任是无情也动人

Last official tour day; tomorrow we head back to the US.

This morning we hit the Topkapi Palace and Hagia Sophia, both museums now within walking distance of our hotel (called Sura). The palace is a little bit reminiscent of the Forbidden Palace, if only in gaudiness, though of course not nearly as big as the chinese emperor's epeen.

Lunch was at a random restaurant and not much of note. Afterwards we visited the Basilica Cistern, which was pretty cool and Moria-esque. Unfortunately my camera couldn't see a thing down there and gave up the last of its battery trying. Oh well, just as well I didn't need it anymore.

The remaining afternoon was spent at the grand bazaar. I got my Istanbul T-shirt for the collection. My mom spent the rest of our Euros on some scarves and a lamb-skin jacket. Pft.

Dinner was at this seafood place. Their grilled bass (and other fish servings) were pretty good. Comparatively, though, I'd say I've preferred the Greek restaurants to the Turkish ones (cruise excepted). Better salads and more tender meats.

Our last destination in Greece this morning was the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion. A very pretty place, but it was on the way there that I had my completely unrelated epiphany on just why the Hetalia character for Greece was a narcoleptic cat lover.

If I had to estimate the number of cats I've seen so far on this tour, it would be *at least* 5, per *day*. And I'm not talking half wild cats that are appropriately wary or humans. These are all domesticated felines just placidly waiting for tourist to coo over/pet/feed them.

Also, Greeks have a waaaay easy lifestyle. Most retail stores only open 3-4 days a week, and even places that do open daily for tourist have short hours by US or Chinese standards.

Also noticed that even the middle of Athens is closer to US suburbia in the amount of foot and car traffic you would typically see on the street. That is to say, very little of anything seems to be going on. The only places that are full of people are the tourist spots.

Comparatively, arriving at Istanbul this afternoon was rather reminiscent of arriving in China (or HK or Taiwan, etc.) in terms of all the masses of people, construction, and general activity.

(Current time is 9:15 pm)

Current time is 9:25 pm.

My last 3 or so days were spent on a cruise ship, where Wi-fi was hella expensive. So didn't get a chance to post interim updates. Figured I'd just do a data dump now.

Day 3

Took all morning to check onto the Celestyal Olympia. My first time on a cruise ship, so lessons learned: they take your passports for the duration of the trip, but on the bright side, we didn't need to present either passport or visa on our one stop in Turkey.

Jetlag mixed with a bit if sea sickness was the pits on this first day, but it cleared up mostly after a night's sleep on board.

In the afternoon, we stopped at the island of Mykonos, a cozy and windy seaside tourist trap. Has dinner there as well. Grilled fish, although fresh, was rather meh. The tiger shrimp were slightly better.

Day 4

Landed in Kusadasi, Turkey for the morning, and the cruise also provided a local guide. This guy was the best tour guide we had so far (up to day 6).

First tour destination was the House of Virgin Mary. I'm not Christian, so it was kinda meh to me.

Second destination was the ancient city of Ephesus. Now this was more like it. We walked for hours in the archaeological site of the Roman city, covering everything from the gymnasium, forum, temple, fountains, baths, bathrooms, library, to theater. All marble all the time. It was pretty awesome.

On our way back to the ship, we also stopped at Turkmen, apparently a government sponsored place to do/teach/sell handmade carpets. Unfortunately our tour group were all American-Chinese, so no one bought anything.

There was another tour announced in the afternoon for Patmos, another religious place, but I wasn't interested and didn't go.

Day 5

Morning was Crete. We saw thwe archaeological site of the Minoan palace of Knossos. Not was intact as Ephesus but it is a much older city. Then we did a brief tour of Heraklion, apparently the capital. But as it was Sunday, not much was open.

In the afternoon we arrived at Santorini to look at the sights. Unfortunately thick clouds rolled in about 10 mins to sunset, sono one got to see it that day. Not that we'd have been able to anyway, due to bus and ship schedules.

Had lobster on the ship for dinner. While the lobster was quite big and cheaper than in the US, the cooking was mediocre.

Day 6

Docked back at th Piraeus port in Athens. Apparently this major Grecian port is now 60-80% Chinese owned nowadays. Hah.

Then had a 2 hour drive up to the monastery of St. Lucas. Expacted sights of medieval religious building.

Had lunch at this random place, which was actually rather good.

Then drove over to Delphi and the archaeological site of the temple of Apollo. Not much remaining to see...

Finally, our hotel tonight is in a random small town on the way back to Athens, called Nafpaktos. Ok place, good view of the bay at least.

Currently 11:47 pm in Athens.

It was a 13 hour flight to Instanbul (over the US and Atlantic), and then a transfer backwards to Athens. Eh, something something prices I guess.

Turkish Airlines was kinda meh. No adjustable fans for cooling downn and food was blah. Watched 3 in flight movies and stuck to light stuff like Ice Age (Collision Course), Kungfu Panda 3, and Lego Batman. KP3 was a great laugh, but I thought the other two were trying too hard.

Also, while waiting at the airport, I browsed a bit on the details of the new Star Trek Discovery pilot. Not too impressed, honestly. Sounded to me like they tried to do Kelvinverse style squished into Prime universe, and I'm not just referring to the lens flares.

To wit: A tramatised faux-emo main character which is going to a actual main character (since when has any Prime Trek had a series MC?) and whose backstory reads like a bad fanfic Mary Sue. Seriously, haven't they learned from the last time they tried to give Spock a sibling?

Got up at 5 in the morning to catch the early flight to Hilo (the biggest of the Hawaiian Islands). Looks like today was sunny in Honolulu...but foggy and sprinkly in Hilo. Boo.

After we got to Hilo, our first stop was a beach named...Richardson? I didn't catch it, but it was a black sand beach. We got to take a few pics of the waves breaking over the volcanic ricks before we were told the beach was closing due to advisory warnings. Hm.

Next was a small waterfall called Rainbow Falls, which I'm sure is normally pretty, were the sun out to actually form a rainbow. Yeah, with the day's foggy weather, it was just a small yellowish waterfall.

Lunch was meh, though the gardens next to the restaurant was nice (even if they added a charge for it to the meal fee). The rain kinda put a kibosh at looking at the place closer than from the covered walkways though.

Afternoon, we went over to the Mauna Loa caldera, I guess it's called. Couldn't see much given the rain (or just the wind blowing the clouds into our faces), but we managed to make our the caldera mouth and at least one active lava plume. It was way too far/vague to photograph though.

We also visited a lava tube, which was neat eccept for the wet puddles and the rain on the was to the entrance. Sigh.

New hotel for the night, then tomorrow we hit Maui before heading back to Honolulu.

Got up before dawn to visit Pearl Harbor right as it opened. Apparently lines are horrible there afterwards. Had a single sandwich for breakfast from the gift shop there. (Ugh, our itinerary for most of the days in Hawaii involves setting out before breakfast hours; no wonder our hotel reservations didn't include breakfast even though the hotel has that service.)

Anyway. Pearl Harbor. Saw the wreck/memorial of the U.S.S. Arizona. Watched a movie about the attack. There were also a coupleof small museums that were information's but not very photogenic.

Lunch was a udon place near our hotel, chosen because it was one of the few places open before 11. The place was still quite popular even as we were leaving closer to lunch hours though. I did like its a la cart tempura selection.

In the afternoon, visited the Polynesian Cultural Center. Pretty plave with pretty people and a LOT of dancing and singing (hollering). I liked the fire dances most of all. Those were...hot (badum-tish)

Didn't actually get any sleep the last night in Auckland. Basically just tossed and turned for like 4 hours. We flew first to Sydney and then waited for another 4 hours for our connecting flight to LAX. Not sure why they can't just have us fly directly from NZ to the US but I'm guessing it is probably due to group rates. I didn't get any sleep on that flight, but did manage to catch maybe an hour's nap during the wait.

The international flight from Sydney to LAX was supposed to be about 12+ hours in duration. I watched two in flight movies (Qantas international has a pretty big list to pick from) - Guardians of the Galaxy and Inglorious Basterds. Then I think I must have slept about 5+ hours, which is pretty good, even if I missed the 'midnight' ice cream snack they served.

As an aside for the movies, they were kinda meh to be honest. GotG didn't really grab me, and I thought the male lead way too cliche. Inglorious Basterds reminds of a revenge fanfic; I didn't get what's so great about it that has so many authors on AO3 lauding it.

Anyway, the connecting flight from LAX to SFO was much tighter in schedule. We were lucky that the checkout was quick (they didn't even collect my customs declaration form, which is kinda a WTF after the interrogation in NZ), and the check-in wasn't too bad. We managed to get through everything in like 1.5 hours and just 15-20 mins before the boarding.

The flight to SFO was uneventful, as was the BART ride afterwards. One the "same day" that we left NZ, as a matter of fact, due to crossing the international date line. (Hm...looking over the timestamps of previous entries, it seems that IJ used the US Pacific Time for all of them even though I posted them from AU/NZ. Ah well, don't think it would be worth the bother to manually change them all.)

Today's schedule started off with a trip to a local (mega)farm called the Agridome. We saw a farm show showcasing a bunch of different sheep breeds they have there, as well as a demo of sheep shearing, lamb feeding, and sheep dog herding. It was adorable. And smelly. Then we took a farm tour in a tractor through the various areas of the farm. Got to pet some sheep and alpacas, and see some deer, bunch of different cows, and some ostriches (emu?). Also got a lot of crap (literally!) on our shoes and had to clean then off at a special wash stand. Yuck.

Lunch was eaten at McDonald's because we were pushed for time. Though, their beef patties are unique in that they use local beef sources, and certainly tasted different from US ones.

Next we stopped at a place for bungee jumps cuz a few folks in our group signed up for it, and the rest just wanted to take pictures (and live vicariously through them crazy kids). Have I ever mentioned I'm not too fond of heights?

After that we made a stop at the Huka Falls. Though, I would call it more like a steep rapids than "real" waterfall. Very pretty though. And definitely the short of place I can imagine a gaggle of dwarves in empty wine barrels to sweep through to get away from the scary elfking. Not that I think that scene from the Hobbit was filmed there. But it does suit the scene.

Last main stop was at the Te Puia, the indigenous Maori village place. We got to tour the grounds, see a demo of there woodwork and weaving crafts (the leaf weaving was awesome), some dance performances (with a lot of half naked buff guys...mmm...'dem abs), and a buffet dinner. The food was cooked in their traditional style, which was buried in the ground and then heated on top. It gave the food a smoky quality and was quite tasty. I was stuffed. Finally, we took a short walk to see the local geyser, and got sprinkled with sulfiric water for our trouble.

Ah well, we managed to make it back to the hotel before the weather started sprinkling. We've consistently had pretty good weather this trip, which is kinda nice.

Also, later tonight our guide held (is holding) a New Years party just with some group contributed snacks and guide contributed alcohol. A lot of silly group games til midnight when the year turns. I stuck out early to use the lobby wifi to post this latest entry, cuz I don't want to pay for another full day when tomorrow is our last actual tour day and we'll be heading back to Auckland.

Today could more accurately be called the day of food.

This morning we have a free period to do whatever on our own. We chose to do a hour long Segway tour of the area. My first time on one of these things. It turns out to be not that different from riding a bike, except the balance is front to back instead of side to sides. In the same group with us where two kids and their parents. The dad was taking pictures with one hand as he went along. This turned out to be a bad idea, as on the pebbly trail just before the star/finish lot, he ran over some rock and wasn't able to keep his balance. Apparently the dive he took caused him scrape his leg along some sharp rock fragments, resulting in a painful and scary looking wound (going by the hysterics the rest of the family went into; I didn't see it myself). A reminder kids - somethings you just don't do with one hand unless you're pro.

Around lunch time we met with the rest of our tour group and rode the gondola up the nearby mountain (whose name I forgot). We had a few moments to snap pictures of the scenic view up high while waiting for everyone to arrive.

Lunch was a buffet at the restaurant there at the top. The food was good and the view was great. Of special note were the mussels (local specialty and very fresh), actual sushi (mmm...sashimi), and large variety of desserts (mmm...tiramisu).

Our gondola + lunch ticket also included one free ride of the Luge. That was pretty fun, though I would on the whole prefer things that used more leg muscle than arm. My upper body strength is puny. =P

Later that afternoon we went to visit the early chinese settlements from the gold rush days a century ago. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy that as much, since there really wasn't much to see there, plus the trees in the area were dropping these fuzz things that drove my allergies wild.

Eventually we headed back to town, and after a bit more wandering and waiting, we had our dinner at a korean BBQ place. Food was ok, the kimchi was nice if really spicy, etc.

To tomorrow we have another flight up to north NZ. It's not an early flight (and the airport is teeny) so there's that.

Continued from previous entry... So, the flight from Australia to New Zealand was not quite uneventful.

One family apparently joined our tour group using a third party tour company from China. Everyone else are from the USA using the actual tour company (Ritz Tours). The problem is whoever hooked that guy up only got him a visa for Australia. Now, apparently if you have a US passport, you don't actually need a separate visa for NZ. But a chinese passport? SOL. The guy ( who was there with two twin daughters maybe 12 years old) had to stay behind in Melbourne. Not sure if he can get a last minute visa to join the rest of the tour eventually or figure out a way to go back to Sydney and stay there until the return flight at the end (which has a connecting stop there).

Another thing that took everyone by surprise was how stringent Customs was in NZ about bringing in anything resembling food products. One family got fined $400 for a container of commercial honey they bought in Australia. My mom got pulled aside because their k9 unit caught a sniff of some shreds of curry beef jerky in her backpack (the rest of it had been eaten in the flight and it was just some spilled remnants, thank god). There was also a camera guy there taking pictures of everyone being pulled aside. When asked he said that the film was going to go on TV. Ugh. Dick move.

Anyway...after the almighty struggles with Customs, we finally left the (very...small) airport into the city proper. Queenstown, though, is also a very small city, for all that it's an almost 100% tourist city. It is maybe ten blocks by six blocks in size, and at most a 30 min walk to cross the whole place. Then again, NZ itself is a sparsely populated country; I think the entire population might be smaller than some chinese cities.

The hotel is called the Millennium Hotel. Decent for a small town I guess. WIFI is only freeform the lobby for 30 mins out of every day, so I'm actually purchasing my internet use for an outrageous price. Bleh.

Dinner was just some random chinese restaurant in the town. Tomorrow is another full day.

EDIT: Forgot to add...we did get some time to wander the town after eating. We took a short stroll through along Lake Wakatipu and then through the local rose garden. The flowers were mostly in bloom, and they were beautiful.