One thing about driving in San Francisco is that you have to experience the journey across the Golden Gate bridge. At both Vista point (northern side) and the welcome centre (southern side), it gets really crowded already from the early morning.
So it was very fortuitous for us to get a parking spot at Vista point. We made use of our good fortune to take in the views of the city and walk the bridge.
Do take a cardigan with you, it can get windy on the bridge. So don’t get the chills and fall ill!
Today’s our first day exploring San Francisco. Ocean beach view was fantastic! Muir Woods educational and Sausalito, well you must be here to experience it. Journalog shall come as soon as we complete this journey!
Here we are again in the airport, barely 2 weeks from the last occasion we stepped back to the comforts of tropical Singapore and to lots of rain. It has been a strange 2 months – all that rain at a seasonally ‘drier’ period for the little red dot. And all that flooding around the world too! Sometimes it seems we cannot simply reject that there is some form of climate change going on.
Old Chinatown in the late 1800s
Well we are off to where the Chinese called 舊金山 (old gold mountain for literal translation and also in Google, so its not just me), a reference to a very different time more than a hundreds years ago as California was opening up to mining prospectors. The gold rush of the 1850s attracted not only European migrants but also the eager Chinese coolies that mined, ran laundries, opened restaurants and built railways.
Many were from the southern province of Guangdong (廣東省), thus Cantonese is a relatively well heard language in and around the city with the purported world’s largest Chinatown outside Asia.
The itinerary built by Suan is relatively packed and yours truly will play the roles of chauffeur, porter, photographer, bouncer, butler and the walking ATM. Talk about women’s rights…how about leaving some left for men? Get it? Bad joke, nvm.
It will just be 5 days (including the weekend) before we have to head across to New York where Mel will be in the office for business. Mixing business with some pleasure is in some ways good to relieve the stress of focusing too much on just work. Just read what some other bloggers have to say about folks not using up their vacation time. And it’s about people in the land that we are about to journey to not doing so…
We had been driving amongst the lakes to the north of Mount Fuji since last Saturday and only left for Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon. However we were so “busy” shopping and “gourmeting” in Tokyo that it was hard to find time to post anything. Now that I can find time to tap on the free wifi…
Our initial drive was through snow,
Fortunately the road was cleared
Incredibly the roads are so well cleared every morning – not our car though and I had to practice scrapping ice off the windscreen (something I had not done for 12 years)… However, we were blessed with great weather coming through for the next few days. Mr Fuji was only covered up for a short time during the 5 days!
Lake Yamanaka – luckily we had snow boots!
One thing about driving in Japan is that courtesy of the drivers. If you can negotiate the traffic in a major city, driving in Japan’s countryside will be a breeze. As usual, the caution is on black ice, and during this period when the temperature fluctuates between negative and just a few degrees above zero, the snow melts and refreeze even in the day.
One of the joys of writing your own blog is that you are free to express your thoughts (within reason and decency) after trawling through a plethora of websites and numerous pages. Which is why I like to read the travel section of some of the “main stream” sources – eg some of the mainline news publications (I quote frequently from the Singapore Straits time being Singaporean) both local and international.
The UK Telegraph has to be one of my favourites which I come back time and again. I feel so motivated again to plan for these trips after reading the article.
We have long been fancy to road trips. During the 3 years we lived in Holland, we drove all across France, Germany, northern Italy, the Benelux and the UK of course! A road is a wonderful way of taking the time to soak in the places you want to stay longer and moving on when no longer motivated. Better photos are taken too when you have time on your hands.
The longest and most memorable was our 18-day drive all along the “fringes” of France during the early summer. It was a time of relocation for us and July of 2005 was our move home. Taking “flight” from Amsterdam, our road trip proper commenced from the time we crossed into the northeast Picardie region of France.
Encircling France
Well, together with the other road trips made (eg to Champagne, Alsace etc), the bucket list has Cote D’Azur, the Pyrenees and Central Massif remaining as untouched by our flag.
Very soon some day we will be doing the same all over the UK, starting with the southwest.
Its Sunday once again and I am back from my Vietnam business trip.
This week’s a great selection of articles in the Singapore Straits time travel section. I really do enjoy reading these articles as it sets my mind on the next travel destinations that Suan and I can plan for.
There was a time when we travelled quite extensively with Trafalgar or Insight to Europe. We joined 7 such groups going to places like Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and even to Egypt! All well and good as we made numerous friends from the trips. We are still in contact with a good number of them and they are from all over the world!
Such is the wonder of joining groups, you make new acquaintance or friends (foes for that matter…). Never easy to get along with everyone.
In the last 10 years, “free and easy” – more like the term DIY has been more of the flavour especially with the younger crowd. Backpacking across Europe and the US has always been popular, but the advent of DIY was more on making your own arrangements (with or without agents) rather than joining travel groups.
The article cited travel to southern France. One of the best memories of our road trip there in 2005 was the visit to sites such as Pont Du Gard and the city of Orange.
Wide view of the aqueduct
While we did not get to Monaco or Saint Tropez (along Cote d’Azur), we did spend a great deal of time roaming the hilltop villages and the Lavender (and Lavendin) fields. Click here for more on the difference between the two.
The Roman Amphitheatre in Orange, in the heart of Provence
If only the group tour itineraries will cater to your every taste and wish of where to go and what to see! Which is why we had in the last 2 years opted for “private” tours. More on that in a separate blog post.
Some interesting bites of information today in the Singapore Straits times travel section:
Singapore Airlines increasing flights. Bangkok is having an additional flight that departs 5:30pm. Great stuff! More options to stay later in the city and yet get back to Singapore at a decent time.
Old medieval town in the Florentine region (most people call it Tuscany). There are numerous such hilltop villages all over Italy, France and Spain. Mostly built for the folks of the middle ages to fend off invaders. We write about them too in our newsletters! Here’s a photo of St. Emilion in the southwest of France.
The article on Kenya is an interesting one. While it is not on the bucket list, it certainly is a very inviting adventure. At more than S$56,000 for a party of 4 (which works out to ~S$14,000 per person), it is not your “normal” annual vacation. Nice, but out of reach for most.
The article on giving your photos a good caption is an interesting one. It really depends on the message or view point that one wishes to convey. Afterall, everyone looks at the world in a different way.
While we have not been to Guangzhou, we have heard of the colonial landmarks that were left behind by the British and French in the 19th century after China lost the opium wars. We can find legacy of those times in many major cities across China – Dalian, Shanghai just to name a few.
Traveling Matters to us 