Bon Giorno, Pompei - Day 2

Hello Hello,


Can't believe we slept a full 10 hours last night! Room includes breakfast so we ate a simple meal with coffee and bread before heading over to the Circumvesuviana to get a ride to the Ercolano - Scavi stop for Mount Vesuvius. The walls on most stops along the way to the Ercolano station was covered with graffiti, which is unfortunate. (On the ride home later, the graffiti-covered walls somehow adds a different sort of charm to the town).

Graffiti on walls - tsk tsk

View hiking up Mt. Vesuvius

The Crater - check out the smoke on top right

Calvin @ steep hike

Breathtaking views

Anyways, the ride on the bus towards the foot of Mt. Vesuvius was exciting by itself. The bus had few close contacts with pedestrians/ dogs and I held my breath for at least half of the ride. We got some walking sticks (tips are expected, we tipped 2euro for two walking sticks) for the steep hike up. We half hiked up to the crater lip and walked around it. While the view up was spectacular, the heat from the crater was something else. (FYI: it is supposedly one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, its thermal heat shock at 400 deg. celcius wiped out herculaneum back then). Anyhow, it was still an amazing feeling seeing the mountain in person that was responsible for wiping out the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Mosaics from the past

Can you believe the colors?

We planned for Vesuvius today and Herculaneum site is not too far from the bus ride so we decided to stop by. Herculaneum is a sister site resided by a lot more wealthier crowd than Pompeii at the time of eruption. Most structures in Pompeii were damaged by the eruption but Herculaneum was covered in at least 60 foot of ashes so the residences/shops were very much intact. We enjoyed strolling along the streets of Herculaneum and thoroughly checked out the site. Dinner was similar to what we had yesterday, pasta and more pasta (it is Italy after all), and of course, the wine. We heard fireworks after dinner and ran out, the cathedral right around the corner of our Hostel was cordoned off for some special events and they had fireworks. We enjoyed the fireworks show with the rest of the crowd and found some yummy gelato for after-dinner treat. Not too many people here speaks English, we struggled with directions (with my broken Spanish and the very minimal Italian words I understood), but the hospitality of the locals are definitely one of a kind and something to be proud of for every Italian, the eagerness to help and help all the way deserves a big A+!

Gelato for after dinner

The hostel's mascot

Dinner

outside our room

Sanctuario Cathedral with Fireworks

Auf Wiedersehen Berlin, BonGiorno, Pompei!

Pompei - Day 1

Inside one of the many Casas in the ruins

Left Berlin real early yesterday, woke up 5am to catch the bus to the airport before flying out at 10.15am Berlin time. Every air traveler's nightmare - turbulence! I seriously thought I wouldn't make it out from that plane alive. No currywurst for breakfast as planned = good (#imightpukealloverintheplane). Only took 2 hours in flight to get to Naples, Italy. One can taste the high humidity in the air right outside the airport. Extremely different than Berlin, it was a little bit chaotic, people hussling to have you take their taxi, tour guides and buses looking for their groups, we ended up taking the Alibus (they pack us tight, like sardines!), thank goodness its just a 30 min ride to the Stazione Centrale to get the local Circumvesuviana train to Pompei Sanctuario stop, another ~ 30 mins ride.

it's amazing how fresh the paint looks

Calvin @ the Quadriportico dei Teatri

Took off to the ruins as soon as we left our bagpacks in the hostel where we are staying over here. Owned by a cute Italian (couple?), they have a very friendly cockerspaniel running around, following guests everywhere. It started pouring the minute we got to the ruins, that's probably the reason why it was not packed at all, Calvin remembered the umbrella so we were not as drenched. You can see from my photos how empty some streets were, we have the place nearly to ourselves. Very, very, very slippery cobbled streets, I had few near slips.

how it feels like back then to be a spectator @ the Teatro Grande

Spent nearly 3.5 hours, I finally surrendered to the hunger and weariness catching up on me from the day's travel so we headed back to the hostel for dinner - they have a restaurant on site, their salad was interesting, nothing like the bleucheese-kind I had over in Cali. Talk about bleucheese, Friday makes me crave for Whittier's Chris and Pitts spare ribs with Mike and Kay!

Guten Tag- Day 3

Guten Tag- Day 3

more stairs!

top of the Berliner Dom

Berliner Dom side view

Holocaust Memorial

Hardcore third day in Berlin! Phew, feet sore, body aching, man, I'm aging fast! Calvin and I started our third day to the Berliner Dom. Just a short stroll from the Harkersher Markt station. The church is impressive both inside out. I am beginning to see more and more stairs in the next few towns we're heading to. After climbing those stairs at Victory Column yesterday, knees were still a little bit shaky today but the climb to the top of the dome of Berliner dom was well worth it.

Walked around the museums in Museum Island, we initially plan to just take one of the Bahns to get to the next stop, which is the Berlin Wall and Topography of Terror but we started walking past the Unter den Linden to seek out a place for lunch and without realising it, we were halfway to the Wall. Currywurst again for lunch (you absolutely cannot have too much currywurst!), took us a little while to find the Wall but we found it. We checked out the Holocaust Memorial next before walking to the Brandenburg Gate for more pix.

Brandenburg Gate

Escaped balloons near Brandenburg Gate

Last stop of the day: Bundestag - its the national parliament of Germany. Made reservations in advanced so we got to go in, they have a cool looking glass-dome on top of the building with great views of the city for free. It was nice but packed with visitors. They try to pack as many people as they can into the elevator (no stairs, phew!). Didnt have dinner till 8.30pm. Ended up having dinner at this Chinese place just a block from the Hotel (rice!), I had crispy duck rice (awesome~ at this point, anything with rice is going to taste awesome!) and Calvin ordered stir-fry noodle with beef. All this and a beer for 11euro. (Calvin mentioned we're having beer each day since we got here) - what's not to like?

 

 

Bundestag

Guten Tag - Day 2

Guten Tag - Day 2 

Day 2:
Jet lagged - woke up 10.30am! after getting ready, etc, we headed first to the Berlin Zoo. Didn't plan to spend too much of a time there but as always, we ended up half the day spent in the zoo. We keep comparing the zoo to the San Diego zoo but both have their own pros and cons. The Berlin Zoo needs more signs in English, we were clueless most of the time because most of the signs are in Deutch.

currywurst!

Die toilet, damit, die!

These are smart goats

The only signs in English (we noticed) are things they do not want us to do: for example: do not enter here, do not go there, do not do this. Calvin and myself tried to have fun and entertain ourselves by guessing the words in Deutch - at the end of the zoo trip, we pretty much figured out 'ausgang' = exit, eingang = entrance. Had lunch in the zoo's restaurant. It was pretty good, our very first currywurst and pommes (french fries)! and they even have a cacao drink.  We didn't leave the zoo until 5ish and the zoo is not too far from Tiergarten, we'd decided to drop by the Victory Column.

the tunnel to Victory Column - the lights sensor movements. Starfish Calvin!

Jugglers. When its red, they juggled and right before the light changes to green, they go around the cars for $. Pretty creative.

Victory Column

It was a short walk from the S-Bahn (or was it the U-bahn?). The Column is situated right in the middle of a roundabout, luckily they have an underground tunnel build just for pedestrians to head over safely. Paid the entrance fee and didn't realize until then that they do not have an elevator to head to the top of the Column. We hiked up few good flights of stairs - knees were shaky by the time we were done. Before hauling ourselves back to the hotel, we stopped by Harkescher Markt near the museums for dinner. The Berliners sure know how to cook good pork! I tried their Roast pork and Calvin decided German sausages would be a safe order and he was right. Both of us ordered Hefeweizen (I tried the alcohol frei- (free) one and he had a regular draft. It was good with the pork dishes. yum yum.

Hefeweizen and me!

GutenTag! Berlin

Day 1 of Guten Tag.

Finally! Packed and packed up to the very last day before getting on the plane and heading to a long awaited travel time with my better half - Berlin's our first stop and allergies are already kicking me in the face.

Our room

If you are claustrophobic, then AirBerlin is probably not for you! Seats are tight, (really, really tight) and the 12 hours plane ride from LA feels like a good 24 hours by the end of the ride. Surprise surprise, they served rice and chicken for the first meal onboard! We glanced around us and noticed most of the people around boarding the same flight layered with at least 2 pieces of sweaters/clothing. Oh crap, did we layered enough? Well, apparently, its in the 80sF here. sheshhh.

Corridor, claustrophobic! argh!

Didn't took us that long to get our backpacks. We landed 2pm-ish Berlin time and by 4pm we have already checked in. Public transport was manageable (if you survived the NYC metro, you can survive anywhere!) Even though I was mentally prepared for it, I was still surprised by the sizes of the room, bathroom, elevator (I was too pampered by the American sizing!).

View outside the room

Plenty of pubs/small cafes around here and after a simple kebab dinner, we checked out a pub right outside our hotel and tried their Berliner draft (3 euro per). Man, was that hoppy!

Berliner - hoppy draft!

Pub, it was still early when we went.

The time difference messed up our mealtime/sleeptime. We were both munching junk food and was 2am wide awake as I was writing this. Will update as we go, stay tune folks!

Aloha~

It's been a long time since I last updated the blog. Been extremely busy trying to finish a lot of work in time for the NAI international conference in Kona, Hawaii. Joined by Mike (who's also attending the conference), Kay and of course my better half (it's been what, 2 years since we last saw each other?), that trip was something I'll remember for a long long long time.

I tried to take as many photos as I can  there but between the conference and trying to grade papers, and of course, all that Kona coffee, a lot of photos turned out to be extremely shakey even with the help of the tripod. My canon remote control came just in time before my trip so I was testing that out for a lot of landscapes and portraits shots.

Arriving @ Kona International Airport! 5 hours in flight, I was counting down the minutes

This is on the site of a cafe in the big island. I love the lighting and of course after coffee, everything looks prettier.

I love the hidden turtle. If you ever been to Kona and look close enough on the small details here and there, you might spot a turtle or two in their designs.

A visit by these two guys are a great touch before heading home the next day.

During our day off, we took a trip to South Point, the southernmost point of the US of A.

The NAI international conference was held in the Sheraton - Keauhou bay, Kona, HI, and it is situated right next to a small harbor, and this shot was taken during one of our morning walks.

Kona, Kona. How can you not love Hawaii? People are warm and friendly, sea breeze plentiful and no matter where you are on the island (driving up the mountains, etc), you turn your head around and you can still catch a glimpse of the ocean.

Strong and Sturdy

The Sycamore, so strong, so sturdy and certain times of the year, extremely annoying (when leaves shed and clogged the ethnobotany pond every year). Over the short few years I'm here, I recalled countless unsatisfactory attempts on capturing the height, the strength of the sycamore but none stood out as much as these two. There's something about the branches reaching out from the trunk that reveals a different message to each person, to me, it brought back thoughts of the family.

My parents used to tell me, go far, venture out, don't stay back. I took their advice to heart and together with a lot of other problems, decided to leave the nest. The branches from this sycamore tells an important message: no matter how far you stretch out, you are still connected to that main trunk.

Parents: let go, wind and rain beat on the branches only made them stronger, you cannot hang on to them or shield them forever. Learn and let learn.
Yourself: Go far, yes, (if that's what you want) but remember no matter how far you stretch, be grateful for the love and support.

It's a topsy-turvy world