This report of the last London meeting on the 1st December is written by Padmassana.

John Hornbuckle’s wonderful slides took us around Chile. He showed us the wildlife and landscape of the country. Though John began with a slide of an owl, this was a topical Harry Potter joke, he went on to show us photos of birds that can only be found in the Andes and animals like the Vicuna. He went on to tell us about Arica, which until recently was the driest place on earth, Lauca National Park in northern Chile. We saw photos of snow-capped mountains and volcano’s. John’s slides then showed us the salt area of Salar de Uyuni and down to the far south via the hot springs of El Tatio.

After the break, Denise Heywood showed us Vietnam, without too many references to the war. She explained that over 60% of the population were born after 1975 and showed us photo’s of the children, who are Vietnams future. Denise showed us colonial French architecture, such as the Opera House, which is a copy of the one in Paris and towns like Hoi An and Na Trang. She also showed us the Cu chi tunnels left over from the war, which are difficult for westerners to enter. These tunnels led into underground schools, hospitals that the Vietnamese operated in during the war, there are hundreds of miles of tunnels going as far as the Cambodian border.

Coming on 5^th January: Four Mini-Talk Presentations and New Year Party – a programme of four twenty minute talks, offering a format that aims to offer the opportunity for different, specialist and off beat subjects and first time speakers.

After the meeting we will be having our annual New Year Party, please bring a contribution of food and non-alcoholic drink

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Gardenat 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

The next meeting will be on January 18th at the the Woodsworth Co-op : Ann Dohler will talk about her recent trip to Peru, the Galapagos and the Amazon.

For further information on Ontario meetings, please contact: Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Toronto GT Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

Hello Globies! Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. Due to holiday parties, travel and cheer, we will not be holding a December Globies meeting. We WILL resume on 5^th January with a treat! Matt Link, an Associate Editor from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel will be our guest speaker.

Matt will be giving a slide show and discussing the sites and culture of Ghana (the most popular country for American tourists in West Africa), with notes on spending time with the Muslims who live and work there, as well as important sites i.e., visiting a mud mosque and much more. He plans to make us feel a part of the Ghanaian culture and will be bringing some special props to help with our immersion! Matt has been travelling since the age of twelve, when he boarded his family’s boat for five years and sailed around the Pacific including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where he attended high school. He hasn’t stopped since, having visited dozens of countries in Eurasia and living for a number of years in both Hong Kong and Hawaii, where he ran kayak tours and published the guidebook Rainbow Handbook Hawaii. He now lives in New York where he works with Arthur Frommer as Associate Editor of the magazine Budget Travel. Keep an eye out of this Sunday’s (12/16) travel section of the LA Times and Miami Herald and a few other regional papers – Matt’s account of his trip to Ghana will appear in Frommer’s column! On January 4th, he’s a guest on The Early Today show (and they mean early – 4:30-5:30 AM!) on NBC.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday. See you all soon!

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street(btw Greenwich Stand Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

In general travel and accommodation are expensive whilst food can vary hugely in price from noodle bars both cheaper and considerably more nutritious than MacDonald’s to city restaurant where the prices would flex anyone’s credit to the limit. Most other activities are pretty reasonably priced.

Firstly, Japan is a country where the infrastructure works, if the timetable says a train or bus will arrive at a given time, it will. Transport is effective though expensive, buses and trains are clean, safe and regular though mountainous terrain in many areas can still make journeys lengthy. The language may be intimidating but most younger people can speak some English and it is not difficult to learn a few important signs (numbers, entrance, exit, toilet, place names etc.) or indeed the syllabary alphabets (hirogana and katakana) which are widely used on signs for place names (so are romaji in Tokyo and some major towns)

Tokyo: Like most large towns, expensive, cosmopolitan, polluted and overcrowded Tokyo still retains a number of small temples and a few other small historical buildings wedged between the skyscrapers. It is worth visiting a few for the paintings and statuary, interesting architecture and some insight into Japanese culture and rituals. I particularly like the traditional Japanese and Chinese gardens, which are cheap to visit and charming and beautiful to see, the imperial palace and gardens around it are also a must see.

Kyoto and Nara, easily reachable from Tokyo, preserve a lot more in the way of historic buildings, a reconstructed old castle and a herd of tame, fat and diabetic deer at Nara are good places to visit.

Onsen: blessed or cursed with a great deal of geothermal energy there are a large number of hot springs in Japan, these can definitely be worth a visit, whilst I didn’t notice any health benefit I had the rather beautiful experience of lying outside in a hot bath able to look up at the moon and the stars between the clouds during a gentle snowfall. Getting out was a little on the cool side however.

Kyushu: less developed than Honshu thus preserving more tradition and a few pieces of undeveloped countryside. Also warmer if that interests you and with much volcanic activity, some stunning crater lakes with brightly coloured poisonous looking water and a number of opportunities to breath some pretty poisonous air near the volcanoes. Pity the concession holders at these places, I can stand breathing sulphuric acid for an hour or so but how they manage it all the time I don’t now. Down at the Southern tip of the island, at Sakurajima ash from the volcano can be taken home in a small phial if you wish to relive the experience of grit with everything. The other thing which is omnipresent here is daikon, these giant white radishes are apparently very important to the locals’ diet being a major source of vitamin C, and accordingly they make a remarkable range of products from them, from simple shredded radish (OK), to Daikon Schochu (a sort of whisky) and daikon jam, both of which are best avoided.

One of the most beautiful sights I remember from Japan is Takachiho gorge. A slot canyon deep enough that the sun can rarely or never is seen from the bottom. You can walk down to the river that flows through it, hire a rowing boat and paddle up to the head of the gorge where a waterfall enters. The water is crystal clear and the sides of the canyon are stunningly vertical hexagonal columns of black basalt.

The Beetle says if you are thinking of travelling to Japan, you should investigate buying a rail pass in your own country that gives you a considerable discount. They are only available outside Japan.

To get in touch with the Travelling Stoat, Then e-mail them to: the Beetle

If the first six meetings of the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters Club are an indication of the future, it is going to be bright, rosy, fun, informative, exciting, and a great success! Since the first meeting in July of 2001, the Texas branch has had 38 different people attend and Christina, the Texas Chair has received countless E-mails! Thank you, all you Globetrotter e-newsletter readers – if you live in the area, why not drop Christina a line and come to the January meeting!

A message from Christina, the Texas chair.

For me, the Texas Branch of the Globetrotters is a monthly support group to help me with my travel addiction. I’m glad to meet others who like to talk about travel and share their stories.

The agenda for the December meeting was to share travel stories from 2001 and state travel plans for New Years Resolutions 2002. We politely shared our stories, and had no time to state our resolutions. It was a great meeting.

The agenda for the first meeting of 2002 (Saturday, January 12) will be to share our travel plans for 2002. I’m working on mine – a cruise, a train trip, a new continent, a retreat, and a national park – see – this is why I need a support group.

How about you? What are your travel resolutions for the new year? Come prepared to share.

The next meeting will be Saturday, January 12, New Braunfels Library, 3 p.m. Mark your calendar. Everyone is invited!

The meeting will start promptly at 3 p.m. and end at 5 p.m. Bring a favorite travel magazine or brochure to contribute to the door prize. Plan to arrive by 2:30 for extra networking time.

Following the Jan 12 meeting we will adjourn to the Hoity Toit for more talk and tales.

Christina’s advice is to come early so you won’t be late! Anybody who wants to help Christina or enquire about meetings, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk