2010 South Africa Trip (4/22/2010-5/4/2010)

2010 South Africa I

04/22/2010&04/23/2010

Got up at 4:00 am, got everything ready by 4:40, left the house at 4:50 am when Jack (our shuttle driver) came 10 minutes earlier. Picked up Elly at her house, crossed bridge 92 (toll free between 5 and 10 am) and got to SFO at 5:55 am.

SA (South African Airways) flights in the US are operated by UA (United Airlines). We got to Washington D.C. Dulles airport in about 5 hour and 20 minutes, took shuttle to Gate A14 for our SA connecting flight (SA208); Surprisingly, there was no further security check as anticipated.

- Departure was delayed by one hour and 20 minutes due to bad weather or certain unknown situation near north side of Dulles airport.

Flight SA208 from Dulles to Johannesburg stops at DKR (a small airport in Senegal) for one hour to drop off/pick up passengers. Despite our late taking off at Dulles airport (although compensated by strong tail wind), additional delay at DKR, plus yet another delay at JNB (due to aerial thunderstorm - we were close to being diverted to Durban if the weather condition didn't improve), we were actually only late by 35 minutes.

- We experienced the longest (15~20 minutes) continuous turbulence ever, it was not very severe but enough to make us dizzy.

Our Gate1 tour guide (John) met us at JNB airport exit lobby. There were a total of 40 people in the group, some had already arrived, some were waiting at JNB (like us), and some were on their way. On the shuttle to Protea Hotel Wanderers, we saw several accident scenes on the freeway contributed by the severe storm.

Protea Hotel was a 4-star (see photos on Picasa) accommodation that both Anita and I like very much.

Went to bed at 11, woke up at 2 - long wait for breakfast (starts at 6:30).

04/24/2010

The Big Apple Restaurant had one of the best breakfast buffets we ever enjoyed.

Got on our bus at 8:30 to begin Soweto tour. Hector Peterson Memorial Museum and Mandela House were the main focuses. Three quarter of the group got off at a large shopping mall while Anita, myself and the rest of the group went back to the hotel. We ended up sleeping through the afternoon; we simply could not keep our eyes open.

Buffet dinner was ok, fish & chicken turned out to be the best.

04/25/2010

Heading toward Kruger National Park.

- Failed to relieve myself after nearly 30 minutes trial.

- Our bus left the Protea Hotel at 7:45

- Pit stop at 10:50

- Belfast Township

- Tram alley (forgot which city)

- Pilgrim’s Rest Township

- Kolkgate (Bourke's Luck) Potholes: Junction of rivers Sorrow and Happiness, spectacular view.

- Arrived Protea Hotel Hazyview at 6:00 pm, bigger room, older construction, no central air conditioning, no bathroom mat, and the safe does not work (fixed

by hotel personnel after several tries).

2010 South Africa II

04/26/2010

<Safari Ride in Kruger National Park>

- 10 Persons per car (3x3 rows in the back, plus one next to the driver)

- We were late getting to the parking lot and had to sit in separate cars, Anita sits in the back and I got the front seat, on the same car though.

- Took 30 minutes to reach Park entrance, another 30 minutes for permit

- It was wet and humid, we did not see much in the first 2 hours (2 small deers, several Impalas, some buffalos in the distance, a few zebras, and one elephant behind trees)

- The experience after breakfast was guite different (may be helped by improved weather and better visibility), we saw

- A couple of zebras

- Three adult elephants eating, two actually crossed the road only a few feet from our game drive vehicle, our driver had to maneuver the car to avoid their possible sudden charge. This may be considered the best experience of this morning.

- Four giraffes grazing

- Taking the afternoon easy, explored the hotel garden a bit, a nice garden with great view.

04/27/2010

- Woke up at 2:15, 3:30; 6:00 -->got up

- 6:45 -->Breakfast

- African Flame (a beautiful local flower)

- 9:00 -->Heading toward Kruger National Park Malelane Gate to meet those attending optional morning game drive.

- 11:30-->Stopped over at a shopping mall in Malelane for supplies.

- 12:15-->Heading toward Swaziland

- 1:20-->Left SA, entered Swaziland

- 2:25-->Stopped at roadside stone carving stands

- 3:30->Visit Glass Factory

- 5:06-->Checked in Lugogo Sun Hotel, a 3-star hotel with: no adapter to borrow, no central air, no hair dryer, no convenient restaurant (also it costs ~$20 for dinner buffet), with only one small and old elevator.

- Dinner was taken care with left over and donation from Elly/Jenny.

2010 South Africa III

04/28/2010

- 8:00 -->Left Lugogo Sun Hotel

- 8:30 -->Visited Candle Factory

- 9:20 -->Heading toward Swaziland/SA boarder

- 12:05 -->Arriving Swaziland/SA boarder

- 12:30 -->Entering South Africa

- 12:45 -->Lunch break at 1stop, got a couple of scones for dinner

- 2:40 -->Arrive Hluhluwe Game Reserve

- 2:50 -->Began our second game drive; this is a better experience than the one in Kruger, better weather, better visibility, and better sitting.

- Encountered: Baboons, Rhinos, Buffalos, Zebras, Nyalas, Dong Beetles, Giraffes, and Hyaenas

- Need a better camera (higher zoom capability, better low light sensitivity)

- 6:00 -->End of game drive

- 7:30 -->Check in Elephant Lake Hotel, recently renovated, much of the detail is either missing or poorly crafted, most likely due to poor workmanship, low budget, and/or miss management.

04/29/2010

- 6:45 -->Breakfast, not too many selections

- 8:45 -->Departing Elephant Lake Hotel

- 9:00 -->River cruise (Crocodile, Hippo)

- 10:45 -->Visit local market

- 11:00 -->Heading toward Durban, coastal route

- 1:20 -->Lunch break at Ballito Bay, a resort town. Bought a small bottle red wine and 2 croissants. Had sandwich for lunch.

- 2:40 -->Leaving for Durban International Airport.

- 3:50 -->Arriving Durban International Airport, this airport would be replaced by the new Shaka International Airport and closed permanently in two days (05/01/2010). We had a group check in - John took all passports and took care of everything.

-6:00 -->British Airways flight 6303 taking off.

- 7:55 -->Arriving Cape Town International Airport.

- 9:15 -->Check-in Protea Hotel Victoria Junction, possibly the best for the trip - hairdryer, alarm clock, usable power receptacle, LCD TV, chocolate, very comfortable beds, safe, carpet floor,

04/30/2010

- 5:30 -->Got up, a much better rest

- 8:25 -->Leaving for city tour

- 8:40 -->First stop-Table Mountain

- 10:15 -->Finishing Table Mountain tour, start city tour

- 1:00 -->Back to Protea Hotel, had scone and croissant for lunch.

- 2:30 -->Use hotel Internet (50 RAND for 60 minutes)

- 3:30 -->Explore hotel neighborhood, found KFC and a grocery store. We bought a bottle of Pinotage ($R28), some pastries, and 4 chicken legs from the grocery store (dinner is ready).

- 5:30 -->Nice dinner (inexpensive AND tasty)

2010 South Africa IV

05/01/2010

- 8:30 -->Start Cape Peninsula tour

- 9:10 -->Maiden's Cove

- 10:10 -->Hout (wood timber) Bay

- 11:00 -->Leaving for Cape Point.

- 12:00 -->Entering Cape Point.

- 12:20 -->Start hiking to the lighthouse.

- 2:40 -->Lunch at Seaforth Restaurant, next to the Indian Ocean.

{Large quantity of fish filet and delicious Milba Pudding)

- 3:55 -->Visited Boulder (Penguin habitat and protection center) beach

- 5:30 -->Visit Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden

- 6:30 -->Return to Protea Hotel

- 6:45 -->Got chicken and pizza roll from the "SPAR" grocery. Got coleslaw from KFC, we were going to get another bottle of Pinostage but couldn't because SA law prohibit sale of alcoholic beverage after 5pm during weekends.

05/02/2010

- 8:00 -->Late breakfast, took it easy this morning.

- 11:00 -->Took hotel green shuttle (Hybrid-gasoline and liquid hydrogen)

to Waterfront, the famous pier shopping mall.

1:00 -->Ride ferry to Robben Island.

3:45 -->Ride ferry back to Waterfront, call hotel for green shuttle to take us back to the hotel.

-7:00 -->Farewell dinner.

05/03/2010

- 7:45 -->Breakfast (did not pack any food -:)), same type of food but tastes better, possibly because this is the last meal here.

- 10:00 -->Left the luggages outside the room

- 11:00 -->Leaving for Cape Town International Airport.

- 11:15 -->Process tax refund (R76); had to check-in the luggages as they were both overweight (~10 kg, 8 being the max).

- 1:20 -->Got to boarding gate.

- 1:50-->Flight delayed

- 2:20-->Flight took off (30 minutes delay)

- 4:15 -->Landed at JNB in heavy rain, spent 45 or so minutes trying to get our tax back AND get to the correct gate-> only got R50 after R25 fee. Security check was extremely tight, may have something to do with upcoming 2010 World Soccer Event. We rushed through the airport after the inefficient tax refund process and got to gate A15->boarding pass/passport verification->body search->carry-on bag check->another boarding pass/passport verification->board the plane.

- 5:45-->Taking off on time (flight duration was 8 hours)

- 12:00 (Senegal time)-->Landed at DKR airport->on-board security check to make sure passengers disembarking the plane did not leave anything harmful behind.

-1:30 -->Flight taking off for IAD

- 6:00 -->Arriving IAD. Since instead of SFO, we used IAD as the final destination for our luggages, we had to go through longer (30 minutes more than Elly) and more complicated route:

- Different shuttle-ours was 10 minutes late leaving air walkway,

- Different luggage handling->SFO's were handled with priority.

- Security check - not sure if different procedures were applied but it took us 25 minutes just to clear custom.

- 7:40 -->Arriving at departure gate.

- 8:55 -->Taking off-40 minutes late.

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Health Insurance Resumption/Halt Notes (健保復保停保須知)

Health Insurance resumption and Halt can be submitted at the same time. In order to be sure your application for "halt" takes effect, it is recommended that you call the District Administration corresponding department to confirm the paper work had gone through before leaving Taiwan.

It is not necessary to fill out the application forms before going to the District Administration Office, they will do it for you - although it may speed up their work process. Remember to bring the following items with you:

- ROC passport (中華民國護照)(they will check the entry/exit dates to make sure you have been out more than 6 months)
- Stamp(印章) (unless you already filled out the forms and stamped them).
- Citizen ID (身分證) and/or copy household record (戶口名簿 或 戶籍謄本影印本)
- Resumption/halt application forms if desirable
- The exact of entry and planned departure (入出境日期)

Note that Insurance IC card is not needed and it(全民健保卡) becomes effective one hour after the submission of the Resumption application.

Be sure to tell the hospital/clinic registration(掛號) that you have Health Insurance Resumed (更新掛號) when going to the doctor the first time after RESUMPTION(復保)

2009 Egypt Trip Highlights

12/1/2009-12/8/2009

2009-Egypt I
12/1/2009(SFO-Paris)
Once again, Yolly gave us a ride to SFO. The flights we booked through Delta but operated by Air France(we could not check-in because of this) so we had to go to aisle 7 to check-in, it was a snap. We chowed down most of the food we brought before entering the security check point. Security check is more strict than the last time we traveled. We were t Gate A5 when we board UA for the Baltic Cruise trip, today we are at Gate A7 - same location but difference wall postings. As expected, all announcements were made in French - English - Spanish. It appears that all European carriers serves better meal, this was no exception - all kinds of drinks before meal including wine, soft drink, liquor, and juice, a separate round of drink was severed with the meal,
we each had a small bottle of 2008 Red wine (LA BAUME), fairly good and goes well with the beef I ordered. Watched Ice Age 3 - interesting and entertaining. Our seats were on the last row of the section which were also right next to the toilet, popular area but also convenient for us. We landed at Charles Degroot airport at 11:25, this airport is one of the old airports that do not have enough land to expand and have run out of space - virtually all passengers must take shuttle to get to the terminal, and take another shuttle to get to different terminal for connecting flight. It took us 35 minutes to get to gate 44 F for Cairo connection flight.
It was cloudy and rained slightly in Paris. We waited a while at the boarding gate due to unknown delay. There was a long stair ramp which took us to the shuttle waiting. The carrier was a relative new Airbus 330 about 70% full. Air France provides meal menu on both flights (SFO-PARIS, PARIS-CAIRO) and serves free drinks of many varieties, the food was also splendid, quantity served was generous, we were able to save some for snacks.
12/2/2009
Cairo Airport is relatively small compared to its neighboring countries, visa fee is $15 paid at special counter, getting through custom wasn't difficult, just need time :-) Gate1 representative picked up all 6 from the same flight, two other couples are John/Cathrin from New port Beach and Eric/Sandra from ??? It took one hour to get to The Oasis Hotel, our guide Mamal kept pressing their excursions but we decided to take taxi on our own.
The hotel wasn't what we were used to, our room 3013 wasn't on the third floor, it's way back at the end of the hotel complex, amenities were not bad, possibly 3 star when it was built.
12/3/2009 - Cairo
All other Gate1 members took excursion, so we are all alone today.
Woke up at 4:00 am,fooled around a bit until it's breakfast time. The free buffet was edible, the only thing deserved praise was their hash-brown. Left hotel in "limo" heading toward The Pyramid of Giza at 7:45. I was very disappointed seeing the Pyramids in person may be because seeing too many nice pictures taken professionally, it could be because that Egypt is a not too rich country, their people do not appear proud of the treasure have. Most countries with this type of world class treasure would spend a lot and make their people proud.
[Observations]
- The place looks like a dump
- There was no signs/descriptions of the place (expecting people to find out for themselves)
- No instruction on where to buy different kinds of tickets.
- Ticket purchasing is done manually, one people outside taking money and write down what was purchased in a notebook(the old paper based), people inside the ticket booth hands out your ticket.
- Although the pyramid ground area was relative clean, there are many locals with camel waiting to get tips from tourists - take your photo, take their photo, buy something from you
- You get nothing but the tickets, no description of the pyramids, their history, preservation efforts, etc. as you could from all established facilities of the sort.
- There are police everywhere you go, for security reason of course, but most of them simply sit/talk/wandering around.

2009-Egypt II
12/3/2009(continued)
Note1: Almost everyone you might or might not need help from expect some "reward", ask someone for direction, go to the restroom, or being offered to take your picture, etc.
Note 2: There is no speed limit in Egypt (at least in Cairo and Giza), people drive as fast as one can imagine, so there are road bumps in the streets everywhere except freeway, but since freeways cross over many streets, the overpasses themselves serve similar purpose.

12/4/2009
3:45-wake up call (we ended up checking the time every 30 minutes beginning at 11:00)
4:00-luggage out at door
4:30-check luggage
4:45-leave hotel
7:00-flight to Aswan

There hot coffee and lunch boxes waiting at the lobby cafe, the cucumber inside was fresh and delicious, the first vegetable we have in two days. The coffee was really good even without sugar.
We arrived at the airport at 5:45, went through 3 security check points-the airport building entrance, concourse pathway entrance, and boarding gate entrance.
Note: the group was actually 40 something in size and we were the only people not in the excursion yesterday. We decided to join the excursion the next 3 days to save some energy and hassle - had to pay $60 more than if paid in the US.
Since we don't have the same last name, Anita and I were assigned different seats, it turned out mine 08A was the first one in business class-too bad it's only an one hour flight. s, not sure if it's only available or business class seats but I actually got hot swipe+juice right after seating, plus s light breakfast after taking off-unusual for an one-hour flight. Took one small coffee spoon as souvenir (not sure if they were included for different food items or packaging error, but there were two coffee spoons in the bag). Note that they are real silverware instead of the usual plastic ones - again not sure if it was special for business class only. Found out I am being envied and hated because of my sitting in business class, oh well, tough luck.
We were taken to Aswan High Dam, built by the Soviet union in the 70th - not much to see (we would not come on our own but no choice since it is part of the package), stopped at "unfinished Obelisk", the site where granite blocks were erected and served as construction material here.
We finally boarded the "Escape" cruise,an old but remodeled river cruiser, probably holds about 100 passengers-don't even try to compare this with Princess cruise ships. The food on board is edible at best, no fruits were served so far.
The evening tour of temple "Tom ???" was interesting but it's very chilly and Anita got sick afterward. I had a quick dinner (same staff with the exceptions of chicken and a cooked vegetables) and managed to get some food delivered to our cabin for Anita.

2009-Egypt III
12/5/2009
There is a tea&coffee at 6:15 before our morning tour, so we visited the bar at 6:00 before the crowd-there were only some small slices of cake, I took 4 slices of them - enough to go through the short morning tour.
Edfu temple is only 5 minutes away from the port, it was excavated in ???? - need more detail of the temple. We stayed on board the whole day to sail for Luxor after the Edfu temple tour - caught up with some well deserved sleep. There was a costume party(formal name?) before and after dinner when guests get to put on local (Egyptian) dresses, we had our usual dresses and simply watched-interesting, we were(especially me) never the party/social type. Dinner was little better than yesterday but,,,.
12/6/2009
This is going to be a fully scheduled day. Got up really early - as usual - had a quick breakfast as we'll be rifing and seeing temples and tombs all day.
Valley of Kings tour is more like Disney Land which you have choice seeing 3 tombs(general admission) or selected tombs. Most of them are similar, but the tomb of the son of Ramesses III- Khaem Wast is considered the best as colors on most of the reliefs are still well preserved, thanks to year round hot and dry weather. The only Egyptian Queen that has her own private tomb was Hatshepsut, who...

Valley of Queens simply wasn't worth visiting (except perhaps the one that's closed for maintenance). as the only two tombs open didn't have much to see or admire.

Note: The Luxor city has a better impression as the streets and tour sites (temple, museums, tombs) are well designed to attract foreign tourists - a much better experience than when visited the Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian Museum. Although tip-for-forced-service is still wide spread. The only places that we did not get harassed were for-tour guide-commission-stores and Luxor airport (verify).

A couple of short stops later, our guide took the group to another store to see(and BUY) stone based products. This store appears to be one of the popular ones as the tour buses come in and go every minute, this directly translate into their attitude, we did not buy any thing(but we did take advantage of their free of charge restroom), there were, however, quite a few customers from our group, so the wait for everyone else was long and we had to rush back to the boat to get lunch and harry on to the next tour - they put their profit before their clients' interest, not an acceptable behavior even for this "affordable" travel.
The "Luxor Temple" tour in the afternoon was most memorable, its pillar formation was spectacular and there were tons of them still intact.

2009-Egypt IV
12/6/2009 (continued)
Eight from Manal's group had to leave for Luxor Airport early morning, Anita, Patrick, Wendy Lum (Sacramento), Jef Lum (Stockton), Sandra Horn (Kentucky), Eric Horn (Kentucky), Catherine Ward (New York), and John Ward (New York).
4:30-Wake up call
4:30-5:30-Breakfast
5:30-Leave boat
7:10-Luxor Airport
It was a short one hour flight but drinks were still served - nothing alcoholic though. Checked-in Inberotel Hotel at 8:45. A likely 4-star hotel-no robes, room 1103 was clean and on the ground floor (we thought it was on the 11th floor until we saw the elevator only goes to 4th floor).
We rested for a while (it wasn't difficult o fall asleep as we were both exhausted), we did wake up and watched two movies, one was "Water Horse", an interesting but fictional film kind of linked the Lake Niss monster to it. Another was "August Rush" about a music prodigy. Had lunch at hotel Italian restaurant "Il Giardino", nice pasta and draft beer-~148 Egyptian pounds(~$30).
Rested most of the afternoon, got a sandwich and a pastry for dinner. Got to the airport at 9:45, went through a series of security check points (guess they treat US bound flights more seriously). Our return flight was, unfortunately, operated by Delta, the plane was not old but also ill maintained - no per seat screen, only the old over-the-top CRTs, air-conditioning leaked water at several occasions, one air outlet was completely gone so the flight attendant had to use something to cover it up. There were at least a dozen wheelchair passenger never seen before. There also were a number of small kids, two were behind us (ages 5 and 8),another across the isle, possibly 4 years old. The four-year old screamed non-stop from the moment he boarded the plane, this lasted several hours until he felled asleep. Comparing meals served on Delta, the ones we had on Air France was 2 scales better. After 12 hours and 30 minutes we finally landed at NYC-JFK airport, since this is an early morning flight plus we do not have to wait for baggage, we got through custom in 10 minutes - would have been 20,30 minutes during the day.
We had some leftover food from the flights plus Starbuck coffee for breakfast.
Flight from NYC-JFK to SFO was also operated by Delta, the gate change was discovered early otherwise we may have to run to the new gate at the last minutes. It turned out the flight (757-200) was very empty, possibly 60% of he seats were unoccupied, virtually everybody got one row(3 seats) and there were still quite a few empty rows, never had I experienced such luxry, even better than business class as far as seating goes. No meal except nuts/pretzel were served on board and only non-alcoholic drinks were free of charge-a sharp contrast to what we had on board Air France.

2010 Movie Experience

Avatar 3D: Watched at CineArts@Santana Row, one of the best semi-animation movie with interesting and complicated plots.

Sherlock Holmes: Watched at CineArts@Santana Row (4:05 pm, $7.50), an action packed film, appears heading for sequels.

Alice in Wonderland: Also a 3D recreation



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9: An animation about dolls fighting evil machines in human-less earth

Love Happens: Jeniffer Aniston falls in love with a best seller writer

The Informant: Story of a Corporate executive (Mat Damon) lives on lies

Surrogates: A police (Bruce Willis) investigate the death of surrogates

This is it: Watched again on Eva Airways SFO->TPE flight - still impressive
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Toy Story 3 (3D): A better story

Restrepo: A soldier Afghanistan deployment journal

Inception: A deep level dream fantasy - 8/9/2010 ($6)

The kids are all right: A lesbian family story - 8/9/2010

Shutter Island: Leonardo DiCaprio in a Psychological thriller (Alaska cruise on Golden Princess)

Green Zone: Matt Damon searching for WMD in Iraq (Alaska cruise on Golden Princess)

Social Network: The story of the birth of Facebook (September - CineArts@Santana Row)

The Town: Ben Affleck mastermind bank robberies (October - CineArts@Santana Row)

Red: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich fight/investigate their assassination attempt (10242010 - Campbell Camera 7)

Waiting for Superman: Documentary about the problem with American education system (10242010 - Campbell Camera 7)

Harry Potter - The Final Book, Part 1: First part of two for the final Harry Potter book (December - CineArts@Santana Row)

The King's Speech: British King George VI overcoming public speech problem(CineArts @Palo Alto)

Volunteers at Shih Foundation

Met several new volunteers on 1/11/2010:

Mr. Chao - Kung' senior school mate at NTU
Mr. Jiang - Not sure but possibly Kung's colleague at E-Tek
Mr. Wang - Editor of Shih Foundation quarterly magazine
Lily - Life Insurance agent

About 2012

There are similar predictions from several sources - Mayan calendar, the Bible, and American Indians.

Bible Codes Predict Solar Flare Holocause in 2012
The approach of a large comet in 2012 could trigger a solar eruption that will fry the Earth like a rotisserie.

Hopi prophecy
According to American Indians (in current Arizona), the world has been destroyed 3 times, by fire, ice (the ice age), and flood (as implied by the Bible), we are in the fourth stage.

Hindu


I-Ching