Category Archives: Brian’s Travel Spot

An occasional series of posts detailing my travels rather than the coffee I find along the way

Brian’s Travel Spot: Vietnam By Train, Ho Chi Minh City to Danang

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My sleeper compartment on the TN2 train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi.Welcome to the second instalment of the latest Brian’s Travel Spot, the occasional series in which I catalogue my travels by means other than the coffee shops I visit. This trip began just over a week ago, when I flew to Vietnam, a new destination for both me and the Coffee Spot. Since then I’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon as was), first exploring the city (through the lens of its speciality coffee shops), then attending a week-long meeting for my day job.

Ideally, I’d write things up as I go, letting you know what I made of the city, with regular updates documenting my various adventures/experiences. However, the last year has taught me that combining travel, work, keeping the Coffee Spot regularly updated and writing Travel Spots in real time just doesn’t work. Something had to give and, sadly, it’s the real-time Travel Spots.

Instead, I’ve put together a Travel Spot Page to deal with the whole trip, while the remaining posts in the series cover my epic 36-hour train journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi ending with my flight back to the UK.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Vietnam

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My Vietnamese Airlines Boeing 787-9 waiting at the gate at Heathrow's Terminal 4 to take me to Ho Chi Minh City.Welcome to another instalment of Brian’s Travel Spot, featuring Vietnam, a new destination for the Coffee Spot and for me personally. Having previously hardly set foot outside Western Europe and North America, the last 12 months have seen me visit China, Japan and now Vietnam for the first time. As it was with the two previous trips, this is for work, with time for some Coffee Spot duties tacked on at the start/end.

In another first for me, I flew out (and returned) on Vietnam Airlines. Having previously tried to travel only on British Airways or Virgin for long-haul flights, the last twelve months has seen me flying on a variety of airlines. Other than the annoyance at having my airmiles spread around all over the place, my (long haul) experience has been very positive, a trend that continued with Vietnam Airlines.

The trip itself took in a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, followed by a week there for business, and was rounded off by a week-long trip all the way up the coast by train to Hanoi, with stops at Hoi An and Hué along the way. I then flew back from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh and, from there, home.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Tokyo

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A quiet, narrow Tokyo street 10 minutes' walk from the madness of Shibuya but feeling a million miles away.It’s almost been two weeks since I set off from Heathrow to fly, for first the time, to Japan. You can read about my (lack of) preparation for the trip and my thoughts about it in the previous Travel Spot. Rather than give a blow-by-blow account of my trip, including where I went and what I did, I’m taking a different approach with this Travel Spot, concentrating on my general impressions of Tokyo and, in another post, Japan (at least, those bits that I visited).

My trip’s been split into three parts. Part I involved three nights in Tokyo where I was pretty much getting over my jet-lag and gentling exploring random parts of the city. Part II was work, a Monday to Friday meeting that was ostensibly the purpose of the trip and involved moving to a swanky hotel in Shibuya (think Piccadilly Circus/Oxford Street or Times Square). Part III, the bit I’m on now, sees me exploring Japan by train for a week and will be covered in another Travel Spot.

Back to this Travel Spot, where I will kick off with some general observations about Tokyo, before moving on to talk about coffee shops and other matters.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Japan

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This is a slight departure from my normal Travel Spot series, less recording what I’ve done, more advanced warning of what’s coming. Whether I expand it to recap my travels remains to be seen, but for now it can stand as a reminder of an increasingly busy year!

You see, I’m off to Japan. I’ve known about it for a while now. I booked the flights in early February, but only really started planning the trip at the weekend. For reference, today’s Wednesday and I’m leaving for the airport at noon!

This is very unlike me. Normally I’m a thorough planner and preparer, even if I then use my plans as a basis for improvisation rather than rigorously follow them. I suspect that I’m a bit of nightmare to travel with, so it’s just as well that I travel alone most of the time.

I’m back with British Airways after dabbling with various airlines over the last year. It’s the one part of the trip I have planned: my exit-row aisle seats are booked and I’m looking forward (honestly, I am) to 12 hours on a 787. It might give me a chance to do some preparation for this trip!

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Brian’s Travel Spot: The Grand Adventure, Part I

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My hire car for the drive from Phoenix to San Francisco, parked up on the side of the road in the Joshua Tree National Park. The striking blue paint job made it easy to find in car parks!Welcome to The Grand Adventure, the latest in the occasional Brian’s Travel Spot series, which document my various travels. This is part of a wider trip which I took in January/February 2017, the first two parts of which covered my first visit to Phoenix in October 2016 and my return in January 2017. This post marks the start of The Grand Adventure itself, a road trip that would ultimately see me driving over 1,200 miles, starting in Phoenix and ending, almost exactly seven days later (to the hour!) in San Francisco.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself. After spending a week in Phoenix, where I was attending a four-day business meeting, I set off in my hire car, a rather striking blue Ford Fiesta, to drive west to Los Angeles, via the Joshua Tree National Park. After a day in Los Angeles, the plan was to drive north along the California coast, mostly along State Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, with several stops along the way, ultimately ending up in San Francisco.

This post, Part I of the Grand Adventure, covers my drive west from Phoenix to the Joshua Tree National Park, where I arrived on the evening of the following day.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: My Return to Phoenix

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Improving hotel coffee one Aeropress at a time with a little help from my Knock feldfarb hand grinder.Welcome to second instalment of the fifth in the occasional Brian’s Travel Spot series. In the first part of this, the first Travel Spot of 2017, I explained how I was returning to Phoenix and took the opportunity to regale you with my adventures the first time around. We ended Part I with my arriving in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport having flown in via Salt Lake City, which, it turn out, was an excellent idea. Apart from the vile cold that I caught on the short hop from Salt Lake City to Phoenix and which I’ve just about got over now, a week later.

However, that’s enough moaning. I really enjoyed my return to Phoenix, confirming my original impressions that it’s a fabulous place both to live and to visit. What I hadn’t fully realised (although I knew it conceptually) is that Phoenix the city is quite small and what I think of Phoenix is in fact the greater Phoenix area (I may have made that term up!) which includes the surrounding cities such as Scottsdale (where I was last time) and the likes of Tempe, which is where we’ll start the tale of my return, after a quick word about my motel… Continue reading →

Brian’s Travel Spot: Phoenix and the Grand Adventure

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My Boeing 767-300ER from Delta on the stand at Salt Lake City, having brought me all the way from London Heathrow.Welcome to the fifth of the occasional Brian’s Travel Spot series, where I attempt to document my various travels around the world. The first of these was back in 2015, when I did my coast-to-coast trip across the USA by train, followed by a return visit to the US this time last year. 2016 was a good year for travel, with a brief sojourn in Porto, followed by a round-the-world trip via Hong Kong, Shanghai and Chicago.

This, the first Travel Spot of 2017, sees me off on a month-long trip around the US, starting with a return to Phoenix. When I started writing this post, at the gate in Heathrow’s Terminal 3 while waiting for my flight, I began with a brief recap of my first visit to Phoenix, which had taken place just three months before, at the end of the previous October. Since then, I’ve moved that content to its own post, part of a larger series about that trip, so this post now just covers my flight out to Phoenix at the start of this trip, after which I embarked on what I called The Grand Adventure, a week-long drive from Phoenix to San Francisco.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Shanghai to Chicago

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The Willis (was Sears) Tower, Chicago's tallest building.Welcome to fourth instalment of my Brian’s Travel Spot series, which started with my flight out to Hong Kong, continued with my adventures in Hong Kong itself, then moved onto Shanghai, where I was spent a week on business before having the weekend to explore. This instalment covers the next leg of the trip, my flight across the International Date Line to Chicago, where I spent the next 10 days staying with friends before flying home, in the process, completing my first round-the-world trip.

Originally, this was going to be two separate trips. Chicago had been in my calendar for almost a year before work asked me to go to Shanghai. Since I had it in my head that I would already be flying to/from Chicago, my initial planning was based around returning from Shanghai after my meeting, spending a couple of days at home, suffering horrible jet lag in the process, then flying out to Chicago to do the same again. That, I decided, would be no fun. I briefly thought about cancelling the Chicago trip before checking out the (with hindsight) obvious option of flying from Shanghai to Chicago, a solution which had the bonus that I’d fly around the world in the process!

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Shanghai

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The futurist Oriental Pearl TV tower on the Pudong side of Huangpu River, as seen from the Bund at night.Welcome to third instalment of my Brian’s Travel Spot series about my around the world trip, which started with my flight out to Hong Kong and continued with my adventures in Hong Kong itself. This post covers my time in Shanghai, which is the second leg of my trip. I’d never been to China before this trip, so when I got an opportunity to go there on business, I took it with both hands.

I arrived on Sunday, then spent the most of the next five days in a meeting room on the first floor of the Hyatt, an interesting mix of modern western hotel, with Chinese architectural influences and a contrast with my own hotel, the Astor, just down the street. I then spent the weekend exploring the city before flying off on the third leg of my trip, across the international date line to Chicago.

As with all the Travel Spots, this post is split into a number of sections, starting with the relatively short flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Hong Kong

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The famous Star Ferry, seen here in 2008, crossing Victoria Harbour between Hong Kong island and Kowloon.Welcome to second instalment of my Brian’s Travel Spot series, which started with my flight out to Hong Kong via Dubai. This post covers my time in Hong Kong, an amazing city which I first visited in 2008 on a business trip. However, I added on some sight-seeing time at the end and, despite Hong Kong never having been on my destination list, I fell in love with it.

I’ve been wanting to return ever since, so when work wanted me to attend a meeting in Shanghai, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I could fly to Hong Kong, acclimatise and (perhaps more importantly) get used to the different time zones, then fly on to Shanghai for my meeting. In the end, I spent four days on Hong Kong island, which was nowhere near long enough, but it did give me a chance to reacquaint myself with the island, explore its excellent speciality coffee scene and, best of all, get over my jet lag!

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