Browsing articles in "Travel"

Merus Wines, Napa Valley

Oct 4, 2011 // by Colin Yeung // Interesting & Noteworthy, Travel // No Comments

I like wine. Good wine. A fine appreciation of Red and a growing appreciation of White. Over the years, I’ve had opportunity to go visit different vineyards on wine tastings, lunches, dinners and lucky enough to attend a few events like weddings and corporate gatherings at different locations across Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales.

Hand in hand with this appreciation of the fluid stuff, I also like architecture, having lived with several architects and interior designers in my share house days. So, it is with some delight I stumbled across Merus Wines in the Napa Valley in California.

Merus, as its website www.meruswines.com declares is Latin:

Mer-us (N) (Latin) 1. Pure, Unmixed. 2. Complete, Absolute, Undiluted; Especially of Wine

The architecture was done by Amsterdam Studio UXUS Design www.uxusdesign.com and opened in 2009.

On my lonnnnnnggggg list of places to visit in the future. I cannot wait to have lunch here.

Tree Change: Moving to the country

Sep 28, 2011 // by Colin Yeung // Interesting & Noteworthy, Make me smile, Travel // No Comments

In recent months, those of you that know me, would be well aware of the massive amount of activity Katie & I have undertaken in re-arranging our lives and moving up to the Macedon Ranges. In high level terms:

Renovated House – Bang! Really upped the tempo in our activities – new kitchen, new wardrobes, painted inside & outside, terraced the backyard, spent a small fortune on the gardens. This off the back of new bathroom, re-modelling the layout of the house and turning the ugly duckling into a desirable home.
Put House on Market – Used the most expensive agent in the area and got a spectacular result. A first hand experience of “you get what you pay for”
I changed Job
Sold House – at auction, just before the downturn in the market. Yay!
House Cooling - Had a succession of events at our sparkling house, which involved LOTS of dinner parties, weekend gatherings, children running around everywhere, excellent company, great food & wine.
Started looking for a Rental – summarised by: hovels or in the middle of no-where (as in 10km from the station in the hills)
Started Packing – gave away to friends and charity probably 30% of our material possessions.
Rental – still looking.
Revved up Luci & Noah (well mostly Noah) – the next big adventure for a 3 year old – new playgrounds! new kids!
Kept looking for a Rental – getting desperate now – prepared to pay 4 months in advance…..
Found the Perfect Rental, 2 streets from our block!
Moved – 1 Rental Truck, 3 trips and 5 Station Wagons of belongings later.
Started our new life – angels singing with 4 part choral harmony materialises in the air

Katie wrote a really nice piece on her blog describing the move for herself in the post: Breaking Free.

Reading it, I realised the reasons that I wanted to move to the country were slightly different, because in all seriousness, I get my dose of urban hipsterism, sipping lattes and window shopping (my retail background you know!) each day I head into work. Katie’s view on her lifestyle is driven around the fact she is originally from Daylesford, indeed her parents are still up there and she would be “stuck at home” with Noah & Luci, sans all the creature comforts she had gotten used too – neighbours, cafes, shopping, skipping out for an evening with friends. In this regard, I admire her all the more highly, because I believe she has the tougher journey in the initial phase of our re-existence.

With that, it could be surmised that I have a tough journey as well in front of me, with a cloudier view of what is possible and accessible for myself. As one of my friends noted, moving to the Macedon Ranges requires a very precisely calibrated sense of timing, organisation and scheduling. Miss a train and you’re cooling your heels for an hour on a cold (okay: VERY COLD) platform. Scheduling around work comes to the fore – I’ve found that it has forced me to become even more efficient and zealous with my time and capacity to organise. I’ve had to be somewhat up front with my work colleagues to bring them to my scheduling. I like to think and have been told, that I’m super organised. Moving to the country has definitely made me more so – I’m finding I’m processing things more quickly and comprehensively and I’m generally getting more work done.

Why? Time to introspect for one. A good friend of mine and I have been pondering the importance of “me time” for the past few months. He asked me a simple question: “Do I get time to do my own thing, on my own terms?” I responded that yes, I did and I did so, because I made the time. I would get up half an hour earlier and read my book for that extra 20 minutes. I would walk 20% slower from the station to home making the 12 minute walk, 15 minutes, admire the gardens, take a few extra deep breathes of fresh air or pause and marvel at the progress of a house being built. They are tiny, tiny things I’m doing, but I’m choosing to do them on my own terms. That’s very healing. That’s me time.

To paint the picture, he’s one of these guys I consider in that realm of “insanely bright”, as in so absurdly, brilliantly, intelligent our only problem in life is we run out of time to discuss the ideas we concoct in our heads when we are away from each other. He is in a similar position in life, with two children of similar ages to myself & Katie. As part of his “insanely bright” persona and intellect, he has chosen a life partner who works as a senior manager for the “elite of the elite” in management consultancies. And she’s a qualified doctor (GP). And she’s raising two wonderfully smart, caring and inquisitive children.

So, back to my reasons to move to the country. It’s a super complex question, with an equally super complex and convoluted set of answers and responses.

However, distilled simplistically: To slow down and smell the roses.

I’ve spent much of my life in fast forward. I love pace. I love change. I love learning. I love the sense of achievement when you learn something and can than apply it for an outcome you plan for. Translating this type of outlook has been realised most poignantly in having children and learning to share their time learning about the world and mixing it up with other children of our friends, who are similarly minded. That old adage “seeing the world, through my eyes” doesn’t ring more true than when you are tasked with the responsibility of raising your very own human being, or in our case two of them, to be morally upstanding, caring and humble individuals who believe in themselves and their value to the world.

Now we have made the move, I’m wondering, in my late 30′s why I didn’t do this earlier. I certainly haven’t set a precedent – two of my closest friends, one the best man at our wedding, the other a dear friend who I’ve known since I was 15, both did a tree change in their early thirties – one moved to Far North Queensland, just outside of Port Douglas and the other moved to the Gippsland high country (yes, there is a high area). Both have made a tremendous impact on their lives and their lifestyles and they are both all the more fulfilled for having taken this adventure upon themselves.

Katie & I are focused on 3 things at the moment – our new home we are building, the future of our children and finally, ensuring that we have enough time for each other. These 3 modest goals, I can say we are meeting in such a way that I envisage, I will be blogging about more often in the future. I can say that having been a country mouse making the commute into town each day for the past 3 months, each night I journey home on the V/Line, I feel like I’m going on holiday. I love sitting on the train and reading a book. Or catching up on the continuous deluge of emails in an uninterrupted environment. Or reading, researching and finding out what is happening out in the digital world.

The intangible, personal things I’ve gained?

Politeness - a sense of belonging to people and within the community. Katie & I have this metric which we laugh about, in judging the quality of a suburb. If you are driving and you have to give way to a car oncoming in a narrow street, if the suburb is decent, you give each other a “thankyou” wave. Suburbs like Camberwell, Alphington, Ivanhoe are the sort that reflect a more “polite” way of existence. Where we have moved too, we not only get a wave, the car oncoming pulls up, lowers their window and asks how your days been so far. You end up chatting for 10 minutes.
Community – last week it was particularly windy. Some bins got knocked over in front of us as a group of us departed our train at the station, sprawling the contents on the road with the wind doing its best to send paper, rubbish and debris to the four points of the compass. As one, 5 of us quickly started picking up rubbish and straightening up the 2 bins that got knocked over. Within 20 to 25 seconds another 8 people were helping pick up the rubbish and tidy up the street. 45 seconds later, we all bade farewell to each other, by way of nods and “thanks – see you soon” and went on our way.
Nature – Fresh air. Beautiful parks and untouched forests. Clear sky’s at night where you look up into the sky and feel sucked up into the vastness of the stars above, and feel like you are 5 years old again. Having a 3.5 year old sitting on your lap and looking into the sky each night is surreal.
Fresh food – We have within 5 kilometers of us, some of the states best fruit, vegetables and livestock available to us on our doorstep. The cafes go to the trouble of learning your name. And remembering you. And engaging you.
Neighbours – uniformly neighbours at our rental and adjoining our block of land we are building on are terrific. It’s amazing to meet so many people of similar outlook, mindset and values. You want to have them over to dinner to get to know them better. You feel privileged that you drew the lucky hand and will have these people around contributing and influencing your own children’s lives in the future.

A tree change: It’s fantastic.

Travelling Tips

Dec 22, 2009 // by Colin Yeung // Opinion, Travel // 6 Comments

Tonight whilst chatting to the Foxtel girl – who was exceptionally helpful by the way - we somehow got onto the conversation around travel and our respective experiences in seeing the sites this fair planet of ours offers. What quickly became apparent to me was that the average person in the street hasn’t actually traveled that much. I often forget just how fortunate I am having been lucky enough to have traveled quite extensively – Europe, United States, Japan, New Zealand and much of Australia. My partner as well has even lived overseas for a couple of years in Japan of all places, so her understanding of travel is a level deeper than myself.

Last year, my wife and I traveled to New Zealand so that we could attend a wedding down in Queenstown in the South Island. Having traveled there before on several ski trips during the winter, I had a fair idea what to expect, so it was the usual bunch of research for appropriate accommodation, organise hire car, that sort of thing. Follows is my list of how to organise an overseas trip.

Research:
Lots. Not much more can be said – there are so many sites out there and I would expect Google gets a bashing with terms like “[city/country destination], travel, accommodation, cheap/expensive, review, tours” etc. The below travel guide websites, whilst predominantly focused on promoting the print books have in recent years evolved into outstanding information destinations in their own right. A very worthwhile starting place to start your research.

Buy a Travel Guide:
For the small investment of $30 to $40 for the latest guide or one that is 2nd hand for $10 to $15, A travel guide for your particular country/major city destination is an absolute must. Get them at your local book store under the Travel section. It is the difference between a good holiday and great holiday. Ones to look for are listed below, with each varying in format. I personally prefer Lonely Planet as my guide of choice.

Frommer’s http://www.frommers.com
Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com
Foder’s http://www.fodors.com
Rough Guides http://www.roughguides.com
Let’s Go http://www.letsgo.com
Moon Travel Guides http://www.moon.com

Travel Agent – Yes or No?
I often get asked this one – if going overseas, for myself it is an emphatic yes. There is no denying that you can save a shed load of money booking direct, but unless you are expereinced – and have the time – you can miss out on Visa’s, Insurance Costs, Transfers fees or connecting flights. Using a travel agent, they have access to a special computer system that automatic calculates the best path to travel, by a pre defined criteria set, whether that is cheapest cost, minimal connecting flights, minimal stop overs or the “nice” hotels along the way.

A good travel agent is worth their weight in gold – I always use a travel agent, as they just know what sort of pitfalls to avoid. Because they have booked my flights over the years, they are familiar with what I like and don’t like in my accommodation, locale, activities and options from a dining/sight seeing perspective.

Buy Insurance:
Bluntly put, I think that anyone who travels without insurance is totally barking mad and just asking for trouble. I’ll paint the picture – my wife and I had a stunning honey moon – 10 days in London, then 10 days in Paris, rounded off by 3 days in Singapore. We were traveling back at Christmas of 2006, in winter, flying into Heathrow Airport into the infamous pea soup fog which grounded flights in and out of London for 4 days. We spent Christmas in London and planned to spend New Years in Paris. Result.

Fast forward to our departure on New Years Eve into Charles de Gaull airport in Paris and our main luggage got waylaid which is code for: lost – somewhere between London and Paris. I had nothing. And when I mean nothing, only the clothes I was wearing and my camera bag. No clothes, no toiletries, my new wifes shoes, and some of her clothing too. And it was New Years Eve in Paris NOTHING was open. Enter our travel insurance. I rung the 24 hour number and they emergency couriered me $500 cash to the Hotel, which arrived within 3 hours of my phone call. I was able to use this to buy a toothbrush and a change of clothes, a jacket (it was winter and cold). When I got onto my travel agent back home in Australia, she advised me of my ceiling limit and the escalation. If my luggage was returned within 24 hours, I would remain with the $500 and be reimbursed any further expenses around its safe return. If it took 72 Hours, I was entitled to $5,000. If it was 10 days, I would get up to $30,000 to cover replacement expenses and hotels, taxis etc. It took 8 days. I got my $5,000 and bought an entirely new wardrobe for myself, replaced all the items – remember I wasn’t sure if I’d even get my luggage back – our holiday was much improved. All I had to do was keep my receipts and submit them upon my return.

Conservatively, when I was cataloguing my belongings, they added up to an astonishing $14,000. Think about it, between my wife and myself, we had 2 X Goretex Jacket ($650 each), 2 X dresses ($250 each) 2 X Slacks ($300 each), 2X Jeans ($300 each), 3 X Shirts ($150 each), Walking Shows X2, Dress Shoes, High Heels (my wife’s! 4X $300), Both my wifes Undergarments & assorted Bras. Her Makeup. Perfume/Aftershave, my electric shaver, 2nd Camera, iPod X2, Novels, Luggage itself and so on.

Seems to me a pretty darn good argument in favour of insurance.

Be realistic:
Don’t kid yourself with:

a/ what you want to do
b/ what you can afford
c/ what is going to make you happy

For heavens sake you’re on holiday - enjoy yourself! If you want to eat 5 star, ala carte, do it. If you want to try every McDonalds to compare Big Macs in 10 different countries, do it. Likewise, visit the sites and attractions YOU want to see, based upon your research, not that you feel compelled to see. To give you an example, we weren’t that fussed in travelling to see the Eiffel Tower specifically, as its on every major movie, TV show or magazine, being more interested in spending time in the back streets and out of the way places which made up the real Paris. Travelling abroad is the journey and the experience all rolled into one. Everyone has a different way of taking in their surroudings and gains different things. Enjoy it!

Audio Tours
I also highly recommend where possible, to pay the extra $5 or $10 for the automated Audio Tours, like that at the Louvre in Paris, Stone Henge or London Tower. If you are interested in that type of thing, they can seriously occupy you for an entire day, guiding you around the attraction and giving you insight into the history and background. My wife and I love them.

As a variant on this, when we visited New Zealand last year, I found in my research, this little product called a “Kruse” which we rented for 10 days whilst driving around. It plugs into your cigarette lighter and has a GPS device inside it. What it also has is some 2,500 pre recorded commentaries, music and information retold in minute, conversational detail. To say we had our own tour guide for the 2 weeks we were driving around the south island is no small understatement – one of the THE best travel experiences we have ever had. You can book online direct at Kruse New Zealand http://www.krusenz.com

What to Pack?
Not much. If you travel like me, I guarantee you, that you will end up buying clothes whilst overseas. My general rule of thumb when travelling is to travel with next to nothing, and it forces me to buy an updated wardrobe. Comfortable travel clothes for the flight(s), good comfy walking shoes, a good lightweight rain jacket (Goretex or similar is ideal), pen, paper, camera, credit cards, passport, some plastic bags to put your undergarments in, a bag to house your shoes. I also bring my running gear with me, so that also entails heart rate monitor, sunglasses & peaked cap. Visit stores like Kathmandu, Mountain Designs or Paddy Pallin which specialise in travel gear and you will get garments that don’t require ironing and are resistant to soiling, comfortable, tear resistant and durable. If overseas, try Patagonia or North Face.