03 Friday May 2013
Although it looks as if Mr. Selfish and I mostly ate in Shanghai, we also did a little bit of sightseeing. The most notable sights were the Jing’an Temple and the Shanghai Museum.
Jing’an Temple (1686 号 Nanjing West Road) is located right outside of the Jing’an Temple metro stop and is very easy to find. It is a Buddhist temple that was built during the Qing Dynasty. Entry was 30 yuan per person, which is a little steep considering that when we visited the main area was under renovation.
02 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Asia, China, Food & Drinks, Shanghai
Tags
Afternoon Tea, Asia, China, Food & Drinks, High Tea, Peninsula, Ritz-Carlton, Selfish Years, Shanghai
When I was in Shanghai in 2002, my friends and I went to afternoon tea at the Ritz-Carlton. I don’t remember much about it but I do recall that it was a swanky affair full of delightful snacks and goodies and a little bit of tea. Since then, I’ve been to several afternoon teas, including the fabulous afternoon tea at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.
Since we were in Shanghai for two weeks, Mr. Selfish and I figured that we would indulge in a couple of afternoon teas. First, we settled on the Ritz-Carlton since I had been previously. Second, we decided to go to the Peninsula since it is an institution for afternoon tea.
We did the Ritz-Carlton afternoon tea at Pudong (52/F, 8 Shiji Da Dao, near Lujiazui Huan Lu). There are apparently two Ritz-Carltons in Shanghai, and I think I went to the other one in 2002. I didn’t recognize the dining area at all, but it sure was swanky as well. It cost 288 yuan for one afternoon tea set. Mr. Selfish and I purchased an additional pot of tea for 70 yuan.
01 Wednesday May 2013
Tags
Asia, China, Dry Wash, Fake Eyelashes, Fake Market, Massage, Pampering, Qipu Lu, Selfish Years, Shampoo Wash, Shanghai, Shopping
When I was in Shanghai in 2002, I indulged in quite a few dry washes. A dry wash is when a hair dresser washes your hair by squirting water on your head with a little water bottle and slowly massages the shampoo into your hair. It should be a slow and lingering experience. I remembered getting massaged for 30-45 minutes and it costing hardly anything. I had told Mr. Selfish about these infamous dry washes on several occasions, so I wanted to introduce him to it while we were in Shanghai.
My dry wash cost 30 yuan and was a little shorter than I had remembered at about 20 minutes. By the time I was done, Mr. Selfish was already waiting for me. Apparently, his dry wash hadn’t been nearly as long as mine and was hardly slow or lingering. Oh well, I still enjoyed myself.
01 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Travel Hacking
This is the twelfth and final post on earning miles and points. Check out my intro post on the topic, “How to Travel Hack your way Around the World.”
While credit card sign up bonuses and banking represent the easiest way to collect miles and points, there are any number of ways one can earn miles and points on a daily basis.
Below is a list of different ways to earn miles and points, along with links to additional information.
Earning miles from online purchases is one of the easiest things you can do to earn extra miles on a daily basis.
Buying flowers for Mother’s Day? Earn 30x AAdvantage miles or United Miles per dollar spent, by shopping through American Airlines or United’s shopping site.
Next time you need to buy something online, I highly recommend using sites like evreward to determine how to get the most bang for your buck when shopping online.
Renting a car, or staying at a hotel can often earn you airline miles or hotel points in addition to points you’d normally earn. Be careful, however, as some car rental companies will charge you more money if you use a hotel or airline promotional code.
Frequentflyerbonuses has aggregated a ton of data on bonus offers for just about everything.
Earn miles or points by registering for affiliated dining programs. Register a credit card and earn bonus miles by eating at one of the many restaurants in the Dining Program. There’s usually some sort of bonus when you initially sign-up, e.g. earn 1000 extra miles by spending $30 at one restaurant in the first 30 days.
This is an easy way to earn miles & points, but personally I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat at any of the participating restaurants unless it was a place I wanted to eat at any way. It does stack well with other offers, however, like American Express’s Small Business Saturday.
The Points Guy has a great breakdown of the current dining programs.
The following are additional ways to earn miles and points. These are extremely *hardcore* techniques, and I would spend a decent amount of time researching how they work, if you’re at all interested in the black arts of travel hacking. Be warned, they involve a lot more effort than the methods I’ve outlined above, and can involve a decent amount of risk.
Double Dipping
This technique involves clicking through a shopping portal once to buy gift cards, then going through a second time with those gift cards to buy what you really want.
Mrs. Selfish and I have tried this a few times with some success, but if you’re really interested in how this works, please do yourself a favor and check out the Frequent Miler, who is the authority on the subject.
Gift Card Churning
Not to be confused with double dipping, gift card churning is a very labor-intensive way to earn extra miles and points. The basic principle involves buying gift cards through a cash-back portal with a miles or points earning credit card, then selling the card through a third party site. You earn miles and points when purchasing the gift card, and hopefully sell the gift card at a small loss or, even better, a small gain.
Again, the Frequent Miler is probably the best authority on the subject.
Manufactured Spending
Simply put, this involves making purchases to earn miles or points while spending little to no actual money. Some techniques involve buying large value gift cards ($500+), depositing the money into a debit account like Bluebird, then use the gift card money to pay off the credit card bill. These techniques get shut down frequently, but seem to spring up just as frequently, thanks to ingenious travel hackers.
Other techniques involve using free-after-rebate purchases to help meet minimum spend, or to rack up spend in a bonus category.
This technique has become so useful in the last year that Flyertalk has opened a new forum to handle the topic.
Does anyone have any additional techniques? If you have any tools or tips (especially ones that work while traveling), we’d love to hear them!
30 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Asia, China, Food & Drinks, Shanghai
Although Mr. Selfish and I enjoyed the Shanghainese food in Shanghai, we had a hankering for some good ol’ American fare. Fortunately for us, within walking distance of our apartment in the French Concession, there was a hot dog place and a brewery.
The hot dog place is named Bikini (47号 Yongfu Road). We walked there late one night after we had a minor cooking fiasco with short-grain rice in our apartment. The hot dogs were gourmet and quite delicious.
29 Monday Apr 2013
Tags
Asia, Beisi Pagoda, China, Day Trip, Humble Administrator's Garden, North Temple Pagoda, Selfish Years, Shanghai, Suzhou
Mr. Selfish and I decided to take a couple of day trips from Shanghai. While on my study abroad program in 2002, we took a day trip to Suzhou, which I remembered to be stunningly beautiful, so we decided to venture there again.
The train ride from Shanghai to Suzhou took less than half an hour. We walked from the train station to the North Temple Pagoda, also known as the Beisi Pagoda. Admission was 25 yuan per person and completely worth it.
28 Sunday Apr 2013
Mr. Selfish and I enjoyed people watching in the People’s Park in Chengdu so much that we decided to visit two of the parks in Shanghai.
First, we went to Fu Xing Park, which was within walking distance of our French Concession apartment. The park is designed in the French style, with a center lake, fountains, covered pavilions, and flowerbeds. We watched the children learning how to rollerblade and the old ladies practicing their ballroom dancing.
27 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted in Asia, China, Food & Drinks, Shanghai
Tags
Asia, China, Food & Drinks, Fu 1039, Jingang Food and Drink Shop, scallion pancake, Selfish Years, Shanghai, Shanghainese Food
While in Shanghai, Mr. Selfish and I enjoyed the Shanghainese cuisine, which is also known as Hu cuisine. In particular, we loved all of the soup dumplings in Shanghai, which I’ll go over in another post.
Aside from the soup dumplings, my favorite meal was at Fu 1039 restaurant (1039号 Yuyuan Road), which specializes in Shanghainese food. The restaurant is located in a refurbished old villa and is a part of a fancy chain of restaurants starting with the name “Fu.” We tasted two quintessential dishes there – stewed pork in sweet soy sauce and hairy crab with greens.
26 Friday Apr 2013
Tags
During the summer of 2002, I did a law study abroad program focusing on Chinese law in Shanghai at the East China University of Politics and Law. I have very fond memories of tasting soup dumplings, watching tai chi in the park, bargaining at the market for souvenirs, and walking on the Bund.
This time around, Mr. Selfish and I spent two weeks in Shanghai. Admittedly, that is a long time to stay in Shanghai. But I was nostalgic when planning this leg of the trip, and I don’t regret it.
Here are some photos of the Bund and Nanjing Road at night to kick off our series of Shanghai posts:
25 Thursday Apr 2013
Tags
Asia, Day Trips, Fukuoka, Japan, Kanazawa, Kobe, Kurokawa, Kyoto, Mount Koya, Nara, Osaka, Selfish Years, Tokyo
Mr. Selfish and I arrived in Kyoto last night and are staying in an apartment here for a glorious 22 nights. After so much fast traveling through China and Korea, we were glad to unpack our bags, do some laundry, and buy some groceries to make home cooked meals.
We started our trip in Japan at Fukuoka for one night and then went to Kurokawa, which is an amazing onsen town, for two nights. After Kyoto, we’ll visit Kanazawa for a couple of nights and then Tokyo for two weeks.
23 Tuesday Apr 2013
Mr. Selfish and I traveled to Xi’an, China primarily to see the Terracotta Warriors Museum. In doing my research, I learned that there was a lesser known tomb in Xi’an for Emperor Jingdi, which is also known as Hanyangling. We decided to visit this tomb first and save the Terracotta Soldiers for later.
In hindsight, I found the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi to be a more well-done attraction than the Terracotta Warriors Museum. The Chinese government recently renovated the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi, and as a result, the Tomb is better designed and allows you closer access to the excavation pieces. Most of the pits had a glass walkway over which you can walk to see the thousands of excavated pieces.
22 Monday Apr 2013
Tags
Asia, China, Selfish Years, Terracotta Warriors Museum, The Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, Xi'an
Mr. Selfish and I couldn’t go to China for more than a month and not visit the Terracotta Warriors Museum (officially the Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses) in Xi’an. Unfortunately, we were a little underwhelmed by the experience.
The first building we entered had two large painted bronze chariots. They seemed pretty well-preserved but were swarmed by Chinese tourists. Even though the chariots were behind glass, the throngs of supposed photographers kept utilizing their flash to take photos, which completely defeats the purpose of the photo.
21 Sunday Apr 2013
Posted in Asia, China, Food & Drinks
Tags
Asia, Chengdu, China, Food & Drinks, Mike's Pizza Kitchen, Peter's Tex Mex Grill, Selfish Years, Tex Mex
Mr. Selfish and I enjoyed the Sichuan cuisine in Chengdu but after a while, we started craving Western food. When I discovered that there was supposedly good Tex Mex and pizza in Chengdu, we couldn’t resist.
First, we went to Peter’s Tex-Mex Grill, which is a mini chain in China. Apparently, the first restaurant was opened in Chengdu by a Chengdu native. Mr. Selfish has been craving authentic nachos since we left the States. We’ve ordered it twice while in Thailand and both experiences left much to be desired.
20 Saturday Apr 2013
I adore the film “Farewell My Concubine,” which is about two Chinese opera actors prior to the victory of the Communists in 1949. Mr. Selfish didn’t watch the entire movie because he couldn’t stand the Chinese opera singing. Although I initially didn’t like it, the singing grew on me as the film progressed, and it was 171 minutes long.
When I learned that there was a highly recommended Chinese opera performance in Chengdu, I wanted to go. The Shu Feng Ya Yun Sichuan Opera in Chengdu is highly recommended. The performance starts at 8pm every night. If you arrive early, you can watch the actors and actresses putting on their makeup and costumes. Mr. Selfish and I were the only ones watching them during this process but they didn’t seem to mind.
19 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in Travel Hacking
If you’re just joining us, Mrs. Selfish and I have been traveling the world for the last 8 months – largely on miles and points – or are we? While Mrs. Selfish touched on our favorite memories yesterday, today I thought I’d take a look and see what our trip has meant from a cost perspective.
Within our Selfish Year of travel (or 369 days) we’re visiting a total of 91 cities – 78 we’re staying in, while 13 are day trips. Here’s what that looks like:
Of those 91 cities, so far we’ve visited a total of 66. So we still have a lot of fast traveling ahead:
So far we’ve visited 21 of the 25 countries we set out to see. I was a little surprised by that number myself, considering we’re only 66% of the way in. Then I looked at the country breakdown:
It turns out our upcoming stays in Japan and Australia account for 21.6% of the amount of time we’re spending abroad – probably two of the more expensive countries on this trip – whoops!
We spent the least amount of time in Monaco (1 day), followed by Switzerland, and Austria. Interestingly, we’ll have spent 3 nights in the air – 2 nights on our way to Singapore (a red-eye + the time change), and 1 night on our upcoming leg from Japan to Australia.
The Selfish Years 