Yokohama

Yokohama was the next stop. The hotel I stayed in was absolutely fantastic - and the view for them 17th story was fantastic. We took a walk along the beachfront - gorgeous but cold. Landmark Tower is one of the sites to take in...the tallest "habitable" building in Japan. It's another qualified "tallest". Tokyo Tower is actually taller but since it's a radio tower....

Surabaya, Indonesia

Surabaya is Indonesia’s second largest city – and it is huge! In some ways it’s very much like other large cities – lots of traffic, large roads, and huge shopping malls. The traffic is so bad that there are times that people will hire a cab – to go across the street! There’s also a huge contrast between the poor and the rich – and it really doesn’t seem to take much to be counted on the rich side. Every place we visited had guards at the parking entrance as well as at the doors – even the school gave us visitor badges at the gated entrance. The picture is the entrance area to the Somerset Hotel. The hotel entrance is fabulously rich! Do wish there had been more time to explore more of the area!

Surabaya School

Here are a few pictures of the school.

Surabaya International School

The school is huge – a result of all of the industry that is located in the city. You realize how fragile it is because the population is half of what it could be; the result of 10 years of financial and political strife in the country. Nevertheless, the school is an extremely busy place with many programs (including an Olympic size pool and a swim team). The library is humongous! It’s easily three times the size of Chinook. The 2nd picture is the entrance "hall".

MerLion of Surabaya

The school is located in an area of the town called “Singapore of Surabaya”. It’s a very posh section of town with many “mansion” areas (gated, of course) leading up to it. It even sports a replica of the “MerLion” of Singapore in a pond as you arrive.

Surabaya School Housing

The housing connected to the school is HUGE – the front room of the house we saw was almost as big as the footpad of the house we have in Japan. They have white marble floors and balconies that are large enough to sit in – and LOTS of flowers, green plants and tiny gardens. There are also lots of opportunities for employment here - all of the people have maids, drivers and nannies - some even have more than one nanny if they have more children!!!

Pictures on line

I now have a website where I can post lots of pictures. Right now I have a 3 different albums up - use the link to check them out. Clicking on any of the pictures will open up the album for you to view.

Link

New Zealand trip

You know, you never realize how BIG the world is until you’ve sat in a plane for 17 hours to get somewhere! We left Nagoya, landed in Singapore, twiddled our thumbs for a few hours, and then finally flew on to New Zealand. What an ordeal!!! It’s hard to be cramped inside the plane, unable to cross your legs easily, sitting squeezed between 2 people – doesn’t help that one of them was Jeff – and watching mind-numbing movies. Yuck!
Now, the airport in Singapore is really interesting. First of all, they don’t leave you to just twiddle your thumbs; they work on involving you in the place. First, there’s the landscaping, yes, landscaping inside an airport. (It seems that other countries do much more with their airports than we do.) They have koi ponds with pathways around and oh, such exotic flowers! The variety is unbelievable and they have them everywhere. They’ve also included bookstores – not too surprising really but a delightful treat after living in Japan (spent a lot of time in bookstores!) They also have numerous eateries, very international so if you want something, you can probably find it. They are also the only airport where I have seen free computers all over the place. You can walk up and use them almost anywhere in the place. They have numerous quiet areas that include massage chairs - all for free. If you're going to have to sit around for hours, it's at least a pleasant place to do it.

Otanui Bed and Breakfast

We landed in Auckland and took off to visit our friends, Joe and Mary. They worked at our school in Japan and have just retired to a spectacular 144 acre cattle ranch perched on the top of a hill in the Coromandel Peninsula, the site of the future Otanui Bed and Breakfast. OK…here comes the shameless ad. The views are spectacular and the bed! Oh my gosh! It’s got to be the best bed I’ve ever slept on! (I didn’t want to fall asleep; I just wanted to relish the comfort). There’s a wonderful little garden area that is nestled between the house and the view from the room is outstanding. We had a delightful time hiking through the area, visiting with Joe and Mary, driving around the peninsula and just plain relaxing. If you’re looking for a great little place to go…we’ll fill you in. Jeff has taken some spectacular pictures. I hope to put some of the up soon.

Coromandel Peninsula

The Coromandel Peninsula is a breathtakingly beautiful area with a spectacularly rugged coastline views, nestled between stretches of fabulous coastal forests. Really was a stunning drive. We were plagued with rain, so while the scenery was still gorgeous, the clouds lending some interesting play in the sky, the pictures we took were rather dim and fuzzy.

Joe directed us to some great areas for hiking along the coast and we managed to fit one of the beach walks in. It was a wonderful trip up over a small hill to another secluded beach tucked away from the throngs playing in the waves. It may have been overcast and drizzling but hey, if you’re in the water, you’re all wet anyway!

Rotorua

We made our way down to the town of Rotorua - an extremely geothermal active area, that is, coincidentally, sister city to Klamath Falls!!! The city is also home of many spa resorts, featuring, of course, naturally heated water – complete with a distinct scent of sulphur to assault your senses. The lake there is the oldest lake in New Zealand, formed in the crater of a huge caldera left from a volcanic eruption. (hmmm, sounds familiar) It’s still a pretty active area, the last eruption occurring only a little over 100 years ago

At one time, there was a rather large, Tudor-styled “Bath House” that was the famed center for numerous health treatments that utilized the readily available thermal water and mud for a variety of bathing, mud and massage “cures”. People came from all over the world to 'take the waters' at the Bath House. Some of the treatments were absolutely bizarre, including the introduction of electricity into the ‘bath’ to stimulate healing. Looking at the equipment they had and pictures of what they I had to wonder what future generations will think of our “modern” medical care. It really looked quite barbaric.

Whakarewarewa Village

We had a great tour through the Whakarewarewa Village area of the city. This “living” Maori Village is set in a vast sea of erupting geysers, hot thermal springs and bubbling mud pools. The hot pools are an integral part of their lives, used for cooking, cleaning and ceremonies – and are still used today. While we were given tours of the area, after 5 pm, the gates were closed and the Maori people used their village. Pools were reserved for different things, one to scald feathers off, one for cooking only veggies, ones for bathing people, ones for steaming the food. Every pool was selected on the basis of where it sat in the chain and what the use in the next pool would be. The picture shows one of the steaming boxes on the ground – it is used communally, you just return and pick your stuff up when it’s done.

Te Puia

Te Puia is another thermal area, immediately next to the Whakarewarewa Village. They’ve taken a different approach, featuring lots of things to see – far more park like. We attempted to see the largest geyser go off…standing in the pouring rain, watching the small one go on and on and on, waiting for Pohutu to do its thing….and waited…and waited…and waited…. Finally, after probably an hour, we left. (Actually, they were closing so we really had no choice). We took lots of pictures but it was raining and steamy and really foggy – great shots of steam anyway.

Lake Taupo afternoon

From Rotorua, we continued down the north island until we came to Taupo, another city sitting on the edge of a lake. We had a wonderful walk along the edge of it; in fact our hotel looked out right across the lake! Spent a wonderful afternoon sitting out on the ‘deck’, watching the rain play on the water and the wind stir it up. It did let up in the evening for our walk around.

Talk about hotels…we had some fabulous place with views that were spectacular!!! The top picture shows our view from our room on the lake in Taupo. The second picture was taken on our walk on the same lake.

Hamilton Park

We were in Taupo on Christmas Eve, and spent Christmas Day driving back up to Auckland to catch a late plane to Christchurch. We stopped for a while in the town of Hamilton because they had a rather large park, appropriately named Hamilton Park that was open. Now, you’ve got to picture that this is summer. Christmas traditions in New Zealand include barbecues on the beach or in the park and the rain wasn’t going to stop any of them from their plans so…the place was packed with picnickers hiding out in small areas that afforded some shielding from the insistent rain. The park is a honeycomb of gardens created in numerous different styles. We wandered through the themed section; old English, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and others. It was wonderful to meander through the paths to encounter a total change in presentation and vegetation. We didn’t even remotely get a chance to stroll through the entire garden (it’s huge).

Christchurch

From there we headed back to Auckland to catch the LATE flight (picture red eyes here). We had reservations for a small B&B here – turns out this one is located right next to English Park. This particular place was definitely eco-friendly and caters to vegetarians. It was really great to find a place like that – though I must admit I felt quite guilty coming in so late on Christmas Day.
Boxing Day (news flash…it used to be St. Stephen’s Day in Britain. Long ago there was a practice of giving cash or durable goods to the ‘lower classes”, the day after Christmas) we had a chance to catch up with Peter, a friend of Tim’s – and another bicycle enthusiast. He took us on a tour out to Lyttleton – a cute little village nestled on the coast overlooking one of the many bays. Had a great time visiting, talking and touring!
From there we headed down to Ian and Rosie’s. Oh my gosh, their home is absolutely fabulous. We arrived in the early afternoon and had a spectacular time visiting. Their home is situated on a triple lot and it's gorgeous! There are olive trees interspersed between the lavender lending a heavenly smell. The middle lot is where their home is, nestled in an English Garden - a riot of color cascading through the grass. In the evening we even go to see a hedgehog trundling through the flowers, though he did the freeze thing the minute he saw us around. I got to "pet" him, if that's what you call attempting to stroke a bunch of prickly things. The back section of the lot has a wonderful vegetable garden that is producing everything they need and more. They also have 2 beautiful alpacas in the back. We had a wonderful time talking and visiting and enjoying the fresh air – laced, of course, with rain and lots of wind.

Lake Tekapo

Leaving in the morning, we headed off to Lake Tekapo to visit the Church of the Good Shepherd, probably the most photographed church you’ve ever seen. Its setting is stunning. The view behind the altar is an impossibly turquoise colored lake, with the New Zealand Alps towering behind. I can just imagine what it would have looked like on a sunny day. The fields surrounding the church were awash with the colors of lupines – another popular photo-op for all of us camera carrying tourists tramping around

Queenstown

We drove for the day through lupine covered valleys, forested foothills, towering alps in the background, dark clouds skittering across the sky, eventually enveloping the alps as well the sky. We traveled through rain and wind and….actually, no snow or sleet or gloom of night, thank goodness. The scenery was spectacular and breathtaking in places. We arrived in Queenstown late in the afternoon. Ah…Queenstown, the southern island’s tourist haven, the jumping off point for many excursions, and the home of hundred’s of touristy shops just waiting for the camera-toting tourist’s wallet. We did find a great Mexican restaurant there – they had just about everything there to satisfy a tourist from any part of the world.

We stayed in a great B&B called “Little Paradise”. It was quite a ways outside of Queenstown, nestled off a quiet, peaceful lake. The man who ran this place definitely has too much time on his hands…or else he loves his hobby. The woodwork in the place was stunning. Large wooden carved ferns and other plants were placed about the walls in the bathroom and hallways. Moss and small plants were artfully placed about the branches of trees and various carvings. The floor, rather than being made of stones or rocks or whatever, was actually made of polished wood blocks, creatively inlaid throughout the place. The yard was the picture of an English garden with flowers erupting everywhere. We were also right on the 45th parallel – complete with a sign to let us know (now, Jeff had to check and his GPS said that it was actually marked at 45.00005 S)

Land of Rain

This is the land of rain and rain and did I mention rain? Either it always rains here or we are the bringers of rain - haven't quite decided which it is. We have seen the sun a total of 2.5 days, and that's a generous estimate.

We journeyed to TeAnau, the jumping off point to visit the famous Milford Sound as well as the gorgeous but less famous Doubtful Sound (so named, according to the story, when Captain Cook saw the opening to the sound and wrote that he was "doubtful" that the winds would be right to sail back out of the sound). The B&B we stayed at there was called Keiko’s and sure enough, the young woman who ran it was Japanese. Her husband was a kiwi so while we took our shoes off before entering any building and she had slippers available for all, the yard was again a gorgeous English garden. I think the gardens and the proliferate blooming of flowers was the only clue that it really was summer.

Fiordlands

We spent the next few days exploring the Fiordland National Park, a designated World Heritage area. This area is fairly remote and imposing. Our trip to Doubtful Sound was taken totally in overcast/rainy weather – a fact that had both positives and negatives (gee…heard that before). Because it was raining, we saw, quite literally, hundreds of waterfalls cascading through the forests, ferns and down impressive cliff sides. On the other hand, because it was raining, our pictures leave much to be desired. Oh well…it is one of the world’s wettest regions but nevertheless…some sunshine would have been nice.

Our trip to Doubtful Sound required quite a bit of coordination – fortunately on the part of the tour company, not us. All we had to do was show up on time. We started off with a bus ride from Te Anau up to the small village of Manapouri, situated on, well, Lake Manapouri. The driver was interesting and funny, sharing historical information and anecdotes all along the way. We boarded a boat that took us across the lake, past numerous islands and bays to the other side. Here, in the mid 20th century, they had undertaken a huge project to create an underground power station. It has a very low profile on the lake itself, unlike the huge, massive things we have. From here we got to travel down the access tunnel to check out the power station (looks just like Bonneville only a bit smaller and underground). When we came out, we traveled across a connection of land (the general direction the water travels after the dam), over the Wilmot Pass and down to Deep Cove where we boarded the boat that actually took us through the sound. Apparently there’s an ongoing battle with the name of these sounds…this is the Fiordland National Park and since these ‘sounds’ were created by glaciers, they’re actually fiord, however, way back when, someone named them ‘sounds’ so it has stuck. So…we took a trip through the fiord named Doubtful Sound. (sounds are made by rivers). End of lesson.

The scenery was spectacular - despite the clouds and rain. The falls are absolutely everywhere, traveling over cliffs, through cracks in the walls, meandering through the foliage and finally cascading into the sound, fiord, whatever. The guide on the boat gave us an opportunity to experience the awesome silence of the fiord. They stopped the boat in one of the small arms and turned off everything; motor, air conditioners, microphones, and asked everyone to go outside, get comfortable and just stand still. It was amazing – the birds you could hear (New Zealand has no indigenous mammals except for one bat – the original wildlife was all birds). It really was one of those exotic, shivery, calming moments.

Milford Sound

The following day we traveled to Milford Sound; definitely the more touristy and popular trip. While the day before had been rejuvenating and interesting, this day was a pure tourist trap trip. We stopped, en mass, at all of the designated places (I think so picked because there was room for 50 tour buses to park) on the bus from Te Anau up to Pearl Harbor. The driver on this trip, however, while sharing some historical information, was also a sales person for the many different air trips you could purchase from Milford Sound. It really got old after a while – I think he must have gotten a commission from all of the fly companies. We did run into a LOT of sheep on the road. The farmers were moving them after sheering and they completely blocked the road at one point forcing all of the tour buses to slowly work their way around the milling sheep. Our recommendation would be to drive yourself out to Milford Sound and catch the boat.
The boat trip itself was great. While it’s very similar to Doubtful Sound, we had a bit of a sunny day so the waterfalls were not quite as plentiful. They do have a spectacular waterfall called Bowen Waterfall that was well worth seeing.

Goodbye Auckland

The return trip to Christchurch took us back through the Alps. There’s a northern route that weaves around the highest mountains, through the valleys and over the only pass, Arthur’s Pass. It’s a small community, nestled on the side of the last of the mountains.

Upon returning to Auckland, we spent the in Devonport, a charming seaside village on the northern shore of Auckland. We took a ferry over in the wonderful, delightful sunshine. There are more of those wonderful touristy places to walk around through (including a used book store) and some pretty unique restaurants. There are 2 hills, North Head and Mount Victoria that give you a great view of both the city and the gulf area. They’re also filled with children with cardboard boxes – they throw themselves on the pieces of cardboard and soar down the hill, laughing and giggling. There are also a lot of cool looking colonial style houses there with more of the wonderful English gardens – a delightful day in the sunshine and breezes.
The ogre was an interesting statue, located up on the top of North Head.

Shiraishi Jima

Shiraishi Island is a wonderful secluded haven tucked into the sparkling Seto Inland Sea, a sea that is identified as one of the most spectacular in Japan. Traditional, charming villages are dotted along the countryside, reminiscent of a quieter, simpler time. We stayed in a wonderful International Villa on the island. It was a great place to talk to people from around the world, dine and read on the porch, hike through the mountains and just plain relax. It was a wonderful escape and a great trip – what a way to spend a November weekend!
Here's a picture of the Villa!

Okayama

Here are a few more pictures of the famous gardens - along with a picture of Jeff just to prove we were there!

Korakuen Garden, Okayama

Okayama Korakuen Garden, located on an island across from Okayama Castle, is considered to be one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan. The garden is gorgeous…whatever time of year it might be. Fall is gorgeous, the colors spectacular, muted and yet still brilliant. I loved the smells, each time we rounded a corner, another scene, another smell, another color confronted us. It was a wondrous way to spend an afternoon.

At the top!!!

And now...the intrepid hikers...Andres, Jeff, Karen, Marjon, Karen and Craig.

More on Mt. Ena

Here's another gorgeous view of the fall colors.

Mt. Ena, Gifu preficture, Japan

We just went on a hike yesterday...today I'm trying to see if my legs will talk to me or not....It was actually probably the toughest hike I've ever done...the summit is at 2190m (7185 feet)and from where we started, we climbed 2296 feet...it was a grueling trip. We were told it was generally a 'walk-up' with a couple of difficult sections. HAH! It was an unblieveably difficult trip, almost from the start.
We entered the trail and immediately began a vertical assent. Marjon assured us that the first part was the worst...about 15 minutes up. Well, it was early in the day (about 8:30) so we were fresh and foolish and on we went. Now you must know...Japanese trail blazers don't believe in zig-zag approaches to an uphill stretch. You go STRAIGHT up. Makes the trails shorter but the gain in altitude is unbelievable and so is the gasping breath and the cramping muscles. Once we finished that ascent, it did seem to do the rolling hike for a while...up quite a bit, down a bit...very little flat but up and down isn't too bad. Then it turned into more up than down but that's not too bad since, after all, we were climbing a mountain. It was pretty strenuous and I stopped more than one time to catch my breath (I was definately the LAST one in the party).
Then we hit the 'bit more difficult' stretch. Oh my gosh. We, quite literally, crawled up a rock strewn section of hillside - the path sparsely marked by the periodic scrap of colored fabric. The tumble of boulders and scree was insane. Once through that, the trail turned into a network of fallen trees and exposed tree roots with wonderful thorny bushes woven into every handhold. To add to the delightful experience, the gorgeous, colored leaves were falling at an astonishing rate, making the trail slick and treacherous. Still crawling, we pretty well just endured this last hellish climb. Once we hit the top of that section, there was still more to go. We headed up again, though most of the remaining stretch to the summit was back to the rolling hill routine. We hit a "false summit" where a couple of dozen Japanese were sprawled out resting, eating talking and drinking (yes, they carry EVERYTHING up the hill). We continued on to the 'REAL' summit...complete with another complement of resting people.
The scenery was beautiful! The fall colors were really great - especially the leaves that were still clinging to the trees rather than the ones that were underfoot. We did have to pose for our 'we made it pose' under the summit sign.

Island Village

A few shots of the Muslim stilt village and people in the area. There were lots of opportunities to hike around!!!

Bahtra Cruise

The cruise itself was great – a nice, relaxing voyage around the island, very picturesque, on a genuine junk-rigged-schooner (with, of course the addition of an engine because the sails are no longer strong enough to survive any kind of wind, let alone move the junk), allowing you to glide gracefully past spectacular islands that tower above the sea – a display of mottled limestone draped with multi-hued green vines. Ok…should sound like that came off of a brochure (it did). They did give us a photo-op when we went off to see the island – they put up the sails and then the smaller motor boat went around the whole thing so we could snap pictures.

James Bond Island

We took a really cool trip on an old chinese junk out to, of all places, James Bond Island. Hmmm…you might ask what is so significant about that. Well…one of the James Bond movies (Man with the Golden Gun) was shot out on one of the smaller islands just off Phuket Island. (We checked out the movie – it really is the same with place quite a bit of Hollywood editing to add houses and the required bedrooms.)

North of Patong

On to the beach. Patong was unfortunately hit in the tsunami and the whole coastline was heavily damaged. Patong Beach has received massive reconstruction and, despite the rain, was open for business. We drove up the coast further (fortunately it did quit raining) and we found other tourist areas that were not so fortunate. Here we saw homes and business still ravaged and little rebuilt. It’s a precarious existence there and the tsunami just destroyed so much.
The picture is just north of Patong, one of the small streams that feed into the ocean.

Patong Beach

I seem to have a thing about driving in all of these places and once more I have the drive story. We decided to rent a jeep type vehicle and drive around the island. Now remember, this is the place with motorcycles that go wherever they want, honk their horns if they do anything at all, make up their own rules as they go and have tuk tusk stopping all over the place. Add quite a few pedestrians who don’t know where the sidewalk is and, well, you get the picture.
With this ambiance, we took the jeep out to head over to Patong Beach. Now, you must add to the aforementioned mix, rain. Not PNW rain, this is tropical storm rain that comes down by the buckets – BIG buckets. This jeep…it is watertight, I’ll give it that. It has windshield wipers too…with 2 speeds; slow and slower. The road to Patong includes a hill. Not your little hill with a nice road going up. It’s a steep, windy road, with motorcycles wandering about – yes, even in the rain – with tuk tusk rushing by and the rain pouring down and the windshield wipers w..i..p..i..n..g the window. All in all, it was quite an adventure.

Tourist Traps

The man drove us around a bit more…a beach that was hit by the tsunami, a Chinese Buddhist temple, a few more scenic areas, then he just mentioned there was a great little store he could take us to. Before we knew it, we were at a very large, jewelry store. He had been so nice we went in and looked around (whew – Very Expensive) and left. He just happened to know where there was another little shop…just around the corner (WOW – VERY Expensive). Well…we thought it was a little odd but ok…we went in. I must admit, some of it is gorgeous and I now know how pearls are grown and harvested. Well…down the street there just happened to be….this one was VERY EXPENSIVE. I was worried about even walking on their carpet.
We finally discovered that there’s a method to their madness. The taxi and tuk tuk drivers are paid to bring tourists to these jewelry markets. All we have to do is stay a certain length of time and then they get paid for bringing us – whether we buy anything or not. Knowing that we continued letting them take us to one place, but we said no after that. I don’t mind helping the local economy but after a while…..

Treetop Restaurants

The next stop on our mini tour was a gorgeous hilltop with a pretty spectacular view of the city and the bay. There was a delightful restaurant that was nestled in the middle of the jungle and perched right at a beautiful viewpoint. Well…we, of course…had to have lunch there. I ordered a cashew salad…expecting to have lettuce and such with cashews sprinkled on it. Jeff had said that cashews were exported from Thailand but that really didn’t sink in….until the salad arrived. It was ALL cashews with a touch of a scallion type vegetable sprinkled delicately on it. Had a wonderful, spicy sauce dribbled on it. Very nice but I believe it might have been a wee bit high in fat….

Phuket

On to Phuket and back to our holiday pursuit of seeing everything possible. We thought we’d start out the day with a casual walk about the city. A tuk tuk driver stopped and started telling us about things we could see and places to go and one thing led to another and we found ourselves in the back of the little truck style tuk tuk and off we went. Our first stop was the butterfly garden – and what a garden it was. We must have spent well over an hour there watching the butterflies – it was absolutely filled with spectacular butterflies everywhere!

Ronald

I just couldn't resist this picture. This is the traditional Thai greeting - and obviously EVERYONE uses it!!!

Koh Samui

On to Samui. Here is where we really took the opportunity to RELAX. The place had a great beach for early morning walks and they offered meditation and yoga classes daily. We spent a blissful ten days or so just veggin’ in the sun, walking on the beach, watching the sunrise (and sunsets), drinking tea and reading books. Since we spend the majority of our vacation time running around trying to see everything possible about a place, it was nice to be somewhere where there wasn’t a lot to do besides veg. I did have to include the coconut tree picture – it's a view from our window. The juices here were spectacular. The cooks generally just walked out on the beach or behind the place on the mountain to pick whatever fresh fruit they wanted to create the drinks. Reminded me of Ecuador with the wonderful fruit drinks!!!
The restaurant here is a vegetarian’s dream come true!! The food was completely unsurpassed! It was a very modest place, the restaurant was not elegant at all but the food. They had the best Thai food I’ve ever had - I seriously wanted to bring the chef home (though then I’d gain weight – hmmm…maybe it’s just as well they stayed back there).