Top 10: Most popular TRAVEL posts of the year (Unpublished #3 from Hong Kong)

A family trip to Spain:  One of our many, MANY yet-to-be-published overseas travel stories

From Hong Kong:

As explained last month in my Honorable Mentions compilation, this is Part 3 of a previously unreleased "Best of" series from January 2014, based on page views for my 2013 posts.  Yes, this series is an entire year old and these posts are from 2013.

Writing new content for this blog has taken a backseat recently to family time, ministry, leading hikes, the occasional climb, and traveling overseas.  Perhaps this unpublished series will help readers pass the time until I start blogging again.  If not, check back when I get home from Hong Kong in a few days!

As always, links look like this.  Here is the link to last week's "Top 10: Most popular non-travel posts"!  Only the 18 travel posts from that year were factored into this list.  So now, from January 2014, here are some brief reflections on each of my travel-themed Top 10:

10.  Bogota, Pt. 5:

Risky Business and the Musicology Hostel

Sometimes a travel post is nothing more than a plug for a Colombian hostel with plenty of character.  And characters.

A couple of earlier entries in this Colombia travelogue, covering my journey from the U.S. to South America, didn’t make this Top 10 list:  No Sleep ‘Til Bogota!, and also Bogota, Pt. 2:  Colombia, At Last

9.  Milan Epilogue

This journey that immediately followed South America began in Switzerland, continued in Italy, and was finally coming to a close when I met Ravil at the JFK airport.

More worthwhile, I.M.O., is the less popular "Italy: Killing a Day in Milan."  Stories and photos from my least favorite Italian city (I prefer the mountains and countryside anyway) included the can’t-miss sights of the Duomo cathedral and the Swiss/ Italian mountains.

On some years we frequently fly to Italy every few months, so I’m looking forward to seeing Houtan again on one of our upcoming Italian visits!

8.  Bogota, Pt. 3:  The Big Welcome Party

Though awash in criticism, this story was all clean, innocent fun.  After relocating to the next Colombian hostel, I edited and tightened up this post to clear up any misconceptions.

The inserted apology was probably overkill.

7.  Bogota, Pt. 4:  In Harm’s Way

And I thought that previous #8 post about the birthday party was controversial?  Public and private backlash on Facebook and Twitter was staggering after I released this story of fellow traveler Hector and me exploring a rough part of Bogota, Colombia.

Granted, our lives were put in serious danger multiple times (including a terrifying, unmentioned episode that I’ll share in person but would never release online).  But Hector and I knew what we were doing.  And God was certainly watching out for us as we shared a wonderful act of service together.

True story, with one significant footnote:  The only artistic license I took with this narrative was my intentional vagueness about Hector’s true identity (again, I’ll freely share the “real” version with anyone who asks).

In other words, a few extra sentences would've changed this story completely.  Choosing to omit this detail dramatically changed the original, inspirational narrative into a straight up life-or-death adventure… and it definitely was that.

6.  Noordwijk, Netherlands:

The almost daddy-daughter day trip

Three hours before departure, Mommy changed her mind about allowing Lil’ Lena to visit one of Daddy's friends in the Netherlands for the day.  I gave a rain check to my graciously understanding friend in Amsterdam and hit this Dutch beach town instead.

Thanks to my other well-traveled friends at the Flying Pig Beach Hostel, this relatively minor weekend getaway was one of my favorite trips of the year (after Rome and Venice, of course)!

But alas, there's just no substitute for an overseas daddy-daughter day trip.

5.  Northern Italy, Pt. 2:

Verona, Venice, and beyond

Before the year's end party in Rome, some clever friends surprised me for a most memorable weekend in Venice.  While the departure from Venice was downright catastrophic, the quick stopover in Verona beforehand was a joy.

The only damper on Carli's and my wedding facility recon for Robbin (which we never got around to anyway) and touristy Verona sightseeing was setting a sky high record for sleep deprivation.  Full flights had dragged out my U.S. departure for Italy by two full days, forcing me to cut out the en route get-together in Austria entirely.  Thus, I was a barely conscious zombie by the time I reached Verona.

I don't exactly remember falling asleep... But at some point that night, I woke up in Venice for the main event.

4.  Part 2-  Japan:  Golden Week in Osaka

Speaking of ever-evolving trip beginnings, this unplanned trip to Osaka was the fallout from the unfortunate events in Part 1- China: Shot down and the earlier teaser, China:  Beijing in My Sights.  No single factor was to blame.  My convoluted visa scheme was risky, I was brushed aside by my hopeful contact in China, and the standby passengers were all deplaned when our flight was declared overweight in Seattle.

The change in destination sent me headlong into Japan's Golden Week. The festivals and parades were exuberant. And it was all worth the hassle for the opportunity to bust out some wingman magic for my eligible bachelor buddy, Xia.

My Japanese coworkers later objected that chaotic Golden Week is the craziest time of the year to fly standby to Asia.  But it came down to flying to Osaka or flying home.  On that note, flying home from Osaka was one of the most unbelievable "non-rev" ordeals I've ever encountered.  The best twist: getting my passport yanked in Guam. Long story.

And that's why there's definitely gonna be a very belated Parts 3 and 4 on Garth's Blog to conclude this saga.  Trust me, the rest of this story is too outrageous to pass up.

3.  Switzerland:  A Protest in Lausanne

The Swiss protest photo above is the first pic that I ever "live tweeted" from a news making event.  Merely a week after my "In Harm's Way" incidents in Colombia (see #7 on this list), I wasn't in a rush to get caught up in any more excitement for the month.  But then this happened.

Kathy and I hadn't seen our buddy Sebastien since the dancing, sailing, swimming, and snorkeling at Club Med in Turks and Caicos Islands several months earlier.  After landing in Zurich, I hopped a train through the Swiss Alps to Lausanne.  Seb gave me some suggested sights to see while I waited for him to get off work.  Before sightseeing, I made sure that I could navigate my way to his flat and also to our meeting spot, the nearby Church of Saint-François.  All was peaceful.

All hell had broken loose by the time I returned to our meeting spot that evening.  Throngs of protesters had overrun the church courtyard and the surrounding streets.  The collective shouting* made it impossible to hear a phone conversation, so Seb and I attempted to locate each other with a mish mash of emails, texting and Facebook.

*Fortunately, there were no gunshots this time.  Kathy and I nearly peed our pants when deafening gunfire broke out during the earlier protest that we saw in Argentina.  The nerve of those guys!

By the time Seb showed up from work, the crowd had moved on.  I excitedly told him what had just happened as we left the scene to kick off our night.  Other than my pics and a video clip, he had to take my word for it.

The next day's stop was, you guessed it, another Italy trip.  But that was completely unrelated to my second most popular travel story of the year...

2.  Northern Italy: Confrontation in First Class

My tweet from the JFK airport taxiway was elaborated on here, in this short story about the alcohol-related incident that forced our plane to return to the gate.  It was hastily composed on my Note phone as my water taxi cruised through the canals of Venice.  And it is disgusting.

Consider this a cautionary tale about excessive drinking before flying... as well as a warning to anyone in the airline cabin service industry who is prone to gag reflex.

And the #1 most popular travel post of the year (and nearly all time) is...

1.  Leaving Bogota:

Hiking Mt. Monserrate and Scaling the Wall

Other than a questionably prudent but climbable side excursion (referenced in the title) that I discovered, the pilgrim's path up Colombia's Mount Serrate is not difficult nor dangerous in the least.  In fact, anyone in decent shape should be able conquer the high altitude and run up to the peak.

Lingering too late at the touristy summit, however, can lead to problems.

Since trail access is shut down before dusk, running back down may be the best option to slip through the gates before they are locked for the night.  In this case, though, there were some non-runners making their way down who needed a hand.  And you know what they say, leave no man (or woman) behind.

As I was assisting some older ladies on a steep stretch of trail, the gates below closed for the night.

 Lowering fragile bones over the side of a trail and then boosting them back up the other side was the only thing I could think of to get us back to the trail head.  Surely there was a better way?


Previously unknown fact: 
A single photo of Hector, the violence-prone star of #7's "In Harm's Way," is subtly buried in the #1 post.  That's probably the closest I'll get to publicly revealing the truth about Hector's identity.  Any guesses as to which one he is?


Thanks for taking the time to revisit these travel posts, readers.  The current adventure in Hong Kong is almost ready to be published.

Stories from our family's more recent and upcoming overseas travels are coming soon!

Part 2- Japan: Golden Week in Osaka

Continuing our story from Part 1-  China: Shot Down (link)...

Shitenno-ji Temple in Osaka, Japan

The scheme I had hatched for an extended weekend in Beijing, China had fizzled in a big way.  I thanked God for a job at Delta Airlines that allows me nearly unlimited travel options.  Never one to take my ball and go home, I redirected my energy towards Kyoto, Japan.

My Japanese friends had warned me against visiting the country during the ever-crowded Golden Week.  Reportedly, even the locals have difficulties getting around and finding accommodations!  How could I resist the challenge?

**********

Shortly after landing in Osaka, I discovered that all of Kyoto's hostels were booked solid through the end of the week.  And the hotels.  Even if I stayed within the city of Osaka, the Guesthouse Tennoji hostel had the only bed available in the whole region... for a single night.  One night down, one to go.

Surely I could hunt down a room somewhere within an 1 1/2  hour train ride from Osaka or Kyoto to sleep the following night, right?

The Kansai airport/train station displayed one of the more thoughtful rail maps (mostly in Japanese) that I've seen in my travels, visually simplifying a potentially confusing fare and transfer system. Combined with my free city map, no directions were necessary for any of my stops.  And my hostel was just a few minutes walking distance from the prominent Tennoji train station!

Here are a few photos from that afternoon, snapped while making my way across Osaka to the Guesthouse Tinnoji hostel:

The Guesthouse Tennoji Hostel

Planning ahead for Operation: Nightlife, I arrived at the hostel (pictured above and below) and immediately started scouring the bunks for willing accomplices for a later evening jaunt into the Dotombori district.  Although all the beds were booked solid, few other backpackers had checked in yet.  Xia, a Chinese graduate from Australia, was a perfect candidate.  He was no stranger to wild nights, and he would try to recruit other hostelers to join us while I went out sightseeing.

Checking in at the Guesthouse Tennoji hostel:  This is my well-traveled day bag, propped up next to the folded sleeping pad for a moment before I continued my Osaka sightseeing.  I didn't even have to share a bunk bed!  This certainly beats the Tokyo capsule that I slept in last year (link to "Tokyo Drifting, Pt. 1").




Osaka Castle, the Umeda Sky Building, and Shinsekai were all within running distance.  Hey, I was short on time.  The time spent with new friends at the hostel left few opportunities to slow down for pictures.  The sun was just about to drop as I jogged into the courtyards of everyone's recommended point of interest: Shitenno-ji Temple.

The last hour of daylight was used up at the 6th century (albeit mostly recreated) Shitenno-ji Temple, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan.  After watching the sunset, I walked back to my hostel in the dark to rally the troups for our party in the making

Xia and I were game for some rowdiness, but no one else in our hostel took the bait. Most of our fellow backpackers played the exhaustion card.  The Nebraskans sharing my loft upstairs had apparently partied too hard the night before.  And some were too worried about where they would be sleeping 24 hours later (as I should have been, seeing as our hostel and every hostel in the Osaka area was overbooked the next night).  It would be a not-so-low-key bros' night out.

Did I mention it was Golden Week?  A Japanese friend back home in Portland had described Golden Week as "the most crowded time to visit Japan, with the streets completely overflowing with drunk Japanese people."  Her memories weren't too far from the truth, but no local I asked could satisfactorily explain the reason for the season.

Dissuaded by the dense crowds in our own Tennoji district, Xia and I abandoned our ambitions for seeking out nightlife in Dotombori (including a club name that is absurdly unsuitable for print- lost in translation, we assume?).  Instead, we headed to a nearby hot spot with a mere a 20 minute entrance queue, and waited to get inside.  And so the night began!

 Gotta love Xia.  He's such a great guy!

Shawn, Ritsuko, Kate, Aiko, Jim, and other friends along the way made my time in Osaka even more colorful.  I could write more about things getting ridiculously out of hand.  But I'll quit while I'm ahead.

This travelogue series will resume at a later date.  I'll be busy with other trips in the near future.  But I promise:

Coming later this year on Garth's Blog...

Part 3- Japan: Deer maulings and a Golden Week festival in Nara!

But first...

A Father's Day week photo spectacular!!

Part 1- China: Shot Down

The Forbidden City in Beijing: Definitely next time!   Photo credit: Jacob Mee's Flickr photostream.

Part 1 of 5

(Or, the continuation of my "Beijing in My Sights" blog post)
(Or, Part 1 of my Asia travelogue series, sorely missing the cool overseas photos coming in Parts 2-5)

Unintentionally, my blog post titles about a hopeful China visit have maintained a misconstrued warfare motif... "Beijing In My Sights" and "China: Shot Down," anyone?  What's next?  "Aiming for Beijing?"  Actually, that WILL be the title chronicling my next attempt to visit China.



My convoluted scheme for a 72 hour visit to China "in transit" without paying for a visa seemed foolproof.  Although frowned upon by nearly every ticket counter agent I encountered, most employees conceded that the plan was fully legal.  A tad risky and complicated, but legal.  I had carefully assembled the various documentation to prove it.

For reasons I won't specify, my plan required me to depart from Seattle airport on a day that I was working at PDX.  I used a lunch break to purchase a standby flight pass on Alaskan Air, finished my shift at Delta, hastily completed a crucial shift bid after work, got involved in a minor security-related scuffle, and barely checked in in time for my flight to Seattle.

PDX airport, after my Delta work shift:  My Alaskan Airlines flight bump-a-thon to Seattle

Oversold.  I got bumped to the next flight.  Then the next flight.  Then the next flight.  Five flights later, I finally nabbed a seat out of Portland.

**********

Landing in Seattle several hours late, I was still optimistic about making my connection to Beijing.  Making that connection, however, would mandate sprinting through the Sea-Tac concourse like a madman.  And sprint I did.

Gasping for air, I dashed into the Beijing departure gate just before the final boarding call.  The gate agent begrudgingly signed off on my travel plans, although she was clearly skeptical and disavowed responsibility for the outcome.

Unforeseen Problem:  All of us standby passengers had seat assignments (and the others had already boarded), but the airplane was overloaded with cargo.  Clutching my worthless boarding pass, I helplessly watched as my fellow non-rev passengers were unceremoniously deplaned.

My flight to Beijing needed to lose some weight before I could board.  I'm such a fatty!  

It was getting late, and the next flight to Beijing wouldn't leave Sea-Tac for two more days.  Extending my long weekend into a full week away from baby Lena wasn't an option.  Kathy and Lena would be home from Salem by Saturday night.  It was time to admit defeat.

**********

My relative Eileen was gracious enough to pick me up from Sea Tac and allow me to crash overnight at her triplex, near the University of Washington.  We had the best of times catching up on life since Brent and Cheryl's February wedding in Bend (wedding party blog links here and here)!

Early the next morning, Eileen dropped me off near the Seattle light rail line on her way to work at the U of W campus.  It wasn't really on her way... but with a heart as big as hers, it didn't seem to matter.



Plan B was already in motion.  En route to Seattle the evening before, I had scoured the Delta flight schedules on my Galaxy Note 2 for alternate options.  Osaka, Japan was a wide-open route, and Kyoto should be an easy train ride away from Osaka.

Problem: The immensely popular Golden Week festival was underway in Japan.  I would be a fool to visit Kyoto on such a frenetic, crowded week without plans, lodging, or a confirmed seat!

Opportunity: See "Problem," above.  I couldn't resist!


A couple hours later, I scored a seat in the Business Elite cabin to Osaka.  I was on my way to Kyoto for Golden Week!

Coming Monday night on Garth's Blog...

Part 2-  Japan: Golden Week in Osaka!!