AT&T Wireless

So for years I've been expiriencing almost no covereage at my home on AT&T Wireless. I don't live in the sticks or 500 miles away from a major metro area. In fact, I can get great covereage at literally every other place in the world I've been and I've been all over the world. A great example is on a train between Shanghai and Xinyu China. Yes, I said on the train, it works, no problem.

Yesterday I called AT&T (again) to complain about mobile coverage in my area. I got this great call today that said basically, it is what it is, we aren't going to fix it. Hmm, I spend $300 - $800 a month on talk and data usage. It's a lot, but as I mentioned, I travel all over the world and use the stupid phone.

Don't get me wrong, I love my phone. So much so that I've had it for 18 months, a record for someone that usually replaces his phone every 6 months. The big problem here is the network. The AT&T network sucks!!! There's no other way to put it. Just like AT&T said, it is what it is.

So, I will not renew my contract until AT&T fixes the problems in my area. If another provider offers iPhone's, I'm done with AT&T. TMobile for example wass very responsive when I reported the coverage problem. They sent a tech to the area to ajdust the tower then called me to ask if the covereage had improved.

In July I will re-evaluate my cell phone plan and phones available. If AT&T can make this right, I'll renew and get whatever the next iPhone is, otherwise I will consider leaving for an Android phone on Verizon or TMobile.

I've been spending a lot of time in China so I haven't really had much time to update my blog. Here are some pictures from a garden in the city of Suzhou.





The first picture is of women making traditional peanut taffy candy (that's the best I can do to describe it). It was extremely chewy, but pretty good.










The second 2 pictures are of a bell and the bell tower. We actually got to ring this thing. It's really more of a giant gong han a bell. It rings your whole body.

Dresden Germany - Arrival

Flying into Dresden is beautiful. There are farms, small forests, and everything is green. So far everyone is really nice. The hotel: is SO small. It has a twin size bed, shower with a mini tub, a fan, beer in the mini bar. The bed has a single cover and a thin pillow. I just finished asking for 3 more pillows and an iron. The person at the front desk was a little suprised that I need 3 pillows. I'm pretty tired, I didn't sleep at during the 11 hours of flying and 4 hours of waiting. We're going to get an early dinner and real German beer in the Dresden city center. More on that later...

The beer was good. Dinner was also really good...Italian.

Belgium - Brussels

This is the last entry for our vacation. We had a great time. Both the Netherlands and Belgium had a lot to see and do. Everything from sightseeing to great food and beer. I highly recommend a trip. We actually would really like to go back. I think next time we would spend more time in Belgium though.

Here are some pictures of Brussels. The first is of the guild buildings. these are very similar to Antwerp. Next is the pissing boy. Our tour guide recommending seeing this. Pretty funny. This statue has been here peeing for 300 years. If you want to know more about it go to this link:http://www.worldtravelguide.net/attraction/442/attraction_guide/Europe/Statue-of-the-Pissing-Boy-Manneken-Pis.html. The next picture is of our dinner. We just picked a place at random because we were running out of time. It was awesome. The place we picked was right out of a medieval movie set. The dinners pictured are Salmon with lentils and Flemish beef stew. The stew was made with Belgium dark beer. Outstanding.

Guild Buildings


Pissing Boy


Dinner

Belgium - Antwerp (Guilds and beer)

Antwerp is a pretty cool city. There are a lot of seafood restaurants specializing in mussels. We didn't really spend enough time to actually have some though. We did get another chance to have waffles again. The of course were great. The pictures below are of the guild buildings in Antwerp and a store front that sells Belgium beer. There's a lot of great beer in Belgium. I tried a few and they were all good.

Guild Buildings



Beer Store

Netherlands - Cheese, Wood Shoes, and Windmills

All these topics in a single day trip! We started this day by going to the cheese market at Alkmaar. The cheese here is terrific. We tried goat, sheep, and cow (of coarse) cheese. Historically, I don't like goat cheese. Until today I had never tried sheep cheese. I tried all of theese and liked them all! My wife didn't care much for the goat or sheep cheeses, but we did end up buying 3 different types of local cheese.

This picture is where we actually bought some of the cheese.

This is the main market, buyers select the cheese from a supplier then the cheese is brought into the building in the background and weighed. This view gives you a good idea of the size of the cheese wheels.

This is a better view of the building where the cheese is weighed.

I don't recall the name of the next town we visited but it was all about windmills and what they are used for. The windmills in Holland were used to power all sorts of industry. some of these include: making cheese, pressing oil from nuts, making wooden shoes, and even emptying lakes.

Below is a demonstration of shoe making.

This is the first view as we got off the bus. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of these things.

A closer view of a windmill.

Netherlands - Haarlem and Keukenhof

Haarlem sounds a little familiar right but it might not be what you think of when you think of the Netherlands or Holland. The fact is that Holland founded the New Your city area. Originally New York was New Amsterdam. So the names around the New York City area like Brooklyn, Manhatten, Harlem, etc are all Dutch. The British renamed New Amsterdam to New York when they took it over. Anyway, here are some pictures of Haalem.

During this day trip we also went to Keukenhof. This is the tulip growing region. The area was not in full bloom but it was still really something. Here are some of the pictures.

More Bruges pictures

Here are more random pictures of Bruges. Next time we're in the area, we'll spend a couple of nights here. It's a terrific town.

Bruges, Belgium

Welcome to Bruges. So what do you think of when you think of Belgium? CHOCOLATE!!! Of course this is the first picture. You might notice that this picture also represents Europes free spirit.

There are chocolate stores all over Bruges. Chocoalte isn't what brought us to Belgium though, it was the movie "In Bruges". It was a great movie with beautiful scenery.

Amsterdam Day 1

This is our first day in Amsterdam. My wife and I walked around the city center for just about 3 hours. This picture is just across the street from our hotel which is the Marriott. We couldn't decide on lunch and got so hungry we just stopped at McDonalds. Duh, we're in Amsterdam. Oh well. We're going to Bruges, Belgium tomorrow. NO MCDONALDS!!!

Oops, next up Amsterdam!!!

So my wife and were thinking aoub it and decided we have spent enough time in Asia. I've been to Amsterdam a few times on business and really liked it. So, why not, we're going to Amsterdam.

Next stop Tokyo, Japan

No pictures in this entry. Just a heads up. My Wife and I are headed to Tokyo in April. We're going to visit Mount Fuji, Disneyland, and some of the local temples and gardens in Tokyo. I'm also looking forward to going to a Saki brewery (right term?).

Watsonville, Ca

I don't get to do this very often, but this past weekend I got a chance to visit the coast with my wife. We spent the weekend in Watsonville, Ca at the KOA. If you ar enot familiar with the area, that's about 10 miles south of Santa Cruz. The campground is great. They have small cabins with beds, bathrooms, and small kitchens. We took a walk down to the baech from the KOA. It's about a mile walk. Here's a picture. It was taken with my iPhone, the quality is not great.

Japan Bullet Train (Shinkansen)

So it's time to leave Japan to go on to Shanghai. I decided to fly in and out of Osaka because of cost. It saved about $2600. A lot. Doing this though compicated my travel. I had to take a couple of trains. From Nagoya I took a bullet train (the picture), then the Kansai airport express. In all about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Nagoya Osu Temple

Here's a picture of a temple in the Osu area. Not really much to see. There's also a castle in Nagoya called Nagoya Castle (of course). I didn't have time to go see it though.

Nagoya

Here's a picture from my hotel room in Nagoya at the Marriott. The Marriott is pretty nice. I'm going to go out and walk around and get more pictures. More later.