Weihnachtsmarkt am Kölner Dom was taken by Ramses02 in Cologne.

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Walls, Windows and Colours was taken by Ketosea in Bosa.

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Welcome to Adriii’s film and TV shooting locations tours! We started with The Sopranos so we go all along to the other side of the country to visit Dexter’s locations. Enjoy!

Dexter Location Tour

Everyone is talking about Dexter. Its fourth season ended a few weeks ago and a lot of viewers agree in this to be the best one so far. Also, Michael C. Hall announced prior to the Golden Globes that he has cancer. It was a shock but it’s great to know the illness is in remission and he’ll be fine… He has his whole career ahead of him. And he’s finally being awarded for his role at the show: a golden globe, a SGA…

So what would be a better time for us to make a Filming Location Tour of Dexter? First of all, you know the show is supposed to be set in Miami but, apart from the first episode, everything is filmed in California, mostly in Long Beach where probably 80% of the scenes are shot.

We have to start somewhere so, why don’t we visit some of the characters’ houses. Dexter’s apartment exterior is actually in Miami. However, Rita’s Home, The house where Angel used to live and Dexter’s childhood home are in Long Beach, California. Eventually, Rita and Dex move in together so you can also visit the new home.

Season two and three introduced us to Lila and Miguel Prado. The first one has a great artist loft and Miguel, well; his house is pretty and big. Fourth season gave us the best villain so far, Arthur Mitchell; you can visit his house too.  Also you could say that “Slice of Life”, Dex’s boat, is like a home to him… you can visit the deck where he has it “parked”.

Now it’s the turn of murder scenes. Lots of show’s deaths occur on the outside so that give us a lot of filming locations to visit.  ¿Do you remember the Ice Truck Killer? You can visit the Seven Seas Motel where Miami Metro found the first drained-chopped victim.  His second victim was found at the Pepper Fountain at an amusement park.

The skinner was another serial killer hunted by Miami Police, one of his victims was found in this shoreline park, which is right next to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where Lila and Dexter met on second season’s finale.  Another bloody scenario is the one Dexter couldn’t stand at Marina View Hotel.

One of my favorite moments is when Dexter finds out that someone created The Dark Defender, a superhero comic based on his life; well, on Bay Harbor Butcher. He finds out at a murder scene at a comic store which is at the Melodrama Theatre on Shoreline Village.

Cafes and restaurants are used pretty often too for those conversations, usually intense. Lila and Dexter bond for the first time at Edie’s, a 50’s restaurant. Dexter has a really awkward moment at Mosher Gourmet Restaurant when Arthur Mitchell’s behavior starts to be erratic.  He had better times were his self-called friend Miguel Prado playing golf and having drinks with the ladies at Pacific Palms Resort. Debra and his brother usually have some fraternal moments having coffee; one of those happened at Kayak Café.

I was going to end this compilation but then I decided to dedicate a paragraph to the Trinity Killer. He deserves it. We witness how he forces a woman to kill herself from this warehouse. He goes to B&B Hardware store to get a hammer for his third victim. A killer also has to eat and he does so in Babe’s Kitchen. Agent Lundy meets the killer he’s being studying for years at the Oceangate Center. We see Dexter going there afterwards and Trinity committing one of his many murders.

I just pointed out some of the film locations but you can find many more in the guide. This is the end of Dexter’s filming location tour but be ready for the next one… I’ll be talking about the show that soon everyone will be talking about.

Dexter Location Tour

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Fang is from China. She is fan of Beijing, Tokyo, Madrid, Sevilla, San Sebastián , mountains, and cold weather.

What she likes most about traveling is you can just look and think into deep silence, without any noise and what fang likes least about traveling is sometimes the weather just doesn’t back you up.

Since we knew this would be a busy day we got up at 7:30 in the morning, and decided that before our guide’s appearance we’d better get some breakfast first. I really liked the hotel’s breakfast – a traditional Chinese breakfast buffet – they offered rice soup, eggs, noodles, steamed stuffed buns, vegetables and fruit; they also had coffee, bread and butter in consideration of foreign customers.

We left at 9:30 am and 15 minutes later arrived at the Xihu Lake located west of the downtown area of Hangzhou.

I once looked up information about the lake on the internet. Guess what? The water is 4.37 kilometers square, the total area of the islands is about 6 kilometers square, and the perimeter of the river is 15 kilometers!

Unfortunately it was a cloudy day, so we couldn’t see the beauty of the lake very well; we couldn’t even see the nearest island.

We still enjoyed a leisurely walk on the famous Bai Dike, which is 2 kilometers and was built more than a thousand years ago during the Tang dynasty by the temple minister Bai Juyi who was also a famous Chinese poet. There are many green willow trees standing on both sides of the road and several small traditional boats mooring alongside the bank; it’s interesting that the boatmen wore traditional Chinese clothes. The gray color of the sky, the green trees, the small boats and red kiosks reminded me of a roll of Chinese painting.

Of course in the Xihu tourist zone there are many other interesting sights like the Duan Bridge, the beautiful islands and the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. I’ve visited them during past trips; however, I most enjoy walking along the dike – it’s quiet and touching and you can ponder and dream as you stroll.

After the river bank walk, we drove to have lunch at the Yuhuang Mountain. It’s a natural park not far away from the center. My friend said that the restaurant located half way up the Yuhuang Mt. has the most beautiful scenery and most traditional local dishes; that’s why many businessmen go there to make deals with their partners.

Well, it’s quite true. Although it’s a little cold to sit outdoors, you can clearly see the beautiful landscape around the mountain. For example “Baguatian” (the Eight Diagrams Farmland) which was built by a Song emperor to show the people that the emperor also farms just like them is visible from the restaurant vantage point.

I was very interested in this farm because it’s like a representation of the Chinese Eight Diagrams. In the center is a round shaped land of green trees and if you look at it from overhead you’ll notice that it’s like two fishes end to end. Outside the center there are eight colorful divided farms planted with different things. Many local people come here to buy vegetables on weekends since it’s 100% natural.

We ordered several typical dishes like Tangculiji, made of pork underback and a sweet-sour sauce, it’s just sooo delicious!

I also like chicken hot spot, made of a natural small chicken, mushrooms and bamboo shoots. The soup is so light and nutritious. To tell the truth, that was the coolest meal I’d ever had, plus a perfect ending with a cup of Lurngmern tea.

To see the lake from above, we climbed up to the top of the mountain. An unexpected surprise – there is also a tea house and a temple at the top. A number of people sit in the yard of the tea house chatting with friends. Some old men stood in the high kiosk reading newspapers, just like gods of ancient times.

What’s happening in the temple is quite interesting. It’s a temple of the immortality of wealth of Taoismo, where people come to pray for a prosperous year. This is very typical especially in Zhejiang province where almost all the people are doing business. There are Taoists wearing traditional Taoist clothes and hair styles, which is pretty different from the Buddhists.

We were shocked that inside the temple there was a big band performing. About 20 old ladies in red clothes were dancing and singing with the music in front of the immortal god of wealth. I hadn’t seen anything like it before; I thought it was quite funny because I didn’t know the gods need entertainment just like we do :p

I made a wish into the noise, music and singing, hoping that he could hear me…

I wanna go to Hangzhou!

On January 7th, we were very pleased to read this:

“Travel bloggers Keith of the Velvet Escape and Janice of Solo Traveler are pleased to announce the Global Bloggers Network, a  service designed specifically for independent travel bloggers and travel companies that have blogs as part of their promotional strategy.”

Global Bloggers Network is a  service designed specifically for independent travel bloggers and travel companies that have blogs as part of their promotional strategy.

“Since the Spring of 09, Janice and I have been brainstorming ideas and sharing information to accelerate the success of our blogs,” explains Keith. “It’s been fantastic but this is a fast-changing area. There’s always more to learn which is why we decided to create the Global Bloggers Network.” .

We are proud to announce that iwannagothere.com is a GBN sponsor :)

For details on the Global Bloggers Network go to http://globalbloggersnetwork.com.

UPDATE! Get a free 6-month GBN Continental membership!

Register at iwannagothere today and win a free 6-month GBN Continental membership worth $72.
All new registered users from today (January 26) at 3pm (GMT+1) to tomorrow (January 27) at 6pm (GMT+1) could win the prize.

The two winners will be selected at random and fairly by using random.org.

UPDATE 2! WE’VE GOT THE 2 WINNERS!

And the winners are…. pkarakat and piritstraveler

Congratulations! We will contact you by email!
Thanks to everyone for the support! :)

Traveling is not just visiting a part of the world. It’s more than that! When you think about past travels, you remember so many emotions and feelings that you experienced. Even if you have never been to a city, you still have emotional impressions of it.

How does the city makes you feel?   What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you think about it?

Today we want to know what you think about NEW YORK! Travelers like you are curious, so please let us know!

Want one iwannagothere pin?

Leave a comment with your keyword impressions. We’ll present an iwannagothere pin for the most original one!

How New York  makes you feel?

picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/misscalamar/3021458387/in/pool-iwannagothere

UPDATE!

We’ve got a winner! And the winner is The Antiques Diva! Congratulations!

Want to try your luck again? This week we would like to know how Paris makes you feel!!

This place old warehouse is a thrift store rummager’s dream. Especially the Dollar-a-Pound, which literally allows you to buy clothes by the pound for a buck (actually, due to inflation, it’s $1.50 a pound these days).

This place has second-hand jeans, branded clothing and vintage attire – some of it unworn. But be warned, about 75 percent of it is junk, so you’ll need time to find some nuggets.

The garment district posted by angied

Situ Patengan was taken by ntitov in Bali.

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Fang is from China. She is fan of Beijing, Tokyo, Madrid, Sevilla, San Sebastián , mountains, and cold weather.

What she likes most about traveling is you can just look and think into deep silence, without any noise and what fang likes least about traveling is sometimes the weather just doesn’t back you up.

We expectantly arrived at Hangzhou in the evening of Christmas Day and immediately got into my friend’s car. I’d been there 2 years ago for just a short visit (about a couple of hours) so I’m still curious about this city.

It’s about 15 kilometers from the airport to the city’s center. At first there was nothing special, but when we started to cross the Qiantangjiang Bridge I was shocked, because the bridge is really huge!

I was told that there are 6 bridges total above the Qiantangjiang River in Hangzhou, and 5 of them are double-deckers; the biggest one has 6 two-way lanes with a total length of 8 kilometers. The scenery combination of the big river, the giant bridge and the prosperity along the riverside, for me, is just fresh and loveable.

There is remarkable architecture on the river bank worth mentioning. It’s global shaped, if you see it from a far way it’s just like a big shining ball…and this is the International Conference Center of Hangzhou.

The most impressive thing to me about Hangzhou this time is the rich atmosphere of commerce. We kept driving downtown after crossing over the river and the majority of shops I saw were clothing shops. There was no difference between the main roads and small ones; they were totally filled with all kinds of shops. Guess what, it’s easy to know ‘why’ because Zhejiang Province is the biggest wholesale market of small commodities, clothes, silk products, etc. in China. I once heard a notice on TV which said that 85% of the world’s Christmas decorations come from Yiwu, another city in Zhejiang Province. So, as the capital of Zhejiang, Hangzhou undoubtedly is a super commercial city.

We arrived at the hotel at 9:30 pm and we decided to take a walk and find something to eat. We walked along the road behind the hotel but could not find any place to eat. We were told the next day that we went the wrong way, which was the financial street full of office buildings. But finally we found a 24-hour fast food restaurant, so we went in and picked up something simple.

One thing I found interesting was that the bakery beside the restaurant was bustling at 11 o’clock at night. And another thing I was deeply impressed by was that there were outdoor kitchens on the road! They held fire and woks and all the ingredients waiting for business along the road. You could order dishes just the way you like then take them with you; it’s not even a booth, it’s unbelievable!

So that’s our first night in Hangzhou. It was a nice start; the following two days were really great. I can’t wait to share them with you!

Stay tuned for the next installment…

San Francisco Dark Side is a customized guide by goose

Goose loves the great outdoors, but also drawn to the life and culture of big cities and their used record shops, used bookstores and flea markets.

Did you know about the Golden dragon restaurant massacre?

What could be the dark side for the San francisco City Hall?

A guide of places where creepy, terrible, strange and sad things have taken place in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Are you ready for this guide? ;)

San Francisco Dark Side is a customized guide by goose

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