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Honolulu

Posted by Mark Sullivan on July 18, 2023
Posted in: USA. 2 comments

Jim luxuriating in the gorgeous water of Waikiki Beach

We are back on the road again, escaping the heat and humidity of New York summer. June in New York is pretty nice — just what you’d like summer to be. And this year June was really lovely. But the minute the calendar turns to July, a hellish blanket of humidity suddenly descends on the city, and you want out. This year we decided to escape to a beautiful corner of the world that has so far eluded us — French Polynesia.

Now French Polynesia is quite a trek from New York, so we decided to break up the trip with stops in Hawaii, both coming and going. The idea was to avoid connecting flights to the degree possible. So on the way to the South Pacific we decided to spend some time in Kauai, where Jim’s brother Albert has a vacation home. And on the way home, we’ll spend time on the Big Island. Previous trips have taken us to Maui and Oahu, so now we’ll have explored all four major islands of the Aloha State.

Our journey began with an 11-hour flight from JFK to Honolulu. In the spirt of avoiding connecting flights, we decided to recharge in Honolulu for a few days before catching an easy flight to Kauai.

This is our third visit to Honolulu, and the place has grown on us with each stay. In fact, we behaved like extreme creatures of habit this time. We stayed at the same hotel as last time. We ate at a restaurant we loved the last time — all three nights! And we spent both full days sitting on the beach at Waikiki and having lunch at the hotel restaurant that we enjoyed so much the last time. If it works, don’t fix it!

The view from our room at the Hawaiian Palace, an old classic with lots of charm and lots of pink

We love lunch at the outdoor bar at the Royal Hawaiian, where everything is extremely pink, especially Jim

The water at Waikiki Beach is so warm and beautiful

Dinner at Hy’s, a steakhouse with old world charm, friendly service, and great food

If you have dinner three nights in a row at the same place, you get to know Sarah the bartender pretty well

Jim’s view at the beach

Breakfast at the pink palace that is the Royal Hawaiian

Astana

Posted by Mark Sullivan on May 23, 2023
Posted in: Asia, Kazakhstan. Leave a Comment

On a sleek pedestrian bridge over the Ishim River

Jim models an old Kazakh warrior helmet

At some point our cameras have started doing crazy things, like making images pop out of their surroundings like this. Cool!

Our last stop in Central Asia is Astana, the shiny newish capital of Kazakhstan. If you had trouble coming up with the name of the Kazakh capital, you’d be in good company. To begin with, the capital was moved here from Almaty in 1997. And to make things worse, Astana holds the Guinness Book world record as the capital city with the most name changes in modern times. The town was founded in 1830 as Akmola, and has since been renamed Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, Astana, Nur-Sultan, and then back to Astana.

Astana sits in the vast wide open flat steppes of northern Kazakhstan, so utterly unlike the mountain setting of Almaty. This part of the country is more linked with Russia than the rugged mountains of the south. After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Kazakh parliament soon planned to move the capital here, no doubt in part to stem any breakaway notions on the part of the large Russian population. Since independence, the percentage of ethnic Kazakhs here jumped from just 17% to over 80% as the city grew dramatically. With 1.3 million people, Astana is now second in size only to Almaty.

We decided to fly way up to Astana just to see the spectacle of it all. Fueled by big ambitions and oil money, this planned city features gleaming architecture, grand vistas, lush parks, and elaborate public art. The skyline is dotted with cranes in every direction, raising countless new luxury apartment blocks. It’s fun to see a place with so much growth, ambition, and energy — even if Astana lacked the culinary charms and inherent culture of a more mature metropolis like Almaty. After a couple days here, we were sufficiently wowed yet ready to move on.

That means making one more stop on the way home – Istanbul for a few days to celebrate my very own birthday.

The Baiterek monument sits at the center of the monumental core of the city

The Khan Shatyry entertainment complex occupies a huge tent-like structure by British star architect Sir Norman Foster

Inside Norman Foster’s entertainment complex

Discovering a patch of bunny rabbits in a huge park

Birch trees line a long lovely embankment on the river

Like so much else here, the National Museum of Kazakhstan occupies a stunning piece of architecture. But once we got beyond this dramatic entry foyer, the collection was super chaotic and did a terrible job of providing any context.

This exhibit at the National Museum had something to do with technology. It was a cool looking room to walk through, but there was little indication of what its point was.

Shiny architecture and cranes everywhere

Fun public art

Jim makes the most of a neighborhood lined with lilacs

The monumental core of the city

So much cool architecture

That’s the presidential palace photo-bombing our selfie

More Biking and Samarkand

Posted by Mark Sullivan on May 9, 2023
Posted in: Asia, Uzbekistan. Leave a Comment

Jim makes a tough day of biking look effortless

Mark climbing a very tough hill

Luba is always positive, no matter how bad the conditions

After the trek in Zaamin National Park, and a night of sleep, the plan was to head out of the park on our bikes. This involved a significant ride downhill, then some ups and downs, then a tough 7 kilometer climb, and finally a 40 kilometer descent from the mountains.

There were a few snags. First, the weather forecast was miserable. The temperature was barely above freezing, and it was actually snowing the night before our ride. The roads were also pretty treacherous. And then there was the matter of that 7 km climb. We all sort of assumed that once morning came, we’d ditch the ride, especially since all of us came to Uzbekistan expecting hot weather everywhere, and nobody had clothes for cold and snow.

But when we got up in the morning the weather had mostly cleared. It was cold — just above freezing — but it was sunny and beautiful. Of the fourteen of us, ten decided we were going to try the ride. It was beautiful riding, though the roads were pretty hellish. Wearing a couple layers, and working pretty hard, the temperature wasn’t bad — except for some pretty cold fingers.

Jim and Rebecca get ready to bike in the cold

Once we began the very tough long climb, it started to get a little colder, and by the time we reached the summit we were wiped out and freezing. This caused a few of us (including me) to decide again the 40 km descent. It was just too cold, and the roads looked just plain scary for riding steeply downhill. So more of us got in the bus, while Jim and six others started downhill. The weather got worse. The roads got worse. There were mean dogs. Becky took a tumble on her bike (but wasn’t hurt). Suffice it to say, by the halfway point of the descent, the remaining riders were climbing into the bus with their teeth chattering. And we all began a 3-hour ride to Samarkand, where we’d get a day off to recover and explore.

Samarkand is the stuff of legends. It is the quintessential Silk Road town. Ancient in origin, it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC and decimated by Ghengis Khan in 1220. In 1370, Tamerlane made it the capital of his Timurid Empire, stretching from Constantinople across Central Asia into India and China. Today it is leafy, lovely city with an incredible legacy of tile-covered Islamic architecture. It was a joy to explore this beautiful place — and to heal from a rough day of biking. And it deserves lots of pics, as you will see.

The Registan in Samarkand is a stunning group of three medressas — religious schools — the first of which was completed in 1420

Mark, Rebecca, and Jim touring the Registan

A dazzling ceiling inside one of the medresses of the Registan

Timur (known in the West as Tamurlane) watches over his empire

The stunning Gur-e-Amir Mausoleum is Tamurlane’s final resting place

The ceiling of the mausoleum

Mark and Chee take a break outside the mausoleum

In the courtyard outside the mausoleum, a few Central Asian tourists started to try out their English on Jim, and before we knew it he was surrounded by people wanting their pictures taken with him

Shah-i-Zinda is an incredible avenue of mausoleums loaded with tilework from the 14th and 15th centuries

The Registan looks amazing during an evening light show

More of the light show