Schedule A

The most exciting activity of my stay in London was seeing a West End show with Jess and her parents. They got half price tickets to Spamalot. The half price ticket desk is really pretty fabulous, specially when you consider it takes about 2 dollars to make a pound. There is only one official one by the way, so try to avoid the many knock offs all around London. The production itself was amazing, tight and spectacular. You could tell that everyone loved working in the theater. Even the concessions guy was fabulous.

The next day I decided to wonder around on the cheap. It all started with changing of the guard at Buckingham palace which is so odd and very touristy. I strolled down to Westminster through St James Park and checked out the very cool and hands on Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. It might cost a bit of money but it is worth is.

I took the tube across town to the Tower of London and the Tower (not London) Bridge. The Tower is very expensive to get into but I happened on to a free tour and listened to a few stories outside of its walls. In the evening I was back with Jess. We gave our legs a rest and took a tour bus around the town in the cool evening air.

London

The next day was an intense day trip to Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge and Bath. Tours like this are pricey but usually you get to see a lot and have a good guide. It is their job after all. I don’t think it would be been possible to visit these sites with out renting a car. I really enjoyed the whole day. It can be overwhelming though. Plan to relax the day after a full day tour.

Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath

I flew into London and had arranged to stay in Oxford with a friend I met at UW named Chris. The first task was getting to Oxford. At the same time I was messaging another friend, Chuck, who was looking to travel around after working in Ireland for several months.

Chuck and I had very little to go on. I made my way to a one of the many London train station to catch a train to Oxford. Outside the station I quickly found an Internet cafe to check my messages. Chuck had left a message to meet a Trafalgar Square between 3pm and 4pm. I had an about an hour to make there! I grabbed a free and very useful guide to London from a tourist place that just happened to be on my random and somewhat inefficient route to meet Chuck. I made it and we went back to the train station to make one of the many trains from London to Oxford.

I would recommend to everyone to get out of London if you are visiting. There is nothing quite like the country side. I was very impressed with how close farm animals are to people in the UK. Horses are just across the fence and cows are at the river bank. Ducks are also every where and quite a bit bigger than I am used to.

While at Oxford I enjoyed the Oxford Museum. It is free and well worth the trip. Staying with a student of Oxford also gives one an excellent look into the city and the culture. There were even rowing bump races going on I got to watch. We got a chance to go punting as well, which was describe to me by friend as pushing a boat down the river with a stick.

Oxford 1

Oxford 2 and 3

Kuwait is the most different place I visited on my travels. Asia is definitely different than North America and Europe, but while retaining their culture they embrace so called North American values. At least everyone is generally working hard to make a living. Kuwait is very different in this respect.

From what I understand, and my understanding is rather limited, Kuwait nationalized its oil in the 1970s entitling every Kuwait family to a significant automatic income. When I say significant I mean driver and butler significant.

One of the strangest observation about Kuwait is I rarely saw anyone who was actually Kuwaiti. I would have only seen them in cars, in the airport, or in the mall. Part of this has to do with their wealth, part of it has to do with out incredibly hot it is in Kuwait. As you get closer to the equator the heat causes life styles to change. People start sleeping in the hot afternoon and eating, working, and shopping at night. Before air conditioning it was literally the only way to live.

The economic situation can created a 2 class society. The Kuwaiti and the foreign workers. The relationship isn’t always good. From the friends I was staying I got the impression when it comes to justice, a Kuwaiti word is always taken over the word of a foreign worker. A greater concern are people coming under the wrong impression and trust being abused. Immigrant workers being exploited is a growing problem as I understand it. Be it Mexicans in the US, Mongols in the Czech Republic or workers in to Kuwait. The life styles are so divided that if you see someone walking down the street they probably aren’t Kuwaiti.

I don’t know if I would recommend a tourist visiting Kuwait without knowing someone on the inside. But the experience is truly interesting.

Kuwait

If you have been following along you know that I have been traveling for the last 4 months, and now I am back in Waterloo, Ontario, and I am looking for a career opportunities for software developers.

I have experience developing software in C++, Python, C# and Java which I have gained over the last 8 years both in University and at Harris Communications. If anyone has a contact in a company who is looking for software talent I would appreciate it if you comment here or email me. As my resume becomes finalized I will be making it available here for reference.

Thanks to everyone for their help.

I spent 4 days in Beijing. The first evening I was guided by my coworker Jerry and his coworker Albert. They really helped me get sorted out in the massive city that is Beijing. Unlike the other cities that I had visited before, Beijing is on a plain so it sprawls with huge streets and city blocks. We met up again the day before I left and I got to meet their boss Harriet who was very kind to me and took us out for some Thai food. Before anything else I want to say the people of Beijing are fabulous and are good hosts. I appreciate their help getting around and trying food I may not have otherwise tried.

Beijing 1

The first day we wondered around Tienanmen Square by the entrance to the Imperial Palace and the National Theater. They treated me to Chinese hot pot, which was delicious. Nothing like boiling your own food making a broth as you go.

The second day in Beijing was a big adventure. It was a gray rainy day and I got up early to try to catch a bus to the Simatai Great Wall site. I arrived at the bus to find hand full of people waiting. It was 7:30am and the bus was scheduled to leave at 8:30 if enough people arrive. In situations like this meeting people really helps to pass the time. The first person I talked to was Marie, a Czech PhD student who is studying Mongol immigration in to the Czech Republic. As the wait went on we meet two girls from Ireland who live in London. We waited together wondering if we were going to make it to the Great Wall today.

After a group left our bus, presumably for another bus, we finally got to pay because the tour was on. The bus left, turn the corner and than the bus driver stopped the bus to ask if we wanted to pay extra to take the highway. The reaction ranged from suspect to enthusiastic. It seemed odd not to include the toll in the price. The driver also didn’t really speak any English. Fortunately there was a man from Hong Kong who was studying Chinese string instruments who helped to translate.

We decided to only take the highway on only one leg of the journey: the way back. We left Beijing for the great wall. It was probably about an hour and half until the traffic started. It took a good 3 hours to get close to the wall as we waited for two accident to clear up. I got to experience the Chinese country side while I looked for somewhere to relief myself. People on the bus were unified by the common annoying situation of waiting and waiting to finally get to the great wall.

We exited the backed up road and headed directly toward Simatai. Suddenly we slowed down again. Their was a fresh 3rd accident right in front of us. Traffic was stopped going to and coming from the great wall. Now even our bus driver had to laugh. Out on the wet street we meet up with an Ozzie rugby team who was trying to go the other way. It was suggested we should just switch buses. That idea didn’t quite fly. Next we watched cars try to squeeze by the accident. The rugby team said they could move the cars involved in the accident out of the way. The locals weren’t too keen on that idea, and we had to wait for the police anyway. Almost and hour later the police had resolved the situation enough to move the vehicles. The rugby team’s services, though, weren’t employed. The Chinese prefer to proudly solve problems themselves and everyone got involved.

After all of that we arrived at a nearly abandoned Simatai Great Wall site and got to spend 3 hours in the area. I got as many pictures as I could. The rain made it difficult, but I hope you can enjoy them. There is nothing like being there of course. It is truly quite great!

Beijing 2 (Great Wall)

With friends made and a wonder of the world explored it was time for bed. Making contacts while you travel is fun, especially if you get to run in them again like I did with Marie.

The next day in Beijing I relaxed and only ventured out to visit the Olympic site. It was under construction and a lot of landscaping, so I could only get so close. It was very exciting to see some of the venues in person. China does impressive very well. As I get to watch the Olympics now it is special to have seen the venues with my own eyes, and they are certainly impressive!

Beijing 3

My last day in China started with an early morning trip to the Imperial Palace, or Forbidden City as it is also know. The palace doesn’t open until 8:30am so I walked to the north gate where there is large park with a hill in the center made with the dirt dug out to make the moat around the palace. It was peaceful in the morning with hundreds of Chinese people out doing tai chi, Chinese medicine, and swing dancing.

I went into the north gate of the Forbidden City right at 8:30am. I would recommend this route to anyone. Almost no one is there for the first half of your visit. Sure you see things in the reverse order, but there is something special about wondering the Imperial Garden alone, especially when I saw the huge crowds of tour groups grow in number as I reached the front gate where I exited.

After the palace I step on to Tienanmen Square. Then I took a quick subway ride to the new gravity defying CCTV building before traveling across town to the tech heart of Beijing where all kind of companies are employing the best and the brightest Chinese talent to write code for them. Jerry took me shopping for an SD card before giving me directions to the beautiful summer palace. It is a lake side retreat away from the heat of the big city, at least for the Emperor. Now though it is open to everyone.

Jerry treated me one last great meal, Korean BBQ, before seeing me personally to the bus which took me to the newly renovated Beijing Airport. It is impressive, at least in the sense of being like the Hong Kong airport but larger in every way. I got to wait until 3am when my flight to Kuwait via Dubai would start checking in. For those who haven’t had the chance, sleeping in an airport is no fun, not even a nice one. But when you travel you do what you have to do.

Beijing 4

In a year everyone is talking about China, it was interesting to pay the country a visit. As for my vantage, great projects like the Olympic venues are undertaken with an intense work ethic. Great things are accomplished, but what about every day life? Does it see much improvement? Chinese men and woman work hard, like Boxer in Animal Farm, ignoring problems like broken, outdated, or unsafe equipment, and muscle through to get the job done. China has one great resource, people. In Japan everything is done with exact precision but in China, people are thrown at the problem until they make it work. One of the themes of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games in my eyes was getting a bunch of people to work together, and that is something China excels at.

Today finds us in an uncharacteristically sunny Edinburgh. Tomorrow we travel to Glasgow where my 3 month trip comes to an end. Jess has on more stop which is London to catch her flight home. We will both be home by Thursday and in Waterloo by Sunday August 3rd when we start moving in to our apartment.

August will be a busy month with sorting through and posting hundreds of pictures taken during the trip and recounting some of the countless memories made. I will start posting here as soon as I can.

Jess and I are really looking forward to our new place, sharing our stories with you, and more importantly hearing all the stories we missed while we were away.

Hostel fortune smiles on my girlfriend and I in the form of ample wireless imternet in Vienna, Austria. I have a chance to give everyone a quick update.

First pictures, I have another 2 GB SD card almost full and I will probably be buying another, but won’t be until August until I can put any online. Going through the pictures will be the main project in August though, next to moving in and the Olympics that is.

I was told to visit Vienna over certain other cities. So far it has really delivered with a mix of old and new right beside each other and classical music trio in the streets and that is just the first 5 hours.

I want to post my itinerary here so people can follow along. Today (1st of July) and tomorrow we are in Vienna. The next 2 nights are Salzburg. Than we go over the border to Germany for Munich for 3 nights. We head to Prague for 4 nights and Berlin for 3. We finish on the continent with 3 nights in Amsterdam and 3 nights in Brussels. We take a train to Paris and fly to Dublin on the 21st of July. We spend 2 nights in Dublin than 1 night each in Galway, Sligo, and Derry. We finish off by flying Belfast to Glasgow and staying a few nights in Edinburough before I fly to Hamilton on the 30th of July. Make sense? Followed me? Good.

If you have any comments about those destinations please let me know.

I am still alive in Rome, barely. It wasn’t that bad, but we were stranded for a bit, but thanks to help from home and the friendlist Italian construction workers you imagine, we were saved! We got back to our hostel safe and sound.

Internet hasn’t been as accessible as I would have liked, so it has been hard to post. I am sorry, but I hope to post a bit more often. Pictures though will probably have to wait untill August.

I took the train from Hung Hon in Kowloon to Beijing. It took about 24 and half ours and cost me about $90. I went with a middle level “hard” birth because I wanted to save money after the expensive an difficult task of getting my Chinese Visa. After spending several days on a train in Canada I was ready for basically any train based experience.

They x-rayed our luggage and kept us waiting in a sterile but functional lounge. Once we got on the train I was impressed that the car looked new, with a simple white and blue motif, and even the hard births weren’t that hard. Though if you do go with the top bunk, you don’t really get a window, and you need to be nimble to get to the middle bunk, so keep that in mind.

The ride was smooth and efficient. Two of the girl in my alcove with me could even speak some English so they helped me discover that there was indeed a dinning car. I didn’t have too much time to pick up snacks, and most people it seemed had brought plenty. I was a bit worried that I might only have pocky and some apples to eat for 24 hours. But they helped me venture down the train far enough to make it to the dinning car.

There I stood about awkwardly until two older Caucasian gentlemen invited me to their table. They were actually travel guide writers for the more historically based odyssey collection of guides. Carl appeared to be the younger of the two men. He was an American before becoming an Aussie. Magnus Bartlet was an editor in charge and very much British. With a name like Mangus it is hard to be anything else. It is difficult to fit a name like that but he seemed to do the job. We ate and talk about travel, communications, history and the Internet. Apparently a trip like the one I am on will change my life. Though really our lives change every day don’t they?

In the morning we passed by the Yellow river and the hilling regions of Southern China were beyond us. Flat farm land surround us as we made our way to the city. It was an interesting progression to observe. The contrast between older “prison”-styled concrete buildings to newer condo towers which could only really be described as modern. After Mao, economic controls and service guarantees for the citizens faded away leaving a something which looks to me like a capitalist state with an authoritarian government.

When I arrived in Beijing, Jerry and his friend Albert meet me and started my guided tour of Bejing. I owe them much thanks for spending the time to show me around, but more about that next time. For now I can easily say that I do really enjoy train travel, it is just a relaxing and pleasant way to get around. This time I even had a bed to lay on as we traveled through the Chinese night.

It should be noted for not too much more you can get the “soft” birth which is in a room with a door that sleep about 4 people. It is around $120.

Train to Beijing

I heard once that Honk Kong is a product of an absence of Urban Planning. Building are built, renovated, and replaced in a great cycle of construction. Signs, at least in Kowloon, loom above street level as a over powered barrage of information–well at least if you can read Chinese. Every inch is used as there is no room for waste. The city, the densest int he world, is implanted on the lush island hills of southern China is kind of like what would happen is the tallest buildings in New York were transplanted to Hawaii. It is bright, busy, overwhelming, and high priced.

Being in such a green and vibrant climate means that even though you are in a city of millions you don’t forget about the nature all around you. On the main island gardens, fountains, and flowing water, are present with a surprising amount of frequency. Everything is bigger in Hong Kong. The buses and trams are double decker. The taller trams do have the nice feature of hiding all the wire needed to run them higher up away from street level. They even have a giant outdoor escalator system to get people from the harbor up the mountain the main city rests on.

Staying for cheap in Hong Kong mean staying in one of the old apartment buildings that have been turned into “hostels” of sorts. The rooms are very small and often won’t have windows. The one I stayed in, the Dragon Hostel, was clean, and the staff was kind of helpful, in they put money in to a can in a looked draw kind of way. It seem all the hostels or guest houses basically work together. Often there will be 2 or 3 in one building so if you booked with one you might end up at another one.

My first day I basically went up Victoria peak to see the city. You do have to pay to go up the tram but I found it worth it. A bigger question is do your pay for the observation deck in the building you arrive in when you get up it. The answer is I think, if it is an extra ordinarily clear day, it would definitely be worth it. Otherwise it isn’t needed. I had some sushi and headed back to the hostel.

Hong Kong 1

The second day I wondered through the Museum of History, which is free on Wednesday–go early, with someone I meet at the hostel. I went across the bay on a star ferry, another Hong Kong institution, after lunch. I went out for dinner with the person I met, and we watched the harbor front light show. It is pretty fabulous that they got the various building hooked up together, but I thought they could have done a bit more. Only the Bank of China building went all out.

Hong Kong 2

I wanted to do more but while all this was happening I kept needing to take trips to the Hong Kong airport to get my visa. Between that and the heat my last full day I wasn’t quite feeling up to exploring more. I would have liked to visit the Buddha if I had the chance. I think there are some nice hidden treasures in Hong Kong, but finding them takes some effort to be sure.

I found the attitude of the city to be a bit much. A fine place to visit, not very welcoming to stay for a long period of time unless you are the CEO of a some kind of company planning to do some business. Once you have seen the sites to see, move on, there is no reason to linger.