Back to Turkey: 15 shots from Topkapi Palace, Chora Church, and Istanbul

I'm back from Istanbul and Greece, but getting ready for yet another trip next week. Unfortunately, that means that I can't write up a good true report at the moment, but I will post some pictures as a preview of what I will be writing about when I get back.

Topkapi Palace: 

Stockholm Sunset

Flight Report: The Stockholm-Istanbul-Athens-Stockholm Loop

A week and a half ago, I headed back to Istanbul for a couple days before heading on to Greece for the first time. Of course, with that comes some flights and here's a quick photo set from the five flights. More flights on Lufthansa, although mysteriously I received flight credit for these flights, despite the fact that they were booked in the L and E fare buckets which aren't supposed to give any. I won't be looking that gift horse in the mouth..

Stockholm - Istanbul via Munich
Stockholm to Munich (Lufthansa):
The first flight and very good weather. The view of Stockholm is always nice and now the ground is bright green, from all the plants (which are also blooming for allergy sufferers). A standard flight, with a sub par meal: It felt like they rushed it out so they didn't have time to cook. The result was what can be seen after the break....

Arlanda, Stockholm's Airport

 Four and a half more flights after the break, along with inflight meals...

Food Friday: Sushi in Stockholm

Even though Stockholm has a very strong connection to the sea, sushi is a relative newcomer in the cuisine of Sweden. Sushi is very common now, but good sushi is pretty rare and being from Seattle has left me a little bit of a sushi snob. We like our sushi and we have some of the best ingredients around. Combine that with a healthy Japanese community and you've got everything you need to turn someone from apathetic to having "discerning tastes" in no time. White salmon at Maneki's, for example, is nearly a religious experience.

But what's a person supposed to do in Stockholm where sushi is largely limited to "both kinds" (salmon and shrimp)? For that, there's Akki Sushi, which is quite possibly the best sushi in Stockholm and pictured somewhere below.

Have you found it yet? Akki Sushi is the place with the blue awning. There are four places to sit, and barely any room to stand. Most of the restaurant is the kitchen, staffed by three insanely busy reggea listening chefs who make the sushi right there in front of you. Business is brisk, with most of it being take out. On sunny days like this, there's no need to have a indoor restaurant, but in the winter seating can be a challenge.

9 pieces will set you back 95 or 105 sek (I forgot which), which is still quite a lot when you crunch the numbers. Even then it's only marginally more expensive than other places which focus on mass producing salmon and shrimp. The 9 piece includes 6 nigiri sushi and 3 pieces from a sushi roll, but unlike most places in Stockholm, here you get a true variety of good fish. There will be at least one piece of salmon, but tuna, albacore, mackerel, octopus, squid, snapper and a couple other types of fish also are liable to come out. If there's one that you really don't want, you can tell them (for example, I'm not a huge fan of amaebi) but otherwise you won't really know what you're getting until you get it.

If you're in Stockholm and need a fix of sushi, this is your place.

How to: So, you want to plan a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad... [Part 1: Visas]

Thousands of miles of railroad? Check. Russia? Check. Your mind? You might have lost it somewhere on the way, but this series of posts will help you through the planning process of your own Trans-Siberian journey.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad runs from Moscow to Vladivostok and is over 5,700 miles long. To put that in terms that make sense for people living in the US, that's a little shy of driving from New York to Chicago via San Francisco and Seattle. In European terms, it's like driving from Stockholm to Syria via Lisbon and Valencia. It's a long ways and a lot of time to cover, plus you'll be dealing with Russia and parts of the bureaucracy is still trying to shake off the Soviet era. 

Here's what you need to travel to make your dream a reality. It is deceptively easy: A Russian visa, train tickets, and places to stay along the way. Getting those in order will be your big challenge and this is a guide of how I made my arrangements for the trip and how to save time by learning from my experiences. This is a step-by-step guide to getting your visas and tickets in order.

After the break, we'll get started with the basics of where the railway runs and the visa situation for the three countries you're likely to visit...

How to: So, you want to plan a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad... [Part 2: Buying Train Tickets in Russian on RZD.ru]

This is the second part of my Trans-Siberian Primer. In order to plan a trip across Russia, it's vital that you understand how the trains work and how to buy tickets. In this post you'll learn how to purchase tickets directly from RZD (The Russian Railways) without having to pay a premium for going through a travel agency. As it is today, the website is almost as easy to use as Expedia or any other travel website, except that it's all in Russian and presumes you know a thing or two about the trains already.

After the jump, we'll go step by step from start to end of purchasing a ticket on RZD, complete with pictures at every step.

Crisis Management with Miles: Why one-way awards exist.

In my last post, I mentioned that Iceland was making my life difficult (yet again). Last year, my flight to Shanghai was shanghaied by the volcanic ashcloud and this year another ashcloud is causing problems for one of my relatives who was supposed to be on a plane to Reykjavik (KEF). They've been rescheduled for tomorrow, but who knows if that's going to happen at this point.

The lava fields of Helka, another volcano in Iceland, which was once called the "Gateway to Hell".
This one hasn't erupted since 2000, so if I'm really lucky maybe it'll erupt in 2012 and ground one of my planes then too.

Travel disruptions like this are annoying, but this is a good chance to show off what miles and mileage are good for. While I'm still hoping that Icelandic Air will pull through and be able to put planes in the air tomorrow, just in case I've got a one-way ticket for if the cloud gets worse on hold. The total cost? $30 plus 27,000 miles (which I just about earn on a roundtrip back to Seattle from here with my indirect routings and elite bonus). Plus, with United you can hold award reservations without buying them for a little while, so if the planes fly this insurance policy will have cost about 20 minutes of my time and nothing more.

Overall, that's a great deal. If you were to buy a one way ticket right now, the same flights would run you at least $1,100.

Knock it off, Iceland

Iceland is erupting again, just like it did last year. I seem to have the worst luck in the world with them. Last year,  my flights were cancelled (resulting lost frequent flyer miles!) and this year, I have relatives who are supposed to be flying through KEF today. Don't do it, Iceland Air! Don't cancel that flight!

Update: Yup. Cancelled.

Food Fridays: Food in the UAE

The foreign born population in the UAE is massive in comparison with the native Emiratis. As a result, there is actually a fair amount of variation in the food, with great Indian and Pakastani restaurants all over the place as well as Lebanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Western style cuisine. My friend and I tended to end up at Lebanese places or other restaurants serving kebab or shawarmas, but here's a run down of some of the different inexpensive (and good) places that we ended up trying. No meal here was more than $15.

The Riviera Restaurant: Nicely presented and tasty, but also slightly touristy. Some of the other lebanese places we went to felt like they were more authentic.

The standard spread, plus muhammara and hammos.

Muhammara: A slightly spicy paste with the same consistency as hummus. The dark drizzle is a pomegranate syrup that gives it some sweetness as well.  

Transit Pass Collection: Istanbul

When I touch down in a place, nine times out of ten I'm going to be getting on some form of public transit to get where I need to go. I rarely rent cars and love taking the train or bus perhaps more than most, which also means that I end up with a lot of transit passes over my travels. Today I want to share with you one of the most unique I've seen thus far: The Istanbul AKBIL.

The AKBIL, which is a shortening of "Intelligent Ticket" in Turkish is a keychain pass which functions as either an e-purse (stored value) or time limited pass. It's pretty comfortable to hold, and gives you a substantial discount on transit trips in the Istanbul network. Most notably, when you use this you can transfer between services, while normally you pay every time you step onto a vehicle. It also works on rail, bus, and boat.

Flight Report: Back to Sweden on Lufthansa

I've previously talked about how to make flying in economy class more comfortable, including ways to get consistently better food on long haul flights but also tricks to get more room, such as my A/C trick. When travelling with two people it's a technique that uses known preferences to discourage people from sitting beside you, giving you a sort of "Business Minus" flight experience.

Air New Zealand's "Skycouch" in their 777-300ERs. Looks nice!

However, for long haul flights, and especially red eyes, the ultimate economy luxury is a row to yourself. If you manage to a get row to yourself, you can sleep across all four seats in enviable luxury. In fact, airlines are taking note of this and Air New Zealand is even offering up a new product which some have dubbed "cuddle class" based on this. Before checking in online, I noticed that based on the seat map it looked like I might have a shot at my own sleeper class. Take a look after the break, plus pictures of Frankfurt and Stockholm...

Food Fridays: Fauchon in Dubai

Dubai is something of a Disneyland. A place where money flows (even now after the crash) and where the luxuries of the world are found in the malls beside buildings unburdened by pesky details. One of the places I was surprised to see available in the Mall of the Emirates was a friend from Paris: Fauchon.

Fauchon is known as a trendy and upscale Parisian pâtisserie that focuses on high quality breads and sweets. Given their reputation for high quality, the allure of French desserts, and the expendable income here, Fauchon is a natural fit for a place like Dubai. Chocolates, cookies, mousse, and cakes are all on the menu, but my favorite are their macaroons.

All flavors are wonderful, but for the UAE they have added a flavor I haven't seen elsewhere. Across the UAE an extremely popular and refreshing drink is lemon with mint, and at the Fauchon here they have a macroon that is exactly that. I give to you, the lemon-mint macaroon from Fauchon, Dubai (along with a raspberry macaroon and their Number 6 chocolate truffle).

Abu Dhabi: Other Scenes from Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: The Grand Mosque

A few photos from the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, which opened in 2007. It's a massive complex made out of marble and has cost more than $500 million to build. This is the definition of opulent.

Abu Dhabi: The Autopia Captial of the UAE

Ford Prefect: Didn't you think it was strange I was trying to shake hands with a car? 
Arthur Dent: I assumed you were drunk. 
Ford Prefect: I thought cars were the dominant lifeform. I was trying to introduce myself.

-From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A few weeks ago I wrote about Amsterdam and how transportation choices hundreds of years ago shaped the city that we know today. When it comes to transportation there is no technically "right" answer, but the transportation choices that we decide upon have distinct trade-offs. Abu Dhabi is an example of a city that is heavily invested in the automobile. Ford, an alien in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, mistook for our cars for local sentient species on earth. During the day in Abu Dhabi, it would be easy to make the same mistake. 

What you see here is shot from Google Maps and each of those white dots is a car. Two eight lane roads (four lanes in each direction) meet and define the super-block within which we more cars sitting in wait. Most of the inner city is like this, although there are parks and open space elsewhere, especially along the waterfront.

In the area that I was staying in, this was the scene. The traffic in Abu Dhabi, a city of about a million people, does flow smoothly, but this is the cost: Every major street is at least four lanes wide and here we have two seven lane one-way roads to move traffic. Driving is stressful, but at the end of the day traffic does move. Outside of downtown, traffic is less hectic than here, but in Abu Dhabi one thing is for sure: The car is the king.

More urban pictures and transit talk after the break...