Time Management, part 2

And then I went to China. My brother, sister-in-law, and I made the trek to the middle kindgom in early April. We dropped in on our aunt and uncle in Hong Kong, got yelled at in a Beijing subway station, and cruised the Huangpu River in Shanghai.

Here are some of my observations:

• The bikes in China are old. The cars are relatively modern, so why are all the bikes rusty and old looking?
• Asian bakery pastries are so tasty. We went to one almost every day, sometimes twice a day.
• I'm terrible at bargaining (because I hate it so), but still ended up getting good deals.
• To get anywhere took a lot longer than we expected.
• Cars do not yield for pedestrians. Cross the street at your own risk!
• Pizza Huts are fancy.
• When we would finally work through language barrier issues with waiters and ticket counter agents — through a combination of Chinese, English and hand signals — it felt like a huge victory for mankind.



Hong Kong city shot.



On the street in Hong Kong.





Making our way up to the big buddha in Hong Kong.





Greetings from the Great Wall.





See?! Old bikes.

 



In Tiananmen Square -- out of all the places we visited, just milling around the square is what felt most like China to me.



An Asian bakery. My true love! They all look something like this.



Colorful shot of Shanghai. So sci-fi.

Time Management, part 1

Hello? As it turns out, time management has not been my strong suit during the first several months of this year. No matter. I'm here now to delight you with my lack of home improvement projects, pictures of Penny and miscellaneous news since my last post two months ago.

First up, in early March, my mom and I tagged along with my sister to San Francisco where she was attending a conference. While Lola learned defensive programming in Java (thrilling!), I marched my mom all over the city. I have a very purposeful stride. 

 I scored a half-off Segway deal on Yelp. At one point, my mom got stuck in the mud.

Lola, my mom, and me with a classic San Francisco backdrop.

You've all seen the Golden Gate Bridge, but this shot's not too bad, right?

Parting Thoughts on Iceland

Warning: Long post ahead. You can just scroll down to the pics if you like.

1. For those that suffered from the blues after watching Avatar, they need to go to Iceland. Eighty-five percent of the stuff on Pandora is there. 
2. Waterfalls are everywhere. 
3. It's a good starter place for someone who wants to put his/her toe into the waters of international travel.
4. You only have to do as much hiking as you want to do. For us, that was minimal.
5. Egils Gull beer (one of Iceland's home brews) tastes like Busch Light or Natural Light. Not so good.
6. We didn't need to have any Icelandic kronur on us. We could have made it through the entire trip with just credit cards.
7. To pay at the pump with a credit card, you need a PIN. 
8. I didn't feel self-conscious about not being able to speak the native language, because there's only about 320,000 people that speak Icelandic.

Strokkur Geyser

Waterfall and me -- refreshing!

Gray and overcast, just the way Iceland should be.

Sheep -- with crazy eyes

Mars

Blue Lagoon

Church in Reykjavik. The name begins with an H and is really long.

Around the Ring Road in Five Days

"Around the Ring Road in five days." A large part of the trip planning for Iceland involved me googling that phrase every other day. I needed validation (repeatedly) that it could be done. It turned out to be the perfect amount of time for us -- plus two nights in Reykjavik.

The Ring Road goes all a way around the island, connecting the major towns and sites. We went around counter-clockwise, staying at farmer's guesthouses, gaping at the sites and eating at N1 gas stations along the way.

Godafoss waterfall

Adding to a rock pile. Stacks of rocks are everywhere.

Jokulsarlon -- iceberg lagoon.

Basalt columns at Halsanefshellir.

Colorful Reykjavik!

Iceland

I'm back home again after a week in Iceland. It was a spectacular, surreal trip and perfect, I think, for anyone who likes planet Earth.

So, why Iceland? We have the Internet to thank for that. Particularly, this little video, originally spied here.




I'll post some pics soon!