Apr 2016 – Feb 2017

This week, we are hanging out in Nicaragua.  Nicaragua is a Central American country sandwiched between Guatemala and Costa Rica.  It’s slightly smaller than the state of Nevada.  Technically, that means there’s not much distance to get around, but given that many of the roads are still mostly dirt, it can still take a while.

Nicaragua is also *that *country known as the Land of the Lakes and Volcanoes thanks to its 50 Volcanoes (7 of which are active) and its giant lakes, the most famous of which is Lake Nicaragua.  Lake Nicaragua is a lake with TWO active volcanoes inside it, one of which also has a lake in it.  So that’s a lake (laguna) within a volcano that’s within a lake!  Lake Nicaragua is the 19th largest lake in the world, 9th largest in Central America.  Lake Nicaragua also has sharks.  SHARKS!  Bull sharks.  Maybe I’ll see some, though I haven’t decided if I want to see some.

We start our journey in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.  The international airport is based here, about 20 minutes east of the city.

Interesting thing about Managua is that it’s a fairly flat city.  This is because the city got pretty leveled by a terremoto (earthquake) in 1972 that destroyed a lot of the buildings.  Most of the buildings have since been rebuilt but not as onrate or nice.  As a result, most visitors don’t stay long in Managua and instead use it as a gateway point onto other nearby cities.

Since Nicholas didn’t realize how close we were to other cities, we spent two days here.  So to kill time, we hired a taxi driver to take us around time.

First stop, Catedral de Santiago, which was an old cathedral that designed and shipped from Belgium in 1920.  It survived the earthquake of 1931 but didn’t survive the 1972 earthquake.  Currently it sits in condemned state and is mostly fenced off and guarded.

After the Catedral, we drove by the shores of Lake Xolotan before heading up a nearby hill to look over the city.  Turns out the hill is on army territory.  Our first encounter with the army!  View was cool.  We went back down to the monument where I got to ride a canon.  We tried to walk all the way up the stairs but was stopped by a guard.

There’s the guard walking in the background.  They take their monument protection seriously here!

Next stop – my first active volcano!

As I said earlier, Nicaragua is the land of the active volcanoes.  About 30 minutes out of town is one of these active Volcanos,  Volcan Masaya.  For lazy people, what’s nice about this volcano is that you can drive right up to the crater’s rim.  Because it’s also one of the more active volcanoes, you’re only allowed to spend about 5 minutes at the crater, though no one is paying close attention.  We got up there, joined the hordes of people peering over the volcano and I saw it!  I saw lava!  Though there are trails and paths at the top, all of them were off limits, so after a few moments, we went back down.

Turns out it’s supposed to be even more impressive to see the volcano at night.  I’ll have to keep that in mind for the next time.

Our first two days we stayed in the Art Hotel in Managua.  It’s a pretty low key hotel located in what seems to be a more residential neighbourhood.  Apparently it’s not that safe to walk around Managua at night so we just stayed in, ordered delivery and hung out on the table.  Art Hotel has a bunch of parrots that made it a point to squawk and wake me up really early every morning.  I’m looking at you, parrot, you terrible disturber of peace with wings.  Well I guess in this photo he’s looking at me but I made sure to give him plenty of evil eye when whenever we walked past them.

And that was our stay at Managua.

I can be a generous bear and I tend to let everyone else know it.  But even though I’ve been giving generously as Santa Sumi, I didn’t have the oufit to go with it.

A fix was needed.

I went and got fitted and measured, and shortly after, my very own santa suit was produced.

That’s more like it.

This week, we’re in Hollywood for the Unite conference run by Unity.  During one of the breaks I got up on the stage.

Check out how natural I look on that stage.  I should be there giving talks.  Overall the conference wasn’t bad, but I wish they did a bit of a better job screening their speakers.  Speaking ability wasn’t high on the requirements list, unfortunately.

The Goog and I.  We seem to hang out a lot.

This time, I’m at the Google San Francisco office to hear all about Firebase.  And eat their donuts.

See that parking sign?  Oh yes I did.  Today I had a tour of Google X.

It was pretty cool.  I even saw Sergey.

This week I’m in San Francisco.  We’re here for Casual Connect.  It’s because a bear’s gotta stay on top of the industry if a bear’s to keep his investment returns safe and sound.  So we’re checking out the talks and meeting partners.

Even though we drove here, Nicholas decided that we would walk 40 minutes through Japantown and the Tenderloin to the conference every morning.  Reason for that? Pokémon Go.

Pokémon Go is this game where you walk around to collect and capture creatures, and everywhere we went, hordes of people were playing the game. Hordes like 40 million daily users.

Find a landmark?  See a bunch of people.

See this?  Not pictured : that my bud was standing in a circle with about 20 other people doing basically the same thing.

Addicts.

Only saving grace is that we came across some bear scaffolding during our walks.

That’s right, I’m the pillar of strength that holds us all up.  Bud, take note.

My paws smack with deft, swift and deadly accuracy.  I steathily sneak where no bear has gone before.  I soar through the air like a sharp blade of steel.  It’s like I’m a bear ninja.

Pokin found this site, On Camera Audiences, which lets you get tickets to see shows as an audience member for free, and today, I’m waiting in line to watch other ninjas at work - American Ninjas in the American Ninja Warrior finale.

We tried to do this last year too, but got in too late, so this time we weren’t taking chances.  It wasn’t even dark yet and here we were in line with a bunch of other people.

Bit by by, we inched towards the front line.  Check out this banner!  It could be me competing!

After about an hour of waiting, they finally let us in.  They gave us some souvenir wristbands and a security band. Even though you can get tickets in shifts, when you’re in you’re in, and they don’t keep track of who’s still supposed to be there.  So if you end up getting tickets, try not to get the last shift of the day as you might not get in.

Our group was there for the last section of stage 1.  Cool!  We get to see the contestants finish!

And so we sat.

And waited.

And sat.

And realized that being stage 4 meant that you really didn’t get to see a lot of action.

Oh!  Today is filming day for team Ninja Warrior?

Make that really not a lot of action, given that there were only four teams.

Three hours later, well after it got fully dark, we tiredly filtered out of the stadium, having only seen the stunt guys test run the course plus a couple of the actual contestants that made it this far.

I bet I would have wowed the crowd if it were ME doing the course.

Maybe another year.

At least I can say I got to see other ninjas at work.

And hey! Maybe I ended up on TV!

There’s really no good reason for it, but I’ve kinda always wanted to see gators.  Something about these primitive fossil creatures fascinates me.

We have just finished our cruise and are in Fort Lauderdale for a day, so we head to Everglades National Park to check the gators out.  There’s this nice long path you can bike or walk that follows a long canal where you have pretty good chances of gator sighting.

As we head out on the path, my bud tries to trick me into the bag.  I’m not having it. I win.

I mean, look at all this prime canal water teeming with gators!  I know they are there!

And they were there.  Little gators, big gators, lots of gators.

After seeing two or three, my bud had enough and he made us get back to the car.

I certainly wasn’t done gator-sighting yet so I just made him take us on a boat tour later on to see more gators.

Check this bad-boy gator out.  I wonder how stealthy they are.

That was pretty fun, checking out the gators.

This morning we’re stopped at the Cayman Islands, and Pokin and I are both excited to head to the turtle sanctuary.

Pokin’s always had a fascination for sea turtles, and me, I’ve always thought it would be fun to ride a sea turtle except for the fact they are mostly underwater. They have flippers like I have paws. We relate.

First, it was time to see some stingrays at Stingray City. It was pretty crowded. They got in with the sting rays. I hung out on the boat.

Next step to the sanctuary! This is one of the few places you can see turtles in all stages of life from eggs to hatchlings to mature turtles. We even got to pick some up. The turtles and I, we got to have some moments. It was great.

Not long after we came back from Cambodia, we started planning our travels again.  Something about my bud wanting to take his mom on vacation, and a cruise being a good vacation option since it took minimal planning.  Taking the mom on the cruise ended up being taking the mom and the sister on the cruise.  So here we are, a cadre of people, a bud and myself.  On a cruise.

Because my bud’s mom has a thing for Jamaica, we ended up doing a Caribbean cruise.  I’d never been to this part of the world so I didn’t mind!

Day one, we get on the cruise, departing from Fort Lauderdale.

We’re posing for our bon voyage photo on the ship deck when I hear a noise.  Peep!  Peep!! Oh no.  Yep, there’s that bunny.  It’s a cadre of people myself and an unwelcome bunny.  I don’t know how he manages to do it. I try to lock him in the safe but he somehow manages to get out and have coffee. I just don’t even….