Innsbruck, Austria: 6-9 June 2014

Hands down, the most beautiful train ride I have had in my life was when I was on my way to Innsbruck. We took the train from Zurich, Switzerland to Innsbruck, Austria. Deep blue rivers and lakes surrounded by the Alps. The train going in, out, and along the mountains overlooking such great valleys.  I cannot recommend enough this train journey. Taking the trains through Europe is always fun as there are always great views, but Zurich to Innsbruck was particularly incredible. Where else are you going to take a train ride through the Swiss Alps? We didn't leave on our train journey until almost 7pm, but as it is is summer and light outside until 9:30pm or so, we got to watch the sun set over the Alps. Incredible!

doesn't do it justice, but the view from our train ride to Innsbruck

Innsbruck is definitely a town for the outdoor adventurer. In the winter, there is an abundance of ski slopes and snow activities. In the summer, I also was surprised at how much there was to do. The “old town” is very small and quite possible to do all the sites and best museums within one day. The next day can be spent heading up to the mountain for great views of the mountains and the city. Once at the top of the mountains, there are A TON of mountain bike trails, hiking trails, and tons of people paragliding. We opted for a small hike and to watch the outdoor extremists take on the mountain. 

singing in the mountains !

our little hike above Innsbruck

Innsbruck itself is a tiny & adorable city. There are lots of interesting museums to go to. We opted for one that held exhibits on the cultural history of the Austrians. This may be one of the creepiest museums I have been to. Not that Austrian history is scary, but the artifacts and background music was so eery! There was an exhibition on masks, some of the scariest masks I have ever seen! There also was a section on the dress and fashion of Austrians, which would have been interesting if they were not displayed on creepy wooden life sized dolls. The museum was full of interesting items, but I couldn't help but being completely and entirely creeped out! It didn't help that my husband and I were the only ones in the museum.

creepy museum

My husbands favorite site was going to the Olympic Ski Jump; The Bergisel. It was interesting, but I enjoyed the views from it more as no one was actually practicing. However, it was SO STEEP and gave you an entirely new appreciation of the ski jump as a winter activity. It always was one of my favorite winter events, but actually seeing it, the athletes have to have some huge cajones to actually go through with it!!!

the Bergisel

Also, while in Austria, you cannot leave without having a huge giant glass of beer with sauerkraut & pretzels. Summer time in Austria is absolutely stunning. Sipping on large pints (mugs called a mabkrug) of beer and eating traditional food under the sun, surrounded by mountains, was just phenomenal. I actually was surprised by how hot it was. When in the Alps I always think of the snow, but it was 31 degrees Celsius or so every day! About 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

me and my mabkrug !

Innsbruck is an awesome town, like in Zurich, we enjoyed going to the grocery stores for picnic lunches and dinners and enjoying the sites of the town. Innsbruck in the summer is great, but I also would love to come back in winter as I can just imagine how adorable it would be with Christmas markets and instead of having beer I would be sipping on mulled wine. I am thoroughly enjoying my time in Austria and enjoying the laid back culture.

The Amazing Ulu Temburong National Park, Brunei

The Ulu Temburong National Park is a part of the Borneo rain forest and is truly quite incredible. The experiences we've had here are probably one of the best travelling experiences I have had in my life. To get here you need to take a 45 minute boat ride in what the locals call a “floating coffin”, then you get picked up in a van and are driven about 20 minutes down the road to a different part of the river/stream. Here is where you ride in a traditional style boat that is maneuvered by a man who is part of the indigenous tribe of the area. This traditional style boat only seats 6 to 8 depending on the length. The driver literally takes you up stream over rapids (due to it being dry the rapids were only level 1, but still rather impressive!). This trip only took about 30ish minutes or so. Depending on the water conditions, you’re looking at about a 2 hour trip just to reach the national forest and the only resort in or around the national park.

the floating coffin

It is so secluded that while travelling upstream, the sounds of the forest really hit you. The water, the birds, the bugs, the wind, and that’s it. Nothing else. No other boats or people were around to disturb the peace; it was great. When we got to the resort, our guide informed us that we were actually the only people who booked to stay that evening. So, not only were we the only ones at the resort, we were the only people within this national forest (other than about 10 staff members) that were inside the national park, in the middle of the Borneo rain forest, crazy remote! We obviously got upgraded due to the availability, amazing! The resort was so peaceful, you can read my husband’s review here: whenitraveltheworld.com

over rapids on the traditional boat !

After the long journey we stuffed our faces to a delicious meal of foods we had not had before, which was fun. Once it got dark we headed off for our night walk in the jungle. Not going to lie, this was pretty scary. We headed down the river in the middle of the night in the traditional boat. All we had were our flash lights. Then, we get dropped off and were expected to start wading through water towards the rain forest. We were told to watch where we step due to snakes, to say I was creeped out is an understatement!  Well we saw many frogs including the Borneo Horned Toad and our scary list goes like this: scorpions, HUGE spiders, gargantuan ants the size of my thumbs, and of course a snake, swimming the water! I was ready to cut our “sightseeing” short to head back to the resort, but I toughed it out… rather bravely! In my opinion, we actually saw the best animals at the resort. We saw a porcupine chase after a civet cat! Then we also saw the civet cat by our room climbing in the trees. The Civet cat is the cat that eats the coffee beans, then poops them out and its really expensive coffee called kopi luwak. Any who, that was way more exciting and non-scary. We saw an owl and a few bats, which also were not scary after the jungle hike in the safe vicinity of our room.

on our night jungle hike

We then went to bed as we had to get up at 4:30 am to climb to the canopy’s to see the sunrise. This, hands down was the best thing we've done thus far on our trip. I think it is going to be nearly impossible to beat. Once you've watched the sunrise in the Borneo rain forest on top of the trees, I don’t think any other jungle or rain forest experience will ever top that. We were awoken promptly at 4:30 am and were on the traditional boat by 5 am to start out journey. We climbed, in the dark, over 800 steps to get to the canopy. Then we climbed 50 meters up scaffolding to get to the top that overlooked the trees. IT WAS EXHAUSTING, but we did do it as fast as we could to get up there before the sun rose.

getting ready to climb up the scaffolding, in the dark!

looking pretty tired after climbing the scaffolding

We made it to the top before hand and waited. The sound of the forest waking up was so beautiful and peaceful. Different birds waking up and singing their morning songs. The wind bristling in the trees. The sun light slowly rising over the horizon warming the forest. It truly was an amazing experience. Words cannot fully describe how I felt. It was like we were one with nature, truly appreciating mother nature in her full beauty. We were the only ones there, watching the sunrise, waking up the forest. The sound, the smell, the sight of it was just one of a kind. I will always remember it. This is why people go to Brunei, to come experience the sun rising over the Ulu Temburong National Park. We stayed up there taking it in for about an hour or so, we didn't want to leave.

our amazing sunrise

When we finally made our way down, our legs and back were definitely a lot sorer than before! Trekking up as fast as we could probably wasn't the best idea, but well worth it. When we got back we ate some breakfast and relaxed for a bit. Then we decided to go kayaking down those rapids! They looked too fun not to! Being in the canopy was an enlightening experience, but kayaking down the river was just plain fun! We went down a ways then jumped in the water for a swim before going to the “fish spa”. It was a pool filled with little fish that ate your dead skin when you walked in. I hated it, it tickled and felt weird and they were pretty aggressive. It was a laugh, but I didn't last long.

looking down on part of the scaffolding we climbed

slowly making our way down

kayaking!

before taking a dip in front of our room =)

We eventually had to get back to the resort to clean up and pack. We needed to make our 2 hour journey back to BSB. We sat in front of our room just listening to the river and the rain forest, taking it all in before we had to say goodbye. It was a great way to end our day, reflecting on how lucky we were to have been a part of this once in a lifetime experience. 

thanks Ulu Ulu for the AWESOME experience !

enjoying a coconut on our flight leaving Brunei.... goodbye Brunei, it's been great! 

Denver with a side of Boulder

Denver; we had a GREAT time!!

I just got back from Denver and I absolutely LOVED it! I have this amazing girlfriend who has been planning on moving there for about 6 - 8 months. Well, this past weekend, she made the official decision; I am so proud of her! A few months ago, bored and uninspired, we booked this trip in the hopes that she would fall in love with the city and be able to start a new adventure in her life. That is exactly what happened; she is pretty much super woman.

Cheesman Park

The first day in Denver we did SO MUCH. We saw 3 different apartments (and neighborhoods), went to cute cafes, ate some of the famous green chili and a bit of local beer for dinner. I just have to mention the places we ate at were SO GREAT. For dinner the first night we went to Jonsey's Eat Bar; AMAZING. I had the Breckenridge Agave Wheat (nectar of the beer gods) with my meal, oh SO delicious! Apparently, they have the best fries in the U.S. of A. and I actually cannot think of any fries I have had that were much better to be honest! We split the "Green Chili" fries, because that is what you do in Colorado. You eat Green Chili and have some local beer.

Another bonus of Denver is that it is so cheap (compared to California)!!! I also loved that it was easy to eat healthy, fresh, and local. At the Wynkoop Brewery in LoDo, we got a flight of 3 beers for $4.50!! That is insanely affordable and the bonus was that they were delicious. I particularly liked their Chili Beer and am now slightly obsessed.

beer tasting at Wynkoop

Everyone in Denver was really nice, always referring us to the next amazing local cafe, giving us directions, and recommending great places to eat. My favorite place we ate at was in Uptown, called Olive & Finch. We had our first lunch and cappuccinos there while enjoying the cold. Alexa, aka superwoman,  had her first business meeting of the trip there as well. We loved the place so much, we ended the trip there as well, watching the snow fall sipping on our umpteenth cappuccino. The bonus was that it had SUCH great food (vegan, vegetarian, & gluten free options), coffee, desserts, and they also had a great selection of beer and wine. It was super cute; I sort of loved it.

Highland in Denver

There are so many great neighborhoods in Denver: LoDo, Uptown, RiNo, Lo Hi, Cap Hill, Wash Park.... it literally took forever to learn the lingo, but we eventually got it. Each neighborhood was unique, with some sort of outdoor park or activites. The city also has a TON of bike paths and also a cycle system called B-cycle, where you can rent a bike for the day. They had stations everywhere, so it seemed that you could use this system quite easily instead of driving around.

Larimer Square

The highlight for me, as I am an avid basketball fan, was that we went to a Denver Nuggets game! It was the Nuggets vs. The Pacers and the Nuggets won ! Whoop Whoop! Denver is a city in love with their sports teams, that is for sure! We were able to walk to the Pepsi Stadium from uptown and everyone also seemed to walk from the bars of Larimer Square to the game. Denver was entirely decked out in Bronco's gear, every statue had a jersey on. They were very proud of the fact that they made it to the Super Bowl.

View from our seats, go Nuggets!

The Pepsi Stadium hosts the Nuggets (basketball) and the Avalanche (hockey). Coors stadium is not a far walk to see the Rockies play (baseball), and also not far from the Pepsi Stadium is the Sports Authority Field, where the Broncos play. The four main sports are all centrally located and easily accessible for the people of Denver. I truly was jealous. San Diego is great, but we do not have a basketball or hockey team. Denver is a city for the lover of sports!

After spending three full days in Denver we decided to make the trip to Boulder. It was a gorgeous drive and such a cute college city. We spent the day on Pearl Street Mall, enjoying Irish Coffees and wandering into book stores. It was pretty great. Boulder is extremely adorable and only a 45 minute drive from the city in order to enjoy a relaxing change of pace.

driving to Boulder

Colorado Sunset, driving back from Boulder

The last day was FREEZING, so Alexa drove to another business meeting and I stayed in bed. The high was 18 degrees Fahrenheit and it was snowing. I gladly stayed in bed until Alexa came back to drive us to Olive & Finch. It was again delicious.... after that we went to the airport to make our way back to Sunny California. I loved Colorado so much that I am already looking to book my flights to go visit my friend in October (that is when the international beer festival is meant to happen in Denver)! She hasn't even physically moved there yet; that is how much fun we had! The city is so amazing and I am so happy for my dear friend and the adventures ahead of her. I may even be slightly more excited for myself; I now have more excuses to go back and visit ;)

it was seriously this cold out, my glasses fogged up!