Day 6 Riding the Rails to Munich

The awesomeness of the breakfast at the Hotel Garni Probst can not be overstated. Fueled up on that, we went off to see the Deutsche Bahn Museum.  The exhibits are really interesting, and they don't dance around DB's involvement in the holocaust.  The way that they handled the development of railway technology and the differences between that development between the old east and west were really fascinating.  And let's not forget the really big HO Scale railway they have.  Be sure to check the schedule for when the demonstrations are, because otherwise you'll miss out on a really cool show. After a lunch on the go in the Christmas Market (including more Feuerzangenbowle), we wandered off to Munich.  For a change we actually had something booked, our first experimental run with airbnb.com .  We stayed at a place rented out by a nice young doctor right downtown, near the hauptbahnhof and near the tollwood festival.  It's also in a little Turkey kind of neighborhood, so we ended up at a late night Kebob shop a couple of times.  We met up with some of W's co-workers and had some dinner at the Rathaus.  It wasn't quite as good as the first time we ate there, and the service we got was a little lackluster even by German standards. 

Day 5, The round about way to Bavaria

Due to scheduling restraints, and weirdness in the flights we could and could not take, the "simplest" way to get to where we were headed was to go to Nuremberg by way of Zurich.  So our friends were kind enough to drive us the hour or so to the Zurich Airport, so that we could grab a short flight over to Nuremberg. Since once again we were not sure exactly when we'd get there we had nothing booked.  We arrived and marched into the tourist office, and they were able to find us a really great room at the Hotel Garni Probst.  This was another great unexpected score for the trip.  The location is right down town, and didn't even require a long hike from the train station.  By this time we were already loaded down from a shopping trip we'd been on in the morning.  We walked down and managed to find an eirpunsch within moments.  To make matters even better, we managed to find a Feuerzangenbowle stand.  Of course, the whole point of our stop in Nuremberg was another shot at eating at the Nassauer Keller.  Our dinner was great, although a little less interesting than our last visit with Kathy and Dave.  We had a fun night out to dinner and at the market and made ourselves good and comfortable in our nice downtown location.

Day 4, My first foray into France

This day started again with an enormous spread for breakfast, and more apfelkuchen. Then we jumped in the car to go to country number three, a day trip over to Colmar France.  What should you know about Colmar.
1. It's Beautiful and well preserved, it is crawling with old Europe style.
2.  The Gluhwein (Vin Chaud if you're a local) is terrible, it's sickeningly sweet.
3.  They recover from that by being in capital of Alsace, and therefore have plenty of delicious wine to drink that has not been warmed and sweetened. 
4.  The food is delicious, we had this flat bread pizza kind of thing, that I would still go back to get tomorrow if I could. 
5. It's the orignal home of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi 
6. I desperately want to go back, do drink wine and eat.
We had a blast in Colmar, and then returned once more to Auggen where we went out for a delicious traditional meal  I had a wurst salat, which is basically an excuse to call a julienned bratwurst a salad.  It is as you can imagine not very healthy. We then headed back to our comfortable room for a good solid night's sleep to get ready to get back on the road the next day.

Day 3 On to Frieburg

The whole family joined us for breakfast the next morning, an impressive spread of fresh breads, delicious deli meats (well, except for the obligatory liverwurst), home made preserves, and strong coffee, topped off with the most amazing fresh apple cake,)apfelkuchen)  that looked like it had just leapt off the pages of a cookbook.  After breakfast we got dropped off at the DB station in order to go off to Freiburg.  Freiburg is an awesome city, although since we were there on a Saturday, it was absolutely swamped with people.  The Frieburg Munster is really impressive, and since we got to take the English language tour we got some insight into the intricate carvings on the walls.  We found a quiet little Franciskaner Keller Restaurant, that was quite nice and provided us a nice quiet place to sit and eat and stay warm.  We wandered around town a bit more, made our way up to the Schlossberg. After a bit of wandering through the Christmas Market and generally being overwhelmed by the crowd, and grabbed a train back to Auggen to meet our hosts.  They again provided a delicious dinner and great company for us, and then dropped us back off in Badenweiler.

Basel Day 2

W has always been a fan of Dollhouses, so because I'm so awesome, I recommended we visit the puppenhausmuseum as one of our few Basel must see items.  We wandered around for quite a bit nerding out about all the tiny little things.  They won't let you bring in any more than a pocket size camera, which makes it tough to get really good pictures.  But suffice it to say even with out visual proof from my camera, the little tiny things are presented with amazing detail, and the old teddy bears are often very cute, although sometimes creepy. Once the Christmas Market opened up, we had a delicious sit down fondue lunch, and then explored the river front and university area of Basel.  Late in the afternoon we hopped on a train to Auggen to meet some friends, for the next leg of our journey.  Many moons ago W went on a trip to Germany with a co-worker.  They went to stay with the son of a lady who had been the co-worker's au pair. Some time later,   that son had stayed at our house, on a trip through California.  He was nice enough to put us up at his parents place since we were on his side of the pond.  We sat for a fantastic meal of schnitzel, and then he dropped us off for our stay in Badenweiler.  We stayed at the Gastehaus Ursula in Badenweiler, likely the most wonderful family owned B&B style hotel in all of Germany. Yes, my opinion is biased on this, and I'm totally O.K. with that. The lady of the house greeted us with fresh baked Chritmas Cookies and some local beer.  We even took a walk up into Badenweiler where the shops were open late that night and everyone was serving a warm beverage and the whole town gathered.  Our bed was good and comfy, and we settled in from our full day for a good night's sleep.

A Mid-winter Border Crossing Bananza

It's been a busy couple of months, but I've been meaning to sit down and tell you about our little winter adventure for 2011. Last year was our slowest travel year on record, so we had to make the trip count. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we hopped a swissair flight from SFO to Zurich.  Since at no point were we ever absolutely certain we'd get on a flight, we had only booked a place to stay for several days farther downstream in the trip.  That meant mission one on arrival was getting a place to stay.  We knew we were headed for Basel, so we ended up booking something on hotels.com, once we managed to get the pay buy the minute internet terminals to work in Zurich airport. We jumped on the train from Zurich to Basel,  and arrived quickly.  After a little aimless wandering, we found the check in desk for the Hotel City inn (turns out it shares a desk with the Hotel Euler which caused the wandering). It turns out that the city inn didn't actually have any rooms, so we were "forced" into a room at the nicer Hotel Euler (no charge of course).  We put on some warm gear and rushed right out to find the Christmas market, where we plunked down for the first Raclette over bread and potatoes that we encountered. Yes of course we had some gluhwein with that.  We went back to the hotel a little early, after wandering through the city for a bit we made our way back to the hotel to call it a night. 

A rare school night out on the town

This week I managed to get out on Wednesday night and catch a really great band you've probably not yet heard of, The Coronas.  The operative word there is yet, because these guys are big in Ireland already and are likely to take the US by storm sooner rather than later.  Plus it didn't hurt that we are friends of friends, so despite my skepticism going in we saw them put on a really great show.    We Caught the San Francisco Leg of their current US tour where they played  the venerable Slim's, a San Francisco classic for live shows.  We also managed to find another SF staple, Crepes a Go Go, and then wandered our way across the street for one more at Bar Agricole, a place I'd be interested in going back to visit when it's nice in the city, since they have  a nice outdoor area.  We were the cool kids hanging out with the band, until I needed to catch the last train to the east bay and go to work in the morning.
The Rest of the Coronas' tour is here, when they're in your city, drop what you're doing and go see them.

February

17th - Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR
18th - The High Dive, Seattle, WA
19th - Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver B.C. Canada
22th - Blue Lamp, Sacramento, CA
23rd - Slim's, San Fransisco, CA
25th - Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles, CA
26th - The Casbah, San Diego, CA

March

1st - Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO
4th - Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, MO
5th - 3rd & Lindsey, Nashville, TN
6th - Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA
8th - The Red Palace, Washington D.C.
10th - Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA
11th - The Craic @ Mercury Lounge, New York, NY
12th - North Star Bar, Philadelphia, PA
15th - Beachland Ballroom & Tavern, Cleveland, OH
17th - Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL

Whoa Double Post? Another Sad loss requires it

I know 2 posts in One day is insane production from me, but I am moved by the partial destruction of one of my favorite churches, the cathedral at Christchurch NZ .  The Wiki moves fast, it already has an updated pic.The Story is here, Via The Daily What 

A Cautionary Tale About Falling In Love With a Phone

On Friday, just when I was starting to lose all hope for humanity I found out about Tide for Toomer’s a site dedicated to rational thought and mutual disgust for the act that has the Toomer’s Oaks clinging to life.  Then I went to lunch, and accidentally left my phone sitting on my desk once again shattering my faith in society. Sometime during lunch I thought about my phone, and decided it would probably be fine sitting there, no big deal.  The trouble is it wasn’t there when I got back.  I figured I probably just left it someplace I’d been that morning, so I checked the only three places I’d been; the cafeteria, the bathroom, and a co workers office.  I then went to the mobile.me website to see where my phone was, good news, it was still on campus at work, and perhaps I’d left it someplace and someone picked it up.  Unfortunately it then sped up and got on the freeway.  I called my company’s security team and reported it stolen, and they seemed mostly uninterested; recommending I file a police report.  While waiting for the officer to arrive I took one more look at where the phone was.  It had stopped at a house. I snapped a screenshot and hoped for the best from the police.    It doesn’t appear that they’ll be much either, as a phone gps location is a long way from a search warrant, so I basically have nothing except the approximate location of where my phone last pinged the network Friday afternoon.  It wouldn’t be so bad if the cost of replacement were lower.  But 6 months ago when I got the phone I signed a new contract. I can pay early to “upgrade” (getting back the same phone) but it means renewing a contract with a phone company I hate, and basically locking my self out of the next upgrade when my phone undoubtedly goes through its next iteration this year. Or I can pay the no contract price, which approaches what I paid for a BCS Championship game ticket. So for now, I have no phone at all. Not cool random co-worker. Not cool at all.  Quoth the Great Philosopher Ceelo Green “I see you driving ‘round town with the phone I love and I’m like F**** you  ooo ooo ooo oooo.  I guess the phone in your pocket wasn’t enough”.  Aint that some Shhhh indeed!  Speaking of Ceelo Green; I was a fan way back in 1995 when I first heard the Goodie Mob’s Cell Therapy( I still have that CD somewhere I think).  The Hip hop station near Auburn played it all the time. If you had told me then that 15 years later one of those guys would be at the Grammys wearing a peacock suit singing a song with Gwyneth Paltrow and some muppets, I would have been very interested in what substance you’d gotten your hands on.  (Well, maybe I’d have started with who in the hell is Gwyneth Paltrow?) Back to the phone for a moment, How much cash would you leave on your desk at work?  Lesson Learned.

Still playing catch up



I didn't get to tell you live about a little adventure I took because I was still working on all those Vietnam posts, but you should know about the little jaunt I took to Phoenix. My college roommate Dale and I had talked our respective significant others into letting us go to the national championship game if by some miracle Auburn managed to get in. We hashed out a plan so that as soon as the SEC championship game was in the bag Dale would get tickets. So while I was out at Rouge watching the game with a large boisterous crowd, dale was at home with 2 laptops, one for airfare, and one for tickets. We bought through stubhub.com which I was immediately a little skeptical of, but keep reading and you'll find out whether that skepticism was warranted. I flew into Phoenix in the early afternoon on Sunday about an hour before Dale got in, so I had some time to grab a beer at the

 Bar. When Dale arrived we met at the rental car counter, a long bus ride away from the terminal, but the way is well signed. I couldn't believe the amount of orange and blue at the airport. I Sat next to a few ducks on the plane, and they turned out to be some of the nicest football fans I'd encountered in life. That turned out to be story of almost all the Oregon fans I encountered. The airport started to make it feel like a home game, and you couldn't go anywhere in the greater phoenix area without finding someone who would say War Eagle to you. We checked in to the Hilton Garden Inn North Phoenix, that turned out to be a nice little place to stay, surrounded by restaurants including a red robin, and an ihop. What else could you need? I'll skip ahead to the important stuff; on Monday we arrived at the stadium pretty early, because we weren't sure where we were going to park, and we wanted to to get some food close by, and we wanted to be sure we got our stubhub pickup done without incident. So we get there and immediately find out we can just pay to park in a lot right next to all the restaurants. That was easy, no problem. Next we march up to the Moe's, where we are told we can pick up our tickets. Dale shows ID and we're instantly handed tickets. Parking and ticket pick up take exactly 15 minutes. So we decide to try to find some food next and we spend almost two hours just trying to get in the door at the Shane's Rib Shack. Filled up with food, we wanted to try to see the unofficial Tiger walk that would allegedly take place at gate 3. It didn't happen, and eventually we just tried to get in the gate. by this time you couldn't even get an AT&T signal, so checking twitter for an update on the tiger walk proved impossible. Each person got an upper body pat down and a bag check if necessary, which meant it took a long time to get into the gate. Someplace in the crush of humanity I even bumped into one of the other guys from the Northern California Auburn Alumni. When we got in, we go to get our ticket scanned only to get turned away at the door. The guy says he doesn't know why, but our tickets don't work. He gives us some Vague directions to the desk to get help and we start marching that way, kind of shell-shocked, but assuming someone there will just fix our problem and we'll go in. We come to a really long line that says it's the Auburn team will call booth, where I have dale stand, and i go look for the regular will call booth while he's waiting. That line was Really. Really Long. Eventually I find the regular will call both and find that the line is really short. The guy at the booth takes my ticket, and dissapers for a while, and when he comes back he sort of looks a little lost and has to find my ticket again, because he'd set it down. About this time he comes back and says I'm sorry sir your ticket was reported as stolen, we can't let you in and we're keeping that ticket. I didn't know whether to lay down on the ground and cry or to try to jump through the window. My worst fear had actually come true. Dale tried to call stub hub and spent about 10 minutes trying to get through their voice answering system. There was junk playing through outdoor speakers, so each time dale would try to give a voice command, it would get garbled by the stuff coming through the speakers. About the time we were resigning ourselves to go back to the hotel to watch the game so that we could actually see it, it finally dawned on me, let's go back out to the stub hub table at Moe's and see if we can plead our case. It's a pretty good sized hike back to the booth, but by the time we got there I was good and fired up. The guy takes a look at Dale's ticket that we're now fortunate we still have, and the looks on our faces and immediately goes about calming us down and ensuring us that we'll be taken care of. Of course the first thing I noticed that they had some rather imposing security packing heat, so there will be no scene created on this day. They check there computers and eventually give us tickets that were an upgrade from what we actually paid for. We were actually on the auburn side in a corner. A few rows closer than we were originally. The take home message, You should use stubhub.com because they stand by their guarantee. I promise to tell everyone I know about it. I don't have to tell you what happened at the game, but what I can tell you is that we had a perfect view of the big goal line stand, and the clinching field goal, as they both happened at our end. After the game we partied a little longer at west gate, and got back for early flights for both of us the next day. I still wake up some days and think guess what, we're still national champions. Since I'm posting this over a month late, it comes at the same time as the announcement that some jerk poisoned the old oaks in Toomer's corner. Those trees are estimated to be 130 years old, so they're part of a shared experience for all living Auburn Alumni. Apparently we had to come back down to earth sometime, it just came a lot sooner than anyone hoped. It just makes me sick to my stomach that someone thought it was ok, and called into the finebaum radio show to brag about it. Wow, this post today contains a double dose of shock and anger. Hopefully to happier things again soon.



 





So Long Korea

Our last day in Korea we were catching a mid day flight, so we checked out as late as they'd let us and had them hold our bags while we went down to the underground connector to another shinsegae. There was a mall and food court leading there which made for a fun little shopping adventure. We managed to find some food at the shinsegae after much pointing and gesturing had a delicious lunch at the counter of one of the hundreds of little food seriving places. We found some of our favorite japanese cigar cookies to drag home, and continued to marvel at the awesomeness of the place. After lunch we made it back for one final G&T at the hotel bar then grabbed a taxi to the airport. The bus schedule would have put us at the airport way too early or way too close for departure, so we decided to spring for a cab. We bought lots of food thinking we might be stuck in coach, but got upgraded to first at the last possible moment. We had as good a flight as you can expect home, and I came home to a text message from my boss asking me to come in. It's a good thing I'd dressed well because I had to go straight to the office from the airport. So there you have the whole tale of our adventure. As usual, all the pictures are here.

Vietnam and Korea

Korea Day 2 a Temple and the most amazing store ever

On day 2 we were mostly exhausted from our run of super tourism, so when we eventually got out of bed and got moving we slowly made our way to the Changdeok Palace, our hearts weren't really in it. We looked around we saw the sites, but it didn't really matter. At this point we've seen a lot of asian temples and palaces and aren't easily impressed. It's not changdeok's fault, it's in a beautiful city, and it has great architecture, we're just kind of over it, or at least we were on the day that we were there. I can speak pretty highly of the takeout fare at the deli at the JW Marriott though. That was how we started with lunch, and the wine selection was really impressive. They even had some Clos Du Val, which is on the standard Napa tour that we give people who come to visit us here. We wandered about changdeok for a while, and then made our way over to the Namdaemun Market. We wandered it for quite a while eventually finding a cheap purveyor of prescription glasses where we bought me 2 new pairs, that were finished in the time it took us to shop and have a leisurely coffee. At some point we managed to aimlessly wander our way into a Shinsegea, which might be the coolest shopping experience ever. Down int the basement there's a grocery store that was at least as nice as having 2 whole foods in the basement of the building, bu they had far more interesting stuff than any store you've ever been in. It as a magical miracle wonderland of foods, prepared and raw, that just happens to be below a multi-story department store. We never even looked a the other stuff to buy, but went up to an upper floor where the restaurants were. There were so many, and they all have plastic model food, so you can see a scaled up model of what you'll eventually eat. We chose a Korean food restaurant and really, really enjoyed. Afterward we found the night market where we wandered for quite a while looking at the hundreds of makeup and skincare shops, and checking out the occasional bit of interesting street food. Late in the evening we found a little outside food place where they had a Korean pancake, so we stopped in to check it out. It was as if we were the first non Koreans to eat there, because our presence again created a little bit of a stir, but who are we not to try a pancake someplace. We made it back to the hotel once again for our customary sapphire and tonic. and crashed one more time.

Korea Day 1, Everything I know about Seoul I learned from M*A*S*H

First things first, a four hour redeye is far too short to get anywhere near enough sleep to survive on. But there we were at the Incheon airport feeling very shocked by how cold it suddenly was, and waiting for our bus. If you stay in a reasonably large hotel in Seoul, there's probably a bus that goes most of the way there, and if you stay in the JW Marriott Seoul it pulls up right out front. The bus system at the airport is really efficient with numbered buses going to many different hotels regularly, and helpful guys out front who can point you in the right direction and help load up your luggage. We got ourselves checked in and since it was still really early and our room was ready, we went down for a little nap. After waking up the Concierge was nice enough to point us to a really great restaurant walking distance from the hotel. I really wish I could tell you more about it, but it had no roman script at all in the name, and no employees that spoke English. Through a series of points and hand gestures we ended up with one of the lunch specials and only felt kind of awkward about looking kind of out of place and not knowing enough Korean to blend in a little. After lunch we went to a nearby Starbucks for some coffee and hopefully some internet, but couldn't actually get ourselves connected. We took a cab to Itaewon shopping street where we immediately worked on getting W some warmer gear to wear. At some point a guy peeks out from around a corner and says I have NFL and college stuff come look, Surprised that he had college stuff, I was at least willing to check it out and sure enough he has a replica Bo Jackson Auburn Jersey. He took us into the deep recesses to a place I'd never have gone into, and the jerseys were clearly not for everyone walking by to see. As an Alum I briefly considered that this guy was probably making a lot of green and Auburn was losing out on the revenue, but when I negotiated the price low enough, I knew the deal was too good to pass up. He was actually pretty agreeable to the price, which means I should have gone lower, but the final price for a replica jersey was a good $$30 less than a recent ebay listing. We then caught a ride on the Downtown Seoul City tour bus, and got off when it stopped at the NSeoul Tower. We hung out at the top for long enough to catch the sunset and get some great pictures, We caught what turned out to be one of the last buses of the night, because when it reached a spot downtown, it didn't continue on to the stops nearer to our hotel. There was a random Christian church service going on basically in a downtown park, and they were handing out hot coffee to people nearby, which was welcome on this cold strange night. We then decided to try to find something to eat. We found another little place you're not likely to ever see in a guidebook, up a set of stairs, where local businessmen were seated at a floor table shouting and partying. It looked like a good time. By this time we'd found the translation for what do you recommend in Korean, pointed to it and had the waitress bring us a meal of her choice, She picked extremely well. It was getting late after dinner, and we were cold and tired, but we were going to try to take a bus home. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out the bus signs at all, and wandered around for a while trying to figure out how the heck to get back to our hotel. Since I was cold and miserable, we finally decided to find some more cash, and grab a cab. The ride back to the hotel turned out to be reasonable, so we'd wandered around a lot for no reason. Oh well, we saw parts of Seoul we'd never have explored otherwise. We made it back to the hotel, and went to the bar, for a sapphire & tonic accompanied by live jazz. It was a nice way to end the evening.

Vietnam Day 11, A day to ourselves in Old Saigon

Our last day in Saigon was just a little bit of unplanned magic. We didn't have anything we needed to accomplish, so we decided to go check out the Vietnamese history museum. Here's a thing you really should know it's closed on Monday. But, if you show up at the front gate at certain times with money, you might find that a cruise ship has just dumped all its excursion passengers there. If that's the case, asking nicely will get you in the door, despite your not having looked at a calendar in the last 10 days. The museum covers early civilizations in Vietnam and has really cool stuff from the countries early history. Right next door is the zoo, and since it was less than $5/person, we decided to check it out. Cages with concrete floors are just not cool, but preservation and educating children is, so it's kind of a tough call on whether this was a good experience or not. We ended up having lunch (again) at the barbecue garden, since we'd had such a nice time the night before. We also had to make our way back to a place we'd had do a little laundry for us, since the hotel wanted some ridiculous amount per item. We thought for sure that the place we'd stayed in Danang was overcharging us, but it turns out they had the cheapest prices of the whole trip. Our flight out of Vietnam was scheduled for very late that night, so we mostly just hung out in the city for the rest of the afternoon and got ourselves ready for one more stop. Our flight to Seoul was pretty uneventful, although it was on a nicer plane than we'd come to Vietnam on.

Vietnam Day 10, Flying Solo

W woke up on day 10 not feeling very awesome, so I took one for the team and decided to go solo on our tour for the day. I'd paid for it, and after 10 days of spending every minute together who wouldn't like a little peace and quiet. On the docket for me: a trip to the Cu chi Tunnel complex , and and a stop at the Cao Dai Holy See. We started with a good solid drive out to the Cao Dai holy see, a place and religion that even for the purpose of this writing, I don't fully understand. All I took home from my visit was that their building is pretty spectacular, the all seeing eye is important, and Victor Hugo is one of the three important saints. We watched part of the mass, which was mostly singing, praying and drum and gong playing, while wearing brightly colored robes and hats. It was a cool thing to watch, but I found it difficult to get much out of the experience, while trying to talk about it enough so as not to disturb what was happening. After that my guide for the day took me to the designated tourist hole for lunch. This was by far the worst meal I ate on the trip, and I spent most of the time thinking I was glad I hadn't dragged W with me. After that we were off to the Cu Chi Complex. You start with a movie in the language of your choice that tells you about how the noble Vietnamese lived in the tunnels fighting off the evil imperialist Americans with their vastly superior weapons to maintain their independence. Being on the wrong side of history kind of sucks. You get to see some of the improvised weapons and traps made from whatever was available, and you get a sense for just how well the complex was hidden and how they managed to keep it that way. I spent some time crawling through one of the tunnels, and it was hard work. for a guy of my stature, and I wasn't carrying any fighting gear. A nasty Sarasota style thunderstorm blew through while we were there, and didn't seem all that interested in leaving, so I ended up kind of soaked for the ride back to Saigon. When I got back I found W and described my adventure, while she told me about her adventures getting a mani, and a shampoo, while I was out crawling through a tunnel and dodging lightning. I was almost a little jealous. For dinner that night we decided to try the Barbecue Garden, after having passed it several times in our travels. It was easily one of the best meals of the trip, and we had a lot of good meals. You cook your own stuff, on a gas powered cooking plate in the middle of your table, and the stuff was so good we'd eat what we had and order something else. the beef short ribs stuffed with cheese are something I'm going to have to try to figure out for myself. After dinner we wanted to go check out a recommendation from our favorite Aussie Paul, the Sheridan's Irish House. The directions we got there weren't spectacular, but when we did actually find it, it was worth the trip. It's a nice place to grab a real beer in a place where all the beers are lite on alcohol and flavor. After our beer we made our way back to our hotel for a night of rest before our last big day in Saigon.

Vietnam Day 9, Why you should respect vietnam vets

When we were planning this trip, a visit to the mekong delta sounded like a good idea. Floating villages, unspoiled vietnamese countryside, getting away from the city for a while. It all sounds great on paper. It actually looks a little different in the execution. A small bus came to pick us up at our hotel, and that ride turned really weird when two old British guys got on with two young vietnamese girls in tow. It's hard to ride along with people that you can't really make eye contact with. We got out of our small bus and got into an already mostly full bigger bus, and we couldn't even sit together. So that was lame, and it was pretty damn warm on the bus. I sat next to a nice young lady from Japan, who was wearing jeans and a sweater. So I'm sitting there sweating my behind off, and she's wrapped up like it's a foggy SF summer day. It's a long ride down to the Mekong, You stop at a big Buddhist temple, and then you get out, ride in a few boats of different sizes, check out some coconut candy making, check out some honey making and then get back on the bus for the really long ride back to HCMC. We ran into some traffic too, and didn't stop to go to the bathroom on the way back. Which made the ride hot, long ,boring and uncomfortable. When we got back to Saigon, we got a shower and decided to treat ourselves to the Buffet at the Renaissance Saigon. We stopped on the way at the Saigon Beutiful shop (104 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia st dist 1 HCMC) and found some really cool purse for W. After some shopping, then we made our way to the Renaissance. Yes it says the dress code is casual, but don't actually take their word for it, Most of the other guests are European, and dress smartly for casual occasions. You will probably be the only grown man wearing shorts. The seafood at the buffet is absolutely fantastic. They have lobster tails and shrimp and crabs and oysters and clams on ice, and when you walk up to them, someone asks you how you'd like them done. Grilled, steamed, steamed with lemon grass., thermidor are among the many options. Same for steaks that are just resting on the ice waiting for you. We were seated at a table near the front of the restaurant, right near where the wine was kept. Since it's all you can drink (more juice from Chile) our location near the wine holder meant that we were constantly being re-poured. We really liked our waiter, and when he'd come to ask if we wanted more I finally trained him to know the answer was always yes. I got my money's worth that's for sure. So the lesson for the day is that our boys who came to Vietnam and had to fight survived absolutely garbage conditions. It's a hard country to be a tourist in, and friendly people welcomed me at every turn, I can't imagine being there on hostile terms.

Vietnam Day 8 Life's a beach

Day 8 was intended to be a lazy beach day, but if you're following along at home, you'll know we hadn't seen the sun since we arrived in Da Nang. Let's start with breakfast. My hope is that if I have lived a very good life, Heaven will have a Pho bar like the one at sandy beach. You get to hand select your meats and vegetables, and add as much or as little of the herbs and spices as you like. They have big pots of broth just waiting for you to show up and eat. Hoisin and chili sauce are also in plentiful supply. Let's just say it's a great way to start any morning. So as we were finishing our delicious breakfast, the clouds parted, and suddenly going out to the beach actually seemed kind of appropriate. We went far enough to stick our toes in the water. For the record you don't actually get to swim much there in the winter time, because the surf and the currents can be really strong. Since swimming was out of the question and none of the beach chairs were out. we decided to just sit around the pool deck instead. That was a far superior choice, since drinks and snacks were readily available. In the afternoon the resort runs a shuttle to Hoi an, so we took it to get some lunch, we ended up back at the Before N Now where for a change of pace we had some pizza, then we went back to the Be Be one more time to pick up W's stuff and then cought a cab back to the resort. We packed up, and for some reason our guide came with us to the airport, but we liked him so we didn't mind, and we were on our way from danang to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The rule is you can pretty much call it whatever you like, as long as it's one of those two things, so have at it. We got in late but still had time to visit the Ben Thanh night market. We had a really fantastic dinner at a restaurant in the market as we tried to get used to the 10 degree warmer temperatures and the significantly higher humidity. It was finally our first meal in a plastic chair at a plastic table, which is how everyone else in Vietnam is eating. so it makes you almost a local. We settled in for the night at our really great room at the golden central saigon and crashed for another big tourism day to come.

Vietnam Day Seven: The long haul to Hue

We got up early on day seven to take the really long trek out to Hue. Unfortunately for us, the travel agent recommended going out to Hue and spending the night there, so you don't have to make the long trek both ways on the same day, or flying from Hue to Saigon, but both of those suggestions came after we'd already booked our flights, so we were in for the long haul. The best part of the drive is the Hai Van pass a beautiful winding coastal road that makes the road from Monterrey to San Francisco look like childsplay. Like most of southeast Asia you spend a decidedly uncomfortable amount of time on the wrong side of the road passing other cars and trucks and mopeds and animals and children on bikes, but eventually you arrive in Hue. We had the same tour guide and driver as the day before, so by this time we knew what to expect, which meant probably a little too much time in the little details of imperial successors, a good bit beyond the scope of our collective attention span. But it was mostly interesting and had just enough of the royal intrigue to keep W entertained. The best news was that the we at least drove ourselves off to somewhat better weather. After the Hue Citadel we had a little lunch at the tropical garden restaurant, where we randomly bumped into another American couple from our cruise. It's noteworthy here that we didn't run into that many Americans on our travels, which, given some of the reactions I got when I told people where I was going, isn't all that surprising. After a really tasty lunch we took a little drive up the hill to the Tomb of Khai Dinh, which was the the more visually impressive of the two sites. If you gotta die, I guess I'd recommend building yourself something like this so that people don't forget you, since even a guy like me still knows about Khai Dinh, these many years later. To be honest though, I hope someday if my life warrants a wikipedia entry, it's a little more flattering than his. We took the Hai Van tunnel back into Da Nang, which makes the trip a good deal shorter. We had our guide take us back into Hoi an for a fitting, and ended our night with dinner at the Cafe Can 74 Bach Dang st Hoi An. Of course we managed to make some more friends from down under there, who we promised someday to come visit. How did we meet them you ask? The night before when we were in the Tailor shop a lady grabs me and says will you try this on, you're about the same size as my son. So I try it on, and tell her what I think of it, and ask how much she'd sell it to me for. We laughed for a while about it and assumed our paths would never cross. The next night as we're wandering around looking at menus, trying to figure out where to eat, someone seated at a table says the food is really good, you'll like it. I look up instantly recognize her as the crazy lady who made me try on her leather jacket, and say ok we know we like your taste, we'll come eat here. We chatted with her and her group most of the night and warned them that they should not invite us to visit, because we would take them up on their offer someday. We eventually made it back to the hotel and had a drink at the bar with one other person this time, still mostly convinced that there was nobody else fun staying at our resort.

Vietanam Day 6 Insert My Son Joke Here

Day six was really about survival tourism. The weather was completely uncooperative, but we'd already paid for a full day tour and the guy showed up in the morning so off we went. We took the drive out to My Son, and my shoes were dry for about 10 minutes before a day of trudging through the mud around and ancient temple caught up with them. The tour guide we went with was a heck of a nice guy, but got the strangest growl in his voice when saying certain words in English. Particularly interesting was the way he'd say Champa People, a phrase that still induces a solid bout of giggling if I do the accent around W. I of course was in no position to make fun of anyone's pronunciation on this trip since I'd learned exactly 5 Vietnamese words before showing up in the country. Two of them were Choi oi, an expression of surprise or flabbergastedness that my mom taught me in the airport. There are a couple of ways to do this tour, either with a group or with a personal guide, and while you get more interaction with your personal guide and you get to see what real Vietnamese life is like a little, if the guide is really into it, he'll keep talking about stuff long after your attention span has checked out for the day. We spent 3 hours there, when an hour would have been more than sufficient. The take home message: the place probably once rivaled other historic temples, but using it's high points for communication towers during a war will get the crap bombed out of it. We have all missed out on something pretty cool because of this, but that which remains is still beautiful to look at and interesting to learn about. On the way out or on the way in you catch the "authentic" Champa style dance show, where it's pretty easy to see the Indian influence. We showed up just as it was beginning and had to stand at the back of the little covered area, but I don't really think we missed anything but the opportunity to get close up photos of a thing we weren't terribly impressed by anyway. So my advice is don't waste your time getting there early to get a good seat, there's plenty to see elsewhere. The second half of the day we spent touring the historic town of Hoi An. Hoi An is a beautiful little town, with lots of old buildings and about a hundred tailors and shoe makers, but also lots of fun little restaurants competing like crazy for your tourist dollar. We had lunch in a place where we got our first taste of the tourist set menu. It sounds bad, but actually leads you to try somethings on the menu that you might not normally try. It's how we first discovered a local specialty the white rose a shrimp dumpling served with dipping sauce. .We subsequently ordered them with every meal that we could. Restaurants like Tam Tam where we had the 7 course tasting menu are the reason we came back heavier than when we left. 7 courses for 2 plus a few Beer Hanois, and suddenly you're bringing home some extra "baggage". Our tour continued for a little too long once again, but we eventually found our way to a great little bar and coffee shop that we went back to a couple of times called Before and Now, they had good snacks and pizza as much as I hate to admit it, and free wi fi. We eventually settled on a tailor shop recommended by old traveling buddy Dave, who had been here a mere two weeks before us. We got lots of dress shirts and pants for me at Be Be Design. Someone there even recommended a place for us to eat dinner, so we ended our night in Hoi An at the Mermaid Restaurant. We had a cool table right outside the where a bartender was working. He took really good care of us mostly because we were right there under his nose, and there was no place to sit in the bustling indoor area. The food was great, and you can be sure we had a big plate of white rose. We managed to stay out in the crap weather the entire day, and I was pretty sure I might never see dry socks again, but we managed to be strong all day and finish off a great day of tourism.

Vietnam Day 5 Power shopping, and heading south

Day 5 started out with me learning a lesson the hard way. The first rule of travel to Hanoi is simple: Wear a nice pair of shoes while walking in the city, or buy yourself a new pair upon arrival. I wore an old pair of shoes that I intended to only be making a one way journey, and was constantly hounded by an army of guys carrying a plastic shoe repair kit with glue. Sometimes if I stood on a curb too long I'd look down and see one of them trying to super glue it while I was standing there. I must have waved off 50 of them in my 2 days spent in the city. So I had decided I'd finally say yes to one, but I shouldn't negotiate and do currency conversion first thing in the morning because I agreed on a $10 dollar shoe repair job for a pair of shoes I'd paid $20 for in China. Lessons Learned (To be fair he did hand stitch them back together pretty nicely, it was my poor negotiation that was the problem). After my shoe error we found W some really lovely dresses at Ngoc Anh Fashion (92A Haing Gai Str. Hanoi) . The lady managed to turn them around quickly enough for W to order them and have them delivered to the hotel same day. We never actually agreed on a time with our travel agent, so there were some nervous moments in the lobby when the car hadn't arrived yet, and then traffic sucked so we got to the airport about 30 minutes before departure and weren't sure they were actually going to let us on our flight. They did and were actually pretty cool about it, but we decided we'd be a little firmer about times with the travel agent for our two remaining airport trips. We flew Vietnam airways, which was mostly underwhelming service/airplane wise, but it was safe and on time, so who's to complain. We arrived in Da nang to warmer and more humid weather, and by more humid I also mean pouring rain. We were staying at the Sandy Beach Non Nuoc Resort which is kind of a long cab ride from everything but really a nice little place to stay. We were picked up at the airport and delivered safely to our hotel, and the driver let us know it was him who'd be picking us back up in the morning. We ate a late dinner at the hotel restaurant which was quite enjoyable, and then went out to the patio bar, which was even more enjoyable. We were the only guests we saw at the hotel that night, and relished in the off season travel glory of it all. No camera use this day, so a short post for day 5.