My Travels

On my final leg of my trip through Asia, I decided Phuket would be a good resting place before the transition to home. I'm staying at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia in the southwestern part of Phuket Island. The property has beach access to Karon Beach and is sandwiched between Kata and Patong Beach. The facilities here are amazing and the room rates can't be beat. At about $100 US per night, this facility has several pools, beach access, soccer facilities, mini-golf facilities, spa, several restaurants and still conveniently located to some local nightlife. My little ragtag group is quite happy to sit and relax in this amazing place. On our first night, we went to Kata Beach which is a little beach town about 10 minutes walking distance. The little stretch of restaurant/bars has an eclectic collection of locals and tourists. My little group came upon an area where we have now nicknamed "Hooker Heights" because there are several little bars crammed into this communa...

I'm back in Vietnam. This time, I'm with friends and have decided to tone down on the spending and be more frugal. Our little entourage picked up a new person to make this a five person group. We parted ways with one person from our travels to date. We stayed at Bich Duyen hotel, it is in the backpacker district. Not quite a hostel, not quite a hotel, it still suited my needs just fine. Stayed for about $10 US per person per night. Prices like that can't be beat. My family was kind enough to take my friends around the city most of the time. Luckily, I was visiting the country when the fruit season is at its peak and stuffed myself with mangosteens, mangoes, and lychees. Caught up on all my favorite foods and got to see some family too. My friends couldn't believe how far the US dollar went in Vietnam. I think everyone tried to consume as much as possible. Of course, a visit to Saigon isn't complete unless you've had pho! It appears that the economy ...

I'm going to be in and out of Hong Kong alot as the city is a destination as well as a hub for my future travels. Hong Kong is very much like New York City. Very cosmopolitan. If you have money, you can enjoy the city very well. If you don't...., well you enjoy being there but working harder to stay afloat. For those who don't speak any Chinese, Hong Kong is very easy to navigate given the British influence. I stayed mostly on the Kowloon side in this stopover. I was housed in the Intercontinental Standford Court hotel in Kowloon. The hotel seemed a little bit older and smaller than the Grand Hyatt in Guangzhou. Given the space constraints and history of the city, I'm not surprised. The breakfast buffet was good, definitely catered to the Western taste. The transit system in Hong Kong is amazingly fast as are the people movers. I don't think any city in the world can beat the speed and efficiency of Hong Kong's system. People around here don't mes...

Not much to the city, probably due to the time I had in this town. I was put up at the Grand Hyatt Guangzhou. The hotel was very nice, it is the only fully built building in the immediate area. From my understanding, the city is building an economic zone where the Hyatt is located. Because the government is developing an economic city center, the hotel is fairly isolated from the rest of the city. It also means that the heart of the city is a five minute taxi ride away. On a bright note, the Hyatt has very nice facilities. I didn’t have the chance to visit the pool or spa facilities but I heard it was really nice. I'm convinced that new Asian hotels must love the modern decor look. This hotel room had sliding walls everywhere which could open up the bathroom and leave it very exposed. I was surprised at the class level of hotel given that we are here for school. AND they love white alot! I didn’t do much sightseeing. The only afternoon free in my schedule was sapped up ...

The group was faced with an arduous task of transversing multiple modes of transportation to get from Tokyo to Guangzhou. We lost one person who was going home instead of travelling with us to Guangzhou. Lucky him!! (or not...) We woke up at 5 am to take a taxi from the hotel to the city bus terminal. Narita is about an hour outside of Tokyo, similar to Dulles and DC. Unfortunately, a direct taxi is about $250 USD. Yikes! Caught the 5:45 am airport bus and got to Narita. Suprisingly, the airport counters were only beginning to open and we had to wait in line. We were travelling on the Star Alliance Asian Airpass. Unfortunately, the direct flight to Guangzhou was not an option with this particular program. We were going to have two flight segments and pssing through Beijing. Ironically, all our picture shots look like we are in the same spot. I guess airlines and buses have the same seat configuration! We went through security and got on our first plane segment to Beijing. ...

Checked out what Tokyo had to offer. It took me time to understand the subway system and has become easier to navigate once entrenched in the system. Visited various parts of the city. As we only knew general areas and not specific street directions, we wandered aroun alot to figure out where we wanted to go after emerging from the subway stations. At least there were general maps of the immediate area nearby. Visited the Tsukiji Market near the hotel. Like any other wholesale market, the place was a madhouse and I'm sure everyone wanted the dumb tourists our of their hair. It was interesting to see all the hustle and bustle of the market. Nearby, there was a farmer's market style of shopping and I consumed as much sushi as possible. For traditional sushi, this has been one of the best meals in Japan and probably sushi eating, in general, for me. Akihabara is the mecca of all things anime, videogames, and electronics. It was interesting to see all the 'otaku' ro...

For a three hour bullet train ride, it felt that it took all day to get to Tokyo. Before we left Kyoto, we found out that Kyoto is widely known for their green tea. Of course, this meant an expedition before getting on the train to find the "best" green tea in Japan. With a sick member in the group, I dragged everyone to the area in Kyoto Station where it might be sold. In the meanwhile, came across one of the food courts in the station. The whole complex was impressive and I was able to buy an assortment of sushi that was extremely tasty and reasonably priced. When we got into Tokyo in the afternoon, I think most of the group missed Kyoto. We left a very intimate, friendly, navigable city to a big metropolis with an amazingly confusing subway system and ornery folk. I take my earlier comment about Japan's transit system back. Yes, in places it is easy to use. When it comes to Tokyo, the city planner's must have done a brain fart. LA has different municipalit...

With little snafus, my group made their way to LAX and boarded the United Flight to Tokyo. Our little group was scattered throughout the plane, couple of us was in business class, one in economy plus, and rest in economy. I snucked back to the other sections of the plane to give my friends the little alcohol bottles and ghiradelli chocolates. I've never been to Japan (if you don't count the number of layovers through Narita in my previous travels). Went through customs and got my first Japanese visa stamp. True to the stereotype, even the visas are 'advanced.' No stamps, stickers with some type of barcode. Got to the train station easily enough. I have to admit, mass transit is easy in Japan. Took a bullet train to Kyoto, it reminded me of a very upscale and cleaner version of the Amtrak system. After getting into the Kyoto station, we traversed miles of stairs both up and down to get to the subway station to get to our Ryokan. I was initially worried that our late arr...