The last four days have been a lot of fun. Maybe even too much fun. Both of us are pretty pooped. You went to bed and for the first time in a long while, there wasn’t hours of chatter from your room. I think you pretty much passed out. I won’t be too far behind you, I think, but I do wish to describe the fun that we’ve shared.

‘Cuz, frankly, I’m not sure how the heck I survived it all…

First off was Canada Day. This year, Mommy and I decided to try a visit at Heritage Park. If you got there early enough, you got a free pancake breakfast. It seemed like a fun thing to do. And it probably would have been more fun if it had been a few degrees warmer — it was rather chilly for the first day of July.

Still, you had a lot of fun. Once we’d gobbled down the pancakes, we went and got ride tickets. You swung on a vintage ship-styled swing, rode the big steam train around the park, went on the paddlewheeler out in Glenmore Reservoir (although you barely stopped moving the entire time, necessitating me following you around the entire time), and went on the merry-go-round (you demanded to ride the white horse).

You ate a pretzel, and drank some frozen lemonade with me. We saw the farm animals (you mooed at the cows, and nearly had your bright red Crocs eaten by a misguided horse). Then we went through Gasoline Alley. By this point, you were tired and got fairly cranky, so we all opted to go home.

Mommy wanted to go visit with Grandpa for a week, and had to take Choo Choo with her. (Choo Choo’s still nursing, so she goes wherever Mommy goes.) But … well, Monkey, all me to be rather honest for a moment — travelling with you lately requires a lot of high-test drugs to keep people calm. Either you or us, it doesn’t matter. But Mommy travelling with you and Choo Choo wasn’t even discussed as an option, and Mommy really wanted to go without all of us in tow. (You’ll understand this years from now, when you have a near-3 year old.)

Of course, what all that means is, it was just you and me, kid. And we got off to it before Mommy and Choo Choo’s plane had taken off.

Our first stop was the Galaxie Diner on 11th St., not far from Grandma’s house. There we enjoyed a filling breakfast, because we had a long day of chasing trains ahead of you. I hadn’t chased a train since before you were born, and I was itching to go out and take pictures. I figured you might like to see a big train in motion, and when my friend Graham told me CP 2816 was going out to Banff on 2 July, I couldn’t resist.

After breakfast, we went home just long enough to get a few things together (like my camera), and then we went searching for our first place to wait. I originally thought of a place known as Keith, which is roughly where Stoney Trail crosses the Bow River. But as we came down Sarcee Trail towards the highway, I spied an even better location: where the train tracks cross 32nd Ave NW. It would give me an easy access for photography, a decent backdrop, and not far from the highway to get back out again.

We ended up having to wait longer than I would have liked. One thing you’ll learn, kiddo, is that when you chase trains, you have to be patient and wait. A lot. Even though Graham was sending me text messages on the train’s status, it didn’t come quickly. We saw a freight train have to wait for CP 2816, too. But eventually, we got the note that she was heading west. Before long, we could hear its whistle echo through the valley. It came towards us, barrelling along as fast as it could, belching out black smoke.

For a moment, I saw myself in you. When I was your age (maybe a little older), your granddad (my daddy) used to take my family (Nana, Auntie Cathy, and me) to the train tracks near our house, to watch another steam locomotive — CN 6060 — come racing by, huge clouds of black smoke filling up the sky. It used to scare the hell out of me. Of course, I look back at that now and I feel really glad that I did see that — it’s a fond memory. I hope maybe one day, it is for you, too.

We hit the road and headed out to a place out towards the mountains called Ozada. You were asleep before we were outside city limits, and slept all the way there. Ozada is on the Stoney Indian reserve, and is one of Canadian Pacific’s old stations for servicing steam locomotives. (The concrete pylons for the coaling and water towers are still visible.) Today, it’s little more than a siding in the middle of nowhere, just off the highway. And we waited there because Graham had told me CP 2816 would be stopping there for servicing as well.

We were not disappointed. We saw the train come in slowly, pass by, and stop in the siding. After it had passed, we drove to the other end of the siding, and watched it race westward. (The train was about two hours late, so they had a reason to move quickly.) We drove out to the highway, and saw the train’s smoke as we drove by it on the highway. We saw some other people we’d seen back in Calgary stop at the side of the highway to take more pictures.

Finally, we stopped in Banff, and waited about halfway between the station and Bankhead. We had to wait a long, long time before we saw CP 2816′s lights. As CP 2816 was going on show at the station, the train stopped again not far from us for one last servicing before going in. This gave us a fantastic view, although the whistles did give you a bit of a scare — they were quite loud.

After meeting up with Graham at the station (it seemed only fair to thank him in person for the information), we had lunch at Bruno’s, and then headed back to Calgary. You slept from Canmore all the way home.

On Saturday, you and I went to the Calgary Farmer’s Market, mostly so you could go to the jumping castle — probably your most favourite thing in town (after me, of course). You ate your mixed berry crepe almost as fast as I could eat my ham and cheese crepe. I swear it’s the only thing you eat quickly — everything else requires a pry bar and a shovel…

When I asked what you wanted to do next, you said: “I want [to see the] giraffes!” So off we went to the zoo. We went though the dinosaurs, then over to the giraffes, zipped by the gorillas, and spent a lot of time at the playground (you love the playground, there). Then it was into the Australian pavilion (I was devastated to find that the nocturnal animal area is permanently closed), through the monkey house, and then over to the elephants (where we had hot dogs), zipped over to the carousel (just opened), before going through the Canadian Wilds (where you were completely obsessed with the prairie dogs).

For dinner, I took you to a Japanese restaurant. I found that your chopstick skills had degraded quite a lot — we’ll have to work on that. But you ate half of the edamame, a couple of avocado rolls, and even a piece of hamachi sashimi (well, it was nigiri sushi, but it was just plain easier to give you just the fish). You wouldn’t touch the miso soup (I’ll work on that, too). For your first shot, I was very proud of you.

The next morning, we walked over to the #2 bus stop. You were ecstatic about riding the bus. I’m sure it’s from singing The Wheels On The Bus so much.  We went to the Silver Dragon restaurant, where we met up with my friend Tamara and her husband, Dan. There we ate dim sum (Mommy was rather annoyed that we went without her). It was so good. You ate buns, and pork dumplings, and quite a lot of deep fried squid. Yes, you ate squid. I kid you not. Mind you, as I’ve said to others, the squid tastes a lot like scrambled eggs. So I told you it was scrambled eggs. You couldn’t get enough.

Following dim sum, you and I walked along the river over to Eau Claire Market (which really isn’t a market anymore — it’s mostly businesses and empty store space — nothing like it used to be), where you and I saw Toy Story 3. I cried a bit. You seemed to like it a lot, though. Especially anything with Woody.

In fact, you like Woody and Jesse (the Yodelling Cowgirl) so much, and because the Calgary Stampede is just around the corner, we walked over to Stephen Avenue afterwards to try and get you a cowgirl outfit. You’ve got the boots and jeans, but you need a hat and a shirt. Sadly, we were less than successful — no-one seemed to have a cowgirl shirt in your size.

On the way home, much to our luck, we ran into Grandma on the bus (she was coming to our house, anyway — we just had really good timing). You had some fun with Grandma while I went off to get something for us to eat for dinner.

In fact, I’m so tired from all of this excitement that it’s taken me a while to write all of this. But I hope you had fun, Monkey. I know I did.

And now, I need to go to bed. ‘Cuz I’m really, really, really tired.

Even where there is pattern, it’s high level: I get up, I get ready for work, I go to work, I work, I go home from work, I spend time with my family, I go to sleep. The details vary almost constantly, epecially with the “I work” part — in the 9 years I’ve been with this company, I’ve yet to have the same day twice.

And I’ll tell you — explaining all that ain’t easy. But I’m gonna try…

Now I should warn you: My life is pretty dull. There isn’t much to it. The part you see above is pretty accurate, except the “work” parts on weekends (it’s sometimes “I work a bit”, without the “getting ready” and “go to / go home” bit). I see three things throughout my week: My home, the back of Mark’s truck, and the office (although in the last week, we’ve now added “the back of a random cab” as a fourth item, as Mark can only drive me to work two days a week). That’s it. I’m lucky if I get out of town to see anything else, despite what you read on my blog or see on my Flickr feed.

I got the idea for this little project from a friend of mine, whose request was pretty simple: just some pictures of stuff I see. I turned it into: my day in pictures. Essentially, a day in the life of Geoff Sowrey. The idea, as it started, was pretty simple — I wanted to take a picture every five minutes. Didn’t matter what I was taking a picture of, only that it was of something in my vicinity: something I saw, something I was doing, something I was eating or drinking. The point was that it was my activity.

I held to the plan pretty well for the first few hours, but it started to break down when I got deeper into my work (it happens easily when I’m trying to solve problems) or got into private discussions (I left the camera behind). And as it was a Friday, a few of us ended up at Rock ‘n Roll Pollo … and I kinda forgot entirely. So there’s a number of gaps. In the 15 hours I was awake, I should have amassed 180 pictures — I have only 115. It’s not complete, but I think it’s representative.

So yes, this is … well, not the most riveting reading. (But then, if you’re been reading my blogs, you already know I’m not Dave Barry.) But on the bright side, it’s also image-based, so it’s not like you have to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The pictures are included here, but Flickr limits 100 outbound images for sets, so if you want to see everything, I suggest checking out the entire set on Flickr.

One thing Canon had on its prosumer cameras at the time that they took out of the DSLR line was the panorama assist mode (I don’t think it exists in any of their models now — does it?). A handy feature, it let you create panoramic views by being able to line up your previous shot. Then you used some included software, and BOOM!, you had a panorama.

Or that’s how it was supposed to work.

It wasn’t perfect. And if you didn’t follow good practises, you ended up with somewhat sketchy pictures. Back then, I was still fairly new at all this, and my skills with the lens were sorely lacking. For example, I tried to use the fancy mode to do panoramas in both Akihabara and Shibuya in Japan:

Canon Photostitch — the software included with my camera — did a reasonable job on well-aligned photos, but was not able to correct even slight mis-alignments. And if you don’t travel with a tripod — which I didn’t at the time — you were asking for trouble. Or really weird results.

In truth, I was very upset when I got these pictures. I really wanted the panoramas. I spent hours trying to correct it. But the problem is mathematical, not image. I needed a better tool.

Enter my old friend, Photoshop. (Is there anything Photoshop can’t do?) The Automate > Photomerge feature is so handy, it’s almost frightening. Suck in a few pictures, and Photoshop goes to work on them. What do I end up with?

Pictures that are light-years better. (End photos were slightly tweaked through Lightroom.)

My first thought was condensation. My camera had been inside an air-conditioned room for a day or so, and Panama is warm and humid. Bad combination for cameras, I tell you. I figured enough time to warm up and allow the condensation to leave should be enough.

It’s been a few weeks. The auto-focus still doesn’t work. The camera still seems to take decent pictures (manual focus is still available), but I’ve come to rely on the auto-focus to make sure my pictures are tack sharp.

I’ve checked the AF regions. I’ve reset all the settings. I’ve cleaned the pins and lens contacts (it happens with both my lenses). I’ve cleaned the mirror, too.

Anyone know what might be wrong? I’m outta ideas, and sending my camera to the shop to fix here in Costa Rica raises a number of language-based issues.

Sadly, at the end, it wasn’t a usual vacation. Until now, it’s always been either just me, or myself and Alex. Now there’s three of us, and the Wee One doesn’t have our stamina for travel and has a pseudo-schedule that needs to be followed from time-to-time.

British Airways

We flew BA from Calgary to London (via Heathrow). Air Canada — are you listening? These are the guys you should be looking to for level of service. Wow. Allow me to describe: We arrive at the plane along the jetway, with stroller (and babe) in hand. They tell us that they might not be able to bring the stroller on-board, but they’d let us know. They didn’t ask for seat or name — they figured it out on their own, checked the stroller, and gave us the claim ticket. They presented us with a small toy bag for the Wee One with a small stuffed plane for playtime. Free wine. Good (read: real) food. A feeling like people actually cared about the passengers’ well-being. Excellent in-flight entertainment for that 8-9 flight. Sure, it costs a bit extra. But not so much that I wouldn’t even think twice about flying with them again — that’s a definite.

Travelling with the Wee One

Most people thought we were nuts for hauling our offspring to Europe. A seven hour time difference, air travel, trains, ferries, lots of packing and moving, and add an infant to all of that?

I said it before, but our kid rocks. Sleep on the flight out (sadly, not so much on the way back), adjustment to the timezone in two nights (by the third day, all was well), played a lot on the trains (although she did have trouble sleeping due to lack of space), and she didn’t keep us up at night even though we were all in the same room. It didn’t matter how many places we went or how many people wanted to hold her (the Wee One apparently is the cutest thing many Brits have ever seen, judging by the near-endless stream of comments we got).

And hey, I got to spend 2.5 of constant time with my child! What on Earth could be wrong with that?

About the only bad thing (if you could call it that) was one bad habit picked up by a three-week older infant, and now the raspberry has entered the vocabulary.

Iona and the Iona Community

This was our first stop. Iona is a small island off the coast of the Isle of Mull, which is in turn off the western coast of Scotland. (The nearest major port is Oban, in case you’re looking for a geographical reference.) The day we arrived, there was a viciously strong and cold north wind. We immediately regretted having arrived, but pressed on. The Community itself runs mostly out of the Iona Abbey, which is owned and operated by Historical Scotland. For a week, we were guests, and basically had free run of the place.

That said, a week at a Christian commune (even an ecumenical one) takes a bit of a toll on the less- (or non-)devout. Although the people were wonderful — and I have to say that while I lamented the absence of meat in our meals, the things they can do with vegetables are stunning — I was happy to be on the road again for the mainland.

It’s a very small island, so it’s (relatively) easy to get around on it. Though parts of it are very boggy, you can cross the island in about 30 minutes, and go the length in about three times that. Even the highest point on the island — Dun I — takes about 15 minutes to climb, if you take your time.

It’s quiet, and it’s very dark at night — there are almost no street lights. It’s so quiet that doors mostly don’t have locks. The Abbey (technically-speaking) is open all the time.

Oban

I heard a few people trash Oban before I went there. But I have to say it’s a nice little town. It’s a good base for day trips, and there’s a lot to see in the area. You could easily stay there a week and not be bored. Given, the hotel we stayed at (Oban Caledonian) had some trouble — when you have to name the springs in your mattress due to the intimacy you’re getting with them, it’s time to replace the mattress. But I’ve stayed in far, far worse for much more money.

Train Travel

I love trains. Duh. You know that. So travelling all over the place on trains is generally not a problem. But I gotta say, someone has to change the rules that puts an end to the drunken football hooligans from spreading out all over the car, singing their songs and disturbing the crap out of everyone else, stinking the place up with their booze, and generally being belligerent. No, asshole, I’m not student. Unlike you, I have the good sense to travel responsibly, but there’s not enough luggage racks in the car for my backpack. That doesn’t give you the right to use it as a pillow or a reason to tell me off. (I also have the good sense to not say anything, since I’m sure you’re looking for a reason to get into a fight.)

Inverness

I also had people tell me not to go to Inverness. Why, I have no idea. It’s a beautiful little city. The trip there north of Perth is gorgeous, with all the rolling hills. It’s the highlands there, and it’s the best way to see it all. Anyway, the city of Inverness is amazing. The River Ness seems almost Disney-esque in the way it cleanly cuts through town, with banks of green grass and the sprouting daffodils. Add to that the lovely old buildings, winding little roads, and the general hospitality of people (drunken football hooligans notwithstanding), you just can’t go wrong.

Ramada Inverness

Except for the Ramada Inverness. For the record, the location is excellent. But overall, I found their staff to be bordering on incompetent. There were a couple of shining stars, no question, but I kept running into people who couldn’t answer the most basic questions, such as telling me why I can’t make a long distance phone call. It drove me CRAZY. So sorry, Mom, I couldn’t call you on your birthday. I tried, really.

High Tea at the Edinburgh Hilton Caledonian

Just as good as we had the last time we were there. Outstanding service. Great food. Great tea. Just wish we could have been there longer. Such is life.

York

I finally got to spend some actual time in York. The last time we were there barely 5 hours, so didn’t see much of it. That said, I didn’t really understand the road map until well into the second day (I kept getting turned around) and even then still took wrong turns. Confusing, but I still love the place. I could easily do month-long stints there to do some photo essays: York at Night, York Minster’s Hidden Places, Up Close with the National Rail Museum, etc. Love it.

York to St. Albans without going to London

Big mistake. Too many switches, we missed a connection, and it’s too much movement. Going through London is out of the way, but it’s a lot easier.

St. Albans

I still love this little place. The last time, we swore we’d spend more time there the next time. But we ended up with not even 1 day again, sadly. One day, we will spend more time there. It’s a very nice place.

Pictures

Some are already posted on Flickr, and others will come once I get them all done.

The ability to take a photograph and have it automatically appear on Flickr is totally awesome. I love this thing.

It’s going to get me in so much trouble…

Normally, I’m not big on books. They rarely give me the information I really need. I’ve got lots of photography books — presents from various people, and a couple I’ve bought myself. But they’re more artsy than anything else. Which means “mostly useless” for what I truly need.

What I truly need is time with a pro. Someone who I can go shooting with who can give me all the little tips and secrets that make a mediocre shot look a million times better.

Problem: I don’t know any pros.

Until now.

In some small way, I’ve met Scott Kelby. Not in person (though I think I’d like to), but through his book: The Digital Photography Book.

Yes, I know what I just said about books. This one is different. It’s a book written by a pro who is trying to explain digital photography without using all the technical mumbo-jumbo that loses we amateurs. I read almost the whole thing last night. I’m writing crib notes from it. And it’s going to change the way I take pictures.

Some of the things he writes about, I already knew (e.g. using polarising filters, keeping your ISO as low as possible, using a cable release for long exposures). Many other things I didn’t — exactly which f-stops to use for specific kinds of pictures. How to shoot weddings (important, since I’m tapped for Tamara’s wedding). The best time to shoot landscapes (and it ain’t when you think it is).

And the reasons why.

That’s the key thing. Many of the other books tell you how to do something. But it doesn’t sink it because it’s not really clear. Scott covers it, often liberally laced with wry humour. (Humour I not only understand, but appreciate.)

Best part? The book’s only about $20. If I’d been smart, I’d have bought it online. But I was in Chapters and got to thumb through it — the only way for me to know if a book is any good without a recommendation. So this is my recommendation to you — if you’re starting into digital and would like to do a better job than you’re currently doing, buy this book.

You can thank me (and Scott) later.

I still have the fundamental problem: How do I get good portability? The answer still seems to be eluding me. Understand — this is more a question than anything else.

Okay, what do I define as good portability? As a start:

• Light (2 lbs or less)
• Small (11″ screen or less)
• Functional (a PDA, although cool, doesn’t help me deal with 8 MB RAW images from my digital camera)
• Spacious (I want to download potentially hundreds of 8 MB RAW images from my camera so I can process them — an 8 GB SSD is a little too small)
• Runs Windows XP or Mac OS X (so I can run apps like Lightroom and/or Photoshop)
• Connected (wireless access with hardwire ethernet backup connection)
• No integrated battery! (And relatively decent battery life, of course.)
• Sub-$1000 cost (and sub-$500 shouldn’t be a major issue)

I don’t think I’m asking for much, really. It’s not like the technology doesn’t exist. What seems to be missing is the cohesive package. You can find all of these elements in various implementations that are out there, but not in one place.

Examples:

• MacBook
  Not the Pro, just the regular one. It’s working on small, but it’s still too large — 13″ screen. It’s 5 lbs, which makes it a bit tough to lug around in a camera bag. And it’s $1,250 to start. Otherwise, it handles everything else.
• MacBook Air
  A very high drool factor. But major detractions: It’s $550 more expensive than its “little brother”, and there’s that integrated battery thing. Not to mention it — apparently — has the same-sized footprint. Sure, it fits in an envelope, but that’s not going to work for a bag that can’t fit the envelope!
• Latitude D430
  A nice little Dell would be grand. Except that it’s over a grand. $1,300 to start. It’s 12.1″ screen is nicer to deal with. I have a D620 at the office, and it works very well (except for the usual Windows crap, anyway) and a few people here have the D430 (the ones who move around more often). At least it’s under 3 lbs.
• Asus Eee PC
  Way on the cool side, and rapidly approaching what I want. Really small, well-connected, you can load Windows XP Home and Mac OS X on it (given, the latter needs to be hacked into the system), it’s under a kilo, it’s cheap, and even if it has an integrated battery, I might let that slide. But it’s memory is limited to 8 GB. I suppose you could use an external USB hard drive to expand, if needed, though. Anyone know how to hack in a regular hard drive?
• Everex CloudBook
  Not out yet — it’s coming later this month to a Wal-mart near you — but a direct competitor with the Eee PC. It’s similar in specs, but includes a much larger hard drive (30 GB). Here’s the “but” — it uses gOS. Which means you’re not likely able to run either Photoshop or Lightroom. It could run Gimp, but so far I’m not sold on using Gimp for mass image editing. Especially for in-the-field work to see if you got that shot just right.
• Sony VAIO TZ-series
  In one word: Price. That’s the reason why I wouldn’t/can’t buy a Sony. Nice system. Way too expensive.

Right now, the Eee PC seems my best option. Not ideal by a long shot (I can do the PC + external HD option for less than $1,000 — I lose longevity due to battery drain), but at least possible.

I wonder how long until someone can get this handled completely?

I just haven’t had a chance to really play with it yet. But I figured a few pictures of work done around the house would be a good place to start.

First up is our tree. Our poor, poor denuded tree. The angle you see here shows one clear branch removed. A big branch. It broke slightly as it fell down. That’s why the stump left doesn’t look too clean. But hey, without a lot of ropes, a chainsaw, and a professional clue, you make do with what you have. You can’t see the other branch I lopped off, as it did come off a lot cleaner.

Next up is our new washer/dryer combo. It’s an inside shot, so the picture’s a bit blurry. I’ve become very dependent on my Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM lens, which makes taking pictures inside under low light a snap — I love image stabilisation. But it’s also a crutch that’s going to take some effort to get away from.

You can see the dryer vent I had to install, the dryer receptacle that needed wiring up, too. Now if I could just figure out why the dryer won’t actually heat (it does spin, though).

And finally, our new dishwasher. Much quieter than our last dishwasher, and a heap more efficient, too. I’ve got to clean up some of the hosing, though — they gave me a wee bit too much and it’s all over the place downstairs.

Particularly important since the CP main line is a 10 minute walk from the house (2 minutes if I cut across a field).

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Enjoy!

Well, once we sat through a rather lengthy time share sales pitch, anyway.

That was part of the deal from the activity purchase. USD$100 off the total price if we sat through a “presentation”. They’re never just presentations. They’re geared to one thing and one thing only: effectively con you into purchasing something you really don’t need.

For the record, the sales pitch is very convincing. Take what you spend on an average vacation. Multiply it by 25. Tack on inflation (be liberal and say only 2%). It comes out to a rather large chunk of change. Ours came out to the price of our house.

That’s the first trick: slap you in the head with a paddle and get you to seriously think about how much you’re spending. Of course, these sorts of presentations are always set up in places where you’re spending a lot of money because the area is expensive. There’s a reason why you’ll find dozen of these things in Honolulu … and none in Death Valley.

Next comes the advantages of signing up with the program. All the features of 5-star resorts, free access to any of the Wyndham properties (Wyndham was the company), concierge, full kitchens, bla bla bla.

They play off the need for people to feel like they live more richly than they are. The appeal of saving money and getting to stay in places that should be normally above their means is an awfully hard thing to pass up.

Thankfully, reality pervades in our lives. We don’t travel around the United States, so most of the properties are not in our travel plans. Now or ever (more than likely). Also, you need to book places like this far in advance. Alex and I don’t plan enough in advance because it ruins spontaneity. As for cost — we stay as cheaply as we can, and splurge only once in a while. We don’t go all out. Most of the cost of our trips goes to airfare.

It takes a lot to tell them “no”. If you try to say “no”, they immediately get into financing plans. Thankfully, our agent gave us an out from the beginning, saying she didn’t want to hear “maybe”, only “yes” or “no”, and be as truthful as we could. The answer was “no”. It took a couple of hours, but we got out.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a waste of time. It was actually an interesting experience to see how these things operate. Who knows, maybe if we find the right sort of vacation property company, we might sign up. But it’s going to offer us far more than just the continental United States and a sole property in Canada.

Returning to the hotel, we went for lunch at the grill before camping out for the afternoon on the grounds. Alex took shelter in shade to read. I went swimming in the bay.

Only problem is that you need to keep an eye out for the Hawaiian Green Turtles that frequent the area. They don’t bite, but they’re endangered. And touching them is a serious no-no. They don’t know this however, and will come right at you because they’re not afraid of you.

This is what drove me to rent a mask so I could see under the water. (If I’d been smart, I’d have gotten flippers, too.) Smart move, too, because the bay was full of all sorts of interesting sea life, including those cute colourful little fishes you see on the Discovery Channel.

We headed to the Royal Kona Resort for about 17:00. Given that our last luau was perhaps the best in Hawaii (the Smith Family Luau on Kauai), this had a lot to live up to. We got our shell leis, access to non-stop drinks, and proceeded to mingle.

The luau space is not huge, but adequate to the need. And the shoreline offers a wonderful view of the setting sun. The imu pit was a huge dirt mound, not nearly as fancy as the concrete and stone pits at Smith’s. It did the effective cooking job, at least.

The entertainment was pretty good, I must admit. The host is adequately cheesy, but without being horrible. The band loud without being obnoxious. And as always, there’s at least one member of the all-Polynesian revue who looks as white as the pure driven snow.

The trees are well-arranged (whether or not it was intentional, I have no idea), the tables were a little cramped, but it wasn’t hard to see the show and mingle with everyone. I can imagine what it must be like on a busy night, though. The fire dancer was solid. Like the show we saw in Honolulu last year, there had to be a screen between him and the audience.

Back at the hotel, we endulged in another evening of Law & Order. Seems to be on TV all the time here.

The engine of my plane as I fly down to San Francisco:

Our British Airways 747 to London:

The women who decided to talk us up at the hotel in London (mother and daughter, quite friendly):

Amy and Nick (and me, but I took the picture) sit in a sushi restaurant in St. Petersburg. Russia has surprisingly good sushi for a country that seems to have very few Japanese:

Siberia doesn”t have a lot of features. It generally looks like either of the following two pictures. Usually more the former than the latter:

And periodically, you do see other trains:

The forests often get thicker, too:

Another shot of the Museum of Wooden Buildings. Didn”t post this as I took too many pictures there (was unsure of lighting, etc.):

This is a far, far better shot of the Mongolian Embassy in Ulan Ude, Russia. I think I chose the other one because it did look better … at least at the time:

Me at the lake in Mongolia. Wouldn”t want to go swimming in that, though. Probably not the “cleanest” of places, with all the waterfowl and horses:

Amy catches up on journal- and postcard-writing:

We caught a sunset at Hustai National Park. This was before I nearly froze to death:

A line of rail car bogies sit to one side in the bogie-changing shed in Erlian, China:

Most of you are probably wondering what the toilets in the trains looked like. Here”s an example of the “western” toilets. Never did take one of the squat ones, sadly…

On the road, especially for this length of time, you periodically have to do laundry. Normally, not an issue. But this is what it looks like after washing out all the sand from Mongolia:

We hit a great little restaurant in Beijing for lunch one day, and were served a pot of tea. Make with chrysanthemums. Not exactly normal, but quite tasty:

Don”t ask me what kind of store this is. With a name like that, who really cares, anyway?

This is the view from our hotel in Shanghai. As you can see, it was quite hazy there. The humidity was murder:

It rained a lot in Xian on our first day there. Nice, but wet:

Who doesn”t want to go to a Yummy Restaurant?

We walked around part of Xian”s walls one night. They looked pretty nice:

Our last meal in Xian was at a strange hotpot restaurant, where we had to get someone to translate the freaking menu for us because we couldn”t read it at all. It was pretty tasty, though:

We made a mistake of going to the “Entertainers”, a trio who perform in the lounge of the same name at the Hyatt in Xian. They forever butchered many of my favourite songs…

I meant to post about this. I mean, really, who names their water: “WAHAHA”?

At least you can”t miss the sign to get you to Kowloon (Hong Kong):

Chinglish isn”t escapable, even at the Chinese/Hong Kong SAR border crossing:

One of these is the actual border between China and Hong Kong SAR. I have no idea where the heck it is, as it”s no longer marked:

Rogue vendors are so bad in some areas that private property owners try to keep them out with signs like these:

Ferry traffic!

Our hotel in Kowloon was next to the Avenue of Stars, sort of like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I found a few names I know:

Jackie Chan apparently heavily sponsors California Fitness. He”s probably an owner.

Inside our favourite dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong:

We had this at a sushi restaurant in Chiba. We thought it was some weird pickled eel. It was eggplant: