The first night after we arrived we found ourselves back at Hubers which we remember so well from last trip. I wanted to try something new, but caved when Laura insisted on it just to check if our memories where correct about the wonderful turkey (she is a turkey hound) or whether we were just really hungry the last trip. You know what I mean, when you are ravaged like we were after so much walking, then practically anything seems like the most delicious thing you ever had.

But, our memories were not mistaken, and Hubers lived up to it’s fame with us at least. And I forgot what a cool interior the restaurant has with the old part – the old bar area in back, and the newer part up front. It’s not really new but it’s newer than the 100 year old bar in back. We were seated up front the last time we came, so this time we asked to be seated in the old bar area which was not a problem since it was relatively quiet. Interesting note is that every restaurant seems quieter in Portland – must be the economy.

Laura decided on the traditional turkey dinner of course with a nice Caesar salad to start. I had one of the specials for the evening which was nothing like a traditional turkey or ham fare that Huber is famous for. It was a crab and goat cheese raviolli with a scrumptious tomato garlic/basil sauce. Laura also tried one of the cocktails de jour, a marionberry margarita which she claimed was delicious. I don’t touch anything with an umbrella or any other sort of cocktail decoration, so I have to take her word for it. On the other had she won’t touch anything called “beer” so there is never any fear between us of someone finishing your drink for you!

The turkey was sublime. Rich, moist and accompanied by a healthy serving of mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. Lucky for me that my lovely wife let me have more than one bite. She, declined to try any of my crab raviolli since it had, errrr… crab, and she being one of the few non-seafood eaters I know. Which, by the way is why I am always on the lookout for good seafood when we go out since it is rarely served at home except for the occasional halibut.

We finished the meal with Hubers famous Spanish Coffee. That is, Hubers famous FLAMING Spanish coffee. The bartender comes out with a platter containing a bottle of 151 proof rum, a shot glass, the coffee glass, and a pot of coffee. He raises the bottle of rum high in the air and pours the shot glass full from way high which is certainly a practiced feat. Then he light the shot glass of rum on fire, puts it in the coffee glass and pours the coffee in on top. Oh yeah, and last comes the whip cream! It’s all a very entertaining act and definitely recommended if you go to Hubers. If you don’t order a Spanish coffee someone in the place will during the time you are there. We saw to others happen before we finished our meal and ordered.

After leaving the restaurant, we walked back up to the hotel deciding not to walk anymore that evening. By the way, we are staying the Vintage Plaza on Broadway. It is a cute little boutique hotel that we were able to get for a steal for the month. The room is tiny, but we are not spending much time there except to watch a little TV in the evening and sleep.

Okay. More later.

Which stereotype comes to mind when you think of Macau? A gambler’s paradise in Southeast Asia? That’s what most people think of when they envision Macau, and it was certainly the idea in my head before I went.  Like a more humid version of Vegas, with Chinese people.

Actually, this perception of Macau is not wrong, necessarily. It is a gambler’s paradise, with the strip of glitzy casinos arranged along Av. de Amizade that includes the likes of Sands, MGM and Wynn. Some people even say someday Macau will overshadow Vegas, though honestly, I doubt that.

Anyway, I’m not much of a gambler, so I wasn’t sure what I’d find in Macau. But I knew from a tiny amount of online research that it was formerly a Portuguese colony, and that was enough to totally intrigue me. Portuguese wine meets Chinese cuisine? I’m hooked.

I woke up early from my Hong Kong hostel and headed in search of the ferry terminal, purchasing a ticket ($30 USD round trip) for the one-hour ferry to the “island of sin.” I discovered that Macau does have its moments of Las Vegas-ness, but it certainly boasts a much longer, more interesting array and mix of history, particularly because of the Portuguese colonization. There is wine-making tradition, plus a fabulous concoction of local Macanese and 18th century Portuguese cultures (all of the signs are in both Cantonese and Portuguese), inevitably sprouted from an array of African and Indian influences.

I wandered through the ruins of the Sao Paolo façade, the relics of what was once a grand European church, now nothing but a facing wall, as well as an old military bunker set upon a hill overlooking the city. Many small side streets offered a fascinating combination of architectural styles, both traditional Chinese and colonial European.

For lunch, I dined on Portuguese-style chicken and drank red wine made locally in Macau, and generally spent the day whiling away in the streets and corners of the island, finding small shops selling cured and sugared meats, tea, and every imaginable type of imported wine. For the hell of it, I took a peek in the small but growing number of ritzy casinos such as the Wynn and Sands, wasting about 12 HKD ($3) on slot machines.  

In fairness, there really isn’t a lot to do in Macau unless you are a gambler. Conversely, if you’re into simple exploring-via-wandering, it’s a great place for a walk. The narrow winding streets and brightly colored buildings are a nod to its mix of heritages, and it’s a small enough place to be manageable as a day trip. It is also full of culinary delights.

 Even if you aren’t up for hitting the slots, you should make it a point to check out the aging Casino Lisboa, Macau’s first and original gambling institution. You’ll love the kitschy flair on the outside and the musty smell of cigarettes and old wood inside.

You can get to Macau easily from either Hong Kong or the Chinese mainland at Zhuhai. Ferries operated by New World First Ferry Services go from Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal to Macau on the half hour everyday, and the fares can be paid in either HK Dollars or Macau OP. Interestingly, to gamble in the casinos, you generally need to have HK Dollars handy, as the Macau OP is not widely accepted (though easily exchangeable at bureaus de change all over the island). Accommodation really isn’t available outside of the hotel casinos, so if you’re looking for something on a budget, I’d make Macau a day trip and stay in Hong Kong!

You can see Lanai from the West side of Maui. But, we never investigated what was on the island or what there was to do there. We always just assumed it was similar to Kahoolawe (deserted) or Molokai (pretty much just locals) and so never dug any deeper. Well, on our recent trip we found out there was quite a bit to see on the island of Lanai and that there are a couple of really nice Lanai hotels.

So, for one day’s adventure we took the ferry to Lanai with the intention of spending the day there. We found out ahead of time that there was a shuttle that ran from the harbor where the ferry docks and between the two main hotels (both Four Seasons). So, that was our plan; take the ferry across from Lahaina and then shuttle between the two hotels and explore each as well as the main town of Lanai City and then take the late afternoon ferry back to Maui.

The ferry across to Lanai is only about a 30 minute ride, but it was a nice trip and we got to see a few humpback whales off in the distance. The ferry actually tries to avoid the whales, so don’t take it as a substitute for an actual whale watching trip. We also saw quite a few spinner dolphins as we pulled in to the harbor on Lanai.

The first hotel is the Four Seasons Manele Bay and it is right on a beautiful beach. This is a classic gorgeous beach resort, but smaller than many of the rest you see on the other islands. The Manele bay has a great pool and beautiful artwork throughout and supposedly one of the best beaches on the island (we didn’t bring snorkel gear).

Next we took the shuttle to the top of the island which is actually at almost 2000 feet of elevation. We got off at the Lanai Hotel stop (the only other hotel besides the two Four Seasons resorts). We toured the cute little town square, went into a few shops, and got a bite to eat for lunch then caught the shuttle up to the Lodge at Koele – the other Four Seasons hotel on Lanai.

This hotel was a complete surprise in that it is very unique, especially for Hawaii. The hotel is built to resemble an old hunting lodge in the woods. The structure is beautiful and the ground are extraordinary with huge grassy areas and tropical plants and flowers everywhere. We walked the path around the property to admire this very interesting place.

We decided not to dine at the Lodge at Koele (pricy), but instead head back down to the harbor for the ferry back to Maui. We thoroughly enjoyed our day on this interesting island and on our next trip we plan to stay at one of the Four Seasons hotels on Lanai for a few days at least.

Combine a global economic recession with fears of pandemic disease, and it looks to be another dismal summer season for the travel industry. But for one sliver of the accommodations industry—the small business-dominated private-campground business—things are looking up.

Recession-Proof: Private Campgrounds - BusinessWeek.

I think this is a great piece of news in the heaps of recession headlines. Camping is one the great American traditions and one of the best ways to get away from home on the cheap and also experience amazing places. It is also a great way to travel with kids since most kids think its fun (I did). And it teaches an excellent economic lesson that goes hand in hand with exploring your own country and gaining an appreciation for the richness of America’s wild places.

Understanding America’s natural places is the best way to ensure that the next generation takes care of them and protects them.

Another great point about camping is it really gets you unplugged from our progressively more plugged-in world. If you camp the way we do, you don’t take the video games and other electronics and the cell phone is for emergencies only. We focus on where we are and fully get into the place. This is the way we travel and camp and it works best for us.

Others may like the creature comforts of their 37 foot RV with satellite hookup. That’s not for us, but it’s still camping and it still gets you to the wild places. And that is the point.

The economy will pick up at some point. When that happens I just hope that the trend in camping does not drop off. I hope the folks that are traveling to campsites this year, either for the first time or returning after years of not camping, will realize that it is something they enjoy and want to do more of. I hope the kids that enjoy camping will grow up to take their own kids to camp.

However, the higher-end hotels seem to mainly still be charging for this “luxury.”

49 percent of luxury or upscale hotels charge for in-room Internet service compared with just 16 percent of economy or budget properties. Only 5 percent of midprice hotels require payment.

Practical Traveler - The Economics of Hotel Wi-Fi Fees - NYTimes.com.

This jives pretty well with my experience. If you go to a Holiday Inn Express or any of the middle-tier Marriott properties, you can count on WiFi connectivity. But, on a recent trip to Dallas I had to pay for access when staying at the Fairmont. And when we visited Hawaii a few months ago I was initially charged for WiFi access at the Four Seasons on Lanai. They subsequently removed the charge when I expressed my displeasure with getting mugged for something I consider a basic amenity these days. The concierge explained that they were removing the charge because I was registered in the hotel chain’s frequent guest program.

So let’s not make it necessary to make up reasons to take these charges off of bills and just make it a standard, basic amenity everywhere. If I want to stay in a dirt cheap place with a hard bed and bring my own shampoo, well then I won’t expect WiFi access just like I won’t expect free local calls. But if I am staying anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE and paying north of $100 per night, there better be connectivity and it better be included with the lodging. Or else I am done with that hotel or hotel chain for now. I hope you are listening Fairmont… I love you, but this will be an issue of tough love until you ditch the slap-in-the-face WiFi fees.

But on this most recent visit we traveled in January and it had been raining quite a bit the week before we got there. We almost always like to stay at the Sheraton at Ka’anapali Beach and that’s where we were staying on this trip. Usually the snorkeling right off of the beach from the hotel is great. In fact that’s one of the reasons we like to stay there or at least somewhere at Ka’anapali. But, the recent rains and the heavier surf had made the water murky off of our normal spots so we went looking for something better.

At first we headed up to Honolua hoping that things would be better there since there is a little protection in the bay. We had been there once before looking for turtles (which we found), but didn’t remember it well. Well, after the short drive up past Kapalua to where the road narrows to barely two car widths we came to the lookout point on the ridge overlooking the bay. It was a beautiful view, but the water was bad: murky out over all the coral areas on both sides of the bay. It was nice and clear in the middle of the bay, but there is nothing there to see but sand and maybe one or two fish if you were lucky.

So we decided to hike down through the “jungle” to beach just to check it out. The beach is way rocky and way steep. I forgot. It would have been nearly impossible to get in the water there safely anyway, even if it had been clear water. So, we hiked back up to the top, looked for turtles for a little while. We saw two head come up, but that was it for the Honus.

Next we consulted our snorkeling site map and decided we just drive south and see what we could see. Maybe we would get lucky and find one of the sites clear. Makulei’a Bay was all surfers - a no go if they thought it was good enough for them. We didn’t even go looking at Kapalua since the north side was just too churny. When we got almost to Lahaina there was supposed to be a park with good coral right off the beach, but we couldn’t figure out which one it was and the water looked bad the whole way down.

Finally, we came to Olowalu Beach about 10 miles south of Lahaina and low and behold it was basically clear. We got geared up and headed into the water despite the “shark” signs. And we had plenty of company, but that day it seemed to be all snorkel hounds likes us. You encounter coral pretty much from the water’s edge out for about 1000 yards or so and half a mile wide. It is a huge place. We spent about 3 hours snorkeling all together until we were tired and sun-drenched and had our fill. But, we saw tons of fish and had no problem staying interested. It’s not Molokini Crater, but hey, for close-in shallow snorkeling it was very good on an otherwise poor snorkeling day at most of the places we went to. We were surprised that we had never been there before, but we obviously had a preconceived idea about the place that was totally wrong. And we will be back.

Our new Vice President is probably a decent guy. Probably he is well meaning guy. But, he sure seems to step in the muck and then stick his muck covered foot in his mouth on a fairly regular basis.

I don’t comment much on politics because I don’t follow politics on more than a macro scale. These days there is just so much polarization and anger associated. So, I steer towards happier topics – like travel! But Vice President Joe even stepped on that area with his comment yesterday about avoiding confined spaces like airplanes because of the fear of getting swine flu. This is getting to be nuts.

The travel industry is set to lose more than 100,000 additional jobs this year because of the decrease in American travel. That does not even count all the jobs lost last year. This is an industry that is more heavily impacted by the current economic downturn than many other industries. People can choose to travel or not and the fact that we have less money and less credit and less confidence in what lays around the corner next month or next year, we are choosing to travel less.

Joe Biden’s comment just adds fuel to the fear fire when we are fairly certain that this new flu outbreak is fairly benign.  It was not well thought out, and he should know that every word he says can affect the lives of many people. Just like when the President said something about companies not going to Las Vegas on the taxpayer’s dime. That comment probably put a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people out of work. The same goes for the Vice President’s comment. Less people will fly, less planes will fly and more airline, hotel, and rental car company employees will be out of jobs.

The travel industry is down on its knees. We don’t need to keep kicking it with stupid comments like this.

Personally, I just love dogs. I smile at them. They smile at me, mostly. I wave at them and talk to them. Am I weird? I don’t think so. Dogs have become something different I think as we have shifted focus in the US from having 11 kid families to smaller families or family units with no kids at all. Pets, dogs & cats mainly, have become a larger and larger part of our lives. And we have tended to anthropomorphize them more as a result. We have special parks for them; we have special stores for them – from giant big box stores to tiny specialized boutique stores. We dress them is dog sweaters and rain hats as well as kitty scarves and coats. And most telling of all is the way that people refer to pet owners as the kitty or doggie’s “mom” or “dad.”

So it is no surprise that that many pet owners want to take their “kids” with them when they travel. We have a dog and we like to take him with us when we go for outdoor activities like a trip to the beach or mountains. If we are planning to go hiking or beach-walking there is nothing better than having the pooch with us to enjoy the scenery. And he loves it of course. But, the problem, if you are staying overnight, is where to stay with a dog (in our case).

Over the years we have found a couple of nice places to stay in locations we enjoy visiting that will allow you to keep a dog with you in the room. We have a great place right on the beach that we always stay at when we take the dog as we mostly do (except when mommy and daddy need away time!). We also have a place we generally stay in the eastern part of the state – same thing goes for the taking Rover. But, what we have found since we started travel with a dog about ten years ago is that there have been progressively more and more motels and even nice hotels that will let you keep your pooch or kitty with you than when we first started. And you see more and more people travel with their animals.

When we went to Canada last year, we stayed at the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff. This is a 4 or 5 star hotel. And there were dogs all over the place in the hotel. Granted, most of the dogs were travel-bag size (our pooch is 50 pounds), but the point is that the hotel permitted them. Evidently all the Fairmont chain hotels allow dogs now. And same goes for Marriott from what I understand (small dog).

Our animals have become replacements for children in many cases either as a choice or after they leave the nest.  And the hotel industry is learning to accommodate that new reality. Provided that the people traveling with their pets keep them in their control, I think it’s a great thing.

If you have been to a major airport in the past few years, you have probably seen one of the new whole body search machines that are currently being tested by the TSA. At our airport, I have never seen anybody actually going through the machine or being directed to go through it. I have never been through one at any airport and I would avoid it if given the choice between the new device and the traditional metal detector. I just don’t like the idea of a machine that strips people down to their naked bodies for the TSA to inspect. And that’s what the machine does. It gives the operator a view of the body and anything hard or metal you may have on or under your clothing.

Originally, I thought these new devices, proposed after the 9/11 attacks, were for those passengers selected for extra screening (random or because they are on a list) or those that just couldn’t make it through the metal detector without setting the thing off. Instead of “wanding” you with the hand-held metal detector, you would be directed to pass through the whole-body scanner. But, now it seems that the TSA is looking at the idea of sticking every passenger through one of the machines.

I think this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons. For me, it has nothing to do with somebody seeing me “naked.” That not it. I could care less if the guys at the gym see me in the buff or a TSA  employee sees a representation of the same on a computer screen. But that’s me. I bet there are lots of folks of every age that would be truly uncomfortable with the idea. What if you had a child molester or similar deviant doing the screening? Just the thought makes my stomach turn. I’m not saying that the TSA doesn’t screen people, but how much does the TSA pay? I think you get the drift.

There is also something about the devices that just seems overly crude and clumsy. Clothing is a part of our western culture. I suspect the same is true for all developed peoples.  It makes up a part of who we are, our individuality. And we don’t make people strip for trivial reasons. But here is this machine that strips young and old for no reason except our supposed inability to catch terrorists with more subtle and sophisticated means; more human means. Like I said, it is clumsy and crude. And I suspect that Americans will reject the strip search machines. Probably Europeans too.

Being originally from California and accustomed to good ethnic food of all stripes, I have to say that it was quite a disappointment when I first moved to Oregon. Of course, I had originally move to Vancouver where there really was not much in terms of good Chinese or Mexican Food (disclaimer… at least that I could find at the time, and that was 10 years ago).

Once I moved into Portland proper I found that one of the things that Portland excels at, neigh is famous for is food and restaurants. There are close to 400 restaurants in the area and we have been to many of the very excellent ones. There are far too many to name even the great ones we have experienced here. And there are myriad ethnic restaurants: Ethiopian, Italian, Brazilian, you name it.

What we haven’t yet found in the Portland area in Chinese or Mexican food on par with what we had in California. We have tried many, many Mexican restaurants, and some are good. Some excel at specific things like fish tacos. As for Chinese, we have only tried a handful since the ones that are rated well in the local restaurant guide in the Willamette Week in years past, have not been all that great.

I would say the one exception, the one place we actually like menu, taste, and authenticity of the food is Fujin in the Hawthorne district. They also serve a very good American hamburger as well, so take that for what it is worth! If nothing else, at least it just fits in very well with the Baghdad Theatre which is across the street and all the other peculiarities of that urban weirdness zone.

And that… was a long-winded way to say that we have expanded our cooking repertoire to include some interesting and tasty Chinese dishes over the years. Sweet & sour pork, foil wrapped chicken, Szechwan beef, these are all staples at our house, and all prepared at least once every couple of months.

So when I found this simple, great recipe for Mongolian beef at Crepes of Wrath, I had to try it. We like to check in with her every so often and see what she is cooking. If nothing else she has awesome food pictures, but more often than not she has some great recipes, many gleaned from others whom she dutifully credits.

The recipe turned out great. However, I would probably opt for using steak (maybe a nice flatiron steak cut in thin slices against the grain) instead of the cube steak. Our cube steak kind of fell apart after all the cooking down of the sauce. It was a little too hamburger-like for our taste. Anyway, the sauce is delicious and that made all the difference.

Do you have any suggestions for Chinese restaurants in the Portland/Salem/Vancouver area?