North Korea, Not Really

Been trying to book a trip to visit the DMZ/JSA while I'm in Korea. I was too late for the USO tour. So now I'm trying with this operator. Chris Guillebeau says he can claim to have been in North Korea because he visited the JSA, so I think I will too :) He will try to visit North Korea for real later in his attempt to visit all countries in the world before his 35th birthday. But if he doesn't manage that he'll count this trip. I could claim I've been to Egypt (I was in an Israeli controlled area that is no longer controlled by Israel), Palestine (ditto, but then Palestine probably isn't on Chris' list either as it is not a UN recognised state), Syria (still under Israeli control)... *

Anyway, I have just been invited to a very real country I haven't been to - India - but don't know if I'll go, given my heavy travel schedule already.

Monday, I have another job interview. My chances are very high, but I could still blow it.

* My real list of countries so far: Canada, USA, Mexico, Ireland, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Vatican (that's a stretch as a real country), Austria, Hungary (only at the airport), Tunisia, Greece, Israel, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China, and Hong Kong (is that really a country too?).

Heavy Travel Year

I just booked my trip to Korea. Later in the year I may go to the US. And I already visited Cloud Cuckoo Land (CCL). It will be my busiest flying year since 2002 when I did two round the world trips, a trip to Israel and back, and moved to the US from Australia. A total of 95,000 miles. This year is heading to 50,000 + miles but will still be only the third heaviest traveling year for me unless I exceed 2001's 60,000 miles (Two trips to the US and one to Britain). The next couple of years are going to involve a lot of flying too. I do actually have data on all the flights I have ever taken:



I started the file some time in the early 1990s when I was curious how far I had flown so far and there weren't that many flights yet to remember. The first time I flew was when I was 18 in 1983. It was also the first time I left my home country.

I didn't get the job in CCL and today put in another application for a permanent job at my current employer. This is fifth the since since we moved back to Australia. Some important people want to hire me and so the chances look very good. But I have had department chairs wanting to hire me before only to be over-ruled by other faculty members when they got to compare me with the other candidates.

Reporting from Cloud Cuckoo Land

I'm at the airport in Cloud Cuckoo Land on my way home. The internet at the airport is free as is university education in this country. And any student who graduated high school can go to any university in the country and study any subject they like. There are no caps on enrolments. It really is Cloud Cuckoo Land :) Of course, a lot of those students fail the exams in the courses they pick and choose another subject or drop out of Uni. EU students can also get to study free here. The town is beautiful and everyone I met at the university was friendly. However the job involves teaching a lot of courses in a technical area which is a skill I have but not my research focus. I'm not so confident of teaching that subject at the graduate level. The hours of teaching per week required is similar to what I taught in the US but I would have to teach twice as many courses for half the time each. At my current university (where I don't have a permanent position yet but things are again looking up in that regard) there is an exceptionally low teaching load. And then there is the question of whether we would want to live in a foreign country learning a new language, though I do know quite a bit of the local language already and think I could learn fairly easily. On the upside there is a very good possibility of a job for Snork Maiden too.

Well, there were 6 candidates interviewed over the last two days in a non-stop marathon of presentations and interviews. The decision on the ranking of the candidates is supposedly being taken now as I am writing.

Street View vs. 3D View

Google Earth has now added 3D trees in some parts of the world, including San Francisco. Here is a random street in SF in 3D view:


And in Street View:



hmmm Were some trees removed or has Google added some random ones in? When's 3D cables coming? :P BTW, Street View is much improved on the previous version and really easy to navigate around in. You can see what high speed internet is really for! :) I've always been amazed by Google Earth and it keeps getting more amazing.

Christmas Day @ Bateman's Bay NSW

Maps to Show Where You Have Been in the World

Revanche posted a link to a website where you can produce maps of the countries and states you have visited. Here is my world map:


visited 24 states (10.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World

The problem is that borders between countries are marked with white lines. This isn't a problem for the borders between the US, Canada, and Mexico. But it is a really big problem in Europe. So there looks like there is a white space in the middle of Europe on my map where there shouldn't be one as I've been to France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Italy etc. around that gap.

The map of US states turns out better:


visited 23 states (46%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

I excluded those states where I've only ever been at the airport (Texas, Missouri, Minnesota, Utah, Indiana, and maybe some others). Here's my map of Canada:


visited 1 states (7.69%)
Create your own visited map of Canada

I've only been to Quebec. As I haven't been to India and Brazil I couldn't do those ones. Why aren't there maps for Australia and China? That would be a good addition to the site.

Thai Food

The main venues to eat out in Bangkok are in waitered restaurants, food courts in malls, and in the street. Upscale malls might have waiters in their food courts too and the food is mostly foreign. We went to a Korean restaurant in the Emporium Mall. The best Thai food we had was at a restaurant called Justharos which was near Siam Square. This restaurant caters mainly to Thais. This is their green curry:



Compared to the usual green curry you are served in western countries it is very much more like a soup. All the food we ordered there was really good. Another restaurant we went to is called "Cabbages and Condoms". This place caters mainly to foreigners and groups. The appetizer we ordered there was good:



Apparently it is a classic dish involving betel leaves wrapping some crunchy contents with a lemongrass flavor and a sweet sauce including sesame and coconut. You can also add chilis if you want. But there was plenty of chili in the papaya salad we ordered so we gave those a miss! The food we ordered at the food court at the Platinum Fashion Mall - a discount clothing mall was also pretty good and very cheap. Dishes typically were priced at 45 Baht ($1.50). At Justharos a dish was around 120 ($4) Baht and at Cabbages and Condoms about 200 ($7) was average. Even the latter is cheap by developed country standards of course. We also went to a Thai restaurant called "Royal Navy Club" near the Grand Palace where we thought the food was average to bad.

The only street food we bought was fruit. A guy has a handcart with a cabinet full of different peeled fruits - watermelon, rockmelon, pineapple etc. which he then chops up and puts in plastic bags for you. Each bag was 10 Baht. But street food also includes noodle soups, barbecue:



etc.

Israeli Food

Snork Maiden tells me she has more pictures of Israeli food. Maybe they will follow. There are a few main influences on Israeli food: Central and Eastern European food brought by Jewish immigrants from those countries and "Lebanese" food as well as food brought from other Middle Eastern and North African countries by Jews from those countries. And then there is the American influence. This must explain this:



Yes, a pita with falafel often comes stuffed with what Americans call French fries. But as they are called "Chipsim" in Hebrew maybe really it is a British influence. After all the British used to rule the country. Halva is a popular dessert. Here we see halva for sale at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem:



Or we could have more European style cakes:

Commonwealth Bank International ATM Fees are Extremely High

We found during our trip that Commonwealth Bank charges enormous fees for using ATM's overseas. Anything from AUD 6 to 14 depending on the amount of money withdrawn (5-12%). By contrast, using their Mastercard/Visa to make purchases results in a uniform 3% fee. So it makes sense to always use the latter when possible when travelling and only to withdraw large amounts of cash. To get down to 3% for ATM transactions you'd need to withdraw about AUD 500 in one go based on this.

Home

We're finally back from our "World Tour" and now into getting back up to speed mode here. Last stop was Bangkok. At some point Snork Maiden will provide more pictures of food including from Sweden, Israel, Denmark, and Thailand, hopefully. We are appreciating the nice weather and calm and orderly atmosphere here in Canberra. Israel and Bangkok and more exciting of course, but we prefer somewhere like Canberra as a home base. At least for the moment anyway. My next planned international trip is South Korea in May. A country I haven't been to before. I had been to all the countries on this trip except Hungary where we didn't leave the airport anyway. But I saw new stuff everywhere.

Now for lots of cleaning, sorting out mail, accounting, and my taxes for 2009-2010 still to do in the next week. Also our car wouldn't start. I think it is a "flat battery". And hopefully some more blogspots as things sort out.

German Food

The best food to be had in Germany, in my opinion, are the cakes and breads:



This is a cherry cake at a café on Marienplatz in München. On the other hand, savory dishes generally are not so good, in my opinion:



This was a Munich version of Rösti that was totally different to the Swiss version we tried. This was a latke-like potato pancake (but not as good). It was served with smoked salmon (good) and salad with some brown vinegar (not that good).

Swiss Food: Breads and Desserts

Chocolate for sale:



This bread is called "Zopf":



We bought a 700g loaf. I thought it might be a bit sweet like some hallah but it wasn't really at all. This is a rum flavored chocolate truffle in the form of a hedgehog at a cafe/bakery in Bern:

Swiss Food: Savory Dishes

The traditional Swiss dish, Rösti, at the Altestramdepot restaurant in Bern:



This is basically a lot of grated potato plus heaps of cheese. It was a lot better than spätzli, which we also ordered. After this encounter with the native food we decided to try Mexican food in the form of this cactus salad:



It was interesting. A bit reminiscent of some Chinese salads. At the Zurich railway station, Snork Maiden picked up this precisely wrapped pizza:



The wrapping is definitely better than the pizza.

French Food

Two salads ordered by Snork Maiden in Paris. This was called an "Italian Salad":



at a café near the Arc de Triomphe called "Le Comptoir de l'Arc". Yes, watermelon, and lots of Parmesan. And this one is duck and foie gras:



at a café near the Louvre.

Why is Canned Fish in the Fridge in Swedish Stores?

Well at least in the store next to the hotel I stayed in. Jars of pickled herring too. As well as the notorious fermented herring. By Australian standards, prices of food etc. mostly seem fairly reasonable in Sweden. And in Switzerland. I remember when I first went to Switzerland 24 years ago I was shocked by the high prices. Some things are cheaper than Australia and some more expensive. Beer in bars is expensive I'm told. But the price of wine in the System Bolaget store is very reasonable. Of course, by French standards it's expensive. It's the only place to buy wine, liquor, and beer stronger than 3.5% alcohol except in a bar and from 3pm on Saturday to Monday morning it's closed. The queues at 2:30pm on Saturday before they close at 3pm are nuts. They need a security guard to control the crowd queued up outside the store and winding all throughout it....

The NYT follows up their recent article on how it is illegal to rent an apartment for less than a year in Paris with one about doing just that. We're paying about the same as the author paid for the studio apartment in Paris for a hotel room. But it won't be as nice and isn't around the corner from the Louvre.

Snork Maiden got her second visa today. Where to? There is a clue in the picture. So things should all go smoothly now :)

Got Schengen Visa

Snork Maiden got her Schengen visa which allows travel to most European Union countries apart from Britain:



I thought that it was strange that we had to get it from the Norwegian embassy because Norway isn't part of the European Union. But it turns out that Norway is part of Schengen though it isn't part of the European Union. Switzerland is too. At least we got the visa for free due to Snork Maiden being married to a citizen of the European Union, me (I'm also an Australian citizen). She is a citizen of PR China and it will be about another two years till she'll be an Australian citizen and then travel arrangements will be a lot easier.

Another Leg of Our Trip Organized

Just booked a couple more steps in our crazy trip. We will fly from Copenhagen via Billund in Jutland - the Danish Peninsula - to Paris. I'd never heard of the airline or Billund which is just a village. But turns, out it is the headquarters of Lego and the location of the original Legoland themepark. This flight had the best combination of cost and timing. Also I booked somewhere to stay in Paris, which you can see above. E62 per night. Apparently, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir lived there for a while in the 1930s and 1940s.


There are still some steps to complete the planning for this epic voyage to six countries :) Snork Maiden hasn't been to any of these countries before.

New Laptop

Yesterday, I bought a new MacBook Pro. The old one was less than three years old but it was again malfunctioning, has an almost useless battery, and cracks in the metal on both sides of the screen. Just a new battery costs more than $A200 and I decided not to put any more money into it. The new computer cost $A2,199 which is less than the $US2,159 that the last one cost in 2007. Both are the base model 15" model. This one has a 5 core chip instead of a 2 core chip, 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB, and a 320GB hard-drive instead of a 160GB one. The clock-speed is 2.4GHz vs. 2GHz. It's interesting that for a long time computers competed on faster and faster clockspeeds but in the last 3 years there have not been very large gains at all on this dimension. I'll be deducting the remaining value of my old computer from my taxes and a big chunk of this one. If I'm in the 30% marginal tax bracket that reduces the cost by a nice amount.

Also yesterday we visited the Norwegian embassy to deal with Snork Maiden's visa for Europe. Even though Norway is not in the European Union they deal with European visas for people visiting Scandinavia here. They are really unclear about the rules applying to people who are spouses of European citizens. Maybe we don't need to pay for the visa. According to the French government she wouldn't need a visa at all. I'm also working on organizing our accommodation in Sweden. Finding something there at a decent price that meets our requirements for the duration of our stay seems pretty challenging.