Inventory of Travels

I've decided to take an inventory of all the international places I've been to, and jot down some memories from each location. The mind is going these days... hopefully when I grow old, I will still be able to look back and use this as a trigger to remember the things that happened in my life.

1. 2000 - London & Edinburgh, UK; Brussels, Belgium. My first trip with M and YX... this was only a month after M and I had started going out.
2. 2000 - Barcelona & Madrid, Spain.
3. 2001 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Hong Kong; Guangzhou, China. Family trip to Asia.
4. 2002 - Caribbean cruise to Key West & Cozumel. Went parasailing in Key West and had a blast.
5. 2003 - Cancun, Mexico. I got second degree sunburn and my friend got food poisoning.
6. 2003 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. My first audit. Spent one weekend with my relatives. My uncle made me try durian. It tastes just like it smells. It's true - you either love it or hate it, and I'm the latter.
7. 2003 - Phuket, Thailand. Weekend getaway while on the Malaysia audit. Got an authentic Thai massage... they really dig into your muscles there!
8. 2003 - Chester, UK. SAP pre-implementation audit.
9. 2003 - Lisbon, Portugal. Spent the weekend here by myself walking around and seeing the sites. I actually stayed in Cascais, but took the train out to Lisbon. I didn't have a map, had pretty much no idea where I was going, and couldn't ask anyone b/c no one spoke English. Upon exiting the train station in Lisbon, I wandered aimlessly for a bit through the empty streets (despite warnings of petty crime). I stopped for a minute just to take in my surroundings, and when I looked up, I saw the San Jorges Castle (which was where I had intended to go), so I started trekking up the road towards the castle. So many things could've easily gone wrong, but they didn't. I tell you... God is really watching over me.
10. 2003 - Edinburgh, UK.
11. 2003 - Munich, Germany. My brother came to visit. One weekend, we rented a car to drive to Garmisch, a ski resort somewhere in Germany. We ended up with a stick shift and my coworker was the only one who knew how to drive it. We were doing fine until we got lost and realized we had to turn back the other way. He couldn't figure out how to put the car in reverse while making u-turn in the middle of a busy intersection.
12. 2003 - Vienna, Austria. I spent the weekend there by myself in November. All the Christmas lights and decorations had gone up... the city was glittering with a holiday mood. The weather was cold outside, but I felt warm inside. I remember eating at a local pub by myself near the hotel I was staying at... some kids at the table next to me were staring at me throughout my entire meal. At the end of it, I told the waiter to take my leftovers away. It was at that time that they revealed to me they had a bet on whether I would finish my food.
13. 2004 - Guangzhou, China. The vending machine in the office sold condoms and was fully stocked. A week later, my coworker passed by the vending machine, and it was empty. I guess that's what people in the office are keeping busy with.
14. 2004 - Xian, China. Our first night at the hotel, I raided the mini-bar and drank myself to sleep. We were watching "Jerry McGuire" dubbed in Mandarin. Surprisingly enough, I woke up and didn't have the slightest hangover. The booze was probably watered down.
15. 2004 - Tokyo, Japan. SOX review.
16. 2004 - Kyoto, Japan.
17. 2004 - Osaka, Japan. Did some sightseeing and got a haircut. The haircut part was totally random, but fun. We even took pictures with our stylists.
18. 2004 - Melbourne, Australia. SOX review. On my second trip to Melbourne, we took a drive down the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles. The weather was rainy, dreary, and cold, but still awesome seeing the sites.
19. 2004 - Sydney, Australia.
20. 2004 - Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Went snorkeling while some other coworkers went scuba diving. Everyone who went scuba diving ended up with a nasty rash. When we got back to Melbourne, they had a doctor pay them a visit at the hotel to treat the rash, and he ended up prescribing them medicine that they could've gotten for free at the office... manufactured at the very location we were at.
21. 2004 - Tasmania, Australia. Those Tasmanian Devils are ugly little creatures... not like the cartoon at all.
22. 2004 - Hong Kong; Seoul, Korea. M and I took our wedding pictures in Hong Kong, and we were able to meet up with my aunt for dinner one night. The four of us (SC, CL, M, and I) booked a guided tour trip to Seoul for a couple of days. The tour guide just kept talking about herself the entire time, and we found that there really isn't much to see in Seoul. But nonetheless, we made the best out of the trip and had a good time.
23. 2005 - Bangkok, Thailand. Lots of good shopping at the night market. The ride to the office was long - 45 minutes on a good day, an hour and a half to two hours with traffic.
24. 2005 - Chiang Mai, Thailand. Went on an elephant ride and got a massage at a spa.
25. 2005 - Hong Kong. Went to Hong Kong for the weekend to do some wedding planning and pick up wedding pictures. I almost missed my flight from Bangkok. I was ready to head out of the airport and back to the hotel when I looked up at the monitor to see if my flight had left. Luckily for me, there was a delay (I have a feeling the delay was caused b/c they were waiting for a customer). Everyone at the airport was so helpful in getting me my ticket and boarding pass (at that point, I only had the ticket on hold and hadn't even paid for it yet). I left all my luggage there (which in retrospect, probably wasn't a very wise thing to do), ran to the ATM to get some cash to pay for the ticket, and once all the paperwork was in order, I made a mad dash to the gate, only to find that passengers hadn't even boarded yet.
26. 2005 - Hong Kong. I wouldn't have made the weekend trip to Hong Kong three weeks earlier if I had known I was going to be back there so soon.
27. 2005 - Singapore. Paid a visit to good friends SC and CL... they had just moved there and were still living in temporary housing. I was honored to be their first guest.
28. 2005 - Paris, France; Venice, Capri & Rome, Italy. Our honeymoon. There was a heat wave and we did a lot of walking around... Capri was beautiful, but I got bitten, and they all swelled up to the size of quarters. It was pretty bad walking around in shorts with red blotches all over my legs.
29. 2005 - Athens, Greece. Our hotel had a view of the Acropolis. It looked quite nice at night when it as all lit up.
30. 2005 - Santorini, Greece; Larnaca, Cyprus. Lots of sunbathing... I actually got tanned! Too bad I lost the tan within two weeks of being back.
31. 2005 - Johannesburg, South Africa. Had the worst food poisoning of my life. To this day, I don't know if it was bad sushi from dinner or a bad burger from lunch earlier that day. I woke up in the middle of the night and started vomiting. Every half hour or so, I'd have to run to the bathroom to throw up. The next morning, I had to get up for a scheduled warehouse tour at an offsite location, but once that was over, I was taken back to the hotel and slept through the day.
32. 2005 - Capetown, South Africa. Stayed at a great hotel... everything was new and modern looking, free PCs and Internet access in the rooms, huge comfortable beds, inexpensive rate... couldn't ask for anything more.
33. 2005 - Kruger National Park, South Africa. We rented a car from Johannesburg to make the drive to Kruger National Park. It was originally suppose to be an automatic, but something happened with the car they were going to give us... either it got into an accident, or was not returned. In any event, we ended up with a stick shift. My coworker started teaching me how to drive it that night after dinner, and somehow I was able to bring us back to the hotel in one piece. With just that one lesson under my belt, I was put behind the wheel again the next day... inside Kruger National Park. At one point, I couldn't get the car started. I remember a giraffe staring at me, as if taunting me b/c it knew I couldn't move the car in my life depended on it. After numerous tries (and when I say numerous, I mean so many times that I lost count), I finally got the car started and we were on our way once again. It was a good thing no one was behind us...
34. 2005 - Agen, France. (Where in the world is Agen?) It's south of Paris, near the Bordeaux region and Spain... which is why we took weekend trips to both those places during the two weekends we were there. There's really nothing much in Agen. We stayed at a B&B owned by an elderly lady who didn't speak English and her grandson. There were no laundry facilities on the premises, so one day we had to leave work early just to make it to the local laundromat to wash our clothes (everything also closed very early there). What a team bonding moment - watching our knickers spin through the dryer. Oh yes, and there was another stick shift driving experience. One night we were working late in the office. It was probably close to 9pm and we had not gotten dinner yet. The manager was the only person who knew how to drive a stick shift well, but he was on a conference call, so the team decided to drive to McDonald's to pick up some food. My coworker had a couple of lessons driving the stick shift, but when we were in the parking lot, he couldn't get the car to go in reverse. I offered to take a stab at it, and was able to back the car out, but it was the accelerating forward that got us in trouble. We made it out of the office complex, and were well on our way. But at one point, I had to stop at a stop sign, and once I did, I couldn't get the car started again. We were stuck in that corner for probably 5 minutes before I was finally able to move again.
35. 2005 - Barcelona, Spain. We had no idea where to go once we arrived at the city limits. It probably wasn't a very smart thing to do not to bring a map with us. But we eventually found our way after stopping at a couple of gas stations.
36. 2005 - Bordeaux, France. We walked around the main city area on Saturday, expecting to visit the vineyards on Sunday. We drove around for hours on Sunday, but to our disbelief, nothing was open. There wasn't even a place we could stop for lunch anywhere. At least the drive was scenic.
37. 2006 - Sao Paulo, Brazil. My last official audit. M came to visit. We had the best mango we've ever tasted there.
38. 2006 - Iguassu Falls, Brazil. Simply amazing. This place puts the Niagara Falls to shame.
39. 2006 - Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, El Calafate, Argentina. I would say this is one of the best vacations yet, in terms of location. It was amazing seeing the beautiful scenery and being able to trek on the glacier. On our last day in El Calafate, we were suppose to get picked up at 6:30am to catch a 8am boat ride to a ranch. 7am rolled around, then 7:30am came, but still no show. We had the hotel call the travel agency, and apparently, someone forgot to pick us up. They finally got a taxi to come get us past 8am, but by the time we got to the pier, the boat had left without us. The taxi driver was nice enough to wait for us in case we couldn't catch the boat, so we had him drive us to the travel agency so he can get paid. The travel agency placed us on this other lame tour to a farm b/c that was the only excursion left. We walked around the farm and watched a sheep get sheared... it was so depressing. Afterwards, we had the driver take us back to the travel agency to complain some more. We got in touch with the person I originally booked the tours with, and she said that if we were willing to stay an extra day in El Calafate, we can go on the excursion the next day. We agreed, so she changed our flight to leave the following day and arranged for us to stay at the hotel another night at no extra charge. Meanwhile, I called up the Marriott in Buenos Aires and changed our hotel reservations there, and it worked out perfectly b/c I ended up being able to use points for the entire stay (originally would've had to pay for one night). Staying an extra day was well worth it... being able to see the Upsala Glacier from the top of a mountain... words don't do it justice.
40. 2007 - Royal Caribbean cruise to Puerto Rico, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and the Bahamas.
41. 2007 - Stockholm, Sweden. Joined the loaner program with internal audit. M and YX came to visit. Everything was expensive. I didn't get to go to the Ikea there, but M and YX did, and just like the Ikea in Elizabeth, NJ, there was a free shuttle bus that took them there from Stockholm.
42. 2007 - Bermuda. Friend's wedding. Weather was beautiful, and it was fun just being able to hang out with so many friends outside of NY.

I guess this will be edited as I think of more things to write about.