447 metres? Not so high

We've survived our first day of inclement weather in Canada. Fortunately most of our scheduled sight-seeing today involved mainly indoor activity. The rain subsequently cleared this evening just in time to provide a spectacular sunset.  From our hotel window we were able to watch its dying rays light up the shores of Lake Ontario.

We started the day with a taxi ride through Downtown to the Royal Ontario Museum (known locally as ROM). As we entered the building we were greeted by the extraordinary sight of a 30 metre long "brontosaurus" type dinosaur skeleton towering overhead. This display was promoting a new dinosaur exhibit at the ROM with dozens of impressive skeletons on display.  I've never seen anything quite like it and I know my parents surely haven't.

Once we'd had our fill of Jurassic encounters it was off to visit the CN Tower. At 553 metres this was once the world's tallest free-standing structure. However, its height has since be surpassed by at least three more recent structures in Asia and the Middle East. Despite its relegation from the record books my father was particularly keen to see it.

While on our way to to the tower, I arranged for our cab driver to take us on a brief circuit of Downtown. As he weaved his way through traffic I furiously pointed out landmark buildings and locations including the graceful, curving towers of City Hall.  This proved the perfect compromise to a walking tour I'd previously recommended before light rain began falling as we left the ROM. 

The CN Tower delighted my father. The view from the Skypod observation deck 447 metres above the street is rather breath-taking and the glass floor section is an unnerving battle of mind over matter. Like millions before us we were mesmerised by the experience of looking down on commuter airplanes coming in to land at the nearby Toronto Islands airport.

We then finished our day enjoying an evening performance of Cirque de Solei under its temporary, custom-built big top tent. This was a first for my parents. They loved every minute of the colourful spectacle. This is live entertainment at its best as a cavalcade of elaborate costumes, sights and sounds dazzled our senses for almost two hours.

• Posted from my iPhone

• Location:Harbour Square,Toronto,Canada

Hello Toronto!

Not a lot to report this evening. Today was largely devoted to travel.  The day began with an airport transfer from Banff to Calgary where we caught a flight to Toronto. The drive to Calgary gave us a final glimpse of the Rocky Mountains that you can see in the photo posted here. It was spectacular farewell before the broad, dry plains of the midwest opened up before us.

We caught a brief glimpse of Winter Olympic Games facilities on the outskirts of Calgary before eventually reaching the airport. As we checked-in we were advised that our flight was oversold and we'd been placed on stand-by. However I successfully paraded my weary father in front of the gate staff and soon had confirmed seats secured on our preferred flight.

Four hours later we found ourselves safely on the ground in Toronto just as the sun began to set. I've hired a car to get us around which initially seemed a rather bold move as we struggled to find our way out of the airport and on to the correct freeway.

We made at least one unnecessary loop of the airport before finaly heading in the right direction. However, Dad kindly thought I'd flawlessly navigated my way to our hotel and so my record as a tour guide remains intact.

The evening ended on a high note when when we learnt that the hotel had upgraded our rooms to those with a view of Lake Ontario. Dad also thought the tomato soup he ordered at dinner was simply divine, resulting in the broadest smile so far this trip.

Tomorrow we're off to see the spectacular (and recently refurbished) dinosaur gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum before making our way up the CN Tower to take in the view. Tomorrow evening's entertainment will then be provided by the famous Cirque de Soliel.

 

Life is beautiful

Every so often a picture paints a thousand words...

One postcard moment after another

Lake Louise is considered the Rocky Mountain's jewel in the crown. After today's rental car expedition from Banff along the Bow River Parkway to Lake Louise, I'd have to agree. The lake and its vista are truly postcard manna.  Once again our photos simply don't do justice to the real thing.

Highlights today included a detour to view Moraine Lake, framed by soaring granite mountains, a light lunch in the Fairmont Hotel at Lake Louise, and a late afternoon ride up the cable car at Banff to soak in breathtaking panoramic views of the Rocky Mountains. Mum and Dad loved it all, as did I.

More details later. For now, here are a few images from our day in the Rocky Mountains.

Rocky Mountain Wow!

The first of the autumn colours are just starting to appear as we cross the Rocky Mountains. This bodes well for our road tour through Ontario two weeks from now. Garry and I saw some spectacular colours seven years ago so I'd love my parents to experience the same sight.

Our second day on the train kicked off just as the sun was rising. It made the rather plain town of Kamloops look quite dazzling. We traced the shores of several lakes for the first three hours before venturing into classic pine-clad mountain glades. The view then grew progressively more stunning as we slowly made our way east.

The rest of the day was filled with an endless progression of breath-taking emerald lakes, iridescent powder blue rivers and towering snow-capped mountains. We caught brief glimpses of spawning salmon and even a few adventurous white-water rafters.

Sadly, my photos barely do justice to the scenery we've enjoyed. A combination of passing trees (lots of passing trees) and elbow-welding SLR camera enthusiasts made it impossible to capture more than a few fleeting images.

Highlights today include the engineering marvel of the spiral tunnels that carry the train up and over Kicking Horse Pass. The tunnels twist through the slopes of Mount Ogden rising as they turn. This allows the train to rise more than 150 feet in less than a kilometre without exceeding a gradient of 2.5%.

Despite plenty of an ethusiasm we also failed to spot any bears today. We'll try again tomorrow when we hire a car and drive to Lake Louise.

• Posted from my iPhone

• Location:The really Rocky Mountains

Dawn in Kamloops

A couple of images that capture our first hour of travel on Day 2 of the Rocky Mountaineer.  Our train departed Kamloops at 7:00am just as the sun was rising. Yes; that's a bald eagle! It flew along side our carriage for almost a minute as our train headed east towards Banff.

Rocky Mountaineer

We arrived in Kamloops this evening after travelling 263 miles by train through the Rocky Mountains. The first day of our two-day journey saw us travel through some of the mountain's driest region.  This meant that the canyon walls typically lacked vegetation and what plant life we did see along the route was often sparse.

Highlights today include seeing a log barge drag its snaking load down the river, watching impossibly long freight trains weave their way through spectacular gorges and Hell's Gate, a narrow river cutting spanned by a brilliant red footbridge. Dad was also thrilled to see two bald eagles, while I briefly caught a glimpse of a black bear lumbering along a distant ridge.

The Rocky Mountaineer train has already proven memorable even though the most spectacular part of our journey still lies ahead of us. We'll spend 12.5 hours tomorrow winding our way through the highest peaks and deepest canyons before reaching Banff.

 

Vancouver redux

I've just finished the first full day of a grand Canadian tour I'm taking with my Mum and Dad.  I hired a car at Vancouver airport yesterday which proved a wise move.  It's given us maximum flexibility to see almost everything Dad had thrown on to his bucket list.

Yesterday we went to the Calipano suspension bridge, a 450 foot long footbridge that sits 175 feet above a rather ominous canyon.  Dad was thrilled to finally tackle the treetop walk on its far side where a series of elevated, suspension bridges guide you through soaring Redwood trees, at time the walk takes you 50 feet up into the air.

Today we started our day with a leisurely brunch in a cafe Garry and I enjoyed two years ago.  We then went on to tour the massive green expanse of Stanley Park, before heading downtown to walk along the waterfront where seaplanes come and go with surprising frequency. 

After lunch we caught the gondola up Grouse Mountain to take in a sun drenched view of the entire Vancouver region. The mountain park also hosts two captive Grizzly bears, one of which put on a cheeky water show for us while we were there. Another tick on Dad's bucket list. It's been a wonderful start to our vacation.

We have an early rise tomorrow to ensure we catch our scenic Rocky Mountains train at 7.30am. The train will be our home for the next two days as we wind our way from Vancouver to Banff.

In transit

I'm currently in transit at LAX waiting to board my onward connection to Vancouver. The weather is overcast and foggy here. Definitely not the typical LA sunshine that usually greets jet-lagged visitors.

UPDATE:
Click here for the first post from our travels through Canada and New York. Then click forward to newer post to follow our journey.

• Posted from my iPhone

• Location:World Way,Los Angeles,United States

Bucket lists at the ready

My parents have been counting down to the start of our forthcoming Canadian vacation. Less than 24 hours from now they’ll depart from Auckland for Vancouver. My flights to the USA and Canada also depart tomorrow morning. The weather forecast for our first ten days of touring looks promising. Only one day of passing showers is currently forecast late next week. This inclement weather hits us on the day we plan to tour the sights of Toronto. However, many are indoors so the impact should be minimal.

I’m looking forward to sharing many memories with my parents in the weeks ahead. We’ll start our vacation in Vancouver. Garry and I visited here in July 2010 as we prepared to board a cruise to Alaska. The photo above was taken downtown on that last visit. 

 Our travelling trio will then spend two days travelling by train through the Rocky Mountains to Banff where we’ll spend a day touring in a rental car. From Banff we fly to Toronto. Garry and I were last here in 2005 en route to London for the start of our five-year UK adventure. This was my second time in the city as I’d first come here as an exchange student in May 1984. 

This time, while in Toronto, I’ll be taking my parents to Niagara Falls for day. This will be my third visit to the Falls. You may recall that I took a day trip here while in New York last year, almost 18 years after my first visit.

Our journey then takes us to New York for two days where we have a helicopter flight scheduled, tickets to Broadway booked and reservations to view the new Ground Zero 9/11 memorial. From the Big Apple we head back to Canada to drive from Montreal to Toronto via Ottawa, replicating the journey that Garry and I took five years ago. We hope to be there just as the autumn colours hit their peak.

Highlights of our road trip will also include a visit to Boldt Castle, which sits on an island in the St Lawrence River, and a day trip to Syracuse, New York where I was an exchange student in 1983-84. I’m sure this side trip will be special for my parents. They’ll finally get to experience a little of my life as a teenager in America. I’ll be showing them the house I lived in, my high school and the mall I hung out at.

I’ve been back to Syracuse once since 1984. I visited my host parents overnight back in 2001. I recall the experience as being somewhat surreal. It was as if I was being taken on a tour of familiar places but they felt like memories from someone else’s life rather than my own. This makes me a little unsure what emotions I’ll encounter more than a decade later.

Finally, on September 28, we’ll drive to Toronto Airport to catch our respective flights back home. I’ll be returning to Sydney with my long-term career still unresolved, while my Dad will return home with more things ticked off his bucket list. 2012 is certainly turning into a year of unexpected twists and turns.

Falling in love, one app at a time

Some readers may recall that I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Tabet 10.1 this time last year. Since then I've had something of a love-hate relationship with this purchase. At times I've regretted not following the flock and simply buying an Apple iPad. I found its user interface rather clunky and missed useful apps only available on the iPhone/iPad platform.

However, in recent months I've slowly begun to warm to my purchase.  I've started to use the Tab for more and more activities and enjoying the experience..  What had begun to feel like an expensive white elephant is slowly becoming an increasingly handy asset. Several recent events have driven my change of heart.

The first watershed moment happened as I began gearing up for life after Text 100, my former employer. With more time on my hands, I began experimenting with my tablet and soon realised it was the perfect device for reading downloaded e-copies of my favourite British publications. Suddenly I have access to the world's greatest journalism days before titles were available in Australia, and in some cases, access to titles not sold here.

I now read the Economist and the Times of London on my tab.  The Times app is partially user friendly. I doubt I'd ever go back to reading the hard copy version. Likewise, hard copies of the Economist now lie around the house still sealed in their plastic postage bag. I wish the magazine would follow the lead of the Times and offer a digital-only subscription.

The next few watershed moments came as Garry and I went on vacation in the USA last month. I decided to try using the tablet as my primary computing device while on the road. This seemed like a relatively low-risk experiment as Garry was still travelling with his laptop. The Tab was fantastic. It weighed nothing and I was able to do most online (and offline) activities with ease. For example, I downloaded detailed roadmaps before leaving home and successfully used them to navigate our 2,300-mile journey.

Granted some of the local landmark data wasn't available offline making it difficult to locate restaurants and other local amenities. However, I did find a partial solution that once downloaded gave us limited access to searchable landmark data. This came in handy a few days later when our low-fuel light came on outside Portland. Within seconds I located three service stations within a 10km radius.

While we were on the road Samsung also released its copy of the new "Icecream Sandwich" upgrade to Andriod, the operating system that powers my Galaxy Tab. This "open source" derived operating system is currently the most popular platform for smartphones, outselling Apple almost two to one. I downloaded the upgrade and immediately feel in love with it. The clunky interface was gone, replaced by a slicker, more appealing alternative. The upgrade now supported several handy features that I'd sorely missed such as nested folders for archiving email.

Finally, I've dusted off the Zagg wireless keyboard I'd bought last year with my Galaxy Tab.  Until now I'd not been convinced it was an effective alternative to a regular laptop.  However, I've given it a go and found that it works brilliantly. It's a definite improvement on the frustratingly slow finger-tapping soft keyboard I've persisted with until now.  It makes intensive data entry for emails and blog posts far less painful. In fact, this post is being created using the very keyboard I'm praising.

The final hurdle I've yet to overcome is the transfer of photos from my digital camera to the tablet. Currently, the cables I have don't include connectors that work with a Galaxy Tab. To date, I've been taking photos on the road using my iPhone and then posting these to the blog via a mobile app. At a later date, whenever I have access to a laptop and wireless network, I go back and update my blog posts with higher-quality images from my digital camera. Capturing images of the same scene with two devices and two generations of blog posting is hardly ideal. If I can overcome this final limitation, with the right cable or an SD card reader, I may never take my laptop on the road again.

In short, over a period of a few brief months, I've genuinely warmed to my Galaxy Tab. It's fast becoming integrated into my daily routine leaving my laptop and paper magazines languishing idle on the kitchen table. Viva the revolution!

UPDATE:  5.20pm
I've just completed a shopping expedition and now have a shiny new connection kit for my Galaxy Pad.  It enables me to download photos using an SD card reader or the USB cable I use with my digital camera.  Both connections work brilliantly.  I think I've just committed myself to life on vacation without a bulky laptop.

Human endeavour in its finest hour

Neil Armstrong died on August 25  following complications from recent heart surgery. He was 82. His name needs no introduction. Every student learns at a young age that Neil Armstrong was the commander of Apollo 11, America’s first attempt to land men on the moon’s surface. On July 20, 1969 he successfully piloted a flimsy module, called Eagle, from lunar orbit onto the grey, barren plains of the Sea of Tranquility. Hours later he stepped off the module’s ladder immortalizing his name for all of history as the first human to ever stand on the surface of another celestial body.

Garry and I were in Portland, Oregon when his death was announced. As a self-confessed space fanatic, I found it fascinating to watch US news coverage unfold. The first observation that struck me was simply the story's relatively low profile. It featured towards the end of most TV bulletins and didn’t make the front page of several daily publications. I found it extraordinary that the man who enacted one of the greatest feats in the history of our species seemed to matter so little to the nation that made it possible.

I expected Neil Armstrong’s death to generate an endless news cycle of self-indulgent boasts about America’s enviable superpower status. After all, more than four decades on, no other nation has replicated the Apollo program’s success. Its cost alone demonstrated the nation’s enormous wealth, while its triumphant completion demonstrated the nation’s ability to muster resources to achieve the impossible. Apollo showcased America’s technical know-how at its greatest.

The lack of hype was profound.  The contrast couldn’t have been starker when compared with my experience as an exchange student in upstate New York.  In 1983 I found myself constantly surrounded by brash, boastful and often arrogant claims about America’s superiority.  News bulletins promoted it.  Sitcoms portrayed it.  Even the language of its textbooks and newspaper proclaimed it. 

Fast forward three decades.  News coverage of Neil Armstrong’s death simply seemed to highlight how much America’s psyche has changed.  The nation no longer appears to believe its own rhetoric.  It’s as if the recent global financial crisis, the relentless rise of China’s economy and the events of 9/11 have progressively taken their toll.  Ironically, beyond the USA, publications such as the Times of London and the Sydney Morning Herald consistently gave the story top billing.

A national memorial service is now planned for September 13 at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.  Perhaps the man who personified America’s greatest, and the human capacity for innovation, will finally be remembered with pride and admiration.  Never again will any other human be the first to stand on the surface of a celestial body other than Earth. His one small step for a man truly was a giant leap for mankind.

Keeping up appearances

Ten days from now I'll be boarding yet another airplane to make my way back to North America.  This time I'm taking my parents on the trip of a lifetime through Canada and New York.  No doubt there will be plenty of new posts to share in the weeks ahead. 

As a result, I've been working hard to complete a series posts covering the tour of China I took with my parents back in May.  I finally published the last of these update earlier today. The following series of links take you to each post I've now published.

• Read about our two-day whirlwind tour of Shanghai.  Highlights included the luxurious Grand Hyatt hotel and a waterfront stroll along the world famous Bund.
 
• Our first day in Xian, the ancient imperial capital of China.
 
• The magic of the Terracotta Warriors.
 
• Some of the other incredible sights and sounds of Xian that you never hear about. I think the city walls are almost as remarkable as the Terracotta Warriors.
 
• Our first day in Beijing where we visited the Temple of Heaven and later watched hundreds of people spontaneously dancing in a plaza outside our hotel.
 
• Our visit to the Great Wall of China.  Mao Tse-tung once said you're not truly a man until you've walked along its ramparts.
 
• A walking tour of the Forbidden City, just one of five cultural highlights we packed into our second full day in Beijing.
 
• A grand Panda spotting expedition that left all of us speechless, including our guide.
 
• My visit to Jingshan Park, one of the most extraordinary landmarks in all of Beijing.
 
• Finally, my successful visit to the Tian Tan Buddha of Hong Kong following years of failed attempts.

You may also want to take a look at the June archive for posts on trips that Garry and I made to Adelaide and Canberra back in April. Enjoy the memories. We've had fun creating them!
 

What a welcome!

We flew into Sydney this morning to be greeted by stunning blue skies and sunshine.  The view from our apartment balcony was a welcome sight.  The forecast from tomorrow is for a week of sunshine, with temperatures peaking at 27C on Wednesday. It'll be as warm back here as it was in the USA.  Spring has arrived.