Less Traveled Path

Despite my wanderlust tendencies, I do not have a carry-on suitcase of my own.

I used to have a 26″ suitcase until I lost a wheel. Poof! It was gone somewhere between the walk from the Airport Bus stop along Nathan Road in Hong Kong and my cousin’s place.  And the ground started shaving off the plastic casing of my suitcase.  A PAIN to deal with, I promise you.

This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal had I not had multiple destinations to travel after that… like the Beijing Olympics.

So I tried to come up with a contingency plan.  Perhaps I could buy a new suitcase while in Hong Kong or convince one of my friends leaving for Hong Kong days later to bring one for me either from an online store or an actual store.

One day, my mom came back from the market one day with a plastic wheel. What a smart and resourceful idea, I thought.  I had forgotten about seeing, on my last trip, a shop piled high to the ceiling with random items that were waiting to be disassembled into parts:

Little Shop of Parts

It would probably have been easier for me to find a replacement part than I thought if places like that were around.  My mom got a plastic wheel instead of a rubber wheel because she forgot that the exchange rate was about 7 to 8:1, so the 35 HKD wheel sounded pricey when it was really just 5 USD than the plastic wheel which was 7 HKD (1 USD).

It was a lot of pressure to find a suitcase and after losing a wheel, I wanted to make sure I got a high quality suitcase (and one with a good warranty). After some searching, I figured the best option was to find one after returning to the US especially since products purchased internationally usually have region specific warranty coverage.

Meanwhile… I had to do something about my gimpy suitcase.  I made it to the Hong Kong airport except the rod holding the wheels in place was not staying put. Packaging tape (next to duct tape) cures all… and the check-in counter staff was glad to provide it.

On my return flight to SF, the Beijing counter did not have packaging tape for my suitcase and instead gave me luggage label paper instead.  You know, the labels they print out and loop around your luggage sticking the label to itself.  My suitcase was looking quite ghetto at that point:

Ghetto Suitcase

Since the trip of luggage woes, I haven’t been able to find an appropriate replacement.  I’ve been borrowing carry-ons from friends or using an even larger heavy suitcase (Australia, Ireland, Minnesota, San Diego, Orlando, Dallas).  I wanted to buy a Samsonite because I’d rather pay more than to have to go through the trouble of having to deal with a one wheeled suitcase away from home.  Ross is the best place I’ve found to buy suitcases and if you happen to shop with someone who’s 65 years or older, you can get an additional 10% senior discount on Tuesdays. They even carry Samsonites.

If a good sale comes out, however, then all bets are off. I just got the following Samsonite set for $60 from eBags… now I can stop borrowing other people’s carry-ons and start acting like a real traveller!

(Well, after my trip next week since it’s scheduled to arrive while I’m gone.)

While in Hong Kong, we had booked a tour to the Guangdong Province with a final destination in Shunde for the weekend.  It was perfect timing because we had planned to visit family there afterwards, except that on the morning of our planned departure, a typhoon bound for Hong Kong shut down all transportation by water including the boat ride to our first tour stop. Our entire tour was cancelled thanks to the typhoon level having escalated from 3 to 8 (out of 10).

The rain and winds were pounding the windows of the flat where I was staying and I couldn’t help but think about the triple storm that hit the Bay Area earlier this year. I tried to stay away from the windows, just in case.

Later in the day, along with my cousin whose work was cancelled thanks to the typhoon, we ventured out on the streets for food.  The once busy Nathan Road was empty without the double decker buses, the hoards of people walking the streets, and the open shops.

I flew to Hong Kong on the Cathay Pacific flight I booked several months earlier on a 747-400 with new seats that were introduced last month, which included individual entertainment screens (no charge) that had plenty of options to keep you preoccupied including video games and seats that reclined in its own shell, plus a push out coat hanger.

According to Cathay’s site, the entertainment on-demand features:

9″ widescreen TV with StudioCX – featuring a rotating library of 100 movies, 350 TV shows, 888 music CDs, 22 radio channels, and entertainment programmes in nine languages.

Though I found the user interface for the entertainment awkward.

Though slightly more uncomfortable compared to the older seats, the new seat design was great because if the person in front of you reclined, the wouldn’t encroach upon your space because the seats slide forward and down. Unfortunately, the front pocket was practically nonexistent (see above), though my friend seems to think they’ve relocated it behind the calf area.  I’ll have to check on my long-haul flight back.

Anyhow, when I arrived at the airport in Hong Kong, there were only 7 days, 13 hours, 36 minutes, and 13 seconds left until the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games.  On the right, is the photo I took last December.  Quite a bit of time has passed.

Ever since I knew I was going to the Beijing Olympics this August, I have been researching travel options. I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal for 5.5 months looking into options like side trips and land tours and then deciding against them. In the end, I got a sweet cheap airfare deal. I paid $1307 a person for a better itinerary than what was being quoted for $1818 to over $2100 by most travel agents (over 28% in savings!). I realized that the trick was… knowing what to look for.

I’ve shared annoyances about looking for Olympics airfare a few times. I contacted no fewer than ten travel agents.

My preferred itinerary: Flexible departure from SF, fixed dates for Beijing (my friends had already booked hotel rooms for the entire group), return to SF as soon as possible after Beijing (work beckons).

I found out about the All Asia Pass ($1099 for Hong Kong plus two other cities, $500 summer surcharge, $300 Beijing surcharge, not including taxes) and considered that, only almost every travel agent I found doesn’t book that pass despite Cathay stating that travel agent can book it (you can’t book it yourself). It turns out that the process for travel agents is so complicated that they don’t do it, or like STA Travel, they charge a processing fee for it. I’m now convinced that it’s just a marketing ploy for Cathay Pacific which makes me dislike them even more; a travel agent was in disbelief about how difficult it was to find someone who would book the Pass.

I booked my tickets through Cathay Pacific’s website (still can’t beat their airfares despite disliking them) and did the following to reduce my costs:

• Avoided flying Friday, Saturday, or Sunday which adds on a weekend surcharge
• Planned for one stopover in Hong Kong instead of two. Cathy’s hub is in Hong Kong so one stopover (stay longer than 24 hours) doesn’t add to the price of the fare, although two stopovers do.
• Went through all the acceptable combinations for flights and observed the difference in pricing based on the fare class showing on the itinerary confirmation page. I then kept the selections for the cheaper fare classes. (Restricted Economy (M) seems to be one of the lowest fares)

I ended up with an even better itinerary than the quotes I received; the travel agent I was going to go with priced out an itinerary that had me returning back to Hong Kong after midnight which meant dealing with either a 14 hour layover, or trying to get into Kowloon late at night (spending $35-$45 USD for a taxi instead of the $4.25 USD for public transportation). I learned from the agent that in general full flights might open up on Sundays because many travel agents don’t work on Sundays and seats can only be held for 24 hours.

I’ve spent countless hours on this and at some point as I was contacting travel agents (mainly emailing) I was thinking if I would’ve saved time and money if I followed Ramit’s advice on outsourcing inspired by Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek. In any case, I realized that travel agents don’t really have the best deals and to my surprise some didn’t even respond to my email request for a quote. And some couldn’t even deal with slight complexities like comparing quotes for a trip with and without a side visit to another destination. Admittedly, I am trying to travel during the Olympics and the tickets are in high demand, but I had expected that this is what travel agents are for. In the end, if you’re willing to put in just a little more time and effort into it, you can cut out the middle person and get a great deal. In other words, do it yo’self.
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We started a Taiwan Tour the day after arriving in Taipei. The van picked us up and two couples at other hotels before we were on our way. After our third stop, our tour guide tried to figure out which language he should use on our journey. One couple was from mainland China, so Mandarin was their vote. Then there was the couple from Brisbane, Australia who could speak both Cantonese and English, but couldn’t understand Mandarin very well. I was excited at the prospect of using Cantonese (since I can understand it so much more than Mandarin), but since our tour guide didn’t speak Cantonese, Mandarin with some English was the winner.

She was 52 and her husband, a software engineer, was 57 and they had one daughter, though she did not accompany them on the trip. Both had retired and were taking the time to travel. We traveled with them for two days on the tour and I would frequently see them snacking on something; they didn’t let the possibility of water-related sickness affect their gastronomical pursuits.

Time it took for our van to reach our first official stop on the tour: 3 hours and 30 minutes
Time it took for the Australian-Cantonese lady to suggest to my mom to find a son-in-law (husband for me): 3 hours and 50 minutes

Ah, how Chinese.

Taipei, a big city with bright lights as my good friend describes it, reminded me of Hong Kong, but not as busy. Her parents learned that we were going to be in Taipei and offered to show us around. Her father used to be a department chair at a state university in the United States, but now serves as the president of university in Taiwan (with an enrollment of about 16,000). As it turns out, we discovered that his family and my mom’s family are from the same village. (Family origin generally comes up within the first few Chinese conversations.)

They live about an hour away and drove in to Taipei and greeted us with various tropical fruits for our journey: bellfruit (crunchy, juicy, without a strong flavor), guava (lots of seeds and doesn’t taste as sweet as the boxed juice version), and Chinese oranges were among the welcome gifts. We were also treated to various dusk and night views of Taipei including the Presidential Office Building, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei 101 and its shopping complex, and The Grand Hotel.

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My friend Sandy and her family had raved about a Tomato Beef Knife Cut Noodle Place in Taipei. While wandering the streets of Taipei, a local had recommended this restaurant to them. It’s a hole-in-the-wall type of place and without an exact address, we only had walking directions from the metro station with a link to a map, plus a photo of her sister in front of the restaurant column like the one here.

On a quest, showing the photo to the hotel’s front desk staff (and I tried reading the Chinese in Mandarin to them first), a jewelry store lady on Zhongshan Rd. (who had only started working there in the last year), and a baby clothing store lady also on Zhongshan Rd. (who said it was in the other side of town on Boai Rd.), no one knew the exact location of this place. I felt like I was trying to solve a photo clue in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt. I didn’t believe Baby Clothing Store Lady and walking down the stretch of Minsheng Rd. between Zhongshan Rd. and the Shuanglian MRT station, I spotted the sign!

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The last time I traveled to Vietnam (about 8 years ago) was with my late father. Although my mother couldn’t join us, she warned us about her experience going through customs in Vietnam a few years earlier and how she was given a hard time because they thought she spoke Vietnamese; the customs officials wanted her to bribe them and pay them off so that they wouldn’t give her a difficult time just because.

My father refused to participate in such corruption and so when we went through customs and the officials started speaking to him in Vietnamese, he pretended not to understand. We were given a slightly difficult time, but passed through without needing to pay them off.

Just recently, I met someone who is also traveling to Vietnam in a less than a month and was told by a travel agent in San Jose, CA that his visa would cost $50 and his friend’s would cost $75. The reason? The guy’s last name could pass for Vietnamese while his friend’s could not.
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Five months ago, two of my good friends entered the lottery for Olympic tickets and they were informed last week that they were granted tickets to four (out of their requested six) events: basketball, diving, water polo, and volleyball. Which means… I am going to Beijing next summer!

I happened to be in San Francisco’s Chinatown this week and decided to stop by Classic Tours for information on tours in China; I was hoping to find an itinerary that would end in Beijing and allow the flexibility for an extension to stay for the Olympics. The travel agent had just returned from a meeting in Beijing about the Olympics and imparted some advice to me:

1. Don’t go to the opening or closing ceremonies – transportation will only be allowed 1-2 miles from the venue which means a mass exodus of people will cause huge human traffic jams
2. No tour company will go anywhere near Beijing during that time – best bet is to tour around China, then catch a plane to Beijing from there, but that plane ticket will not be cheap
3. Accommodations will be expensive – estimate is around $400-$500 a night

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At the end of this past September, I decided I wanted to travel somewhere internationally between Thanksgiving and Christmas and whipped out my passport only to find that it was due to expire in less than six months from my travel dates. Since certain countries in Asia require a US passport to be valid at least six months beyond the dates of the trip, my two options were to change my travel plans to a domestic trip or to renew the passport and pay an extra $60 (on top of the $67 regular fee) to expedite the processing. I reluctantly paid the avoidable fees that made up almost 50% of the total cost.

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