tbaroundtheworld

Vacations are supposed to contrast your real life against your imaginary life and thus make you appreciate how lucky you are to get "away from it all." Sometimes the contrast is staggering, like our trip home. Our last night on the beach was wonderful. We finally had a passable sunset, the weather was still pleasant (albeit cooling off) and the Christmas hordes had not yet arrived. We capped it with a nice dinner at our favorite place (Blackie's) and steeled ourselves for the long return to civilization. Not much to say about the packing and the trip through Mexico. The sky became cloudy as we traveled into northern Sonora, agreeing with our understanding of the weather that was coming - a storm from the Pacific that was supposed to haunt us as we headed north. No weather along the road though, and no impediments either. Including a lucky avoidance of the 5 mile traffic jam at the Hermosillo military checkpoint that we had witnessed on the trip down. The border was the bo...

It’s amazing how little can happen when you genuinely vacate your regular life in a place like this. The days simply blend together in a never ending filmstrip of sleep, carne machaca, birds, sleep, chitchat, sun, surf, dead squid, sunsets, breezes, bossy cats and sleep. Yesterday we visited Guelaquetza our favorite little curio shop here in town. In the olden days it was a great place to find those colorful Oaxacan carvings of whimsical animals and we slowly built a decent collection based on their stock. They’re still there, but the prices have gone through the roof. I’m glad we have the ones we have, because starting a collection now would indeed be a costly undertaking. Using my best Spanish I told the proprietress how the rear view mirror in my car still sports a small carved jaguar’s head that I had bought in her store more than 10 years ago. She was pleased and responded in a most grave and sincere tone that I was entitled to a 10% discount on everything in the store. I tried to...

There are two things we always do when visiting at Christmas – count birds and feed cats. The cats here at Pilar are the remnants of vast herds of them that once roamed the desert in this vicinity. For a time, Pilar was the local dumping ground for unwanted kittens and there were dozens of them, both tame and completely feral. Over time, the flock thinned and the remaining cats were treated and neutered by a local vet. These days were down to about 5 cats, and all of them are hanging out on our patio waiting for a soft touch to provide them with dinner. Judging from the amount of fat they’re carrying around their backbones, they seem to be able to consistently judge which condos are occupied by suckers and to park themselves there, looking desperate. We always bring a couple of cans of the cheap food with us and I try to feed them once a day. This reliable meal results in cats hanging about languidly dripping over the edges of our camp chairs and regaling us with a chorus of “feed me, ...

Well here we are again, happy hour at the Marina Cantina in sunny San Carlos. This time we're not skulking in the parking lot stealing the wireless signal, rather sitting in a booth enjoying a couple of margaritas and some appetizers - a quesadilla and a hollowed out loaf of french bread filled with artichoke dip. My Lovely Wife is scanning the joint and I am relating to you. The trip down just gets easier and easier. Five minutes tops at the visa station and then the long haul across the desert. We made it in before sunset, unpacked and surveyed the place. And this is where the title comment comes in - recall last time and the hordes of Americans enjoying the Columbus Day break. This time - 4 condos with 10 or so people and nearly complete isolation. The perfect vacation conditions. Enjoying the 70 something air, the sea breeze and the QUIET, we headed out to our traditional dinner at Rosa's. Our friend Martin was there behind the counter and we had a nice chat in broken Spani...

Well the trip home was only memorable for its lack of memorableness. The connections were made, the flights were on time and once again there's no place like home. Thought I'd close this adventure with some pictures from my last day in the park. Hope you enjoy them. .

Thursday was kind of an average day, nothing very exciting happened but there were lots of little things worth mentioning. Lunch was Papa John’s pizza, worth mentioning just for the fact that it exists here. The pies were precisely what you would expect from PJ’s – not extraordinary but tasty. We had some time so we headed out for a walk around the big block. Found a bakery by the name of Croissant le France that was loaded with very attractive breads and pastries. Saw a bicyclist politely arguing with a motorist who had apparently hit them with their car. The driver was complaining that the bike had scratched his bumper and the rider was bemoaning the facts that his wheel was bent and that his foot hurt. An argument in the middle of a busy intersection that you would never see anywhere but here. After a non-descript afternoon and a short stop at Starbucks we went out to the Hong Mei Leisure Pedestrian Street for dinner. It’s basically a narrow thoroughfare connecting two boulevards th...

Went out to lunch with the other IT guys – both local residents – yesterday and had quite a nice experience. Among other things, it was my first time driving with a resident in their personal car – all my other rides have been with personal drivers or taxis. We started by heading to Pizza Hut. This chain and KFC are very popular among the Shanghaiese because they love chicken and both restaurants are chicken specialists. I found this to be pretty interesting, because while Americans frequent both chains, I wouldn’t say that they patronize them because of a reputation for doing any type of cuisine well. For us it’s more about speed and uniformity. We had a short discussion and decided instead to have Shanghai food so we went around the Pizza Hut building and down a long driveway to a Chinese restaurant tucked into the back corner. The first thing that struck me was the plethora of cardboard Santa faces on every pane of glass. The host brought us into the back room which was very modern ...

Went out just after dawn this morning to explore another park up the street from the hotel. Each time I’ve been to this hotel, I have expanded the radius of my morning walks to the point now where the out and back distance is beginning to challenge the amount of time I have to spend on them. But with each expansion, has come another park to visit and each one has been more interesting and beautiful than the last. In this part of the city some land seems to be set aside at every major intersection. Sometimes it’s just a small amount with a few trees and perhaps a sculpture. Others are far more elaborate. This morning’s desitination – Tianshan Park - was certainly in the latter case. Not only braided with paths, it had many types of tree “gardens” a big lake and a lot of buildings. As the city has developed, these little oases have become hemmed in with tall buildings, creating sort of an artificial canyon amid towering spires. Like all the others, this park was full of people doing all ...

Not really too much to say about today, it was spent working. Started the day out right with a grande Hot Chocolate from Starbucks (the world being flat and all) and had the normal commute in the normal morning traffic. Perhaps the highlight was an opportunity to tell the taxi driver to turn left when he wasn't sure which way to go. My response came naturally, perhaps a decent indicator that I'm making some progress with my language. Had lunch on a nice little side street blocked to cars and dedicated to restaurants. Our place had a Santa Fe club sandwich on the menu, an interesting name considering there wasn't much Santa Fe about it. I had a spicy Thai beef wrap which was all those things. Dinner once again at the 1221 restaurant, a western style chinese food establishment that is quite popular with expats and known for its excellent food. They even called a cab for us which we managed to walk past when we left. Didn't matter because we ended up sitting in it for 5 mi...

I’m not sure how to feel about my impressions from this latest trip across the sea. It’s now closing on 6 weeks spent in China over the course of the year and oddly it’s starting to feel like just any old trip. Like going to Phoenix. This struck me last night as I was waiting for my friends out in front of the Renaissance, maybe it was the cold air or the giant Christmas tree or maybe the twinkle lights in the potted plants or Santa’s sled and reindeer. I don’t know, it just didn’t feel special any more. I remember that first morning back in February when I bravely headed out to wander through New Century Park across Ya’an Xilu. It was like I was walking out on another planet. Now it’s just another home base. This trip over was about as routine as one could possibly imagine. On the Albuquerque to San Francisco leg the most exciting thing was the guy who plopped down into the window seat next to me only to discover he should have been one row up. How you can get confused in the first 4 ...