The Hutongs are the old part of Beijing, quickly disappearing, where you can slip into the past. We took a taxi there, traveling through streets lined with shops and looking quite contemporary, not fancy, but not rundown, lots of restaurants and clothing shops. Then we arrived at the area called the Hutongs.
As old as everything is, there’s a Starbucks near the entrance!
We were wandering along, wide-eyed, wondering how to find a rickshaw driver to take us around, when a very industrious man found us. He had a laminated piece of paper that showed his rickshaw and all the stops on his tour. So we went with him.
He was wonderful. His rickshaw had a little motor, so we didn’t have to feel badly about him peddling large Americans around on his tour. He didn’t speak much English, but what he did speak, he put to good use. “Nice to meet you!” He would say, with a big grin. And “Rickshaw photo!” Then he’d pull over and take our picture with our cameras. We really loved our tour.
The city hall of Stockholm was really fun to visit.
We were there just before an election and there were campaign signs up everywhere. We walked there, which was quite a ways, and the signs for candidates became denser the closer we came to City Hall.
This is the approach.
We passed the back side of the castle and saw some of the foot guards going up this back road, which was on the other side of the wall where we had watched the changing of the guard the day before. We had been standing by a door, which they opened to admit the guards who started the ceremony. On the way to City Hall, we saw the guards queued up behind the door. (This shot doesn’t have the guards, it just show the bridge leading up to the back of palace.)
There’s a cafeteria in City Hall where we had, for Sweden, a moderately priced lunch.
This shot isn’t city hall, actually, but it’s across from it.
City hall is more of a traditional looking building.
There’s a funny story behind this weird Medusa looking figure, which is in a very beautiful room. That’s real gold paint, by the way. Anyway, what happened was the artist died and the architect had to get someone else to do the figure. I think the substitute artist wasn’t quite as good. The citizens of Stockholm weren’t too pleased with the result! It’s quite huge, too…he he.
This is the roof of the meeting room, which is lovely. I was wishing I had Leanne Cole’s photography skills. I didn’t get great shots of the meeting room, but you can see what it looks like here:
The blue room is a huge hall where they seat the Nobel Prize laureates for the formal dinner.
Here is the what the place setting for the Nobel prize dinner looks like:
They have around 1,300 guests. The number is exact, and all the places are measured precisely so everyone can fit.
At the end of the tour there was this brightly colored board. We figured out all the colored discs were people’s tour stickers. So we added ours. It was kind of fun.
Overall, the tour was really good. I recommend it.
They are clear cutting trees out of one of the ski runs at Squaw Valley. This helicopter picks the tree up from the mountain and deposits it in the parking lot at a rate of one every 5 minutes. I was awestruck. I’m told one name for this kind of helicopter is a sky crane.
Here it is after it has picked up the tree and is rising up over the ridge back into view.
On the way back on the second day, we were taken into a pristine bay and instructed in the rules of a moment of silence. We were to take our positions so that even the sound of someone’s sneakers slapping on the steps wouldn’t disturb the silence. Of course, we couldn’t take pictures either, not for our “moment,” though we could all happily resume video and photos as soon as it was over.
The sounds of the bird life in Doubtful Sound are faint, perhaps because not so many birds exist due to the introduction of predators to which the native species were not adapted. But with all the engines off, including the generators, and everyone being quiet, birds could be heard calling to one another in the trees on the mountainside.
The water was so still the mirror it made reflected even quite distant waterfalls.
The air was pure and the moment was as spiritual as any I’ve ever experienced.
Seeing kiwis is rare. We were walking to our hotel in Paihia after a long day of touring and a late dinner out for the trip, and my husband spotted one. I managed to get my camera out and turn on the flash in time to capture its body in the edge of the frame.
We took this sighting as a good omen. I wanted it to share it with you, so the cute little kiwi could be a good omen for you as well.
Happy Halloween and here’s to a wonderful November. For many writers, including me, November is novel writing month. November has a nice holiday in it for Americans. It’s summer in Australia, even as the snow is starting to fly here in the California Sierras. So whatever November means to you, may it be filled with peace, good food, and achievements in whatever realm is important to you.
On the way back after our overnight, the nature guide explained that it’s really difficult to appreciate the scale of the mountains. He was taking us toward an indentation at the bottom of one of the mountains, and he said when we arrived, the prow of the ship would fit below the cave. That seemed impossible because the cavern looked tiny from a distance, compared to the mountain above it. But sure enough, when we pulled up to the cavern, the prow was smaller, and it was a big ship.
We were having really good luck with the waterfalls because of all the rain. The water that comes down the mountains through the rain forest is naturally filtered by the moss and safe to drink. More than safe, the water is pure. The nature guide actually collected the water and we drank it! It was cold and fresh. It wasn’t bubbly, though! The moss does not accomplish that.
I remember this night vividly. It was the first night of our trip, and the whole vacation lay ahead. It felt just like the first day of summer vacation used to feel. Summer felt like endless days stretching on and on when I could do whatever I wanted to do.
Like with summer vacation, at the end, I was ready to get back to work. Though I will admit to wanting to plan another trip for December a few days after getting home! I had a lot of fun on this trip. My husband planned it all to be fun and comfortable. When I was single, living in San Francisco, whole years would go by when I rarely left my neighborhood. What a change from then to now. I think my husband has turned me into a traveler. We won’t be going anywhere in December, though, and I’m back to work.
Tivoli Gardens is fun. The theme park seems like a great place for kids but is also nice for grown-ups. We had a nice meal by the lake by Faergekroen Brewery, which was established in 1934.
Here is the Frigate restaurant. We didn’t eat here, but we enjoyed looking at it across the lake from the deck of the brewery.
They have a really low-tech nice way to keep you warm outside in the Copenhagen restaurants: They hand you a blanket.
We rode this roller coaster (and lived to tell about it.)
Our hotel room had a view of the fireworks over Tivoli Gardens.
Thanks for looking at more travel photos. Time for me to get back to work! Have a great weekend.
Real Journeys gets a lot of credit for this tour. They made it an extraordinary experience for us. Even though they do it all the time, they lavished the experience upon us, knowing it was our only time, an experience of a lifetime.
I was satisfied after the water adventures part. Already I had had a delightfully narrated bus ride from Queenstown to Manapouri, a very nice ferry ride across Lake Manapouri with free coffee and tea…or good beer (not free), and then a stunning bus ride over Wilmot Pass, including commentary about the ecosystem of the rain forest through which we were driving. Did you know moss is essential to the New Zealand rain forest ecology? Then we had warm muffins, saw a lot of beautiful mountains in the fiord, and went on a nature ride in a tender boat. I thought we were done. But oh no…we were just getting started, and so you, my blog readers, are also just getting started on my recap of the Doubtful Sound tour.
When we first arrived on the boat, we had our safety lecture and were introduced to the crew. The crew all stood ramrod straight in their uniforms. They were confidence inspiring, while still being friendly, wearing big smiles and making eye contact with the passengers. After that we were assigned to our staterooms where we could put our bags. I also took a little rest.
As a result of my dawdling, we were late getting up to the dining room for the muffins, and there were only 3 left. I took our two and set them on a table then went to tell my husband what I wanted to drink, as he was queued up for the coffee and tea. When I came back, someone had swiped one of our muffins!
I was really mad. Possibly they thought it was part of the pile to be taken, but it didn’t seem that way as those were in a basket and ours were laid out with napkins beside them. I was really mad!
Well, my husband came over and was kind of ticked too, but not as much as I was. I don’t know why. I was in kind of a bad mood to start with, I guess. I’ve since learned that cruises stress me out. I didn’t realize it until I saw a picture of myself taken by the ship’s photographer on the Bay of Islands cruise. I can see from my body language that I was anxious. I didn’t realize it until I saw the picture later, but then it wasn’t hard to figure out why. I don’t really like tours, especially on boats, because you have no control. You are along for the ride, and if the tour does something you don’t like, there’s no escape. Add to that my tendency to get seasick, and I really don’t like cruises. On this particular day, I also had a slight cold.
Anyhow, back to the muffins. I wanted that dang muffin! I was so mad someone “stole” it. Oh yes, I said that already, didn’t I? I knew that the missing muffin may have been an innocent mistake, but I wasn’t ready to stop being mad. Well, my husband told Jax, one of the crew, and she laughed and said maybe it was the cold weather that had made everyone peckish. (That means hungry.) Jax told the chef, who then made me one more muffin. About 15 minutes later it arrived, hot from the oven.
Then I was really happy, and, in fact, it was the best muffin I ever had. I asked another crew member for the recipe, he asked the chef, and the chef gave it to me! She had to hand write the recipe because it is taped to the wall in the galley. She also had to scale it down a lot because her recipe is for 150 people, (or 149 as the case may be!). I mention those details because we rarely see inside a commercial kitchen and I thought it was interesting that she has the recipe taped to the wall and that it’s such a huge amount. When she cooks, she really cranks out a lot. She is an amazing chef, by the way. The meals were firs rate, with excellent vegetarian options too.
When I make the muffins, I’ll put up some photos for you.
Here are three more pictures from my Doubtful Sound adventure.
The Fiordland Navigator, our shipHeading toward that center island, and the Tasman Sea. (Photo altered for effect.)Water from the rains don’t get absorbed because there’s no soil. The water all cascades off the mountains into the fiord. The fresh water looks green where it meets the sea water because it is stained by the vegetation on its way down the mountain.
Nicci Carrera 