After Thoughts

An extra day in Toronto gave us a chance to unwind, collect our thoughts and review our experience. But first back to the Hockey Hall of Fame to do it justice, took me 4 hours to drag Janice out of there. Of course the Shoe museum for an hour was a must.....NOT!

We felt strange, and even a bit lonely, to be in the lobby of our hotel and to not be meeting any of our fellow travelers as they had all gone home the day before. No one to stir the pot with, no one to tease, no one to chat with , no one to strategise with. We realized then, it was all over but the crying! I still felt guilty asking the concierge where the nearest Starbucks was. Looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching as I asked my 2nd and 3rd questions.

We will never forget this travel experience, good and bad, and there were both to be sure. We are certainly thankful and appreciate what it takes to put one of these travel adventures together. The details and all the advance planning, along with shooting from the hip as issues arose. For that we want to recognise Bill, Andy and Pam.......................ela for their efforts and diligence.

As for the contest itself.....well everyone is a critic and I only listen to those critics who have been there and done it. Just to remind everyone as one of my good friends will tell you, history has no statues of critics. But all the same, we had 30 separate daily emotions, disappointments, celebrations, despairs, angers, joys, satisfactions and frustrations. As organizers, referees, arbitrators, and judges, it must of felt that you were running an adult day care center!

We want to recognize those travellers who gave it their all and did it honestly, in the spirit of the game. We want to to wag our finger at those who maybe didn't. You all know which category you fit in. Over time we hope that our relationships will develop into long term friendships, as all of you fellow contestants have a special place in our memories and thoughts, never to be forgotten one way or another, for sure!! We look forward to seeing or chatting with all of you again in the future. Thanks for all the memories.

We are now Savvy travelers who got a snapshot of the world. I don't need to visit any more mosque's, temple's or church's. I've had enough of breakfast buffets and late-nite room service. I will never tire of the impromptu meetings over a beer at the nearest bar to discuss the day or the morning as it sometimes happened, or the early morning coffee's to clear cobwebs and figure out the day ahead. The cultural experiences and these meetings were certainly our favorites and we won't forget them soon. Erwin: I apologise if I offended anyone in anyway and want you all to know that I love you guys! Janice: I feel the love :) too

For all our friends and relatives who made the daily visit to our blog, we hope you were informed and entertained. If you managed to live the experience vicariously through our words and descriptions, then we are very pleased we could be of service. Thanks for visiting and caring about our adventure!

We'd also like to put out a challenge to anyone reading this.....limit your use of plastic bags, reduce, reuse & recycle. There's a LOT more pollution than you think on the other side of the world, and it's not going to get better until it gets a whole lot worse!

Some final pot stirring.....

*Still missing those travel guides

*Google... What Google?

*Hired car... No it was a Taxi.. Honest

*No train service there

*Concierge... no he was a luggage attendant..really

*Concierge....it was a really long question

*Blackberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Who knows

*I didn't hear you say that....honest

*It was closed..... at 5:00 am it would be!!

Until we meet again.......Erwin & Janice

jvd@rooter.ca

Hockey Day in Toronto

With everybody as rested as we were going to be, the scavenges started at 8 in the morning down in the lobby of our hotel. The final scavenge would be scaling the CN Tower to walk on the glass floor, with everyone meeting at the restaurant above no later than 3:10 p.m. With everyone putting in their last effort here in Toronto, we decided to finish strong and do as many scavenges as possible. There was bonus points to go to Niagara Falls, which sounded tempting, but we knew it would take the whole day. As we've seen the Falls already, we opted to explore Toronto.

The Hockey Hall of Fame should have been an all day scavenge (going back today to do it justice). Didn't realize there are 3 Stanley cups, the original (in the vault), the display (touchy,feely) and the travel cup. Gretsky's bar & grill and the set of Hockey Nite in Canada, and a walk by at the old Maple Leaf Gardens are definitely some of Janice's favorite things to do. She dragged me along kicking and screaming.

Things started out great until we were hit with the great monsoon in the late morning. Nothing like wandering around a strange city, getting soaked to the skin! The subway and PATH system were well-used, not only for travel but for keeping dry as well.

Several surprises in Toronto. We found out Canadians really are friendly and were always ready to help us, even offering to help before we could even ask....that was great to see.

We also were reminded of places we had just visited. Over a lunch of dimsum in Chinatown, we felt transported back to Beijing. Along our walks I spyed a hookah in a store window, and was reminded of our Egyptian forays into Cairo's markets to smoke sheeshah. Looking around, we realized Canada really has a diverse culture, and we felt very comfortable with that.

With our final leg ending at the top of the CN Tower, we handed in our final scoresheet and relaxed with a drink and some great company with previous strangers who now seemed to know us a little too well.........how did that happen?!

Back to our Roots

Even though this is land of our forefathers, we still managed to make a mess out of the train schedules! Den Haag was on our list to see the Peace Palace, as well as the Grote Kerk in Haarlem. Great, we'll scoop up Haarlem on the same train line once we're finished in Den Haag. Well, somehow we chugged past Schiphol instead on the fast train and landed back in Centraal Station in Amsterdam. No problem, we headed north to a little place called Zaanze Schans, a quaint little town with 7 working windmills,this time taking the fast train again instead of the stop train. No problem...stop at the next station and back track. We nicely had two short stops to go before getting to our destination, when our tickets were checked and we stupidly found out we had purchased only 1 way tickets instead of return. We barely got out of paying a 30 euro fine if we promised to leave the train at the next station. So we slinked off and got the proper tickets. Now we still hadn't made it to Haarlem, so Erwin pushed and pulled me to get back on the train and complete that leg. You know how sometimes you're in a strange city and you started passing the same scenery time after time after time?.....well in the end we got our scavenges done, but it took forever!

One high point was seeing the tulip fields in bloom from the train - wonderful!

We landed in Amsterdam right in the middle of another holiday season. they are celebrating the Queens birthday, Mayday, Labor day, Freedom day and Accession day, all in the same week. So just like Athens, we had to juggle our scavenges as to what was open or closed. It was a lot of fun to practice our dutch language skills, and have locals try to figure out our accents, We got some wierd looks especially with Janice strapped to my backpack.

The most enjoyable time was renting some bikes and touring thru central Amsterdam. Many sights and experiences, especially in the red light district. Most of our scavenges happened in this central area, and included getting 3 quotes for services that can't be posted here. The cheapest was 47 Euros for half hour, that's like 150.00 bucks an hour.

Even though this was one of our most enjoyable times, we managed to have our backpack stolen at our second last scavenge. Nothing of great value was in it, except our expensive camera, lost all our Amsterdam pictures but all the rest are downloaded to the computer. Our last scavenge was the sex museum so no pictures there, just lasting memories of stuff we never knew existed. Naturally coffee and a smoke came right after....not!

We really enjoyed the food scavenges and even added a few of our own...dutch frites, croquettes, pannekoek, chocolate, cheese, herring, I think this is the first time we stuffed ourselves on mandatory food.

Everyone found their own way back to Schiphol (no problem for us, we'd passed it twice already) to get ready for the flight to Toronto, our FINAL LEG!

See you soon I guess......

Amsterdam!

Just a quick note as we have to meet everyone downstairs to begin our scavenges in Amsterdam. We never thought we'd get here as it wasn't on the list of countries, but as you can imagine, we're pretty happy to be in a place where we feel a little at home. We literally have just 24 hours here, then we're off to Toronto for the final leg of this journey. I'll try to update tonite.

By the way, the streets are a mess of garbage here (very un-Dutch ) There's been a lot of celebrating going on last night in honour of the Queen's birthday. As you share her birthday, Dad, cheers to you and we hope you had a nice day.

Tot siens!

Bucharest, Romania

As everyone should see the Acropolis when in Greece, and since all museums were closed for Easter Monday, we waited until Tues morning to climb up the narrow streets of the Plaka on our way to the Acropolis, which lies on a high hill above the oldest part of town. We had a nice surprise once we got to the top - all museums are free today because of the holiday!

This afternoon we were one the move once more to Bucharest, a city in a country I know almost nothing about, except that during the late 80's, thier dictator, Cheausescu, was killed during the revolution to overthrow communism. Remember all the stories of children in orphanages? So I was very interested to see what this country was now like.

Our initial impressions of this city have been positive. The city seems to be coming back to life....there are some wonderful old grand buildings plus new construction as well. It's not crazy like Beijing though......work seems to be set at a steady pace here.

Look up the Palace of the People, the monument Cheausescu built to glorify himself and his wife, Elena. This guy was a huge megalomaniac that let absolute power almost destroy the country by by building a Versaille like monster palace that took all the resources of the people over 5 years to complete; actually it's still not finished. I felt a little sick thinking of the sacrifices the Romanians had to make in order for this building to be built.

In a lovely afternoon of partly sunny skies and fresh, smog-free air, we took in the Village Museam. Set in a huge park, old homes, barns, churchs & mills from all areas of rural Romania were dismantled and re-built in this park, for all to enjoy.....a beautiful outdoor museum.

After we headed back to the hotel....I must admit I'm finally coming down with a bit of "Romania's Revenge" and am not feeling great today. Imodium is a wonderful thing! Last night on the way to the hotel, Erwin twisted his kneed somehow and could barely walk; I was quite concerned we might have to see a doctor for it here. As luck would have it though, we're travelling with an orthopedic surgeon, who gave it a quick look, made Erwin wince (I think on purpose!) and quickly perscribed Advil to reduce swelling. A few hours later all was well. I can tell we're on the last leg of this race....we're all getting tired and cranky and want to wear clean clothes. We're still trying to have as much fun as possible, but our bodies are breaking down! A piece of my tooth broke off a few days ago as well, so I face the fun of seeing the dentist as soon as I get back.....oh that's just wonderful :(

So...... enough complaining!!!!!! Sorry..............

We have to pack tonight because we're spending the day travelling out of the city into Transylvania country....we should even see Dracula's castle. I'm really looking forward to this trip. Erwin wanted to go to the Black Sea, but I think Dracula is a once in a lifetime thing to do, so we hired a van for a bunch of us to go together. We could definitely come back to Romania and spend a few weeks here.

Athens, Greece

This morning we were slapped in the face with the challenge of trying to figure out how to achieve our local and future scavenges in several different countries and regions during this leg of the race, not knowing what would be open today or tommorrow. As you know, it's Greek Easter sunday that apparently stretches into Easter monday as well. All museums are closed as well as most shops. Teams are scurrying around trying to drum up info on trains, planes, and buses......this is the leg of the mass confusion! All the travel adds up to more than 24 hours on a train to get to the final destination of Bucharest, Romania.

We decided we wanted to enjoy Athens for the next 2 days as Erwin's never been here and we wanted to take full advantage of this area. Today we managed to take in some beautiful sites even though the gates were locked on many national treasures. We've heard the Acropolis will be open tommorrow and are crossing our fingers that we'll still be able to see it. It's the one place everyone has to see while in Athens, just like the Great Wall in China.

To give you an idea of what prices are like here, we spent 50 euros on a mediocre lunch, because "it's a holiday today, you know?" Now that we're in Europe, everyone is costing that much more....no more great deals.

The view from our hotel roof is spectacular as we're a stone's throw from the Acropolis, which is lit up at night for everyone to enjoy. Our room is a lot smaller than what we're used to....we've been spoilt during this trip with our hotels. We've got a bidet, though, I don't think I'll ever get the knack of using it correctly.

We're getting down to the finish line, only this week left to go.....I don't think we'll really understand how far we've come on this trip until we've been home for awhile. I feel much more confidant travelling, we've learned to push our way through crowds, to ask questions from anyone, anywhere, and to rely on complete strangers because "it's all Greek to us!" ha...ha...

Last night we had a team meal in a local restaurant where we really cut loose, I think we're all tired and needed to just forget about the game for a few hours. It didn't last long though, as one of the first challenges was attending midnight mass......after beer and ouzo, it was tough to get up enough energy to join the rest of Greece in their Easter celebration. I tried to get Erwin to go on his own, but he dragged me out so I had no choice. We seem to take turns getting tired and/or being the one to push the other to complete what needs to be done.

We're excited about Romania, a country we never thought we'd see, and hope to be able to get a whirlwind tour before we head out to another destination on Thursday morning.

Arrilval in Cairo

Blazing 110 degree heat on the airport parking lot, waiting for the shuttle bus, is how this leg started. From then on it became one of the most enjoyable legs we've had. Naturally, we did the camel ride and pyramid tourist thing, King Tuts tomb and the rest of the artifacts at the Egyptian Museum were a highlight, following by a wade in the Suez Canel, watching massive tankers being piloted through.....that's after a 2 hour drive through the blazing Sahara Desert.

We enjoyed a special experience with our taxi driver after he invited us back to his home to meet with his family for tea and desserts . The desserts were part of our scavange.

We also had a special experience in a downtown restaurant where over an enjoyable cup of strong, turkish coffee with the owner and his grandson, we were invited down into the basement where there was a bar set up especially for the Egyption resisstance movement against their then King Farouk, who was overthrown and exciled in 1954. The resttaurant still had the press for printing leaflets during that period and a secret door behind the bar for escape when police raids occurred.

The same evening, we took part in the night bazaar, which is a maze of shops, literally elbow to elbow, everyone vying for your egyptian pounds. We had some apple flavoured hookah in a cafe that seemed to be so full of people, we wondered where they all came from. We had to purchase a headress and robe, so Erwin could pretend he was the mafia shiek of arabia at our mandatory stop at 6pm the next evening.

Added to this, naturally we had to include a visit to the tomb of the disposed Shah of Iran, who we found out was the brother in law of the exciled King Farouk (that's your history lesson for this blog entry).Sailing on the Nile river and visiting the spot where baby Moses was hidden was an awe inspiring experience.

We are typing this blog from our new location in Athens, Greece, where we will be starting our next leg of this adventure called The Balkins. This will be a 4 day adventure with stops in Athens, Thessoloniki & Macedonnia. From there we move on to Sofia & Plovdiv in Bulgaria and wrapping up in Bucharest, Romania. We are on our own from now untill then including travel and accomodation, with massive bonus points for the team finding the cheapest hotel and actually staying for a nite. This leg is quite daunting and will definately make or break a teams effort for a top finish.

We have found our pace and are really enjoying ourselves. Tonite we had a celebration of sorts with a great Greek dinner and the many obligatory ouzo's. Janice started this blog but I'm finishing it, as she is having a nap before we head out to midnite Easter service. It is Easter Sunday tomorrow and most of this country will be shut down for the day, adding to our challenge of traveling and getting access to our scavenge points.

We will try to keep you all informed as best we can for the next few days depending on internet access, etc.

We want to wish our youngest son a happy 20th birthday....what a milestone, no more teenagers in this family. Dylan, we hope you day is special and can't wait to be home to celebrate properly with you. Hope you're enjoying Rock Band.

Cairo, Egypt

Can you believe that tommorrow will be our 14th day of this trip? It's been a total whirlwind, which we will use as an excuse why we haven't put anything in this blog for a few days. We had a crazy travel day, flying from Kathmandu to Bahrain, overnighting there for 12 hours, then heading off on another flight to Cairo. With some time changes thrown in, and 107 degree heat, I felt a little wilted, to say the least.



Bahrain was our very short introduction to the middle east, with our first citing of men in flowing white robes and headdresses and women dressed completely in black burkhas. They had some beautiful ones for sale at the airport, but I think I'll pass! I don't know how these women do it, in this insane heat....I have a lot to say on this issue, but I think I'll let it pass until I get home. Suffice it to say, women are clearly second class around here.



Well, on to Cairo, land of the phaorohs and pyramids. OUr hotel has it's own history; it was built in the 1800's and is directly across from the Giza Pyramids....awesome!!!!

Kathmandu by Daylight

After a good night's sleep and several bottles of courage at the hotel's watering hole till the wee hours, we ventured out yesterday morning to greet the unknown world of Kathmandu.

What an amazing experience! As you might have heard, Erwin is describing this trip as "excruciatingly enjoyable". For those of you who feel you've seen poverty at it's worst, this is a match, yet we were able to enjoy many positive and enlightening experiences.

We've probably been to more temples than our Hindu population in Abbotsford. From riverside, open-fire cremations of commoners and royalty, to a hidden 14th century community, where they still beat grain with sticks to gather seed, and goats and chickens live amongst the families, to viewing ancient carvings depicting the Kama Sutra, which are approved Hindu sexual positions. (No need for Playboy here!) Cows are sacred and roam freely amongst the streets, eating and pooping at will. Children in school uniforms, walk to school on dirt paths, within inches of being run over by vehicles snarled in traffic (especially by tourists in taxis) .

We were blessed yesterday by a Hindu Holy Man; however, we're still not sure what the blessing entales. Erwin and I received red and yellow powder on our foreheads and had orange flowers sprinkled over our heads. With Erwin's hair gel, the flowers stayed in all day!

On another note, we've had to make a decision. There is a high degree of competitiveness amongst the teams here, and in order for us to stay in the top percentile, we feel we would lose the ability to fully absorb the culture and experiences of the countries that we have and will be visiting. So don't expect to see us in the running for 1st place anytime soon.....it's become more important for both of us to "enjoy the moment" to the fullest. We'll still be in the competition as there's great opportunities to see and do, and let's face it, we are still competitive to a certain degree, and we don't want to be last!

Tommorrow we'll have been on this journey for 12 days, the half-way point. At 4pm we hand in our scorecards for Nepal and get our marching orders for our next location.

p.s. Erwin wants you all to know that he's helping me with the narrative in this blog.....he's feeling left out, could you give him a little praise for this blog as well? :)

Kathmandu, Nepal

Where to start......Kathmandu is the mirror opposite of Singapore. This is a very poor country with terrible infrastructure, smog, 18th century living along with cell phones and jeans.

We arrived here late yesterday afternoon and it was dark before we ventured out into the streets of the city. I think I experienced total culture shock coming from our elegant, 5 star hotel to the dark, dusty, busy streets of Kathmandu. I felt uncomfortable, but not really afraid....there is very little crime here.....however, I felt like I'd landed on some strange planet that I couldn't quite make sense of.

Just outside the hotel gates must be one of the poorer regions of the city. The buildings are all approx 3 stories tall, made of red brick. There was no electricity in this area, so we saw small shop stalls lit by candles and gas flames. I think most of the light came from the vehicles travelling the streets. It felt eery.....the dust and smog were choking me....I was definitely out of my comfort zone. I was happy to see the Hyatt later that evening, it feels like an oasis amongst the constant whirlwind of noise, cars and people that is this city.

I keep on thinking....why am I here?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Today is Friday.....we're in Kuala Lumpur, finding a bus to Maleka, then on to Singapore.

Our days have been packed with all kinds of transportation, I feel like I know the back seat of a taxi intimately. The first week of this trip has been a whirlwind of all kinds of transportation, scavenges, and seeing new sights.

Maleka was a highlight for us as it was controlled by the Dutch for over 150 years and there's still a lot of Dutch influence in this beautiful town. It would have been nice to spend a few days here; however, we're off to Singapore where we've got more mandatory scavanges to complete before our 10 pm deadline when scavenge time comes to a screaching halt.

There's so much to say about everything we've done each day, it's almost overwhelming. Singapore is a gorgeous city that we'd love to come back to one day. It's combination of historic Colonial architecture with the modern highrises and lots of tropical greenery and parks is a perfect combination here. It makes me feel like I need a gin and tonic....very British. The view from our hotel room overlooks the harbour rivaling the harbour view in Vancouver (but not quite)

We enjoyed our cab ride with the world's only "singing" cab driver. He can sing in 9 different languages and his cab is set up as a kareoke bar. He even had me singing Abba tunes before the hour was up. Add to that, the world's largest water fountain, Hindu temples, ancient mosques, Chinatown, Little India, and having our fortune told by a parrot!

We met everyone tonight at the world famous Raffles Hotel for drinks, have you ever spent $17 on a beer before? If not, come here, it's easy....a Singapore Sling is $22....!

Just a reminder, drugs and guns will get you the death sentence, good thing Erwin has neither. Spitting on the pavement or just spitting out your gum will get you a big fine here as well....it'll cost you $150! No wonder this place is so clean. You can't even buy gum in Singapore, it's forbidden.

OK, want to know where we're going next?.......Kathmandu, NEPAL

We'll be up in 4 hours to catch this flight, but I'm so excited. Nepal! I can't believe we're going to Nepal!

Scavenging in KL, Malaysia

Erwin up at 5:30 a.m., down to the train station ATM, get some Ringgits ($)...do some scouting around, looking for Starbucks, found it too early so settled for hotel coffee.

Came back up to the room, kicked Janice out of bed and gave her a shower (Janice is typing, she says this did not happen) Down for breakfast and the scavenging started with identifying 4 types of Malaysian mystery food, nasi goreng being one.

We 're off to the races after breakfast, checking out some local markets for scavenging points, then to the world famous Petronis Towers where Erwin had his second encounter with law enforcement......still no jail time (Janice says "rats")

Then we're off to the only casino in Malaysia, which happends to be at the world's highest elevation (6800 ft) for a casino, and the largest indoor theme park in the world and the largest hotel in the world, all at the same location.....like an Asian Las Vegas. It took 1.5 hour bus trip for $2.10, then 1/2 hour cable car ride up the mountain to the actual resort, where Janice had to go into the casino on her own to buy a chip, which was the scavenge, as Erwin was refused entrance as he was not dressed properly (3rd encounter with enforcement)....still no jail time (is there a theme going on here?)

After scaling the mountain, we finally got some culture into the day (after a Starbucks) by visiting the world's tallest Hindu statue/shrine located at Batu Caves. This was extremely impressive as we pushed, pulled, dragged and climbed up 272 steps, avoiding monkeys and pilgrims, to access the cave that housed a Hindu shrine.

Next, it's off to Chinatown where we had to find a knock-off CD of some of our favourite music at the night market. Then it's back to the hotel for a few beers (we're too tired for dinner).

At the hotel, we were surprised to hear that some of the teams were already leaving tonight instead of in the morning to our next location in order to get a jump on some of the scavenges for tomorrow.....it's seems to be getting competitive. We are staying for the night, as we feel we can do just fine after a good nights' sleep and a great breakfast in this lovely hotel.

See you on the next post from Singapore and from there, who knows?

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Look it up if you don't remember where exactly Kuala Lumpur is. All I can say right now is we just completed another marathon travel day (mind you, after a 14 hour flight, followed by a 3 hour chaser flight, nothing seems bad any more).

Don't think Erwin and I are basking on the beaches or sleeping in every day. This morning, we had to be at the airport by 5:30 for a 3 hour flight from Beijing to HongKong, connecting onto another 3 hour flight from HongKong to Kuala Lumpur. Our travel day started at 4 a.m., arriving at our new hotel at 6:30 pm. Met with everyone else in the lounge at 7 for our new game plans.

This is going to be different than Beijing as we have mandatory challenges now that we HAVE to complete or all the other challenges won't count. I took a quick look through the challenges and there's some that look very interesting.......

Everthing comes to a screeching halt on Friday at 10pm. We meet then at the world famous Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore. Yes, some time on Friday, we have to make our own way from KP to Singapore.

That's all for today, Erwin's snoring....I'm tired...can't concentrate any more. I think we get to have nasi goreng here tommorrow, at least I'll know what I'm eating.

The Great Wall

Yesterday was a great day as we spent some time in the morning, exploring the Great Wall of China approx 1.5 hours away from Beijing. Awesome is all I can say, it was well worth the taxi trip. Coming down the hill was the challenge though, having to manuver through all the vendors selling their wares. They were so aggressive I had to physically push them out of the way!

After a few beers, it didn't seem too bad any more. It was quite a climb getting to the wall and the beer was well deserved! We seem to be drinking a lot of beer here. I think with all the smog, it just seems to sooth the throat......does that sound like a good enough reason?

From there, we taxied to the Summer Palace, used by the emperors and their families in bygone times to get away from the heat of Beijing. Another awesome place! I'll try to put some pictures up soon, but I've only got dial up right now and it's really slow.

One challenge we had to do was take a picture of a little kid with a pair of those split pants on and no diaper. I had a hard time not feeling like a pervert trying to casually take a photo of some little kid's butt.....tried to look like I was fixing my camera, but I got the shot!

At 10pm we all met to hand in our scorecards and find out where we're going next......are you ready?.........I'll let you know on my next post :)

And a very Happy Birthday to my favourite, youngest, sister Jacki. Hope you have a wonderful day Jack!

Tian Jin, China

Today we decided we would capture some scavenger points outside the city of Beijing. We jumped on the bullet train and went to another city about an hour away called Tian Jin. The bullet was very modern and clean but lacked the type of speed we were anticipating, nothing over 200 km......was a little disappointing, but we managed to maximize our scavenger points in this city with stops at one of the first and original roman catholic churches, an historic & colourful shopping mall/sidewalk fair.

Then we found a Starbucks, which was almost empty - heaven in the midst of all the humanity here! We took a China break and had some lattes and a sandwich. Then we had to find a pet store, that turned out to be 4 stories and carried whatever you wanted from pet lizards, mice to an monster stockpile of fish. There isn't even a pet store like this in Beijing apparently.

From there, we waited an hour to catch the train back to Beijing and happily people watched over a few lukewarm Budweisers.

We wrapped up the days adventures with traditional hot pot, sort of like Chinese fondue. We know some of you would love this style of eating, and you know who you are!

One thing we learned today is how to gob, spit, or hork in every situation and in any place......yuck! For all you guys, this place could be heaven for spitters, burpers, and farters.

The weather's still great, but the smog seems to be thicker, like soup....we can start to taste in the back of our throats.

Everyone here is really working hard to gear up for the Olympics this summer. With so much construction still going on, it looks like it will be touch and go if it all gets completed on time. There is so much other construction going on here due to their accelerated economy, wherever we go, there's something being built or remodelled. We don't how this will all end for China, but its changing rapidly.

Bejing (Peking) China

After 18 hours of travel (yes, 18 hours!) we arrived in the Olympic City for our first stop. This airport has only been open a month and is a monster, a dragon to be specific. The roof undulates like a dragon's body and tail. The terminal we were in is over 1 km long. Weather is good - 60 degrees with lots of smog.

The hotel, 5 star for sure! After settling in our rooms for a couple of hours, we met with everyone else, got our Beijing Scavenge Hunt List, and it's game on!

Some of the scavenges we finished today were visiting Tiananmen Square, which includes the ceremonial flag lowering and Erwin's first encounter with China's armed guard. No jail time yet. We also visited Chairman Mao's tomb, the Forbidden City, the largest outdoor TV and the largest billboard in the country, as well seeing roasted cockroach, snake, scorpion, raw squid, all served on a stick for easy eating while you walk! For dinner we opted for traditional roasted Peking Duck.

Not many people speak English here which makes it challenging to get some of the information we need, without being able to use the computer. We can only use the computer when we're not scavenging.

We just filled up on breakfast and are ready for our 2nd day in China.

San Francisco

Arrived in San Fran, relaxed for a bit, then met the organizers and the rest of the constestants over a drink at the hotel, where we were given a list of "practise" scavanges for the rest of day.

One of the bonus scavanges was to email a picture of one of us sitting on a four-legged beast. Nobody said it had to be alive, so we found a big, old Chinese lion outside a shop for Erwin to straddle. We hoped it would earn us a few extra points. The next morning, Bill (coordinator) reminded us about that and added it had to be "alive". Darn!

Next was a getting to know you Asian dinner (do I sense a theme here?) We thought we could go back to the hotel and finally get some much need rest, only to find out at the dinner, our plane bound for China was leaving at 1:00 am that morning! We had 2 hours to get ready and get back to the airport. Needless to say, no-one stayed for dessert.

There are some motiviated competitors among this group. Everyone is playing it very low-key at the moment, with comments like "I just want to see what the world has to offer, If I don't get all the points, I just want to have fun, etc......... We're thinking this is part of their strategy. It's actually our strategy as well....

Last Day before Leaving!

This weekend, we received our final email from the organizors....it includes 9 Clarifications, 36 Travel Tips, 22 Rules and Regulations, a 12 point Travelers Creed, and a bunch of misc. instruction. Janice likes this because it gives her something to "go by". It doesn't necessarily please Erwin who likes to make his own rules and likes to think "outside the box".

We've already determined to take separate vehicles to the airport and book separate rooms at each hotel so we won't get on each others' nerves.....(just kidding!) However, the stress is high right now, trying to get everything ready to go.

Of course, the day before we leave, the weather is changing and becoming sunny and warm....maybe we'll just stay home and work in the garden........ :)

Twelve hours from now, we will be on our way!

p.s. Call Mr. Rooter as often as you can for service while we're gone, cause we're gonna need extra cash.

March 28, 2008....More freebies

Just received a box in the mail...inside was 2 Great Escape 2008 t-shirts, 2 hats, 2 travel journals, and personalized luggage tags. Not as exciting as our free luggage, but you can't hit a home run every time.

Now it's time to get things ready around the house before we leave. From gardening and pruning to organizing and cleaning, there's still a lot of things to do. Lexi will be home to take care of Penny and keep everything else up to snuff while we're away.

With just 2 weeks to go before we "leave caution to the wind" and start our adventure, we'd like you to be able to follow in our footsteps by logging on to this site at http://www.vandiermen.blogspot.com/, and also the official Great Escape 2008 website. Their site is http://www.globalscavengerhunt.com/ where they will be adding additional info as we explore the world.


p.s. They're accepting applications for 2009! Any challengers?


Also, they're hoping to raise funds for several well-known charities such as Habitat for Humanity, Doctors without Borders, and Unicef. If you're interested in supporting the Great Escape Charitable Foundation, please have a look at the Global Scavenger Hunt web site for more information.

Please note all charitable funds go directly to the charities involved, everything else is paid personally by the participants on this adventure.

Mr. Rooter Dry Run

With us being gone for nearly a month, we thought we should do a dry run for our business. From Feb 16 to March 16, our business had to operate as if we were not here. So, for those 30 days, our staff had to make executive decisions, look to each other for advice, and manage themselves, using our systems and policies already in place.

We placed a couple of individuals into leadership positions and paired up experienced team members with those who might need more guidance.

This worked really well with the biggest offender being Erwin himself. He found it very difficult to stay out of the way and let others do what they needed to do. Janice, on the other hand, had no such problems and found this an extremely enjoyable way to run a business!

After breaking the bank to finance this trip, we figured out a way to right this trip off as business expense by inviting our silent partner along to discuss and investigate plumbing on a global scale. We think we nailed it!

Free Stuff! Yehhhhhh!!!!!

February 2008

High Sierra is a sports luggage company who is one of the major corporate sponsors of this race. How nice to have free luggage delivered to our door!

We looked at the attached pricetags and figured we just recouped close to $1000 of our entrance fee.

We've also spent some time looking for travel stuff like quick-dry underwear and socks. Erwin got really excited about this :)

Departure & Arrival News......at last!

January 2008

After reducing our bank account by a hefty amount, we finally received some news about the starting line - San Francisco - and the finish line - Toronto. We were also told we needed a tourist visa to China, so that's the only country that we know we're going to for sure.

We also found out how many shots (needles) we need to get before we go. Hep A, Hep, Orange Fever, Pink Fever, Black Fever, etc. etc. etc. So over the next few weeks, we're going to be poked and prodded. We're also finding out that everything costs more money, including the shots!

We've made arrangements to fly to San Francisco on April 11th, where we'll meet the other 48 contestants for the first time. We'll finally be able to see what we're up against.

When we fly home, we'll be able to fly right into Abbotsford from Toronto.

In the beginning.......

Last year, Erwin and I both turned 50.

In February, I reached this milestone first and was spoiled by Erwin as he presented me with a beautiful new car for my present. As his birthday approached the following July, I pondered over a few ideas of what he would like to receive, but eventually decided a trip of a lifetime would be in order.

Since we had accumulated quite a few points through work on our credit card, my gift to him would be a trip for two anywhere in the world that he would like to explore. It could be Africa, Egypt, Australia........all he had to do was decide where he wanted to go, and I would make the trip happen.

Months passed....and Erwin still was no closer to deciding where he wanted to go; there was just too many places he wanted to see. He had narrowed it down to an African safari, or a trip to Egypt or maybe a sailing adventure on the Mediterranean. He still wasn't sure where he wanted to do; he was afraid of picking the wrong spot and was getting frustrated and had more-or-less given up on choosing where to go.

Late in November, I was doing my usual Sunday morning thing of enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday newspaper, when I read an article about a trip being put together that would be a global scavenger hunt, with participants who were chosen, not knowing where they would be going. They called it a "Blind Date with the World" and "Trusting Strangers in Strange Lands" We would be guaranteed to land on 4 different continents and visit at least 10 different countries.

When I showed Erwin the article he immediately said "That's it!! Let's do it!!" Shortly thereafter, we filled in an application as we needed to be picked for this adventure. It was in the hands of the organizers if we were going or not.

Three or four weeks of interviews and qualifying followed, with us not knowing for sure if we were saying or doing the right things to be qualified. We actually didn't think we'd have much of a chance and had already decided to do something similar and not on such a grand scale, on our own if we didn't get picked. We thought of going to the airport, closing our eyes, and picking a destination, to start our own adventure.

Well, the Friday before Christmas, we got the call that WE WERE GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!