Cleaned Out In Lisbon 在里斯本被偷的精光

Nazari Coast

My third day in Lisbon, I decided to join a two-hour city walking tour, then see the City of Belem outside of Lisbon in the afternoon. It's getting hot, so I decided to ditch my hiking pants and wear shorts. ( Major mistake!) I moved my goodies to the bottom of the backpack, put other small things and my shirt on top of it and kept only the spending money for the day in my shorts pocket.

The tour guide was quite knowledgeable.  Walked through the Lisbon city center, I was surprised how old and distressed the downtown area looked. New development, like malls, have moved to the suburb, old establishments were ignored and only the old residents stayed put. The Figueira Square, next to the busiest Rossio Square, was a hospital destroyed by the 1755 earthquake. The government had no money to rebuild it, so a statue was placed at the center and leave it as a square. Now the best usage is for kids to practice their skate board. Following our guide, mostly I kept my backpack at front, but occasionally moved to the back. When we were on the public bus, our guide shield us from other passengers in and out of the bus. She did not specify the reason, just reminded us to be careful. My lunch after the tour was nothing worth mentioning, and I felt totally sleepy after that. Hot weather and full stomach are lethal combination. Still, I had to finish today's plan and go to Belem. The Age of Discovery was a monument for the glory days of Portugal's golden day of exploration. I bought a ticket and waiting to see a film. Too sleepy, I reached my backpack for candy hope the candy would wake me up. The small pouch where I put candies was no where to be found, and the backpack barely had anything in it. By now I was very much awake. Ran to outside so I can see better, my things were gone!! When? How? I could hear my voice quivering, telling the service people I lost all my money. He kindly gave back my 5 Euro ticket money, I rushed out of the door, heading back to Lisbon. This time I did not even get a chance to fight them, they got me without my knowledge.

Thugs On The Metro 馬德里地鐵遇劫

I was the last one to got on the metro. When the door closed behind my back, I automatically wanted to move into the cart to get ready for the incoming passengers next stop. I found myself could not move and could only see chests and shoulders at my eye level; those people surrounded me were tall, and none of them moved. There were many standing passengers in this cart, but for sure there was space for people to move inward. What's going on? I tried to push a little, still, no one budged. I was walled in. Then I saw something looked like a piece of fabric coming toward my face. I panic. I remembered this...where? My brain cells must turned lightening fast, searching... and pull out the memory of...an European movie called "Vanish", a movie gave me the chill to no end. A guy abducted strangers for no reason by sedated them with ether soaked fabric. Victims woke up and found themselves in a coffin buried underground. Horrified, I let out a roar and push away hard, before the fabric reaching my face. All of these happened fast, and everything seemed like a blur. Next thing I knew, I found myself stood 4 seats away from that door to the right, panting, fingers clutched hard to the vertical rail.  Once in a secured area, I instinctively looked toward the direction where I was blocked, wanted to know what happened.  One tall guy next to the door was staring at me. My gut feeling told me that's the guy with the fabric, the guy just failed to rob a gray haired Asian woman. I stared back. The lady passenger sat right in front of me looked at me with sympathy, her eye and mouth expression showed me, even though not in English: those are the gangs. Three seats to her left, a Spaniard who sat right next to the standing gangster, also looked at me, no sympathy, just curiosity. I suddenly realized these locals all knew what just happened, (I wonder how loud was my "roar",) but no one did anything to help... I exchanged stares with the tall guy again, wanted to show him my middle finger, but decided against it; they had several in the cart while no one was on my side. Next stop was up, he stepped off the cart, strolled leisurely toward two policemen patrolled on the platform and chatted. Welcome to Madrid!

Hilo：火山，天文臺，熱帶雨林

晚上在 Jaggar Museum 前看到的噴口，四周是大火山口

從西邊Kona到東邊的Hilo, 我們選擇從中間斜向穿過。更具體的說，是從大島的兩個4000米高山中間穿過。這條路因此命名為馬鞍路 Saddle Road，從Kona 和 Hilo 到這裡的距離差不多。這條路有一個世界級重點：天文望遠鏡。我在書上讀了一些，都看不懂，只知道在山頂上有一個速霸路中心 Subaru Center 可以開放參觀，但需先在網上預約，我就先約了。至於怎麼上一萬四千呎就看運氣了。

驚艷夏威夷大島

早上八點多在咖啡館見到的前方景象

有一張未能成行的機票，必須在作廢前用掉。聽朋友說他們去了夏威夷，令我想到那火紅的火山熔巖流入海裡的景象，去看一下也不錯。但是那火山在哪一個島，我是一點都不知道。除了去過 Maui 之外，我對夏威夷的印象還留在草裙舞，陽光海灘的階段，都不是我喜歡的。對這州的認識很有限，只知道大部分的生活必須品都是從國內運去，所以東西很貴。決定要去了，就開始搜集資料，才學到火山所在的是大島 The Big Island, 其他地名、人名簡直是難的要命。在 Amazon 買了一本好評的大島旅遊指南 (Hawaii The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook)，又參考了一個 blog，這位小哥去了八天，資料齊全，連在 Priceline 標到旅館的底價都 po 出來，我一直想試 Priceline, 現在有了底價，勇氣大增，終於下海，也標到了同樣的兩家旅館。