Remember the laksa I mentioned below? Here it is in all its glory. I will reiterate that cockles are not tasty. Not the worst thing I've ever tasted, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to order them.
More pics of my first day in Singapore up at Flickr.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
First Trip Pictures!
Ok, head on over to Flickr to see the first pictures of the trip. Nothing too exciting yet, just pictures of the flight and airports...
I'm tired and in Singapore. And Singapore is awesome. My first meal in Asia was a bowl of deeeelicious laksa. Well, delicious except for the cockles. I discovered today that I don't really like cockles.
I'm tired and in Singapore. And Singapore is awesome. My first meal in Asia was a bowl of deeeelicious laksa. Well, delicious except for the cockles. I discovered today that I don't really like cockles.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Guess Where I Am.
I'm blogging from the plane.
I'll blog more when I get there.
50 points for the first person to get the song reference above. So, the flights are going well, if a little long. I'm about 3 hours from Singapore. I'm tired but I've slept all I can on this flight, which means I expect to be somewhat jetlagged today. I figure that as long as I can make it though until a decent hour tonight, I should be fully reset by tomorrow. I can only hope.
I'll blog more when I get there.
50 points for the first person to get the song reference above. So, the flights are going well, if a little long. I'm about 3 hours from Singapore. I'm tired but I've slept all I can on this flight, which means I expect to be somewhat jetlagged today. I figure that as long as I can make it though until a decent hour tonight, I should be fully reset by tomorrow. I can only hope.
Monday, May 15, 2006
And I'm off!
I'm about to leave for the airport! I'm feeling equal parts excitement, anxiety and fear. Hopefully the latter two will dissipate as I get going.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
5 Days and counting...
Well, today was my last day at my job. It's treated me very well for the last three years, and allowed me to save up the money to head out on the trip. So although I was happy to head out on my new adventure, a (admittedly small) part of me will miss the security and routine of my job.
There's very little left to do at this point. I need to pick up a couple things for my first aid kit, I should probably plan my route from Singapore a bit more, but otherwise I'm free. The next few days will pass rather quickly, I'm sure.
Monday at 9:30 PM I get on a flight to Singapore.
There's very little left to do at this point. I need to pick up a couple things for my first aid kit, I should probably plan my route from Singapore a bit more, but otherwise I'm free. The next few days will pass rather quickly, I'm sure.
Monday at 9:30 PM I get on a flight to Singapore.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Homeless and loving it.
Well, I made it out of the apartment. Actually, everything went amazingly smoothly. No problems with the truck rental, the parking of said truck, moving all my crap into the truck, driving to Long Island, unloading all the stuff at Atom's house, making it back to Brooklyn.
I'm currently typing from my temporary home, at the some of friends who are willing to put up with me for a week and who live around the corner from my (former) apartment. Which makes it very easy to head over to my apartment tomorrow and clean up and throw things away!
Sorry there haven't been updates lately - been too preoccupied with work and the move and preparing for the trip. But now it's almost here - only 9 days until I leave.
I'm currently typing from my temporary home, at the some of friends who are willing to put up with me for a week and who live around the corner from my (former) apartment. Which makes it very easy to head over to my apartment tomorrow and clean up and throw things away!
Sorry there haven't been updates lately - been too preoccupied with work and the move and preparing for the trip. But now it's almost here - only 9 days until I leave.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Smarter airfare searching.
Forget Orbitz, Expedia, and all those other airfare sites you use now. If you're not using the sites below, you're wasting valuable time, and probably not finding the lowest fares:
Kayak
Mobissimo
Sidestep
All three search for lowest price car and hotel deals as well! They allow you to be as vague or as specific as you want in your searches as well (for example, after you run a search for flights, you can use a slider to set your maximum price).
Go check them out.
Kayak
Mobissimo
Sidestep
All three search for lowest price car and hotel deals as well! They allow you to be as vague or as specific as you want in your searches as well (for example, after you run a search for flights, you can use a slider to set your maximum price).
Go check them out.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Uncanny.
I was just looking through the blog archives, and I realized that thanks to all the changes and delays in my trip, I will now be leaving on the one year anniversary of this blog! May 15, 2005 was my first post. May 15, 2006 is my first flight. I couldn't have planned it any better.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Well, I've been AWOL for a bit, having been sick and then out of town. And in that time, there have been some major changes to the trip.
The impetus for the changes was my brother's wedding in November. Since I have to be back in the States then, it makes the most sense to split my trip into two parts, before and after the wedding. Unfortunately, I had to be in New Zealand by July 7, which put certain restrictions on how I could structure my trip.
Those restrictions are now gone. The wonderful people at New Zealand Immigration were extremely accomodating, and gave me a five-month extension on my working holiday visa. So now I don't need to be in New Zealand until December 7. Once I had this extension, I made several extended phone calls to Delta, attempting to (a) change my flight to NZ to after the wedding, and (b) get a new flight to Asia before the wedding.
The upshot of all this is that I am flying to Singapore on May 15. From there, I will be exploring Asia for 5 1/2 months, heading back to the States on November 1. Then I will be heading out again November 16, leaving for New Zealand and Australia.
Obviously, I've decided to forego Europe and Africa (which were possibilities on this trip) in order to focus on Asia and Oceania. Which is fine by me - I'm still going to visit Africa sometime, and I've spent a decent amount of time in Europe already.
And who knows, I could always add more to this trip if I get the chance...
The impetus for the changes was my brother's wedding in November. Since I have to be back in the States then, it makes the most sense to split my trip into two parts, before and after the wedding. Unfortunately, I had to be in New Zealand by July 7, which put certain restrictions on how I could structure my trip.
Those restrictions are now gone. The wonderful people at New Zealand Immigration were extremely accomodating, and gave me a five-month extension on my working holiday visa. So now I don't need to be in New Zealand until December 7. Once I had this extension, I made several extended phone calls to Delta, attempting to (a) change my flight to NZ to after the wedding, and (b) get a new flight to Asia before the wedding.
The upshot of all this is that I am flying to Singapore on May 15. From there, I will be exploring Asia for 5 1/2 months, heading back to the States on November 1. Then I will be heading out again November 16, leaving for New Zealand and Australia.
Obviously, I've decided to forego Europe and Africa (which were possibilities on this trip) in order to focus on Asia and Oceania. Which is fine by me - I'm still going to visit Africa sometime, and I've spent a decent amount of time in Europe already.
And who knows, I could always add more to this trip if I get the chance...
Monday, March 20, 2006
Completely unrelated to the trip.
In fact, I can't even utilize this on the trip (except for very short periods when I'm uploading things to the site or emailing). But I just had to point out Pandora, a new service for finding music based on music you already like. It's free, it runs in your browser, and it works extremely well. Check it out.
Another similar site: Last.fm. I like Last.fm's organization scheme better, but Pandora works in your browser, and Last.fm requires you to download their software.
Another similar site: Last.fm. I like Last.fm's organization scheme better, but Pandora works in your browser, and Last.fm requires you to download their software.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Miami Beach
Over the weekend I spent an afternoon on Miami Beach. It was a gorgeous day - 80 degrees, breezy, and the water was perfect. Here's a few pictures.
More new gear
And here's another exciting entry in the "stuff Gaz bought" saga. Although this one includes items that were either "borrowed" from my parents or bought by them. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
As before, click on the photo to head to Flickr and see details on all the items.
As before, click on the photo to head to Flickr and see details on all the items.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Where's Gaz?
Well, it's been over a week since the last post - I've been down in sunny Florida relaxing on a long weekend. Got a few pictures to share and a few new items of gear, so look for a couple updates later this week.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
A monster of a tripod alternative?
One of the items I've been thinking of purchasing for the trip is a mini tripod,as I'd like to get the best photos I can on the trip. Now, however, I'm considering this instead. As you can see from this Gizmodo review, Monsterpod is a small lump of goo that apparently replaces your tripod. It can stick to any hard surface (or so they claim). I'm going to do a bit more research on this product, but if it actually performs as well as it claims, I'll probably buy one for the trip.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Mmmm, delicious.
New link on the sidebar - my del.icio.us links. del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site - you add your bookmarks and tag them with appropriate words (for example, travel, rtw, and blog would be some appropriate tags for gazerrant). Others can view your bookmarks and search for sites by their tags. My del.icio.us bookmarks will be here. There's nothing there yet, but as I find new sites related to travel, gear, or anything else I find interesting, I'll be posting them.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Paragon shopping spree!
Yesterday I went to Paragon Sporting Goods in Manhattan to purchase some gear - here you can see the results. I got a towel, a sleep sheet, a travel shirt, and several other items. Click on the photo to go to Flickr, where I've tagged the photo with information on each piece of gear.
Friday, March 03, 2006
More technical difficulties.
Unfortunately, I made a small error while updating the site, and as a result I had to re-load my template. So now the links, my countdown clock, my visitor counter, etc., etc., have to be added back onto the site. This will happen in the next few days. I've learned my lesson: ALWAYS BACKUP!
Thursday, March 02, 2006
New banner, obviously.
I fully expect that the first thing you notice upon visiting today or later is the new banner at the top. Please feel free to give me your comments on it! And if you don't see it, let me know so I can fix it.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Technical Difficulties...
Just so anyone reading knows, www.gazerrant.com may be down for the next few days, as I do a little work on the web presence. The blog will still be accessible at gazerrant.blogspot.com.
*UPDATED* www.gazerrant.com should now redirect you back to the blog.
*UPDATED* www.gazerrant.com should now redirect you back to the blog.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Wayfaring Maps
Wayfaring seems like an interesting resource. Right now it's still a little wonky - I could not get the map to show my route going west from L.A. to Seoul (apparently Wayfaring has problems with the International Date Line right now). Hopefully it will get the bugs worked out, though, and I'll be using it to display a routemap and points of interest from the trip.
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