Toluu

Aaron Bailey

T2 TeaApril 15 2008

I've gone a bit crazy on my tea purchases this trip. I picked up this T2 tea from Australia at a local Singapore mall and I purchased some French tea while in Marseille and Lyon.

I particularly loved the branding, packaging and containers of T2. Now I'm going to have to visit Australia to visit a true T2 store.

SingaporeApril 15 2008

In brief: the airplane flight over was horrible for various reasons, but I arrived in one piece on Sunday and was whisked away from the airport by my gracious local tour guide, friend and client Dan to the opulent Scarlet Hotel in Chinatown and then to dinner. Since then, we've mixed sightseeing with amazing amounts of delicious and varied food, and shopping. I'll write a blog post of just the food alone in the coming days.

My first impressions of Singapore are quite different than I expected. The city is more Western and wealthy than I think most Americans would realize. A number of ex-pat Caucasians, Indians, Chinese and other Asians mix in with the local population to make this a truly international, cosmopolitan and beautiful city!

(Stock photo above, to be replaced by one I take)

"Camping" in St. Fons, FranceApril 12 2008

Here's a quick little video I made to remind myself of my spartan living conditions here in France. My sister is living and playing professional volleyball in a small suburb outside of Lyon, where they give her very little salary and this apartment. At my age, I could never do what she's doing, but I think it's great she's getting the experience.

I'm certainly looking forward to staying in a boutique urban hotel next week, but I'm not looking forward to the 19 hours of flying upon which I'm about to embark.

Gear Review: MAXroamApril 10 2008

Since this is a working holiday, I researched a great deal about staying in touch with clients while overseas. I had been following blog coverage of MAXroam, the international roaming SIM provider, for a while and decided to pick one up. For €30, I got a SIM card, a US-based number and €5 of talk time. I topped my card off with another €30. It costs me €0.21/minute (around 33 US cents) to receive a call and slightly more to place a call or send a text message.

Alternatively, I could have paid another US$6 to AT&T for the month of April and received their international traveller rates of US$.99 to place and receive calls. For about 2 hours of calling, it was worth picking up the Maxroam SIM.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with the service, with a few caveats.

To place an outgoing call, you dial the number and then hang up. MAXroam's service calls you back and then connects the call. Apparently, this is a standard practice with international SIM cards and this normally wouldn't be a problem, however my unlocked iPhone doesn't really enjoy this process. When I place a call, my iPhone gets stuck in a loop thinking the call didn't go through and tries to dial the num

More from LyonApril 10 2008

(Yet another French student strike?)

The Rhone River flowing through Lyon.

St Jean Cathédral

A treat!