Irene & Chris' Travel

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

January, 2012

After an excellent flight on Korean Air from Vancouver we landed at the magnificent Incheon Airport. This airport was the finest in the world until Hong Kong became #1 and now it is #2. Our hotel for 2 nights was near the airport and had shuttle service. We stayed at the Airtel Hotel which is in an area where there are a number of shops, grocery stores and small restaurants. We ate our meals at the local eatery and bought some interesting sweets off the street. It was a very interesting stopover for 2 nights and we were pleased that we included this stop. The Hotel staff arranged for a city tour for us. We were 45 minutes driving time from Seoul and this involved a long ride over a causeway. It was a very quick tour of downtown,the Imperial Palace, market area and a good lunch.

The weather was cool to cold at +2'c and cloudy. There was not much wind so the wind chill was not much. We were dressed for it with hat and mitts although holding cameras and binoculars our fingers were cold.

While waiting for our flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand the airport had loads of quality shopping, entertainment by the Cultural Group of Korea – dressed in their traditionally finery.. The Group also had a number of activity centers where they were teaching anyone who was interested in their traditional crafts. We had never seen that in an airport before. Air Korea was the best airline we have flown. The food, service, video was all excellent and the seats were about 3” wider than normal. Everything worked comparing to American Airlines where the seats were broken and so was the video and the earphone connections.

Enjoy the pictures we captured of our visit:

At Vancouver Airport waiting for our Korean Air Flight

Flying over Kamchetka, Russia

Downtown Seoul

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The entrance gate to the Imperial Palace

Ice on the pond

Beautiful and intricate decoration

Sweets from the street vendor

Fish in local market

Street scene near our hotel

Our Hotel and transfer van

Teaching tradional crafts to passengers at airport

Tradional Costumes

COSTA RICA

Jan. 5 – March 5, 2011

This is the land of volcanoes, rugged country, cloud forests, and miles of beaches on two oceans, narrow paved roads, an autopista, and 4x4 gravel roads, no street signs and directions given by landmarks. This is a land of contrasts.

We made some day trip and one 4 day trip to Monteverde Cloud Forest and Santa Elena. The cloud forest and area was very interesting. To get there one drives about 20 km on a very rough gravel road. The village of Santa Elena is paved but travel of 10 km to the Cloud Forest was again gravel. The Cloud Forest lived up to its reputation of rain, fog and wind. The trails were very well marked and maintained so we had an easy day of walking. We did not see the Quetzal (we were certainly looking for it). Non birders showed us pictures of the ones that they saw.

One day trip was to Poas Volcano and we lucked in and had a perfectly clear day. We met people who had gone several times and it was shrouded in fog. It was a highlight as we had never seen one like this. Another day we went to the nearby waterfalls – La Paz. There used to be 5 waterfalls but after the 2009 earthquake it has been reduced to 3. The grounds, zoo and attractions were extremely well done and quite spectacular in their own right.

We made 2 trips to the Pacific coast – one to Puntarenas and another to Jaco and Manuel Antonio. Puntarenas is a dying town since the cruise traffic has relocated down the coast. The sand is black and the area is very popular with the locals. Whereas the sand is light colored in Jaco and Manuel Antonio but this area is loaded with international tourists. We were glad we made these trips.

We took buses, taxis and received rides with friends as we did not rent a car for the 2 months. We would not have been happy driving the roads as Costa Rica is known for their high accident rate.

Costa Rica is not cheap. Groceries are the same price or more than in Canada. We found the fruit and vegetable were of a poor quality. Maybe they export the best quality, but oranges, limes and bananas were not juicy or were bruised. We did not see citrus fruit trees in people yards so locals have to buy if they wish to have them. The mangos and papaya were good.

The town of Atenas has wonderful climate with cooler evenings and warm afternoons. We stayed about 10 km out of Atenas and had a private cottage. There were 3 cottages and the owners on the property. We thoroughly enjoyed eating our meals on the patio and watching the birds coming and going. Since we had done a lot of travelling we thought we would enjoy just taking life easy and see if we could stay in one place for 2 months. We knew they did not have internet or tv so we did a lot of reading. The owners were very nice and accommodating but there were some issues. Following this blog entry is a review of the accommodations.

Review of : APARTAMENTO RIO GRANDE, GUANACASTE, PAN DE AZUCAR

near ATENAS, COSTA RICA

We were booked into their Cabin #1 for 2 months – Jan and Feb 2011. Attracted by the Website and the information we made the booking. Upon arrival we found the claims misleading. The property is lovely and the cabins are attractive and kept very clean with fresh bedding twice a week.

We have travelled with our own vehicle extensively in Mexico for 17 years, and Guatemala, Belize, Panama and all South American countries except Bolivia and Paraguay. We are very familiar with 3rd world busses ( very modern to small collectivos) and roads of all descriptions. The busses in Costa Rica ran on schedule as they gave us a printed time table.

The following are some of the issues we encountered:

1. Dogs. The owner Teresa (in her 70's) and her son and family own at least 11 dogs on the small property. These dogs bark at any time of the day and night and especially early morning. The dogs range in size from 2 large Mastiff to a Chihuahua and others in between.

2. Pool. The pool is not cleaned sufficiently and is mainly murky with leaves and debris on the surface and the bottom was slimy. Some female guests were hesitant about going into the pool.

3. Location. The Website claims a hourly bus service outside the gate – not so. (We did not rent a car for the 2 months.) You walk 200 meters down a steep hill on very rough gravel road to the main road and wait for the bus that passes at 7:45, 9:45 and 11:30 am and takes about 45 minutes to town as it goes into 2 other villages and has many stops in between. A car would take 10-15min as it is not 5 km from town but 10-12km on a mountain road.

4. Internet. We knew there was no internet connection for guests, but because of the inconvenience of the buses it took at least ½ day to go into Atenas to check your e-mail etc. On one occasion we requested to use their private internet.

5. A small annoyance – the brooms are only available in the laundry hut. Calling someone from the door bell does not work and we were very hesitant about entering their yard because of the large dogs. On one occasion we witnessed the gardener's young helper leap the fence to avoid the attack of the huge Mastiff.

6. Contents of fridge on arrival: The term well stocked fridg is an exaggeration. It contained 2 bottles of water, jam -300g, cream cheese – 300g, milk - ¼ litre, baguette of bread. We asked for enough coffee for the next morning as we arrived too late to go shopping. The owner accommodated us with a bottle of wine which we resupplied him the next day.

Surprising the owners did not inform us or other guests of the bus schedule or that there was an English radio station.

SOUTH AMERICA CRUISE

Oct. 9 – Nov. 21, 2010

This trip was a 34 day cruise plus additional 6 days in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

To start our adventure we were serenaded by a taxi driver in New York, who sang Mexican Ranchero songs (which we really like) and had a Karaoke machine which he played. This was a delightful drive from the airport to the Pier!

We had hot sun and beach weather to cold icy winds off the Antarctic and snow in Ushuaia. We also had very smooth seas except for the very south of South America – in fact from the Falkland Islands to Montevideo, Uruguay it felt as if we were not even moving. It was a very interesting cruise as the places visited ranged from beach, primitive Indian village to very Spanish style European cities, to German settlement villages in Chile, to the historic Strait of Magellan, Darwin Channel and Cape Horn. When transiting Cape Horn we had 50 knot winds, 20' waves and 300' between swells. The weather just added to the ambiance of rounding the tempestuous seas of Cape Horn.

We had 23 city visits including highlight viewing of Glaciers and the Cape. This was a trip that would be impossible to do except on a cruise ship. To get a glimpse into the 10 countries, transit the complete Panama Canal, and scenery that we visited in that time period would be impossible. We took only 3 organized and expensive excursions and the rest of the city visits we did on our own or joined another couple using local transportation or taxis.

We had beach sand, desert sand of the Aticama Desert, the cool to coldness of the Humboldt Current and the large number of Pelagic birds flying and feeding in the rich Humboldt. I stood for hours on the deck with my scope watching the birds flying and trying to identify the species. We also had a hundred plus sea birds land on the ship one night. They were confused with the lights. We saved almost all of them and the next night the Captain reduced the brightness of the lights and we didn't have any more visitors.

In Puerto Montt, Chile we took the local bus to Fruitillar and a guitar playing and singing busker joined the bus. We really never had any security problems except in Buenos Aires on the first day a “lady” sprayed Chris with green gunk and wanted to help us clean it off and then possibly rob us. It is an old tactic for robbery and when we refused to follow her she quickly disappeared.

We were very impressed with Montevideo and Buenes Aires. In Montevideo we viewed the range finder of the Graf Spee. This was one of the most famous German Naval Ships of WWII, which was scuttled by the Captain in the Bay of Montevideo in order to save his crew. Check Wikipedia for this most historical event.

We stayed 6 extra days in Buenos Aires. Our Hotel was located in the old downtown and we walked the pedestrian zones, looked at beautiful expensive shops and shopping mall and huge historical and impressive buildings, vendors in the middle of the wide walking zone, walked to the very large city park (Costanera Sur) within the city for birding and met some very interesting local people who were birders and/or photographers. We also visited with friends we met on the ship who rented an apartment about 3 blocks from us and will stay there until March. They will then take another cruise back to the USA.

Our Air Canada flight from Buenos Aires (with a stop in Santiago, Chile) to Toronto was uneventful except for a little turbulence over the Andes. We arrived in Winnipeg to snow and cold weather and planes being de-icing on the tarmac.

The following are a few pictures of our trip: