2-Year Anniversary: Yuvcali Village (Kurdish)

白馬簫西風

2-Years Anniversary - Taking Fresh To A Whole New Level!

(Her: Joanna)

When people talk about Croatia, the beautiful sea view and how gorgeous is the water usually comes up.  But the first thing that pops into my mind was sea urchins.  Not that I stepped on one when I was there.  It was far better.

When we were at Croatia, we went to the Korcula Island.  We hit the beach with a few backpackers we met at Dragon’s Den hostel.  It was hard to find a nice sandy beach at Croatia but there are a few pitches on Korcula Island.  As anywhere else at Croatia, the water was drop-dead gorgeous.  It would have been perfect if they were sandy beaches versus rock beach.  There weren’t much to see close by the beach when we snorkel around but we discovered plenty of sea urchin even in shallow water (it was actually quite dangerous if you didn’t know as we encountered a few people stepped on sea urchin hanging out at the beach that day).   Sea urchins are very sensitive organisms.  You can only find their presence in places with very clean water.  Again, physically proven how great the water in Croatia is.  It is so weird to find so many sea urchin just lying around.  If Japanese and Chinese discover this, I’m pretty sure they will be gone in no time. 

Being Chinese as we are, we picked a couple up and use our swiss army nice to crack the shell up at the beach.  We butchered our first 2 sea urchins not knowing how to cut it open.  It took us a good 15-20 min to crack our first one up and we only get this tiny bit of meat from each sea urchin.  It must be a pretty huge ass sea urchin for those we ate at the sushi bars.  

We threw a few pieces of sea urchin meat into our mouth with caution.  They are so fresh and delicious.  It was hard work to get half a teaspoon of sea urchin.  No wonder they are so expensive. 

We figured if we go somewhere deeper and less people, there will be much bigger and more abundant sea urchin we can catch for free.  So we Youtube “how to cut open a sea urchin” that night and hired a kayak the next day taking our snorkeling gear, soy sauce, a swiss army knife and a spork with us paddling to some small island on a mission to find sea urchins.  As bizarre as it may sound, it was one of the best days I remembered.  It was like any other gorgeous day at Croatia.  Looking into the water from the kayak, the water was so clear that you can see things underneath the water.  The sun was warm but gentle. Deeping my hand into the cool but not chilly water in the middle of the sea with some breeze blowing into my face while I leaned my head back being lazy and letting the warmth of the sun engulfed me was worth a million buck. 

We found an island in the middle of nowhere full of pebbles and with a few shrubs here and there to park our kayak. The water gradually deepens as we struggled walking toward the sea with the seabed made out of piles of huge but slimy rocks.  Charlie was having a much easier time than me walking on those rocks. The barnacles on the rock hurt my feet.  Charlie signaled me to stay close to shore while he went deeper into water and dive down.  After a few minutes, he came back up with a sea urchin at least twice as big as those we picked up from the beach yesterday.  With the spikes, he can only pick one up at a time.  Charlie picked up 6 sea urchins with a few trips.  We wished we have diving gears as Charlie spotted a few real big ones but was too deep for him to free dive down to get. 

We walked bare foot back to the kayak with the sea urchins fighting the hot peddles wishing we have bought the flip flops closer to where we entered the water.  But it was all worth it!  After learning from the Youtube video last night, we were much more efficient in opening the sea urchin today.  Every bit was that much more delicious enhanced by the soy sauce we bought.  All the hard work was worth it.  I totally didn’t’ expect to have sea urchin sashimi fresh from the sea at an Eastern European country caught by ourselves!

There is a saying that “Chinese eat anything with legs on the ground and the back facing the sky” (I think French comes into a close second).  I, then, realized how true that is.

Will Printed Travel Guides Become Obsolete?

(Her: Joanna)

It's been 9 years since my first backpacking trip!  Internet (and smartphone) transform how we live and how we travel.  Looking back at my first backpacking trip, me and my girlfriend only have 1 and only Lonely Planet Western Europe on a Shoe String with us.  That's what we go by for hostels, where to go, where to eat, and how to say "where is the bathroom" in all the languages we need in Western Europe.  Lonely Planet was our travel bible.  

Fast track 9 years later, as Charlie and I research for our upcoming trip to Myanmar, a few bloggers said the information in Lonely Planet Burma is outdated even though it is only a year old!  Will printed travel guide become obsolete in the near future as hard copies cannot catch up with the world that seems to be changing in a faster and faster pace?

A flow of travel memories flash through my mind every time I look at the collection of Lonely Planet on my bookshelf or in the library or bookstore.  It is sad for me to think about may be one day they won't be needed anymore by future backpackers.  

What will become the new travel essential for future travelers in 20 years?  

No matter what, Lonely Planet will always have a special place at my heart.

2-Years Anniversary: Re-living Our Backpacking Days

(Her: Joanna)

In a random occasion, I’ve got asked to tell a travel story that would entice someone to visit a place.  To my surprise having backpacked to so many places, my brain froze.  All these travel scenes popped up in my head like a flashback but they are all more or less descriptive snippets of places I traveled to.  Not stories!  I can’t come up even one decent story!  I cannot believe it.  

 After this happened, I spent the whole weekend digging through my mind for a good travel story.  I remembered so many little but great moments about my past trips.  It has nothing to do with what I see or what activity I did.  What’s common amongst these memories that pop to my mind is that they all left me with strong feeling when it happened.  But most of my travel blogs record what I did and where I go.  I probably have not use a story angel enough to capture my travel on my travel blog.  Then, I got the idea to do a 2-year anniversary blog posts, using a story angel, to re-write travel memories that still left me the strongest impression.   

I’ve always say I like travel because I like to experience different culture and see different things.  So after 2 years, what sticks out?  What did I learn and remember?  Re-living my travel definitely is a treat for me.  It always leaves me a big smile feeling that I’m on the road again.   

Leave me a note letting me know how you like my story-telling blog posts please!

Backpacking Equipment Must Have - Water Sterilizer

There are a lot of equipments out there for backpacker that just add dead weight to your backpack but this is definitely a must have that will save you weight.  Do you always carry at least 1-2L of drinking water with you?  To save a couple of bucks, always opt for the 3.5L bottle water vs. 0.5L so you ended up always have to carry the left over water with you because it is too wasteful to throw them out?  

It was painful carrying all these weight on top of your sac, isn't it?  We thought this is how it has to be until we came across the SteriPEN that sterilize water from any water source so it is safe to drink without needing to boil.  All we needed was a 1.5L bottle and a water source.

I can't tell you how great this is.  BUT, we suggest you bring with you Iodine pills as back up.  We lost our SteriPEN during our trip and ended up having to carry bottles and bottles of water when we track.  Always good to have a back up plan!

You can buy this at MEC Canada or REI, US.

Hostel At HK

Hostel is not a pure cheap accomodation option for travellers. Often travellers pick this option for their atmosphere to meet other travellers, to meet friends, or to share their travelling stories. We have met many friends at hostels that hotels or B&B cannot offer.  There are certain quality to be qualified as a hostel such as a place to hang for travellers to interact, travel information, kitchen facilities. 

I have a few friends who passed by HK to visit have asked me for hostel recommendation here.  There are lots that claim to be hostels but they are just cheap hotels with bed in a room.  That is not hostels!  There are a handful that are sort of like hostels with common area but lacking some nice to have ammenities.  But why?

We have a friend who attempted to open a hostel in HK but gave up mainly because of the ridiculous rent and it was difficult to get landlords to sign lease longer than 2 years, which makes it hard to recover the rennovation cost he needs to put in.

On top of all these, the HK government do not give any slack to hostels in terms of requirement over "safety".  Hostels owners needs to put in a significant investment to match these standards that are shared with hotels. 

All these make it awfully difficult for potentially hostels owners with limited fund to start one up on top of the fact that you cannot make huge profit from running a hostel (may be in some countries you can).

It is shameful that HK does not nuture this alternate type of accomodation to travellers.  Aside from shopping, HK has so much to offer that are not promoted.  One of the things I love about staying at hostels is the opportunity to interact with the staffs who are locals and go to places recommend by locals that are not in any travel books.  Travellers can get a deeper exposure to the local culture through hostels.   HK is such an interesting place with a mix of Western and Eastern culture that it is shameful that we do not support the passionated locals to run hostels and give travellers an option to be closer to our local culture and people.