Mooched around town yesterday afternoon visiting the market outside of the twon walls. Lots of brightly coloured turbans saris fruit and bowls. Not to mention the plastic tat that seems to characterise markets the world over. On the way back to the hote spent some time sat at a rooftop cafe the Taragarh in front of me the tangled little pastel and biscuit hued streets below punctuated every

This was my time to get caught up on evaluating the homework for my great students preparing for this weeks class sessions and enjoying my new found past time of Hanji Painting. I will begin this week on Tuesday as I had ended my last blog with my return from Thailand journey notes ending on Monday. Our lovely Korean roomate took great care of Matt while I was away. I think he may be getting a

Hey AllIt's definately been a while since I last posted. This is partly due to my Chinese homework as it exponentially increased in the past few weeks. And well I'll admit that my interest in the Chinese language unfortunately took a dive recently and left me wondering why I came here. Yeah that was scary. But after much thinking I feel like I'm much more levelheaded about it now. Alt

Its been a long journey and good finish. We were on the move enjoying our last days so it was tough for me to sit down and recap. So here is the much delayed conclusion to my blog.From Hoi An Iwe bordered another Iron lung for our journey to notorious Nha Trang. This was Amber's first night bus in Vietnam and so I tried to prepare her as best I could read muscle relaxers and sleeping pills

Sunday March 6th 2011Java SeaLatitude 5 degrees 15 minutes south Longitude 112 degrees 28 minutes southI am struck by the complete paradox that is the Indonesian Island of Lombok. Much less developed than the neighboring island of Bali Lombok is still rural and primitive. A lot of the people there live in abject poverty. Some dont even have or use money they simply trade the rice they

Wow It's hard to believe I've been here two months and haven't posted in 1 month. I think I'm starting to get the hang of things. It's still been bitterly cold and I know that there's a lot more to do when it gets warm out. So I decided to write this entry on the bus on my way into Seoul. It's my first trip by myself into Seoul and I ended up getting on a bus I've never taken before because it

Forgot to mention on previous entry a clear sky here at night here is nothing short of breathtaking. The stars appear so much closer and clearer and you can actually see other galaxies with what appears to be gases around them. Onto today and we woke up to a cold grey start and ducks spuddling outside the van. One thing weve noticed while over here is how many old caravans are still functio

Country home by UStravel23

Lunch with our landlady was a nice experience. She lives outside the city of Moscow. Its about a 30 minute drive. You have to drive to a place called “Luxury Village”. This was not my first time visiting “luxury village”. I had the unusual experience before Christmas of teaching an Oligarch’s son near where our landlady lives in Luxury Village.

Yulia (Julia) lives in one of the many gated private villages that seem to be common here in and around Moscow. We have gated communities in Britain, but they are few and far between. I would not mind living in one, if I could afford it, they are safer and cleaner than regular housing estates.

Red Caviar courtesy of Author

Yulia, made an excellent lunch of crab salad, red caviar eggs, salmon, meat burgers and mashed potato. This was all washed down with large amounts of red and white wine. I noticed that Yulia liked to make many toasts, maybe that a Russian thing to toast to everything? I like the idea a lot. A toast to welcome us to her home, a toast for the New Year, a toast for good health, a toast to us, a toast to this and a toast to that. I did not take part, as I was the unlucky driver. Her house is big and wooden. She told us that it has been in her late husbands family for years and that the land was spilt up, half was given to one son and the other half was given to another son (her late husband), the brothers did not speak to each other. The house is surrounded by birch forest and very peaceful, and the air is clean and fresh. Fresh, clean air is a luxury when you live in Moscow.

The house she lives in, is her former holiday house or “Dacha”, the flat we live in, is her former city residence.

Or rent supports Yulia and her old sick mother, of course Yulia has no mortgage, (as far as I can assume), so our money must give her a good life style. She is a widow, her husband died a few years ago, he was a famous Russian actor, who’s name I don’t know and could not pronounce anyway. The house she lives in, is her former holiday house or “Dacha”, the flat we live in, is her former city residence. She told me they used to spend the summer at the Dacha and the winter at their city flat, where we now live. Its a modest flat, small and not at all luxurious (despite the rent price) , but its only a 15 minute walk to the Kremlin, so we are paying for the location. It is a hard and large pill to swallow, since I know everyone else that lives in our block of flats, certainly does not pay the rent we pay, (or any rent) so its does make me a bit angry. But rent is rent. We can’t live for free.

I told my wife not to become too friendly with her, as after one year she may decide to increase the rent. We did agree to fix it for two years, but its common in Russia for flat owners to just increase the rent as and when they feel like it. If she does increase it, we will move and she will have to search all over again for a tenant willing to pay her the rent that she demands. However, she is a kind person and we are lucky to have chosen a nice landlady. This is very important when renting in Moscow, choose your landlord/Landlady carefully, you will save problems later.

Editor’s Note: Yulia is a real person. The author has chosen to use a fictitious name for the purposes of privacy.

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Lunch with Yulia |
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Try covering 44 countries on 6 continents without ever having an airline boarding pass in hand at some point. This is exactly what Michael Hodson accomplished over a 16 month period. He may be a lawyer by trade but he’s a traveler at heart. After a stint back home, he’s “On the Road Again” and no doubt has Willy Nelson playing on his (mental) jukebox.

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2011. |
Go, See, Write: Tales of Overland Adventure |
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Saturday February 26Skip Well this day started off very exciting Upon leaving our bedroom I ran into a couple who were supposed to take a early bus from David to Panama City and guess what no buses running because of large protests along the PanAmerican highway and into Panama City. These protests are being run by indigenous people of Panama who reside in areas that Canadian mining interests

Ganze 20 LongtailbootMinuten ist die Insel Poda Island von Ao Nang entfernt. Mit aufgekrempelter Hose heisst es durch schenkeltiefes Wasser einsteigen. Die berfahrt ist ein wenig wackelig mit einigen guten Portionen Gischt fr die Fahrgste links. Poda Island ist bei weitem nicht so berlaufen wie z.B. Railey Beach mit lang gestrecktem Sandstrand um zwei Drittel der Insel. Je weiter man ge

Wir wurden von Koni und Uschi zu einem super Paellaessen eingeladen. Das Restaurant liegt in einer kleinen Bucht kurz vor Cartagena.

A WALK ON THE WALL We caught the train on Friday morning to Lucca one of our favourite places. We stayed in a boarding house for 55euros for all of us a night.bargain can recommend it if you are ever in Lucca on a budget trip.We had a great time we walked the wall hired bikes and rode the wall the gods were shinning on us because the weather was glorious and rained the morning we went to ca

I knew when I was planning this trip that how much I would be able to see would depend a lot on the weather. Well today we got weathered in a big way. Snow fell last night and today in places that havent seen a snowfall in many years.In California when it snows in the high passes they require all cars and trucks to have chains at least for their driving wheels. I did buy rear cabl

For the last week we have been doing it pretty tough in small town called Itacare. After a bus ferry and bus total of maybe 8 hours we arrived in Itacare last Monday with the intention of staying only a couple of nights but that length of stay was very quickly revisited and we ended up staying for the week. It's a beautiful little town surrounded by pristine beaches and lush green jungle. We sp

Well although this is listed as week 4 it is week 4 of the blog but more like week 10 of the training..thats cleared that up .So this week has been productive with two 25 mile hill rides a 2 hour session at the Ladies Coll gym doing circuits very tough and today sunday 27th .I left home at 06.50 and cycled out to Malvern via Tewkesbury and Hanley Swan returning via Eastnor Castle and bac

It was quite incredible to see a glacier for the first time. To add to the allure Perito Moreno is one of the only glaciers in the world that is actually increasing in size it grows approximately 1.5 meters per day This growth is neutralized however as the glacier calves and breaks off into the lagoon to which it expands. Sarah and I were lucky to see this process in action as huge chunks brok

Hey everyoneA few cool things to fill you in on. This week was a blast. The weather was amazing and I got a couple great runs along the beach in. Nothing wrong with that.Tuesday and Wednesday night my friends and I did La Ruta which is a group of 25 small bars around Palma that have a drink and a tapa for 2 euro We didn't hit all 25 haha but the ones we went to were so cute and fun. While at o

It was good to be alive We had survived the inclement weather conditions of Torres del Paine and I had personally survived a postcampingdisasterwifes wrath. But we were in all seriousness looking forward to trying it again and going to Mount Fitz Roy.Mount Fitz Roy is an Argentinean mountain located near El Chaltn village in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field on the border with Chile.

Got a question and answer sheet today. Lots of really good information. I am including the text from it below. Be advised that translating Mandrin to English is sometimes awkward.It is an emotional day as I prepare to meet Kaixin for the first time. One of our tour guides Rita looks like I picture Kaixin will look when she is older. I could not look at her without tearing up. It was really tough