Waitakere Day Tour from Auckland, New Zealand

Heartbreaking vista to eternity in New Zealand.

Yes, this is a shameless promotion of a day out with Shane of Waitakere Day Tours. Read this great review on TripAdvisor here. For $150 (New Zealand dollars), you get a great day out.

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The group will never been more than seven and you get a healthy home cooked picnic lunch. You will see so much on this day out that I cannot explain it all. Just know that if you don’t have time to go to South Island, then this tour will be great value.

Healthy slaw salads and egg pie picnic.
Silky cool soft water running through a kingdom where we roamed.

My favorite part of the day is hard to pick but it was probably when Shane said, “you can leave your shoes in the van.” This was followed by a walk on the silky cool river bed. Shane was so personable that you will want him to be your friend. And not just because he can introduce you to his ancestor trees… New Zealand is a paradise on the bottom of the world. The tourism machine of this land of Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. is well oiled but Shane’s family run business, eco-friendly brochure, Maori cultural insight, and price make him the ultimate tour guide. I highly recommend taking six friends and having a fantastic day out. Did I mention that the time spent in the van is never more than 45 minutes? And, take comfortable shoes for the rain forest walk.

Tell Shane that I said hi.

Trees nurtured by family placentas makes talking to ancestors easy.

Bucket List Foods – Fresh Hazelnuts in Denmark

Some people have places they must see before they die on their bucket list. To me, certain interesting people and certain foods are the destination. Fresh hazelnuts in Denmark is a destination.

Hazelnuts in shell and two ready to eat (one I have started…). These are not completely fresh.

Fresh hazelnuts are juicy and crisp. Try them. Make it a part of your trip if you are in Denmark in September.

Italian Lace Made in Bangladesh

Fine Italian lace and linens made by nuns… is a popular shopping item. If you live in Dhaka, then you’re lucky again because much of that “Italian” stitchery is done in Bangladesh, and you can buy it from the source. The Carlotta sisters run a school for orphan children in Dhaka one of the skills they teach the girls is how to stitch the embroidery in a linen or cotton table cloth.

Italian lace.

The nuns live in a nondescript brick building and one must make an appointment to buy anything from them.

One Year of Madventures.me – Still Mad for Food and Adventure

Madventures.me is one year old. One year ago, I started this blog in preparation for new adventures in food and travel. One year of great food and travel in Amman, Copenhagen, Dhaka, Doha, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Krabi, Luang Prabang, Mumbai, New Delhi, New England, Singapore, and many more.

I started this blog to share some of my adventures with family and friends. As I’ve blogged, my blog has evolved into a source for providing information on restaurants in Dhaka, shopping, and how much one can do in Bangladesh. As a blogger, I’ve been enormously happy when readers from all over the world visit my blog. Thank you for stopping by… from almost the entire world:

Map of visitors to madventures.me in the first 11 months.

As my readership expands beyond people I know, I’m curious about what leads readers to my blog. So here are the top search terms people have searched for in the past year:

Top search terms on madventures.me.

Land of Choices

Land of milk and soy, goat, almond…

I was recently in the new Trader Joes in Clarendon, Virginia, USA, and I was bedazzled by the array of new choices. Mine was a normal reaction and I came prepared with camera.

Bread by any name.

Whether you call it a tomato or a tomato, it’s still a tomato. Milk, however, is not just milk. And how great is that!

Thank You for Loving Bacon

Danish bacon frying up in a pan.

I was wrong. In recalling Danish bacon, I simply remembered that it was my favorite kind of bacon. When I got to Denmark this time around, I set out to fry some up. When I cooked the pack of bacon, all 250 grams of it,  and realized that no fat came sputtering out of it because the bacon is much more  akin to pancetta, thin and not woodsy in smell… (the Danes have their own breed of pigs called the Antonius). When I ate the first crinkly mahogany strip, I realized that I had been utterly wrong. The Danish bacon was much better than the bacon of my memory.

The sticker says “thank you for loving bacon”.

 

Tivoli Amusement Park Open for Halloween

An otherworldly park caught in the spirit of Halloween.

Tivoli is almost open all year round. This fall they are open for Halloween. The park is great and I enjoy it in all its moods and costumes. The park fills a whole city park and is smack in the center of the city. Lots of things to do, eat, and buy. Enchanted tourism!

The gate of Tivoli. Enjoy a walk around.