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New goal: Wanderlist 2016

2015 was spent being pretty jealous of seeing other people’s travel photos so I’m setting a new goal for myself to visit at least 5 new cities next year.

Not to say that I didn’t travel anywhere myself this year. I was frozen in New York at the beginning of this year, then got tattooed in New Orleans in the spring with my girls, went on a road trip to San Francisco for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and had a mini vacay in Portland too, but these are all cities I’ve been to before.

So far I don’t have a wanderlist for next year but I have a friend in Boston who has room for me. I’ve never been there before and it’s definitely somewhere I’ve wanted to visit though I’ve heard mixed things. I’m sure I’ll have fun though, I usually love new cities.

I’ve never been to our nation’s capital. It might be nice to go during the last year of Obama’s p/residency.  I think Sarah’s on the lookout for international travel for us which is probably the most exciting prospect. A friend suggested Stockholm to me which sounds great, I love the Swedes! Patrick might be traveling more in the new year, maybe Europe, or China, or SUNNYVALE so that could also bring opportunities for me to tag along.

Where else should I go?

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Linkdrop: 10 Years Of Burning Man Temples (via Huffington Post)

I was on HuffPo reading something and this photo article about Temples built at Burning Man totally caught my eye. I would love to see these things  in person and see/meet the people who made them.

Burning Man Temple 2009, Reprocessed 2012 by Michael Holden on 500px
Burning Man Temple 2009, Reprocessed 2012 by Michael Holden on 500px

There’s a part of me that’s afraid I would like Burning Man so much I would have to go every year until I die, which is why I still haven’t gone. There’s another part of me that is afraid I would hate it and the be stuck out there for five more days.

 

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Sick Days Double As Vacation Days

It seems that every time I get to leave work to go on vacation my immune system also takes a vacation. This isn’t cool. This leads to wasting valuable de-stress time stressing about not having a good vacation, and usually about creating a crappy vacation experience for Patrick.

When we went to Hawaii last spring, I got sick on the shuttle to the airport. This time I got sick on the 15 hour plane ride to Hong Kong. Luckily I didn’t kill anyone on the flight – which seemed inhumanely long, BTW. I also got a bit sick while I was in New Orleans last fall.

Maybe it’s travel that does it to me. This is a terrible condition.

 

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Next Stop: Hong Kong

Patrick and I have booked our tickets to Hong Kong and we’re leaving at the end of the month. I’m trying to hold off my excitement since I’ve still got the rest of January to get through before I even start packing. We did watch a lot of travel shows yesterday though for planning purposes. You know, I’ve actually been there a few times but I honestly couldn’t give any tips about where to go and what to see because I haven’t been since I looked like this:

No time for love doctor Jones!
No time for love doctor Jones!

That was about 10 years ago. I pretty much look the same so that may not have been the best picture to use, but it WAS taken in Hong Kong!

Anyway, the travel shows we watched were half with Anthony Bourdain, and most of them mentioned the HK film industry, which was a bit weird. It’s not something that tourists could ever really participate in when going to the area so I’m not sure why they all seemed to have a segment featuring the host doing some type of martial arts and rigged flying stunts.

Really looking forward  to all the food, exploring the city without a guide, and seeing my aunt and uncle. WOO!

 

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Greetings from Hawaii

Getting back into the swing of things! (posting I mean) I’m in Hawaii and I’m on vacation (also accomplishing the “travel overseas” and the “kayak in Hawaii” items on my 30 for 30 list). I made some observations while here on Oahu:

  • Waikiki is full of young Japanese families. This means lots of new parents with cute, fat little babies everywhere.
  • Those Japanese families like to shop, and not just shopping at say… Target or Banana Republic but like, Coach, Ralph Lauren, Armani shopping.
  • Marketing for shooting ranges in Waikiki is like “escort” advertising in Vegas. Why are there so many shooting ranges in the tourist area?
  • Japanese restaurants are in abundance (duh)
  • Coconut syrup is greatness. I might get some from Amazon.com just to show everyone in LA how good it is.
Waikiki Beach from Diamond Head Summit