Hong Kong

Quick couple days in Hong Kong on the way back from Saigon. HK is very warm (around 30-33C), even when compared to Saigon. Good dumplings for lunch near our office in Peking Shui Jiao Wang at No. 118, Jeffe Road. Thanks to Google for the recommendation. HKD 39 ($4.88 at the 7.99 HKG to $1 at the time) for very good hot and sour soup with dumplings. Stayed at the W Hotel Hong Kong which has a gym and spa on the 73rd floor and pool/hot tub on the 76th having good views of the city and a little bit of the harbor. The rooms are nice, with all the W touches including computer-controlled blinds and lights. The sauna off the dressing room on the 73rd floor was a highlight. Would definitely stay here again, although the food options in the immediate area were very western and the hotel is on top of the Kowloon station and its very high end mall. Had a salad nicoise (healthy!) with a side of mac and cheese (not healthy but awesome after a week of noodles and dumplings) at the steakhouse and wine bar in Central Park. Good happy hour ($5 decent martinis) until 8:30 which was nice. Their bread was essentially little cheese puffs, which were also not healthy but very very good.

Attempted a hike on Lantau suggested by Time Out (overview link). It may not come across in the article but on a sunny (really beautiful around 32C/90F) day this hike is very very warm and humid. I was on the 11:00 ferry to Mui Wo, started hiking up at Noon, and had drank 2.5L of water by 13:15. I turned around about 25 min after the country park when the trail leaves South Lantau Road. I would love to do this in the future, but would start much earlier in the day (7:00?) to avoid some of the sun and probably take a bus (1/2/3 or a couple others from the ferry terminal) for the first 2.5 km. Starting at the park and doing the 2:00 (listed at 2:45, but I suspect most people will do it more quickly) from the country park to Pak Kung Au then the Lantau Peak hike. Had lunch at the Turkish restaurant by the Mui Wo ferry terminal. The minced lamb with a side of babaganoush hit the post-hike salt need.

Looking forward to checking bags with Singapore Airlines in the train station below the hotel and getting back to SF.

HK and Saigon Pics at aklink.tcb.net/pics/2011-ap

A Few Days in Saigon

Spent a few days in Saigon for a network conference. The weather was generally good, pretty warm (mid-80s F) and very humid. It rained at least once every day of my trip which helped clear pollution out of the air and generally make things more comfortable. Smaller things are easy and inexpensive. A Mobfone SIM card bought off the street for 70,000 dong ($3.50) offered unlimited 3G coverage that was better than AT&T in San Francisco and $0.15 text messages to US and global numbers. Calling Vietnam toll-free numbers was also completely free with the card. 50,000 dong topup cards are widely available.

There are a real lack of interesting tourist activities in Saigon. A few churches are preserved, the Hotel Des Postes had many tourists but is still essentially a functioning post office with a giant (50m?) communications tower sticking out of it. The Ben Trang Market was a real waste of time, as was wandering around the backpacker district (Pham Ngu Lao).

The tunnel complex at Cu Chi is a somewhat bizarre tourist trap celebrating the efforts of the locals to resit the French then Americans with a series of tunnels dug up to 30 meters into the ground. They used these to funnel supplies from the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail into Saigon. The Americans relentlessly bombed this area from 1966 until the early 1970's. The location is about 70 km from central Saigon and took around 50 min in a minibus. The tour starts with a video celebrating two locals who were "excellent killer of American". There was an advance warning from our guide that the movie was very communistic and we could leave if it was too intense, but more than anything I found it sad that given a chance to show an informational, potentially hard-hitting review of the needs behind the tunnel complex, they have gone with a 1967-era video with poorly-staged footage. I think a real loss of opportunity given what may be the level of understanding other tourists at the site may have. After the video the walking tour moves to tunnel entrances, traps for the enemy soldiers (read: Americans), a walk through an example tunnel "expanded for tourists", and to the shooting range. Yup. You can shoot an AK, an M-16, or several other automatic rifles for about $5 per round with a 10 round minimium.

Not many rickshaws around, but their drivers are pretty aggressive in wanting you to give them a dollar for a ride somewhere. What you have plenty of are motorbikes. All day and all night with incessant honking. Crossing the street, particularly a main street or around a plaza, simply requires a step of faith into traffic such that that the mass of bikes, cars, and buses will avoid you. The bikes are pretty good at doing so, car less, and buses don't seem to stop for much at all. The walkability of Saigon is pretty low, at least without considerable stress and concern for safety. The cabs from the couple reputable companies (Mai Linh, Vinasun) are very inexpensive ($2 for a 10 min ride) and generally available.

The Park Hyatt Saigon is everything that a hotel should be. Great service, excellent rooms, beds, restaurants, bars, and a decent location. You do pay western prices with local beer at $6.70, breakfast at $25 (although fantastic and obviating the need for lunch) and rooms approaching $350 with vat and service. Happy to have had a conference rate for most of my stay.

Airport WiFi Report

SFO: Free wif
HKG: Free wifi
SIN: Free wifi (with code from information desk)
SGN: No open wifi at all

Arriving in Saigon

32 hours door-to-door from SF to the Park Hyatt Saigon. Not as bad as it might seem because at least 8 of those were sleep and 5 were a layover in Singapore. Managed to squeeze most of a fantasy football draft in at 6:00 during a 90 min stop in HKG on the way.

Singapore Airlines is pretty good. Decent drinks selection and the food ranged from pretty good (glutenous rice with shrimp, chicken, and chili HKG-SIN and indian for breakfast SFO-HKG) to very meh (chicken and rice for dinner SFO-HKG). Completely worth the $50 for an exit row seat SFO-HKG-SIN, although it is next to the four middle seats that have bassinets on the bulkhead and that means screaming babies on and off for 13 hours.

The Park Hyatt is everything that a hotel should be. Over-the-top service, fantastic beds, quiet, great food at the restaurants, free wifi with good connectivity, 42" flat screens, ESPN Vietnam.

Sitting at SFO one hour before boarding. Appears that we'll get in to HKG about 13 hours from takeoff. Suppose this isn't too bad when I'm tacking 4 to SIN, a 6 hour layover, and 2 hrs to SGN on to the trip. Looking forward to some food.

Marbella

Did a week in Marbella, Spain in March. SFO-LHR-AGP and return. The USD had climbed to $1.26 for €1 while we were there which was a nice break. Had $1.32 for £1 while in London which was my all-time best exchange rate for the UK.

Photos

Stayed at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort which is a typical Marriott timeshare property. Nice place, a little bit east of Marbella. Marbella itself is two areas. The old town, which was quite nice and features some tight winding streets away from the water and a more typical seafront a bit closer in. Puerto Banus is a little west of the old town and has a lot of very nice yachts, even out of season, along with some fairly expensive restaurants, shops, and clubs geared to tourists.

We found ourselves busy enough on this trip with Marbella and a couple days wandering up the beach that we didn't try any of the day trips that are available. People recommended a trip up the hills to Ronda or down to Estepona. Gibraltar didn't seem to get too many positive reviews. Seville and Granada seemed a bit too far for a day trip, but they definitely exist on my list of future places to visit.

Restaurants of note:

La taberna del Pinxto, Marbella location. Great tapas. Cold tapas you get for yourself from under the glass at the bar while waiters walk around with trays of hot tapas from the kitchen that you can pick from. Decent wine for €13 a bottle that they had as a special. Good mix of meat and seafood on both the hot an cold side. The meat (pork, chicken, beef) with orange spicy sauce was excellent as was most of the pork. Was under €25 per head including drinks and we stuffed ourselves both times we visited.

El Tanguito, Calle Buitrago 2, Old Town. Very good Argentine steak restaurant and bar. The flank steak was essentially a nice strip for €12. The provolone completo and a salad with radicchio were great starters. They found it a bit odd that we wanted to eat at the bar, but there was a soccer match going on and nobody was in the upstairs restaurant. They handled it well. For starters, they gave us a little bit of a house special veggie mix that was like a ratatouille of eggplant. Pretty good with their bread.

Zafferano, Calle Gloria 11, Old Town. Higher-end Italian. Was €75 per head including a bottle of Spanish white and one of Italian red. Good salads to start and an interesting, if a tad hard to eat "lasagna in a basket" thing that was very nice, light meat lasagna folded up like a greek philo pastry.

Gorky, Calle Pablo Casals 8, near the water. Pretty good tapas, but the real reason to come here is the hand-sliced jamon iberico de bellota, the ham from little black-footed pigs that live off acorns until they're cured for a while then served to you. Best pork on earth. The rolls and toasts were tasty and filling for very reasonable prices.

Cerveceria <something I can't remember>, corner of Pablo Casal and Maldonado. Nice to sit outside and have a Mahou, which isn't the greatest beer, but is ok in the sun. This place had the best brown bread along with a nice place of sliced manchego and some gambas pil-pil (sizzling shrimp in garlic olive oil).

Santa Ynez Wine Country

Visited a few wineries in Santa Barbara County recently. Thought Rideau and Lafond were nice settings with very good wine. Thought Buttonwood was pretty weak wine. Tasting fees were $15, $5, and $7.50, respectively. Bought a bottle of Rusack pinot at a store since the tastings closed. Was good as well. Lafond was my favorite tasting as they specialize in deep reds such as Pinot and Syrah. Didn't like their SRH Pinot, but liked the clone 113. Liked both their Syrah and Syrah/Grenache blend. Liked the Rideau pinot, but $69 a bottle is a bit pricey for me.

Had lunch in Los Olivos at Panino. Sandwich #15 was salami, marinated sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and one or two things I'm forgetting. Excellent. Had dinner at the Firestone Brewery. Was OK. Not bad, but not great. Good beer. Stayed at the Marriott in Buellton. Rooms were fine, but what was great was that the outdoor hot tub was really hot, like 103. I wish more hotels were like this.

Not a bad trip. Still a little rustic in Los Olivos and outside Buellton, with short drives to everywhere. Solvang is a strange little town that is essentially a Danish tourist trap that causes traffic to back up on weekends. Odd. I didn't eat at any of the higher-end restaurants, but would have liked to have tried some of the wine from estates with no tasting rooms, like Sea Smoke or Bonaccorsi.

Random Bits

I'm lazy. Should have done this while I was on the trip, but here's about a week of random happenings:

Went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Very cool town and very cool festival. Somewhat oddly, a number of bars in town had Bloody Mary specials. I wanted one from the place with horseradish-infused vodka but they had just run out. Might have to make a trip back for skiing. Since Telluride was totally sold out, I spent the night about an hour away in Ouray which was nice but a little tacky. Not too much going on there but it is totally surround by high mountains so there are great views.

There's not much between Ouray and Flagstaff. Silverton is a cool little town about an hour down the very winding road. Still has some (mostly?) dirt streets and a number of shops and restaurants/cafes/bars. Not much to write about with Durango or Cortez. The Four Corners site is pretty useless. It was just over 100 degrees and there were a number of tourists standing around deciding which state they want to stand in while having their picture taken. Probably could have skipped it, but hey, how many times am I going to be out there? (The answer after this this trip is probably never again)

Flagstaff is like a little mini version of Boulder. I think I could live there. It's in the hills so it's not as hot as the rest of AZ and there are pine trees instead of desert. Northern Arizona University is just south of downtown which gives it a nice college town atmosphere and keeps the bars and restaurants in business.

Drove from Flagstaff to Vegas so I could fly to San Jose for an interview. Had my mountain bike stolen off the rack on the back of my car while parked overnight at Tuscany. Probably should have had it locked up better. Returned from San Jose for a few fun nights at the Hard Rock.

From Vegas, I drove to Mammoth Lakes which is a ski resort town about two hours south of Reno. The drive took me on CA Route 168 which is a very twisty and hilly road that I can't really recommend. I did drive by a very small college I remember reading about in high school called Deep Springs College. Its location is pretty much the middle of nowhere. I suppose the closest airport is in Reno, but it has to be the least accessible college I've seen. Mammoth itself has some nice lakes and good scenery but nothing that made me want to run back there anytime soon.

Found an even more twisting and hilly road the next day in CA Route 108 going over Sonora Pass. Very scenic but not the easiest drive to do.

Colorado

At some point I need to get a job and since I'd like to work in California, I decided it would be a good idea to move there instead of sitting around Ann Arbor or Cleveland. It also seemed like a good idea to kill two weeks in the process by driving across the country, from Cleveland to Palo Alto.

Drove 13.5 hours the first day, arriving in Lincoln, NE. Drove from there to Denver the next. There aren't any good pictures of this part of the trip because there isn't that much to look at. Spent a few uneventful nights in Denver with 1.5 to 2 hours of biking each morning. Altitude really makes a difference the first few days. Stayed at the new Hyatt at the Convention Center. Nice hotel for being so big. Found a few great specialty beers at the Falling Rock, including an Odells Double IPA. Excellent stuff.

Spent the next two nights camping on Lake Dillon. Nice campsites but very cold at 35 degrees during the night. There would be pictures of this part of the trip but my camera batteries died, possibly because they roasted in the car all day and almost froze at night.

Drove about 5 hours to Ridgeway, CO today to stay at the Chipeta Sun Lodge which is great so far. My room doesn't have a TV but does have a hot tub on its balcony. Seems like a fair trade to me. I'll have pictures up of this place when the clouds on the mountains roll through.

Winter Haven 2007

Went to Winter Haven again. Only one night this time with one night in Tampa and one on a beach. The Best Western Admiral's Inn didn't have our reservation, so that took 30 min to resolve despite having a confirmation number. Awesome. We did find a decent beach in Indian Shores. Much nicer than St. Pete Beach or Clearwater. Very nice restaurant called the Salt Rock Grille there as well. They had Sierra Bigfoot in bottles, but it was a little too early in the afternoon for that. Should also mention that the Tigers Spring Training stadium had Bell's Two Hearted and Amber in bottles for $5. Good deal for a baseball game. Almost as good as the $4 16 oz. Sierra drafts at the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays game last year. They went out of business though and moved to Midland. Oh well.


"I almost got out of here," he joked. "But the Winter Haven curse got me again."