portions originally written Oct. 12th, 2007

It’s truly amazing I can fly for 17 hours and still feel at home. Everyone speaks English, the stores are the same (well, high end, Bvlgari, Gucci, Burberry, Fendi everywhere – it’s like a large Santana Row or Plaza), the food is fairly similar to the Bay Area. The world is indeed becoming flat.

Commercials are the one difference I’ve seen. Here people of every race, countries all over the world advertise. Pretty different from our white-bread world where “diversity” means you throw in a hispanic or two because the buzz in marketing is they are a very large and growing minority with disposable income. Though, I’m not sure if it should be called diversity or capitalization. I guess there’s a fine line…

The Qatar commercial was the one that was playing when this ran through my mind. It would never have run in the US. An Arab man and his son are skipping stones in the water. It goes on to promote business in Qatar… suddenly I find myself wondering where Qatar is and feeling as dumb as the Americans who can’t find South Dakota on a map.

It is clean here. I had this realization while riding the cable car over to Sentosa Island and noticing with the construction they were trying to keep pollution out of the ocean. Once we arrived at Sentosa Island we decided to stick around. We went to see the statue of the merlion and were able to watch a wonderful short film explaining how this symbol of Singapore came to be – the stylized animation was awesome.

Seoul was also a nice airport to visit. Clean, nice design, wonderful lighting. And the airlines are nothing like the US. They’re effificient and still know what customer service is. Take for instance – we boarded 5-10 minutes late. They were apologetic – unlike the US Airlines that tell you to be happy they got you on a plane 4 hours late. Gee – that trip home at Christmas is going to be just wonderful.

Filed under:
Honeymooning, Korea, Seoul, Singapore by Courtney

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Filed under:
just a picture by Courtney

Portions continued from the October 24, 2007 handwritten (*gasp!!*) diary entry…

After wandering through the Forum and the Coliseum, Raju and I headed up to Palantine Hill. Raju, being the more observant of the two of us, noted how the grass was indeed greener for the rich folk. I, probably being the more sarcastic of the two of us, thought the bullshit spewing forth from these politicians must have made great manure (the smarmy continues…).

No matter how smarmy tonight, at the time, this is where it really hit me as to why art flourished in Italy. The light is just so damn beautiful, as are the colors of almost everything in Rome.

My feet hurt like hell after Rome (though, truly, I didn’t know what tired feet were until Florence). But Palantine Hill was definitely one of those moments where time slowed, where we forgot we had a million and one things to see in Rome, and we enjoyed meandering down the hill, away from the palaces and back to the land of reality. Those few moments are one of the treasured on this trip.

Bracolli Floretta on Palantine Hill

Filed under:
Honeymooning, Italy, Rome by Courtney

The British royalty, if they haven’t always been, are now classified as “Entertainment”. Yes, alongside American Idle gossip and Mike Tyson gets jail time, there was a two minute clip on Queen Elizabeth’s 60th wedding anniversary with Prince Phillip. Poor guy, being second in command with his title, the ABC News clip assures me he’s in command in their personal life, well at least, he got to make the decision on where to school the children.

And we all know how well they turned out…

If you’re wondering, the title are their nicknames for each other. You guess who’s who.

Wow – I’m in a rather smarmy mood this evening… Cheers!

Filed under:
Funny, Observances by Courtney

Portions originally written October 24, 2007.

It was one of the first things that ran through my mind in Rome. We’re staying near Vatican City, and the place is surrounded by junk shops and street vendors hawking pictures of the Pope, Jesus, and pretty much any other religious figure you can think of.

Everything in the city of Rome elicits a small “WOW” from me, followed by silence because I’m floored by the beauty of it. Toward the end of day one I figured this out, after seeing St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and Hall of Maps at the Vatican Museum, while enjoying a gelato in front of the Trevi Fountain. I know it’s all the tourist spots, but I’m not sure what isn’t in Rome. The entire city is like one big museum, only people live in and around every piece of art in it.

The mosaic work in St. Peter’s is amazing

The proportions of the buildings and the lighting add to that WOW-factor I believe. I’m a huge fan of the golden light, unfortunately, I only see it in the early morning here in the U.S. — and I’m not a morning person. It’s pretty much a golden hue through most of the day there, as you can see from the photos.

We also got to see the Pope this morning, not so much because we planned it, but because we were walking by and noticed the crowd. We decided seeing the Pope might be a once in a lifetime thing, so we stuck around.

Unfortunately I had left the longer lens at home, so you get to play “Find the Pope!”. Should be a good way to kill an hour of your Monday morning.

The entire popage-sighting was very spooky though. He was brought out in the pope-mobile and driven through the crowd, so it appeared he was floating in his white robes. Add to that some organ music, and the entire event seemed made for Halloween. Odd, interesting, unforgettable.

Filed under:
Honeymooning, Italy, Observances, Rome by Courtney