Asia Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia) We were stuck between Russia and Mongolia for 8 hours with little to do, to pass the time. Luckily this small kid, called Kolya, kept us entertained for a decent period of time! Sukhbaatar was also the start of Asia in my opinion. As we left the train to use the toilet and buy some food, we received so many strange looks and stares.... something i found quite amusing and charming, although Julia was not so enthralle...

I have been asked by family and friends why I went to Azerbaijan and how in the world I got a job there. I also get a lot of questions of what it is like here. So, I will do my best to tell about my past and present here.

Kind of early in the trip for this, but I am experiencing a little "blog burnout." Today I vow not to ramble. This will be a short one. Really. In fact, I am even going to do bullet points. MORNING: up at 6:45 and parked myself at the computer. Blog, blog, blog.  It's like a job! :^) Steve focused on his obsession: tryng to download free TV from the US.  There is some block on doing this, so he is VPN-ing this and hacking that, but to no avail. MID MORNING BREAK: Walked through Osak...

We went to this pretty huge mall in Narita. It was nice and had lots of shops to go to and check out. Me and Kenji mostly just spent our time taking purikuras. Nothing much happened. ^^ I will just share these purikuras with you.

   After a final beer at O'Hearns Pub in Redondo Beach, I drove to the Budget rental car return near LAX. I boarded their shuttle to the airport and when I told the driver "China Airlines" a middle-aged business man gasped. "Wow, where are you going," he asked. I told him to Southeast Asia for the winter and he pointed at the gray daypack and said "with just that?!"  That comment certainly made my day. The rewards of being a 'Carry-On' guy were already kicking in before even ...

We are sadly leaving the wonderful, friendly, green area of Yangshou to return to busy, noisy, crowded Beijing.   We were in Yangshou so long the vendors recognised us and stopped to talk.   Several restaurants knew us and spoiled us when we came in.....  back to being annonomous...   sigh. ......    our departure airport is Beijing. so there is no getting around it.   We either have to leave or talk our three adult daughte...

Arriving in Hong KongI arrived in Hong Kong thinking that because it was recently a British territory, many people would speak English there. Wrong. After a long line through customs and collecting my luggage, I tried to get some advice on the best way to get to my hostel. I asked three different airport employees and in the end, I ended taking an expensive and long taxi ride to Causeway Bay.When I got to the hostel, I couldn't find it. I saw a young backpacker type and thought I had to ...

Our first day ont he boat was very relaxing.  We hung out in the sun, read our books, played ping pong, and explored the boat a bit.  Tonight was formal night so I wore my suit and we had our picture taken by the ship photographers.  If it's a good shot I'm sure we'll get it and I'll try and post it.  For dinner I tried Salmon rowe (fish eggs) which was suprisingly good.  A bit salty.  The rest of dinner was great too.  Lobster bisque, a salad, and veal farf...

CEBU CITY FEB 07 It all started with a text message.  My friend Eric Lim from Sykes texted me one afternoon and asked if I was interested to go to Sumilon Island with him and his schoolmates from Xavier U(Ateneo de Cagayan de Oro). I had no idea where Sumilon was so I was hesitant to say yes to Eric, but since I didn't have any weekend errands that time, I decided to agree. On Friday afternoon, I met Eric, Debbie, and Sicily at Bo's Coffee Shop at...

Today we are leaving Kyoto for Tokyo on the Nozomi bullet train. Kevin is flying home while I continue to Taiwan!Since our hotel in Kyoto is right above the train station, it was a short walk to the platform. We took the fast Nozomi bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo, with very few stops. In the bullet trains, you can feel the train banking when it makes a long curved turn, pretty neat! At Tokyo station, we got on the Narita airport express to go to the airport. We were plenty early for our fli...

I return to Hong Kong from Macau completely drained. Everything in Macau is screaming for your attention, and after thirty hours of madness, it's good to be back in the 'sanity' of Hong Kong - and it's seven million inhabitants. Also; thank heaven for the MTR. There's nothing better than to arrive back and have a metro to your bed waiting for you. Even if you miss it, you know you'll only have to wait two minutes, tops. It's a great system, and everything's a breeze with your Octopus card. Yo...

We arrived the island around 9:30 in the morning and from the ferry we transfered to an open air bus for the guided tour. From http://www.corregidorisland.com/ Corregidor is a small rocky island in the Philippines about 48 kilometers west of Manila which is stragetically located at the entrance of Manila Bay. This island fortress stands as a memorial for the courage, valor, and heroism of its Filipino and American defenders who bravely held their ground against the overwhelming number of i...

My arrival was great, landing couldn't have been better, the service was phenominal ... but since they delayed us by 4 hrs, I only landed at the Airport at 3:15am ... though I left on Dec. 25th, I landed it was Dec. 27th, I lost a day in space ... I travelled forward in time LOL The taxi driver took me for a ride ... the total came to about 250, but he said (with little english he had) that they double that if late in the evenings ... not knowing the bluff he was calling, and wanting to sli...

Heute war ein ereignisreicher Tag. Wir vier (Wieder der Peruaner, Engländer, Schwede und ich) wollten zu einem weiteren Nationalpark (Tuv Aimag) fahren, wo es Ruinen eines budhistischen Klosters zu sehen gibt. Das Hostel hätte uns Auto und Chauffeur für 50 USD zur Verfügung gestellt, wir haben aber gemeint, mit Taxi wäre es billiger. War es schlußendlich auch und hat uns zu einem seltsamen Erlebnis verholfen. Wir haben mit dem Taxifahrer einen Preis von 20000 Tukrit, etwa 15 EUR, ausgeh...

Today myself and Kenton, my American roommate from San Fancisco trekked back up to the restored part of the Great Wall of China to take a few photos in the sun before heading back to pack and shower. We checked out of our guest house and boarded the bus back to Beijing. By the time we reached Beijing the temperature was 37 degrees and we were all wilting in the sun, we sheltered in the air conditioned supermarket and grabbed some food for our twelve hour train journey to Xi'an. Faces ...