How to spend a million miles?

So, a couple of months ago I received an email from e-prize fulfillment that seemed a bit suspicious. It congratulated me for having won one million American Express points and then went on to request that I complete an affidavit that would disclose all my personal details including my social security number and my birthday. No one form Nigeria would be involved in the transaction. I vaguely remembered liking the American Express page on Facebook in order to qualify for the contest and just as quickly unliking them when I realized that my entire network would be notified of my alliance. I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with AMEX and it ended very badly. Needless to say, I HATE them. The only reason I have a card is because my employer requires that I use one for travel expenses.

I spent an entire day researching e-prize. I called AMEX and they verified that e-prize was a regular vendor, I checked to make sure that the mailing address in the email matched the one on e-prizes official website. I searched online for other people who had received similar e-mails and was reassured that the communication I had received was legit.

Still skeptical, I marched over to the nearest notary public to complete the affidavit and then off to the local post office to mail it via certified mail. I waited several weeks, often checking my AMEX membership rewards account 20 times a day until one day the points magically appeared in my account summary.

Now what?

EAT, EARN, BURN

It’s been a while since I’ve contributed anything to my Blog. Not for lack of travel but rather because it’s been a challenging year and I have been spending much of my time trying to make sense of it. You could say that I have been on a spiritual journey for the past year. My own Eat, Pray, Love if you will but I never seem to get past the Eat part. My version includes Earning and Burning miles instead of Praying and Loving.

This year’s destinations included some old favorites and one new place. It all started with an invitation to share an apartment in South Beach with a friend during the music festival. Most people I know would kill for an opportunity to mingle with the world’s top DJs but I was too busy eating Stone Crabs to care about Hex Hector’s private party.

I somehow managed to talk several family members and friends to meet me in Tokyo for my birthday this year. The planning took place before my life went pear shaped but I managed to make the trip and as a result learned a great life lesson. I realized that all the meals I was served in Japan were Omikase which translates to “It’s up to you”, meaning I leave it up to the chef to serve what’s best for me. The lesson for me was that I should treat my life the same way, I have learned to allow the universe to serve what is best for me.

The new place we visited was Kyoto. I did not fall in love with Japan’s original capital. I so love Tokyo’s energy that Kyoto felt like a nice stroll in the park with some Geishas thrown in for good measure. We had a traditional Kaiseki meal at Kikunoi where our own retired Geisha served us in our own private room. The dishes were beautifully presented but the flavors where perhaps too delicate for my foreign palette. Broccoli rabe, a vegetable I don’t associate with Japanese food, somehow managed to make its way into many of the dishes. Of course, no trip to Asia would be complete without a pilgrimage to Long Beach Seafood in Singapore for Black Pepper Crab.

Next came a quick 4-day trip to Mykonos, the shortest amount of time we’ve ever spent on the enchanted island. But we made the most of it and stuffed ourselves full of grilled seafood. Shortly after Greece, I embarked on a trip that I’ve always wanted to take. I spent 2 weeks with good friends on the Eastern Seaboard, 1 week in Provincetown and the other on Fire Island. I think they ran out of lobster the week I was in P-town.

In the Fall, I revisited Montreal where I devoured wonderful French food including “Duck in a Can” at Pied de Cochon. A visit to my new favorite food town, Honolulu, to sample local food including Alan Wong’s delicious inventions followed Montreal. Finally, a quick jaunt to The River Café in London followed L’Entrecote in Paris.

I still haven’t found myself but I certainly have been doing a good job of feeding my soul. Maybe next year will bring me some enlightenment. In the meantime, Bon Appetit!

More Goa

Wake me up before you Goa

It was still dark at 6am when we arrived Dabolim airport in Goa. Another driver met us to shoo away people and drive us to the Park Hyatt Resort.

The resort is located in South Goa near Cansaulim about 45 minute to an hour from all the action in town. The beach in front of the Park Hyatt is white and pristine. It’s dotted with beach shacks serving fresh seafood. We frequented one named Zeebop several times to sample local lobster.

We were upgraded to a lovely suite with a living area and a wrap around balcony facing the ocean. Most days were spent lounging at the resort pool which is famous for being India’s largest. We ate Curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn’t regret it, although we had antacids ready at hand. I had us booked to get Ayurvedic massages based on our body types, fat and skinny. Mine turned out to be a no nonsense wham bam thank you man meat tenderizing massage which was fine by me. Much better than that willy-nilly massage I got at the Four Season’s in Hawaii for 3 times the price. In, fact, I liked it so much that I booked myself a second massage with Veejay on the last day.

We ventured into town on our second to last day to do some shopping. We were surprised at how much Panaji looked like Mexico. Tijuana to be specific. We bought beautiful fabrics at FabIndia and gorgeous fashions at Barefoot. Had a traditional lunch at Mum’s Kitchen in Miramar where we sampled Xce Xce curry with prawns.

Goa had its share of poverty, in fact the sight that will haunt me for a while took place there. On one of my treks into town, I saw an old man standing in the middle of the road, wearing nothing but a shirt. He was so weak and desperate that he couldn’t even beg.

On our last day at the resort, as we mingled with Bollywood royalty and Russian mafia at the pool, the gardeners caught a 5 foot snake. They paraded the writhing reptile in front of us as if to remind us that we were in the middle of Indian wilderness, the Russians weren’t even fazed.

We spent our last night in India at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai. Our room faced the local slum.

You’re going to India?

India? Why are you going to India? Said my hairstylist when I told him I was going there for the New Year. I asked myself the same question as many colleagues who had been there before me had warned me of the poverty and filth.

We still had enough miles left over from the United Airlines contest we had won to fly anywhere in the world and Mr. M had accumulated enough Hyatt points for a week at any of their properties. My criteria were to pick a warm destination that we hadn’t been to before and it had to be as far away as possible. So I came up with Goa! I always wanted to go to India and my travel agent cousin assured me that Goa was “India Light.”

We had to transit through Mumbai to get to get there. We arrived after a 7-hour flight from Munich where we had stopped over for a lovely Christmas visit with my family. Nothing could have prepared us for Mumbai. The smell of burning garbage and incense hits you the minute you exit the airport. We were greeted by entire families camping out at the airport in anticipation of visiting relatives. Others were there to make money off visiting foreigners like us. The one person I was happy to see was our driver from the Hyatt Regency who took our luggage cart and shooed away anyone who was grabbing at us.

Once at the hotel, we had 4 hours to nap, shower and change before our transfer to the domestic airport where we would board our Kingfisher flight to Goa. We couldn’t sleep so we watched Bollywood gossip shows and skin lightening commercials on TV.

The domestic airport was void of all the maddening crowds, and check-in was a breeze. Security, on the other hand, was an elaborate procedure. Men were separated from women and everyone got frisked. Our Carry-on luggage had to be scanned, tagged and stamped along with our boarding pass before we were allowed to board.

Our 40-minute flight came with individual screens playing the latest Bollywood hits and a swarm of mosquitoes. I nervously took my seat as I was wearing short-sleeved shirt and had not sprayed myself with bug repellent. Once everyone was on board the purser announced that the flight attendants were going to spray bug killer and that we should all cover our noses and mouths. As soon as we took off, we were fed a delicious Indian breakfast. I was halfway through “Love Aaj Kal” starring Saif Ali Khan when we landed in Goa. I will never know how it ends.

A quiet time in Mykonos

The economic downturn was very evident in Mykonos this summer. The maddening crowds were nowhere to be found, there was no wait time for the island's top restaurants and we were upgraded to the villa at the Geranium Moonlight Hotel even though we had paid for the more affordable Geranium Town Suites. Blame it on the recession and the string of poor reviews Alex has received on Trip Advisor. We finally felt like our loyalty to the Gorgieve Empire was rewarded. I must note that we were banished to the maid's quarters for the last 2 nights but I can't complain because that's what we paid for.

Much seafood was consumed and paired with cheap rosé wine at Kiki's and Kounelas restaurants. Most of our time was spent lingering at the Geranium pool ogling over a certain Serbian male model named Nicky but we did manage to make it to Elia beach twice. The biggest news on the island was that Pierro's, the oldest living Gay bar in the universe had lost its 40-year reign to a new club named Babylon. Many clubs have tried but have failed to overthrow Pierro's but it looks like Babylon, with its contemporary decor, hip crowd and great music, might have succeeded. Only time will tell.

The weather was great for the most part. The meltemi winds subsided for one day and made the heat unbearable. The overwhelming heat caused a power outage on the island at the exact moment that Ed was leaving for the airport. Poor Ed had to jump over the electronic fence in order to catch his cab to the airport. As a result, he twisted his ankle and broke a heel.

Our flight back was on Lufthansa. Having flown Lufthansa in First class in the past, I was expecting this flight to be just as memorable as my previous ones. I'm sad to say that it was less than satisfying. The cabin looked dated and the service was unorganized and spotty. The only highlight was the caviar service. As it turns out, we were asked to fill out a survey about our experience. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't actually pay for this flight.

A Swiss affair

This was our 14th visit to the Island of Mykonos. Things have changed quite a bit since our first stay, there's a Starbucks now, but the island manages to keep its charm. On this journey, we decided to try out Swiss airline's newly remodeled A330-300. We cashed in our United Airlines winnings from the Elite Choice contest and booked ourselves in First class. It had been a while since we had enough miles to fly in First so I was very excited about this trip. Swiss did not disappoint, in fact, I found the new cabin and service comparable to Singapore airlines. They don't serve caviar in First but everything else made up for it. We got a Bally dobb kit with La Prairie products in it, slippers and pajamas. The service was spot on and the food was plentiful. Most impressive was the new modern cabin.

We landed in Zurich with a few hours to freshen up in the First-class lounge before our flight to Rome, our stopover before Mykonos. We both took showers and Mr. M chose to take a nap in the dayroom while I feasted on nibbly bits.

The flight to Rome was short and uneventful; in fact we slept through most of it. In Rome we picked up our rental car, an upgrade to a BMW hatchback, and headed toward the Waldorf Rome Cavalieri. This is one of my favorite hotels in the world but I liked it much better when it was a Hilton. The rebranding has almost doubled the number of points required for a free night at this palace and has diminished the elite benefits. Nonetheless, we were upgraded to a lovely suite but had to pay a surcharge to have access to our beloved imperial lounge.

Our favorite restaurant, Myosotis, has gone out of business so we had dinner at Pierluigi's in Campo dei Fiori. The place is a total tourist trap and the meal was probably one of the worst I've had in Rome. I should have listened to my friend Shanone and gone to a restaurant in the Trastevere. Lezione appresa.

The next morning, we sunbathed at the lovely pool until noon and then headed off to the Prada outlet in Tuscany. The outlet was a dud but we managed to make a few forced purchases. I really enjoy the road trip and the stops at the many Autogrills on the way but have really been disappointed with the offerings at the outlet the past few times. I think this might be our last pilgrimage for a while.

Next stop Athens > Mykonos!