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Petra!

April 8, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

Our first day at Petra started at 8 am. We met our guide, Abdullah Al Nawafleh, bought some hats to shield us from the sun, and headed in. To ease the experience we hired a horse drawn carriage. Abdulla negotiated it so that he could drive us in and another driver would come to pick us up at the other end around 2 pm.

The horse drawn carriage is a rough, rough ride. We were bounced down the path. Luckily, Abdullah stopped occasionally to explain the features along the way giving us a bit of a break. The path in is all downhill. We felt sorry for the poor horse who slipped occasionally on the rocks.

We had a marvelous time. The tour was informative and enjoyable. We had a few hours on our own, mostly spent in the Roman part of town. We started to climb to the Monastery, but I was not up to it. We came upon a trinket stall along the way and the Bedouin woman invited us to stop and rest on her bench. I took her up on the offer. She also offered us tea. We accepted not realizing that she would have to start a fire and make the tea for us. A couple of tourist police on their way up and a German couple on their way down joined us. It was quite pleasant. We bought a necklace from our host. She was very gracious.

Then we headed back to our rendezvous point for our carriage ride back to town. It was a bumpy ride back and a bit worse because there were no stops to alleviate the experience.

You can see all of the 390 pictures here.

Day two, we go in slow on foot.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged horse drawn carriage, Jordan, Petra, tourist, travel, vacation | Leave a Comment »

Jordan, Day Two – Citadel, Amphitheatre, Wadi Rum

April 7, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

Wow, this was an eventful and amazing day. I took 341 pictures – click here to see them.

We started with the Citadel, the top of a hill in the heart of Amman which has a wealth of archaeological sites dating from all periods – early bronze age, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, etc.

From here we went to the Roman amphitheatre at the base of this hill.

There is also a small museum there. While looking at this dress, a young woman standing next to me asked “Do you like it?” I said, “Yes, it’s beautiful.” She said “Not so much.” I’m guessing, but there seemed to be a group of students so she may have been a Jordanian university student. Too bad she doesn’t appreciate her own past. Since I’ve made clothing and done embroidery, I have a better appreciation for what kind of work went into creating this beautiful dress.

Next we were on the road to Wadi Rum. This took about three hours.

Wadi Rum is a large area of limestone formations. We rode in the back of a jeep pickup driven by a bedouin who lives in the valley. It was an amazing time.

We stopped a couple of times to see petroglyphs.

We stayed for sunset, then it was back to our tour driver so we could head to our hotel in Wadi Musa. Tomorrow we explore Petra.

We are having an amazing time.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged Amman, Jordan, travel, vacation | 1 Comment »

Dinner Adventure

April 6, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

It began with a walk in the neighborhood of our hotel looking for a restaurant. We soon discovered there was little to choose from. DaddyBird flagged down a taxi and asked if he could take us to Al Quds Restaurant (purported to be the best place to get Mansaf – the national dish). The taxi driver wasn’t sure, but it was agreed that he would take us downtown. This led to a fairly long drive. The meter said 27 at the beginning of our ride. We are used to cheap taxi rides where petrol is cheap, so I began to worry as I saw the meter going up and up. I only had 140 dinars because we haven’t changed all of our cash, yet. When the meter hit 130 I was envisioning us being stranded downtown with no money to get back to the hotel. We arrived downtown and found the Al Quds Restaurant very easily. The restaurant appears to have two names – Al Quds and Jerusalem Restaurant.

The meter showed 190 which turned out to be 1.90 much to my relief. So our ride only cost 2 dinar ($2.68).

This was the restaurant we were hoping to find. No fancy ambiance.

English menu:

We ordered mansaf, motabal, mango juice, and lemon juice. This meal cost 13.30 dinar ($9.30).

Here is a close up of the mansaf. It was quite tasty.

After walking around a little bit in the downtown area where most of the businesses were closed for the evening, we flagged down a taxi. We are staying in a small, little known hotel, so the driver didn’t know where it was. DaddyBird only had a general idea where it was. So, the driver called someone to ask for directions. Those directions led to a completely different hotel. We drove around the general area for a bit. The driver stopped at a grocery store to ask the locals if they knew where it was. They did not. We knew we were close because we were seeing familiar things. I had taken the photo below soon after leaving the hotel, so I showed it to the driver. It did not help him. We stopped again on a backstreet and the driver asked some locals about the hotel and then about the street in the photo. It turns out that the street is known by another name. They told him where the street was. As soon as we reached it, we recognized where we were and found the hotel. This time the taxi ride cost 3.33 dinar ($4.70).

It was a pleasant evening with good food and a bit of drama for excitement.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged Amman, Jordan, mansaf, tourist, travel, vacation | Leave a Comment »

Amman, Jordan – Day One

April 5, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

We have arrived safely in Amman, Jordan.

Maybe someday we will travel somewhere that we don’t say “We could live here,” but it is not today. It is beautiful here. We are enjoying the cool weather.

I wasn’t sure what a shoe mitt was, but I figured it out. Few people shine shoes anymore.

Bilingual shampoo and lotions. The signage we’ve seen so far is bilingual, too.

Shortly, we will be off to walk in the neighborhood and find a good restaurant for dinner.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged Amman, Jordan, travel, vacation | Leave a Comment »

Travel By Book: Bryson’s Britain

July 31, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Bryson, Bill. Notes from a small island. London: Black Swan, 1996. Print.

During this two week stay at home vacation I am visiting Britain through the eyes of Bill Bryson. We have a very similar sense of humor and perspective on the world, so reading a Bryson book usually results in my laughing out loud and then reading the passage aloud for DaddyBird.

Bryson is at his best when he is making up words, like imaginary (but believable) place names – the Buggered Ploughman pub, Ram’s Droppings bypass, or the rail crossing at Great Shagging. Or mocking the formality of a restaurant menu by asking for “a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass.”

His description of Daniel’s department store in Windsor makes me want to explore it. The sad part is that it is probably not there anymore. In this book Bryson is describing his “farewell tour” of Britain in the early 90’s. He combines flashbacks to the 70’s when he first arrived in England and his 90’s observations giving a taste of nostalgia for the things already lost to the passage of time. His travel plan was to use only public transportation (bus and train), but 1990’s reality was that much of the public transport network had disappeared.

Travel by book means that I have no pictures to show my daily adventure. However, having been to Britain a time or two, I will slip in one of my favorite pictures from a previous trip.

Southwark, London 2009

Posted in books, England, travel adventures | Tagged Bill Bryson, Britain, reading, travel by book | 2 Comments »

The Road Home

July 10, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Singapore Airport has the best piece of public art. It is hundreds of silver tear drops, each suspended on a transparent thread and animated to move up and down in a variety of patterns. Very zen.

It was mesmerizing. We could have easily missed our plane while watching it.

Luckily, we tore ourselves away and made it back to Dubai safe and sound. Our plan for getting back to Fujairah from Dubai was a reverse of how we got there (taxi – bus – taxi). We fully expected to have a long wait in the heat waiting for the bus, however, we could not have timed it better if we tried. We arrived at the bus stop at 2:40 pm. A bus was waiting and it departed at 2:45 with us on it.

Posted in Dubai, Fujairah, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged public art, Singapore, travel | Leave a Comment »

Singapore: Days Twelve & Thirteen

July 7, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

With only two days to go and a long list of things we hadn’t done, I had to beg off for a bit of a rest, so most of day 12 was spent with my feet up. Then, it was time for dinner.

Our friend, Adrianna, guided us on our evening repast adventure. First we stopped for a snack of sashimi. Our final destination was a small Japanese restaurant (Restaurant Chako) in which it is best to call/email ahead to get your order in, because everything is prepared fresh, even the sauces. Therefore, dinner can take a few hours to complete. (We all forgot to take pictures of the appetizers – oops! We had edamame [soy beans], shishamo [small grilled fish], and maguro yamakake [raw tuna with yam sauce])

DaddyBird’s dinner was yosenabe (claypot soup with seafood, chicken, mushroom, and tofu).

Adrianna’s dinner was unatamaju (broiled eel on scrambled egg and rice).

I had the Chako set meal (mackerel, breaded chicken, breaded cuttlefish, rice, cabbage salad, potato salad, miso soup, etc.).

We added tempura moriawase (shrimp and vegetables). It was all very delicious. Everything was prepared fresh and it doesn’t get more authentic than this.

We capped it all off with several desserts. Above is coffee flavored gelatin, below is green tea ice cream. Not pictured – cappuccino ice cream and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame ice cream was really interesting – almost more savory than sweet.

Our plan for the last day was to go to the bird park, but when we woke up it was raining heavily, so change of plans. The Asian Civilizations Museum was within walking distance of our hotel and offered an escape from the rain.

The rain had let up briefly, so it was a pleasant walk down the riverside.

We joined a tour that was starting when we arrived. The subject was the influence and use of Chinese art and style in other cultures.

This elephant is Chinese porcelain that was then modified in Turkey with the addition of the metal parts changing it into a hookah base (shisha pipe).

The museum presents all cultures and religions of Asia.

This bowl was made in Iraq attempting to emulate Chinese porcelain, but instead creating a unique and beautiful piece with a style of it’s own.

We left with a long list of places we didn’t go and things we didn’t do, but we enjoyed Singapore very much and will probably go back again.

Posted in food, museum, restaurant, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged food, Japanese restaurant, museum, sashimi, Singapore, tempura, travel | Leave a Comment »

Singapore: Day Eleven

July 4, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

The day began with a metro train trip to Chinatown and pork buns.

These were not just steamed, but also seared for a crusty outside. Tasty!

These pigeons had found the motherlode in the food court and were eating as fast as they could.

DaddyBird chose his lunch based on the length of the line at this food booth without knowing exactly what he was going to get.

This is what he ended up with -soup with fish balls and tofu.

I got a similar soup with greens and noodles from a different food stall.

Our tourist activity of the day was to go to the top of the Marina Bay Sands Towers to the Skypark observation deck.

We purposely got there just before sunset so we could see it in daylight and night time.

The view straight down (Kris this one’s for you.)

This is what people think of the “Do Not Sit on the Deck” signs. Let me rant a bit here about how stupid it is to create a tourist attraction without places to sit down. It is really rude, in my opinion. Tourists are on their feet all day and deserve a place to rest, especially if you want them to stick around (and spend money).

The Singapore Flyer lit up at night.

The view across the bay.

Dinner included burgers.

They claim to be healthy, but the only clarification in the menu or signage was that they are not prepared ahead and kept under a heat lamp. No claims of organic or low fat ingredients. No whole grain buns. So, there is room to improve the “healthy” factor. (Correction: DaddyBird says that whole grain buns were an option listed in the menu.)

It looks more like a Dagwood sandwich than a burger. The patty was savory, which seems to be hard to come by in my burger experiences.

The chili cheese fries also beg the “healthy” factor. They tasted good, but the chili was not hot enough to melt the cheese.

Posted in food, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged burgers, chili cheese fries, food, Marina Bay Sands Towers, Marina Bay Skypark, Singapore, travel | 1 Comment »

Singapore: Day 10

July 3, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

We opted for an uncharacteristically touristy activity – riding the site seeing bus. Let’s face it, we’re getting old and walking everywhere in humid heat is a bit exhausting. This way, we got to sit in air conditioning, see the sights, and learn some details from the canned tour commentary that we wouldn’t have known otherwise.

We started on the Heritage route which took us through Little India, Chinatown, and other older parts of the city.

There is a lot of high density housing here. At least they try to make it attractive.

We hopped off at Suntec City Mall for lunch.

DaddyBird had the “white carrot cake” which is a big, spicy omelette with white radish and shrimp in it. I had char siew and roast duck.

In the absence of lime juice, I tried the delicious celery juice.

Our ticket also included rides on water taxis, so we took another ride on the river on one of these.

We got off at the Marina Bay Sands complex. The complex includes hotel, shopping mall, conference center, casino, and probably more.

There is even a canal with boat rides.

We were headed to the Art and Science Museum for the Harry Potter Exhibition. No photography was allowed, so you will have to imagine what we saw. I stood three feet from Snape’s costume, unfortunately Alan Rickman was not in it. It was a well designed exhibit, although it was aimed at a younger demographic than DaddyBird and I. The Sorting Hat sorted us – I am Ravenclaw and DaddyBird is Griffyndor.

By the time we finished the sun was down and we were exhausted from a long day of tourism, so it was off to Brewerkz again for dinner. Above is potato skins appetizer with cheese, bacon bits and dip.

DaddyBird opted for the Cowboy Burger – bacon, cheese, and BBQ sauce. I had the Bangers and Mash. I am certain that the sausages were good, but they were overshadowed by the cheesy mash potatoes and sauerkraut. I very nearly asked for additional sauerkraut. Yummy!

Below is the sign that is posted in the area where the brewery vats are visible. We found it amusing.

I think they mean business.

Posted in food, malls, signs, Singapore, travel adventures | Tagged food, museum, shopping, signs, Singapore, tourist, travel, water taxi | 1 Comment »

Singapore: Day Nine

July 2, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

The day began late with a late lunch at Songfa Bak Kut Teh, our new favorite restaurant which just happens to be about two blocks from our hotel. DaddyBird opted for the pork stomach soup and I had the pork ribs.