Molokini

This morning I didn’t know about Molokini. Now, I want to go there as soon as possible. It’s a partially-submerged volcanic crater just off the coast of Maui, one of the best diving and snorkeling places in the world.

Fun Fact

By law, no building on the Hawaiian island of Kauai can be taller than a coconut tree.

Not-So Fun Fact

I learned something today: Skype credits expire.

I think I’ve sung the praises of Skype before. It’s a service that allows you to make very cheap, sometimes free calls to anywhere in the world using your computer. Sometimes calls have that echo-y, transatlantic cable quality to them, but it’s so inexpensive that it’s worth it in a lot of cases. I loaded my account up when I was planning my trip to Shanghai, and I still had a lot left even after bickering with the soccer-ticket salespeople several times. (I would have gone broke attempting this with my landline.)

I’ve barely used Skype since then, though, because I don’t need to call overseas very often. And today, I got an email saying that my credit would expire in a week if I didn’t make a call.

Curiously, though, you can call anywhere for any length of time and it counts. So I performed the curious ritual of calling myself from my desk. My home phone rang across the room. I picked it up and listened to myself breathe for a few seconds, and then hung up. This appears to be all it takes to keep the account active. Strange business.

Here be Dragons?

Did you know that 70% of Hong Kong’s landmass is rural? I’ve even been there and that surprises me. I guess I shouldn’t have spent all my time eating Indian food in Kowloon. (For one thing, getting out more might have made writing the H.K. destination summary easier.)

What do you suppose they're growing on all this land? Cameras?

Fun Fact

The Mall of the Emirates in Dubai has a Borders, a Virgin Megastore, a movie theater, and Starbucks. Oh, and a ski area. There is a man-made hill with actual snow and a 200-foot vertical drop in the middle of the mall. Strange place. If homosexuality weren’t punishable by death in the United Arab Emirates, I might just go see it for myself.

I Got the Gig

I’ve been asked to write 20 destination blurbs for the Perfect Escapes web site. This is a lot like work I used to do at Travelocity, only aimed at a readership with a lot of disposable income.

I kind of thought this would be a piece of cake until I started trying to write one on San Francisco. I’m so overwhelmed daydreaming about what I would do in the Bay Area if I had an expense account that I have hardly typed a word all afternoon. Maybe I should start with an easy one, like Dubai.

Busy for a Change

I’m working on two paying gigs this week, which is unusual for me. I’m editing, and I’m also writing a few destination descriptions on spec for a luxury travel company based in San Francisco. I have my friend Randy, a former Travelocity co-worker, to thank for that. Ideally, the two trial pieces I’m writing will lead to a request to do more. I’m hopeful. It would be nice to have something steady to count on for a little bit.

My First Fan

On Friday night I went to a reading at Book Passage, my favorite Bay-Area bookstore. It was a promotional event for Best Women’s Travel Writing 2008. I was in the 2007 edition, and at this reading, someone actually recognized me from the year before, remembering correctly that I had read a story about China. This struck me as pretty remarkable. There are lots of writers whose work I enjoy but whom I probably could not pick out of a lineup.

Spoke too Soon

I may be happily wrong about the supposedly abandoned train engine I saw last week. The Oakland Terminal Railway is still a going concern, operating on about 10 miles of track in West Oakland. It’s a switching line, owned jointly by Union Pacific and the Santa Fe Railroad. The headquarters are right on Engineer Street. So this little engine may still find work now and then.

Published

This is a pleasant surprise: Several months ago, I had an essay accepted by the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine. I had thought it would appear next Sunday, but it actually ran yesterday.

(Pipi saw it first and showed the page to me, and my first thought was “Oh, no, someone stole my title!”)

The Little Engine That Couldn’t

Some days it’s hard to think of a title for my blog entry. Other days, the title’s easy, but I don’t really know where to go from there.

This is one of those days.

I took this picture on scenic (not really) Engineer Street, which goes past the wastewater treatment plant. This sad little engine appears to have found its final depot here, hard by an Army Reserve center and a giant empty lot. I don’t think the tracks in this area are even functional anymore. The Army base region is criss-crossed with them, and Amtrak still goes through West Oakland on its way to Jack London Square and Emeryville, but I think this particular engine has whistled its last. I hope I’m wrong, though. What’s more lonely than a train without a destination?

Where the Names Have No Streets

The Oakland Army Base doesn’t have enough abandoned buildings left that you could call it a ghost town. But here’s one thing it does have: ghost streets.

I don’t know how long it’s been since A Street was a real thoroughfare, and I can only guess where it originally went. There’s a freeway on top of it now.

Slow Cooking, Fast Editing

I’ve got my editing cap on this week. I’m working on another cookbook. This one’s slightly shorter than the last one, so I shouldn’t be as crazed getting it done. Still, I might be a bit brief this week.

Over It

A few months ago, I wrote a post enthusing about a site called WAYN.com.

But I’m over it.

I still like some of the widgets, like the one that keeps track of how much of the world you’ve visited. And I like the idea of being able to communicate with travelers all over the globe. But the reality is starting to get really annoying. I’m getting several emails a week like this one:

HI MY NAME IS BEN,TO BE HONEST WITH YOU AM MUCH IN LOVE WITH YOUR PROFILE......SO I WAS THINKING IF YOU COULD GIVE ME THE PRIVILEAGE TO HAVE AN ONLINE CHAT WITH A GOOD LOOKING ANGEL LIKE YOU, AS TO KNOW YOU BETTER,

WE DO NOT MEET AN ANGEL IN OUR EVERY DAY LIFE SO NOW THAT I MET YOU, I WOULDN'T LET YOU GO TILL YOU BLESS ME WITH YOU BEAUTY

HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON ANGEL.

Ben is from Morocco, so I don’t hold the broken English against him. And I know he isn’t really angry, so I’ll let the caps slide. But…angel? Come on. Read the profile, people.

Monterey Guidebook Photo

Schmap wanted my Monterey photo, too. That makes two guidebooks in about a week that I’ve been published in. Life is strange sometimes.

Glad That’s Over With

West Oakland has a bad rap. Part of this stems from the very real crime problem in this part of town, and while I’ve never felt unsafe during daylight hours, people are right to be a little wary.

The other, far more unfair impression that a lot of people have of West Oakland is that it reeks. This is because if you drive over the Bay Bridge, on your way to IKEA, say, or Berkeley, as soon as you arrive in the East Bay you drive right past a sewage treatment plant.

This is not the nicest welcome the city could provide. It’s especially unfortunate because as I think I’ve said before, West Oakland has several large bakeries and a lot of that side of town actually smells really great.

Still, there’s no denying that the wastewater plant stinks. I knew I would have to deal with it someday, and today was the day. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really only smelled bad on one side of the plant. The other sides were perfectly pleasant, but walking there felt pretty desolate. The plant is on a patch of land that is just north of West Grand Avenue, on the very last street you can turn on before getting on the freeway. Miss the turn and you’re going to San Francisco.

There were plant employees around, and a lot of cars coming and going, but oddly enough, very few other people were out strolling around the sewage treatment plant today. Even though it was a beautiful spring-like day.

There was one other person of leisure out. He pulled his car over to the wrong side of the road, parked, and started rummaging through his trunk. I was afraid he might drag out a corpse or something, but instead, he pulled out an ancient golf driver--I think it really was made of wood—and headed toward a large empty lot near some railroad tracks. There’s more than enough empty space to do a little driving practice. He didn’t have any golf balls, though. I think he may have been planning on hitting rocks from around the tracks. It’s the kind of no-man’s land where you can do weird things like that and nobody minds, or even notices.

It wasn’t a bad walk, but I’m glad it’s over with. My next neighborhood is going to have to smell better.

Schmap Again

Schmap has come knocking again! Now they’re considering a Monterey photo that I took. This photo, too, was originally taken for a Philippine Airlines in-flight magazine article. As with the Tahoe photo, it isn’t the most impressive one I took that day, but they must have a need for a photograph of this particular hotel.

The photo hasn’t made the final cut yet. I’ll know in a few days if they want it for sure or not.

Not a Paid Gig

No, Schmap isn’t paying. But given the fact that I never thought the Tahoe photos would see the light of day beyond Flickr, I don’t mind.

Rare Photo Credit

Here’s a curiosity: A photograph of mine is being used in an online guidebook.

This is a photo of Vikingsholm Castle that I originally took for an article about Lake Tahoe that I wrote for an in-flight magazine. I was slightly disappointed that the magazine didn’t use any of my Tahoe photos, but I understood. I’ve never pretended to be a professional photographer, and it’s rare for a magazine to accept photos and text from the same person anyway.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the online guidebook company Schmap wanted to use one of my Tahoe images. The really surprising thing was that they found me. I had posted a number of Tahoe photos on the Flickr web site, and someone at Schmap noticed them.

I took a lot of photos that day that I think were better than the one they’re using, but this one must have filled a hole in the guide. The carving in the picture is not an easy thing to photograph because it’s in a dark room and you’re not allowed to use a flash or a tripod. I waited for everyone else on the tour to get out of the way, braced the camera against a banister, and hoped for the best with a 15th of a second shutter speed. Maybe no one else on Flickr had that kind of patience.

Bataan Afternoon Stroll

Lately I’ve been walking in a place I’m not entirely certain I’m supposed to be in: the old Oakland Army Base.

This area hasn’t been a working Army base since 1999. When it was open, it was a military cargo terminal. Now it seems to be devoted to civilian cargo. There’s not much to it anymore, just some warehouses and a lot of truck traffic. There are some no trespassing signs, but I think they date from the army base days. The few remaining roads seem to be open to the public; it’s just that not many people take advantage of this fact.

There are people around, but they’re working, not walking. Truckers come and go constantly, and customs officials cruise around a lot. There are several taco trucks in the area, a drug-testing facility, a container business, and one lone convenience store that feels like the packie at the end of the world.

My most recent Oakland map lists several streets on the base that don’t seem to exist anymore. In particular, there is an enormous empty lot at the southern end of the base that is supposed to be crisscrossed with streets, but they’ve disappeared completely. At least one other road is behind a gate labeled private property. All this makes walking every street a little bit of an adventure, and I’m not sure how to proceed.

The streets that do exist have great names, like Africa Street, Tulagi, Petroleum Street, and Bataan Avenue. Overall, this part of town couldn’t feel more different from the rest of West Oakland, where most of the streets are named after trees.