April 2010
25 posts
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ZRH
I left Shanghai yesterday afternoon, after a great 10-day sojurn. I’m sure that I pushed my hosts, Scott & Kate, to the limits of their hospitality, but it was great to catch up with them and it’s always nicer to stay at an apartment in a residential neighborhood than in some lame hotel or hostel. Obviously it also helped keep my budget in check, despite going out for some truly...
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Hong Kong: Art, Lunch with the Imam, Custom...
Hong Kong Museum of Art
After a fantastic $15USD all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at the YMCA (eggs, bacon and waffles, oh my! Not to mention all the fresh fruit!), I headed for the Hong Kong Museum of Art, just across Salisbury Rd. Of course, the space and collection at the museum couldn’t rival something like the Art Institute of Chicago, but they did have an excellent collection on display,...
One Night in Hong Kong
I spent the night in Hong Kong last night, to give the visa service time to process my visa application for Shanghai. I stayed at the YMCA in Kowloon, also known as The Salisbury, which is basically a very nice business hotel. It was an excellent travel splurge, well worth the $115, especially since I have free accommodations in Shanghai thanks to a generous and hospitable college friend and his...
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Q: Should I buy my lonely planet guide at SYD or...
A: You’re an idiot and should have bought them at home, on Amazon. Never buy a guide at the airport bookstore. For example, take the price of the Shanghai guide…
SYD: $30AUD
NZ: $60NZD
Amazon: $10 or less, used
If you’ve got a kindle (or iPhone with the kindle app) you can buy one of the inferior but servicable digital versions for about $4, which I just did.
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File Under: Things You Absolutely Must Do
I’ve spent the last week—and will spend the next one as well—on Lizard Island, volunteering at the Research Station, and despite the fact that there’s been more rain than usual I feel 100% confident in saying that this is something that everyone should try to take a few weeks of their life to do. If you look up “Paradise” in the dictionary, you ought to find a...
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Cape Tribulation & Port Douglas
The final leg of my trip with Alissa was a bittersweet one. One the one hand, we had a real adventure exploring the aboriginal art galleries of Port Douglas and the Cape Tribulation area of the Daintree Tropical Rainforest (like the Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage site). But on the other hand, at the start of our final leg we parted ways with Pat, whom I likely won’t see until August, and...
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Cairns
Cairns came pretty highly recommended by most people I spoke with about Australia, so it was pretty disappointing that we arrived deep in the middle of one of the wettest wet seasons in recent memory. All those awesome beaches people spoke about? Not an option. The saving grace was our hostel, Globetrotter, which was definitely the nicest accommodations I’ve ever stayed in for under $30/pp per...
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Townsville
Thanks to our early departure from Whitsunday Islands National Park, we found ourselves with an extra day before our reservation in Cairns. Without a full day’s drive ahead of us we were able to take our time getting out of Airlie Beach, the little tourist town nearest the Whitsunday Islands with a big partying reputation. First order of business: bask in the car’s air conditioning. It’s...