A brief stint on the big Island - Hawaii

Ali and I took a short trip to Hawaii in August 2011 to celebrate 20 years of hanging out together. We stayed in Hilo, a charming little town that reminds one of the 60s, but we managed to tour the whole island in ten days, including Kiluea volcano, the most active in the world. Most importantly we discovered snorkeling! We loved in so much, in fact, that we scheduled a winter break trip to La Paz, Baja California to snorkling our hearts away in the Sea of Cortez, and who knows we may see some whales while we're down there too! We'll be off on that trip soon, and hopefully will report from there, but in the meantime I've loaded a Hawaii album which consists of both of our photos. Ali, you will see, has quite a good eye and sense of drama and perspective. Cheers

Dreaming of India

Nostalgia is already firmly rooted after only two weeks at home. Happily I have photos up now so that I revisit the India experience whenever the needed presses.

To access the photos, simple click on the India photo on the right. Oddly, sometimes the link takes me directly to the India photo album, and other times I'm directed to my gallery. If you find yourself in my gallery, you can then click on the India Photo album. Hope you enjoy viewing the marvelous people and places of India.

Heading to Bangaluru

Stephanie and I are spending a lazy day by the beach and pool on our last day in Goa. After all the running around we did, it has been just the break we need. This area is pretty prosperous as they have a thriving agricultural industry, booming tourism and gold too. It was a Portuguese colony up until 1961. There are lots of crumbling and fading Portuguese homes and churches, and they make a pretty good port wine here too. The weather is gorgeous - in the 80s with lovely sea breezes. We may go out to the next town this afternoon to have lunch and get a Tarot card reading and maybe a quick yoga class.

Tomorrow we head for Bangaluru where I'll spend a few days before we go home. This is a big modern city and I'm looking forward to spending some time hanging out there. Then I'll be home! Pictures will loaded then, so stay tuned!

Fun Times at the Airport

Generally speaking, I think the Indians have mastered security protocol better than we have in the States. Upon entering the airport the carry on bags are scanned and locked with a little plastic device, so one doesn't have to worry about losing one's things to inscrutable airline employees. Then after checking in and getting a boarding pass, you pass through another security area where they scan the carry on bags and do a body search of each passenger. They do this in a little covered area with a metal dectator baton. It appears that the they hire the most depressed and disgruntled women they an find for this job, but that's fine - it's not the most interesting job after all.

You are allowed to bring water into the secure area, the only thing is that you have to take a sip of it in front of a security officer to make sure that it's not toxic or dangerous in other ways. All of the carry on bags are tagged and they check the tags carefully when boarding. I did have one rather hilarious experience at the airport in Bangalore yesterday when the young female security officer looked through my bag and found my medicine cache (two kinds of antibiotics, anxiety meds for the plane, malaria meds, cholesterol, pain killers, to name a few). She then asked me to taste them all! Happily, after I patiently explained that I could go into cardiac arrest if I tried them all at once, she relented and let me through.

At the Chennai airport, we enjoyed the digital monitor at the check in counter which itemized a long list of items that are not allowed in the carry on bags.
We were cautioned, for example, to take out any dynamite, machetes, explosive devices, bombs, hand guns, automatic weapons, anthrax, axes, swords, brass knuckles, knives that we may have inadvertently packed.

Kerala Backwaters

We've just finished our two day houseboat tour of the Kerala Backwaters. Forty rivers converge in this area to flow into the Arabian Sea, so the whole area is filled with lakes and canals and rivers for miles and miles and miles. Rice paddies are ubiquitous here as are fishermen. We cruised down the lakes and canals watching people live out their daily lives on the banks as they have done for centuries. There were very few other boats in the water with us on the second day, so it felt like a journey into prehistory.

The boats are larger verions of Kerala rice barges (pictures to follow soon). Our boat had a staff of three charming men --a cook, a driver, and a third guy who did a little of everything. We had a enclosed deck with chairs and a chaise lounge for reading and viewing and also a small table for dining. And we enjoyed the languid drifting of the boat, the sunsets and the peace and quiet...during the day.

At the first place we docked for the night, a boat across the way began to play loud music, hip hop and lots of garish American pop. Stephanie and I grumbled quite a bit about that, but eventually they quieted down and the night became peaceful again. That's until we went to bed. I was so tired the first night aboard that I didn't hear the river rats scurrying around the rafters until I woke up in the middle of the night. Stephanie,who had been reading late, said they had been quite active and she was pretty sure that she heard them in the walls too. It was a creepy sound, and I was glad that I hadn't slept outside on the deck, which I had wanted to do until I remembered the that mosquitos are everywhere there. The second day, I began to feel ill from food or water bacteria, so went to bed early after taking my antibiotics and though I woke up a number of times at night and heard the critters above, I was too sick then to care. Happily the antibiotics did their work and I felt considerably better the next day to enjoy the breakfast and our last little tour of the backwaters.

Kerela is an interesting state in that it is the only state in the world where a communist party has been elected into power. The CP in Kerala has ruled on and off, mostly on, for 50 years. This party is currently in office, but our driver suggested they may not win the upcoming April elections.

I've read that the 100% literacy rate in the state (the only such rate in India...the world?)is their doing, and we noticed that the state is practically trash free -- remarkable to behold after having spent four days or so in the Tamil Nadu area on the Bay of Bengal which is a considerably poorer state. Kerala looks cleaner and more prosperous than other areas we have seen. There are a lot of Christians in this state, the second largest group after Hindus, so we saw lots of chruches and shrines to saints and the Sryrian apostle that brought Christianity to India. It's a wonderful place and I wish we had had more time to explore it. Next time.

India!

Stephanie and I have been in India for four days now, moving at a fast and furious pace. Delhi, to our surprise, was fogged in and cold, weather that I wasn't exactly prepared for. Stephanie quickly bought three shawls and we managed to keep fairly comfortable with those. Our first full day in India found us on a cold, rainy and foggy drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was three hours by car to get there and then five hours back because we hit rush hour traffic everywhere. Every manner of vehicle competes for space on the roads here, the most ubiquitous are the motorized rickshaws that are usually crammed to frightening capacity.

The Taj was gorgous, but hard to photograph becuase of the fog. It's a white marble building and there was very little contrast with the sky, so I hope I can compensate in Photoshop when I get back. The Taj was very crowded, but there were very few foreigners. Stephanie was quite a hit there, with many people stopping to ask to take a photograph with her. It was like travelling with a celebrity. Apparently they don't see a lot of black people there!

Now we are in Udaipur at the Taj Hotel, the former summer palace of the king. It's pretty darn spectacular and we spent a fun new years eve here with a big party in the courtyard outside of our room and a fireworks show at night from the roof garden. We finally recovered from jet lag last night, both of us having enjoyed a nine hours rest! Today we are imaging ourselves to be royalty, lounging around the palace, but we are off again this afternoon to head to Pondicherry where we will spend two nights. It's warm and sunny here during the day, but cold at night, so we are looking forward to going further south where we expect it to be warm all the time. Of course, down there the mosquito problem will be worse. I'm not looking forward to lathering on DEET all day and night, and I'll start my malarie medication soon too. So far we are both happy and healthy and hope to stay that way.

More from Pondicherry and pictures too, soon!

Things that have surprised me here in Korea

The security deposit on apartment rentals is unbelievable. One of the trainers I worked with who has lived in Seoul for more than thirteen years paid $80,000 for his deposit. Yes, that's US dollars, not South Korean Won (I think that would translate into 80,000,000,000 Won). And the landlord gets to keep all the interest! His rent on a three bedroom condo is $500 a month because he paid such a high deposit, so the more deposit you pay the less rent you pay. Still the average required deposit, I read, is around $20,000.

There is no tipping here. And I love that. Not in restaurants, taxis, hotels, anywhere. It makes things so much easier, but I wonder if the wages service workers earn is sufficient...okay, that's probably just wishful thinking. Except for the cost of housing, the lifestyle here isn't too expensive. I did run into a interesting group of protesters in the downtown subway station in Daegu, who had this maxim in English as the logo of their pink t-shirts - Capitalism Isn't Working.

Roughly three quarters of energy production here is nuclear. Korea has a huge number of nuclear power plants, more than any other country in the world. Somewhere under 200, I believe.

Korean high school students typically attend two schools each day. Their regular day school and then an evening school. Most students go to school until around 10:00 PM. No kidding. That works out to be two eight-hour school days.... a day. The teachers I worked with said they don't ever give homework because their students have no time to do it since they continue school until the late evening. The second schools, I think, focus on preparing students for the national exams they need to pass to get into university. And everyone, except kids from really poor families, attend second schools. As I walked around Daegu with my fellow trainers, they often pointed to lights on in school buildings late at night where students were attending classes. And this is summer vacation for them.

Religion: There is one mosque in Daegu, but a number of them in Seoul, mostly to serve the South East and South Asian populations. There are a lot of churches though and the crosses they display on their steeples glow neon red at night. It's eery to see them all poking up on the night landscape.

The amount of retail stores, outlets and small businesses here is astounding. And many of them are underground. In fact, Seoul boasts the largest underground mall in the world. The biggest market in Seoul sports more than 10,000 retail businesses.

The streets here are so grand, 8 lanes typically, that to cross them one has to go into the underground malls. It's tricky if you don't recognize the businesses listed on the "Way Out" arrow signage. I have gone up and down into the malls many times trying to figure out how to get to up to the corner I need. This was also true in downtown Deagu as well.

I've seen disabled people asking for money at some of the Metro entrances, one very drunk man and another who seemed to be hearing voices in my two and a half days in Seoul.

Korea invented LCD screens, and they are ubiquitous here. Giant LCD screens are mounted all over town featuring.... advertisements. The one outside of my hotel room is really irritating. It's about five stories high. Also, there are TV monitors everywhere -- In the Metro stations, in the gym, in the shower area at the bath house, on the buses and trains and stations, in restaurants...everywhere.

Oh my, time to start packing. I take off this evening for home. See you all soon!