Frankfurt, Germany

The most recent work trip I took was to Frankfurt, Germany to a customer site there.  Frankfurt is a really interesting place but I only had a little bit of time outside of work to be able to do a few different things.  One of the places that I went was to the Römer, which is the Old City Hall.  This was a recommendation from the always awesome Marvin Marcos.  When I first walked up the buildings looked pretty old school, compared to most of the modern type of buildings that were on my walk there:

When I actually got into the square it was definitely pretty cool.  The buildings and atmosphere was very bohemian:

 I had a beer and dinner while I was here, and then explored a little bit more before it was dark and I went back to my hotel.

Based on the little exploration I was able to do while I was there, I would definitely go back to Germany on an actual vacation with Audrey.  There is so much history there that it really makes you think.  I think that it may be one of our next Europe destinations, as I can't say I was able to cover everything I wanted to see while I was there, shoved in an office for 9hrs a day.  :)

First thing is first however,  Honeymoon next year for 30 days in Africa, next March!  South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.  I totally will be blogging the experience as we go.

Singapore, Singapore, Singapore... (Part 2)

I was meaning to update this much before now, but I got busy with other work.  The week in Singapore was an absolutely awesome experience as one might expect.  Sadly most of it was spent actually doing work and not tourist stuff, had very little time to do this type of thing.  But did have a chance to do a few things.  What was funny is that it wasn't until Tuesday night that I realized that literally we had not been outside of the hotel complex for three days.  The hotel you see was connected to the mall and conference center.  So yes...a typical work trip.  :)

Anyways, here are A bunch of pictures are below from my favourite non work things are in this final Singapore post for this trip.

When I first got there, the view from my room was absolutely stunning:

The view was of a garden, and the towers were there supporting wires for all the flowers to grow on.  There was also an edge walk which looked interesting, but i never had time to go on:

As I mentioned before, the hotel was amazing, here are a couple of pictures of it as well:

There was also a multitude of different  things to eat and drink in the hotel, and outside it as well. One of the fun ones that we saw was a super hero caffe, which had the most interesting coffees:

By far one of the coolest things however, was actually a feature of the hotel.  It was the infinity pool at the top of the hotel in the "boat" from the pictures above.   One of the largest in the world and spanned the entire length of the boat.  We went there most mornings before first light to be able to get a big of exercise in.  Other than the fact that it was super smoggy due to forest fires in Indonesia the views were also pretty awesome.

 Finally on the night I left i snapped some pictures of the night lights, which were pretty amazing.  Can't see them super well in this photo, but definitely this is an amazing city.

Among the fun things I went out to Korean BBQ with some of my friends there, had dinner at the outdoor  Asian food street, and had drinks at a few places as well.  I highly recommend trying any of the skewers with the peanut sauce, so amazingly good.

Anyways, another fun trip to Singapore on the books.  I also recently took a trip to Germany that I will probably do a blog about. Other than that, our honeymoon to Africa is coming up, so I fully expect that I will be doing a daily blog with the amazing things we do there. 

Singapore, Singapore, Singapore... (Part 1)

As I write this, I am actually en-route to Singapore almost over the north pole at 33 thousand feet, 5hrs of 15, into my second of three flights.  This is not my first time there, it is actually my third. It is however the first time that I have had internet for almost all of the time while in the air, minus about 45mins when we are directly over the north pole.  It looks like airlines are FINALLY getting the hint that this internet thing is not the Devil....or is it....I suppose we will never know...

(I seriously found that on my first search....it was like the third pic)

But I digress....I suppose I am a little cranky that people are not more considerate, reclining their seat the whole flight, even during meals, and taking seriously like 25mins in the bathroom (not that I was going anywhere).

Back to Singapore.  I am going there to a work function where I will be interacting with folks from all over the standard APJ region for most companies.  Talking about the new vSphere 6 features and functions as I have done several times before this.  It is always interesting to get to see the different opinions from around the world.

The first time I was over here was right when the Singapore Grand Prix, was on, and they had the road in front of the hotel blocked off as it was part of the race track.  Let me tell you, trying to get around was severely limited.  We were at a Mandarin Hotel which was absolutely stunning.  They had wild birds that were put out every morning in the lobby to have some awesome sounds every morning.  

This time we are staying at the Marina Bay Sands.  It is really a staple of Singapore...and I have wanted to stay there every time we have gone...but it just doesn't work out...as our office is too far away. Our conference is actually AT this hotel though so I get to stay:

Yes it is a boat on the top....pretty cool even though i am not sure that it is real.  I am always amazed at Singapore, as there is such an intermixing of cultures and people.  The food is an interesting mix of different cultures.  By the numbers, it's roughly 74% Chinese, 13% ethnic Malay, 9% Indian, and 3% Eurasian. So I definitely can't wait to get some good eats. 

This is of course not to mention the Singapore Sling a pretty interesting cocktail made famous from the Raffles Hotel, a really really cool hotel that I have gone each time to have some drinks at:

Hotel is really cool looking too:

I will post pics and stuff as the week goes on.  I am also looking forward to seeing some friends that my wife and I met on our travels down in South America.  Random meeting, but we always get together for a meal and a drink whenever we can. Should be an amazing week, I can't wait for it! Sadly this post has only taken up 30 minutes of my remaining time. 

Airline Status - the best part about being a frequent traveller

This year I have not been travelling as much, as previous years, if you had not seen that from my lack of checking in fun places. That being said, I was recently asked again about what I thought about frequent flyer statuses. This comes up now and again, as many people don't actually collect them or know what they actually are. I started writing this on my way to Boston after hearing people complain about being in group 5 to board the plane.

Let me start by saying that I didn't even collect them when I started to travel. I had heard of the programs but didn't bother investigating. This is a fools move.

If you are not collecting them...you definitely should be.  Even if you don't frequently fly (a couple of times a year only) they are still amazing to have.  You can also collect miles from other places or from your credit card and they can be used for various things....I highly recommend saving them for travel on your airline of choice. But more on that a little later.  Before we get into it it helps to understand the basics. 

The Basics

Frequent flier programs are offered by every airline that I have ever been on.  Basically they are a running total of the distance travelled in that particular year.  Most airlines grant status based on accumulation from the previous year.  Accumulation is generally taken in two methods:

• Qualifying Miles - The number of miles flown. There are some stuff to note here that can affect this, such as the type of fare.
• Qualifying Segments - The number of flights taken, each round trip equals 2 segments.  This is a thing because many people take large number of flights but those flights aren't long.  

Once you meet the threshold for the number of miles or segments, you usually get some kind of perks with that airline. Of course, it sometimes can get a bit tricky because the reduced cost and popularity of flying in the last 15 years.  In addition, credit cards often grant miles so although they count towards some statuses, it doesn't count as qualifying.  

Airlines can also get a little shady when it comes to the number of miles received for a flight. To receive status they take into account the fare type, and also things such as making sure that you have a certain number of miles flown under their banner.  For example on Air Canada they have three economy fares, Tango, Flex, and Latitude.  If you fly a Tango fare, you only get half the miles. Sadly this is almost always the lowest cost fare.  On the other side, if you book a latitude or Business/first class flight you get 150% of the miles.  This of course costs way more and is most of the time out of budget.

Alliances

In addition to the individual programs, there have been alliances formed amongst airlines. You probably have seen them when waiting for a flight and not known about it...the two big ones are Star Alliance, and OneWorld. 

 

This not only helps with the perks but benefits as well, because you get credit for flying on a group of airlines rather than your primary.  For example, I fly on Air Canada primarily and if I take a United Airlines flight, I still get miles for that flight.  They also benefit you with the fact that you can get status with the group as well.  When you reach a certain level on a Star Alliance airline Silver/Gold is granted. This will generally get you some perks when flying on any airline in the group. Again, I normally fly Air Canada, but if I am travelling Singapore Airlines, it allows for some privileges even though it is not my primary airline.  This is great, for example, when you are in a foreign place and can get into one of the member airline lounges to relax or for a long connection.

Perks

So now that there is a basic understanding of what they are.  The question becomes, what does this all mean?  Well, it means, the more that you fly the more perks you get with the airline.  To be perfectly honest, many of them are useless.  But the ones that are my favourite and also very useful, are the following (some may or may not be available depending on status level):

• Priority Boarding - Being able to go on as Group 1 or 2, rather than Group 5, is a saviour more times than you would imagine. You can actually get overhead space for your carry-on luggage..if you don't have checked luggage it is a must.
• Priority Counters - despite the convenience of travelling from a big airport like Pearson in Toronto, if they are having a bad day, you can very easily be screwed by an hour + lineup for checking a bag or getting your ticket.  With status, you get the priority counters which I never have seen a line-up at, which gets you through in short order, even when the regular line is horrible.
• Priority Security Clearance - In many airports they also have priority lines for security. This gets you ahead of most of the crazy lines that can be there. It does not however get you through customs.  So you still have to take that time into account. I highly recommend using a program such as Nexus / Global Entry to reduce the time here.  They are amazing....specially when the lines are long for customs and it takes you two minutes to get through.  
• Priority Luggage - Along with the priority counter, if you happen to be checking luggage you get a little orange tag on it.  Thus your luggage will come out first.  This can save a TON of time.  Sometimes it doesn't go through as it should, but it generally is great.
• Lounges - I already mentioned them before but the lounges have a comfortable area for you to sit if you have a layover or arrive early.  They also generally have free drinks ( in Pearson they also have free alcohol) as well as food.  Some even have buffets, showers, etc etc.  It can be just what is needed without spending a crazy amount of money.   

There are of course way more but in the end I would gladly pay for this type of stuff....although i am glad that you can't other than by purchasing flights.

Upgrades

The other main thing that you get is credits / miles that you can use to upgrade Economy class fares to Business/First class.  With Air Canada, they are called e-upgrade credits.  Depending on the distance of the flight, as well as your status, determines the number of credits you get.

I can't tell you how amazing it is to be able to get a lay flat seat for an 8, 10 or even 15hr flight. These seats although amazing are in my opinion are not worth the 5 or more thousand dollar difference in ticket cost.  I just checked, and a standard flight to San Francisco a month from now is $393 round trip.  Not bad right?  Well that same 5hr flight is $3469 in business class.  Sure, you get a meal, and free drinks, and more space...but really It is not worth the $3000 extra dollars.  This goes up much more as you start to get on longer flights.

Don't get me wrong here, I like it and generally use my points as soon as I can, but the difference in cost is just crazy.

Using Miles

The final thing I will mention is all about using miles.  Once you have accumulated miles, you can go to the Aeroplan Website (or other website for other airlines), and use the miles.

You can buy anything from travel to merchandise, gift cards, etc.   I generally only use them for actual flights.  Now that being said, like most travel rewards, you still need to pay the tax.  Here in lies the problem...if you buy an economy class ticket with your miles, it is moderate.  If you buy that fancy business class ticket....well you sill have to pay tax on the much higher price.

In addition, if you try to use the miles to do a single leg of the flight, you have to be aware that certain classes of seat can't do that...as well as the fact that if you try to purchase only a single leg of a flight....that you may end up paying way more.

For example,  I was looking to use miles to upgrade a single leg of an upcoming trip, and it would have cost around $1500 for the tickets not bad considering that it was the longest flight distance of the 4 flights...but when I looked around for the other flights to complete the trip, it would have worked out to $5000 thousand difference to do the exact same flights as if I didn't upgrade.  Suffice to say I took the $1500 economy fare instead as that covered all 4 flights.  It is sad, but the reality of how the airline costing goes.

Conclusion

I really like the points and the perks of being a frequent traveller.  There are some gotchas, and there are some things that you have to avoid.  In general however, if you are purchasing a direct ticket somewhere, you can definitely get better seats etc.

I hope this helps to clarify things for you...although they keep changing it so who knows what it will be in the future!

San Francisco - Part 3 - The City

Sorry for the delay in posting this I have not had a chance to finalize it.

As with any big city, there are always things that are a must do.  In San Francisco there are honestly way more things like this, as it is a city that has so much history and has been a part of your childhood.  The Mrs Doubtfire house...the Full House House, etc are examples.

Thus because we were super time limited, we decided to do the hop on hop off tour to hit all of the major things. We have done this before in other cuties to great success, as not only do you get to see all the sites, but you get a tour as well.

The tour started between Fishermans Warf and Pier 39.  So on this day we went down and spent some time at Pier 39 prior to going on the tour.

Of course, you always have to see the Arr Arr's:

The smell is not great, but you can definitely hear them as you get close.  There is a lot of different shops at Pier 39...it is a pretty big tourist trap as a warning, so if you are looking for cheep, this is definitely not the place, however it does have a lot of the nicknack type stuff as well that are good for gifts.

One of my favourite stores there is Hot Licks:

It is an awesome store full of all types of hot sauce that you can imagine.  :)

I bought some hot sauce made with 6millon Scoville units.  All in good fun of course....will be great with chilli this year.  :)

Once we were done with this we waled over and got tickets and joined one of the tours.  The one we went to was Big Bus Tours:

http://eng.bigbustours.com/sanfrancisco/home.html

Their route is:

Since we only had a single day, we only did the single day ticket. They do however offer many other tours and excursions as well.  The entire route takes about two hours with the tour guide. The first time around we simply listened to the tour which was quite informative.  After that we decided to do a couple of hop offs.  We stopped at China Town, Union Square, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

China Town is one of the most iconic looking areas in San Francisco.  The following is a picture of the gate leading into the area:

There is a crazy number of different shops that you can find any number of nicknacks.  Some great for gifts even...simply walking through it reminded me of the hustle and bustle of being in Shanghai and similar areas.

Union square is walking distance from China Town, and it is the central square of the city from my understanding.  This is right in the heart of the city and is where all the major designer stores are.  The Cheesecake Factory .... one of my favourite restaurants down there is at the top of the Macy's in this square.

Finally the emblem of the city the Golden Gate Bridge.  It is definitely a site to see:

Definitely I think that it is well worth going to see while you are there.  We ran out of time this day and therefore we left soon after this. One of the places I wanted to try is the Stinking Rose:

A restaurant that uses lots of garlic....so much so that they say that they season their garlic with food.

In addition, if you are going to go to San Francisco, it is worth noting that Lombard Street, the most windy street in the world is a fun place to travel down:

In any case there is a ton for everyone to do in San Francisco.  I would rate it very highly on my list of places to go for vacation.  

San Francisco - Part 2 -Alcatraz

Out of all the places in San Francisco, there is really none that are more infamous than Alcatraz.

If I am being honest, I had been to SFO five or six times before I got a chance to go.  One of the biggest problems for me was that the tickets are hard to come by if you don't book them ahead of time.  On previous visits it was always too late...heck this time when we got there on Saturday, they were selling tickets for the next Wednesday.  If you do choose to go, be sure to book early.  For me this trip was my second time going and it was still as awesome as the first.

When your time is called you board the boat and are ushered across the bay to the island.  After the short boat ride, it lands on the island and proves to be one of the most awesome views that I have seen of the city of San Francisco...

Once on the island, you can see all the old buildings and the prison looming above you.  It is actually kind of eerie to see this place and to think of the history behind it.  You end up walking a lot up hill (and back down after you're done) to actually get to the prison, but you get to see the supporting infrastructure and birds on the way.

When you finally get to the top there you are ushered into the prison processing area to get your headsets.  The audio tour is included and has people who worked and were housed there doing the narrating.  You go through the different cells and areas of the prison and a story is told about the history.  It is really a good listen.  It always gets me when I see how small the cells were.  

The other thing was the yard where if they were good they could go outside to exercise etc.  It was tiny but anything is better than nothing if you are stuck in your cell for the majority of time.

This is definitely an amazing attraction and I would highly recommend that anyone going to San Francisco, does the tour.

Next up, talking about the different things that we did on the hop-on and hop off tour of San Francisco, also highly recommended.  They take you to most of the major areas, including one of the most iconic sites in SFO, the golden gate bridge:

San Francisco - Part 1 - Here we go again!

For anyone that doesn't know, VMware is the stereotypical company in Silicone Vally, in California. I personally love the history of this area and after having travelled countless times. When I say San Francisco for the most part, I really mean Palo Alto because that is where VMware head office is located. It is funny the first time I was here VMware had rented buildings across the road from the 4 main buildings that we had at the time in the Xerox Parc complex.

Now if anyone is familiar with the History of the Personal Computer, Apple really comes to mind. We are talking way back....in the days of the first Macintosh computers, where the first interfaces for computers were really being thought of.  Well it was in these exact buildings that Steve Jobs went to talk with Xerox (a huge player at the time) about the new fangled pointing devices and GUI interface that they were developing.  Long story short apple ended up "using" the PS2 Mouse and Graphics based technology which we have come to take for granted today.  

This is the type of history that I think is really cool, to know that this is where the blood of the modern computer was born.  Some day I may post a blog on Machu Picchu, where Audrey was continually making fun of me because I was obsessed with the engineering that went into it....i mean seriously Machu Picchu (and other Inca towns too) had running water...on the top of a mountain...some of it still is perfectly active today that is how precisely it was designed.  

Anyways I digress.  Aside from Palo Alto, I have stayed right downtown as well on countless occasions, normally for conferences such as VMworld.  So when I was asked to come down for two weeks for meetings, I thought it would be a perfect time to bring Audrey down.

Now I have done most of the famous touristy stuff, Alcatraz, the golden gate bridge, China Town, Lombard Street, pier 39 (for the Arr Arr's) etc. it was always on a whim when we were there.  I have never actually come here for "vacation" doing the full tourist thing.  San Francisco is definitely an iconic place where the skyline can be identified almost instantly if you have been here before:

We are definitely going to be hitting up Alcatraz, as well as many of the other attractions here this week.  Thus this posting will be a series on the stuffs that we do over the next couple of days. Hopefully it will help anyone thinking of coming down here to see exactly how amazing this city is. 

Next up, in Part 2, Alcatraz, one of the coolest sites in this area!  

My Experiences at Han City; the Shanghai "Fake" Market

One of the most interesting things about having a job where you get to travel to strange places, is the fact that you get some crazy stories. This is a re-post of one of my favourite stories from when I travelled to Shanghai for a LiVefire in 2013.

Prior to travelling to China, I had always heard of the Knockoff or "fake" Markets that people went to.  It was not until I was in Shanghai, that I decided (with some of my colleagues) to give it a go, if only for the experience. It is a bit of a long read, but I wanted to get the actual crazy nature of the experience down.

Before we went though, we decided that we should research it. On google we found several reviews, and several different markets that could go to. The two main ones seemed to be:

• Han City in Nanjing Xi Lu( 580 Nanjing Xi Lu, near Chengdu Bei Lu 南京西路580号, 近成都北路)
• Shanghai Science and Technology Museum Basement (apparently one of the largest)

We decided to go to Han City, as it was the closest to our hotel. I also noted the advice that every single website or review that I saw, said that it was all about bargaining. Mainly that you should start bargaining around 10% of their initial price and not pay over 20%.  Also that if the store keeper is adamant that their "lowest" price is the one they are giving...it's not...all you need to do is walk away and they normally will come running saying that your lower price is OK. In addition, they said that everyone spoke perfect English, which from my experiences in both Beijing and Shanghai is definitely not normal. Trying to get around is very challenging because even the taxi drivers don't read or speak English generally. Thus you always need a taxi card from the hotel, but I digress.

All of that being said I was astounded because I thought that bartering would be knocking like 25% off the price...not 80 to 90%. It also doesn't help that I am not the best at negotiating this type of thing. I was sure though to mention this to my colleagues so that they were aware of what to expect. I don't think however, that anything could have prepared us.

Suffice to say, we got a cab to the entrance to Han City. At first it is strange because it really looks like a normal mall. It is the first 4 floors of the building that is a pretty big size, and has a multitude of people going up and down the escalators. It is all fake stuff though....hundreds of "stores" which are small, a few metres across a few metres deep. You could buy everything from "brand" name clothes (including an inordinate number of places selling different brand name underwear...it seemed like every second store there was selling boxers or little tiny thongs...) to electronics, to luggage, to expensive watches, to DVDs, pretty much anything that you can think of.

So...we started off by doing the logical thing and walking in the front door. We didn't get 5 feet through the door and to a store, before we were approached by this 4.5 foot tall girl in her 30s that said to us: "What you looking for? What you want? You want watches? You want Hand Bags?" To which one of my colleagues said "Yes". She asked us to follow her.

Now, I can tell you that I was expecting to be pulled into a store, and we would haggle. This was not the case however, she took us up the second floor escalator and into a side hallway towards an elevator. Now, it would have not been as shady if the elevator would not have been the freight elevator for the facility, and right by the loading docks. At this point I was starting to freak about a bit. My colleagues were in much the same state of mind, and she could see that we were nervous.

She addressed this by saying, "We go to my store, it upstairs, good price". She continued to explain that they have better quality materials and it is less likely to be raided by the police because it was not downstairs (In very broken English). So reluctantly we continued to follow her into the elevator and up to one of the upper floors of the building.

I looked to my colleagues, (who are all bigger guys) and we could tell that we were all thinking the same thing...that if anything happened that the four of us could get out of there based on our size. So we exit the elevator and we are in this hallway with a ton of doors, it was very matrix-esque (only not clean and brilliantly white, but a little dirty and it dingy). We walk for a minute or so around a few corners and she punches a code by one of the doors to get inside the room.

We enter into the room, and there is shelves upon shelves of "real" designer bags, and a room full of "real" designer watches. My Fiance had said she wanted a specific brand of bag. So I started there while my colleagues went to look at some "real" Rolex, TAG, Omega, and many other watches. After looking through the bags in the racks (full of "real" Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and several other brands) I asked if she had any Fendi Bags. She said No, and I proceeded to say that it was unfortunate as that was what I was looking for. I walked towards the watch area, and she said "I find, I find" and immediately got on her cell phone talking a mile a minute in Mandarin.

I started to look at the watches as I thought that it would be interesting to see what I could find there. Not 5 minutes later, she comes and pulls me back towards the bags, and had a selection of three or for different Fendi bags. I looked at them and selected one that was interesting. and asked how much, knowing full well that I was not going to pay a stupid amount of money for something that although looked nice, was definitely not real.

"$4800 Yuan." (approx. $825 CDN) to which I scoffed, and offered a whopping $300 Yuan (approx $50 CAD) in return. All of this was done, silently on a calculator that she pulled out to tell me the price. the second offer was 1200 Yuan. No I don't know about you but a 75% reduction in price on the first exchange absolutely blew my mind. It also made me wonder if people would actually pay that as they made no attempt to claim that it was actually real. It was always quite clear that it was completely fake. But.. "VERY HIGH VERY GOOD QUALITY!!!"

This continued for 10 minutes me going up to a whopping 400 Yuan ($15 CAD more) and her coming down to 800 yuan. At which point I made a point to make a move to walk away to the walk room where my colleagues were still looking at watches. Immediately she came down to 500 Yuan and I said that I had to think on it still. I went and stood by my colleagues looking at the watches, and she kept pressuring me for it. I finally said, that 400 was my final price as I didn't have a crazy amount of money on me. Still pressure, she came down another $50 yuan. I continued to play hard ball and said that this was all i had to spend. Finally at long last, she said "Fine." and I passed over the money and was the proud owner of a hand bag, that i got for whooping 8% of the original asking price. I am also more than sure that I probably over paid...but for less than $70 CAD, it is not a bad bag, even if it is "real".

Finally with her off my back and my bag in hand, I went to my colleagues and started looking at the "real" watches. After 20 minutes we had 4 watches picked out (two "Rolex", a "Tag" and an "Omega"). I was ready this time...the one colleague that I was in on the deal with however was a bit shocked when the first price he gave was 9800 Yuan (approx. $1860). After our first couple of low ball offers the price came down to 4800 yuan and we came up to $1350. The same haggling process went on for 20ish minutes or so and we got them down to $2000 Yuan. We didn't have that many Yuan on us, and we definitely didn't want to use a bank machine or our Visas....I mean we were in a sketchy building in China.  ;)

After a quick conversation between us in broken Spanish, French and German so as to get the point across between us so that they couldn't understand what we were saying. we agreed that we would go no higher. He insisted repeatedly, and we finally said no, and walked for the door, it instantly came down to 1450 Yuan. We still insisted and pulled the walk out of the "store" routine and started the trek back to the elevator... after 10 seconds we hear him yell... "OK OK YOU PRICE YOU PRICE" We counted our existing Yuan and we were short, but the one guy had the money in US dollars. The guy offered us a divide by 6 exchange rate (definitely like a half dollar on the dollar in our benefit as the exchange rate is really 5.5) and we finally had our watches. Not bad for around 10% (after the exchange rate) of the original asking price.

All in all they were around $60 a watch, and even though they are "real" brand name watches, they are of higher quality than you would normally find in a watch for that price. We then proceeded downstairs and walked around the mall using the same tactics a few times to buy some other Nick knacks. We then left and went back to our hotel.

I must say that it was definitely a pretty crazy experience, and actually kind of invigorating. Both times we haggled we found that it gave a pretty crazy adrenaline rush. Also it left us feeling that we wondered what we actually COULD have got the items for. After all is said and done, I know that we probably could have got them for less, but we were still happy as it was an experience like no other.

I think the morale of the story is that yes we know it was probably a bit of a waste of money...so if you are not keen on spending a few hundred dollars to have a bit of fun than this is not for you. If however you are looking for a unique and fun experience of haggling and getting some decent items back in return, it is definitely worth the trip. Plus I now have a "real" Rolex, a "real" Omega, and a "real" Fendi Bag that I can admire. :)

Jamaica - Part 5 - The final Post - Review

As much as I enjoyed Jamaica, I was definitely ready to come home.  This is the same as most of the sit on a beach vacations that I have ever been on.   Although I do miss the sunshine and rainbows:

Overall I would have to rate Jamaica very highly, the food for the most part.  The hotel was right in the middle in terms of quality, not horrible, but not great.  Wedding was a disaster due to the hotel.  The outings that we went on Dunn's River and the Luminous Lagoon were some of the coolest things I have done.  

The following are my ratings:

Holiday Inn SunSpree Hotel - 5 out of 10 - Location was a big selling point, as it was close to the airport but due to the wedding fiasco it gives me little satisfaction to know they don't resolve conflict well.  

Food - 6 out of 10 - Scotchies was definitely a highlight and definitely highly recommended. The limited buffet at the hotel and the limited a-la-carte restaurants didn't allow for a lot of variety. 

Excursions - 7 out of 10 - Both of the two that we did were amazing.  

Overall - 6 out of 10

If you are looking to go to Jamaica, definitely recommend it.  In Montego bay, the best hotel from what two tour guides said as well as from some of our friends who have been there before was the Iberostar Grand Rose Hall.  It costs a little more, but it is well worth it.

Let me know your thoughts if you have any!  I will be off to San Francisco in a few weeks for my work which is always a great time!

Jamaica - Part 4 - Food and Excursions

Food: 

The big kicker at any resort.  The buffet was far from the best that I have ever eaten at a resort.  I am in no means a foodie, but when there is only 8 to 10 things plus salad, bread, and dessert, it is kind of hard to get excited about it.  Of the food that was there: Breakfast was pretty standard...the boiled bananas were quite gross though.  Lunch, was hit and miss, but a couple of days they had some great wraps, and other goodies.  Finally, dinners had some fun options but limited each night.  All in all there was always food there that was edible but definitely disappointing.

A-la-carte restaurants were definitely better, as they generally always are.  They were also limited though, with only 4 available.  We ended up going to 2 of them, because one was a Japanese place that there was a $20 extra charge for and the other was a seafood place. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a hate on for seafood...although they did have steak and chicken options as well. There were apparently also extra charges for the steak though, from what I have heard, which sucks.

Of the two we did go to, one was an Italian restaurant, which was really quite good.  There wasn't a crazy amount of pasta though which was sad, because I love it.  Overall though the pasta that was there (I had the Gnocchi and spaghetti with veggies) was quite good, I was happy with it.

The other place was a Jamaican style place that was amazing.  I had the Jerk chicken, with spicy jerk BBQ sauce.  The sauce was awesome in itself.

Finally, we went off resort a couple of times to Scotchies:

It was recommended by several people back home and was about a 10 min walk from the resort.  I was skeptical when it was called the best Jerk in Jamaica, but to that end, it was by far the best two meals I had here in Jamaica. Not only was their chicken and pork good, but their sausage was amazing too.  Sides were great as well including the standard rice and beans and Festival (tasted kind of like a donut but as a stick instead of round....hard to describe).  Plus the hot sauce w as amazing, if it didn't need to stay refrigerated we would have bought some of it!  Highly highly recommend going to one of them if you are in Jamaica.

Excursions:

We went on two excursions. One to Dunn's Falls and the other to the Luminous Lagoon. Both were awesome, and well worth the additional cost.  

Dunn's Falls is definitely unique from what I have done before.  Most of the time at waterfalls, you get there take a few pictures, and you leave.  Here you actually climb the falls in the water:

It is surprisingly not too strenuous, and a lot of fun when they get you to jump in pools, or go down a natural water slide. It took approximately an hour.   With the tour we were with JTL which provided an awesome guide and bussed us back and forth from the resort.

The Luminous Lagoon was probably the most unique thing I have seen anywhere.  Basically the water glows when you disturb it at night.  It happens due to micro-organisms that absorb the UV light. When we were first getting to the dock, it was raining so hard that we were contemplating skipping it. The rain stopped however and we were able to get on the boat and more awesomely go swimming. Every stroke you take you can see for a second or so. Here is a picture from behind a boat, I didn't get anything myself as everything I have is non distinct unfortunately:

Again highly recommend this one, the bottom is a bit gross so you get a bit tired from all the swimming, however you are not out there for more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

Will post my final thoughts next post.

Jamaica - Part 3 - The Wedding Experience

I didn't intend on posting anything until we did some of the expeditions and a-la-carte meals but after last nights experience, I not only am writing this, while I am siting on the beach...(proof:

)...but will be writing up a review where I can....because, the Internet.  

Let me start off by saying that I truly believe that any wedding is not about the venue or what happens, but about the people there.  In our case the Bride and Groom looked stunning and we all had an amazing time with everyone despite everything that happened.

With that being said in any event there always runs a possibility for things to go wrong.  Sadly when it is a wedding you know there is just a ton more stress for the Bride and Groom. To which the planner from the Holiday-Inn SunSpree resort, as well as the staff can really minimize the issue by being accommodating.  Sadly in this case this didn't happen. Not in my opinion at least. The following is purely my observations, I was not involved at all in the planning etc.

It started with rain, while sucky, delayed the start of the ceremony as the venue needed to be changed. Unavoidable, but an hour delayed start.  Once it did start I thought our problems were over....sadly the videographer forgot to press record and the bride after having been revealed and walking down the isle was stopped and had to redo the whole walk again.  I felt so bad, but the ceremony was amazing in the end and I'm not sure there was a dry eye.  

Reception then started and was going well.  The food and cake was all amazing it was not until after dinner the true problems started.  By the time all the speeches were done and the first dances were complete, it was just before 10.  There had been no concessions for the delay and the DJ apparently was done at 1030. No matter what was said, the holiday-inn was not making any concessions.  The bride was almost in tears by the time a few of us pulled the manager aside and said that we don't care what it costs lets just make this work.  The answer was still no, no, no...until we threatened to post reviews online.

We finally managed to convince them to let their staff go...all except one bar tender (more on this later) ...and we worked out an extension with the DJ ourselves to get his services until an acceptable time. Overall, after all the frustration, it was not expensive at all in the least to 'fix the problem', we paid with the cash in our pockets.

We had an amazing time after all a the stress was gone and we closed down not only our time in the private room, but the late night restaurant as well.  

One final thing to note was that to get the bar tender in the room with us, in addition to the cost of everything else at this ALL INCLUSIVE resort they had to pay for what was supposed to be bottles of alcohol.   Now, if one is paying for specific types and quantities of alcohol, personally I expect that that's what we will actually get.  When I first got there we noticed that a) the bottles were not full, but partially full, and b) some kinds of alcohol ordered were not all there.  We only questioned the second one however, and they brought an opened bottle of the missing spirit.  Shady if you ask me. 

Overall, other than the food, I can't say that I have any love for this hotel in this matter.  I would definitely not recommend a wedding here.  The service manager was not very accommodating.  The DJ was not one I would ever hire again.  Most importantly, a bride should not have the kind of stress my friend did on one of the most important days in her life.  Being in the middle of wedding planning myself it definitely is eye opening and I hope we can avoid issues.

Oh...and we are fully planning to posts the reviews anyways. :). Will post excursions and restaurant details later!

Jamaica - Part 2 - Holiday Inn SunSpree

Once we got to the resort, the check-in line was crazy long.  Took about an hour to check-in, but hey they had a lady serving fruity fantastic drinks.  Thus we had a couple while waiting.

Our room, was an upgraded ocean front room.  We had a pretty fantastic walk out patio right on the beach, really cool:

The room itself pretty lack luster.  The bathroom not great, bed was warped, but it was clean enough...which is more than some places i have stayed.  To be honest it is what i expect from a holiday inn.  And its not like we were going to spend a ton of time in there anyways.

Bar areas were well stocked and the main pools pretty nice.  The stage was in the middle of the pool area though and well it was almost unbearably loud right by there.  The evening entertainment was not very good.  Although one of the nights so far they had a fire breather who kinda reminded me of Michael Jackson before he was white, when we talked to him at the late night bar after the show. I don't expect it to get better.

Beach/Pool Chairs as always were a problem.  Unless you were up at the crack of dawn people would drop towels and not be there all day.  Sucky.  The saving grace was actually that they had a breakwater island right by the main beach:

Has tons of chairs and people didn't leave stuff there all day, only while they were actually there. It was divided by waste deep water so the 'oldies' would not get to them or cared not for them until at least breakfast.

Mornings were also awesome:

Done for now.  Food and excursions to come later!

Jamaica - Part 1 - Getting there!

Let me start off my saying, my condolences to all you folks stuck at home in the horrendous snow we have been getting there.  Talk about a great week to be away... :) ... To be honest I was not sure we would be getting here.  When I first heard that snow was coming, I was quite nervous as with airports/airlines these days it seems like the slightest snow or rain (amongst other things) cause all sorts of problems felt all around the world. I was continually checking the flight status, but it formally stayed as on time.

I got up suffice to say at 4:30am. Not because I had to but because I could not sleep anymore.  I had over a foot of snow that I needed to clear away before we could even attempt to leave the house.  Clearing it took the better part of an hour, and it had not actually stopped showing. I was hopeful that the plow would come by before we left, as our awesome neighbours had agreed to keep an eye on the drive while we were gone. Sadly it didn't, which means we totally owe them BIGTIME, and that trying to get to the actual airport started off worse than it finished.  The 20min drive took about an hour, and featured pretty much all bad things, blowing snow, falling snow, covered roads, old people, etc.  

I had actually never flown from Hamilton before, but because there was two whole flights leaving that day I started to understand how it could be still on time.  To their credit, we were ready to go by our boarding time and were delayed only by about 15 minutes as the wind had picked up.  I was not happy that we had to cross the Tarmac to actually get to the plane though...longest walk ever. 

After that the flight was quite uneventful....I think my favourite part was when we were getting de-iced and people were complaining something fierce about the fact that they could not see out of the windows.  It never ceases to amaze me what pisses people off...specially something that is all but gone by the time you are in the air.  Food on the plane was also horrible...as is the case with most flights, unless you are in business class.

Once we landed, we were anticipating that we would be a crazy amount of time waiting for customs.  We had heard horror stories about 1.5 hr lineups etc.  So much so that there was an option to pay 80USD per person for expedited service.  We decided against it, as that's a lot of money.  We were not really in any sort of rush at all anyways...plus we had to wait for everyone else coming to our friends wedding anyways.  Turns out there was absolutely no line up because it was a Monday and we were through customs and picking up baggage in less than 10 mins.  All in all we were at the airport for about 30 mins.  Pretty good.

Our hotel was the Holiday Inn SunSpree, which is about a 10 minute drive, if that, from the Airport. Definitely would not have been my first choice, but it truly is the people that make up a vacation anyways. More to come when I have some more time to write! I leave you with the following pic:

/Jonathan

My Travel Experiences...

I have been meaning to start writing this blog for some time now. Heck, I have had it ready to go, yet blank for quite awhile now. What I really wanted was a place that I could write about my experiences not only for myself to remember some of the amazing things that I have seen and done, but to let others know of some of the things, which if you are interested in travelling, may be worth a review to see if it is for you.

I have definitely had the privilege of in the last several years being able to not only travel with my work all over the world, but with Audrey as well. We actually have a map on the wall of our office to indicate where we have been:

Now you may not be able to see it from the picture, but there are actually dots on all of the places which I have been....Obviously way more in North America, and because of a vacation we took in South America for a month many down there as well. At last count I have been to 18 countries and countless different cities/regions within those countries.  Off of the top of my head the list is as follows:

• Canada (Outside of Ontario where I live.  Canada takes 6 to 8 hours to fly across...more than flying to London from Toronto!)
• USA 
• Ireland
• England (Scotland as well!)
• Spain
• Denmark
• Italy
• China (Including Hong Kong and Macau)
• Singapore 
• Bulgaria
• Japan
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Peru
• Ecuador (Galapagos Islands as well!)
• Mexico
• Cuba
• The Dominican Republic

Definitely have had some amazing experiences, and met some awesome people in our travels, especially when we have done guided tours. One of the companies that we have used is one called Trafalgar.  Regardless of your preference both doing a guided experience or going on your own, if you have the opportunity I would highly recommend experiencing the world.  

With this blog, I will from time to time post some tips if you are thinking of travelling as well as about my experiences. In a few weeks, I  will soon be attending a friend's wedding down in Jamaica. A chance not only to relax but to experience some of the fine island culture.  I will post some things while down there.  Should be a great time.