Certified Intl. Travel Specialist for Europe & Japan. My professional as well as my leisure interest are very international. Music, Film, Culture & Fashion
Gotta love clients! I had these guys scheduled to fly to Italia Wednesday. I’ve had them booked & paid for about 2 weeks now. One of them calls up Wednesday morning …just hours before the flight out. “Hey, ummm, my passport is expired! SHIT!
“You didn’t check that when before you booked the tickets?”
I had to cancel their flights, they suffered a $500 penalty. Only to decide the next day to drive to the nearest passport office, and rush processing for a new passport. Then they called back next day & rebooked all new flights to Italia, at the last minute, with restricted higher fares. Today (Friday) They are now in Italia.
If only he would have made sure his passport was still valid, none of this would have happened & he wouldn’t be out $500 for just one days difference in departure.
In addition, he had to drive to Philly, overnight stay, & pay for same day passport renewal. In addition to the higher airfare price. Kinda feel bad for him…
I’d approximate the one day difference cost between the 2 of them $1,200.00!
I’m finally realizing my vacation is nearly upon me! FINALLY! You have no idea how bad I’ve been waiting for it to arrive! I will spend 2 weeks in Greece during October. The first week on a yacht cruising the Greek Islands & the 2nd week seeing Athens & a few day-trips from Athens.
Below is my itinerary:
Day 1 - Flight to Athens
Day 2 - Arrive Athens, heading to Vouliagmeni for just the day & night. (Why go to Athens for just one night, when a beautiful beach town like Vouliagmeni is so close! I’m not missing the chance to kill an afternoon & night here!)
Day 3 - Up to the Marina @ Piraeus for yacht departure. Bound for Delos, then across to Mykonos, overnight in port, so to enjoy a night of Mykonos amazing nightlife!
Day 4 - Sailing to Kusadasi (which is in Turkey) to visit Ephesus with a guide, then sail to Samos & overnighting in port.
Day 5 - Sailing to Lipsi or Arki, then to Patmos & then sailing overnight to Santorini.
Day 6 - All day on Santorini
Day 7 - Sailing to Folegandros, overnight sailing to Kea.
Day 8 - Leisure time in Kea, sailing overnight back to the Marina @ Piraeus
Day 9 - Head to Athens (got hooked up with a really cool modern studio in Kolonaki. FYI, Kolonaki is the ‘in place’ or ‘in crowd’ Athens a small neighborhood starting at the bottom of Lycabettus hill, & is where the ‘in the know’ spend their leisure time.)
Day 10 - Full day spending in Athens, doing the typical Athens sightseeing, but looking forward to the NEW Acropolis Museum!
Day 11 - Heading out to Delphi for the entire day, but coming back to my studio in Kolonaki by night.
Day 12 - Lesiure day in Athens, I’m sure I’ll hit the shops in Kolokani and just enjoy a chill day out! ‘maybe’ go to the national museum.
Day 13 - Heading south today to the Argolis, to see the sights of Mycenae! Back again returning back to Kolonaki for the night.
Day 14 - Its over!!! Flights back to the U.S.
I love the fact the I’m in port overnight in places like Santorini & Mykonos!!
I’ll take hundreds of stunning HQ photos, and will share them with my readers, twitters, FaceBookers, all, when I return, no doubt!!
Capital - Lowercase - English equiv letter(sound) - Greek Letter Name
Α α = a - Alfa Β β = v - Beta Γ γ = gh - Ghama Δ δ = th - Thelta Ε ε = e - Epsilon Ζ ζ = z - Zita Η η = i - Ita Θ θ = th - Thita Ι ι = i - Yota Κ κ = k - Kapa Λ λ = l - Lamtha Μ μ = m - Mi Ν ν = n - Ni Ξ ξ = ks - Ksi Ο ο = o - Omikron Π π = p - Pi Ρ ρ = r - Ro Σ σ ς = s - Sigma (for the small ‘s’, you use σ unless the word ends ‘s’, then its ς) Τ τ = t - Taf Υ υ = i - Ipsilon Φ φ = f - Fi Χ χ = h - Hi Ψ ψ = ps - Psi Ω ω = o - Omega
Greek Vowels: Α/α, Ε/ε, Η/η, Ι/ι, Ο/ο, Υ/υ, Ω/ω, all others are consonants.
The first step in learning Greek is memorizing the alphabet.
Once you think you got it down, practice with memory games @ StudyShack:
Travel Photo (Amalfi Coast, Italia) - #traveltuesday on Twitter!
Ahhhh the stunning Amalfi Coast, one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Where small little cliffside towns, with names like Positano, Ravello, Praiano, roll off the tongue & create images in your head that will become unforgettable. Where you drink the Lemoncello to your hearts content. & who will ever forget the drive around the hairpin turns & one lane drive, with the 1000 foot sea drop just beyond the railing, giving you just enough fright at times to give off a shiver down your body.
& My first weekly selection for Twitter’s Travel Tuesday.
Comment on the photo @ My Twitpic by clicking on the image.
Lovely honeymoon couple, can’t get away long. They’ve been playing with different islands & resorts for several months now. Finally they made the decision.
They decided on St. Thomas for 4 nights. Staying @ The Marriott’s Morningstar resort. Secured beachfront king for the stay, with free breakfast daily, nice considering breakfast @ Marriott runs like $50 a day!
Program breakdown:
- Airfare from the Eastern US - Roundtrip on American Airlines
- Morningstar Resort, 4 nights for the price of 3, with comp’d breakfast in a Beachfront King.
$3,500.00 TTL for 2
“A simple 4 night honeymoon vacation booking, easier than slicing soft butter :)”
One of the most successful ever K-Pop artist to have success in Korea & Japan, has been attempting to make a name for herself in the U.S. Since April 2009 BoA, has had a US English Debut album out in the states, but few except her fans, really had any idea she is trying the US market. With better marketing & exposure over the last month or so. BoA re-releases her US debut album with 2 new tracks & renaming the album as the BoA Deluxe Edition. This album hits the shelves & digital platforms across the US tomorrow (9/22/09)
“Energetic” - MV
Track Listing:
01. Energetic [Radio Edit] 02. Control 03. Crazy About 04. I Did It for Love 05. Did Ya 06. Look Who’s Talking 07. Eat You Up 08. Obsessed 09. Touched 10. Scream 11. Girls on Top 12. Dress Off 13. Hypnotic Dancefloor 14. Energetic
Support BoA, go buy or download the album (legally)!!
The SH-06A is a what is known as a Japanese Keitai (mobile phone).
It is also known overseas as the Sharp Aquos Shot. That’s right you heard correctly Sharp Aquos, as in the LCD HD TV makes. In Japan, Sharp makes mobiles.
The SH-06A is one of the latest models released by Sharp Japan, and the best selling Keitai model in Japan this year. Getting this phone to work in the U.S. is no easy feat, but the payoff is worth it. Did you know that Keitai technology is 4-5 years ahead of the releases we see here? EVEN the Japan makes here, the tech in Japan that is available, is held back & kept to themselves. Now having this phone in the US, means certain aspects of that advanced tech just will not work here. But lets look at the positive side of things first…
#1. The camera is a CCD 10MP HQ, with auto motion detector & face focus. Good luck trying to find a 10MP camera phone in the US, they don’t exist yet. It takes the best night photos I have ever seen a camera phone take. Its auto flash is extremely powerful & puts my 8MP Canon Powershot to shame @ night. The motion detector feature is amazing, you can walk across the field of the camera and it will detect the person & keep that person in focus, stunning. The face focus is similar, look away from the camera & it keeps the entire field focused at the same quality, but turn your face towards the camera, it detects the face & will automatically take a clear picture.
Video of the SH-06A on display & demo of camera features.
The top half of the phone (the LCD screen) swivels 360* and then flips down flat to activate the touchscreen, this automatically activates the camera on the screen, a quick press of the clear button on screen. Closes the camera & brings up the default touchscreen. The phone is a fully functional touchscreen, all features work as touchscreen & you can access all folders. So if desired you could use the touchscreen for all needs, therefore not needing the keypad.
In regular mode your have a touch senor (the black square) that will move the onscreen cursor like a mouse. You can also have the camera is the mode, but I find its better just to flip the screen over…
Lets look at some specs:
Screen: Widescreen VGA ASV LCD w/ 16.7 million colors, 3.3 inches wide w/ 480x854 pixels.
Memory: 128MB (internal) expandable w/SDmicro or SDHCmicro
Audio: (in MTR mode) you can send WMA directly via WMP. Otherwise MP4. Self converted WMA will not work, nor is MP3 supported (as is standard in Japanese Keitais, due to strict copyright laws in Japan)
Video: MP4
Image: All typical image types are supported
In addition documents files DOC/XLS/PDF are also supported.
One of the very cool features of this phone is the scanner. In camera mode, the camera can detect several things, such as barcodes, QR codes, Business cards, text/word scanner. These are very cool features. Place the camera about 10cm from a QR barcode, it will detect, & decode it. Place a business card 10cm from the camera & it will detect it & memorize details of the card such as ‘name/address/Telephone #/email etc…and ask you if you’d like to create or add to your address book! The text scanner feature is similar, place the camera 10cm from a text word on a piece of paper (not handwritten), such as a email address or phone number, and it will detect the text as such & ask what you want to do with it!
Video of multimedia touchscreen demo.
As you can see everything works smoothly & quickly. The touchscreen is very responsive. I love the menus when you enter into image/video/audio mode as you see above.
Now for a few negatives, you MUST be aware of, if considering this phone for import.
#1. You will not be able to access the web, as its web browser is tied immediately into DoCoMo/Softbank upon activation.
#2. You cannot use features that are Japanese Only. Such as i-mode, You cannot use this as a credit card or cash (you can in Japan!), you cannot access the live Japanese television mode. You cannot use this as storage for shopping coupons (you can in Japan!)
#3. You cannot use video call, forget it.
The SH-06A was made in Japan for both the DoCoMo & Softbank telecommunications companies. Getting this phone imported currently will run about $600+.
Now for the most important thing.
To get this phone to work anywhere outside of Japan, will require what is called a Hypersim. A hypersim is shaped like your simcard and tricks Japanese Phones into unlocking for usage. The hypersim requires being attached to your actual sim, usually being taped lightly together to keep in place & both together must fit into the sim slot on the Keitai. Also using a hypersim requires cutting your sim card, just a little square out of the top, where there is no info stored or any risk to cutting the information storage part of your sim. Some hypersims are very week & unrealiable, others makes are much more reliable.
The payoff?
A sleek phone that nearly no-one around you has. Camera & feature technology, not found on this side of the Pacific.
Trying telling the guy at the T-mobile kiosk “I have a Sharp Aquos phone”! I embarrased the guys their one evening, people wanted to know what kind of phone I had & how much. When I told them, “sorry, but your not going to find this, in this country.” The T-mobile guy asked “Where did you get that?” My reply, “from Japan!” hahaha.
To wrap up, you cannot go to Japan & buy this phone. They do not allow sales to non-japanese residents. You must prove you’ve been living in Japan for at least 6 months & will remain so, before they will even consider selling you the phone. You cannot buy the phone at official sellers unless you also pickup a DoCoMo or SoftBank monthly plan contract. Unofficial channels are the only way to get your hands on this phone for import & make sure you get a hypersim!
Some Saturdays I work in the office for 2-3 hours, some I don’t. Today is one I don’t. Yesterday afternoon a client calls me, ask if we could meet tomorrow (today) to finally get down the itinerary & details for their Italia trip. I explain to my client, “I’m sorry, but I will not be working this saturday, perhaps sometime next week?”…”no, I’m too busy” he says, “I like it to be tomorrow.”
I always go out of my way to try and please my VIP clients, so I offer an alternative.
“Well 3 blocks from the agency is a cafe I frequent daily.” (for my morning japanese green tea & free WiFi) I go on to tell them I’d be happy to meet them at the cafe in the morning before my saturday plans (none..lol) conflict.” They agree, say its a wonderful idea, we can meet have coffee/tea & work out the ideal plan.”
Great!
Now if they set up these plans, you’d think they’d keep the morning open for the meet. I mean come on its only less than 24hrs away from the time.
So I wake up early on a saturday, prep for the meet, review their travel history, study maps, hotels, travel routes & then leave for the cafe.
I arrive at the cafe 20 minutes early to make sure I can get one of the few tables that sit 4-6, and not only 1-2. You can’t reserve tables at this cafe & sat. mornings are the busiest mornings for it. I get looks for 30 minutes from parties who want the table (as I sit there alone taking it up) “sorry I have clients arriving shortly, I need the space.” 20 minutes later 10:00, they are to arrive, not there yet. 10:15, not yet, 10:30 a call. “We changed our minds, its not good for us this morning, we will have to reschedule.”
Thanks a lot…& could have slept in!!
I pissed the baristas off, taking up a big table for an hour, but frequent daily, so they consider me a good client & let it go, but were very upset when I left & them a no-show. “You mean you could’ve sat at a small table this whole time?!”
As you’ve read in my intro, I’m a fan of tons of international music artist, mostly female & so as I sit here this evening watching a few, I’ve selected 3 to share. I think I’ll make this a trend once a week & let you all see some of the music I listen to…fans of any artist I post are welcome to contact me, or join me on last.fm. So enjoy my first weekly picks…btw these are not necessarily new music videos.
So, I scored a really good deal on airfare & a car rental, honestly a very simple booking for me, for a client of mine. Who wanted to fly to Roma next week & visit with relatives for 2 weeks. Because he was so thrilled with the deal I got him. He asked if there was anything he could bring back for me?
Jokingly I asked him, if he would PLEASE go to La Feltrinelli, and pickup two of Monica Bellucci’s newer films on dvd for me.
- SanguePazzo
- Le Deuxieme Souffle
Now I never asked for anything like this before from a client. I was completely surprised by his reply!
He went on to tell me, how he just watched Malena & on a past trip to Italia actually seen La Bellucci with her son @ Roma FCO airport awaiting the arrival of her fathers flight. He said the Carabinieri all whipped out their cellphones & started taking pictures of her (lol), until her bodyguard stepped in!
Note: The Carabinieri, are the federal police of Italia, kinda like our FBI, but you see Carabinieri all over the place in Italia, they are everywhere!
He went on to tell me how much he also liked La Bellucci “She is a magnificent actress! & it would give him great pleasure to pickup the dvds I requested!”
This I found very cool, as I’ve been a die hard Monica Bellucci supporter for 10 years & never knew he was!
GRAZIE AMICO! (I can’t believe he meet her!…I’m sooo envious of him now (O_O)
Just goes to show you…you never know unless you ask!
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