Saturday October 28th 2017

A day in clay


I was making another business trip to China the other week and this time I had a transfer at Xi'an.

By going one day earlier, I manage to get one day there so I can go and see the Terracotta warriors at Emperor Qin's mausoleum.
It was fairly easy to get there; you just take either the 914 or 915 bus from the big bus station outside the train station at the northern city wall.
It was 8 yuan and you paid it to the conductor onboard the bus.

At the mausoleum (hard to miss the stop, everyone goes off the bus there), it is pretty big; you had to walk a little bit to get to the entrance.
There was a big statue of Emperor Qin close to it - so keep an eye out for that (or just follow the signs :) )

Once inside, I walked to the main attraction; the first pit - the famous one:

Some fun fact; the warriors does not look the same. There is a multifud of differences like the face, clothing ears and hairdo. Amazing the work that was put in this - more than 2000 years ago!

On the side there are one row of warriors facing outward (and backwards at the back) to make sure there are no surprise attacks.

There are about 8000 terracotta warriors here, but far from all has been excavated - or put together for that matter. All warriors found are broken into pieces.
The emperor after Qin raided the mausoleum and took all the weapons made for the terracotta warriors - and they broke them all for good measures. :(

After this I went to the two other pits plus the museum here.

I went back to town with the same bus - and walked around in Xi'an city. On the wall and then to the bell tower. But that story won't be told here (and is really not interesting at all).

Friday August 18th 2017

Quick Bond stop in Amsterdam


I was recently in Amsterdam for a few days and I made sure to check out the Bond location here.

So this is a very short blog update for those locations. :)


The movie in question is of course "Diamonds Are Forever" and the two scenes can be seen in this Youtube clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbUXN8u4Mko

Here are the bridge where Mr Wint and Mr Kidd observed the police dragging poor Mrs Whistler from the canal:

And the place where they pulled her out:

And here is where Tiffany Case lives:

Saturday July 29th 2017

My Day in India


I was going to another business trip to China and wanted to a detour to give me motivation for it.

I compared the map with my Travel-ToDo-list and found... India! :)

So be it.
I arranged for a 24 transfer in Delhi and started making plans.

A colleague of mine, Mats, found out my plans and joined me on this trip.
We had a driver (Mukesh) for the whole day and he picked us up at the airport 03:00 am and started driving towards Agra.

After several hour (where Mats and me slept most of the time) we got there.


There was lots of cows and monkeys in this town:

Anyhow, we started off with the mainattraction; Taj Mahal!!

 Six down, one to go!  :)


The Taj Mahal with its leaning minorets:

It's not that super-much to see so, after a while we continued to Agra Fort.

Bonus for the day was a James Bond location! :)
On this balcony (not accessable for the public) a very short clip was filmed for the movie 'Octopussy' (a flyby of Taj Mahal to make sure the audience understood that Bond went to India).

After walking around in the heat (43 degrees Celcius today) in the fort, we decided we were done with Agra and headed back to Delhi. It was then only 10:00 am.


Once in Delhi, our first stop was the Lotus temple. It had been suggested to us by an Indian colleague of us (who also got us our driver).
We googled it and it's architecture intrigues us so we went there.

A very beautiful building!

Of course it had pools around it for the lotus to float "on": 

Then we went to the India Gate, a war monument for the Indian soldiers who died in World War I.

We also visited the Raj Ghat (memorial for Mahatma Gandhi) and looked at the parlament before we went back to the airport.

A very intense day indeed. Jolly good!

Friday April 14th 2017

Hong Kong Action


After making short visits to Shanghai And Beijing the last six months; Hong Kong was last on my "China-list".
Here is what I did that weekend.


I landed in Hong Kong airport during the day.
After immigrations, I took the train straight to Hong Kong island - then a taxi to my hotel; 9 Boutique Hotel.
They had four rooms and I don't think I have ever had a smaller hotel room than this.

After a quick stop at the hotel, I went out to Hong Kong island again.

I took a taxi to the Victoria Peak tram station to ride the Peak Tram up the hill.

What I ment to do before I got here was to purchase a ticket to the tram online. But I never did and paid the penalty; standing more than one hour in line to the ticket office.

Finally I got to go!

 Up we went through the trees and to the Peak Tower.

It was a very nice view from the building!

And it looked even better at night!

I ate at a japanese sushi restaurant at the top - not that good though. :(

It was a long line to get down as well; almost one hour,..

Then straight to the hotel to get some sleep.

Saturday April 15th 2017

Second day in Hong Kong!

I walked to the subway station and took the train to Tung Chung; I am going to the Big Buddha statue the Tian Tan Buddha.

The cable car was not operational so I took bus 23 to Ngong Ping.
It was a beautiful ride through the lush, green mountains of Lantau island.

When we got closer we could even see the staue from afar:

After about 50 minutes we had reached our destination and I was there!

It took a few steps to get to the top, but eventually I got there.

It was a big statue, but... I expected a bigger one..?
I mean, after all, it was the largest seated Buddha in 1993 when it was built.

But it sure wasn't small.
Either way, it was cool to be here. :)

There were also some smaller statues around the Big Buddha.

After seeing the Buddha, I took the bus back - and then the subway to Kowloon, which is the main land part of Hong Kong city.

Here also smaller (and older) buildings could be found next to the tall skyscrapers.

I went through Kowlon Park and finally arrived at the The Garden of Stars.

Here they celebrate the movie starts of Hong Kong. There were a lot of hand prints from actors/actresses like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung and Raymond Chow.

But the main reason for being there is that they have a statue of the big hero; Bruce Lee

 So. Cool.

I also went to the pier and took photos of Hong Kong island; this is a panorama picture of said side:

After this I took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong island.

I walk back to the hotel and... didn't really do that much more during this day (truth is I fell asleep at five in my bed and didn't wake up until around midnight).


Tomorrow I will go to inland China for work so this is the final day-report for this trip.

Hong Kong Ending

I guess Hong Kong has always been there in the back of my head, but it wasn't really until I had a transfer on my way to Cambodia a couple of years back that I put it on my Travel ToDo list.

Unfortunatly, the city itself wasn't super exciting; it was rundown, somewhat filthy and the stench of the harbour was always there. It was fun to have been there, but I doubt if I will ever go back.

The green hilltops around the city was beautiful though. A very nice scenery to look at.


If I were to redo it; I would have only stayed there for one night instead of two. Everything I did could be managed in one full day.

They did have neat thing that really helps you exploring the city without that extra night; you could check in your luggage already on the train/subway station on Hong Kong island!
Had I known this before, I would have just done that and continued my trip one day earlier.

In any case, it was fun to be able to check this city off my list! :)

Friday February 24th

Quick update on the blog.

I have been in China on a business trip this last week and before I went home I got to see the The Great Wall of China.

One more thing checked off on the list! :D

Monday September 7th 2015

A South American Tale

This trip took a while to decide where to go - and even more time how to do it.

I knew I had 11,5 days and a few possible target zones. I decided to go with my good friend Henrik again (known from Mexico!) and together we decided for South America.
We then made a list of what we wanted to see - and removed just enough of stuff to make the time limit.

This, my friends, is the result. It will be a trip filled with flights (and waiting at airport terminal), because this continent is huge! Plus hopefully some interesting places.

I might not have time/wi-fi to blog everyday as it happen, but eventually all days will find their way to the web.


Today was all about travel - and I am not even halfway there. My first stop was at London Heathrow where I by some very strange rookie mistake read my boarding pass wrong and only got to my gate 25 minutes late.

Fortunately I there discovered the flight was one hour late so I made it. But this trip could have started with a disaster.

After about two hours+ in the air, I landed in Madrid. This is where I will spend six hours - and get together with Henrik who is arriving directly from Stockholm.
We are about to board the flight to Santiago, Chile from here.
It leaves at 23:55 - so this day is over even before we cross the Atlantic ocean.

Tuesday September 8th 2015

After 12 hours flight the morning broke on the air plane and we flew over the beautiful mountain range of the Andes.

Getting closer to Santiago, the view was just one big cloud with some mountain peaks breaking the whiteness.

And this is where we started our decent - and went straight through the cloud (among said peaks). You could not see anything outside the windows - and then all of a sudden we landed (still in the cloud). Much respect to the pilots who land here!

Stepping out from the plane meant that I was on the southern hemisphere for the first time. Nice! :)

Interesting observation while we waited for our luggage; dogs (presumably drug sniffing dogs) were walking freely inside the area, across the luggage - and the luggage tracks.

Then we were picked up by our ride who drove us to our hotel; Le Rêve Boutique Hotel.
We had some problems with the shower in our first room (303) - it did not work - so we got a new room (302).

After a shower and refitting, we went out to look at Santiago.

First impression; it's not that different from a south European city. Second impression; it's freaking cold here!

We travelled with the Metro to the Baquedano station and ate a pizza at Patio Bellavista square. Then we took the Funicular up to Virgin Mary statue at Parque Metropolitano. 

 

View from top side of funicular over Santiago:

Then we went back to the hotel to chill a bit.

In the evening we went out to eat dinner at a nearby restaurant (called Lomit's) where I had a very nice Filet Mignon with bacon. Henrik had the salmon.

We also tried the local alcohol Pisco, which is made of fermented grapes. We were thinking shots. They did not.

The waiter put two real drinking glass on our table and started to fill them up. We had to stop him from poring after a while.

Henrik did not finish it.

Neither did I.

Then back to the hotel. Early wake up tomorrow.

Wednesday September 9th 2015

Up at 5:15 for a quick breakfast and then heading to the airport.

A looong flight (probably six hours, but felt like 60) took us to Easter island. The very small, isolated island in the Pacific Ocean famous for its statues, the moais.

We landed on the large air port strip on the island (built by USA during the 60's to function as an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle [never used for that purpose - yet] - NASA still has personnel here).

After a chaotic luggage retrieval, we got picked up and driven to our hotel.


Our hotel here is Taha Tai Hotel. We are staying in their Bungalow #6.




Me and Henrik had discussed a lot how to go about going around the island; our options are renting a car, going on a tour bus - or getting a private tour guide.
The tour bus was out of the question early, since we are only staying here for two half days. (to see all we wanted we would need a full day tour).
Renting a car (for about 100-120 USD) had the disadvantages that there is no car insurance on this island; ie you break the car, you pay for it - and you loose the guide experience.
So we settled for a private tour guide (for 350 USD). Fortunately, we could get a tour guide to our hotel very soon after we settled in. His name was Tongariki and was a very nice guy; he understood that we did not have much time and was very knowledgeable regarding the island and it's history. He probably thought we were crazy only staying here for 26 hours though.

He might not be wrong.


We drove along the southern coast line and got to Rano Raraku; the dormant volcano where all the moais were created. There were about 600 moais scattered around the grounds (out of the 900 on the whole island).


This was really a sight to see!


After walking outside the volcano, we also went inside the crater.


Then off to the largest Ahu (platform where the moais were standing); Tongariki (where our guide got his name from).

This ahu has been restored to it's original shape. Most moais on the island has fallen down and not raised again, but here they are shown in its intended glory.

15 magnificent statues, however most are missing their red "hats" (it's really their hair). The rest of the hats were laying not far from here, but they were not put on the statues since they had corroded and were damaged.

Then off to the beach!
Almost.

We first made a stop by some sites to watch some ancient hieroglyphs, very interesting. Kinda.


The beach (called Anakena) was very nice and this was also the place where the Polyneesian people first came to the island.


These moais were raised in that honour (it is of the royal family that came here).


Me and Henrik also took a swim here. The water was cold going in, but once there it was really nice. I wouldn't mind staying there longer, but it was soon time to push on!

Then we were heading towards the south tip of the island, but we got word that it closed at six, so we were too late to see that part. Our plan is to see it tomorrow if time permits.

After a stop at the hotel (shower, change and drinks), we took a taxi to a restaurant we had read about; Tataku Vave, where we got their speciality, lobster for starter (it was much smaller than we were used to back home) and then the Easter island speciality raw Tuna for main course.



We got the food in a sea shell - and it was a lot of food. Unfortunately neither the lobster nor the tuna was to our liking so we left a  lot on the plate where we were done, much to our waitress' disappointment.
It could be worse though, Henrik could have told them to give the leftovers to some random cat.
Oh, wait...



When we got back to the hotel, we took a moment to watch the beautiful, but very unfamiliar, night sky. An amazing sight without all the light pollution we have at home.