Wondricus

A World Trip is now available for download  from Amazon as an EBook for Amazon's Kindel, IPad, IPod, your Mac or your PC. Because there are many colour photographs, it is better read on a colour reader. It can also be borrowed for free to Kindel owners. Go To:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003F77DB4

Learn and laugh!

From the author who established that you can see space from the Great Wall of China, discovered that there is a Chinatown in Shanghai and calculated that there is more praying and repenting in the casinos of Macau than in the many churches the Jesuits built there.....

NOW....

“A World Trip” is a humorous but factual and informative first hand account of a trip to circumnavigate the globe.

Tasked to organize a tour of Prince Edward Island in Canada, but left unsupervised by she, who usually keeps things under control, the author enthusiastically books a 32 day cruise and additional destinations to complete a circle of the globe. He expects to beat Phileas Fogg, Magellan, Cook and Darwin for speed and Amelia Earhart for longevity. He may not be as thorough as they were but promises to take more photographs. Their itinerary will eventually put them only four hundred miles North of Prince Edward Island. Not bad aiming for a first effort.

The reader follows the happy couple to each destination beginning with the transit from Ottawa, Canada to Anchorage Alaska. They visit Whittier, Alaska; Muroran and Sapporo, Japan; Vladivostok, Russia; Busan and Kyongju, South Korea; Quindao, China; Dalian, China; The Great Wall, China; Shangai, China; Okinawa, Japan; Taipei and Keelun, Taiwan; Macao, China; Hong Kong China; Nha Trang, Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh City and Phu My, Vietnam; Singapore; Bangkok, Thailand; Mumbai, India; London and Greenwich, UK and back to Ottawa..

Descriptions of destination highlights, historical and cultural backgrounds and cogent observations are mingled with tongue in cheek comments and useful travel suggestions. This book covers over 20 destinations and has 132 captioned Colour photographs. It will interest travelers to Asia, cruisers and people with a sense of humour.

Extracts:

“She who favours the service station approach to jewelry shopping barged into the showroom with arms extended and fingers spread and said “fill them up” in a determined tone.”

“Appropriately for a visit to a museum without walls, our first stop was at the Kyonju National Museum. It has walls. We arrived just short of 11 AM, in time to hear the Divine Bell display its rich ringing tone. Built in 771 and weighing 18.9 metric tons, it is the largest ringing bell in the world. The legend says the sound says “emille” a little girl’s cry for her mother to commemorate the ghost of the little girl who was sacrificed in the melted copper to improve its ringing tone. I would have accepted a slightly tinnier sound.”

“During the last few centuries, China had to endure many partial encroachments on its sovereignty. We have seen examples of it with the Germans and Japanese in Quindao and the Russians and Japanese in Dalian. God, icebergs, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, Master Card and She willing, we will see it with the British in Hong Kong and the Portuguese in Macao. Shanghai is a valid illustration of that feature of China’s history. Following the First Opium War, the Treaty of Nanking allowed western merchants to trade and lease land on the West bank in Shanghai. The British received a concession. The French said “moi aussi”. The Americans claimed: “what is good for the goose…” - it worked. The Bund became a western enclave with its own jurisdiction, architecture, prosperity and haughty attitude towards the local Chinese population. What was then the 300,000 people walled city of Shanghai underwent a lasting transformation.”

"It seems that London has some history. The Romans started it. Queen Boudicca burnt it. It became a popular destination for the Vikings who liked to sac it and extract tribute. William the Conqueror went through a lot of trouble to teach them French. Anne Boleyn made the mistake of asking: “Dear, where is the shortening?” Henry VIII showed her."

"This Book is more useful than a compass" 

           Christopher Columbus

Go ahead, invest $5 for your educational merriment!