Belize is making a big big mistake...

The trusty Flyertalk website produced the cheap cheap fares of $229 for New York - Belize on American Airlines one recent night, so Crescent in his excitement put a reservation on hold himself and Crossing for MLK Day 2009.

Then in looking for visa requirements, we come on to an addt'l requirement that the Director of Immigration approve any citizens of five countries, of which China is one, along with Bangladesh, Colombia, and Bolivia. Why is this?

That little China - Taiwan problem of course. You see, among the small dinky list of 23 countries that recognize Taiwan and thus not China is Belize. To get into Belize, my Crossing requires that Director approval, $2,100 visa fee, and a $4,000 refundable repatriation fee (to fund them getting rid of her if they discover she is a spy).

So much for saving $100 on the airfare....

Our first exposure!

What are three 1968 pennies worth? Probably three cents, or even less once maintenance costs are taken care of.

What maintenance costs? Keeping them and occasionally looking at them under some unrealistic thesis they could be worth something in 30 years. Well, a 1940 penny I found on a tennis court this weekend is worth 25-50 cents, and the 1968 pennies don't even have the old wheat design.

So in looking for their value, I stumbled on the site 1968pennies.com and agree with them they aren't worth much, with almost 5 million of them minted. But 11,917 of them, their current collection is worth MUCH, though not too much- about $160 at the current copper price of $2.15 per pound, not even the domain name costs over the nine years this site has been up, so it isn't some get rich very slowly scheme.

As a tribute to the site, these three 1968 pennies donated to them with a stamp are all it costs to get the first link to Crossing World established in cyber space. Cheaper than going to Google, I imagine....

How nice if $20 millions dropped on my head...

In recent months, I have day-dreamed been hit by $20 millions from the sky... This thought comes out more often when I am tired, depressed or mistreated at work. What is funny is that I don't dream about what to do with it. It is really the security of having it that attracted me. Then I have to admit, although part of me still trying to deny, that money is among the top reasons that now I work hard.

Our business pays quite well esp. the pay is directly tied to the number, which is the ultimate driver of working hard and taking on lots of stress. I haven't gotten to that point but am afraid that sooner or later I will face it - can I leave this business and go make only half or one third of what I made before and still be Okay? Not-being-Okay thought really scares me. I hate to be tied on something and cannot let it go.

The Last Emperor Revisited

I sat down in front of TV after a long day of house work and happened to notice that this channel was showing the Last Emperor, the American version from 1987 starring John Lone and Joan Chen. I saw the Chinese version of the Last Emperor,which came out couple of years earlier I remembered, but only part of the American version in the past. So I took the opportunity and watched the whole thing. Indeed the movie was well done.

I am not sure if it is the American version focusing on some part of history that I am not so familiar with, or it is the changes in my ways of looking at things over the last 15 years. I never felt so strongly about how badly Pu Yi was mistreated after 1949. Why is it so hard to respect him and possibly use his talents / skills / knowledge? In many cultures' history, abdicated emperors were treated quite well although they no longer ruled the country. why did we have to put this guy down entirely and step on him and his dignity so much? ...

CHEE KA GO

So the stout bassist goes through his first song and I am feeling really cool as the crowd grows around the outdoor set-up at Nyhaven, the cool canal area at Copenhagen Harbor.

I am convinced he is American for no particular reason and waiting for him to address the crowd after the song saying something like how honored he is to be here at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

After he talks in Danish for a while, I am impressed but still think he is American, just bilingual.

After enjoying another song, he says he is going to play SWEET CHICAGO, except pronounced just like anyone with a Germanic mother tongue would- CHEE KA GO.

At that point, I begin to respect how many good Danish jazz players there are.

LOT Polish

Ahhh, yes, the benefit of low expecations. I was looking forward to flying LOT Polish (Copenhagen-Warsaw-NY) return for the novelty but upper mgmt wasn't, not after sumptuous service on Singapore Air from NY to Frankfurt on the outbound. (For the list of kooky airlines flying to weird destinations, write us here)

Surprise, surprise- an above avg experience! Half-full flight to Warsaw on a clean, good legroom regional jet. They are our first to offer a second drink (tea or coffee) right away with the meal. Alcohol was free, and the food pretty good, though repetitive.

Shockingly, we'd have to put LOT above SAS, where nothing, not even water, was free. They're both under pressure from low-cost carriers (SAS from Norwegian Air Shuttle and Sterling; LOT from Wizz and there they are again- Norwegian Air Shuttle in Warsaw)- maybe LOT is owned by the state still and doesn't care. Nonetheless, it joins Iberia as an airline without a reputation we rate above the crowd.

A gleaming new Terminal 2 at Warsaw's Chopin airport as good as any in Europe- looked underused but this is a growing economy- it will fill in due time. It was quite a contrast to the Soviet-era Terminal 1 we arrived in- ugly red vinyl chairs, atrocious dotted white tile floors.

The European airports we transited were all great- Frankfurt is a little worn being older and heavily used, but Oslo, Copenhagen (!!!), Warsaw's new terminal 2 were all expanses of light and high ceilings, easy directions/departure screens, no lines, beautiful wood or tile floors, hard-to-imagine getting crowded. Even Bergen's and Tromso's small airports in Norway put your typical American small city airport to shame.

Copenhagen

Why don't people talk more about this wonderful city? Maybe it's because it's summer but this is a walking person's dream- pedestrian streets, squares, happy people, English-speaking, harbors, canals, cafes, restaurants, museums absolutely everywhere, clean clean clean, and shopping for those who love Scandinavian prices. It's not a vista city- upper management was less enthusiastic snapping photos than in other places, but you have such a sense of content here, you feel like you have to wake up from the dream (and Copenhageners probably do in their dark, wet, windy winter).

On Fri Jul 11 alone the program had 110 performances around the city for the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. We managed to see 4 in 2 days, all free (this city rules!)- surprisingly all performers spoke Danish- there must be a lot of Danish jazz musicians. We heard everything from vocal to young guys playing modern to five 60-somethings puffing oboes and trumpets to traditionals- crowds from 50 to 500. It was great- we'll have to see the Williamsburg Festival in Sep in NY.

So supposedly Danes are the happiest people in the world- is it the social capitalism inherent in Scandinavia or that this is a fairly homogenous, educated, content small country. The travel book said the attitude to working longer hrs here is "Why? You just get taxed more.". Maybe they're happy because everyone at the top is scuppered and no one is rich to make the rest feel bad. It's hard to find luxury shopping in Copenhagen- we saw more H&Ms and Zaras than all luxury stores combined. Could it work in the US? Will Obama try? He better not- I am holding my wallet.

Tromso

Was it worth spending 200 bucks going up, 200 bucks going back, a 20% premium to southern Norway (a 30% premium to the US) in prices, and 25 dollar unused intl drivers license to see mountains up close and twilight all day? In your 30s with youth slipping away and future responsibilities pending, I suppose anything is worth it.

Tromso is at 69 degrees north latitude with two months all day sunshine late May to late July. Being cloudy outside, one pretty much couldn't tell what time it was- it looked like it was 6-7p whether it was 7p, 1a, or 10a. It looked like a small midwestern US city- 70s era buildings and signs, not much else around the region, and lots of delinquents running around.

Lower mgmt spent 25 bucks and an hour in NY getting a cheap intl drivers booklet from AAA only to realize there aren't any automatic transmissions in northern Norway- so out with driving the beautiful island of Kvaloya in the middle of the night.

We busted the bed/breakfasts internet network by trying to connect the line to upper mgmt's corporate laptop. How? We don't know but we slithered away a bit embarrassed. We tried to mingle with the locals but found the preponderance of 20-somethings wearing black and with nothing to do a bit undesirable. Besides they stared at us a lot- we must have been the only Chinese people within 1000 miles.

So we strolled around, paid a lot of money to see their typical tourist attractions (what kind of church charges for entrance? Maybe one named the Arctic Cathedral with a whopping one wall of stained glass that a 3rd grader could have designed)- 20 bucks to see a polar museum essentially 5 seals and a film about Svalbard (which Tromso is STILL 500 miles away from).

So we saw our vistas, took photos that had midnight time stamps, ate expensive food and got the hell out of there, armed with a story for our future kin.

Norwegian Food or not Norwegian Food?

To eat Norwegian food or not in Norway?
By Guest Blogger (Lower Management)

It's not such a tough choice in Oslo because there are no Norwegian restaurants. The honeymooners spent 2 nights in Oslo- night 1 was a Burger King fest because nothing else was open near midnight and the better half refused to eat at one of the 50 kebab places open until 5am. Night 2 was a fruitless search through central Oslo (on a Friday night!) for a bonafide Norwegian place, ending up with boring and expensive French food. We saw everything- Chinese, kebabs, French, Italian, Irish, steaks, a lot of bars, but no Norwegian food. Unbeliveable. All the places in the book were 5-star or outside of downtown.

With all that, why was I surprised to find there are no Norwegian restaurants in New York? The last one apparently succumbed to a Chinese place ~10 years ago, bizarrely sharing a menu for a few years after Chinese management acceeded to begging from Norwegians to keep some items.

Early Summer in Paris, and those quite corners

Tony and I went to a friend's wedding in Paris at the beginning of Jun. We have been to Paris and known it decently well, but this is the first time we were there in early summer. We saw and experienced a different Paris, the one that is more open, pleasant and vibrant.

The friend chose Chateau De Esclimont as the wedding location, which is a perfect place to fulfill her princess getting married in a grand castle dream.

Jiang Hu

What do I really mean by crossingworld? Travel is only a small part of it. World consists of places, things, and most importantly, people. In Chinese this would be Jiang Hu. Where there are people, there is Jiang Hu - the true Chinese philosophy.

Canals or Amsterdam?

We were in Amsterdam during the Easter long weekend and got to see the city in snow.

Berlin - where East meets West

The fact that I grew up in a communist country and was educated in the most powerful capitalism country may have been in my way of enjoying Berlin as a city and appreciating its integrity. During my recent trip to Berlin, I spent so much time tracing the cold war and observing/comparing east and west Berlin. Yes, they are indeed still very different, and cold war has left deep marks in the city and the society, although the Wall was gone 18 years ago.

West Berlin is partially successful trying to be a smaller London - clean, well planned, and lots of people traffic. East side is rather messy, not fully developed and sometimes depressing. Walls after walls of graffiti, very disturbing.

I always like to visit the department store or concentrated shopping district when I visit a city. It is truly a great way to know the people through their spending choices. The largest store in Continental Europe KaDeWa, the legendary Kaufhaus des Westens in Charlottenburg, made me feel home. Ku'Damm, Kurfurstendamm, is like any normal, vibrant and concentrated shopping street in New York or London.

The rebuilding of Berlin brought many excellent architectures to the city. Potsdamer Platz is a good example.

Madrid - the new and modern Paris

We were in Madrid this past Jan - one of the best cities we have been to.