2014 Travel Year In Review

Well, it's the last day of 2014, and wow, I've had an amazing year.

Since my father's an Asian math nerd, according to his excel spreadsheet, I have:

1. Flown approximately 51,422 miles this year.
2. Taken 26 flight segments (6 of which were 8+ hours long).
3. Flown out of 16 airports.
4. On 6 different airlines.
5. Traveled to 6 foreign countries.
6. Earned 25,931 frequent flyer miles!

I was able to earn Gold Status on Aegean Airlines, but unfortunately, it won't be lifetime as we hoped. I suppose I'll just go with earning United miles and try to hit 1,000,000 miles at some point in my life. I'm only at 5,279 miles with United, so I still have a long way to go.

On the hotel side, we have:

1. Stayed 43 nights in hotels this year
2. Across 21 different cities
3. In 20 unique hotel brands including all 9 of Starwood's.

Our most frequent brand was Westin (11 nights across Atlanta, Austin, Chicago and Costa Navarino). We re-qualified for Starwood Platinum status, but lost our Hyatt Diamond status.

So as we close out 2014, here's a photo snapshot of our favorite lapchild adventures each month.

Mid-2014 Check In

Back in 2008, when he was a care-free single man without any responsibilities whatsoever, my father took a Midwest road trip during the entire month of September  as a part of his MLB stadium tour. Using Chicago as his homebase, he drove out to the 3 M's (Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri) visiting Target Field (Twins) in Minneapolis, Tiger Stadium in Detroit, and Busch Stadium (Cardinals) in St. Louis.

Also, for about a week of that trip, he drove through the great state of Ohio, visiting the 3 C's (Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati). And today, as we hit the halfway point in 2014, my father finds himself back in Ohio for a two day work conference in Columbus.

So while he's gone, I thought I'd sneak onto his computer and take a look at all our 2014 travels to date and reminisce a bit.

January - Austin

February - Wisconsin

March - Hong Kong

April - New Orleans

May - Atlanta

June - Israel

So now the question is, what's the plan for the second half of 2014. Well, as of right now, we only have July planned where I'm tagging along with my parents on their 5th Wedding Anniversary trip to Italy and Greece.

After that, it seems we have the rest of the calendar a bit open. Any suggestions for Labor Day Weekend?

Southern Comfort (Food)

Our third objective coming down to Atlanta was to visit with John Mark's family, namely his mother and grandmother. It was Mother's Day after all. Secretly though, my father was more focused on getting some good old fashion home cooked southern food.

Up until now, the only "southern" food my family has enjoyed came from our pit stops at Cracker Barrel. So we were very excited to get something more authentic.

But before we'd get to indulge in John Mark's grandmother's home cooking, we had a few meals at some southern restaurants.

Mary Mac's Tea Room
The first taste was Mary Mac's - a local favorite in Atlanta. Unfortunately, when we arrived at 1PM, there was a long line outside waiting to be seated. Apparently we arrived just after a party of 25 (celebrating someone's college graduation). We put our names down and just enjoyed the perfect Atlanta weather.

But by 2PM we were seated and enjoying some delicious comfort food. My father went with the Shrimp & Grits while my mother went with the Grilled Liver with Onions. We also had some Fried Green Tomatoes appetizers. Everything was super delicious and reasonably priced (around $13/dish) though the portions were a bit smaller than we were expecting. Definitely no Cracker Barrel!

The next meal was much later that night after our Stone Mountain Laser show. Unlike Manhattan, apparently almost everything closes in Atlanta around 10PM. So we went where John Mark and Jenn usually went late night for food - Waffle House.

Waffle House

Apparently, this is THE late night spot for southerners. Aside from the obvious waffles, the famous menu item is the Hashbrowns. You can get them done as follows:

• Smothered:  sauteed onions
• Covered: melted cheese
• Chunked: grilled ham
• Diced: grilled tomatoes
• Peppered: jalapeños
• Capped: mushrooms
• Topped: chili
• Country: gravy

Since my father is truly a glutton, he went with the "All the Way" option which meant all of the above. I'm not gonna lie, it looked like bad dog food. But as my father always tells me "it all looks the same after it goes down anyway."

Meanwhile, I was saving space for John Mark's grandmother's cooking the next day so I just had a small waffle. After all, we were at WAFFLE house. When in Rome...

Grandma's Home Cooking
Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera with us when we met up with John Mark's extended family on Mother's Day for Sunday lunch. However, when we arrived around 1PM, we were greeted by a dozen people who were excited to see a cute half Asian-half white NYC toddler and handed large glasses of sweet tea.

Of course, my father couldn't help but eye the delicious food waiting for us. It was all set out on the kitchen counter and when they let us loose, we filled our plates buffet style. Never meeting a buffet line he didn't like my father piled on the roasted turkey, chicken, cooked green beans, creamed corn, fried okra, gravy and my new favorite thing - cornbread dressing. It was like Thanksgiving Dinner, but without the pilgrims.

Unlike the northerners who have "stuffing" with turkey, the southerners have dressing. Dressing is dish made with cornbread, bread crumbs, butter and herbs. It has a more solid texture than stuffing (which is usually more loose), but has a very similar salty/savory flavor profile. I had never had it before, so we were very excited to try it. After that, I came to realize there are only 2 types of people in the world. People who love cornbread dressing and people who've never had it before.

After our enormous homecooked lunch, we were then confronted with our choice of three different homemade cakes and pies. My father opted for the sweet potato pie while my mother went with the pineapple cake. You really couldn't go wrong either way, but I'm sure my father's belt got a good workout holding his belly in.

Mother's Day Weekend in Atlanta

Our weekend trip to Atlanta was three-fold.

First, my father wanted to knock off another Major League Baseball stadium off his list - one of his major personal goals in life.

During my first year of life (2012), he took me to my first baseball game in Miami's Marlin Park. Then last year (2013), he took my mother to Colorado's Coors Field, home of the Rockies. So on this trip, he went to see a Braves game at Turner Field - but without me and without my mother!

This time, he decided to take his friend John Mark instead of us. Our friend John Mark and my father went to the Braves-Cubs game on Friday night along with John Mark's sister Jenn who lived nearby.

Despite having a first place team, Atlanta fans weren't that into their hometown Braves, so tickets were somewhat easy to come by and at reasonable prices. For $45/ticket, my father and his friends sat Terrace Infield Section 205 in Row 12. As you can see from the photo here, they were pretty great seats. The same seats at Yankee Stadium in NYC would run at least $100+ each.

The game was pretty great (or so I heard) with the Cubs rallying in the 9th inning against the Brave's All-Star closer, Craig Kimbrel, to tie up the game and send it into extra innings. Then in the bottom of the 10th inning, the Braves' Freddy Freeman singled home the winning run from second to earn a walk off victory! So now, after Atlanta, my father has now been to 28 of the 30 major league stadiums. The only remaining ones being Minnesota and Kansas City, though since Turner Field will be replaced with a new stadium in a few years, we'll probably have to come back to Atlanta in 2017.

The second major reason we went down there was to experience Red Neck culture. For those of you who don't know what a Red Neck is, check out this Urban Dictionary definition.

So we could have driven around looking for wanna-be Honey Boo Boo families in the local trailer parks, but figured they wouldn't appreciate us driving up and taking photos of their double-wides. So instead we decided to go to Stone Mountain, so that we could get to see some Georgia sights as well as scope out the locals.

Stone Mountain Park is a park out in Dekalb County. Stone Mountain is the site of a famous giant carving commemorating the military leaders of the Confederacy (Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis). In case you can't appreciate the scale of the carving, it's 90' x190' in size (roughly the size of 2.5 football fields), making it the largest bas relief sculpture in the world.

In addition to looking at the relief from the ground, you can also take a trip to the top of the rock and get a 1,686 foot perspective over greater Atlanta. It costs around $10/person each way for the 2 minute ride, but it was pretty cool to see everything from the top.

  

Then during each evening at 9:30PM back on the ground, they have a laser light show set to Americana music using the Confederate Leader sculpture as the background. Unfortunately, that night it was pouring rain, so my father took me back to the car while our friends and my mother stayed out with umbrellas to watch the show. No that's dedication (if not a recipe for pneumonia)!

The next day, we were off to see the third reason we came down to Atlanta...

Georgia Aquarium

The harsh fact is that most cities around the world (and especially ones in the United States) are pretty generic. There are only a few that have unique features to separate them from the countless other cities you'd find anywhere.

For example, New Orleans is very distinctive with its architecture, history and cuisine. New York is obviously famous for its energy, nightlife and famous landmarks.

But when you get to cities like Dallas, Denver and Atlanta, you start to wonder if there's some amazing secret local culture that you're just missing out on because you're a tourist. Then you come to realize that their local gems (a great breakfast joint, a children's museum, a hip new mixologist bar, a beautiful park) are all pretty standard from city to city. It becomes readily apparent when you look at the postcards they sell at the airport shops, and there's nothing really that noteworthy on any of them aside from a nondescript skyline.

So while I originally put Atlanta on this list, I will say that it does have one redeeming feature - the Georgia Aquarium! Now, I'm definitely not a rookie when it comes to Aquariums. I've been to my fare share including, ones in Chicago, Houston and even Bangkok. And despite those others being pretty standard, the Georgia Aquarium is hands down the best one of them all!

For $35.95/adult, tickets here are definitely not cheap. Thankfully, I'm still 2.5 years old and didn't have to pay $29.95 for a children's ticket. But if there were ever an aquarium worth that steep price, this one would be it.

Why is it so great you ask?

Reason #1

It's HUGE. Not just the physical footprint of the facility, which is pretty large. But the exhibits are all massive. When it opened in 2005, it had the title of the World's Largest Aquarium.

You're not looking at a small glass tank embedded in a wall made to look like a rock cave. You're just looking at a massive glass wall, as if you were looking at a cross section of the Great Barrier Reef. And it's not just huge because I'm a 39" toddler. Adults would also find it incredibly massive as well.

Reason #2
There are TONS of fish. I've been to the zoo several times and whenever you look at the sea lion exhibit or the walrus exhibit, it's a massive tank with 2 or 3 animals who like to hide in the dark corners at the far end of the tank, so you can barely see them at all.

The Georgia Aquarium must have read my mind, because all their exhibits are FILLED with fish. The Georgia Aquarium contains between 100,000 and 120,000 fish and other sea creatures, representing more than five hundred species.

It's hard to believe that so many fish could co-exist in a single (albeit massive) tank. There was never a time you'd look at an empty space. Every view had a ton of colorful fish that captivated my wide (for an Asian girl) eyes.

Reason #3
They have amazing fish that you simply don't get to see at other aquariums. Every aquarium has sting rays, clown fish, a sea turtle and a few small reef sharks.

But the Georgia Aquarium's notable specimens include four young whale sharks, four beluga whales, eleven bottlenose dolphins, and four manta rays. I mean, seriously, when's the last time you saw a real life Whale Shark?

Reason #4

Great glass tunnels. I've seen these glass tunnels before in Bangkok and other aquariums, but because of Reasons #1, #2 and #3 above, these glass tunnels were a lot better than most. While I didn't get to see this particular sawfish in the tunnel, I did see it swimming around in another tank, so I can verify it exists.

There were also several "tunnels" aside from the main one. There was a smaller on in the River section where you could see beneath the freshwater bottom feeder. Not a remarkable exhibit in and of itself, but just wanted to highlight the fact that the Aquarium went to such lengths for what would otherwise be a "basic" exhibit.


Reason #5
The live Dolphin Show was pretty wonderful. I will say that there are parts of the show that I found scary (dark, thunder sounds, fake lightning). In fact, there were times during the 20 minute show where I got scared and asked my father to take me outside, but he kept my focus on the dolphins.

Overall the show was pretty good. My father didn't really care for the plot of the show, but the dolphin tricks were amazing for my 2.5 year old tastes. And oh, by the way, I love dolphins now.