Embarking on an adventure detour!

I haven’t been blogging as much lately. That’s mostly because I’ve been so busy preparing for my next big adventure. That’s right, it’s time for the reveal. In a couple of days, I will be winging my way for a four week vacation in Europe! This is obviously very exciting and what with all the planning and bookings, not to mention my regular work schedule, I’ve been totally swamped.

This trip is going to be adventurous for a variety of reasons:

1. I’ve never been to Europe before.
2. I’ve also never been to a country where English is not the first language (I’m not counting Hong Kong because they were pretty much British for awhile). Sure, I’ve heard that most Europeans speak English to some extent, but this will be my first time in a situation where I pretty much won’t speak the native tongue.
3. I finally get to try out the French that I’ve been learning over the past 4 months.
4. I’m also going to be using only carry on luggage. This is a real challenge for me as I am one of those people who likes taking the kitchen sink. But I’m following Rick Steve’s advice and going light; 1 carry on and 1 backpack as my personal item. I’ll talk more about my pack list in a later post.

However I’ve been feeling odd. A part of me feels wierd that instead of travelling America, I’m paying a ton of money to visit a whole different continent. The other part argues that well, sometimes you just got to take life as it comes. I had a friend who wanted to travel Europe this summer and invited me to come along. I still don’t know anyone who wants to travel in the US, at least not until New Year’s. C’est la vie. I have made up a resolution to stay entirely within the US next year though.

Anyway, I better get to bed to try and  kick this cold I caught last week.

Happy Independence Day!

As July 4th comes to a close for those of us on Central Time, I just wanted to take a brief moment to wish all my American readers a Happy Independence Day! It was my first time celebrating this day here in America, and I can say that it was a lot of fun. Sure, the Midwest was epically hot (101 F!) but I managed to drag myself downtown to the Arch to the Fair St Louis.

 

The airshow (another first for me) was amazing. These pilots would swoop down along the river (doing what I learned today was called a Hammerhead turn), then spin and turn before pulling up right before the bridge to the East. My, wouldn’t want to be driving along that bridge today!

 

I even managed to convince a friend to back downtown later that night to watch the fireworks, which were certainly an amazing sight, and eat some funnel cakes (which is a cake that is poured out of a jug and deep fried before being coated in powdered sugar. Yes it is delicious!). The train home did take us longer than the actual fireworks themselves, but I will chalk that up to being part of the whole experience.

Happy July 4th!

This is how you treat customers

I have to say that I’ve been very impressed with the customer service here in America. Best example? Amazon.com, hands down.

Let me share why. I recently bought a used GPS unit from them, but upon arrival I noticed that the battery wouldn’t charge. So today I started a chat from their help desk and here’s basically how it went:

You are now connected to K from Amazon.com.

Me: Hi, I am having trouble with the Garmin Nuvi 205 that I purchased from Amazon Warehouse Deals. It seems like the battery in the device is dead and doesn’t hold a charge.

K: I’m so sorry about this.

Me: No prob

K: You can return it for a refund.

Me: Would it be possible for you to send me a new battery instead? The device does work otherwise and I would prefer to keep it.

K: That’s fine. May I know the item price of the batteries? So that I can partially refund your item.

Me: I see one on your site for about $15.12?

K: I’ll issue a refund for that amount.

So impressed by how easy and quick that was. No hmm-ing or haw-ing. Just straight up issued me a refund, which I then used to buy the replacement battery! Good job, Amazon.

p/s: Yes I know I haven’t been posting lately but I’ve been rather stressed with work issues. Also I really don’t like the WordPress web interface and how slow it is, especially when loading pictures. So today I’m also using ScribeFire to help me blog!

Castlewood

It’s been awhile since my last update! What can I say, I was really busy then there was a “crash” period where I just didn’t want to do anything once I got home but blob out. Anyway I’ve been going on some Weekend Adventures, most recently to Castlewood. If you will allow me to quote the State Park website:

“City dwellers flocked to Castlewood for weekends of water fun, dancing and clubhouse partying. The grand staircase at the Castlewood depot led to a big hotel, seasonal cabins and clubs. At the bottom of the palisade bluffs, visitors ferried across the river to a large sandbar known as Lincoln Beach. At the height of Castlewood’s popularity, more than 10,000 visitors would descend on the area each summer weekend. [However] following World War II, visitation to Castlewood steadily declined due to air conditioning, better roads and affordable vehicles.”

It was quite a cool day went we were there. We took the River Scene Trail which started off with a steep-ish climb, but levelled off. As its name suggests, the trail follows the Meramac river both ways, looping back to the start. The scenes from the top of the cliff were pretty.

I was highly amused by this series of graffiti at two different stops along the trail (the picture on the right was about a 15 min walk away from the left).

Here are the remains of the grand staircase, which was once a convenient way for travellers to ascend to the top of the cliff. It has since been replaced with wooden stairs.

Lincoln “beach” is actually pretty fascinating. I heard it described as St Louis’ only beach! It’s actually by the Meramac river and it seemed like a popular spot for people to sunbath and fish.

After our walk, we stopped by for a little brunch at Uncle Bill’s. I had chicken & waffles, which I understand is a US speciality. Basically it consists of a whole Belgian waffle and two pieces of fried chicken. My meal also came with a side of mash potatoes and cole slaw. Completely underestimating the size of the dish, I ordered an egg on the side too. And yes, it really was as delicious as it looks!

Burgers and tots

Lately I’ve been making these quite often.

And these are just plain addictive!

On a Quest for Treasure

It’s been awhile since my last post and awhile more since I’ve actually posted anything about the US. Sorry about that, I guess I’ve been preoccupied with life, work and all of that messy mundane stuff. But now, time to rectify these issues.

So I’ve learnt that when the weather is good in St Louis, you should make the most of it because there is absolutely no guarantee that it will stay that way for long. The temperatures here fluctuate too fast, especially for someone who has always lived near that great regulator, the sea. A swing of 10 degrees C overnight seems to be the norm here rather than the exception.

But I digress.

My point was that, with the beautiful weather we’ve been getting, I decided that I really had to get out of the house. I’ve also been working so hard that I decided to take a break and go on a quest… for treasure. For a few years now there’s been a movement called geocaching. It’s been described as a high-tech treasure hunt. People hide a small object – the cache – and record the GPS coordinates, which are then posted online. To find the cache, you need to obtain the coordinates, then use a GPS receiver to track down the location.

The Geocaching Logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sure, you might say, hey that’s simple. But I feel like I should point out that while the GPS is quite good for directions, there’s still typically an error of several metres. That means you will need to search through a region about that big. Also, these geocachers can be pretty skillful at hiding the cache. But don’t worry, there are different levels indicating the difficulty of finding the cache itself. Since this was my first time out, I picked an easy one.

The hunt itself was pretty fun. Since I started at a rather odd place in Forest Park, it took me awhile to figure out how to get to where it was. It felt a bit like a real quest, there was a lot of backtracking and going down these paths that I probably wouldn’t have taken otherwise. I knew it had to be close one of the main roads so I tried to figure out how to get there. But really, all of this is just the beginning.

The real thrill is discovering that cache itself.

I was using the GPS on my phone (a rather cheap Huawei IDEOS) and saw that it was pointing in an odd direction. There were some steps nearby so I climbed those. But the instant I got to the top, the indicator started to point in the opposite direction. What? It was then that I realised that my GPS was even worse than I thought. Rather than narrowing it down to several metres, I had to search an area of 10 m! So I cast my eye around and noticed a tree that looked suspicious. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that some of the branches looked like it had been arranged. Hmm… I checked it out, moved some out of the way and lo and behold!

There was the cache with it’s treasures and log book.

That was heaps of fun! I’ll be doing more of these in the coming weeks.

If you are interested in geocaching on your own, check out geocaching.com. It seems like there are geocachers just about everywhere. All you need is a GPS receiver (or for a harder challenge, you can try to locate it by with just a map). It was an excellent excuse just to get out and explore!

Knock: A short, sweet horror story

There is a sweet little horror story that is only two sentences long: “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”

- Opening line of Knock by Fredric Brown

I’ve been working so hard lately that I just realised that almost a month had gone by when I last read anything. Since I finally had a weekend off, I decided to pick up a short story that caught my attention a little while ago: Knock by Fredric Brown.

The story is very much short. I read it in approximately 10 minutes, but it is masterfully written. I found myself thinking and pondering on the story.

It may be a little hard to believe given the opening sentence, but the story is very much a sweet love story. Of sorts. I don’t know how to write about it without giving the story away. Suffice to say that the knocker was very much gladly received by the last man on earth.

The story made me think a little about being the last man on earth. He knew he was the last, but rather than feel sorry for himself, he made the best of the situation. But then again, he had a little help… but you’ll need to read the story to find out just what.

Apart from that aspect, I was also impressed by how different the short story is compared to a novel proper. It is a real art form to be able to convey your ideas, to build the characters, to flesh out the story in just a few short pages. Knock is a fantastic example of this medium. While there isn’t too much time to dwell with the characters, you can’t help but smile at the way the story ends…

p/s: You can find the text for Knock online. I’m not sure if it’s entirely legal so I’m not posting the link here, but, you know, Google.