Living in a such a large city, it is inevitable that one will encounter annoying people.It is one thing to have to put up with an idiot while you are stuck on the bus, at least then you can put in your headphones and crank it all the way up. But when you are eating the city’s best Persian food at Pomegranate and you are stuck in a small corner of the restaurant next to the world’s most infuriating people… well then. It is simply insufferable.

To start we split an appetizer: charred eggplant with whey and walnuts and onions that came with bread for dipping. It was ok. I had a sip of Brent’s doogh drink, which was weird. It was watered down yogurt and fizzy and not my cup of tea. The mains we ordered were both stews that came with rice on the side. In all honesty the food was not that outstanding. It was a nice change and it was tasty, but not crave-inducing. I found the pomegranate in the chicken (fesenjaan) a bit too much. It was rather funny watching Brent bite into what he thought might be a lamb’s eyeball in his stew. The real winner of the dinner was the dessert: the shortbread cookies were amazing! The deep-fried and covered in rose water candy was a bit heavy and greasy towards the end but still delicious.

As mentioned dinner came with a show. We had to listen to this idiot go and on about how he “wants to make his mark on the world” and how he “wants to change the world and make a difference”. The real kicker was that he was a total dummy. He had an idea to help out people in crisis, and when he found out that such a program was already in place it made him “really depressed”. He wanted to work with youth/teenagers… aged 22-28. It was all I could to not turn to him and stab him with my fork. At some point he mentioned the film American Psycho and wanting to take his friend to dinner in NYC a-la the movie, the girl with him just nodded, completely oblivious. It was also infuriating listening to him talk about his “world travels” and how much he “hates airports”. The poor girl with him was just too polite to tell him to shut up. I hate people sometimes.

At least most of the time when I am stuck in a restaurant with insufferable people within earshot shooting their mouths off, there are so many of them that they all kind of meld together into a very annoying but importantly: indecipherable, white noise. This was not the case here. Pomegranate’s cute & cozy, homey atmosphere worked against them greatly that night.

I think we might start booking tables for 4 from now on. Or reserving the whole restaurant for a private function: getting to eat in peace.

It was a glorious day, it was surprisingly warm on the ice, the sun was shining, and small ice cold rivers came through the glacier, we all filled our water bottles to keep us going.

We had been given crampons for our feet and we carried on up the ice, the views down the valley, carved out by the glacier that was no longer there, was incredible. HOT

After 4 hours on the ice, we returned to base, for a relaxed night, it had been an energetic day.

Today brought our last coach ride, to our final destination in New Zealand to Queenstown, not before some scenic stop offs at the Blue Pools, Lake Wanaka and Puzzling World.

The Blue Pools is a short walk from the road side at Haast Pass, the crystal clear water runs beneath you as you walk over a mini maze of bridge networks. If we had longer, the water was inviting enough for a swim!

Lake Wanaka was one of my favourite stop offs, just an hour for lunch, but right in front of us were snow topped mountains, with tumbling green hills below them, the lake acting as a carpet leading to them.

Puzzling World sounds like the most boring place, at Christmas a puzzle with the family is fun, but not when your doing a whistle stop tour of a country. How wrong we were. Optical illusions on huge scale, baffling images, holograms (Jade avoided the Clown hologram!), an entire house that defies the laws of gravity, and a maze that nearly meant we were lost forever. I had to use an emergency exit, after finding the four corners, Jade left shortly after we went in (and I know why now!).

When we arrived at our hotel, the Tanoa Aspen, in Queenstown, we opened the doors to a private apartment! Not just a hotel room, but for the next four nights we had our own pad, kitchen, living area, double en suite bedroom – even with a balcony overlooking Lake Wakatipu and the mountain!

We’ve been travelling over NZ with Contiki tours, and its been brilliant, still with more to come. Josh, our tour manager is a fountain of knowledge, great fun, with great stories, and meticulous organisation and planning, after 6 years with Contiki he is calling this his last season to move into Social Work with gangs in Wellington.

The final part of the trip leading into the South Island took the ferry through an incredibly picturesque place. Almost untouched by man.

Shortly after we came off the ferry we stopped off again to see seals by the coast in their natural habitat, Jade was loving it!

That night we had free entry into Thermal Pools and spas at Lake Taupo, a chilled evening after some late ones. Relaxing in jet spas, from 34-42 degrees, and a whirlpool (trying to swim against it was impossible, Jade and I collided a few times!).

Sunday brought us to Christchurch, Remembrance Day. Shortly before 11 we arrived in the towns central district. It was haunting, not too dissimilar to a scene out of I Am Legend, an entire section of the city is still cordoned off 2 years on. Nearly 200 people lost their lives during the earthquake. Bridges still structurally unsafe, tower blocks half there, foundations brought to ground level, buildings marked with spray cans with details of its structural safety. Over 25 blocks of the city are no go zones. We paused at 11 at an outdoor service to pay our respects, something about being in Christchurch brought additional meaning to an already powerful moment. It overwhelmed many of the group.

The population used to be 360,000 in Christchurch. It’s now under 220,000, people just fled following that month in September 2010. It’s estimated that the city won’t be back to normal for 16 years, the council are even trying to move the central city 40km west to limit future damage.

As we made our way to Franz Joseph along Arthur’s Pass, an old gold rush route, through the mountains, narrow roads, with tight bends, and under watefalls, Wixey, our coach driver, kept us safe. We stopped for lunch at a small township where you had to hold onto your food. This town is home to the Kea, a bird that given the chance will eat any food it can steal from humans, and then try and pull off the rubber on your car! Luckily we managed to hold onto our food.

Before our final destination for the day, we stopped at the Jade Factory (the stone, there’s only one Jade, but we did get the photo of Jade pointing to the sign) to look at how the stone is carved and pick up any traditional Maori shaped stone.

The onsite bar & restaurant in Franz Joseph was like an old log cabin, open fires, pets roaming, but very modern, with cheap (and tasty) jam jar cocktails. We’ve made some great friends on the tour from various parts of our relatively small world, we’re even going to visit a couple once we’re in Oz. Sorry the blog is so behined, Jade’s been keeping a written book, and I’ve been making notes on my phone – or we’ll forget! Still loads more to come (now we’re in Oz, but more New Zealand stories ahead!).

This is a short documentary about Maritza Morales, the founder of HUNAB. Her organization brings sustainability education to children in the Yucatan region of Mexico through a group of teen peer educators.

Reblogged from Dubai Women's College High School:

10th grade DWC High School student Amna Bin Shafi interviewed twin sisters Fatima and Mariam Masood, authors and learning coaches at the school.

Recently, I had a little talk with Miss Mariam and Miss Fatima Masood about their book I Know Who You Are!  They both said their inspiration was the observation of human behavior and the arguments around them in life, so they like helping other people with their life problems.

Read more… 164 more words

Not me carrying that huge bag (we had 15 porters helping our group!), but this is an update from my September trip to Tanzania. We made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro without any issues (thank God), and then went on a glorious, luxurious safari.

Reblogged from The ISBerne social media project:

click photo to enlarge

I will now always associate the The White Stripes’ music with Swiss train rides. I think that I listened to Seven Nation Army six or seven times in a row…Icky Thump, too…because what do you listen to after The White Stripes? It’s like sucking on a cough drop and then trying to drink really sweet lemonade. It just doesn’t taste right.

Freddie Mercury

The trip from Berne to Montreux takes you from German-speaking Switzerland to the French-speaking areas. There were a bunch of Swiss military guys on the train, and I was really impressed with the gear that they were issued. The boots, the jackets, the travel bags…it was like the stuff you see at high-end mountaineering shops. Oh right, Swiss Army Gear…I get their catalog.

Speaking of which, once you get to Montreux, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a Swiss Army shop. They have knives with enough tools for planetary expeditions. If you’ve got a few extra grand, there’s plenty of Swiss watch shops, too.

If you’re visiting Montreux, you have to make the trip to the Freddie Mercury statue. When I was there, there was a group of elderly Russians on a guided tour. It’s not clear whether they had any idea who he was. I couldn’t get Under Pressure out of my head for several hours.

In vino veritas

If you’ve never been, Montreux should be on your “100 places I want to go before I die” list. I spent the evening with some Swiss/French people in a small cafe, who expressed their opinions about the recent US election. After a bottle of local wine, the conversation became very frank.

In vino veritas.

-Richard Lakin

shot on iPhone 4S

We left Seattle on Saturday morning, hit the Hard Rock in Honolulu on Saturday afternoon, the airport in Guam Sunday night and drinks in the bar in Manila on Sunday night.

Monday we spent the day in Manila acting like kids at the hotel pool and enjoying a relaxing spa treatment for 3 hours. ($75 US dollars and the best 1.5hour massage ever)

Tuesday we took a day trip to Taal Volcano, where we rode horses to the top of the volcano and then hit golf balls into the crater. Tuesday night we had dinner out in the beautiful weather and spent time at the sports bar.  At 2:45am we told the bar staff we hadn’t enjoyed Jollibee (the local McDonalds equivalent) they actually had it delivered to the bar for us.  Personally I am partial to McDonalds, but it isn’t everyday you have a local Philippine restaurant deliver food to you.

Wednesday we headed out back to Seattle through Tokyo. Being the plane nerds we are we were so excited to fly home on the 787.

So upon searching for an adequate photo to adorn this post I typed, “adventure” into google. Nearly every photo was marked with many people, typically in a line, being guided by one another, enjoying life together – journeying.

Let us do that. Let us adventure out into this big wide world, together. Be inspired by one another!

http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/the-best-adventure-i-never-had/

Goosebumps plagued me as I read this article. How incredible is the juxtaposition of work versus enlightenment through travel? How extraordinary would it be to work while traveling? Though Allison Cross wrote this article five years ago, the truths still ring true. I wonder if Ms. Cross ever lived out her globetrotting adventures.

http://matadornetwork.com/tv/the-odyssey-week-02-the-death-bus/

“ We trust others with our lives, whether it’s getting off the ground on an airplane or navigating a dangerous part of a new city. Of course, this is nothing new. We all do this every day. But being on the road can really put into perspective, both the risks we take in life, and why we take them.”

What a life this man lives! He is on a surface journey of all the nations on earth. And in this particular video, shot throughout South America, he acknowledges how dangerous such adventures can become. Visit his website here, he is only three countries away from reaching his goal! http://theodysseyexpedition.com/

While those words may have sounded like my inner voice when I was originally told to develop Kazakhstan as a new market, this actual sentence was uttered by one of my clients in Almaty, the capital city of Kazakhstan.  A very petite, very pretty young blonde women, she would of course have to use caution when she traveled solo.

She was warning me away from Almaty’s fresh and local market, the Green Bazaar. “There are pickpockets there, you have to be careful, there’s nothing to see,” she pleaded with me.  But in all my travels — from Cambodia to Kiev — I’m become accustomed to locals who are perplexed that visitors would ever want to visit the local produce market, and who are further convinced that its simply a vicious den of thieves.

Be very, very careful…these grapes might be over ripe….

After getting over her strenuous objections to the (lack of) safety of my destination, we decided how I would get there.  Naturally, I should hitchhike.

Now Almaty is a big city, and while there are regular taxis, buses and a new metro system; subway stops are incredibly spread out, and regular taxis are few and far between.

So apparently while it could be considered the height of danger to go shopping at the local market (I had no problem there at all except I was sad to see all the horse meat on sale), no one is concerned about stepping into a speeding vehicle with a complete stranger.

If you have to ask what animal this comes from, you don’t want to know

So if you want to go hitchhiking in Kazakhstan, here’s how!

1)     Get your destination written in Russian (more people in Almaty speak Russian than Kazakh).

2)     Make sure you have small bills (100 bills are “small”) 100 = about $2.

3)     Flag down any driver on any street  your preferred standard taxi wave.

4)     Agree to a price – most destinations are between 300-500 KZD; use 3 fingers to signify 300, etc. Average people on the street are not going to try to gouge you, although the regular taxi drivers will.

5)     It was helpful a few time to ensure I had my destination programmed into Google Maps so I could give few prompts to drivers, if necessary.

6)     Wear your seatbelt.  In the 30 minutes total I logged on downtown Almaty’s roads, I saw about 8 accidents.

As someone who considers filling up the tank with gas before its sucking fumes the height of preventative car maintenance, I love the concept of car sharing.  In Toronto, I was a long time user of Autoshare, and I loved how someone else always magically changed the oil. But Kazakhstan (and in fact much of the former Soviet states) takes the simplicity of no car ownership to the next level – without membership, insurance or oppressive expectations to have the car on schedule for those of us who might be time-challenged. Best of all, it’s much safer than shopping at the market!

We caught up with Beattie to hear how she finds her quirky home gear (our favorite story involved an Italian romance with an artisan cutting-board maker), and which pieces are at the top of her personal wishlist.

Visit Warm at 181 Mott Street between Kenmare and Broome in New York City.

Yeah..one might say that’s a lot to take in, so I’ve heard.

The thing is, I’ve tried multiple approaches when telling people the news. I originally started telling people, believe it or not, the truth — how much I love (and have always) loved traveling…how I have a weird passion for helping people…how the business world isn’t the least bit fulfilling and I need a sense of worth…how when I was working in advertising I despised getting out of bed every morning cause I wasn’t doing any good for anyone…etc, etc. The problem with the truth, as you can see, is that well, it’s pretty long. And unless you know me, like really, really know me, the truth doesn’t make much sense anyways —

So wait, you just graduated from college, live in a beautiful apartment in downtown Chicago and are surrounded by all of your best friends, and you want to drop all of that and move to…Asia…? 

I’ve tried the ‘beat around the bush’ approach — so, I heard about this new program today. It’s called…TEFL…or something. I don’t know. It’s something that lets you teach English worldwide. I don’t really know how that makes any sense. Like say I am trying to teach a Korean man English but I don’t speak Korean…yeah, no idea how that works? But, I don’t know. I’m looking into it. We’ll see. 

Originally I thought this was genius. Keep it casual and don’t scare anyone, yet. Turns out this backfired a lot quicker than originally anticipated. When I’d tell people this, they typically gave an awkward laugh, eye roll “cool…sounds…fun,”  but then in their heads, I’m suuuureeeee that’s going to happen — not.

So the truth was too long, the ‘beat around the bush’ approach was too vague and choppy — now what?

Honestly, that’s a great question. My solution, at the moment, has been very simple — don’t tell anyone. Not because it’s a secret and not because I don’t want people to know, but more because I’ve found people don’t quite understand it — particularly the why. Why would anyone want to leave everything and everyone behind? Why would you want to miss out?

The truth is none of those things have crossed my mind. I think that’s why I know this trip is meant for me?

How did we end up in India?

This year while we were in Abu Dhabi and Dubai we visited The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.  It was one of the most beautiful buildings we had ever seen.  About halfway through the tour the guide told us, “if you think this is beautiful you should see the Taj Mahal in Agra”.  We decided right then that we HAD to see the Taj.

We left Seattle on Saturday, September 2 at 7am, and landed in Delhi, India Sunday, September 3 at 8pm.  Culture shock from the VERY beginning.  By the time we got to the hotel we both needed a drink.  The driving was INSANE.

We woke-up on Monday and decided to tackle the town on our own.  OVERWHELMING!!! We came back to the hotel about three times just for a break from the chaos.  Walking down the street you had to watch out for cars, bikes, auto-ricksahws, people’s homes, cows, stray dogs, beggars, you name it, we probably were dodging it.  We were able to knock-out a couple of sight-seeing areas.  We found it best to have our concierge hire a taxi, for one (very cheap) rate the driver took us to the few things we wanted to see.  We went to the Lotus Temple (outside only most things are closed on Monday in Delhi), Humayun’s Tomb, India Gate, Presidents House.

Tuesday we hired a private guide to take us to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort of Agra.  This is a fantastic idea.  The drive is about 4.5 to 5 hours.  We blew a tire on the way back which slowed us down a bit, but we made it.  The traffic never ends.

Wednesday we hired another tour guide and saw a few more sights in Delhi, we were able to make stops at the Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple, Qutab Minar, Old Delhi street markets, Jama Masjid Mosque, a craft store and Ghandi’s house/location he was assassinated and we were able to understand life from a locals perspective.

We are so glad that we experienced India, however it was quite the culture shock.  The video and pictures can’t quite give you the true experience of the sounds, smells, visuals, it was sensory overload to the extreme, but we hope you enjoy what we were able to capture and share with you.

It reminded me of one of my very own acts of kindness and I decided to share it. I have no intention of bragging. Just relating yet another way in which we can help our fellow residents of the Big Blue Marble.
I was preparing for my third trip to KL. That’s how the people of Malaysia refer to their capital city – Kuala Lumpur. An employee of the accounting department came to inform me that he too was going and that we should coordinate our voyages so that we would travel together.

It was my third trip in a year thus making me a valuable source of information. At least that was what he thought.

I did, in those days, arrange my own itinerary and chose the flights I preferred before having my secretary do the actual reservations. Painfully I had learned that having anyone else arrange your trip was a big mistake.

It is also a huge mistake to have anyone else [such as your spouse]  pack your luggage. It is best for marital harmony to have only yourself to blame when you arrive at your destination sans underwear or socks.

The accounting person – remember no names since this particular event or series of events is not intended to be a Polish joke – came calling and required help in getting his passport photos, his passport, inoculations, hotel reservations, and flights.

Please understand I did have work to do and was busy arranging my trip, coordinating with those from other RCA locations who would accompany me, and scheduling the meetings and attendees while I would be there.

Nonetheless I did help. I wasn’t very happy but took, let’s call him Cratchit, by the hand and guided him through the necessary steps. One thing I also did was to arrange my trip for a week later than his.

We would overlap while there but at least I spared myself from actually traveling with Bob.

I booked his flights. He was to travel from Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Airport to Chicago O’Hare by way of Pittsburgh. In Chicago he would change to an American Airlines DC-10 flight to Los Angeles LAX.

I was traveling home from work on Friday, May 25th, 1979 when I heard the report:

American Airlines Flight 191, from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles International Airport, crashed during take off on today – May 25, 1979 -  at approximately 15:04 CDT. The McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 had 258 passengers and 13 crew on board. There were no survivors. Two persons on the ground were also killed.

Oh my God! I had killed Bob.

Guilt?

I put him on that flight and rescheduled my trip just so I could travel without him. His friends and fellow department members called to say that there was no word yet. His poor wife was a wreck.

Well Cratchit eventually heard the news and called home to inform his distraught wife that he was indeed safe. I too felt a great sense of relief.

As it turns out I had him on a flight that also ended in 91 and had departed O’Hare one hour earlier.

Come Monday, with apologies to Jimmy Buffett for stealing a song title, my guilt had passed though I did promise myself to be a little less selfish and more understanding of the needs of others in the future.

Bob’s friend in his department came to inform me that at least one of his bags had been on the doomed flight.

“Would you carry some underwear and various items to him when you leave later this week?”

“No!”
 
“I have enough to do getting my own belongings there!”

 “What am I?”

 “A valet?”

 “Ship the damn things.”

I had to put that less selfish promise on hold for a time…

The Shanakee…

Having the chance to experience a culture like that of Tanzania while helping people there was an opportunity of a lifetime. We spent 2 weeks playing soccer in the streets barefoot, lifting kids onto my shoulders, swinging kids around by their arms, and taking a million photos. After the first fews days e started to get on this thing called ‘Africa Time’, ‘Africa Time’ is basically how Africans live their lives, with plans changing every moment and taking their time getting projects done. At one point I think we counted 14 plan changes in the space of 2 hours.

Here are some pictures of the kids and people of Songea, Tanzania, Africa.

To read more about our adventure and to get a comedians point of view on the trip please check out Alex Kummerts Blog.