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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query pearl's ashes #8. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query pearl's ashes #8. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

THE LONGEST FLIGHT

Over the next few weeks I will begin to insert a series of travel postings, leading to our Pride of America cruise around the Hawaiian Islands to depart Honolulu on September 2.  Today, ultra-long plane flights, with first a re-look at two of mine.  Just click on any link to read the details.  

  • The 2016 trip took only 24 days:

Long-range flights are now up to 19 hours.  Here is a Condé Nast Traveler account of this record-breaker:

  • Singapore Airlines flew back home from JFK New York in the evening on the Airbus A350-900ULR (ultra long range) in business class.  There is a second daily flight to Singapore from Newark, which departs in the morning and arrives in the evening.  This is the one I would like so I can party for 19 hours.  What a waste to sleep a lot on a long flight.
  • Distance of 9537 miles.
    • #3  Qantas, Perth-London, 9010 miles, 17 hours, 15 minutes.
    • #5  Air New Zealand, Auckland-New York, 8992, 17 hours 50 minutes.
    • #7  Singapore, Singapore-Los Angeles, 8770 miles, 17 hours, 50 minutes.
  • On this plane there was no coach class, only 94 premium economy seats and 67 business thrones.
  • The amenities kit included a wrinkle-reducing spray for clothes.
  • Stewardesses wore Pierre Balmain outfits first designed in 1968 for their international flights.
  • Every passenger was addressed by their last name, especially as you left the plane.
  • There were nearly 1000 entertainment options.
  • All wines came with an explanation about bouquet and such.
  • Wellness is in partnership with Golden Door, a San Marcos, California spa resort.
  • Food maximizes anti-inflammatory properties and are rich in free radicals and anti-oxidants.
  • Everything is designed to reduce jet lag.
  • The bathrooms are cleaned after EVERY passenger use.
  • Cost?
    • Only $2700 for the roundtrip in premium economy and only $6600 in business class.  
    • But these prices can almost double on many dates of the year.
Here is a longer flight, but with a stop in Frankfurt, Singapore-New York in 22 hours.  Watch this bit of luxury in a first class suite on Singapore Airline. 
I've been keeping you up to date on Mega Millions.  Another lottery drawing will be held tonight at 11PM EDT.  Now up to $1.55 billion, largest ever for this pot.  The odds of winning are around one in 300 million.  According to this source:

...the odds of winning the lottery to getting into a fatal car accident on the way to a store. "Imagine you have to drive half a mile to buy your lottery ticket, so you have a 1 mile round-trip. It’s about 4 times as likely that you die in a car accident on the trip to buy your ticket than you are to win.”

If you buy one $2 + $1 ticket, that's entertainment.  If you purchase many more, you have a gambling problem.  Want to watch the drawing?  Click on this.


Today is National Spam Musubi Day.  

  • Sure national, but only celebrated in Hawaii.  
  • Can you believe L&L is the official home?  You also get a free musubi there today
On Aug. 8 (that’s today!) you can get a free SPAM musubi from L&L Hawaiian Barbecue to celebrate National SPAM Musubi Day. And no, you don’t have to do anything crazy to get your free local delicacy of rice and SPAM. All you have to do is grab your phone, download the L&L HawaiÊ»i app, download the complimentary SPAM musubi coupon and hit up the closest L&L to claim your free snack. And with dozens of locations throughout HawaiÊ»i, you can easily find a participating store near you.

  • What is a musubi?  According to Wikipedia:  A local dish in Hawaii is spam musubi, where cooked Spam is placed atop rice and wrapped in a band of nori, a form of nigiri sushi.[27] Varieties of Spam are found in Hawaii and Saipan that are unavailable in other markets, including Honey Spam, Spam with Bacon, and Hot and Spicy Spam.[28]
  • Hawaii has the highest per capita consumption in the world.
  • Did you know Spam is produced only in Austin, Minnesota and Dubuque, Iowa?

Here is Day 4 of my African Blood Lily.

Hurricane Dora remains at a dangerous Category 4, and is just about now directly south of where I'm creating this blog, but maybe 500 miles away.
Can you imagine the horror if the eye were over me?   Dora seems persistent, and appears to now be headed in the general direction of south Japan.  Usually these ocean storms that approach Hawaii from the south, zoom north after passing Kauai and move in the direction of Alaska/Canada.


The other threatening ocean storm is weakening tropical storm Khanun, which is down to 60 MPH and projected to make landfall over South Korea, pretty much tracking right over where those boy scouts were jamboreeing, and moving on between Incheon and Seoul. 
Tropical Storm Lan formed east of Japan, should attain Category 3 strength, and is projected to make landfall over the country as a typhoon of possible Category 2 within a week.  Khanun to the left and Lan on the right.

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Thursday, February 2, 2017

PEARL'S ASHES: Journey to India

CHAPTER 5:  Taj Mahal


[Yes, I promised a new chapter of my next book, PEARL'S ASHES, would appear every Wednesday.  Let me retract that statement and indicate that I would try to post this on that day, but might need to do this either on Tuesdays or Thursdays, instead, and, surely, at least once/week.]

Pearl's Ashes #8, at the Taj Mahal, can be read in it's entirety by clicking on my 26 January 2013 article in this blog site.  Here is how it starts:

I've been around the world around ten times.  There was once an airlines called Pan American World Airways.   Pearl and I took our first around the world journey on PanAm01, westward, way back in the '70's.  On 17January2010 I began my global adventure to Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, DC, New York City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  By this day 130 countries had clicked on this blog site and  I was averaging less than 100 visitors/day.  Today, I'm up to 211 countries and 500 visitors/day.

I wrestled with whether I should ask permission from the Indian government to allow me to lay Pearl's ashes at the Taj Mahal.  Then, rationality prevailed and I decided to do all of this surreptitiously, for they would have said no anyway and taken forever to do this.

I might add that as of today, three years later, I'm up to 220 countries and, over the past couple of months, averaging perhaps 1000 viewers daily.  To get to PA#8 in 2010 I passed through South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  I did not drop her ashes at any of these places because my original focus was to do this only at the Taj Majal, Mount Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu, sites Pearl wanted to visit, but didn't, mostly because I don't particularly like India, Africa and South America.  These other two would come on future world journeys.  Since then, however, I expanded the ceremonies to locations Pearl had or would have enjoyed, and am up to 50 or so.

A few highlights of my the way to India:
  • Incheon International Airport was the #1 airport in the world.  Operational from 2005, it has historically been among the very best, last year #2 to Singapore's Changi Airport.
  • I joined Curtis Lee (right) on a Southeast Asia Tour.  He was in the Vietnam War and wanted to see the changes.  He and Laverne were good friends of Pearl, and more recently, they have inquired about moving into 15 Craigside.  Unfortunately, at the China Beach (Danang) stop I caught Ho Chi Minh's Revenge.  Ciprofloxacin worked well, indeed.
  • Angkor Wat in Cambodia was a worthy stop, although not as spectacular as I expected.  It was in the Raffles Hotel at Siem Reap that I learned the difference among people's of this region:  Vietnamese were hard workers, Cambodians were hard watchers and Laotians were hard sleepers.  Also I was surprised to hear that they all don't like the Russians, fear the Chinese, still have negative thoughts about the Japanese and very much favor Americans.
  • Thailand is a wonderful country, and the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai is one of my three best world hotels.  I had  authentic Japanese wagyu beef for dinner two nights in a row, paid for by the tour, which was a Tauck.  While almost always hot, the temples are incredible sights and I show this Emerald Buddha because it is seriously forbidden to take photos here and I happened to take this shot because I wasn't totally aware of this restriction.
  • Read my top ten topics of interest so far of South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.  The most remarkable was China Beach:  100 yards of white sand extending a distance from Waikiki to Wahiawa, 19 miles.  Eight years ago they were thinking about casinos.  There are now ten hotels with them just in Danang, which is China Beach.
Then came India.  Amazingly enough, my initial report from Delhi, INDIA SUCKS, posted seven years ago, is the current #1 article being pinged on today.  Click on that and read the comments.  So I find my way to the Le Meridien hotel, which was truly an oasis.  There are two more articles worth your perusal:



To again quote:

The drive of 4 hours to Agra was a nightmare. Early in the morning, a red light means please consider slowing down, but, if there appears to be no crossing traffic, whiz through as fast as possible. The 130 mile ride was mostly down a four lane highway, with a few complications. Ox, goat and horse driven carts; wandering cattle and water buffalo; way overloaded trucks; tuk-tuks that carry not two people, but up to 20; congested towns; people running across the street and horrendous air pollution (it was smokey the whole way). For transportation buffs, you will see every possible mode of transport since the dawn of civilization, including trains that seem to move along well and, above, airplanes, which I only imagined were there, for the haze is worse than when the volcano emission envelopes Honolulu.

We finally arrive in Agra and the Taj Mahal:


No, I'm not dropping Pearl's ashes on the Taj Mahal.  I found a convenient spot and without fanfare tossed that gelcap in a safe location that even the Indian government might have accepted.  Wait till you read of my incident at Machu Picchu.  On the return:

The most exciting part of the whole trip was the ride back to Delhi, all 6 hours of it. This was the equivalent of the road through hell, again, but worse. They say that just at the moment of a catastrophe, time slows, like, say, your car meeting another head-on at 60 miles per hour. To survive in this traffic, the driver needs to be intrepid, no, make that, reckless. He needs to fearlessly pass cars and animals and toot his horn as much as possible. Time virtually stopped for me at least a dozen times today.

The miracle of it all is that not once did our van even scrape another vehicle. I did not see an accident all day. However, an hour into Delhi we ran into an electrical storm. If you never have been through one of these, you're in luck. In one town there was a siren blowing. Maybe tornadoes? Lightning hit a pole in front of us and sparks fell on the road. But, I landed at the Le Meridien, which, I said yesterday, is an oasis.

But, aha, I still had to get out of the country, starting with:

I left the Delhi Le Meridien at 6:30AM and was taken by a hotel car (free) to the airport.  Check in was terrific, for Lufthansa upgraded me to first class.With some trepidation, I nevertheless passed through customs with ease.  I was about to have a croissant and capuchino breakfast in the Lufthansa lounge when a uniformed officer asked to see my boarding pass (BP).  He then ordered me to accompany him, for there was a problem with my check-in baggage.  Maybe another extortion scheme?

I imagined all sorts of worse case scenarios.  Maybe someone had somehow snuck in a pound of heroin or a bomb into my baggage.  We passed through one security gate, where they stamped my BP.  At this point another uniformed officer with a rifle accompanied us.  We went through two more security areas, where they again stamped the BP, into the bowels of the airport.  Then I thought, oh no, my “India Sucks” blog really pissed off someone and they were going to execute me. However, Cambodia, maybe, but certainly not India.  We made it to where bags accumulate, and there was my suitcase.

Well, if you're interested in reading further, click on 

FROM DELHI TO MUNICH TO BARCELONA

I did escape from India, but flew into a serious Munich snowstorm.  This final adventure for the day itself was dramatic.

PA#9 next week?  Haleakala, the House of the Rising Sun.

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Tuesday, February 4, 2025

PEARL'S ASHES #8

I did say I would post part 2 of my Democracy series today, but I haven't quite perfected a better future for Mayday Mayday, so this will come later in the week.  Instead, as this is nostalgia Tuesday, I will reach back and specifically look at the eighth ash drop for Pearl at the Taj Mahal.  However, first, a few of the latest developments imposed on the world by President Donald Trump.

  • Trump had a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, the first world leader to do so.  Shockingly, Trump indicated that the USA will take over the Gaza Strip.  Watch this video.  Previously, he took credit for brokering this peace, but new American boots on the ground in the Middle East is almost beyond the pale.
  • China is the only country currently struck with Trump's tariff, 10%, and announced a counter tariff.
    • Remember my travels to China and how this blog site had problems because of the ongoing fuss with Google, which began in 2010? 
      • Google's market share declined from 36.2% to now 3.8%, primarily because Google is not blocked in Hong Kong.  
      • Well, look for more problems between the two because of this now tariff war.
      • There is a large list of websites not able to operate in mainland China.
        • You Tube since 2009.
        • Facebook, 2009.
        • Yahoo, 2021.
        • Wikipedia, 2019.
        • Reddit, 2018.
        • Netflix, 2012.
        • Blogspot (this blog), 2009.
        • Instagram, 2014.
        • WhatsApp, 2017.
        • Spotify, 2008.
        • Pornhub, 2016.
        • BBC, 2015.
        • New York Times, 2012.
        • Washington Post, 2019.
        • The Guardian, 2019.
        • Bloomberg, 2012.
        • HuffPost, 2019.
        • Wall Street Journal, 2015.
        • Reuters, 2019.
        • TIME, 2016.
        • Australia Broadcasting Corporation, 2018.
        • The Economist, 2016.
        • ABC, 2021.
        • Voice of American, for a long time.
        • NBC, 2019.
        • HBO, 2020.
        • TikTok, yes, TikTok, 2020.
        • ChatGPT, 2023.
        • Truth Social (Donald Trump's media platform), 2022.
        • A lot more on this list.
    • Well about the China blowback, Trump indicated now that he is in no rush to talk to President Xi.
      • As you know there was a trade war between the U.S. and China in Trump's first term.
      • This time, China is prepared to counter.
        • Trump's tariff on China is currently 10%.  
        • China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquified natural gas, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars to take effect next Monday.  
        • Maybe most important, China will control the exportation of high-tech products and will minimize sales of rare minerals.  This will cause huge problems to some American companies.
        • Should all that occur, GDP growth will be lowered, inflation in the U.S. will grow and there will be negative effects on the U.S. dollar.
      • As those New York Times graphics above show, American's remain relatively wealthy, but unhappy and unwell.
  • Fossil fuel CEO Chris Wright was confirmed as Trump's Energy Secretary, supported by 8 Democrats on the floor. Wright will "drill, baby, drill" and distantle the Democrats "green new scam."
There is a timing issue about Pearl's Ashes in this blog site.  Most of the ash laying ceremonies themselves occurred 14-16 years ago and my blog compiled them into regular postings around 12 years ago, but I then decided I would write a virtual book featuring mostly photos, and these chapters unfolded 8 years ago.
  • So back I go 17January2010 when I began a global journey mostly to drop Pearl's Ashes #8 at the Taj Mahal.  While the first seven occurred in Hawaii, my primary purpose was to travel the world to drop her ashes at locations she wanted to visit, but did not, mostly because I personally had no interest in India and South America.  For this trip I only dropped her ashes once.
  • On 8February2010 I visited the Taj Mahal.
    • The previous day I wrote about getting into India.  INDIA SUCKS…* remains as the most commented posting I've ever had.
    • To quote:

Let's forget yesterday. I'm appalled that I said "India Sucks." 


Today, though, was not much different, but my attitude has re-adjusted and returned to my normal self. To begin, can you believe there are 82 HD channels, and at the time of the Super Bowl, there were 6 soccer matches, 2 rugby, 2 badminton, 1 tennis, 1 golf, 1 auto racing, 3 cricket and, on ESPN, a SEC gymnastics competition. NO SUPER BOWL in Delhi. Anyway, I couldn't have caught all of it as at 6:15AM I was picked up for my Taj Mahal encounter, the primary reason why I'm on this trip.

    • We caught a van from New Delhi to Agra.  Very cost effective for a 260-mile roundtrip.

There was a driver of a minivan and a navigator, joined by a tour guide for a person from Sweden, another from Turkey and myself. Remember from yesterday, all this cost me about $50, including lunch. 

The drive of 4 hours to Agra was a nightmare. Early in the morning, a red light means please consider slowing down, but, if there appears to be no crossing traffic, whiz through as fast as possible. The 130 mile ride was mostly down a four lane highway, with a few complications. Ox, goat and horse driven carts; wandering cattle and water buffalo; way overloaded trucks; tuk-tuks that carry not two people, but up to 20; congested towns; people running across the street and horrendous air pollution (it was smokey the whole way). For transportation buffs, you will see every possible mode of transport since the dawn of civilization, including trains that seem to move along well and, above, airplanes, which I only imagined were there, for the haze is worse than when the volcano emission envelopes Honolulu.

We finally got to Agra and went straight to the Taj Mahal. The cost of entrance was about $20 for this and the Red Fort. Frankly, like Angkor Wat, the experience was not awesome. I'm glad I came, I enjoyed the tour, but I was sort of disappointed. These accompanying photos actually show the Taj to be whiter than actual. This is one of the 8 wonders of the world. Time and pollution, though, have stained the white marble. But, after all, this complex is more than 350 years old. I did, however, honor Pearl.

The Red Fort, almost 450 years old, is the second must see, but, again, I'm templed and forted out to enjoy any more tours. The lunch at a 5-star restaurant was Indian, and good, with Kingfisher, an Indian beer.

The most exciting part was the ride back to Delhi, all 6 hours of it. This was the equivalent of the road through hell. They say that just at the moment of a catastrophe, time slows, like, say, your car meeting another head-on at 60 miles per hour. To survive in this traffic, the driver needs to be intrepid, no, make that, reckless. He needs to fearlessly pass cars and toot his horn as much as possible. Time virtually stopped for me at least a dozen times today.

I was so exhausted about surviving the day that I ordered room service: a butter/pesto tossed linguine with a bolognese sauce, accompanied by an asparagus Caesar salad. I opened the bottle of bordeaux provided the Le Meridien and had one of the better meals on this trip:


Amen.
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