We had such a good time in Bruges we decided to extend our time there by one more night. Which resulted in a nice change from a quiet Bed and Breakfast to a noisy hostel. I know that sounds like it went from a positive to a negative, but really there is more to it. Although our B&B provided for a private and quiet stay, the other people who stayed there were also quite quiet.

I blame it on the language barrier as they were some what chatty amongst each other but when I asked them a question, they would politely answer and then continue eating their breakfast. In the hostel however, everyone we talked with knew well enough English to carry on a conversation. We ended up meeting up with a girl we passed earlier in the day while bike riding (more on that later) and we joined her and two of her new friends (from Cameroon and the world it could be said) for a couple of beers and good story telling. Thank you Sam, Atom Emmanuel and MacIntosh.

A big thank you goes to Jan and Wies (pronounced Yawn and Weez). These are the uncle and aunt to Frederik (a coworker and friend from eBay). Jan met us our first morning in Bruges to guide us around the city. He was fabulous! Thursday morning he showed us some of his favourite places like the Convent lawn and the rose garden in the “old folks home”. He covered information that the boat driver didn’t. We took a boat ride Friday morning along the canals, highly recommended. For example, anyone who has been to Bruges and has taken the boat ride along the canal, quite possibly had two of the smallest windows in Bruges pointed out to them. However, did they know that along the canal in that same location is where the boats were stopped and taxed? Maybe you did know that and our boat guide missed it. But because of Jan, we knew more of the city.

Jan’s love for Bruges is self evident. He would talk about how it wasn’t really important to leave Bruges for a vacation when the weather is good. He had the sea 10-20 minutes away where he could paint and be away from all the people. He had plenty of places where he could bike and enjoy a beer and pipe. And when he wanted the international crowd, he could just spend his time in the city center of medieval portion of town and be surrounded by visitors from many different countries.
Sounds grand doesn’t it?

On the afternoon of Thursday, Wies joined us to walk around the outer borders of the town center and again we stopped at another local pub to have a beer. Now for those of you who know me, I’m not much of a beer drinker, but I have to admit I quite enjoy Belgian beers! There are ones that taste like cherries (Mystic) and others that are lovely and sweet like Bourgogne des Flandres. And each beer has it’s particular glass it needs to be served in. I can see a future shopping trip with Frederik, my California local Belgian.

Friday morning, Alec and I were on own to to check out of our B & B, check in into the hostel, wander the streets. climb the Belfry (you must watch “In Bruges to fully enjoy the Belfry Tower and the 366 stairs), and take a 30 minute boat ride along the canal.

In the afternoon, Jan joined us at the B&B to escort us to his own house just outside of the city center and pick up the bikes for our Friday afternoon ride. We rode through Dammes and further out to another favourite beer stop of Jan’s. What a beautiful ride with wonderful scenery! The fields of corn and cows (not in the same field of course), the long straight as an arrow rows of trees lining a boulevard created for bikes and cars (pretty much the width of some of our bike lanes at home). The canal next to us at times with it’s serene calm waters. It was hard to believe this was the main entry from the sea for boats to bring products into Bruges. There was nothing more ideal than this trip other than maybe Disney animated birds floating over my shoulders.

Upon returning to Jans and Wies’ home, Wies had created for us a wonderful dinner of celery soup and a traditional Belgian dish of shrimp stuffed into tomatoes and frites (of course!). Thank you again to Frederik for introducing us to Jan and Wies. They made our trip to Bruges the most memorable.

Next we are off to Amsterdam and Haarlem to visit Penny and Vincent. Penny, I met while I was in Gabon and she was managing the gorilla island of Evengue. We’ve kept in touch over the years and she’s offered us her place to stay while we are in town.

Looking forward to it!

Part one of our honeymoon is over. New York was a fabulous way to start it all off. We stayed at the Moderne which was only a few blocks off Broadway and Times Square.

 We checked out Times Square (which is even more impressive at night than during the day, think Vegas with so many lights and people).

We walked through a portion of Central Park on our way to the Guggenheim. Unfortunately, only two floors were open but it was neat to still go inside and see art I have only heard about like Monet and Picasso.

On our way to Greenwich, I chatted with two ladies about Slash and his sexy hair (well I just wanted to agree and make conversation) and I spoke with a young boy, planting the seed in his mind that Snape might not be as evil as he seems and he just might be a good guy trying to protect Harry.

Greenwich and Chelsea resulted in Alec getting a few looks. Luckily as his new wife, it wasn’t women I had to beat off him, just a few cute New Yorker boys.

While wandering in the area, we discovered the H Line quite by accident and strolled along there for a while taking in the gorgeous sun and scenery. The H Line consists of raised tracks which were to be ripped out but the local communities decided to rehabilitate the area, well it turned out quite well.

In the midst of all our walking, we opted for a 90 minute boat ride on a boat called The Mahattan. I found a deal for a 90 minute ride with a free glass of champagne, beer or wine for $18 on Goldstar.com. (this works for a lot of cities). What a great way to see the city skyline. We rode under the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. We got a fabulous view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and enjoyed a couple glasses of New York Sparkling Wine and local beer.

Other points of excitement included the MTV Music Awards (which we tried to detour around due to the chaos of teenie boppers screaming at each introduction of some famous person Alec had no idea of), waiting for Barak Obama to show up outside of the Federal Hall (which Alec just informed me is where George Washington was inaugurated), swinging by Grand Central Station (and then seeing it again in the movie on the plane).

And oddly what, for me, was a nice pleasant surprise of realizing my favourite camera equipment provider, B & H, was actually located in New York City, and where I proceeded to spend a few precious dollars on a camera bag with integrated laptop bag, a new wide angle lens, a filter and a new battery. It was like going to Santa’s workshop and seeing how he got all those toys out and delivered all over the world. That store is a machine! There is someone available to answer questions every few feet. And you don’t have to carry any of your purchases until after you purchased them. You decide what you want, a work order is placed and somewhere in the back there is some guy who looks up the product, places it in a green bin and that green bin ends up behind the check out counter. Bloody awesome.

So in short, our trip to New York was quite fun. We had a bagel and Papaya King hot dog. We rode the subway and visited the World Trade Towers Memorial area. I even left an account of where I was when the towers were hit.

Next up is Bruges, which we ended up extending our trip a day longer there due to the generous hospitality of Frederik’s uncle and aunt.

Until next time …

Corinne

Last night I started the experiment. I took a shower and used the Wen conditioning product. First impressions? Kinda weird waiting for lather when you know there will be none. The product’s aroma is “bright” (think like menthol) and a small shower stall can bring tears to one’s eyes. Tonight it wasn’t so bad, probably because I’m used to it. I read that often people don’t use enough of the product to really actually clean the hair, so I made sure I laid it on thick. After I was done, I wanted to see what my hair would do if it was completely on it’s own. Usually it turns into a ball of fuzz and curls with a height akin to Marge Simpson. There were no surprises this morning, my hair was tall, frizzy and curly. As usual. So I wetted it down and added some of the product as suggested by the instructions. I didn’t want to add too much because it felt like it was weighing my hair down. I should have added more. As the day went on, so did the expanse of my hair. By the end of the day it was quite wide and bushy, but it was still soft!

Tonight I washed my hair again after volleyball and added some product to the wet hair. As I type, it’s gotten bushy and fuzzy again, but it feels wonderful and not dry. Maybe I need to not comb it in the shower (I rarely comb my hair because of the natural curls) and next I try styling it a bit more. Next week I’ll try some of the other products that were sent in the package. But ideally I’d like to stick to one product for my hair if possible. I’m tired of the shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner, mousse and or gel. No wonder I don’t wear much for make up, I just don’t have the time!

I’m going camping this weekend, so we’ll see how well everything holds up. I’m not sold on it, but still willing to continue the experiment. I have 60 days before I can return it, might as well keep going!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I ordered something off late night television. Well actually this time it wasn’t late night, it was 3pm and I was taking a break from working from home for the day. But I have ordered from late night TV before. The first time it was the Ronco rotisserie, which turned out to be a good purchase. I ordered two, one for me and one for my Mom for Christmas, and they sent and charged me for three. Luckily I had a coworker who bought it off me. The second time I bought makeup from a late night paid advertisement spot for Bare Minerals. You know, the make-up that is made of dirt/minerals before dirt/minerals were in? So considering both of these purchases were well spent (I still use the Bare Minerals on my face to this day), I thought why not try again?

Anyone who knows me, knows what an evolution my hair has been. I hated it growing up, was made fun of for it on a regular basis and finally in college, came to accept it when my friends accepted me. To this day, I love it, but, well like any wild animal, it requires some training. This training involves deep moisturizing shampoo and conditioner and usually atleast two different kinds of hair products to leave in. Every few months, my hair gets used to this treatment and decides to misbehave thus leading me to buy another round of new and improved products. Lately I have been using Biologe, before that Neutrogena and Infusium 23. Today I will try Wen, and document my results as we go.

First off, I am not affiliated with Wen what-so-ever. I’m not getting kickbacks or perks. I just haven’t written in my blog in a while and thought this might be a fun endeavor. I’m not going to write about my upcoming wedding, so my hair it is. (some things I like to remain somewhat private for now).

So here is a picture of me from this past weekend.  I’m not crazy about it, but I’m less crazy about the photo I could have used from today.  I didn’t try with my hair today it’s quite all frizzed out and poufy.  The complaint with my hair lately?  Seems kinda frizzy often and big.  It doesn’t feel super soft unless it’s frizzy and big and I am just not having that much fun with it.  My hair is naturally curly and when the product works, my hair rocks it.  So tonight I will wash it with the Wen Cleansing Conditioner.  And tomorrow I’ll let you know how it went.

Tomorrow morning I want to wake up recharged, excited and looking forward to the day. I want to get up early enough to get in a good 1-1 1/2 hour workout. I’ll come home and have some oatmeal or cereal and then head into a job I find joy in. I want my job to challenge me, to help me grow, to give me purpose for spending 6-8 hours there. I want to converse with friends during the day, brainstorm, come up with new ideas, create. I want to come home at a reasonable hour with plenty of energy. I would like an evening of making dinner and working on other projects that interest me and help fulfill my life. I’d like to be engaged enough to hold a conversation with Alec and spend quality time with him. Before going to bed, I would like to meditate for 10-30 minutes in solitude. Before bed, I will have the energy to wash my face, brush my teeth, and put lotion on my skin. Upon crawling into bed, sleep will come quickly and the night will be filled with pleasant dreams.

Today, in all respects, was not “tomorrow”. Tomorrow will be my new “today”.

One can have great conversations with oneself while cleaning the shower. This might be due to the fumes inhaled in a close proximity or just the time spent scrubbing the scum off the shower walls leaves space for one to contemplate other things in life. This week has been a week of enlightenment, of sorts.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was in a conference room with about 16 other people discussing our proclivity to act in times of perfect harmony and in chaos. This Project Leadership, Management and Communications class covered more details than this, but this is what stood out to me the most. When there is harmony in the world, I’m inclined to be a directing and assertive person. This doesn’t necessary mean bossy and arrogant but the typical characteristics of self-confident, ambitious, quick to act and risk taker seemed to resonate with my true personality. Well the true personality I’ve grown and molded over the years. I haven’t always been like this. I remember being a follower more and wanting more acceptance than I do now. Maybe my true personalty of a risk taker was always there but I didn’t have the right environment to allow it to flourish. When I graduated from high school, I did leave my town of 200 to a city of 800,000 and never came back. Not that I don’t love where I came from, but it’s my past not future.

On Friday, I watched a video where Loic le Meur talks with Seth Godin while attending the TED conference going on this week. I am currently reading Seth’s book, Tribe, which is proving to be inspiring for an entrepreneur like me. Many things Seth writes about gives me plenty of thinking material however in this interview, something he says really drives home to me. “Being best in the world in something, is extremely valuable.  Being fifth best is not very valuable.” He doesn’t mean you have to be the best in the whole entire world with all things included or don’t even try at all. He means you have to be the best in your world right now. Now that’s something to aim for, something with possibilities. If I want to be a travel writer, I should aim to be the best in my world right now. I don’t have to try to write better than Rolf Potts, we’re not part of the same world. Maybe some day but not now. Right now I need to focus on being the best travel writer for those who read my blog, my stories, those who I expose this to world. That’s doable. Now I can’t be the best if I’m spending my time on things that don’t really matter, or spreading myself thin.

Which leads me back to my shower cleaning self conversation. I have this tendency in my life to do things half-assed. Did I study hard in college and university, no. Why not? Well if I studied hard and didn’t get the great grade I had nothing to excuse it for. If I didn’t start hard and didn’t get the great grade, I could always tell myself if I studied harder I could have done better. There was always an opening for going up. Same thing will all these other ventures I have going on.

• This website
• beVicarious.com (nothing is there yet but I have ideas)
• crazytravelstories.com (send me your crazy travel stories with pics if you like and I’ll post them)
• ecofriendlyhints.com (a website where you will eventually finding things eco-friendly for home and life)
• working on a patent (can’t talk about it right now)
• playing guitar (I’ve had it for years now I’m learning how to play it)
• selling my photos
• changing careers (I’m thinking Director of Product Development some day. I know I can learn languages but Product Development I’ve never done in a formal sense)

You see, all these things are important to me (well guitar playing is not really of the same caliber as the other items) and they are all things I want to accomplish. But if I’m working towards all of them right now will I actually achieve any of them? Probably not. I could probably work on one or two but all of them, I’m setting myself up for failure. But if I fail, I can always say I had too many things going on. If I only narrowed it down, it would have been done.

So you see my Enlightenment here right? I know my skills. I know I’m able. I just need to focus to achieve.

Links so you didn’t get distracted from the blog:

• Project Leadership, Management and Communications class
• The video interview with Seth and Loic at TED
• The book Tribe by Seth Godin.
• TED Talks
• ecoFriendlyHints
• CrazyTravelStories
• Selling my photos

The Power of One

by Bryce Courtenay

A Precious Human Life

China reminded me that everything is not as it seems. I think I expected a country that was censored and shorted on the basic rights I get to experience every day. But instead I found capitalism, a citizen’s freedom to speak their mind more or less and a country hurtling into the role of a superpower. Oh yes and blue sky. Granted, there are things still a bit wonky by our standards. Such as the Chinese government’s take on what happened in Tiananmen Square and the price point difference between hitting a citizen with your car and hitting a peasant or farmer; a citizen’s family gets paid more money. When traveling to another country, I’ve grown accustomed to questioning not judging because there is always more going on than what we see.

I never planned on going to China, but when Monique offered it up last spring, I was overjoyed to have a friend to travel with. Instead of going it on our own, as there was no way I was going to learn Mandarin to get around, we joined up with a group of travelers put together by GAP Adventures. And what a group it turned out to be: Jason, a Torontonian, with an impeccable eye to see the beauty around him and the vocabulary to go with it. “Gorgy” and “So beautiful I could weep” don’t capture the complete being of Jason, but our common love for the back streets of Shanghai and Yichang will always be ingrained in my soul. Jens and Frank were the German couple in the group. Not really a couple, just a couple of Germans who liked to torment me by speaking German infront me, knowing full well that I wanted to know what they were saying. Jens, with his infectious smile, liked to take portrait photographs, especially those of us eating. It became one of our favourite pastimes, followed closely by accidentally dumping water on each other. He and I would constantly being trying to take the artsy photos with our DSLR’s and Monique would be right there with her point and click. As for Frank, at first he started most mornings sullen and quiet, but turned into a smart ass as the day progressed, eyes flashing with mischief. One morning we were surprised to be greeted my a smiling Frank, who we found out, found coffee. That day we had a full day of smart ass Frank, and we liked it. Yun and Rich were the official couple of the group. Married and from Boston, I found their paring to be fun. We learnt that Yun (rhymes with fun), had a odd fascination with horror flicks. The glint she’d get in her eye when talking about her favourites or wielding a rusty sword over her head, told us what she could be capable of on a Halloween night with enough fake blood. Rich was a total sport and gave us many laughs. From his toothy grin to his dance number on stage at the Acrobat show, he always seemed to be in a good mood. And last but not least was Monique, my other half on this trip. Monique was game to walk through the back streets of Shanghai with me and get lost and un-lost and lost again. Somehow we always made our way home. She, thinking I planned it that way, and I just curious as to what was beyond that corner. Our seven-some was led by our ever faithful George, a local to Xi’an, who graciously opened his door to show us his new apartment where he and his new wife now lived. He helped me get airline tickets to Shanghai, when I realized on our last day of the trip, I was indeed not leaving from Beijing but Shanghai the next day. My time and enlightenment in China was enhanced by this company I kept for those 16 days, and I will forever be grateful for the new friends I have made and the old friendship I have deepened.

We visited 9 destinations in our 14 days together. Between the big cities of Shanghai and Beijing, we bonded over a 3 day boat ride on the Yangtze River, complete with karaoke; we were serenaded on the canals of the Venice of the East in Zhouzhuang; we were impressed by the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an; played some Ma-jong in Pingyao; in Yichang we got lost in the markets and loved it; were awed by the Grottoes and Buddhas just outside of Datong; we were English teachers on the overnight train; and enjoyed another piece of history, tramping our way on part of the Great Wall, and a great experience it all was.

Regarding the photos, most are mine, but I’ve included photos from Yun, Rich, Frank and Monique, and I mentioned where the photos are theirs. I can’t take all the credit for some of these great shots and moments in time.

I could go on for pages about my trip, but instead let’s just get some dinner sometime. Maybe even Chinese!

-Corinne

Show me the China Photos!

We got a Chinese massage the other night in Yichang. What I can say is it was memorable. After 10 minutes in a bubble rolling around on water, which occurred earlier in the day, don’t worry I have photos, I was in desperate need for a little TLC. TLC isn’t exactly what I got, but I did get worked. First off, massage in China can be a gamble. Most parlors we walked past, had scantily clad women in short short skirts with heavy makeup looking utterly bored. Apparently prostitution isn’t too lucrative of a business but it is legal. Street drugs, however, are not and are punishable by death. Our guide, George, searched out a legit massage establishment and was quite excited to embark on this excursion with us. We three girls, Yun, Monique and I and Jason were led to a room in the far back of the building, the rest went to another establishment, legitament as well I was told. They must have strict labour laws stating attendents can’t be taller than 5 feet because we all had to duck due to the ceilings getting smaller and smaller like a Willy Wonka house.

Eventually we were led to a room where 3×3 recline bed/chairs were lined up. There was a tv infront of us (where we watched Beverly Hills Cop 2 in Mandarine/Cantonese which should have been a sign for a non-relaxing massage) and there were stools for the attendents to sit upon. We were stripped only of our shoes and socks and pants rolled up. Our foot soaking included a neck massage. Mine needed it after the whiplashes of falling on my butt over and over in the bubble. I’m sure the somersaults didn’t help either. The neck massage was, let’s just say, quite forceful and strong. Those girls may be small, but they have the grip of lions. This was just a prelude of what was to come. Our feet! Here is where I realized singing a soprano note is translatable into any language as “Holy shit that hurts!” … so is lamaze breathing as well. We have been on our feet alot. ALOT! And the depth these girls were getting to on our feet, let’s just say I think my bones moved. We all tried to cope as best we could. These girls really seemed to know what they were doing so we trusted them with our pain. Each followed the same synchronized pattern so we knew what was going to happen next, which didn’t really make us more prepared for it.

After our feet were thoroughly beaten into submission, came the fuel and fire. Yes fire. A little box at their feet included a glass cup, fuel and a small torch. The torch was dunked into the fuel and lit. By our feet, it was then rolled around in the small jar to absorb the oxygen and then quickly placed on our feet. Fire cupping, is an acupressure technique used to relieve stagnation. And since, through reflexology, the foot is connected to the rest of the body, it’s supposed to relieve things like the common cold, bronchitis and upper respitory issues. Maybe this worked, however for us it was just really cool and finally not painful. Once the attendents got solid suction on our feet, they wrapped them up and let us sit for a few minutes.

When they returned and performed miming to tell us to flip around, we got our backs and legs worked on. The highlight was definitely the reflexology on the feet, but the encore performance was just as memorable. I’ve never had my skin rolled before, and I’m not sure if I want to have it rolled again, but it was something to experience for sure, as is the theme of this post. Skin rolling is taking the skin between one’s fingers and rolling it out in a pinching motion. Doesn’t it sound relaxing?!

So yes the massage was interesting. And since I get alot of the same run of the mill massages it was a really neat experience to have a Chinese massage. Will I seek it out again? I can’t say never, but it won’t be a first option… maybe if I need my feet bones realigned again.

The past few days have also included seeing the terracotta warriors (all except one had been destroyed and reconstructed), the three gorge dam, a cycle along Xi-an city wall (about 14k and very very bumpy), an interlude at a disco club, the Chinese Opera without all the opera, and a 14 hour train trip that flew by, due mostly to helping a young girl, Jessica, read her 7 page speech about China. Which is where we found out “rural” and “billion” are very hard for her to say and funny for us to hear.

Next we head north for some more great adventures, but probably no more massages… but you never know.