Continuing my strategy for making travel to SA easier, I spent a long weekend in London recovering from the first 10 hour flight home. I recently applied for and received a registered traveler pass so I can get into the UK much faster.
I visited my favorite cheese sandwich place in Borough Market. I know what you are thinking, it is just a grilled cheese that Eric just overpaid 6£ to eat. But my friends, this is no mere "Cheese Toastie," it is 4 different cheeses from local UK farms, pure heaven in your mouth, and pure hell for your health.
I tried out Madam Tussaud's wax museum. I've been traveling to the UK for the last 4 years and been meaning to visit this usually crowded tourist location. Do the models look as real as everyone describes? Surprisingly yes!
Finally I enjoyed the general sights of London. Always a joy to see the iconic sights.
There was even a Comic convention occurring at the London Excel center...
After a week of team meetings in Cleveland I was flown off to Johannesburg (via Detroit and London). I did this trip about 2 years ago for the first time where I was introduced to the nightmare of the 15-18 hour flight from Atlanta or New York. I can usually handle about 7-8 hour max of being stuck in a coach seat. After that, due to back pain and dehydration, it rapidly becomes a living hell. To try an mitigate this destructive travel I tried a new strategy of flying to London, spending a night or two adjusting to the time change, then continuing to South Africa. This strategy worked quite well for my needs.
Johannesburg is an interesting city. I usually spend most of my working time in Sandton (stock exchange) and Randburg. It is spring this time of year and there are the prettiest purple flowers on the trees. Johannesburg is not the safest place with most homes and businesses having tall fences that are both electrified and barbed. This always makes me feel uneasy.
One of the ways I keep my sanity with frequent business travel is to try and get out an explore or have a unique local experience. I've wanted to go to a lion preserve or safari for a long time. Thanks to a coworker's input I finally got to go. We went for an evening feeding and lion cub interaction.
The cubs are super cute. These ones were about 4 months old. I know it is a bit of a tourist trap, but where else in the world are you going to get to experience touching a baby lion. The interaction starts out nice...
Then they decide you are their food...(ouch). This reminds me of Oatmeal's guide for How to Pet a Kitty.
After that we boarded a caged truck and set out for the Adult Lion paddocks. Lions spend most of the day sleeping and then try to hunt and feed at night.
Here is a little video I got of the feeding...
Lessons learned-
Average life time of a male is 7-9 years in the wild (double in captivity); females live longer due to pride life
Lions should be considered the King of the Savannah (tigers are for Jungle)
Due to an interesting metabolism and digestive track, lions can eat a large meal of meat and then go a few days of napping
One last stop before ending this vacation. David insisted that we visit the Hakone Open-Air Museum, a famous outdoor sculpture park in the mountains near Tokyo. Hakone is the typical resort/hot springs that people from the cities like to visit. They usually have enough time for a long weekend trip so places like this appeal to that need.
While I was starting to get bored of museums, Mr. McDowell had chosen quite wisely. Wow, what a cool place! The biggest draw was a tower of stained glass. We were already high up in the mountains so this made for an amazing view.
Returning to the hostel, I caught a glimpse of one of the local monkeys. David asked, "Did you hear something?"
Two weeks ago I decided on a whim to visit a new (to me) city, Takayama. For the life of me I could not find a hotel or hostel. I finally got something on Monday. It turns out that we caught the tail end of one of the biggest fall festivals in Japan. The city is actually has 3 big festivals throughout the year.
The train ride up to the mountains from Nagoya took about 2 hours. It was well worth the effort thanks to the views. It reminded me of the drive from Denver, CO to Utah.
We arrived at 3pm. The festival ended at 6pm. Everyone was leaving so there were no longer bad crowds. What a happy accident. I ate so much junk (street vendor) food!!!
After a few days in Kyoto, we took a day trip to Hiroshima. I've not been back here since 2009, at the time I rode the train for 5 hours, walked to the peace memorial, then went strait back to Tokyo. I didn't realize one of the most famous shrines (photograph) in Japan was located here. The Itsukushima Shrine is located on an Island on the south west side of the city. It takes about 30 minutes by train, then another 15 minutes by ferry to travel there. It takes about an hour if Eric reads the signs wrong and takes you to the other side of the city.
David was especially eager to visit the Peace Memorial, trying to fulfil a dream/goal for his grandfather who served in WW2. Personally, while I view this place as historically important, it is really one of the saddest graveyards in the world. Therefore, I am not a fan of heading there as it always makes me feel sad. While sitting across from the dome, I watched a youtube video from the history channel on the event. It made me cry. I understand that the event ended the war but I also do not ever want it to happen again. (History tends to show that War Never Changes).
