art design travel health life: July 2009

First off, I am posting a picture of something we did not have time to go see, but plan on making this our highest priority for our next trip to Hong Kong. This is the world's largest bronze buddha. Welcoming, isn't it?

Ok, so to get to the airport, you can take a taxi, limo, or shuttle bus. A taxi will cost you about 240 HKD, a limo, 360 HKD, and the shuttle bus is 150 HKD. So, to be economically responsible, we took the rinky dink shuttle bus... Check out the pics below...

Hmm... no one is on the shuttle bus except for me and Laura...

HEY! There's Laura! Hi, Laura! Mooah! So, as you can see, we got this entire bus to ourselves. If you calulate HKD to USD, the trip cost us about... 20 dollars(with tip) to the airport. Not bad, eh?

Its hard to tell, but this port is Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. I thought terminal island was big! You can probably fit terminal island in here a few times over...

I didn't want to be disrespectful, so I used the telephoto lens to capture this shot. Since I never see women wearing the traditional hijab. I found this interesting quote on the hijab from Islam For Today.com, and here is what a young girl named, Sumayya Syed, 16, had to say, " The truth is that Muslim women only cover themselves in front of men who are not direct relatives (brothers, fathers, and uncles) to prevent indecent acts or thoughts."

(I hope I cited that correctly? I'll ask Laura later. She is sleeping as I post this...)

Here is the plane we were to board for the long journey to Vietnam. All 2 hours of the flight. Actually, it was more like 30 minutes of taxiing, a quick flight, a fast landing that missed our turn which then resulted into 30 minutes of taxiing... Fun...

Apparently, Laura means the same in Vietnamese as it does in English...

I hope the Vietnamese don't grow too fast height-wise as a culture. They're going to have to replace all their signs! I damn near bumped my head on this...

The first thing you notice when you leave the airport in Vietnam is all the rice paddies surrounding the airport. Its really breathtaking with the open skies and green paddies stretching on as far as the eye can see.

Here we see some workers being lazy. Just kidding, I'm sure they're taking a break to scrape the leeches off and have a snack.

A temple of some sort. We aren't supposed to photograph them, but this was taken an hour before I found that out. I think its when you pose for a shot in front of them... either way, here is a temple for your viewing pleasure. No more, I promise...

WARNING: For the squeamish of heart, please skip past this next photo...

This image was heartbreaking for us to see. These are dogs on the way to a butcher. Apparently, in Northern Vietnam, dogs are fast becoming a delicacy. As for Southern Vietnam, they prefer the field mouse. I'm sure this photo may turn some of you off, but I feel that we need to show everything we see that is interesting. Perhaps the Indians don't like seeing photos of us eat cows, for cows are sacred to their culture. Anyhow, It was hard to make eye contact with these dogs. very sad indeed. (Koreans, put your chopsticks down!)

This F'ING GUY just started crossing an F'ING FREEWAY!!! out of nowhere... just walks past. He's lucky no one hit him... Apparently, as we soon learned after this, this is very common. We even have videos of this chaotic traffic for you all to see later. CRAZY... This behavior gets even worse in the city! Look for more on crazy Vietnamese traffic...

Its amazing how they build these 3-4 story structures with nothing else around. It seems like the sides, which look rather unfinished, are waiting for other buildings to fill in... one day...

Graffiti...

Suddenly, we pull off the freeway, into a neighborhood, through a buzzing swarm of mopeds(literally), we find our hotel, the Intercontinental Hanoi West Lake! YAY!

The front entrance...

Here is the view from our room on the 5th floor. Just so you all know, we normally get our room upgraded for belonging to the Ambassador Club for the Intercontinental Hotels, but on top of it, we got the room upgraded yet another time for mentioning that we are on our honeymoon! I think Laura and I are going to say that we're newlyweds every time we travel now.

These villas stretch out and face the West Lake. Very nice... tres chic!

This is the Club Lounge for members only. They have a free breakfast spread and a happy hour spread. Definitely a good thing!

Definitely a Happy Hour! Laura and I both sampled the local beers, Halida and Hanoi Beer. On the plates from left to right you see: Passion fruit, mini sirloin patty with gravy, half a beef pie in the back, duck bbq in the front, and white fish with the freshest dill you've ever tasted in your life. On the plate to the right, you have a spring roll on a spood and some pico-de-gallo-wanna-be-salad-thing... It had olives in it. odd... And in the bowl, a spider mum to bring some color to the table. In the background, you can see the hotel is on water. Very VERY nice!

Lastly, they had these mini stacker sandwiches. This one goes out to Edith Nelsen. Its basically a Monte Cristo! The bottom layer was ham. The second layer is swiss. the third layer was a sweet tomato, and on top, strawberry with a dollup of whipped cream. Its hard to image what this tastes like, but if you close your eyes and image a Monte Cristo that hasn't been fried much at all, that's close. The best part is, this thing is small, so you can eat as much or as little as you want.

The internet room in the Club Lounge. The chairs are so buttery smooth and soft, you just sink into them...

Outside the Club Lounge is a patio area that leads to the pool. See that hut behind Laura? That's the Sunset Bar. Its only open from 4 pm to 12 midnight. It is just the coolest thing yet. We'll try and hit it up soon for your enjoyment! I know you all want to see pictures of a Pina Colada and a Mai Tai' in Hanoi, Vietnam? Right? We'll take one for the team, and explore it!

The "comfiest" bed ever with super duper high percale sheets. We can't even guess, but we're thinking the thread count is about 1000. It even seems to be made of bamboo fibers. There is this satiny sheen to them. We're thinking about shoving this into our carry-ons. Hope it fits!

A view from the bed into the bathroom and our sitting area. Look at those ceilings? And the lighting! Top notch! First Class, yaar!

In the sitting area, they left us a bottle of wine, some little snacks, and a bottle of mineral water.

Gotta love the Pho bowl sinks! Also, they have a full size bath and walk in shower to the left. (see it in the reflection?) This is the first bath tub I've seen that is deep enough and long enough for most of me to be underwater. That's a good thing. You know how many places will kick you out for shampooing your hair in the pool?!?!

The lovely Laura showing off our balcony (we have 2! balconies, that is. Only 1 Laura. and 1 is more than enough!!! just kidding... love you!).

Dinner in the lobby cafe can be buffet or menu. I chose the buffet for the variety. Worry not, I didn't get too much to eat. It was more about variety than anything else. On the plate you can see a ladle of smoked duck, the other is a mushroom salad, on the plate is lamb, all different types of vegetables, and a small pickle. (just wanted a bit of sour with my meal... )

Dessert was evil... they had an entire spread of mini desserts... In the center is mango sorbet and kiwi-strawberry sorbet. From the left clockwise, 1 skewer of a green madelaine and 1 skewer of a mini chocolate cake donut were dipped into the chocolate fountain. A slice of white dragon fruit, a ladle of chocolate mung bean cake, a brown sugar mochi thingie, a mango merangue cake, and lastly, the 2 left were a maple brown sugar cake and a chocolate cake brownie. Please note, we only ate half of what you see. It was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too rich for our palettes...

The view from our room... lovely reflections... so serene...

More of our view...

I'm sorry this is hard to read, but its a damn pillow menu! If you want latex, buckwheat, body, or man-made fibers, you can order it all in the handy dandy pillow menu!

They even dim the lights at night? wow... Goodnight West Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam!

For our final night in Hong Kong, we wanted to see the world's largest permanent light show from the water. This light show takes place on both sides of Victoria Harbor. Many of the buildings on both sides have lights on the outsides of the buildings that flash, change color, and dim according to the music. The best way to compare this is something similar to the Vegas Strip.

Here, we are facing the Kowloon side. The tall building on the left is still under construction, but when its completed in a couple years, it will become the tallest building in Hong Kong. If you want to know more, check our blog on the Big Bus Tour.

Laura posing in front of the glistening water on the Kownloon side...

Pretty much the same as above minus Laura. Notice the U shaped building, lit up in white? I believe this is the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. They also use the outside of this building to project images and shapes during the light show... Its very nice!

Just some red junk floating in the water... too bad the boat didn't allow us to get any stable shots. We were lucky to get the ones in focus that you see here!

See, told you... blurry...

This is the Hong Kong Island side of the show.

The IFC building is sooooooooo tall, it actually is taller than the moon. Look for yourself!

Another shot of the Hong Kong Island side...

Laura gazing out at our hotel from the water, the Intercontinental Grand Stanford...

Our hotel from the water, the Intercontinental Grand Stanford...

One last shot of the Hong Kong Island side of the show... Oh, and one last thing to mention... If you go on this cruise it has an open bar! So, if you notice the photos getting progressively more in focus, it becuase the more you drink, the more you get into sync with the ship... Its a proven fact. Ask the captain who piloted the Exxon Valdez in Alaska...