Category: enewsletter

Hello Globies! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. Due to holiday
parties, travel and cheer, we will not be holding a December Globies meeting.
We WILL resume on 5^th January with a treat!
Matt Link, an Associate Editor from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel will
be our guest speaker.

Matt will be giving a slide show and discussing the sites and culture
of Ghana (the most popular country for American tourists in West Africa),
with notes on spending time with the Muslims who live and work there,
as well as important sites i.e., visiting a mud mosque and much more.
He plans to make us feel a part of the Ghanaian culture and will be bringing
some special props to help with our immersion! Matt has been travelling
since the age of twelve, when he boarded his family’s boat for five years
and sailed around the Pacific including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea,
Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where he attended high
school. He hasn’t stopped since, having visited dozens of countries in
Eurasia and living for a number of years in both Hong Kong and Hawaii,
where he ran kayak tours and published the guidebook Rainbow Handbook
Hawaii. He now lives in New York where he works with Arthur Frommer as
Associate Editor of the magazine Budget Travel. Keep an eye out of this
Sunday’s (12/16) travel section of the LA Times and Miami Herald and a
few other regional papers – Matt’s account of his trip to Ghana will appear
in Frommer’s column! On January 4th, he’s a guest on The Early Today show
(and they mean early – 4:30-5:30 AM!) on NBC.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday. See you all soon!

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154
Christopher Street(btw Greenwich Stand
Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in
the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

In general travel and accommodation are expensive whilst food can vary
hugely in price from noodle bars both cheaper and considerably more nutritious
than MacDonald’s to city restaurant where the prices would flex anyone’s
credit to the limit. Most other activities are pretty reasonably priced.

Firstly, Japan is a country where the infrastructure works, if the timetable
says a train or bus will arrive at a given time, it will. Transport is
effective though expensive, buses and trains are clean, safe and regular
though mountainous terrain in many areas can still make journeys lengthy.
The language may be intimidating but most younger people can speak some
English and it is not difficult to learn a few important signs (numbers,
entrance, exit, toilet, place names etc.) or indeed the syllabary alphabets
(hirogana and katakana) which are widely used on signs for place names
(so are romaji in Tokyo and some major towns)

Tokyo: Like most large towns, expensive, cosmopolitan, polluted
and overcrowded Tokyo still retains a number of small temples and a few
other small historical buildings wedged between the skyscrapers. It is
worth visiting a few for the paintings and statuary, interesting architecture
and some insight into Japanese culture and rituals. I particularly like
the traditional Japanese and Chinese gardens, which are cheap to visit
and charming and beautiful to see, the imperial palace and gardens around
it are also a must see.

Kyoto and Nara, easily reachable from Tokyo, preserve
a lot more in the way of historic buildings, a reconstructed old castle
and a herd of tame, fat and diabetic deer at Nara are good places to visit.

Onsen: blessed or cursed with a great deal of geothermal energy
there are a large number of hot springs in Japan, these can definitely
be worth a visit, whilst I didn’t notice any health benefit I had the
rather beautiful experience of lying outside in a hot bath able to look
up at the moon and the stars between the clouds during a gentle snowfall.
Getting out was a little on the cool side however.

Kyushu: less developed than Honshu thus preserving more tradition
and a few pieces of undeveloped countryside. Also warmer if that interests
you and with much volcanic activity, some stunning crater lakes with brightly
coloured poisonous looking water and a number of opportunities to breath
some pretty poisonous air near the volcanoes. Pity the concession holders
at these places, I can stand breathing sulphuric acid for an hour or so
but how they manage it all the time I don’t now. Down at the Southern
tip of the island, at Sakurajima ash from the volcano can be taken
home in a small phial if you wish to relive the experience of grit with
everything. The other thing which is omnipresent here is daikon, these
giant white radishes are apparently very important to the locals’ diet
being a major source of vitamin C, and accordingly they make a remarkable
range of products from them, from simple shredded radish (OK), to Daikon
Schochu (a sort of whisky) and daikon jam, both of which are best avoided.

One of the most beautiful sights I remember from Japan is Takachiho
gorge. A slot canyon deep enough that the sun can rarely or never is seen
from the bottom. You can walk down to the river that flows through it,
hire a rowing boat and paddle up to the head of the gorge where a waterfall
enters. The water is crystal clear and the sides of the canyon are stunningly
vertical hexagonal columns of black basalt.

The Beetle says if you are thinking of travelling to Japan, you should
investigate buying a rail pass in your own country that gives you a considerable
discount. They are only available outside Japan.

To get in touch with the Travelling Stoat,
Then e-mail them to: the Beetle

If the first six meetings of the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club
are an indication of the future, it is going to be bright, rosy, fun,
informative, exciting, and a great success! Since the first meeting in
July of 2001, the Texas branch has had 38 different people attend and
Christina, the Texas Chair has received countless E-mails! Thank you,
all you Globetrotter e-newsletter readers – if you live in the area, why
not drop Christina a line and come to the January meeting!

A message from Christina, the Texas chair.

For me, the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters is a monthly support group
to help me with my travel addiction. I’m glad to meet others who like
to talk about travel and share their stories.

The agenda for the December meeting was to share travel stories from
2001 and state travel plans for New Years Resolutions 2002. We politely
shared our stories, and had no time to state our resolutions. It was a
great meeting.

The agenda for the first meeting of 2002 (Saturday, January 12) will
be to share our travel plans for 2002. I’m working on mine – a cruise,
a train trip, a new continent, a retreat, and a national park – see –
this is why I need a support group.

How about you? What are your travel resolutions for the new year? Come
prepared to share.

The next meeting will be Saturday, January 12, New Braunfels Library,
3 p.m. Mark your calendar. Everyone is invited!

The meeting will start promptly at 3 p.m. and end at 5 p.m. Bring a
favorite travel magazine or brochure to contribute to the door prize.
Plan to arrive by 2:30 for extra networking time.

Following the Jan 12 meeting we will adjourn to the Hoity Toit for more
talk and tales.

Christina’s advice is to come early so you won’t be late! Anybody
who wants to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact
her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

Early November. I need WARMTH and SUN. Flights to Malaga are
cheap, temperature check on the web – 22-23°C, comfortable for walking.
SO I decided on Andalusia. No, I don’t speak Spanish but I am happy to
travel alone and try and chat to people as I go along.

On arrival at Malaga it was T-shirt weather. It was great to feel the
sun on my face, quietly sipping coffee and chilling out. Just the job:
I decided to head to Granada the next day, and, being typically British,
wondered about the weather: would it be too cold, Granada nestling under
the mountains. What a lovely city! No problem with the weather or so I
thought!! After a lovely day, as the evening closed I could physically
feel the temperature dropping by degrees.

Later that night, I shivered under 5 layers of blankets and dare not
move off the small patch I had managed to warm as the sheets were like
ice. Next day I set off early to visit the Alhambra. It was cold but that
meant that it wasn’t busy, giving me plenty of opportunity to absorb the
beautiful architecture and the ornate decoration. On my return I begged
for a heater for my room `but heaters aren’t supplied until the 15^th
of November (shades of Faulty Tower’s – the Beetle!) – oh yes they are!

The view of the mountains from the station next day was very picturesque,
all covered in snow! I headed away from the mountains – Seville had to
be warmer – but passing a digital display confirmed my worst fears, one
o’clock in the afternoon and only 10°. I found a spot out of the bitter
wind and actually got warm but you can’t see a city sitting down unless
you are cooped up in a vehicle – not my scene. I like to walk, explore
and discover the unexpected. Things got worse: the skin on my feet started
to crack up and the next day not only did I have sore, bleeding feet but
also a sore throat. I persevered.

After a day of sun but little warmth I decided to head south to Jerez
the next day. I spent ages looking for the tourist office that I located
after tramping through most of the streets and seeking directions from
half of the residents. Please note that it is not where the Lonely Planet
or the road signs say. They have moved it away from the centre and kept
it a secret from the locals! All I wanted was bus routes! After visiting
stables and watching the magnificent Andalucian horses being put through
their paces I could walk no further so found a bench in the sun and escaped
into fantasy with Harry Potter, supplied by a very thoughtful friend.

That night my nose turned into a tap and I shook from head to feet as
my cold took it course. It was no good I wanted to go home so next day
I headed, defeated, back to Malaga to try and get an earlier flight. There
was nothing till the following morning so I got a room near the station
ready for a 6am start. Hi Ho. This trip had definitely been jinxed. That
evening they decided to knock down the corridor around my room. I do not
speak Spanish but I think they got the idea of what I was saying!!! How
could my timing be so bad, hitting the week when all Europe was hit by
abnormal and extreme weather conditions. Needless to say, on arriving
back at Gatwick it was a pleasant sunny autumn day, warm for the time
of year……. Harry Potter was great fun…..

Poor sun-starved Gill, who wants the second HP now – my little Beetle
heart goes out to her! If you would like to contact Gill, to commiserate,
she can be reached on:gill.ward@virgin.net