pay.  Same in Hanoi.  Give your passport and all of the paperwork to one person and then walk around the corner to the other end of the office and watch as your paperwork is passed from one uniformed officer to another, each time getting a stamp, a close inspection and a hand-off.   Fifteen minutes later (it seemed like hours!), we were allowed to give them US$90 and get back our passports with visas attached.  We were then off to the immigration lines and finally to baggage and out to the arrivals area. Our driver was waiting and 45 minutes later we were here at the Hanoi Hilton, not the one that McCain lived in during the 70’s but the one next to the Hanoi Opera.  It was here that our good karma caught up with us. Upon check-in I was told that since I was a Hilton Diamond Club member we had been upgraded to a King Suite. In my head I was forming the words, I’m not a diamond member, but all that came out was thank you, which I said in Vietnamese.  We are ever so happy with our one bedroom suite, which has great views of the city and the Opera next door, and now look forward to exploring this city.  Cindy and Wm

Chiang Mai, Part Two

Chiang Mai Part Two

There are three things in abundance in this city: food stalls, bars and massage shops.  If I had to guess, I would say more massage shops than bars and more food stalls/restaurants than massage shops.  With an abundance of choices for massage, these shops have had to differentiate their markets, always trying to find the new thing that will give them the edge.  The little fish that eat your toe cuticles when you stick your feet in the tank is so last year!  Yogurt facials seem new to me, especially the kind that have mint leaves in them.  Hot stones are no longer enough; they have to be hot jade and crystal to really be on the cutting age.  But best of all is the snail facial massage.  Ah, just picture yourself all comfy on an outdoor mat and having four or five large snails placed on your face and allowed to just slime around.  If that doesn’t relax you, I don’t know what will.  For me, I would like to combine the snails with the hot rocks and throw in some garlic, butter and parsley; now that would be relaxing!

Escargot Anyone?

We, and a few thousand of our closest friends, wandered around one of the larger night markets here in Chiang Mai last night. If you can’t find what you are looking for, it simply doesn’t exist. It is an interesting mix of retail stalls, all jumbled about without any apparent thought to grouping similar things together. In the middle are all of the food stalls selling food from around the world and you sit at large communal tables and eat and drink and sweat as one large family.

The weather has become very bright and sunny which means it is also very hot.  While we are high in the mountains, it is still in the 90+ range but the humidity isn’t as bad as it is in Bangkok.  Since the weather has turned we have been treated to spectacular views of the surrounding mountain ranges that form a ring around the city. Today we waited too long to walk to the river and it exhausted us because it was already so hot outside, but it was worth is since from the Iron Bridge, we were still able to see lots of the colorful floating baskets adorned with flowers and sticks of incense that were left over from the festival the past few nights.

The food here is really incredible, but this is real Thai food and while we love most of the spices, the heat from the variety of peppers that seem to be in everything have brought us to tears on several occasions.  Some of the plainest looking things and even some of the desserts are loaded with heat.  To give our palates a well-deserved rest, we ate in a wonderful Cantonese restaurant last night and it was glorious. Duck served three ways with a crispy skin the color of mahogany, glistening Bok Choy with three types of mushrooms and sliced garlic, and oodles of noodles with fresh herbs and ginger.  Not one dish was hot or spicy, just filled with flavor.

Tomorrow we are off to Hanoi and are really looking forward to our first trip to Vietnam. It is another long travel day since getting in and out of Chiang Mai is difficult, but I’m sure it will be worth the effort.  Until Vietnam, Cindy and Wm

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, Thailand November 8, 2014

Our flight from Singapore to Bangkok went without a hitch. The Singapore airport, Changi, is still the most amazing place in the world and we left on time, but upon arrival at Bangkok we were surprised to see an agent holding a sign with our names on it. It seems that our connecting flight had changed departure times so that instead of a ninety-minute connection, we now had only thirty minutes before boarding the plane to Chiang Mai.  All I can say is thank goodness we are in decent shape since we had to literally walk a bit more than a mile to make the connection and our agent was really moving!  She got us through immigration and security and to the departure gate with three minutes to spare.  We were soaking wet from the fast walk in an under-air-conditioned terminal but happy to get on the plane. 

We landed at Chiang Mai just after a very heavy thunderstorm so everything was glistening in the waning sun.  We had yet another long walk to the baggage area and then out through customs and into the reception area where our driver from the Shangri La hotel was waiting for us.  I was ever so pleased with myself for having arranged this since we arrived on the first day of Loy Krathong, the festival of light in Thailand, and the lines for taxis were extremely long - outdoors in the heat and humidity.  What was supposed to be a fifteen-minute ride to the hotel doubled since they had closed off many roads for the parade and there was much more traffic for the holiday.

As we crawled through the narrow streets we could see all of the little shops had surrounded their entrances with votive candles, and the soft glow from these hundreds of lights lit up the darkening evening.  We finally arrived and got settled in the lovely room and then went upstairs to have a drink and look at the festivities from the floor to ceiling windows.  It was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever experienced in my years of travel.

Loy Krathong takes place on the evening of the first full moon in November and usually involves floating a basket filled with flowers and small coins on rivers and lakes.  You send your basket off with a small wish and the waterways are covered with light.  Here in Chiang Mai, it is a three-day festival that involves sending up lanterns, like little hot air balloons, and they have all kinds of sparklers attached to them.  There were thousands of these lights filling the night sky and it looked like a time-lapse picture of the stars and constellations.  This clip doesn’t do it justice but you’ll get the idea.  The floating of the lanterns is also accompanied by fireworks, official and otherwise, that go on all night long.  By all night I do not mean late into the evening, I mean until dawn; just ask Cindy who was kept awake by the noise.

The next morning we were up early (early for us) and took a long walk before it got too hot. There were lots and lots of the lanterns scattered around on high wires, trees, and pagodas as well as on the pavement.  We had a lovely breakfast and prepared for our day in the Old Town, which we were looking forward to since it is supposed to be filled with lots of beautiful Wats, i.e., Buddhist temples. We took a ubiquitous Tuk Tuk, which is a motorized rickshaw and is the favored method of transportation here in Thailand since the Tuk Tuks don’t seem to be encumbered by any constrains related to traffic signals, speed limits or traffic patterns.  In fact, they will even jump onto a sidewalk to get around traffic.  This was Cindy’s first ride on a Tuk Tuk and she was like a kid in a candy store, she just loved everything about our ride, which got us where we wanted to go for three dollars.

I had a very romanticized vision of what Chiang Mai would be. I had thought from conversations with others who had visited here and from various websites that it was an artist colony high in the pristine mountains of Thailand.  There were supposed to be wild elephants, lush jungles, and raging rivers, as well as tons of shops selling handmade artifacts from the area. What we found was a very large city, clogged with traffic and resembling Bangkok more than scenes from the Bridge on the River Kwai.  We were looking forward to getting away from all of the noise and pollution by going to the tranquil Old City.  Wrong again!  What we found were streets lined with car dealerships, motorcycle dealerships, beggars and backpackers, stalls selling cheap gifts made in China, fast food restaurants, and vendors selling everything you can imagine eating and some things you can’t!  All of this was interspersed with magnificent Wats whose grounds were crawling with Chinese tourists and saffron-robed monks. (There is a university here to train the monks.)  After visiting ten to fifteen Wats everything was becoming a blur and we couldn’t tell the difference between the Wats and Wat nots, besides which we were fading fast in the heat and humidity so we just walked home for a cold beer, cool shower and rest.  More later, Cindy and Wm

Singapore, Part Two

Singapore, November 5, 2014

I mentioned that much has changed in Singapore in the past five years and yesterday we enjoyed one of the great surprises of this building boom.  When Singapore gave permission for the construction of the casino and the three hotel towers, it also made a decision to use a good chunk of the money that would be generated by the casino revenues to build public parks.  One of these ventures is directly behind the casino and it is called the Gardens by the Bay.

It is a two hundred acre park that is filled with some of the most spectacular gardens you can imagine.  There is a grove of what they called Supertrees, which are made of metal and are very artistic –and at night are all lit up in different colors and visible for miles.  The gardens are anchored by two large domes, one housing flowers and trees, the other a Cloud Forest.  These domes are climate controlled; in fact they are microclimate controlled in that they can reproduce any climate they wish by controlling the water, heat, amount of sunlight and even the airflow.  In the Flower Dome there are no fewer than twelve microclimates ranging from desert to subtropical orchid gardens.  You can wander and wander around this vast dome and never know what will be around the next corner.

Cindy’s comments:  I forgot the camera and can hardly forgive myself!  We hoped to find some photos or postcards in the gift shop but there were none that captured the best flowers (although the link has a few good photos).  They had sculpted animals out of flowers or leaves – with help from chicken wire – including a life-sized elephant with water flowing through its trunk onto a baby elephant.  The best of all were two white peacocks; the birds were formed from feathers (with chicken wire) and their bodies tapered and flowed into a blanket of white orchids that formed the rest their tails.  Beautiful – and so clever.  Over to William …

The Cloud Forest features a seven-story cloud mountain with a hundred foot waterfall, which provides welcome moisture from the heat outside.  You take an elevator to the very top of the mountain and begin your walk down, passing through different flora typical of a tropical mountain range.  Needless to say, we had a ball walking around this moist mountain and marveling at all of the breath-taking flora.  This link will give you all the information you might like to have on Gardens by the Bay.

Last night we were royally wined and dined by Scott and Maz at their lovely apartment about 20 minutes from the hotel.  It was pleasant to be able to sit outside in the breeze and watch the traffic below and to get out of the hotel and into a neighborhood.  We started with a warm clam dip that Scott’s mom taught him how to make and it was divine. This was followed by a wide assortment of grilled vegetables, a green salad with blueberries and perfectly grilled Wagyu steaks.  I had heard of these famous steaks from Japan but never ate one, and my oh my, they live up to their reputation. 

On my walk this morning I noticed that the ArtScience Museum had an exhibition of Da Vinci featuring original masterpieces for the first time in Southeast Asia.  Over breakfast I suggested we go to the museum and Cindy almost fell off her chair.  We headed over the Helix Bridge to the museum filled with excitement - only to discover that I had failed to notice the small print which said that the exhibit opened on November 15^th so we were ten days early!  Since we were there we did visit the current exhibit on photography called an Ocean of Possibilities, which as the name implies was a bunch of pictures from various photographers from around the world.  It was rather intense and almost too much to take in in 90 minutes, but we managed.

It is now raining to beat the band. Thunder, lightning and all the good effects of a tropical downpour, which is sure to clear the air!  Off to Chiang Mai in Thailand tomorrow; stay tuned.  Cindy and Wm

Singapore, November 2, 2014

Singapore November 2, 2014

We arrived yesterday after a twenty-six hour journey from Tokyo Narita.  Did I mention these are tickets purchased with miles?  You are at the mercy of the airlines that decide when and how they will carry you.  Eva Air, otherwise known as the Hello Kitty Carrier, took us from Narita to Taipei, and after a two-hour layover, to Hong Kong. It was all done well and certainly everything was most comfortable but oh my gosh, the Hello Kitty theme wore thin quickly.  Everything has the pink little Hello Kitty logo; I mean everything from the paint job on the plane to the pink aprons on the flight attendants.  There is a big picture of Hello Kitty on every bulkhead wall as well as on the barf bags, toilet paper, coasters, glassware - even on the food, where there was a picture of Hello Kitty on cubes of tofu.  Really, stamped on tofu in pink.

We had to overnight in Hong Kong at the Regal Hotel, which is connected to Terminal One, since it would have been too late to get to Singapore.  The room was fine but since it is an airport hotel, there was a lot of noise and Cindy didn’t get any sleep. I kept assuring her that she would be able to sleep the entire way to Singapore since I had gotten us a business class ticket on Cathay Pacific using miles.  I further assured here that it was going to be a new Airbus 330 with lay flat beds and she would sleep like a baby for three hours.  Imagine my surprise upon entering the plane to discover that it was an old 777 and that Cindy had a middle seat (which we traded with someone so that we could sit next to each other) that certainly didn’t recline 180 degrees. Seems that they had more passengers than expected and they swapped planes to handle the load without notifying anyone. There were several other couples that were in the same situation, finding themselves seated apart from one another.

We are in Singapore to visit with our friend Scott who is the General Manager of the Pan Pacific Hotel. I’ve known Scott for more than 25 years, having met him when he was the GM at the Oriental Hotel, where I had complained about something or other and he personally came to apologize and invited me for a drink. That had never happened to me before and I was rather impressed to say the least, so impressed that I made it a point to always stay wherever he was GM and thus a friendship developed. (from Cindy:  He means he had never gotten personal attention from the GM before, not that he had never complained before.  Ha!  Scott just loves to tell the story and of course he goes on and on about how picky the complaint was; not true but it’s certainly good for a laugh.)  Under his guidance this hotel has become a shining star in the constellation of hotels in Singapore.  Having just completed a 100 million dollar renovation, it is spectacular; nothing over the top, just tastefully appointed public areas and thoughtfully designed rooms.  After our orientation to our room - it takes awhile to get used to all the AV, electronics and control panels - I told Cindy that she needed to take a nap while I met Scott for a drink.

After that, we met a friend who teaches here in Singapore for drinks and dinner, and since needed to get to work the next morning, we were able to get to bed early and we slept ever so comfortably.  Refreshed and energized we hit the streets of Singapore at about eight in the morning and the heat and humidity hit us like a brick.  There is also a horrible haze, the result of uncontrolled burning in Indonesia, which detracts from the real beauty of Singapore.  This island city/state has always been known as the Switzerland of Asia, clean, green, safe, and wealthy.  However, I was not prepared for how much has really changed in the past six years.  There seem to be twice as many skyscrapers, malls and hotels. One of these, the Marina Bay Sands, is actually three buildings, which support a huge outdoor garden at the top of the buildings. At the base there is an enormous high-end shopping mall with a canal and gondolas ala Venice.  There is also a casino, which is the second highest moneymaker in Asia after Macau.  We’ve a lot to see and so goodbye for now.  Cindy and Wm

 

Narita City

Narita City, Japan

Our three-week odyssey started well. Our driver to Dulles was on time - and unlike many, he actually knew how to drive.  He had been an interpreter for the US in Afghanistan so it was an interesting ride to chat with him.  This trip was planned partly so that we could use the last of some US Air miles that I had accumulated over the working years.  I had just enough for two Business Class tickets from Dulles to Hong Kong and back, but free tickets come with a price. The routing was, shall be say, not direct – and you will read more about our routing on this trip as I continue to describe how we used additional free miles.

We took a US Air flight from Dulles to Charlotte and then to Chicago O’Hare. The flights were comfortable and staffed with very intelligent and helpful attendants but it took most of the day just to get to Chicago.  We spent the night at the ever-modern Hilton, (I think the Wright brothers stayed there after a flight from Dayton) whose only good feature is being connected to Terminal One without having to take any transportation other than your feet.  I never realized it was possible to spend $100 eating sandwiches at a bar, but with each glass of wine costing 12 bucks, things added up.

Our flight to Narita the next morning was with All Nippon Airways (ANA) and it was simply super.  The new configuration of their Boeing 777 has what is called staggered seating, 1-2-1, which means everyone has access to an aisle and no seats are aligned next to each other. (Compare that to 8 across on a United 777.) The seats are huge and there is a lot of storage space so you never feel cramped, a stark contrast to our more recent flights to and from Europe in coach. The service was flawless and the food, especially the Japanese meals, was spectacular and certainly something we could not afford once in Japan.  The seats lay flat which was a godsend on such a long fight (13 hours) and we both got some sleep after eating and watching the movie Chef.  It’s new this year and we are amazed we had never heard of it – it is a fabulous movie starring Jon Favreau (never had heard of him, but we have now – he also directed it).

We landed at 1 pm local time, which meant having to stay awake for another eight hours in order to try to force ourselves into Japanese time.  By about 8 pm we found this almost impossible to do but nevertheless managed to stay upright until 10 pm. When we finally hit the pillows we were out for the count and woke up to a beautiful sun-filled morning. We took our usual morning walk, had a nice breakfast, and then took the complimentary hotel bus to Narita City for a visit to the lovely Shinshoji temples and the grounds that surround them. It was an absolutely flawless day and perfect for our long walk.  The city is famous for things other than the temple, such as roasted sweet potatoes, macaroon cookies and above all, grilled eel, unagi. On the way to the temple we watched one of the chefs prepare the live fish for grilling, not something for the squeamish!  The other time we visited this temple (back in February 2013) it was a holiday in Japan and the grounds were thronged with people.  This visit was much simpler and in fact longer because we took our time to wander through the forest rather than taking the most direct route up to the main temple.  On the way out we passed a spectacular display of mums and dahlias in pots.  They were all labeled but we never figured out if it was a horticultural display of some sort or a contest; in any case, the flowers were beautiful, all lined up under long awnings erected to shelter the blooms.

For dinner that night we decided try a very small restaurant a few steps from the hotel that specialized in tappanyaki - including okonomiyaki, which is a cabbage omelet prepared at the hot grill in front of you, that we had tried on our last visit and wanted to try again.  We walked into the empty restaurant that looked like it could seat about 20 people and, as Cindy commented, the owner looked at us as if he thought he had locked the door and wondered how we got in!  He was flummoxed at first but recovered; most likely this isn’t a hot spot for tourists.  We sat at the grill, ordered a beer for me and wine for Cindy and then ordered our dinner and watched the show.  I had the sobayaki, noodles and vegetables grilled together, and Cindy had the okonomiyaki.  The food was almost as good as the experience of just being there. As we were preparing to leave, in came a very drunk party of about seven young Japanese, all but one of them men.  They ordered lots of beer and the owner – who expected them, unlike us - presented them with two very large bottles of sake.  On our way out, they greeted us with smiles and victory signs, which seems the thing all Japanese do when they have a picture taken.  It was grand fun and a perfect way to cap a lovely day in Japan.

Happy Halloween, Cindy and Wm