Trip Highlights!
We’re home! It’s been about 20 hrs since we’ve been home, and I’m still pretty jet lagged. I wanted to write a quick summary on some of my most memorable moments from my trip before my senior moment kicks in and I forget everything. I’ll post another link with photos later this weekend.
Pushing Personal Limits: For those of you who know me, you know I love to push the limits personally and physically. My trip there consisted of an hour from home to SFO, a 14 hr plane ride from SFO to HK (sitting next to a sweet elderly Philipino woman who had severe memory lapses), 5 hr layover in HK, 13 hr plane ride from HK to Johannesburg (travelling with N Koreans, more on that later). Let’s just say the total trip was about 36 hrs, and I swear I was hallucinating at the end. That was definitely pushing my personal limits in regards to plane travel, and I will never do it again unless I’m flying anything better than economy.
Travel Buddies: the 86 yr old Philipino woman from SFO to HK was a great conversationalist until I realized she couldn’t remember what we talked about 10 minutes ago. Still, I treated her and helped her as if I would my own 86 yr old grandma. She insisted that I eat half of all of her food and tried to give me her feminine wipes “what do you do for your flower?”.
My journey from HK to Joburg consisted of sitting in the back of the plane with about 50 roudy asian men, all whom seemed to know each other. They were shorter in stature and their skin darker and my guess was that they were Vietnamese. They didn’t seem to understand English, Cantonese or Mandarin that was being spoken on the plane. Most didn’t seem to know basic flight etiquette (not standing during take off/landing, locking bathroom doors, turning off cell phone during flight). Many were fascinated by the food and alcohol served on the plane. Anyhow, my neighbor started talking to me at some point and because I had consumed 3 glasses of red wine in an attempt to sleeeep (this Cathay flight was horrible… my seat was extra small and the plane SMELLED) I chatted him up. He mentions he is from Korea in broken english. I get excited, since I had visited there last year. I ask if he is from Seoul. He says north of Seoul. At this point, I can’t think of any other northern part of Seoul in South Korea. This is where his neighbor says, “North Korea”. I am stunned. North Koreans on planes? To make a long story short, this was their first plane ride and they had flown from Pyongyang to Beijing (which they referred to as the old name, Peking) to HK to Joburg then onto Windoek, the capital of Namibia to work (paint, he motioned). We communicated basic things, such as age (he was 30 but in all honesty I would have guessed closer to 40), whether he was married (he was not), and then helped him pronounce words in the onboard shopping magazine. Another part of great travel is to realize that no matter where you are from (how much more different can we be…..) we are all just basic humans with basic human needs. I wish I could speak Korean to learn more about him, his lifestyle back home, etc. I came home to find that N Korea and Namibia have had good diplomatic relations for several years.
Cari & Mark: This year, I met up with Cari from work in Joburg (she flew in from Brazil) and then while in Cape Town, stayed with her friend Mark whom she had met at Pueblo Ingles in Spain last year (I’m now trying to figure out how to participate in this program timewise). When you spend so much time together, sometimes all you have to have is a great sense of humor. We had a wonderful time.
Tienshiao: Of course, as a 3rd year in a row ritual, Tienshiao and I had an Asia journey (last year was S Korea, the year before Shanghai) and what else can I say? We live together, we travel well together too.
Johannesburg: We got there several days after the last of the publicly noted Xenophobic activity occured which almost cancelled the entire S Africa portion of our trip. We didn’t spend much time in the city at all and only visited the Apartheid Museum. We stayed at Mbizi Backpackers Lodge with Patrick which was fabulous - one of the best hostels I’ve stayed in so far. Very homely atmosphere and Patrick really goes above and beyond for his visitors.
Kruger National Park: We used Bundu Safari and stayed at Thornhill Lodge. I wasn’t sure what to expect, we had booked everything through a 3rd party, EcoAfrica (Edna there was FABULOUS) but can I just say, dude, these were spectacular accomodations (and yes, I just said dude). I forgot I was backpacking. The meals were great, service was great, quarters were fabulous, and all of the game drives were wonderful. I actually preferred the evening night drives through the private reserves over the all-day drive through Kruger since we can really get up close and personal. They pick you up and drop you off, the travel time is about 5-6 hrs from Joburg.
Cape Town: Mark was so wonderful to us, letting us stay with him. I love staying with locals because they know where to eat and what to do. There was so much that we did - his apt had a view of Table Mountain which as he proclaimed in a british accent, “it looks different, everyday!”. We went to the tops of the mountains to the beaches, drove to Cape Point, saw the Atlantic Coastline, had wine tasting, beer tasting, Malay food, visited an Afrikaans club (LOL - the guy I was making fun of ended up wanting to dance with me), ate all sorts of delicious food including Boerewors Rolls, sweet potato mash, cottage pie, visited the western cape area, watched movies (you must see God Must Be Frazy), oy! There was so much that we saw, ate and did. I think though the most mind boggling was the history of Apartheid, and how it only ended not too long ago. It was interesting to hear about the perspectives from an Afrikaans (euro descent) who was finishing HS around that time. I would have loved to hear more from someone coloured or black. Unfortunately, a lot of township tours were closed because of the recent xenophobic activities.
Hong Kong: It was HOT and HUMID. I think asian people overall do relatively well in these conditions, something about the genetic makeup allows them to not feel this torturous 95% humidity, however, I am not your typical asian. I am not a size 2 and I SWEAT. Even given these conditions, I still managed to have one heck of a time there - there is plenty to see, eat and shop for. Besides, it was interesting to learn about another previously British colony. We stayed in TST area which is a touristy area. Everyone is trying to sell you anything (on our way out with all of our backpacks, one guy tried to sell me bath towels. Please, do I look like I have a place for bath towels???). We stayed in a hostel in Mirador Mansions to go with our backpacking theme (for a deluxe room through New Garden Hostel, I paid <400 USD) and also to save some $$ for shopping). It was definitely not like staying at the Pen (in fact, we didn’t even have the right clothes to go eat at their High Tea) but it was definitely functional. The room was about the size of our current master bedroom and the bathroom (sink, toilet) also incl the shower in the same room. We visited some old classmates of mine from B school, did day trips to Macau, Shekou and Guangzhou (mainland China, BTW going through a tour is easier and cheaper than applying for a Visa in HK) and had custom shirts and suits made! We ate some of the most delicious foods (I now have a thing for congee)… can’t wait to post photos of the food. BTW when you walk the streets on a non-rainy day, avoid the dripping. That’s the water from the AC!
I’ve slept like 6 hrs in the last few days and with the jetlag I probably have a bunch of typos and have forgotten some key things, I’ll fix them a little later when I’m much more sane 
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