Chilly check-ins...

Before heading back to Dubai, we dropped back into Delray for one more quick visit.

Unprepared for the lingering "arctic" weather but determined to enjoy the sunshine, we bundled up in some borrowed clothes and headed out to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.

South Florida and Japan have a century-old connection that started when Japanese farmers were welcomed to the region with goals of revolutionizing farming in the area.  These farmers formed the Yamato Colony in Boca Raton with aims of testing a variety of new farming models and experimenting with new crops.  Unfortunately, the results were disappointing and many in the Colony ultimately left for different parts of the US.

George Morikami was the only member of the Colony to stay in Delray after WWII and went on to become very successful, acquiring multiple acres of land.  In the 1970s, he donated the land to Palm Beach County in hopes that they would turn it into a park that would preserve the memory of the Colony and teach others about the Japanese culture.  The Museum and Gardens opened in 1977 offering a bridge of cultural understanding between the two countries.

The gardens are beautifully manicured and help visitors understand the evolution of the Japenese gardens over hundreds of years.  While many walk quietly and introspectively through the gardens, others take the opportunity to use it as a backdrop for about 100 Instagram photos and posts. 

Of particular note was the Bonsai (pronounced "Bone-Sigh", not "Bahn-Sigh" as we always thought!) Garden which detailed the extensive grooming and pruning process used to create these special trees, as well as the cultural centre which details more about the Colony and Japanese life.

After a chilly but wonderful afternoon, we warmed ourselves at the Osteria Salina, a new restaurant on the Delray strip.  The owner, in from the Hamptons to launch his newest venture,  was doting, generous and funny, clearly knowing how to charm a group he knew was likely to become very loyal and frequent customers.  As we devoured our generously comped dessert and after-dinner aperitiv, we felt satiated and happy - the perfect end to a fabulous trip!

The Captivating Cape...

After a great visit on the Atlantic side, we popped by Hertz to pick up our rental car and enjoyed the fastest and most gracious service we could imagine.  Did they really apologize that it took us a whole five minutes to get everything sorted?!

Starting off on a good note, our trip across Alligator Alley was a smooth and quick one, and we made it to Cape Coral in record time.  We were greeted by Geoff's parents and their new pup, George, who was so welcoming and adorable that we quickly started plotting how we could try to sneak him home in our suitcase.


When we could pull ourselves away from playing and snuggling with little but quickly growing George, we made the most of our time out and around Cape Coral.

Although George was initially a reluctant traveller, he slowly realized that car trips brought great things such as visits to the charming Sanibel Island and the welcoming Jaycee Park, where children and adults would faun on his every move.  He was probably almost sad to see Carol and Beth head out on their annual trip to TJ Maxx - little did he know that the store had lots of people and a great dog section!

Although the weather turned unseasonably cold due to the polar vortex sweeping across Canada and the Northern States, we didn't let it stop us.  We played our daily pickle ball matches (either with ourselves or whoever else was on the courts), and even beat out the masses who arrived oddly early to play tennis on New Year's morning.  Luckily, our chilly after-dinner walks were short and sweet as George couldn't walk far and often relied on Dan's comforting arms to carry him briskly around the neighbourhood.

We learned a lot during our visit - whether it was figuring out how to put together a wood puzzle (thank you youtube tutorial) to understanding that an air fryer is an absolute must-have kitchen item.  But, one thing we couldn't get our heads around was the appeal of the Sous Vide cooking method.  And no amount of Apothic Red could change our minds...

Delightful Delray

For our holiday trip to Florida, we felt lucky to have scored reasonably priced tickets on the non-stop Emirates flight from Dubai to Fort Lauderdale.  Such a quick and easy trip...

Until we actually thought about how long a flight that would actually be.  It turns out that the 16.5 hour trip is the 4th longest flight in the world!

But... the trip was surprisingly enjoyable - with a smooth flight and fantastic service by Emirates.  And the long distance provided plenty of time for short naps which actually seemed to help with the jet-lag.

It seems that the hardest part of the trip may actually have been for Beth's parents who ended up having to park 3 terminals away, when picking us up from the airport, just to find a spot during peak holiday travel season!

Once arriving at the house in Delray and pushing our way through myriad Amazon parcels (all addressed to Geoff, yet surprisingly few actually being for him), the rest of the trip was a breeze.

Paddling with our HBC ladles

The blow-up bed proved itself incredibly comfortable and the daily activities with family a true delight.

From our morning gym and tennis rituals to walks on the beach to our regular shopping trip(s) to Town Centre, we couldn't have asked for better weather or better company.

And of course, Christmas celebrations were a highlight.  From the most unusual Secret Santa stockings - for which we are now well prepared for Dubai's hot weather with our new iphone plug-in fan - to the most delicious dinner with Nancy in her stunningly renovated home, it is a holiday we won't soon forget.

Though we could have lived without the Idiot Test game show, we found new hits with Spontuneous and What Do You Meme...although we are pretty sure Steve hopes the latter one never becomes am annual holiday tradition...

Dame Joan

It was probably a good thing that Geoff was out of town for business when Joan Collins came to Dubai - an intimate audience discussion with the Dynasty legend would just not have been his thing.  And I was also very lucky that my friend Julie is also a Joan Collins aficionado and suggested we go!

Embracing Dynasty's glamour as much as we could without our 1980s power suits and shoulder pads, we started the evening with a glourious dinner at the Armani.  So engrossed in conversation, however, we looked down  at our watches to realize that the show was to start in just 15 minutes! Hastily paying the bill, we sprinted in our heels to the Dubai Opera (lucky just a few blocks away), and made it to the theatre just in time for the show to start.  The dramatic evening had already begun!

Recovering from the flu, Joan Collins didn't seem totally on her game.  Nonetheless, she pushed on, showcasing some wonderful clips from her illustrious career and speaking candidly about anything the audience chose to ask her.

There may not have been any catfights but the allure of Dynasty certainly lives on.

DIFF!

In December, Dubai hosts the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).

In its 14th year, DIFF has become a global festival, hosting 140 films from 51 countries in more than 38 languages.

Cate Blanchett chaired the judge's committee and welcomed other stars such as Sir Patrick Stewart, Rob Reiner and Bollywood actor Irfan Khan.

We were lucky to be invited to the Gala showing of "The Disaster Artist" and, as per the dress code on the ticket, donned our best Black Tie attire.

So we were very surprised to show up at the Gala to find some people following the dress code, but others dressed in their comfies as if they were watching a movie in their living room!

With the stunning backdrop of Dubai's Madinat Jumeirah, its grand ballroom magically transformed into a magnificent movie theatre, we were proud to don our fancy gear and by no means thought our clothing choice was a "disaster"! Having not seen the The Artist previously, the whole story was very new to us, and we could hardly stop ourselves from laughing long enough to breathe.

The long and lovely road back...

To make the most of our time before a late evening flight back to Dubai, we decided to make a few tourist stops en route back to Colombo.

Our first stop was to the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy.  This UNESCO Buddhist temple is one of the most famous landmarks in Sri Lanka because it houses the country's most famous relic - the tooth of the Buddha.    This relic has played an important role in local politics as legend has it that whoever holds the tooth holds the power!

The tooth itself is not actually on display for the public but is instead cased in a gold casket, brought out on certain occasions to be cleaned with herbal waters.

Nonetheless, the tooth has made the Temple one of the most important in the Buddhist faith and, as a result, draws millions of people each year to its grounds.  During our visit, there were thousands wandering around the Palace Complex and hundreds of people sitting and standing to pray in the room where the relic is laid.

After the buzz of the Temple, we headed to the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens for a little bit of serenity.

Originally created for the Kandyan royalty, the gardens are now open to the public.  Although accessible for all, there are still some hierarchies in the gardens, with the "Foreigner Toilets" seeming far nicer than the toilets for the locals.  Can we argue this would be only because we paid a much higher entrance fee?

The gardens itself were exquisite, with an impressive avenue of palm trees, (enormous) coconut trees, bamboo trees, grasses and herbs from around the world and likely every other plant and flower you could imagine.  Funnily, its claim to fame and what we were most excited to see - its orchid garden - was perhaps the only disappointing part.  The rest was just so majestic and inviting.

After a long wander and a relaxing coffee (and perhaps banana split, Geoff?) (edit: in my defense, it was called a Banana Spirit on the menu - I thought I was just ordering fruit essence. :-) ) at the Garden Cafe, we gasped at the realization that we had been there for over 2 hours and were now well behind schedule.

Cutting out one of the temples, our driver hurried us over to our final stop before dinner -  Lankatilaka Vihara -  one of the best preserved examples of traditional Sinhalese temple architecture.

We almost didn't make it as we encountered a very long funeral procession that spanned the entire small road.  But, unable to turn around due to the hordes of community folk that were now swarmed around our car, we embraced the experience and took the chance to learn more about the customs from our very helpful driver.

We finally made it to the temple, shed our shoes at the entrance and did our best to calmly rush around the complex to soak it all in.  Turns out that the heavy rains made sure that our socks got soaked and, with few explanations in the complex or online as well as many locked doors, we didn't last long before heading out to hit the road again.

A very long drive later (edit: once again Beth fell asleep. In fact we visited two other temples during the drive - though seeing them from the car only due to the tight timeline) and in the pitch black of the evening, we turned down a bumpy road towards our dinner stop.  A touch nervous that our internet research had failed us, the car sunk into a ditch before jerking out and around the corner to arrive at a beautiful boutique hotel tucked into the brush.

The Wallawwa Hotel, a converted colonial manor house (Wallawwa meaning in local dialect “Rich Person’s House”), is a serene retreat just 20 minutes from the Colombo airport and known for its impressive spa and tasty curries. No time for a massage, we headed instead to the restaurant where we devoured a table full of Sri Lankan specialties.  Satiated and exhausted, we headed to the airport to catch our flight and some zzz's after an awesome day and even better trip.

And then the sun came out!

On the final morning of our trip to Sri Lanka, the rain disappeared and the sun shone down.  And what a beautiful sight it was to see...

Tea time!

After a couple of days of pouring rain, the sky suddenly cleared.  And while the sun didn't exactly shine, the clouds did part to uncover some greyish-blue sky.

So without hesitation, we asked the hotel to arrange a guide and headed to the hills for a hike.  Joined by another couple, we didn't have to go far for some gorgeous hiking, with the lodge surrounded by lush rolling tea hills.

Tea wasn't always a major product of Sri Lanka.  In fact, Sri Lanka actually started as a leading producer of coffee but a plant disease in the mid-1800s annihilated the plants and almost destroyed the area.

A few years later in the 1860s, James Taylor launched the first tea plantation in the country and shipped 21 pounds of Ceylon Tea back to the British Commonwealth.  The tea was met with such delight that the tea industry was launched in the country.

Today, Sri Lanka is the world's 4th largest producer of tea.   And its humidity, cool temperatures and rainy climate provide a landscape that enables the production of very high quality tea.

Tea picking is done by women, supposedly because their fingers are nimbler, but likely because the men just don't want to do such hard labour.  It is a hard life.

Many of the women tea pickers are actually from India, originally brought over during the rule of the British Commonwealth with the trade passed down to the family generations that followed.

Women pick in the fields all day - looking for the two leaves-and-a-bud combo that signify “quality”.  The women pick about 50kg of tea leaves per day, pulling the leaves from the vines and storing them in the sacks on their backs until they reach 25kgs and it is time for a break.  Before their two breaks and lunch each day, they drop off their sacks for weighing and then relax for a few minutes before heading back out into the fields.

The tea pickers are largely hindu, and live in line houses with a shared toilet. Old plantations pay the women a daily wage ($2 is the norm) and provide shelter, food, education and medical care. A newer model is to pay the women by kg, though the incentive this creates results in lower quality tea as stems and rocks seem to find their way into the bags before weighing.

As we wandered through the tea fields and took in the views of the Knuckle Mountains across from us, we were amazed by the speed and precision with which these women worked, sifting through the bushes gracefully and with great focus.

On a side note, it turns out that even though we were in our hiking pants and boots, we shouldn't have shunned so quickly the leech socks the hotel offered.  Within about 15 minutes of our walk, Beth felt an itch on her leg and pulled up her pant to find a leech working away on her leg.  How had it even gotten there?! Beth handled the situation with characteristic poise and grace, not overreacting at all to the tiny animals just trying to survive with a bit of human blood. She did manage to handle the situation better than the Dutch girl that joined us on the hike, whose shorts and converse were not the ideal bushwhacking outfit - particularly evidenced by when she slipped and fell, with the whole forest floor seeming to inch its way toward her exposed flesh.

We were attacked many more times during the walk, especially as we made our way through the brush to look at some of the local trees and flora/fauna.  Geoff was attacked the worst, finding leeches on his body even after we had returned to the lodge! His love of animals does not extend to mindless blood suckers that have no central nervous system.

Although Beth was slightly traumatized by all the leeches and, for the remainder of the trip (edit: and for some days afterward), believed they might be in the bed, chairs and everywhere else around the lodge, one had to stop and think about these incredible women who work - unprotected - in the fields all day.  How much more than leeches they must encounter and endure...and how little they whine or complain. 

Eager to learn more about the full tea process, we hopped in the lodge's tuk tuk for a trip to the Hatale Tea Factory for a guided tour and a tea-tasting.

Ceylon tea is recognized as a lighter and fresher tea than those from other countries.  This is because Sri Lankan's twist the tea leaves before drying rather than cutting them as they do in India.   The twisting allows for more subtle flavours and often allows for the tea to be drunk without the need for milk.  Ceylon is the chosen tea for many of the Middle Eastern countries.

The  Hatale Factory was built in the 1930s by the British and hasn't changed much over the years, with many of the same processes and almost all of the steps done manually, especially the transfer of the leaves from drying to twirling to roasting and packaging.

After understanding the process, we sat for a tea tasting session of a variety of different teas.  All of the teas were delicious but our preference definitely trended to the lighter end.  White, green and black teas all come from the same plant but have different levels of oxidization creates the different colours and tastes.  White tea - the least oxidized - is by far the most expensive.  It was never totally clear as to why.

Although we had always know that making tea must be a complex process, we had not quite realized just how involved and time intensive the process actually is.  Will we be able to enjoy a relaxing cup of tea when we know just how much work it was to make it??  Let's brew a cup and see...

Curious Georges

We were greeted by this little guy when we went back to our tent one day.

But, in reality, we saw monkeys everywhere around the lodge...

And even in the heart of the city (and in the busiest of buildings) on our way back to Colombo!

 I think we learned who really rules this place...