Steph and I had a decent week in California. The flight was pretty terrible for me. I was taking a different set of flights compared to Steph due to my extra stop through Atlanta on the way back. Steph had a whole row, while I was stuck in a middle seat on each leg with a full flight. We got to the hotel and met her parents there. They were so nice and brought some magic chili tofu, mango pudding, and other delicious foods for us.
We tried to work from the hotel at the start of the week, but the internet was terrible and the jet lag was bad as well. We spent too much time in the dark room, and I ended up taking some naps, so I didn’t transition as quickly as I could have.
Tuesday I had a great time playing pickleball with Tina, Amit, Chris, Rachel, Michael, and Michelle. We traded of games and mixed it up. Most of them hadn’t played since I was there last, but everyone seemed to have a great time of it. It is interesting, the thought that everyone might enjoy something and want to do it, but it doesn’t happen due to a lack of impetus.
I helped Russell and Elaine set up their new TV with the Smart TV functionality.
Wednesday evening we played games at George’s, with some silly UK quiz game cards that didn’t really translate well to a quiz game. We ordered food in because we wanted to spend more time at George’s together. We didn’t realize it when we bought the crackers, but they had some gunpowder in them, so we were surprised that we got them on the plane.
On Friday, we did the Robotopia Room Escape with Paul and Yutong. It was really well done and a much longer room escape at two hours. We managed to do it without asking for any clues, so I was quite happy with that result.
Saturday, we met up with Ricardo and Irene in Napa. It was good to see the two of them. Irene is pregnant again, and they’ll be taking some time off in Greece next summer. We may be able to join them in Greece for some time, depending on if the timings work out with our other trips.
Sunday morning, we did a hike with Michael and Michelle through Edgewood Nature Preserve. Then we met up with Jeff, Patty, and Elizabeth for dinner at Osteria, near where we used to live on G Street.
Diana was so nice in taking care of the kitties while we were away.
Steph and I left early on Friday to get a flight from London to Kuala Lumpur. The flight is about 14 hours direct, and we made it there on time. We got to the hotel and were exhausted, but due to the time difference it was early morning. We decided to push through and went on a walk to the butterfly house. It was hot and humid, and I have not been used to that for a while, so I was sweating buckets. I fully saturated one of my button down shirts. The walk also was longer and more confusing than expected due to the large drainage ditches and highway. We made it there eventually, with a nice detour through a park and a call to Steph’s parents. We then made it to the butterfly house and saw lots of types of butterflies. It was really nice to see them all, and we took a relaxed time going through the air conditioned exhibits before leaving for some mall shopping.
Steph wanted to see a wagashi place, and it was in an art themed mall. Each store was an artist or group of artists, with some food mixed in. The wagashi place was a mix of art and food, and they had some extremely ornate exhibits of wagashi along the normal ones. For dinner we made it to Uncle Roger’s restaurant, Fuyoh!.
We caught the planes to Mulu the next day. It is a little strange how Malaysia has different immigration per landmass, but I guess that makes sense with the history and landmass layout between peninsula and islands.
Mulu is on Borneo and we stayed at the Marriott there, which was surprisingly nice. We met Jess and Diana there, and I crashed the first afternoon while they checked out the park. The main attraction for Mulu is the national park. It is a gorgeous bit of jungle, pinnacle mountains, and caves. We only did the jungle and caves parts, and didn’t do the mountain hikes as those were intense and multi-day.
We started off with the easy Botanical Trail, then went to the Racer Cave. This was an intro trek to see who would be able to do the more rigorous Clearwater Connection route. Steph and I were the only ones who ended up doing the Clearwater Connection. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it was long and everything was so slippery. I also didn’t enjoy the hand sized huntsman spiders. I had a good time in the river portion, but that only lasted around half an hour of the three hour trip.
We did the canopy walk, which was a long set of hanging walkways going from tree crown to tree crown in the rainforest. It was nice to do, but didn’t give a good view of any animals as I assume they avoid it. We went to the tower and it was much the same. Near the tower was an amazing strangler fig that had a gorgeous crisscross pattern at the base with the hole in the middle where it had killed off the host tree.
The last main activity was going to the gigantic Deer cave. It is one of the largest chambers in the world, with millions of bats calling it home. The cave is 148m high inside, and even more across. We also go to see some of the rarest cave formations, the showerheads, where water makes a pipe coming down from the ceiling.
We then went to Kota Kinabalu for scuba diving over two days. We did 5 dives the first day and 3 dives the second day. It was amazing diving and we saw: lots of nudibranchs, puffer fish, a seahorse, a turtle, lots of clown fish in anemones, and so much more. The reef wasn’t 100%, but it was doing much better than most reefs we’ve seen recently.
We said goodbye to Jess and Diana and headed back to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with Jeff, Patty, and Elizabeth.
Steph and I did our tours separate from Jeff and Patty, but we both went to the Batu Caves. They have been converted into a Hindu temple and have monkeys roaming around them. It was amazing to see, and the stairway was gorgeous. The temples themselves were so colorful and the atmosphere was delightful. I really enjoyed see them.
Steph and I also did a cooking class, and we got to see a typical neighborhood market and cook three Malay dishes: coconut rice, spicy noodles, and sweet pancakes.
We had diners with Jeff, Patty, Elizabeth, and their Aunt and Uncle. It was nice to talk to them, and I got to show them all my recent work. They were blown away by how well the AIs work now.
For the last evening we went by the mall under the towers and saw the fountain lights show. It was a good end to the trip and I was ready to get back. A 13.5 hour flight back the next day and we were in London.
I went on a dive trip with a great group. Gokhan was leading the trip, and I was roomed with Frank. The others on the trip were Pavel, Anel, Lata, zSofia, Cheryl, Jose, Diana, and Romana.
We got to Gatwick, with most of us taking the same flight that Gokhan recommended. He was already in Turkey, so we met him when we got into the airport there.
We were diving in Fethiye for the first two days, and staying at an all inclusive resort. I was tempted to join in on the karaoke, but decided against it as I was really tired from the travel.
The first day of diving was really chill. The experienced divers were paired with newer divers, and I got paired with Pavel, as both of us are intermediate. The dive had us go through some tight canyon swim throughs. They were neat, but there wasn’t as much life as we’d hoped. The two fish that were surprisingly abundant were the puffer fish and lion fish from the Red Sea. We relaxed in a small cove in between the dives and had a really nice lunch. The second dive then was around that cove with a small wreck in the outer part of the cove.
In the afternoon we went to a famous lagoon and had drinks while relaxing near the beach. A few people rented paddle boards and went around the lagoon. The whole day paragliders were coming down from the nearby mountain that had a cable car running up it. They were coming down almost one a minute the whole day. Many were tandem as well for tourists I assume. We got to watch them landing on the beach and on the boardwalk.
We had a relaxed evening at the hotel, with an amazing sunset. The next day we did an absolutely amazing first dive called Aladdin’s Cavern. It was a huge cavern with a large skylight and archway entrance on the surface. We took the underwater entrance, and it was amazing to come up into the air dome to see the light coming down from above. There was also a large school of fish playing in the light rays that really accentuated the space.
I chose to not do the second dive, as did Jose. Anel was also hanging out on the boat as she wasn’t a diver.
Once we got back to shore we headed straight to Kas. We got a large AirBnB that was rustic, but really nice at the same time. It had a huge balcony and garden. We picked a dozen or so lemons and made lemonade our second night there. They had a nice cat that reminded me a lot of Kanga there. She wanted into the house so badly, but the notes in the AirBnB said to not let in any of the cats. While in Kas we went out to dinner each night. The first night it was at a decently fancy place, and it was tasty. I got a traditional Turkish dish and it was unique. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but it wasn’t bad.
The next day we went out for a few basic dives, but the life near Kas was better than near Fethiye.
That afternoon I got a really nice massage that really helped on some pent up tension I had. Lata organised the outing to the spa and she got the full Hammam experience, plus a coffee peel. It sounded like a lot more than what I was looking for.
That evening we stayed in at the AirBnB and had a lovely night just hanging out and talking.
Gokhan really wanted to play some Backgammon, and it had been at least two decades since I last played. I picked it back up pretty quickly. The first game Gokhan threw really hard as I was figuring it out again. The second game He took more seriously, but still had some silly moves to make it more interesting. He ended up regretting that as I was able to pull out a win.
The second day of diving in Kas was the best, besides Aladdin’s Cavern. We started with the Canyon then went to the the Tank. It was interesting dives. We then had a lovely evening at the Kas amphitheatre. I really enjoyed the time to just relax and talk with everyone there. I learned a lot about each of them and feel like we all got closer from the time just relaxing together. I grabbed a neat snack of a steamed bun filled with Turkish barbecue meat. It was tasty.
After that we went to dinner along the coast in another nice restaurant. We met Gokhan’s friends at the end of dinner as they just came down. A few of us were really tired and headed out. I also had a few kitty friends that were happy with the bits of meat I was sneaking them under the table.
The next morning we headed to the start of the trail for a small section of the Lycian Way. We did a 16 km section of the trail, and it was pretty tough. The whole way had lots of loose rocks that made it precarious for rolling my ankle. When we got closer to the end of the trail it was a lot of climbing as well. We took a break for snorkelling but the water was muddy and people couldn’t really see well. The one highlight on that snorkel was the turtle that came right up to everyone in the water.
We also had a nice lunch halfway through at a small restaurant that was really in the middle of nowhere, and just for people hiking along the trail it seamed.
At the end of the trail we got to a really nice hotel in the little village Ucagiz. There were some really friendly cats, my favourite called the Manager. He let me carry him around and pet him, and was so friendly. I missed dinner because I needed to make some calls that evening.
The next day we did a snorkelling trip to the sunken cities. We also went to a seemingly random cover that had so much more life than anywhere else we’d been. I really enjoyed seeing the large groups of fish that would part as we swam through. We also got out of the water and walked around the ruins some. It is amazing how many ruins are spread around the area.
The food on the boat was amazing, just like the previous time. It was a lovely dinner and everyone ended up stuffed.
We then went to the nearby castle, and did a quick hike up to it and back down. The castle was overgrown, and I found two hedgehogs in the underbrush, which is the first time I’ve seen hedgehogs in the wild. I stopped to cuddle another kitty, who was just as friendly as the Manager.
That evening we had a dinner out as a group, despite everyone already being amazingly full already.
We headed to the airport the next day, with a stop for stuffed Turkish pancakes.
Steph and I met Heidi in Marrakesh on Wednesday. The trip was pretty uneventful, and I wore the boot to make sure nothing happened while travelling.
The city was amazing, and as we flew over we saw some of the mansions on the outskirts with lush grounds and pools. Then there was a lot of dessert surrounding the city as well, and orchards of citrus and olive. We got into the city and the city walls were impressive and still surrounding the city. In all the European cities we’ve been to the walls are either surviving in sections or have many new gates put into them. Here the walls were still acting as walls with very restricted access between parts of the city. There were many gates that were barely one car wide, but had two way traffic.
We got near the hotel, Riad Jalina, driving down busy streets that were one car wide with motorcycles going around the car, and people walking, and shops open right next to the windows. It was chaos, but didn’t feel dangerous. Even when walking around everything tends to move slow enough that even as a motorcycle moves through a busy street crammed with people, if I were to be hit it would probably just be an annoying bump from the handlebars.
We are staying in the Medina and walked all around the markets. There was so much going on and it felt both safe and amazing. Steph and I grabbed lunch on a rooftop and had a great view of the city, with some cats coming by to say hi as well. There were cats all over the streets, and most looked healthy and didn’t care about the people.
Heidi arrived and she and Steph walked around the city some more while I rested. They said they had more people approach them, but that they still felt perfectly safe. Morocco is a much nice place to visit compared to Egypt. The tipping culture is also not much of a thing here, which is nice to not worry with. I have gotten spoiled from not having to deal with it in the UK.
I joined the others at a rooftop for an amazing view of sunset.
The next day we went to a farm that had olives, citrus, race horses, and an assortment of birds. We were there for a cooking class, which turned out really nicely. The surroundings were idyllic and the food was interesting and different in ways I wasn’t expecting. The spices were mostly the ones we knew, but the way of preparing the food was quite different. I’d never peeled and deseeded a tomato before, and wouldn’t even have considered it. The way it gave a concentrated flavor without adding too much moister was interesting and nice. We also learned that they pickle the olives with citrus, which is why we’d been surprised by the taste of the olives in our tagines. They use a mix between a lemon and orange that is very sour but also has a lot of sweet. It gives a unique and pleasant taste to the olives, which is not as strong as the brined olives I’m used to.
Back at the city we went to a hammam and had an amazing exfoliation and massage. I really enjoyed it, and it was a unique experience. They used a substance they called black soap, which has an abrasive in it and smells nice. They also used scrubbers to really get the dead skin off, and it worked really well. I went for the relaxing massage, which was lighter pressure than the ones Steph and Heidi got.
Afterwards we back to the Riad and had a relaxing evening. I stayed in the next day instead of doing the walking tour around Essaouira.
Saturday we took a tour into the Atlas Mountains, where we went to an argan oil production, hiked to a waterfall, walked through a mountain town, and the others rode camels. It was an amazing trip. The argan oil place served us a traditional breakfast with bread, oil, honey, and peanut sauce. Then we went around the production area. Then we headed up to see a local market. It was tight, and there was so much stuff. We got some dates, sweets, and citrus. Then we made it up to the valley where the guide was from. We hiked through an area with lots of canals and snow melt. Much of the snow was still in the shady areas. We hiked up to a nice waterfall and then across the valley for lunch. On the way back Steph and Heidi rode camels, just in a quick circle.
The flight back Sunday was thankfully uneventful, and we got to cuddle kitties all evening.
We got the Egypt and it was pretty easy with the e-Visa. We were in the wrong line for a little bit, of people buying the visa on arrival. Once we got through customs we called an Uber, and as expected they told a story of fees that we had to pay. Fortunately I saw the actual fee sign and we only paid the real fee, which I think made the Uber driver disappointed.
The hotel we stayed at, Jaz Amara, was really nice and had about 30 pools. Unfortunately the pools closed down at 5:00 p.m. so there wasn’t any evening pool activities for when we got there. We had a nice dinner and then walked along the beach out to the pier. The hotel seemed about half capacity and I’m guessing it was the offseason. The next morning we slept in a little bit, and then went to have breakfast. Shortly after breakfast we got into the ocean and we’re able to pretty quickly find the dugong. This bay, Marsa Mubarak, has a resident dugong named Dennis.
Dennis clearly has a big fan base because it was easy to spot where he would be based on the number of snorkelers. So we were easily able to find him I just following the largest group of snorkelers. This day he was just munching on the seagrass and eventually ran off when one of the photographers got too close with their giant camera. We also saw a good number of sea turtles both Dennis and the sea turtles had remora friends, and some of the sea turtles had small yellow and black fish that were hoping for things to be kicked up from the sand when the sea turtle pulled out the grass.
We came back in for lunch and relaxed a little bit before going out for another snorkel we didn’t find Dennis this time but still had a good snorkel and spent more time at the coral bomes. We did get to see some cleaner wrasse stations as well as some batfish and triggerfish Steph even saw a school of squid go by her rapidly.
We set the pools for a bit and swam up to the swim up bar. I don’t know why but I really love the idea of a swim up bar and so having it at that hotel was nice.
We worked out for a bit and then took a walk down to the ocean right about sunset. I was trying to make a call to Michael just to talk so Steph went out to one of the points on her own. I saw her running back which is so out of character for stuff I decided I had to go meet her to see if something was wrong. Nothing was wrong she just felt like running and wanted to be back before it really got dark because the sunset made it dark really quickly.
Paul in Yutong showed up pretty late and we greeted them as they arrived. We did another walk along the beach and then they went to bed because they were exhausted from their long travel from California.
We got up early the next morning and met them for breakfast, unsurprisingly they had already been up for hours due to the jet lag. Shortly after breakfast we went to go search for Dennis the dugong again but we weren’t able to find him for a long time. Eventually one of the snorkeling boats showed up and they took a zodiac around to try to find Dennis. The managed to find him and the people the doc pointed out that that’s was where Dennis was. We swam out to him as he snorkelers were getting in the water. Dennis decided it was time to move and he was going pretty fast despite not looking like he was trying at all. He was more animated than the day before rolling along the grass sea sandy bottom and looking like he was having a good time playing. I was the only one really able to keep up with Dennis as he was swimming quickly, and eventually I stopped to join back up with Yutong and Paul and Steph. Steph wasn’t far behind, Paul and Yutong where further behind, and the tourist snorkeling group was way back.
We spent a little bit more time looking at the coral and then hit it in to clean up before checking out. We had a long lunch waiting for the van to arrive, it picked us up to take us to the boat.
Our group was one of the first arrive on the boat and we got to settle in for the evening in harbor. Who walked around in the harbor of it but it was still under construction in large parts and the small trinket shops weren’t all that interesting.
The next morning we went north a bit to one of the nearby reefs for our checkout dive. The reef was doing well and Steph mentioned that it was much better than when was in the Red Sea in September. On one dive Steph found a dive computer, but it was from one of the other boats, so they gave it back.
After two checkout dives the boat moved to the brother Islands. Once we left for the Brother Islands we were out of contact until we got back from Daedalus Reef three days later. We started at little brother and did a few dives there where Steph saw a thresher shark, which he pointed out to me. Unfortunately not many others were able to see it as they were further ahead, and Steph had the macro lens on so we didn’t get good video. We then moved to the Big brother Island where the lighthouse is. The current was pretty strong around the Big brother Island but we got to see a couple large fish being cleaned. One of our divers lost a weight pouch as they jumped in the water but then Steph managed to find it at the bottom. Steph started referring to her finds as her treasure, and she was hoping to find another dive computer that was not claimed.
That evening we had a long journey to Daedalus reef which took about 10 hours, there was a lot of rolling and I got a sea sickness prevention patch from Yutong, which made a huge difference. Amusingly it also made me not able to see well up close as a side effect.
Next morning we woke up to the Daedalus reef lighthouse in view, and the reef itself which is really pretty. Three has some pretty steep drop offs on all sides to go down to maybe 100m. The guides focused on blue dives which means we were away from the reef trying to find some of the more pelagic creatures like hammerhead sharks, silky sharks, manta rays, and longimanus sharks. We managed to see pretty much everything on the list although many of them were just shadows in the distance. Like we could tell it was a hammerhead shark, but it was 40m down and moving pretty quickly away from us. The one major exception to this was the longimanus shark also known as the white tip oceanic shark. We found one that was very curious about us and came quite close almost close enough for me to reach out and touch it, but since I value my hands I did not actually do that. We also got to see some clown fish in anemones and large Napoleon wrasse.
We were able to go to the lighthouse for sunset and I got a silly hat for mystery prize for dive club.
The evening we spent on the reef let us see a large school of cornet fish or needlefish it was hard for me to tell which one. They were attracted to a large spotlight on the boat and it was fun covering up the spotlight and then revealing it to see them move away and move back real quick.
In our downtime on board we were able to do some yoga and have great conversations with Paul and Yutong learning a lot more about them and their past and we had known before.
The second day diving Daedalus reef I skipped the first morning dive. On the second dive we got to go to the anemone city which had many clownfish.
The final dive was just right under the boat. I was hoping to find some of Steph’s leggings that were blown off our drying line the previous night, but no luck.
We then had a long boat ride back to the coast. We got into range in the morning and found out that a diving live-aboard by the name of Sea Story had sunk just a little to the south of us the previous day. I had a number of messages to respond to assuring people I wasn’t dead yet. There were four confirmed dead, and another 7 missing presumed dead, including two British tourists.
The final dives were really nice, especially the dives with just the four of us. Steph led us well, and we got to take our time on some of the smaller things. I was also slapped by a turtle on one of our last dives, which was hilarious.
Once back at the port we had a short walk around, but nothing much is there and most of it is still under construction. We got picked up the next day to head to Luxor, which is a 6 hour drive away. I was surprised by the number of checkpoints we had to go through to get to Luxor.
The hotel in Luxor was amazing, Steigenberger Nile Palace. We checked in then immediately headed out to the sunset camel ride. We took a boat and a motor-cart to the camels at the edge of the desert. In Egypt, the landscape is either the fertile area by the Nile, or desert. There isn’t even a transition zone, just an immediate transformation to bone dry desert. The sunset ride was gorgeous and we had a good ride back to the hotel. We had dinner at the Lebanese restaurant, and a few of the dishes were absolutely amazing.
The next day I stayed in as Steph, Yutong, and Paul went to two of the better preserved temples outside the city. The first was amazing, and they had great pictures of it. The second still sounded great, but not as amazing.
The next day Steph went sailing and had a spa treatment, while Paul, Yutong, and I went to the local Temples. Karnak is the largest and most complex temple. It was started about 4000 years ago, and was built over 1900 years. There are still many parts of it that have nicely preserved paint and carvings, due to the roof on some sections not having fully collapsed. A large portion of it was also covered in mud, and those sections are distinct in color, with little remaining paint. The large display room and the entry pylons were the most impressive parts. We then went to Luxor temple, or the south temple which was smaller and built over a shorter period. However it was converted to a Greek temple, then a church, then a mosque. The remains of each period are left over the older periods, and it was interesting to see how they differed.
We just relaxed by the Nile after the trips, and Yutong got a spa treatment like Steph’s. We watched the sunset over the Nile, the headed to the Lebanese restaurant again for a lighter dinner this time. We had a great last meal. In the morning Steph and I had to get up extremely early to catch out flight to London via Cairo. The rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful to get back to some kitties that were happy to see us.
Some thoughts on Egypt travel:
The way the tipping works in Egypt is annoying and at times hard to handle.
In many cases it is implied that the tour or boat ride is paid to the company and then the tip is the only payment the guide or driver receives.
There are many cases of people desperate to provide small services, like bellhops being insistent on taking your bags.
The worst in my opinion are the bathroom attendants. They rarely clean the bathroom, and instead stand by the sink with the soap dispenser so you must ask them for soap, then they stand in front of the paper towel dispenser so you must ask for paper towels. It is really obnoxious, and then you have to tip.
Having approximately right denominations of currency was difficult, as the ATMs gave out mostly 200’s which is what was recommended for a full day’s tour guide, not a bellhop.
Very rarely will you be able to find out ahead of time what the right range of tips are.
At restaurants there is a ‘service fee’ it isn’t the tip, and goes to the restaurant.
Some of the people trying to sell things or get tips will tell you to do things instead of offer or suggest. It will be along the lines of “Come down to these tables to have a drink.” Or “Come this way, it has the best decorations.” Some of the people acting in this way are security guards at the temples, which makes it hard to know when they are telling you rules or just trying to get tips. We just said “no thank you” and were left alone in most cases. We have heard that they will offer to take pictures of your group, and then not give the phone back until they get a tip, so we just didn’t give them the phones.
There is a lot of security theater.
Entering buildings, airports, and driving along the main roads. If you don’t have a guide or driver to deal with this it would be very difficult.
At the airport we had an instance where I was planning to check in and get boarding passes at the airport, but to get into the airport we needed boarding passes. The person checking for boarding passes at the security stop wouldn’t let us go to the check in desk inside the airport without the boarding passes. Then once I had checked in online, gotten the digital boarding passes, gone through two levels of security just to get into the airport, the checkin desk printed us boarding passes anyway.
Guide quality varies massively, even at the same companies. Look at the google, trippit, and trip advisor reviews to know which guides to request from which companies.
Overall, just have a good guide with you, and google translate with Arabic downloaded and ready to go.
I met Steph in SFO for our trip to Hawaii. She had a martial arts friend who works at the airport meet us at one of the restaurant bars. They chatted for a while before he got called away. In Hawaii we showed up pretty late at the hotel and immediately crashed. The next day I did laundry in the morning, then we went to the beach party before the wedding. It was lot of people and the beach was nice. We took some of the Hawaiian style mochi that Steph really likes, and it went over well. The peanut butter filled mochi is especially good.
We left a little early and went to a beach where Steph could snorkel and I could just relax for a bit. We then headed to Bonnie’s house to help out with the flowers and pupus (appetizers) for the wedding. Travis had a dozen octopuses that he had shot, and I helped to gut and clean them for the cooking. It was a lot of salting, massaging, and washing to get them prepped. Noah joined me in the process and we had a great conversation about him working on an ME degree. Then we helped fold wontons, which I wasn’t too bad at, but I was extremely slow compared to the others.
We had to return the ZipCar and I could tell which sandals were mine in the dark, so I just walked back barefoot. The sandals that Steph had bought for me earlier that day were there, I just couldn’t recognize them, and the tags had been rubbed off in just the one day.
The next day we had our book club call, which was nice. We lost track of time, which was hard to keep track of given the time zone changes and daylight savings. Steph then had a call with the Delta Fliers and I had a nice walk along Waikiki.
We took a bus to the wedding, which was at a nice resort. The venue was gorgeous, and they had done a wonderful setup for the whole wedding. I got a temporary tattoo that said “No Ragrets” but it was in reverse as well, as all the temp tattoos were. There were a lot of people doing the entire arm with a temp tattoo, and they all looked really good.
The ceremony was lovely, and one of the songs they chose for it is one we are performing for choir this term: Can’t Help Falling in Love.
The party was the best wedding party I’ve been to. The dancing and singing, and everyone just joining in was wonderful. I got some good video and made a music video with a Suno generated song.
The day after was a little rough, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. We went spear fishing and free diving with Travis in the afternoon, where Steph got a fish.
Our last day there we got out early and did some snorkeling and saw a huge turtle. We then went to the Zoo, which had lots of gorgeous birds. In the afternoon we hiked up Diamond Head, and got a great view over Honolulu.
In the evening we had dinner with Steph’s cousins and Aunts and Uncles. Then we said goodbye to Steph’s parents and got to sleep really early for the LONG flight home.
What would be the first part of week 100 in London.
The week started off with some Camden Fringe, in Islington. We went to a fun act of improv. They took Steph’s suggestion for a Greek Myth of “Why do platypuses exist?” It was decently well done, but the venue was amazingly hot the whole time, so it was harder to enjoy. I can’t imagine what it was like for the actors under the spotlights.
We got on a train Early Wednesday for Edinburgh. We had a nice lunch near the train station, and hung out in the park for a bit before heading to the Airbnb to check in. We saw the AI Improv again, and it hadn’t changed much, which disappointed me. I still enjoyed it. We saw two cabaret acts that evening The first was more lighthearted, and the second was more impressive.
Thursday we saw the show that Steph’s friend Michelle was in. It was a really touching and lovely show, and we went out to lunch afterwards with them, and it was great. We then saw an a capella group that was good, but not as good as last year. To be fair last year we saw one of the best in the world. I then saw Avenue Q, and it was amazingly well done.
Friday we had a lovely lunch, and then Steph and Michelle did some martial arts training in the Meadows. After training Steph and I went to YUCK circus which did a great job and had some good social commentary and meta commentary to go along with the show. We then met up with Michelle again to see La Clique, which was just as amazing as last year, if not more. They were checking ID at George Square before the Disney Villains Drag show, and Steph had forgotten her ID so we couldn’t get in.
Saturday Steph hung out with her sparring partner and I went to the sing-a-long show, which was a lot of fun. We had done two of the songs in choir, so I knew them really well. I was a little surprised by the song selection, as the show seemed targeted at kids, but the song selection was not. After that I did a short hike up Arthur’s Seat. The show 44 Sex Acts In One Week was much better than we were expecting. They had a large set of objects for doing the foley sound effects. It was really fun to see what they used for each sound effect. The show was hilarious with great character development, and story.
In the evening we went to a show called Ask a Stripper where two strippers did a quick strip then sat in the nude while taking questions about their careers. One of them had the strongest Scottish accent I’ve ever heard in person, and she went by the mononym Morag. It was an entertaining show for sure.
Sunday we had afternoon tea, then went to see a standup routine by Anna Akana called It Gets Darker. The comedy was dark, but well done. It was hard to laugh at points, despite the punchlines being delivered well. She did a little crowd work, and hyped Asian women, having them raise their hands. Then asked which ones were here with their white boyfriends, and that left just me and Steph. She then saw that I was in my Captain America shirt.
That evening I went on my own to a VR Musical. I was really impressed with the tech, and the MC did a really good job. The players were all over the place and didn’t really know how to use VR that well it seemed.
Steph and I took a long weekend in Amsterdam where we met up with Tina. We started early Friday morning with a train ride on the Eurostar. The train went through Brussels, to Antwerp, Rotterdam, then to Amsterdam. We had to get to the station about 45 minutes early to go through customs, but it wasn’t bad at all. We got to Amsterdam around noon.
We started out with the Canal Museum, which talked about the expansion of Amsterdam and the construction of the city how it is today. It was really interesting to hear and read about. The garden behind the house was also gorgeous. We then checked into the hotel and waited for Tina to arrive.
We went to dinner the first night once Tina got in and walked around the flower market before getting to a nice Indonesian place. It was really tasty and I enjoyed the variety of food. They had a plate with all sorts of dishes. We walked into the main park near where we were staying, but didn’t get very far.
The next day we grabbed breakfast at a cute little coffee shop before heading into the city a bit. We made our way to the Centraal Station and hopped a bus to a small town with lots of windmills, Zaanse Schans. It was an adorable area, and some of the windmills are setup to still run. We saw the sawmill moving, and got a demonstration of the mechanisms. We also go to tour the dye mill, and oil mill.
The town was adorable, and we toured through the cheese maker, the clog maker, the carpenter, and the weaver house. The whole town was adorable, and the weather was perfect.
We got a crowded bus back to Amsterdam, which took a long time due to traffic. We headed back and grabbed some frites. Steph and I had an amusing evening making AI music about Archer and Lana.
The next day we went to the Rijksmuseum. We grabbed breakfast at the cafe there, then wandered the museum. It is pretty big, but something that only takes one day. We made it through all the exhibits we cared about by the mid afternoon, and then headed back to the hotel for a rest. Tina wandered separately from Steph and I, but her interest was still captured by the same pieces. The monk meditating with an engine, the teapot split in two, the library, the angry swan, and the model ships.
We had a late lunch at the Carousel, a themed restaurant that had pancakes and waffles, which were delicious. We all had a bit of a food coma after that and relaxed at the hotel for a bit. Dinner was at an Algerian spot Stpeh noticed while we were walking around and it was interesting and tasty food.
Monday morning we had coffee with Tina and then said our goodbyes. Steph and I headed to the royal palace, which originally was the Amsterdam town hall. It is a gorgeous building, and it is a shame it isn’t a public building anymore.
Our train was delayed so the trip back to London didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. We caught the later train back to London.
Steph and I hopped the train to the airport where we were able to get in the lounge after waiting in line for a bit. The flight was mostly uninteresting, but we did see some aurora from the plane. It was hard to see out the window, and we didn’t have window seats. The woman in the window seat was nice enough to take a picture with my camera.
We got to the hotel, and it had an uneventful Friday. We went to the sauna in the marina, and that was really nice. The sauna has a huge window that looks out across the fjord at one of the mountains. I took a dip in the fjord, as did Steph. It was amazingly cold, but bearable with a pop back into the sauna.
Saturday we took the morning going dog sledding, which was amazing. The dogs were friendly and hilarious. There was a French couple who were guiding for the winter who showed us how to drive the sled. They let us drive the rear sled where the dogs followed the sled in front. It was still amazing to get to control the sled. The dogs loved rolling in the snow whenever we stopped.
That evening we took a bus to see the northern lights. It was cloudy in Norway so we had to drive through Finland and then cross a frozen river on foot into Sweden to get a good viewing spot. When we arrived we got a brief glimpse of strong activity that calmed down after about 30 minutes. Then we sat around a campfire and had some stew before heading back.
Sunday we went to the Polar Museum. It was mostly about hunting, and very rough living. They had lots of sexist views of women portrayed there, without disclaimers. They also had a full life sized diorama of baby seal clubbing, but that one had the disclaimer that they don’t do it anymore. It was a really morbid place.
Sunday evening we went to the Reindeer ranch kept by a group of Sami people. The Sami are the indigenous people of the far north of Scandinavia. The reindeer were cute, but some were pushy, and used their antlers to push you if you didn’t give them food quick enough.
We mainly stayed in for Monday and Tuesday, as it was still cloudy and we’d done everything we came to do. Wednesday we had a very early morning flight back.
It's an Exciting World 