My Road to Rio: Getting There

About three weeks before the Olympics began this year, I discovered that all remaining unsold Olympic event tickets had been opened to the public. When I could not obtain any Rugby Sevens tickets through CoSport, the only official authorized ticket reseller for Olympic tickets in the US (read: the only way to get tickets with a US address), I was *finally* able to score tickets to the men's rugby placing matches, including the semi-finals and finals through the Rio 2016 website. This was the main event I wanted to see, and years ago I told myself that if I could get tickets to see the first time Rugby (Sevens) was played in the Olympics, I would go to Rio. So then I had a choice to make. I hadn't been planning to attend the Olympics this time around. I already went to London in 2012, and I really just wanted to see rugby. And now, it was actually possible!

Flights

My brother in the GIG Rio Airport
right after we landed

So with the idea that maybe this could work, I went online to look at flights. There is absolutely no way I would ever have been able to afford a monetary ticket to Rio during the Olympics. Flights were pricing in the thousands! However, the mileage flights were not bad. Of course, this close to the event, there were no saver level redemptions available, but I was able to find an "anytime" economy fare for 55,000 miles each way. And thinking that I didn't want to go to Rio alone again, and not knowing many others who also collect miles like I do, I called my family in Hawaii to invite them to come with me since it was exactly the same price in miles to fly to Rio from Honolulu as it was for me to fly there from Salt Lake City. In the end, after a little convincing, my little brother decided to come with me. He had not been to South America before, and aside from visiting family in Thailand, he had not traveled outside of the US. It definitely depleted my mileage stores, but it was so worth it to use my miles on my family! This was the first time I would be traveling internationally (minus Thailand) with someone from my family, and it was so exciting!

Little bro and I at Copacabana Beach

Events

Once I had a few flights on hold, I was SO excited to pore over the remaining available tickets and see what other Olympic events I could take my brother to see. We ended up with tickets to two rugby events (which amounted to 10 matches!), one beach volleyball event (with one men's and one women's match), and one badminton event. I'll summarize the events in my next blog post since there was SO much to take in there! Aside from the Olympic events, we spent the rest of our time eating delicious Brazilian BBQ, walking around Copacabana Beach, and sitting in traffic getting to and from Corcovado to visit the Cristo Redentor statue (the Christ Redeemer statue) for some of the best views of the city. I was sad that we weren't able to hang glide over the city, something I have wanted to do for a while now, because they closed the air space over the city during the Olympics. Which is probably for the best.

Accommodation 
After putting the flights on hold and picking out which sporting events we wanted to see, the next obstacle was finding affordable accommodation. In London, there was an official Olympic "Camp in London" site, mostly for volunteers, where you could pay 10 pounds a night to set up a tent one Tube station away from the main Olympic park. There was nothing this affordable in Rio this time around, and unfortunately booking so close to the event made finding affordable housing difficult. Even my friends who live in and around Rio were not going to be there during the Olympics. So I turned to my favorite hostel booking website, Hostelworld, to find hostels in convenient locations knowing that prices were 3-4 times their normal price. We ended up booking a stay at the CabanaCopa Hostel located around the corner from the Cardeal Arcoverde Metro Station, the closest metro station to the Beach Volleyball Arena on Copacabana Beach. Normally, a night at this hostel will set you back around $10 per person. We paid over $40 per person for each night during the Olympics, but it was still much cheaper than any other hotel or airbnb I could find so last minute in the right locations with decent reviews. I believe everyone should stay in a hostel at least once, for better or for worse, before they're 30, just to have that experience. And it was my brother's first hostel experience, so I was excited for that. It ended up not being so great since the crowd it drew for the Olympics was much different than the typical hostel crowd in South America that I'm used to. But there we didn't spend much time there anyway, and there was a decent free breakfast! Plus, we got to see monkeys on the property!

Having the flights, accommodation, and events worked out, I pulled the trigger and decided to go to Rio for a weekend of fun Olympic shenanigans! Stay tuned to hear about my spectator experience in my next post!

The view as we left the Beach Volleyball Arena (to the right) with the Cristo Redentor
statue appearing (on the left) over the Copacabana Beach skyline.

My Heart is with Istanbul

I am extremely saddened by the news of yet another bombing in a place I have visited and loved. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities, even though I only had a few short hours to explore the city.

I have always been a history buff, and one of the first places I had ever put on my travel bucket list was the Hagia Sophia. Both the city and the mosque are significant as the crossroads of Christianity and Islam, of Asia and Europe, a pinnacle of architecture from the Byzantine era until today. I was so excited to finally see the mosaic of the emperor, Justinian, in person. I cannot explain how happy I was to wander the streets and see ancient roman ruins just sitting there, a part of the urban fabric, to see the beautiful mixture of past and present built into the city's form.

As a City Planner, I also absolutely loved the transit system of light rail and streetcars that was so easy to navigate throughout the city. Attaturk International Airport, the subject of today's attacks, actually has a rail line that takes you from the airport directly to the City Center, near the Grand Bazaar. I have raved about this feature to everyone who ever mentioned of Istanbul within my earshot. And now, within the past year alone, there have been attacks on rail lines, in the plaza between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (where I am standing in the photo below), and the airport.

I wish things like this could stop. I wish evil people - or rather, people who wish to hurt others - didn't exist in this world. I wish we could live and let live in a world so diverse and so full of different beautiful cultures and religions and lifestyles. But this kind of danger is a risk we have to take if we want to see the world. And frankly, it's a risk we take each time we step outside our front door, even within the U.S. as the Orlando shootings have reminded us.

I am not sure that I would go to Istanbul if my trip were happening this year instead of in 2014, especially since I went alone. But the idea that this fear of terrorist activities is stunting national economies, preventing people from traveling, and leaving magnificent historic places destitute of people just breaks my heart. That is what terrorists want. They want to use that fear to further their agendas. I know we can't let them win, but I don't know how to balance resilience with the desire to stay safe. I just don't know how to do my part to make things better, as much as I wish I could. But for now, my heart is with Istanbul on this tragic day.

Changing the World

Travel has such a power to inspire and motivate you to be better and to do something bigger with your life. It's really difficult to explain since it's not a tangible feeling. When you travel, it becomes easier to see how big and diverse the world is. For me, it just makes me want to do something more with my life. And visiting places like Australia where there are tons of expatriates on working holiday visas for a year or two at a time really makes me want to live abroad.

I want to change the world. I'm not exactly sure how I can attempt to accomplish that just yet, but I do know that I am not going to do it by living in Utah and sitting in an office all week long. I think traveling as much as I possibly can has given me many ideas and taught me a lot about both myself and my place in this world, although I think I need to eventually take things a step further and take greater action one day soon.

There are many renditions of the quote, "Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher" (Oprah). I believe a lot of people who are driven, the movers and shakers in the world, are travelers and live in bigger cities. I want to be where they are so I can be inspired. I have traveled to find adventure. I have traveled to attend conferences and further my learning and networking experiences. I have traveled to be where history has and will be happening. And because of these things, I have rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest people in the world from successful lawyers and doctors to world renown business owners like Miki Agrawal, founder of Thinx underwear. I am meeting and exchanging ideas and words with these amazing people, and I need to find a way to do something more about it.

It's easy enough to say that I have a wonderful job I enjoy that is enough to support my lifestyle and pay the bills and affords me the work schedule (Fridays off!) and time off to travel a good deal, so why would I want to leave? But I also don't want to get comfortable and complacent in this easy, simple life so that I forget to do more and to be better. Recently, I was able to travel to Phoenix for the National Planning Conference and ended up getting involved in the International Division of the American Planning Association. Being able to participate in the division in the small role of acting secretary has gotten me SO excited about international planning. I mean, the United Nations is hosting Habitat 3 in Quito, Ecuador this fall and is deciding on the New Urban Agenda. My experience and passion for travel has led to this opportunity and has gotten me so excited about things like Habitat 3, things that actually will change the world. And for me, travel is the key to finding people and opportunities to accomplish something more with my life.

Sunrises and Sunsets

Mather Point, Grand Canyon sunrise - April 1, 2016

The sun is indiscriminate. For every moment it is rising for some people, for some place in this world, and it is setting for some people, for some place in this world. It does not care if we see it or not. It does not care where we are or who we are. It does not care if clouds or mountains obstruct it's view. It continues on, consistent, exact, never changing in a lifetime or ten.

The sun does not change. It is indifferent to the lives (or lack thereof) of the people it sustains. The sun is always there, no matter what. If we want to change our relationship to the sun, we have to be the ones to change it. It is our duty to position ourselves, to travel to receive the light. And even then, mother nature is also indiscriminate. She might not cooperate. But the least we can do is decide where we we'll experience the sun. If I want to change my relationship to the sun, I can travel to India, I can visit to the Grand Canyon and be inspired by a new view of it.

A new experience of the same things we've known our entire lives have the most potential to inspire and spark something within us. And what is more consistent in our lives than the sun? Even the air we breathe changes from day to day. But not the sun. You could be fifty yards from a specific place in this world and your view of the sun, the experience you have with it can change in that fifty yards. Isn't that potential exiting? Potential for something constant, consistent, so much the same in our lives to appear different and to feel different to us. That's all it takes to make or break a life, at least for a moment.

2016 Spring Travel Update

I started keeping track of my mileage for the year, and so far I have traveled roughly 47,856 miles! I also calculated that I have spent close to 103 hours on planes and 55 hours in airports this year. I can't wait to update this with my trips to Australia, Puerto Rico, and Brazil in the next several weeks!

By the end of May, I will have visited 5 continents, 5 countries, and 11 states plus 1 territory. I plan on visiting a handful of additional states this summer, and I have trips booked to South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Qatar, Hungary, New Zealand, and Thailand at the end of the year. I also intend to make it to Canada at some point, and it would be nice if I could fit in Cuba and Mexico as well. I didn't think 2016 would live up to my travel experiences last year, but so far 2016 is giving 2015 a run for its money!

Dreaming of Sushi

Timing is such a HUGE part of travel that can make or break your trip. I am currently planning a short getaway to Tokyo for the first time, and I am lucky to have figured out that a lot of the amazing things to do in Japan need to be planned out in advance. After years of solo international travel, I have figured out my preferred plan to unplanned ratio, and I am finding that a lot of the things I want to do have to be planned way in advance.

I knew I wanted to eat good sushi in Japan, but I had no idea that for all the best multi-Michelin starred restaurants in Tokyo, reservations must be made within the first few days of the month before you want to dine there. My trip is in April, and as fate would have it, I was watching an excellent drool-inducing documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi on DocClub (a sort of Netflix for documentaries) on March 1st. It got me thinking that I should see if I can get a reservation there or at a similar place. I was getting so excited!

After doing some research, I also learned that you cannot book a reservation as a foreigner. You need a local to do it for you. I didn't have my hotel or hostel booked at that point in time, so recommendations to use the hotel concierge were lost on me. But then I remembered that Chase and Visa are amazing companies to work with if you have products with them, and so I was able to contact the Visa Signature Concierge since I do hold a Visa Signature branded credit card. Actually I have several; any Visa card is a Signature card if you have a credit line of $5,000 or more. This is a very amazing benefit that not a lot of people know about or use. They were extremely professional and easy to work with, and within a few days, I had my reservation to Mizutani, a 2 Star Michelin sushi restaurant.

And yes, it is for a Party of 1. Whoo hoo!

Foods I Crave: Southside Seafood Market, Savannah GA

Every single time I visit Savannah, Georgia, I have to stop at the Southside Seafood Market down the road from the Savannah Mall. It is just one of those places that makes food that you crave for days and days and days!

This is really all it is! It's like the size of a large 2-car garage. So awesome!

At the Southside Seafood Market, you can buy seafood by the pound raw or you can pay a little extra and have them cook it for you. And man, do they always cook it perfectly!

My absolute favorite thing to order is the Fried Lobster Tail Platter. It's $13.99 and comes with 2 juicy lobster tails and your pick of a side. I usually get the corn, but they've got all the typical southern side dishes to choose from, including hush puppies. Man, I'm even drooling just thinking about it!

Boiled lobster tails w/garlic butter and corn on the left, Fried lobster tails w/hush puppies on the right

I went a little crazy this weekend since it has been a while since I've been to Savannah, and I ordered fried Swai (fish) as well, and it was perfectly fried and crispy and lightly salty and juicy and boy oh boy! My friend ordered a pound of shrimp boiled and it was topped with their garlic butter sauce and he got some Mahi Mahi for himself as well. It was a good day! :)

This little hole in the wall shop is not actually a restaurant since there is nowhere for you to eat nearby. If I can control myself long enough to refrain from eating in the car, I prefer to take the food to a nearby park and have a picnic if the seagulls aren't feeling too greedy. This past weekend, I went to Lake Mayer Park a few miles away and it was spectacular. It was a perfect day for a picnic, even in the middle of February!

Lake Mayer Park in Savannah, Georgia

I cannot rave about this place enough! If you are EVER in the Savannah area, you definitely cannot go wrong if you choose to stop here for a delicious meal.

The Fried Swai