Productive in SD

The garage is almost cleaned up and unpacked and the office downstairs is about 75% complete.  Rummaging through some boxes, I was able to find quite a few of my old video games, put them up on my amazon.com sellers account, and boom, I sold 11 games ranging from $1.99 to $14.99.  Minus the ~25% amazon commissions fee, I made $110!  There's a lot to more to sell too from DVDs to other stuff I got and don't use and they're going at 80% off retail!  Check it out when you have sometime.   I woke up today to a startling, "you're front yard is flooding!" and upon walking outside, the sprinkler system was busted right where the main line connects to the front yard.  Check out the pictures at trelijah.  I have a before and after.  I've never done any plumbing before and went to the Home Depot to buy some quick drying blue cement and a 1" end cap just in case we needed to stop the system entirely.  TO sum it up, we were out of water for the 4 hours, I drained a couple of buckets worth emptying out the area where I needed to patch up the piping and then after more yardwork, I rested a bit.  Exciting way to start the day.  

I bid for my December schedule and got awarded my vacation allotment for 2009.  I'm off for a red eye back to ATL then I'll be flying around the system for the next three days.  Catch me back in San Diego on Saturday night or Baton Rouge Thursday and Friday night.

Costa Rica Day 2 and 3 (part 2)

Day 2 included walking around flooded streets while attempting to find some breakfast.  Strolling into a hotel opposite of ours, we enjoyed a typical American breakfast only because the waitress told us that the Tico breakfast wasn't that great.  Even though I asked for fried eggs, I guess Costa Ricans interpret them as sunny side up.  I'll take that for the road next time I order to ask for fried all the way.  

The entire day continued to drench us and there would be no end in site.  We decided after hearing that there was a chance of bridge closures to forgo staying the night in Coco Bay and head back to Liberia via autobus.  We ended up hitching a ride back to the city with Jose and bought him and his son some lunch as thanks.  He then took us to a couple of different hotels but without getting any deals, we paid $52 USD for a crappy room with no A/C.  Not that we needed the A/C, the only upside was that it was near the locale. 

More pictures after the jump!

While we scoured for cover underneath various awnings, Matt and I toured a church, walked around various shops and ran into a crazy looking mannequin.  So, of course Matt had to take a picture of it. Strolling around the grocery store, we took another picture of a fridge full of Imperial Beer and then walked around a little more where we entered a local high end bar (we had no idea) and retired there the rest of the night. 

We met a guy named Otto who originated from Costa Rica but lived in the US for the past 10 years and he was nice enough to hang.  He told us a couple of stories, drove us to the other club which was a bust, drove us back to where we met, which ended up closing and then took us back to our hotel. 

That was it really, we woke up two hours early due to our phones not being calibrated to the local time zone, had some breakfast (still then eggs were over easy) and got conned into taking a cab to the airport.  You see, the cab driver initially charged us $20 USD for a 10km ride, but when we started walking away, he started up his taxi and came riding over to us.  He lowered his price to $15 and when we told him that we were going to talk to the bus station, he told us a lie that the bus doesn't take us directly to the airport.  That was a bust!  We found out later that there are buses to the airport from a security guard who chatted us up a bit.  I bought some coffee and a couple of souvenirs from the duty free shop (expensive as heck) and then we boarded up and took off.  The plane ended up full so we got coach seating but it wasn't too bad. 

After all the rain that came down during the trip, at least we learned quite a bit so that our next trip to Costa Rica will be that much better!

Tropical Depression #13 vs. Costa Rica (part 1)

Looks like Matty P and I got the best of the rain during our 3 day excursion to Liberia, Costa Rica.  Arriving Tuesday early afternoon, sitting in Delta's First Class, we met up with what would have been our tour guide had the weather worked out the next day, Jose Avispas.  Avispas Adventures was highly recommended by my captain and after doing a little bit of random internet research, we knew that they would be a perfect choice for our quick trip.  It was easy working with the company and they came and picked us up as promised even on short notice.  They dropped us off at a hotel in Hermosa Beach, taking care of all the reservations, called Villa Huetares that they recommended costing us $45.00 USD /night w/o extras.  They did have WIFI using a long WEP key, two computers that were open for use, clean rooms but because of the timing, the villa looked like a ghost town.  The website shows a couple of pictures of the place it definitely shows off the best of what they have.  It wasn't a 2 or 3 star place, but it was a cheap place and "better" than a Hostel. 

It wasn't looking good for us at the time due to the torrential down pour, but it cleared up after a bit so Matt and I decided to head to the beach.  We met a local fisherman selling us a boat trip and with little haggling, we got a 3 hour trip for $120 ($100 + $20 tip).  Included was the boat, fishing poles, a crew of three (don't know why) and the guarantee that we would have a great time "fishing."  We caught two bait fish and hung out for a bit, but ended up with nothing.  The view was great, the boat ride gave us great views of the coastline including the all inclusive Four Seasons Resort, and I would have to to admit that it ended up being worth it.  Albeit disappointing with no catch and a couple of nibbles, but hey, it's fishing and we were in Costa Rica!.  Little did Matt and I know that it be the last tourist thing we would do. 

   Click for more!

That night, our tour local guy recommended that we eat at a local bar where we ordered Garlic Buttered Grilled Fish.  It was definitely a great eat.  I should have taken a picture of the plate but by that time, 1900 local, we hadn't eaten since the plane ride.  Hoping tomorrow would bring up better prospects, we decided to take advantage of the night as it cleared up and head out to Coco Beach. 

After arriving and searching around Coco Beach, we came to the conclusion that it was definitely a better place to stay so we asked around a bit on the going rate.  Coco Bay hotel was going to charge us $80 USD /night where as the hostel was around $15 USD.  We found a bar with some expats who offered us tourist advice and sat down.  We had quite a few beers, met some random locals, became friends with the bar tender (relocated from Gulfport, MI) and the cashier who chatted us us. 

Being a Tuesday night during the off-season along with the rain, no one was touring the area except for the few hookers and guys hanging about.  Definitely not the right time to come, but who would have known?  

Getting a ride back was easy after the local guy we were hanging out with called us a cab and back we went with no plans for the next day except to have some breakfast back at the restaurant where we had the awesome fish!

On the Way to Kos-tah Ree-ka

I'm on DL353 from ATL-LIR (Liberia, Costa Rica) travelling with Matty P in row 4! What an awesome way to start out the trip on first class with a short rib meal and New York cheesecake. We planned out a 3 day / 2 night trip on the whim and are basically just winging it. Should be a blast though as some of the plans are coming together slowly but surely. A captain recommended me to use a company called Aviapas which is owned by an American women and her Costa Rican husband so we thought we would give it a try. So far so good in that she found us a $45/ night hotel at Playa de Hermosa and their trips seem definitely doable budget wise. AT&T charges $2.29 per minute without the international rate plan ($5.99 month) which would lower the cost to $1.99 / min. Basically, you would have to break 20 minutes of talk time just to make it worth while. Text msging is defintely the way to go at 0.50 each way or better yet, I could find a wi-fi signal and try out fring! Data roaming is $0.0195 per KB which the operator told me would be quote a bit if I pulled up a YouTube video. She advised that one should turn off data roaming, push services, fetch services, 3G and any other extra curricular dealios on the iPhone in order to avoid any crazy charges. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you could "purchase" 20MB for $24.99 which I think is a ridiculous ripoff. I wish that they just had a plan skmiliar to the Blackberry International pacakge. Oh well, I guess try still have a lot to learn...hopefully they will listen.

Preposterous-ness of My Flight from ATL-MCN

So check this out.  My flight tonight was scheduled from Atlanta to Macon, Georgia: Flight ASQ4222 operating for Delta Connection.  It's a quick 18 minute flight from takeoff to touchdown for a total of 75 miles to the southeast of Atlanta.  Of course, we end up blocking about 40 minutes for total flight.  That time includes the taxi time around Atlanta and Macon thus concluding that the taxi time is longer than the flight by about 2 minutes.  That's normal for some of our quick hops, but now get this.

The van ride from the Middle Georgia Regional / Macon Airport is approximately 24.2 miles back to the north west for a total of 30 minutes in van ride!  Granted it was a nice Honda Odyseey and not a Ford Van that absorbs no shock or bump whatsoever, so it really wasn't that bad but tell me that's just not right!

So, now I have about 8 hours until I have to wake up (aorund 6:15 and be downstairs by 7:15 ready to go in the hotel lobby for a 30 minute van ride back to Macon Airport, followed by 5 legs concluding at 1600 then take a flight back to San Diego.  It's going to be a doozy!

The Beginning

Well, here I am again trying out, not only a new service, but a new device that my friends and I are planning to develop for. So far, in the last 72 hours, I have crashed the new phone multiple times thus not allowing me to accurately time the battery life using the built-in "usage" calculator. It's frustrating alright and sometimes the phone is just a little too slow. One gripe with using the contact sync feature with Apple's buggy-shoulda-been-beta mobileMe software package is the 5 seconds that I have to wait while trying to pull up one of my buddies. I can't say that I'm sold on it the "Exchange for everyone else" and will probably cancel it after the free 60 day trial. It's nice to have a calendar and photo library sync up but I can't justify the $100/yr just yet. I'm flying again quite a bit and with the initial award for August, it looks like I'll be able to keep up the commute or head out for another out of country adventure. I need I save some money up for the holiday season but who am I kidding anyways? Life is on another upswing and as long as I can keep up the positivity, it'll be smooth sailing.

I'm going to be Twitter-ing more often and even uploading some mobile photos that can be found on my facebook profile. Facebook released a handy little native app so depending on whether I keep it up will determine the continuation of trelijah. The name is probably going to change again...introducing eliPhone...maybe. :)

Final Day in Singapore (lots of pictures!)

Well, it was the first day that I got to sleep in, so I took full advantage of it.  I met up with Charmaine again for lunch at another mall where the food was just...all over the place!!!  After seeing what there was to choose from, I was so over exposed that I was lost in selection.  I wanted to try a little bit of everything but we settled for Malaysian because I mentioned that I had never had it.  I was going to take a picture of it, but I had already messed up the presentation, so just imagine an Asian dish in a huge plate, looking like $30 for only $7.50.  Awesomeness!  I made the conclusion that afternoon that maybe the 24 hours of flying was worth it just for the food.  I couldn't get enough! 

I walked around the mall a little more but I couldn't find the gifts that I wanted, so sadly for you, I had to give up.  I needed to make my tourist rounds and Kodak moments.  =)  The first place we went to was the Merlion in Marina Bay.  I rode the MRT Subway system and the escalators leading to the train were freaking FAST!!!  I mean, they were on turbo mode and I almost fell back a bit.  They have to adapt that here in the states so that it increases your chances of making your connections by 5 seconds at the airports!  It just felt right.  Talk about rapid transport. 

We strolled along Boat Quay where restaurants were aggressive as heck trying to get us to sit down and eat, but instead I took a picture of the largest crab I could find! Keep click for more pictures!

I needed to hit the beach so we took a cab to East Coast Park.  I wasn't dressed appropriately but that wouldn't stop me from taking a dip.  We walked some more along the coastline which was packed with joggers, roller bladders and bikers.

Since it was a Saturday, many families were out just enjoying the day at ECP and of course, I was there to just take pictures.  If you look at the pictures above, you can see the skyline / waterline just speckled with ships waiting to dock.  I haven't ever seen a sight such as that and could count roughly 25 ship just parked.  It's didn't make the sights calming at all but instead, more of an eye sore.  I guess that's what you're to expect from a country that doesn't manufacture that many goods. 

We took a cab back to the local area and headed back into Chinatown, where I took a few other random pictures. The fruits that were in the refrigerators were just there for the fast food types. I had to have my Asian Pear; a fruit that I've really been into the last couple of months.  I ordered a half cut from the vendor and when I took my first bite, I was surprised by the taste of salt.  Of course, my surroundings were also full of dried up fish so my initial thought was that my nose and my taste buds were confused.  We jogged a bit further down so that I continue my tasting experience and still, I tasted salt.  Obviously, the pear that I had was sprinkled with some and I'm going to have to try that when I get back.  It ended up tasting pretty good. 

I gave druian another try, but I can't say that it's up there on my top 10 fruits.  Sorry mom.  I didn't even have to touch it because of the left over wrapper so I was durian smell free!!! 

The night ended hanging out with some of Charmaine's relatives at their local condo where we BBQ'd and of course, I was just completely exhausted by then.  Thanks for cooking Love and Yang.  The chicken was great but I'm sorry that I didn't go for the squid.  I'm just too American I guess.  The food was great, the company was entertained and by the time I headed back to the hotel, I would end up getting about 2 hours of sleep.  Here you see me sleeping at the dinner table.  Pretty embarrassing but boy, the 3 day tour was over!  Thanks for everything Charmaine! 

Singapore (day 2)

Day 2 was pretty much just a bunch more of me walking around the local area.  I walked to a Catholic Church where I thought that there would be a daily mass, but I read the sign the day prior all wrong.  So, I just sat there and gazed upon the architecture and mediated a little bit then headed out again. 

Walking towards Chinatown, I had the chance to really experience the local grocery / shopping life with little tourist influence.  I was fascinated by the various types of fruits that one could choose and how relatively inexpensive they were.  Shops were lining up the streets, some with refrigerators filled with cut fruit for the on to go shopper and other with the latest an greatest in technology.  There was dried fish, an Apple iPhone store, dead fish, live fish, hanging ducks and chicken, plasma television, and some other herbs and random items that I have never smelled or seen before.  It definitely put me on sensory overload.  I saved all the shopping and fruit tasting for a latter day and after walking around for almost 2.5 hours, it was time for lunch.  I headed back to Central Mall to meet up with my friend. 

We headed to a mall food court and ate at a Japanese Hot Plate restaurant which was quite delightful.  Making it a short lunch, we bought some donuts on the way out and then I made my way back to the hotel.  The day was so hot that I once again found myself being a little lazy and took a nap.  The plan for the night would include hanging out with Charmaine's co-workers at a local restaurant followed by some true Singaporean Clubbing. 

Side note: I'm going to admit that I could just only barely recognize the English that was being spoken by the meer fact that the accent was too much to make out.  After a while, I got use to it but I can't say that I have ever heard that type of English mix. 

Charmaine's friends were very accommodating and had a lot of patience with me frequently asking them to repeat themselves.  It was a little embarrassing, but I got over it.  I hope that they did.  Everyone took their turns asking me questions and I tried my best to entertain them.  It definitely would have been great to bring some of my American friends down here for the trip.  Sheena, the girl in the white headband, got us into a club called The Butter Factory ( I still don't know why it was called that ) and we hung out there until I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open.  The alcohol consumption by the locals was tremendous!  The specials from 2300 to 0000 included two for one pitchers of whatever you call.  So the initial batch was screwdrivers and cosmos and they literally filled up pitchers with these mixes, dumped a handful of straws and off you would go.  Some people were even double fisting it with one straw! 

The dance floor was far too crowded to actually even move side to side so we reverted to little drinking games that were really awesome.  I can't say that I see my friends playing these games, because they are really "girly" maybe but then again who knows.  Maybe they could be coined as really "asian" but I have no idea.  It just depends on the group I guess.  The night ended with a short walk back to the hotel (3 blocks) and I passed out.  I couldn't believe that it was down to 24 hours left and I didn't even take that many pictures. 

SIN-NRT

After learning how to list for the jumpseat from a very accommodating United Captain and First Officer, I boarded flight UA803 from Tokyo to Singapore.  I was assigned to a Business Class seat, but as the doors were about to close, the FO came back towards the aircraft to where I was sitting and then told me that there was an opening in First.  First had the full lie flat beds and I have to say that it was awesome!  I've never gotten bed head from sleeping on a plane and I was just loving every minute of it.  I'm definitely getting spoiled traveling the way that I have been in the last two trips. 

I arrived at 11:30PM on the night of the 18th, met a friend who picked me up a little later than the proposed arrival time, and we took a cab straight to my hotel.  After a quick conversation, I opted to go to sleep so that I could start the day early and head out.  Pictures if you click on "MORE"

Today has been quite adventurous as I headed out on my own straight for Fort Canning Park.   Along the way, I went into a Hindu Temple and observed some prayers being said, took pictures then headed back out.  Back to the fort, I learned that Fort Canning was a British military installation in where they eventually surrendered to the Japanese in 1942.  I took some photographs of the foliage and just made my way around the area.  I didn't do the full history brief but as I began walking around the area, I ran into an Australian Drama / Art teacher with whom I exchanged a few words and we ended up walking the entire northern area of Orchard Road and Orchard Boulevard together.  We went to an informational store front, grabbed a couple of brochures and continued to just walk and look at all the shopping that was paving the entire way.   With construction lining up the walkways and tall buildings in their infancy, I can't say that Orchard Road was that much of a sight.  It's nothing less of a bourgeoning downtown.  Different indeed with all the food places around cooking BBQ and such along the sidewalks, but there were a couple of Starbucks', Coffee Beans, and the much favored 7/11s littering the area.  Globalization at its best really. 

We hurried back, after walking ~15KM, to where my friend Charmaine worked and went out to lunch.  Just earlier that morning, my friend Sean mentioned that I should hit up the Maxwell Food Court for some Chicken Rice and Singapore Chili Crab and we did just that.  The crab wasn't out yet, but Charmaine introduced White Carrot Cake, Oyster something and some coconut chicken dish I grabbed the sugar cane drinks.  It was great!  I'm sweating like crazy and haven't even pissed out the 1L water that I drank and a Gatorade that I downed plus the Snapple that I had for breakfast!

 

ATL-NRT-SIN

I'm going to stop saying sorry for updates, but looks like I'll finish up the Eilat / Cairo blog and insert it right before this post.  As for now, I'm sitting in the ATL airport after coming in on a Nap (ATL-BQK-ATL in 14 hours) headed for NRT then connecting to Singapore on Northwest or United.  I tried picking up an ID 75 on Singapore Airlines but it would have costed me ~$600 one way!  So, now I'm trying to book a hotel because it is looking good that I might be able to make the NRT trip, but then we'll see from there.  I'm trying to jumpseat because I don't want to use the rest of my transoceanic flight privileges which were degraded last December.  Wish me luck because I'll be needing all of it. Update: I just got assigned 11A only because the gate agent was nice enough to tell me that if I jumpseated, I would have been sitting in the back.  I just hope that this doesn't hit me in the butt when I try another transocenaic trip later on this year.  I mean, in reality, I don't think that I'll be hitting up Asia or Europe more than 1 more time this year.

Bus, $50 Cab for 15KM, Back 2 US / Afterthoughts

Well, the 5 hour bus ride wasn't that bad at all, but being that it almost cost the same amount as riding (ID90) on Arkira, Israel's domestic flag carrier, I still thought that it would be better to hang out with my buddies.  I caught some good glimpses of the desert, then more desert, and that was all there was to see really.  We stopped a few times for restroom breaks and snacks, but soon enough, it was time to say goodbye.  We tried quite a bit to find better methods of transportation to the airport but it was still early Saturday afternoon and the trains weren't in service because of Shabat.  We negotiated with a cab down to $50 and he made it seem like it was far, but once we got on the freeway, I saw a sign that said Ben Gurion was only 15 KM!  I was pissed.  What kind of country or business charges that much for travel.  I guess that fuel is quite a bit, but it was ridiculous!  He didn't even help with baggage which I guess was normal in Israel.  I was lucky to get on board again and saw some familiar faces from the trip prior and that was that.  To sum it up, I'm going to have to head back to Tel Aviv and actually do the Holy Land Tour but I'm definitely going to be taking a significant other!

Afterthoughts:  I can't say that I was too pleased with the level of service that a country like Israel had.  The cab drivers were rude and ready to take your money.  They weren't friendly at all and didn't even move a muscle to help you out with baggage.  They would even charge more for bags!  The prices of drinks, food and hotels were extremely overpriced, but I guess that my story is bias being that I went to a resort town.  The initial impression of Israel wasn't a too positive one, but I never shut things out.  I'll definitely give it another shot.  Maybe later than sooner, but for sure I will.  Egypt was for sure a one time deal, but like I said before, I would do it again only if there was a large group who wanted to know and learn more about the Nile and its surrounding economics and history.  I wouldn't recommend the tour again as we probably could have done it ourselves for cheaper, but 20/20 hindsight, it made it that much less of a hassle to travel around Egypt. 

DONE!!!

Now onto Tokyo / Singapore / Manila / Hong Kong!

Hilton Queen of Sheeba

We headed for the Queen of Sheeba relative early (Friday check-in) in order to feel what it was like to live the "better" life of glitz and glamour.  Bottom line, we just wanted a good pool at a nice hotel to chill at.  The Red Sea is awesome but it was a little cold and man the Hilton was amazing!  We checked in, headed up to the business suite, ate a little bit of what they offered for appetizers, played on the Internet, booked out tickets back on the bus for Tel Aviv and then went up to the room once they handed us the keys.  Our room was gorgeous!  It had two separate rooms each with its own bathrooms, a kitchenette, huge balcony, living room, and even dining room.  Yes, it was truly amazing.  I ended up getting an upgrade because of my gold VIP status and what a room.  We started getting little gifts for Shabat (a large loaf of bread and wine), bottles of water, a thank you card, a welcome card...people just didn't stop coming into the room! 

We got dressed and headed for the pool.  It was just a great afternoon to hang out and relax.  I had a chance to recuperate from the bug that was still eating my stomach poolside and I couldn't have had it any other way.  One word sums it up...beautiful...young men and women of Israeli descent hanging out poolside with their oversize Gucci / Louis Vuitton sunglasses, owning the world.  It was ridiculous.  Everyone there was with a significant other except my colleagues and I and it really just made me miss Adelle a lot more.  Prior to the trip, I was really egging her on, but the instability of the region wasn't a highlight in the trip proposal and I didn't want to fight it that much so it was known that I would be traveling by myself.  We spent the entire day at the pool with the idea of hitting up a local nightclub and of course, I still went out thinking I was going to dance the last night in Israel away, but I called it a night after standing in line for a couple of minutes.  I walked back, enjoyed the sights and went to bed.  I woke up just before breakfast was to close and was greeted with a huge buffet!  First class for sure.  The difference was was that I had an appetite and ready to get some food in me before the 5 hour trip back to Tel Aviv.  I had my fill, packed up quick and headed for the bus station.  The trip was coming to an end. 

Coming back to Eilat

Wednesday:  We headed straight for the hostel that night after the 5 hour van ride back to Eilat from Cairo.  Crossing the border on the way back wasn't that much of an issue at all compared with the day prior.  With just a few questions asked and after they found out we were students and that my colleagues were on the Israel Birthright (Taglit) trip, it was all good. 

Arriving that night, I was feeling a pretty good headache coming on.  I don't recall anything that was notable at the moment but I know that we ended up hanging out for a bit and then I called it a night.  Actually, we got some food by the beach around 11:00PM where we were entertained by the European Finals Soccer Finals - Manchester vs. Chelsea.  It was a great game and the food wasn't that bad either. 

I couldn't really eat anything that morning at breakfast, but I tried.  We figured we would hit up the snorkeling / scuba diving thing, but by then, my stomach had already turned over a couple of times.  Heading to the beach, I still didn't feel right and almost thought that I shouldn't go at all, but I tried to be a sport.  Trying to analyze what was causing my demise, we could only pinpoint it to shawarma, milk in my coffee from the breakfast in Egypt or maybe, maybe the dressing on the salad.  I'll award the bug to the fast food side shop in Egypt. 

The little spot of sand that was out there proved to be quite pricey.  After renting out some chairs for the afternoon at $15 each and then looking at the snorkeling stuff, it wasn't going to be cheap at all!  The drinks were over priced and ridiculous.  Bobby had some goggles and I jumped in after a bit of resting / tanning and swam for a bit.  I saw all the fish I cared for and called it quits.  I wanted to get some physical activity as I as already acting like a dead fish.  I was on vacation darnit and didn't want a little stomach bug to destroy that but it was getting the best of me for sure. 

After a brief couple of hours, I decided to head back.  It was already late in the afternoon, so once again, I ended up back at the hostel, my stomach in rotten mode and unforgiving,  I crashed pretty hard after a quick shower until the roomies came back.  I was awaken by my good friend, Doctor Nourani who helped me out with some pills and apple juice.  I was really messed up and dehydrated especially with all the trips to the bathroom.  I knew that I didn't look good either and was in dire need of some help.  At one point I was thinking of heading to the hospital for an IV bag!  I knew what my body needed, but I couldn't get anything done!  I ended up just sleeping it off and praying that I would feel better.  The dreams that I had were a little crazy and psychedelic.  It's really hard to explain but there was something in my dream that I had to figure out in order to help physical myself and even though I knew the answer, I couldn't see it.  Well, when I figured it out after much frustration, I woke up feeling a little bit better, but still only 70%.  Definitely a lot better though than the previous day but it wasn't like I was going to run a 10K or anything.  Thanks for taking care of me guys.