Two weeks in Scotland

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We spent (almost) two weeks driving around in Scotland. I’d never been before so I was looking forward to seeing a new English speaking country! We stopped in London to celebrate a friend’s graduation there then took the train to Edinburgh.

As soon as we got into Edinburgh, we stopped for lunch at Makars Mash where I tried haggis for the first time. We walked some of the Royal Mile and peeked into St. Giles before finding our hotel.

The next day we picked up the car and drove to Aviemore. Driving on the left of course. Well, when there was a ‘left’- a lot of driving we did was on single lane roads with small areas to pull over let others by. Our first hike was to Loch Uaine, where the water is green because pixies wash their clothes in it. At the time, we didn’t realize how unique this would be in Scotland- all the other lochs we saw had very dark brown water. We also stopped by standing stones in a neighborhood in town. Later, we went to Blair castle. They had original tapestries depicting scenes from Don Quixote.

We headed to Tigh Na Bruach where we stayed two nights in a lovely BnB. This was on Loch Ness, where did a couple short hikes and a cruise where we saw a Highland cow or two from the boat. We also had lunch by the locks.

On our way around the west coast, we stopped at Inverewe Gardens which were pretty amazing. They said that because of the jetstream and nearby mountains, they were able to grow a number of more tropical plants. We stopped at Eilean Donan castle too, which has been in a number of movies.

We stopped at Culloden before spending a few days on Isle of Skye. Culloden was a battlefield that marked a major turning point in the history of the Scottish Highlands. The visitor center there had a well laid out explanation of the event leading up to battle. While we were there, they had a demonstration showing to to prepare and wear traditional scottish plaid (full plaid or belted plaid).

While on Skye Island, we did a little more hiking. We went up to Quiraing but the weather turned more foggy and had to turn back before being able to see all the rock formations there. The trail here was a bit difficult, climbing over rocks and water sources. I was able to see ‘the prison’ before the clouds came down and covered it up. The faerie pools was a less technical hike than Quiraing but the gravel path was rather steep.

We left Skye for Oban and stopped by Glen Nevis to hike to Steall falls. On the way we stopped and had sandwiches at a charity run farm that taught gardening to local school children.

From Oban, we’d planned to take a boat to Mull and Iona but it was cancelled due to high waves. We’d taken the ferry over already so we picked up the bus to Tobermory. The next night we spent in a lovely cottage on the edge of a farm. We also saw Stirling castle and the Kelpies before heading back to Edinburgh to return the car.

A week in Singapore

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The last week of our trip we spent in Singapore. It was fantastic. Singapore is a beautiful city with interesting architecture and gardens all over. We stayed at the Marriott South Beach and the hotel was pretty good but we probably wouldn’t choose to stay here on a future trip.

We took a big bus tour to get an overview of the city. I have pretty low expectations from these tours but included with our ticket was a night tour- and the night tour was pretty good. It took us to the bay to watch kite flyers, we had some street food and found a spot to watch the light show at Gardens by the Bay.

We spent a few days exploring Gardens by the Bay. It’s an amazing park full (botanical garden?) of flowers and trees of all kinds. They have a couple of huge greenhouses, the Flower dome and the Cloud forest. The Flower dome was full of live flowers in artistic arrangements. The Cloud canopy was a replication of tropical highlands and the flora you’d find as you rose in elevation complete with fog and waterfalls. They had an Avatar attraction during our visit and there were statues of flora and fauna from the movie scattered around. We also spent a lot of time in the Orchid house which was also a fantastic garden. In the middle of the park they built these ‘supertrees’ which roughly resembled trees with solar panels. Based around the trees is the nightly light show which we viewed during our visit here and also during the night tour.

We also went to the zoo for the River Wonders and Night Safari. River Wonders is a part of the zoo dedicated to rivers of the world and many of the critters found near them. We saw manatees (for the first time) as well as a lot of other interesting wetlands animals. They have a pretty nice boat ride that takes you through a number of exhibits (that you can ride multiple times). They also have pandas and red pandas. The Night Safari was also pretty great. The animal enclosures have very minimal fencing, so it feels like there are few obstructions between you and the exhibits. There were even a few animal enclosures you could walk through like the bat exhibit with the Malayan Flying Fox with a wingspan of around 5 feet.

Another place we went to was Haw Par villa. This park was basically a precursor to theme parks with dioramas and statues depicting scenes from Chinese mythology, folklore, legends, and history. We stopped at Maxwell center for chicken and rice in a clay pot from a michelin listed food stall. Naturally, a stop at Raffles hotel for a Singapore Sling was also a necessity.

Overall, Singapore was a wonderful city to visit and we would love to go back someday.

Two weeks in Thailand

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Jenn and I spent a month in Asia. A week in Cambodia, two in Thailand and a week in Singapore. This post is about the time we spent in Thailand.

We landed in Bangkok and stayed at the Chatrium hotel riverside. It was a pretty nice place. We were on the 19th floor and could see out over the river and the city. I got a haircut at the closest barber shop to the hotel and they wanted a selfie with me. The best thing we did in Bangkok was the Michelin guide street food tour. We had some amazing dishes and went into the kitchen (or the alley, in the first case) to see them being prepared. I highly recommend doing something like this if you get the chance.

We went to Wat Pho to see one of the largest reclining Buddha sculptures in Thailand. There were also a number of temples and a lot of other Buddhas.

Our next destination was Haad Tien Beach resort in Koh Tao, where we had a fantastic suite overlooking the ocean with a private pool. The rest of the resort was so-so. I had wanted snorkeling right off the beach at our snorkel destinations and the snorkeling off the beach at Haad Tien was poor. We had low visibility and extreme reef damage. You could tell there used to be a lot of coral, but not now. We did see a giant sea turtle though. The staff at the resort told us there wasn’t any snorkeling at the nearby Shark Island so we didn’t visit it right away. We joined a large boat snorkel tour that motivated us to find a private operator. With the private boat we saw better sites (including Shark Island, which was pretty good). Overall, I was a little disappointed with the snorkeling in Thailand- I think my expectations were much too high. The internet would have you believe it’s a great place to see Whale Sharks. However, asking locally turned up no operators that offered a trip with any expectation of finding one.

We moved on to Khao Lak where we stayed at the JW Marriott. This was our nicest hotel of the trip. There was a pool right outside our room (the longest in Southeast Asia!) that we could use to swim all over the resort, and they had a coconut boat that offered icy coconuts to drink. They even had fire dancers perform one evening on the beach. We visited Phang Nga Bay by long tail boat and kayaked through small sea caves and saw James Bond Island (The Man with the Golden Gun). On the way back we stopped at a floating village and we also hand fed monkeys.

We caught a snorkel trip to the Similan Islands. Sadly, this was a long boat ride for a couple of short snorkel stops. The islands were beautiful and we had decent snorkel experience, but it was a long day of travel for what was really only a short time in the water.

Once back in Phuket, we visited the Elephant sanctuary. We enjoyed this but had hoped for more interaction with the elephants, or even to have been in closer proximity. I think we drew the short straw on the tour that morning, as our group had many very young children which slowed our group a great deal. Other groups on the tour were in the park’s grounds while we stayed mostly on the skywalk, avoiding the elephants.

On our last day, on the way to the airport we did a bit of a city tour in Phuket. We visited a viewpoint (that we’d been to the night before) and the Big Buddha.

Thailand was great, but I felt two weeks was a little long even spending so many days snorkeling. Maybe if we’d had better luck in the water I would have wanted to stay longer. In hindsight, we could have stayed a couple more days in Siem Reap and a few less in Thailand. This was also my first time staying at a mega resort like the one in Khao Lak. They had everything, and it seemed like you could just arrive one day and plan a week of activities out of their planning book. That could have been low stress and very convenient. They also had the most comfortable bed of the whole trip. I really enjoyed our stay here.

A week in Cambodia

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Jenn and I just spent a month in Asia. We haven’t planned a trip of this length for a very, very long time. We used a travel agent VIVE to help plan the trip and it went pretty well. Our first week was in Combodia. After visiting Mayan temples, Angkor Wat joined the list of ancient places to visit. We stayed in Siem Reap at a lovely hotel, Shinta Mani. Our guide for the week, Bun, was very knowledgeable and incredibly helpful.

On to the Temples! Most of our time in Cambodia was spent at Angkor Wat and the nearby temples. The temples here were built generally between 800 and 1200 AD. I was a little surprised to learn that some had been built so ‘recently’. Many include what I would consider modern bricks in their construction (versus the large stone blocks seen in older construction). While the newer temples are Buddhist, the older ones are Hindu (and many of these have been converted- there have been Buddha statues added to many of the temples). They are covered in intricate carvings, and (maybe) kilometers of carved walls depicting stories from the Khmer Empire.

We also did a few cultural activities. We rode an ox cart into town one day and visited a local market. I got the feeling no one else rides an ox cart but the local market was very interesting. Our guide told us everyone was yelling out (in a local language) “the tourists are coming”. We had soup for breakfast at the market where our guide said this was his most common breakfast. We had sticky rice from a roadside vendor. We took a boat to Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Cambodia that in the rainy season can grow 4 times it’s size. Near the river the houses are on stilts because the water level change is so dramatic. On the lake itself are floating houses and villages.

I feel like we could have used a few more days in Siem Reap. We really enjoyed Cambodia and would love to go back some day. The people were really nice, the food was very good and we had a great time.

A week in Iceland

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Jenn and I spent a week in Iceland for her birthday. Since we haven’t gone on any major trips in the past two years, we were a bit out of practice even in the planning stage. We booked a guided tour from nordic visitor. The tour was decent but the weather didn’t fully cooperate.

We arrived in Reykjavik and did the FlyOver iceland experience. This was great! It’s an indoor movie/ride similar to something we’ve done at Europa Park. It’s sort of like a roller coaster in an IMAX theater but the seats move in 3 dimensions rather than riding on a track. The movie that plays for the ride was spectacular and showed off different environs in Iceland. Naturally, we checked out the grocery store. Prices are a little higher than Switzerland (particularly for anything imported).

The next morning our planned whale watching trip was cancelled so we wandered the streets of Reykjavik and met the yule cat. Apparently, if you do not receive any clothing for Christmas the cat eats you. We headed to the towering Lutheran church for a view over the city.

All morning, Jenn was putting in calls to get us on an afternoon whale watching trip. She managed to get us seats an a 3 hour tour. The weather started getting rough…. and they gave us sea sickness tablets. In any case, we saw some sea life and I managed to get a few pictures.

The following day our guided tour began and we drove a few hours to a black sand beach in southern Iceland. Iceland is an island composed of lava fields so vegetation is primarily mosses. The basalt columns on the beach were neat. There were warning signs for strong currents and unexpected waves around the beach. Several people distracted by personal videography got wet.

We were supposed to hike a glacier and an ice cave the next day but high winds caused road closures. I was pretty bummed as the ice cave was one of the major highlights for me. Instead, we visited several lovely but forgettable waterfalls. That evening we stayed at Magma Hotel out in the country and had a fairly clear night for viewing the northern lights. The forecast was weak for lights but we did spot a green glow in the sky. The following few nights had stronger lights but were cloudy, so this was the only night we actually spotted anything. The rainbow clouds really looked that way.

We also went to a glacier lagoon and diamond beach. The glacier lagoon is filled with icebergs sheared from the glacier. They float out to sea and some get beached nearby. The clear ice glistens, reminiscent of diamonds.

We left Magma and headed back to Reykjavik. On the way, we stopped by Geysir (the original geyser) and a few more waterfalls. We also saw the North Atlantic ridge and walked between the continental plates.

On our last day we went to Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa. The spa/pool is rather large, and water is piped from deep in the earth. The water is a seawater/freshwater mix that is cloudy with mineral deposits. And it’s quite warm!

Overall, I enjoyed our trip to Iceland. We booked a 5 day tour and I think there was enough to do that we could have used two more days- or a day or two free to make up for bad weather. I hadn’t anticipated losing important parts of the itinerary due to weather and that was me being uninformed. Still, I’m disappointed to not have had a better aurora viewing and missing the glacier and ice cave was sad, too. It’s a small country so a trip much longer than a week might be hard to fill without a great deal of driving time. I think we’ll try a different country (and timing) for our next northern lights trips. (hello finland 2025)

Half a week in Handegg

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We spent a few days at Hotel and Naturresort Handeck in Handegg. It was a great little trip. We were up in the mountain a little bit, right next to the Gelmerbahn. The Gelmerbahn is an old funicular they used when they were building the dam at Gelmersee. It is the steepest funicular in Europe. (every funicular is the something-est) It was super steep though it’s hard to tell form the pictures. (I forgot my camera this trip!)

We did two different power plant tours in the region. There is an extensive underground network of pipes that connects water from dams and lakes in the mountains to a couple of power plants and other lower elevation lakes. They even sometimes pump water back up to the higher elevation lakes when they needs to bleed power off the grid. The first tour was of the oldest power station with vertical generators. The second used horizontal generators and also showcased a 14 meter cave of quartz crystals. The second tour actually put us in a van and we drove to different location in the underground power plant. It’s insane how big these stations are, all underground. There is 160 km of underground piping/tunnels for water flow to and from the dams. Probably what I found the most interesting is that they build their generators by hand on site. During the tour we happened to walk past a couple workers mixing ceramic for the insulator caps. There’s also a tiny battery powered train they can use to reach the higher station during winter when the roads are snowed out.

There were also some nice hikes from our hotel. Both that we did were fairly short but after sitting at home for a year during the pandemic, I think we were all a bit out of shape and wouldn’t have wanted to hike much longer than we did!

We had a great time and I would definitely consider going back. We had really excellent food at the hotel and we barely touched on the great amenities. They have a small heated pool, a hot tub, sauna and they even let you use their electric car for the day.

A week in Grindelwald

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Mid August we spent a week in Grindelwald. It’s a lovely little town with cable cars that go to the nearby mountains of Männlichen, Pfingstegg, and First. We had a nice Airbnb not far from the Terminal station. Though the hill the Airbnb was on was brutal- by the third day, Walnut would do his business in the driveway, not wanting to traverse the hill to the garbage can.

From the patio of our Airbnb

Naturally, we visited Gletcherschlucht. This is river of glacier water running from the Eiger. We’ve visited a number of these in Switzerland. It’s very cool so it’s a wonderful visit on a hot day. This one was unique in that it had a number of activities including a giant swing and a net you could walk on over the river.

We took the cable car up to Männlichen and hiked the Panoramaweg to Kleine Scheidegg. Though we’ve done this hike before, it’s one of Jenn’s favorites. It’s a great hike with awesome views and a wide path. Of course, there’s always the chance to meet livestock and a cow wanted to figure out what Walnut was.

We also visited First and hiked to Bachalpsee. This was supposed to be an easy hike but by the time we actually went up here, we were a little wore out from the other hiking we had done this week. The hills on the way to Bachalpsee were a little rough on us.

On our last day we went back to Pfingstegg to ride the Rodelbahn and the Luftseilbahn. if you go to the area, definitely do this! I would recommend buying the 3 hour package ticket. The ticket includes the cable car and as much Rodelbahn and Luftseilbahn you can do in 3 hours. At the time, it was 96chf and we bought a 6 ride Rodelbahn and 2 rides Luftseilbahn with the cable car (with our halbtax card!) for 84chf. We’d never experienced the Luftseilbahn and it was awesome. It’s a bit like a zip line but you sit in the harness and it hangs from a monorail system they’ve suspended from the trees. As we came to the Luftseilbahn, I asked the people on their way out if it was everything they’d hoped and they replied, “Yes, it’s like you’re a little elf flying through the forest.”
I thought it was a pretty good description. I definitely could have done that a few more times. It made for an excellent last day of our trip.

St. Gallen, Unterterzen and a little bit of Liechtenstein

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We spent a week in St. Gallen- half in Unterterzen near Flumserberg, and the second half in St. Gallen proper. Flumserberg was fantastic. I feel like I run out of words to use to describe the natural beauty in Switzerland. In my daily life, I just say it’s very Swiss. We go to these lovely mountains with amazing views, brilliant flowers, burbling waterfalls and great trails all over Switzerland and it becomes hard to describe one in a different way than another. So far, every one we’ve been to has been incredible. And I’ve probably said that before.

While in Unterterzen, we stayed in the Marina hotel. The room was a touch small (also known as normal for Switzerland) but we had a great rooftop patio. The hotel restaurant was practically the only one in town- thankfully the food was pretty good. We did some hiking in Flumserberg. There was a an alpine floral trail and a seismic trail highlighting the Glarus Thrust. The hotel was right on the lake, and had we more time (and warmer weather) we would have been swimming.

We visited a couple castles in Liechtenstein, including the Prince’s castle. We couldn’t enter any. We also went to the abbey in St. Gallen and saw their amazing library. No pictures allowed, but it was fantastic. I’m told it’s in the top ten most beautiful libraries in the world. Cause I guess that’s a real list somewhere.

JnR’s trip to Athens, Greece

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We spent Christmas week in Athens, Greece with a friend of Jenn’s. It was amazing! Athens and Greece overall, was awesome. For better or worse, we were nearly always surrounded by really incredible food.

On our first day after arriving in Athens, we visited the Acropolis. We hired a guide on site and spent two hours learning about the ancient Greeks. Our guide was super knowledgeable and extremely talkative but sadly I had a lot of trouble understanding her accent. The Acropolis complex was very large and overlooked the sizable Agora.

Later that day, we watched the changing of the guard which is a special event on Sunday.

The next day, we hired a car with a guide to take us on a full day Argolis tour. It was fantastic! Our guide, Aver, and our driver Costas were very knowledgeable and made for a great day. We first stopped at the Corinthian canal before continuing on to Ancient Corinth and the citadel of Mycenae. We then went to Nafplion for lunch. Afterwards, we headed to Epidaurus before heading back to Athens. Apparently, the Mycenians had regular trade with Egyptians and in the citadel one of the royals found buried had Egyptian artifacts with them.

We went to the Acropolis Museum the following day. It’s a lovely museum with many different artifacts though mostly it’s filled with sculpture (pieces) from the Parthenon. Since the Parthenon was virtually blown up by the Venetians in the 17th century, leaving almost nothing of the beautiful pediments surrounding the building. The museum was built over neighborhoods of ancient Athens and some of it is excavated.

Our friends took us to Cape Sounio to see the Temple of Athena there, though it was closed (day after Christmas; we knew it was closed). The cape was beautiful and we stopped for lunch at Xristoforos on the way back.

The next day we went with HP again for a full day tour to Delphi. We had a private guide for the museum and the ruins at Delphi. This city was incredibly rich due to offerings given to the oracles. Again we see pieces with Egyptian influence on Ancient Greek art. Some of the statues are really lifelike. It was amazing to see just how skilled they became as sculptors (and architects, and city planners, and….) In ancient Delphi, there was a bronze statue The Serpentine Column- today we saw a reconstruction- that was later moved to Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324; that Jenn and I saw on our trip to Istanbul! I recognized and was a little blown away.

At the National Archeological Museum, we saw pieces from all over. They had a significant section dedicated to the artifacts from Mycenae and that fleshed out the picture in my mind from our visit to the citadel early in our trip. In this museum it was easy to follow Greek art chronologically and it was cool to see it’s evolution. I was surprised to see so many depictions of octopi and lions. The last thing we saw at the museum was the Antikythera Mechanism. It was a complex mechanism generally referred to as the first analogue computer. It could show phases of the moon, positions of the planets in the sky and more. It just really shows how advanced the Greeks were.

On our last evening we went to Don Carlos at the new opera house in Athens. The performance space was fantastic and I even enjoyed the opera very much. Normally Im not a fan but the screen for the subtitles was in the back of the chair ahead of me, a bit like the screen in an airplane. It was a great design and a beautiful opera house. If I lived in Athens, I have no doubt I’d be there a lot!

I loved Greece and I’m really looking forward to a return trip. The food was amazing everywhere and the country has so much colorful history that I’d really like to go back and see more, especially the Peloponnese Peninsula.

Spectacular South Africa!

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Jenn and I went to South Africa for the last week or two of November. Jenn had a work conference in Cape Town so I followed her a few days later. The trip was absolutely incredible!

Cape Town is a large city, not unlike many others we’ve seen. There is quite a bit of beautiful old Dutch architecture alongside more modern skyscrapers. Naturally, one can see a large income disparity in the city, with parts being beautiful and clean and other areas pretty sketchy- not so different from Chicago or any other large, bustling city.

On my first morning in the city, I walked to the V&A Waterfront. It’s a lovely part of the city along the docks. I’d guess it’s pretty new and wealthy part of town. The aquarium is here, along with a massive ship repair yard. The Watershed Market has many merchants with handmade goods. Later in the day, Jenn and I took a ‘Three Bays tour’ helicopter ride from the Waterfront. This took us south past Hout Bay and back north behind Table Mountain.

The next day we took the cable car up Table Mountain. We were lucky to visit on the only clear day we were in Cape Town. We also stopped by Signal Hill to hear the noon gun (canon firing at noon) before passing through the Bo Kaap neighborhood, known for it’s colorful houses. For dinner, we went to Gold Restaurant and enjoyed a fantastic dinner comprised of dishes from many different countries in Africa. They also performed traditional dances and sang during the meal. It was a really neat experience.

On Saturday we did a driving tour to the Cape of Good Hope and Hout Bay. We managed to see baboons not far from the cape! After the cape, we went to see an African Penguin colony.

The following day we spent at Kirstenbosch gardens. The botanical gardens were incredible. There were so many different types of flowers and trees (and even birds!). I never remember in the planning stages of our trips how much I enjoy botanical gardens. Thankfully Jenn makes sure we see them. Near Kirstenbosch was a Sunday market in which we spent a few hours browsing.

Monday, we headed to Hermanus for whale watching. Sadly, the weather was against us and none of the boats went out. We walked along the shore at Hermanus for a bit, before heading to another penguin colony and Monkey Town (where a monkey stole Jenn’s phone!) before heading back to Cape Town.

On Thursday, we left Cape Town and flew to Kruger National Park for our Safari. We were very excited as we’d not yet experienced a Safari. It was everything we could have hoped for. The lodge we stayed at, Klaserei Sands, was amazing- the accommodations were great, the food was incredible and our Tracker and Ranger were a fantastic team that lead us to every animal we’d hoped to see and much, much more. Over the next four days we were able to see a dizzying array of animals including Elephant, Giraffe, Kudu, Impala, Wildebeast, Buffalo, Hyena, Zebra, Spitting Cobra, Lion, Leopard, Painted Dogs, Hippo, Rhino, Duiker, Cheetah and more, as well as countless different birds.

It was an amazing trip! We would love to go back some day.