Klugusamy News | by Vinod, Lillie, and Zizou Ponnusamy

Cape Town | Part I

2010-02-12T16:12:39Z

We're thankful to have traveled elsewhere in Africa previously, because Cape Town is a decidedly less African experience. Geographically, it deserves every superlative possible—it's impossible to get away from jaw dropping vistas.

Culturally? We found the black/white race dynamics to be too overwhelming to be really comfortable there—considering apartheid only ended in 1994, the wounds are no doubt still fresh. But I'm not going to turn this into an inane 'how my 4-day trip to Cape Town changed my world view' college essay that my brother would scoff at.

All I'll say is that if you go to Cape Town, go there with some sense of self-awareness and perspective. Otherwise, I reckon for some it would be a destination rated highly on a "stuff white people like" list—nice beach, good food and wineries, etc.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let me tell you about the beaches and wineries we visited…

Cape of Good Hope

We're about 10,215 miles from Seattle here. Side note: amazingly, not the furthest we've ever been from home—Fort Dauphin, Madagascar wins that prize at 10,778 miles. (if anyone can name a further airport from Seattle than Fort Dauphin/FTU with regular commercial air service, please drop a comment—from a quick search, I couldn't find anything).

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I love geographic extremes—so visiting the southwestern most point of the African continent at the Cape of Good Hope was a thrill. Looking up the cliffs next to Good Hope, you see Cape Point (just a few minutes drive between the two). There's actually some serious history behind the area, so it's a cool feeling walking out to the lighthouse on the cliffs marking this spot.

In the second photo below, the white car is our rental parked at the Cape—and that's a wild ostrich on the right stalking the parking lot! That was a new wildlife sighting for us, but we just found them too creepy and weird looking.

The drive down is just gorgeous, to boot. One of the highlights of the drive (other than me breaking the passenger side mirror within an hour of landing in Cape Town) was bringing the car to a near stop to yield for a baboon hanging out on the road. Living with baboons in your neighborhood would be a total nightmare, but this was a nice tourist treat.

Boulders Beach

Along the drive between Cape Town and Cape Point is Boulders Beach—a popular hang out spot for African penguins. We were there end of day, so they had all returned to shore to dry off for the night. Watching these guys shuffle their feet around on the beach was still highly amusing.

This is actually a busy little waterfront town that the penguins are integrated within. So lots of penguin crossing signs around town.

Then there was one last wildlife sighting: a Rock Hyrax aka dassie (pronounced like dussy, I think). The scale isn't very good in this photo, but they are decent size at more than 8 lbs.

I lied in the previous post. There will be a couple separate posts on Cape Town. Part II to come…

First Class to South Africa

2010-02-11T08:26:07Z

Everyone's been asking for photos of the in-flight experience over to South Africa, but nobody clamoring for actual South Africa photos. So let's kick things off as demanded...

This photo basically sums up how completely over the top the First experience on Cathay Pacific is:

Now let me explain what you're looking at above. I'm sitting across from Lillie in an ottoman turned buddy seat, eating caviar and salmon, while Lillie is sipping on some Krug champagne (we easily finished the bottle on this flight). Not a bad way to occupy some time on a 16 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong.

When it's bedtime, the flight attendants (two dedicated to the max of nine First passengers) will lay down a mattress pad, and spread out a duvet onto a now fully flat bed that easily fit my long legs (not feasible for me in most business classes). You're also issued some Shanghai Tang brand pajamas so you don't have to wrinkle your suit/jean pants. Also take note of the 17" TV and accompanying orchids:

For some orientation, here's a shot from my suite of Lillie in her suite (yes--the proper term is suite, not seat):

Now for food. The brilliant part about the food service in First is that it's entirely on demand. You get your menu at the start of the flight, and then you can order whatever you want whenever--no prescribed meal times. Awesome on long flights that require some sleep management to combat jet lag.

The flight attendants are far from shy about trying to feed you every single thing on the menu. I was amused at the sheer quantity of dinnerware on my tray table here. That's some braised pork neck with jasmine rice, spring rolls, basket of assorted bread, butter, hot sauce, and a pot of Hong Kong style milk tea. The Häagen-Dazs came later.

On our Hong Kong to Johannesburg flight, we had what I am unequivocally proclaiming to be the greatest breakfast of all time. For me it comprised of: caviar and salmon to start things off, a collection of dim sum, a few slices of back bacon, croissants with honey, Hong Kong style milk tea, and finally a berry smoothie.

But what set this breakfast apart was the setting--Lillie and I were sitting across from one another, 40,000 feet in the air, with the glow of the sun rising over the Indian Ocean on the shore of Mozambique. Simply unreal.

The last stop on the tour? The WC. Yes, there's a full length mirror to admire yourself in your airplane PJs, two windows, and a vessel sink:

We spent pretty much 48 hours in this space through the trip--flying JFK-Hong Kong-Johannesburg-Hong Kong-San Francisco. Definitely worse places you could be for such a long haul, I reckon.

Finally, just to be crystal clear, we obviously didn't shell out the $26,000/each (not a typo) this routing would set you back on Orbitz. This was all paid for with Alaska Airlines miles--that's how we roll.

Expect three more posts on this trip--all presumably far less interesting than this: on Cape Town and surroundings, brief stopovers in Hong Kong, and a boring/nuts and bolts post on miscellaneous trip planning minutiae.

Lillie is 30

2010-01-24T08:43:00Z

The paper shredder I got Lillie for her 28th birthday had set a pretty high bar for gifts.

So for Lillie's 30th, we're heading to Cape Town, South Africa for the next several days. Making it all the better, we're heading there via Hong Kong in first class on Cathay Pacific--no more of this business class nonsense!

We'll be celebrating the big day with Krug champagne and caviar on the 16.5 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong.

Stay tuned for the trip report...in the meantime, happy 30th birthday Lillie!

Long Road to the Rose Bowl

2010-01-21T06:32:55Z

Since we all (Ziz included) work at the same place, we all had 11 days off between Christmas and New Year. So naturally we embarked on a 3,100 mile road trip.

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December 24, 2009 | Missoula, Montana

Christmas Eve was spent in Missoula, Montana at the Holiday Inn (on Priority Club points, of course). Dined on some excellent buffalo and elk at a cozy dinner across the street at the Pearl Cafe.

December 25, 2009 | Victor, Idaho

Our Christmas destination was an awesomely stylish cabin in Victor, Idaho with our college friends Cully and Rew.

As you might imagine, Victor is a small town so we didn't have any dining out options. Luckily we grabbed some generic pizza crust and beer at the Wal-Mart in Missoula. Never has Christmas dinner been so classy.

December 26, 2009 | Victor, Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming

On Boxing Day, we came to the realization that Zizou was incapable of laying down due to some sort of pain in his chest area. We picked up some aspirin from the store in hopes of it reducing some inflammation.

Then instead of snowshoeing in the Grand Tetons, we did a little cruise in the Highlander through the National Elk Refuge outside of Jackson, Wyoming. We saw some elk from several hundred yards away, but the real stars were bighorn sheep.

Also great views of the Tetons…

December 27, 2009 | Driggs, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah

"Woke up" after a very long night with a dog in considerable pain. The only way I could get him to lay down through the night was to scoop him up and flip him like a Tetris piece onto his side. Horrible stuff.

Of course things were further complicated because it was a Sunday, but I was easily able to get ahold of the Driggs Veterinary Clinic to line up an "emergency" vet visit. After some poking, prodding, and x-raying, the vet agreed there must be some sort of pulled muscle in his chest area. The sad part about that diagnosis is that he hadn't done anything but sleep in the car to injure himself.

So with some good anti-inflammatory drugs in hand (Rimadyl), we crossed our fingers and set course for Salt Lake City. Half way through the drive, Ziz laid down independently for the first time in almost two days. Huzzah!

By the time we arrived in Salt Lake City, he was ready to hang out with his buddy Oscar…

December 28, 2009 | Salt Lake City, Utah

Showing off the diversity of the specie…

Great to see Adam and Juliette, our friends and former roommates in Chicago. As touristy as we got in SLC was a stroll around Temple Square to check out the Christmas lights and some ice skating. Next time we'll visit the Mormon food bank that purportedly serves the best chocolate milk on earth at the end of the tour.

December 29, 2009 | Las Vegas, Nevada

The drive down to Vegas was amazingly our first poor road conditions of the trip (and the last stretch it was a concern). Most of our friends will be horrified to know that we spent zero time on the strip and just went straight to our hotel west of the strip—Element in Summerlin, the eco-friendly version of Westin.

This turned out to be a really great hotel, and earned lots of Starwood points in the process. From my research, this and the Westin on the strip are the only two (decent) hotels that allow big dogs. Our night in Vegas consisted of running around with Zizou at a giant park (Gardens Park) and then eating a bunch of sushi at Lahaina Grill. Easily in bed before midnight.

December 30, 2009 | Red Rock Canyon, Nevada and Los Angeles, California

After breakfast, we popped over to Red Rock to get a little hike in. Some cool scenery that's very different than anything in the Northwest.

Our only family photo from the trip:

The 250 mile drive to Los Angeles was our worst leg of the trip, by far—terrible traffic and rain when we arrived in LA! No matter, we had a great dinner with family and friends at my parents' house

December 31, 2009 | Los Angeles, California

Arun was kind enough to score Ziz (and us) an invite to an exclusive/hipster loft New Year's party. A great way to celebrate our fifth anniversary since picking him up from Idaho.

Check out this handsome dog at the party:

January 1, 2010 | Pasadena, California

Time for the Rose Bowl!

Good news: we had grandstand tickets for the Rose Bowl Parade. Bad news: we had to be there before 7am—not ideal the morning after NYE. It was surprisingly entertaining as we saw: Jack Hannah (Columbus Zoo), Jackie Chan, and Jared from Subway.

The weather was perfect for the game—not to mention a great stadium, loud fans, TBDBITL, sunset over the San Gabriel mountains, and an excellent win by the Buckeyes.

O-H-I-O.

Big thanks to Naveena for securing a boat load of game tickets, and my parents for scoring the parade tickets.

January 2, 2010 | Stockton, California and Portland, Oregon

After the Rose Bowl, we made the late night drive to Stockton so we could knock out ~330 miles from the 1,100 mile drive back home. It would be mostly all-business just to hustle back home in time for work on the 4th.

We thought about trying to just plow all the way to Seattle from Stockton, but we sputtered out after 630 miles and decided to crash at Hotel Monaco in Portland.

January 3, 2010 | Seattle

3,100 miles later, Ziz took in the smell of home.

At the end of this trip, the states visited scoreboard for the Klugusamys looks like this:

Vinod – 42
Lillie – 36
Zizou – 9

Lillie and I will get to 50 eventually, but Ziz will probably have to settle with just cracking double digits.

Thanksgiving in Bend, Oregon

2010-01-19T04:18:40Z

(Catching up on some old stuff…)

For a little change of pace this year, the Ponnusamy family rented a house on the Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon to celebrate Thanksgiving 2009. Whoever's idea it was, it was brilliant.

Zizou enjoyed staring down the hissing swans from the dock. While he never jumped into the water to attack them, when we were canoeing on this same water he did jump out of the canoe and swim to shore.

A highlight was a loop hike around Smith Rock State Park—an especially popular spot for rock climbers. Some nice views of Mount Bachelor in the distance:

A couple shots of the appropriately named Monkey Face rock—complete with rock climbers:

More rock climbers:

Churchill Polar Bears

2009-11-09T07:00:03Z

Email and RSS subscribers will need to click over to klugusamy.com to view the below photos--sorry 'bout that.

I'll write a separate post on logistics on the ground for those interested. This post will be more meat and potatoes.

First, a map to illustrate exactly where Churchill, Manitoba is. Still south of the Arctic Circle, but this trip really put into perspective for us how massive Canada is. Look at how big Hudson Bay is alone!

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Overall, it was a highly productive 27 hours we spent in Churchill. The polar bear excursion kicked off at 7:30am with a motel pickup, and we were on board the Tundra Buggy at 8:30am.

Within 30 minutes of setting off, we saw two males sparring on the ice (imagine two bears on hind feet punching one another). Sadly these guys were super far away, so there were no photo opportunities.

Speaking of photos, here's a selection of the better ones.

At the end of the day, it was definitely amazing to see these beasts in their natural habitat. Remaining observations will be in the next post…

First Glimpse from Churchill

2009-11-05T05:05:13Z

We just got back to Winnipeg from Churchill after a day of polar bearing. From a quick look at the photos, there are a few keepers. But those will wait until a proper post and trip report upon return to Seattle.

In the meantime, here's some Where's Waldo? action. It's a glimpse of what a partially frozen Hudson Bay looks like on a 4 degree cloudy day.

More to come soon…

Frequent Flyer

2009-10-22T07:04:24Z

Anyone who knows me should be aware of my affinity for frequent flyer miles. i.e. hair transplant consultations, renting three cars every weekend for two months to park on our driveway and immediately return, flying to Boston to pick up lobsters for dinner, et cetera.

However, I'm sorta at the point I've stopped creatively collecting because we just don't have the vacation time to even spend what we currently have in the bank. That's a sad statement on many levels, but also a testament to the extent of earning opportunities out there.

Anyway, if you have 20 minutes to spare and are curious about this weird hobby, I highly encourage you to watch this little film. It's a great glimpse into the mindset that leisurely flying to Singapore for a short weekend (and racking up oodles of miles in the process) is totally normal Also it served as a reminder to me of just how minor league I am in this game.

Happy frequent flying!

Frequent Flyer from Gabriel Leigh on Vimeo.

Polar Bears in Churchill - Independent and on the Cheap

2009-09-18T03:11:19Z

Well, this one sorta miraculously fell together. For a quick few days this November we'll be in Churchill, Manitoba to check out some Polar Bears. Then later in life after they've all drowned, we'll be able to tell our grandchildren: "Back in our day, we had Polar Bears…" And then we'll all have a cry together.

Anyway, the rest of this post is all about the logistics behind the booking of this trip as I'm sorta proud of it. So that's a warning to most that this is going to get boring real quick…

In an economy where people are actually employed, these trips cost several thousand per person and are booked solid with old people and photographers. To view the polar bears in Churchill you cruise around in these big ol' Tundra Buggies.

No chance we'd be paying those sort of prices, though. There are three parts to the puzzle to see Churchill polar bears independently/cheaply:

Tundra Buggy reservations – sent an email and got a list of available dates for independent travelers. The only downside was that they didn't have any consecutive days. So we'd only be able to do one day out on the tundra. Better than nothing, I'd say.
Motel reservations – combed the internets for email addresses for all the lodging in Churchill. The number of rooms in Churchill is actually very small, so I got a totally mixed bag of responses regarding availability and dates.
Flights – you can fly any number of major airlines to Winnipeg and then you can hop Calm Air up to Churchill. This Winnipeg to Churchill flight alone is $1,000 USD round-trip per person. (of course we didn't pay that much!)

End of October through early November is when you want to be in Churchill, so after looking at Buggy and motel availability I was happy that November 4 turned out to be the sweet spot. Also, keep in mind I started this process in August—so I wasn't really planning too far ahead.

Flights from Seattle to Winnipeg were a cinch. I snagged award tickets on Northwest with my first choice of dates and flight times.

Now how to get those $1,000 Calm Air tickets on the cheap? Brace yourself. The only avenue to redeem tickets with Calm Air is through a Canadian scheme called Air Miles (generic name, eh?). So I signed up for an account with them. Now I just needed to scrounge up 850 Air Miles for each Winnipeg-Churchill roundtrip.

I then discovered that with Priority Club (Holiday Inn, et al) you can convert 10,000 PC points into 250 Air Miles. So I needed 70K PC points to get 1,750 Air Miles—enough for two tickets. That sounds like a lot of points, but PC points are cheap to acquire. To start out, I already had 15K in my account from a single night stay in Bend, Oregon that cost a whopping $90.

Next thing you know, I had a Priority Club Visa in my wallet that earned 45K points for a $59 annual fee and then I straight up purchased 10K PC points directly for $60. Now I had the 70K PC points I needed. Just a short wait after redemption with PC, my Air Miles balance jumped to 1,750 and I immediately redeemed those for our Calm Air flights to Churchill.

Got it? For a glimmer of transparency (as I think readers might be curious), here are the price breakdowns for this trip:

Winnipeg to Churchill flights: $353
- Again, this would be $2K total if booked through "normal" channels—my new all time favorite redemption of points!
  - To acquire PC points: $119 (not including the cost of points earned incidentally from the Bend stay)
  - To redeem the Air Miles I had to drop $234 in "taxes and fees"
Seattle to Winnipeg flights: $94.02 plus 50K SkyMiles
Tundra Buggy: $700
- That's for a full day of two people out scouting Polar Bears—including hot cocoa and soup.
Churchill Motel: $188
- No points redemptions available in Churchill, sadly! And prices are high across the board.
Winnipeg Hotel (2 nights): $90 plus 5,600 Starwood Points
Car Rental in Winnipeg: $32
Vacation days: 2

Grand Total: $1,457.02 plus misc points (which were earned on the cheap)

Everyone values their pesos differently. And many people might not even think Hudson Bay in November sounds like fun. But for our money, this is great bang for the buck on a once in a lifetime trip. Plus I'm not going to lie, it was a very fun puzzle to put together.

Again emphasizing that it's very possible to travel in a style well beyond your means while staying within your means. Any questions? (And props to anyone who read this far.)

Otherwise, expect the full trip report and photos here the week of November 2nd!

Labour Day Around Whistler

2009-09-08T02:35:00Z

The weather has been amazing out here the past several weeks. Except, of course, for the long Labor Day weekend. Dreams of camping and strenuous hiking were quickly dashed. Luckily, we scored a great Plan B at a rustic townhome in Whistler courtesy of Mark and Jen (mostly Jen, though).

Saturday afternoon we went out for a stroll and came upon some canoe rentals at Alta Lake. The weather was looking sorta clear so we rented a couple of them. We had a nice little paddle across the lake and down a narrow river.

Zizou's enjoyment of the affair was questionable at times (he'd much rather be in the water). Somehow, this is the third Labor Day in a row that we've all been on a watercraft together—powerboat in Tahoe 2007 and river raft in Idaho 2008 round out the list.

At this point it was time to cruise back up the river and back across the lake to the dock. The only challenge was that the weather wasn't really cooperating with us. While Mark and Jen are professional paddlers and just cruised right out of there, the competencies in the Klugusamy canoe left much to be desired.

The first three times we thought we were out of the mouth to the river and into the lake, the gale force winds quickly blew us backwards into some reeds. There was much frustration and cursing in our canoe. On the other hand, the always optimistic Zizou seemed to enjoy this windy part the most—he had his nose in the air just taking it all in.

After a brief time out and rational discussion of our game plan, we were back in the lake…phew. Mark and Jen seemed to be relieved that we weren't forever lost. And we were on our way back to the dock/rustic townhome.

Sunday took us to Joffre Lakes Provincial Park north of Pemberton, BC. There are three alpine lakes on this supposedly excellent trail. Sadly we only saw one of them, and it was all Zizou's fault. Part of the trail is a huge rock scramble and it was a bit too nerve wracking watching him work his way through it, so we turned around.

Can only imagine what the upper and middle lakes look like because the lower one is just gorgeous. Here Ziz took a swim while some random hooligans did some of the pot.

Back at the rustic townhome, I drank Baileys while Lillie and Jen made Red Lobster style biscuits, and Mark whipped up some soup from scratch.

Then Lillie ice grilled Jen while everyone else tried to have fun playing Taboo…

The rest of the Whistler trip was just more eating and sleeping. Props again to Mark for playing chef. A trip through Vancouver on the way home Monday wouldn't be complete without some Japanese food. We hit up Motomachi Shokudo and it was awesome. Here's my $10 pork ramen in a charcoal broth:

Great celebration of Labor/Labour.

Space Shuttle Discovery

2009-08-29T03:24:00Z

We had a long planned quick weekend trip to Florida to visit a dear Ponnusamy family friend in Clearwater. As a bonus, I was able to change my flight last minute (through amazing magic with no fees) to arrive a day early to catch a night launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. The bummer being that Lillie stayed back to wrap up business and take our originally scheduled flight. She's a trouper.

With my parents and sister, we made the 2.5 hour drive from Tampa over to Space Walk Park in Titusville, Florida. It's the closest spot you can get to (without tickets) with a clear view of the launch pad. This clear view is still a whopping 12 miles away from the launch pad.

Quick aside: I'd be remiss to not mention Linda's Crab Shack en route in Plant City, Florida. This is the kind of place you dream of finding on a little road trip. I ate/covered myself in garlic butter drenched blue crabs, fried corn on the cob, and a baked potato for a whopping $11. I could eat this stuff every day.

Anyway...in Titusville about 1hr 45min before launch time, we staked out a pretty decent spot and I threw down my tripod amongst the hordes of other tripods. Here's the launch pad lights in the distance:

Everything I read about taking photos of a launch is that it's not easy, and not to waste your time with it your first time so you can just enjoy the spectacle. So my plan of attack was to go for a single long exposure that wouldn't even require me to even touch the camera after setting it up.

Of course I blew it--totally overexposed, but oh well! You should at least be able to make out the fireball at the launch, and then the trail arcing up and a bit to the left is the shuttle taking off. Pretty amazing that this was taken at basically the stroke of midnight. Really does light up the sky.

My sister snagged some video on her little point and shoot. The first 30-seconds are worth watching both for the visuals and hearing my sister drop some OMGs. (email and RSS subscribers will have to click over to the site)

My brother and I have talked for years about needing/wanting to see a launch. Sadly, he watched this one back in LA on the internet. Sorry bro! (You've got six more launches to make it down there...) And I don't care how much the shuttle program costs us taxpayers because it's awesome. If only we spent more money on such awesomeness.

Finally, we'll end with this photo from Clearwater Beach. It would be a throwaway photo had it not been for the shirtless dude walking by in the background...

SnoochFest

2009-08-17T02:39:00Z

Our friend Keith turning 30 got us on the plane to Burlington to celebrate SnoochFest with many other college chums. Basecamp was at Mad River Glen near Fayston, Vermont (word is this is where the real skiing heads go to avoid the lodge crowd).

It was quite the celebration, though most of the photos are under lock and key. Though this one of most of the crew is fit for public consumption:

Excellent stops on the weekend included:

Cold Hollow Cider Mill in Waterbury- ice cold free cider samples and ridiculous cider donuts
Cabot Cheese in Waterbury– many toothpicks of free samples were consumed
Alchemist Pub in Waterbury– part of this Vermont Fresh Network promoting local foods
American Flatbread in Burlington – good pizza that's also part of the above Fresh network

Based on our 48 hours in Vermont, we are huge fans. Love the feeling when we visit someplace new inside our borders and are completely blown away--gorgeous scenery, good food, gay marriage, Ben & Jerry's, etc. Plus some of the best driving roads I've ever been on. A fall colors foliage tour in 2010 is certainly on the calendar...

Cutthroat Pass

2009-08-10T02:17:00Z

This is the first in a series of belated posts after a busy (for us) August…

For many years, I've had my eye on this 11 mile one-way hike from Rainy Pass to Cutthroat Pass in the North Cascades. It's snow free and hike-able for only a window of time in August/September, and this was finally the year we suckered some friends into doing it with us.

After needing my Matrix battery jumped (for the first time ever) outside the Mazama General Store, we started hiking at 3pm. You might be thinking, "wow, that seems like a late start for an 11 mile hike". And you would be correct. But don't worry, we had TWO compasses packed.

At the top of the pass, it was pretty darn windy and chilly. It was a bit cloudy up there, so we were denied super scenic vistas but we did at least hear marmots whistling in the distance. It's a very excellent hike across the board. Here we are, in various states of fashion:

Descending from the top we met some campers who seemed quite concerned about seeing hikers in sandals and shorts towards the end of the day with 5 miles of hiking left in front of them. They didn't know who they were talking to…

With the last drop of sunlight, we arrived at our shuttle Corolla. Phew. The bad part being that it was well after 9pm when we were back at camp, and we still needed to cook up dinner. Good part Mark is a trooper and single handedly hooked up authentic (?) biryani in a single pot.

Meanwhile, Lillie was busy with important things like s'mores.

29 in South Haven, Michigan

2009-08-03T04:01:00Z

Lots of fresh and tasty food…(too much Bell's beer, though?)

Lake Michigan…

Vintage baseball with the South Haven Bark Peelers…

Rounded off with 3-way chili at the Cincinnati airport…

Caliente

2009-07-30T00:50:29Z

(Great picture, I know…but I was driving on the highway when I took it.)

Today goes down as the hottest Seattle day ever. Beautiful.