Pai

I don't have a whole lot of the trip left. Less than three weeks. Honestly, I don't mind the thought of coming back at all. As fun as this all is I realize I just kind of hit the pause button on life. I miss a lot of the people and things I have back home. The only thing I don't miss is work.

Pai is a tiny town in the extreme Northwest of Thailand. I took a scooter out into the countryside today and it has to be one of the most fun things I've done on the trip. Everything was beautiful. It made the 2.5 hour trip winding up and down mountains worth it, even though I was a little hungover and only got 4 hours sleep.

Oh yeah, last night in Chiang Mai was great too. I took an all day Thai cooking class and became friends with the instructor's son. He picked me up on his motorcycle (a real one, not a scooter) and took me out to local bars. It was awesome, miles better than all the tourist bars I see lining the streets on the walk from my guesthouse to the night market, full of 50 year old men and 20 year old Thai girls. Do the math.

Anyhow, at one point I took a sip of Chang beer and turned my head to see the eye of a baby elephant looking back at me. A guy was leading it around, looking for money to feed the elephant with. This on a packed street of open-air bars. No one batted an eyelash, except me.

I'm back in Chiang Mai tomorrow for the lantern festival, then it's back to Cambodia.

Ko Samui

I already mentioned how my Dad and I made a snap decision to go to Ko Samui (island in the south of Thailand) this past Wednesday. What we didn't realize - as we flew through massive storm clouds on our approach - was that this is monsoon season for Southern Thailand. Whoops. Whole streets were flooded, the beach at our resort (yeah we stayed at a resort, deal with it) had been washed away, bungalows on the property next to our had collapsed into the sea... so, great job.

But 36 hours later it was an island paradise. Granted, a soggy island paradise teeming with mosquitoes, but a paradise nonetheless. We hit the beach (not at our resort), played pool at what may have been a front for a brothel (then again what isn't in Thailand?), rented motorcycl... motor scooters, got lost three times trying to find a 'view point' that may or may not exist and did some champion bargaining.

And I got sick too. Probably from the whole red snapper (very tasty variety...) I ate for dinner.

But it was awesome.

Thailand

I'm back in Bangkok. My Dad flew out early this morning so I'm on my own again. I was supposed to take off for Chiang Mai tonight, but yesterday at the train station I learned all seats were booked, and I just snagged one of the last ones for tomorrow night.

It ended up being a good thing - I moved into a cool new guesthouse in a completely different part of the town and got to see new things... and then just now I randomly stumbled onto a huge street festival with some of the most insane acrobatics in the history of acrobats. It was the coolest and I would have missed out had I left today. Problem is I can't figure out what the festival was for. I asked a few people and while they could tell me the name in Thai they couldn't explain what it was in English. My guesthouse manager (100% ladyboy) conveyed that it's a religious thing for a god, not a holiday. But I need to know for sure.

I was really sick a couple days ago. I'm in Thailand so you know what that means... no not VD jackass. A little too much street food. Probably too much Chang beer too. I'm convinced Chang is the Modelo of Thailand. I love it.



I don't have an accurate count for various reasons, but I've taken well over 2500 pictures and video so far. That means I spend a lot of time transferring, uploading and organizing pictures. Which is what I'm doing tonight as I recover.

I don't have a whole lot of time left. Well under a month. I don't know where I'll be after Chiang Mai. Maybe Laos, maybe Vietnam or Cambodia. I might go back to China early before catching my flight home from Shanghai. We shall see. That's half the fun.

Brutal

One week ago I woke up on a night bus from Yangshuo, China to Hong Kong. Since then I flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok; Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia; Siem Reap to Bangkok and then onward to Ko Samui, where I am now. Insane.

My Dad has been with me this whole week (well since Hong Kong) and before meeting me he flew from Ohio - LA - Beijing - Hong Kong.

In three days I'll be back in Bangkok (for the third time) before taking a train onward to Chiang Mai.

Whirlwind

The good thing about traveling with my Dad is that he flies by the seat of his pants. I didn't know where I would be tonight just 18 hours ago - now I'm about to hop on a couple flights to a Thai island for three days. Hilarious.

Spent only a couple days in Bangkok but I will be back there a couple more times on this trip, just as I'm in Cambodia (Siem Reap) right now and will be coming back to this country in a few weeks.

Only a Month Behind...

So I'll just talk about today. I'm in Bangkok now and my Dad is with me. We saw a couple temples and a palace today, so we're gonna balance the culture out by seeing Thai boxing tonight. I'm keeping a daily journal, plus working on videos, so that's why I'm so far behind. But I have virtually no plans for the next three or four weeks so I'm hoping to catch up on a lot of work in some cheap Cambodian and Vietnamese towns.

I was excited for Thai food and it has not disappointed. Super hot and super good. This is the Mexico of Asia.

It's November 4th, so here is another video

This is HuangShan Mountain, the coolest place I have ever seen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byJQkJmEjIY

Shanghai :: Metric - I'm Alive

I am in Hong Kong and a new video is done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu06X5PhSHM

Tokyo, Day 3

Tuesday

Hard to believe this all happened so long ago. Well I guess it's only been three weeks, but it feels like 3 months.

We started the day intending to head out somewhere relatively close for a few hours, then regroup at the hostel and figure out a plan for the evening (not to mention find a place to stay in Kyoto, the next stop after Tokyo). We walked down to the train station and got coffees at mcdonalds while we did some more planning.

First up was lunch, and I was pumped to finally eat at a MOS Burger, a place I had heard about that sounds like the In-n-Out of Japan. We ate at the one we saw the day before in Akihabara. They were small burgers but they were good (not at good as in-n-out though), and I had another melon soda. Those things are genius.

Made a snap decision and decided to just metro over to the west instead of going back home. We visited Roppongi Hills, a mega-entertainment and luxury living complex in the heart of what used to be one of the seediest parts of town. The Mori Art Museum is at the top of the tallest building in Roppongi and we paid about $17 to ride to the top and check it out.

The views from the observation floor were rad. We could see all parts of the city, many of which we hadn't been to yet. It was just city all around, like a carpet of buildings. We found the best way to spend $5 and got a great picture from a photo booth. I noticed they were selling Holga cameras in the art museum store. Interesting.

The museum was pretty cool too, especially one installation where you walked 'underground' and then stuck your head up through holes to see trees and landscape 'above ground'. Everything was in white. It was cool, but later my camera somehow corrupted the pictures and video from the best exhibit. Thanks panasonic.

Walked around a bit after that but it was all malls and expensive shops. So we said screw it and went to Ebisu, a supposedly more hip and cool area. And most importantly - the Yebisu Beer Museum.

The museum is a poor excuse to have a bar, but the bar is pretty great. You can get snacks and try all four of Yebisu's brews - the regular lager, the BLACK, the amber ale and the stout. We ended up trying all four. The Black was hands down our favorite, followed by the amber. These were really standout beers that had been freshly brewed on the premises and the prices were totally reasonable. Wish I could use them in an upcoming beer tasting.

The sun had set and so we trained to Shibuya, the mega shopping and pedestrian area. 'The crossing', maybe the busiest intersection in the world, was pretty cool. So was the two story Starbucks. I think Jacquie was in heaven.

We checked out a Tower Records (they still have those?) in hopes of finding some band fliers so we could see a show. No dice. They don't really have places like Spaceland in Japan.

Jumped on the subway yet again and went to a district on the outskirts of town called Shimo-Kitazawa on the most packed subway care yet. We weren't sure how to get out. Jacquie had read that the town was a more bohemian place and we hoped it might be as cool as our little neighborhood in LA. It did not disappoint. After taking a wrong turn out of the station (a thrice-daily habit for us... I mean me), we found the really cool area stuffed with nice little boutiques and restaurants. Took a couple laps to pick out an appropriately 'cute' restaurant bedecked in Halloween decorations. Have I mentioned how nuts the Japanese are for Halloween? I think I did. They'll do anything if it makes money.

My Indonesian friend rice was solid and my peach (!) beer was surprisingly good too. There was real peach mashed at the bottom. And Jacquie's amaretto ginger ale was pue genius. The ginger ale is better than what we have in the US too, and you can even get it with wasabi if you want.

Had dessert at a place unfortunately named Moco. I finally got something I had been waiting to try - a melon float. Let me tell you something. Go eat a melon float. My god those things are pure candyland.

It was a long train ride home that night. We were dead tired but couldn't believe how much we had done, and couldn't believe it was only our third day in Japan.

I'd love to have photos along with these posts but I'm still behind the Great Ass of China and can only access blogger via a proxy I recently discovered. I'll try to pimp these out when I'm in the free world again.

Hello

I am in China. I can't access blogger or facebook because the government doesn't allow it. It's very strange because it's not like I need to watch my back or anything. People are people, they have lots of KFC's and Starbucks and McDonald's soft creams (for like 35 cents!) and I can go pretty much where I want when I want. But if you're reading this before Nov 3 it means my girlfriend posted it from LA after I sent her the raw text.

Also my internet has sucked in China. In Japan we usually had high-speed internet. This was crucial because I quickly found that my memory cards for my camera were nowhere near as big as what I needed - I haven't been on a truly long trip since I got my HD shooter. I had two 8 GB cards and I bought a 16 GB for the trip... and I blasted through them in a few days. So I signed up for a flickr account and have been uploading everything there. But I can't do that here because my connections have been so slow. It is becoming a big problem.

This is also why I haven't posted other videos. I have a good 4-5 more Japan ones to create but all the video is on flickr and not on my hard drive. I need a high speed connection to batch download them. I think they will have to wait until Hong Kong.

Japan feels as far away as LA did when I was in Japan.

Everyone pushes to get on trains without letting people get off first. Traffic follows evolution - the bigger you are the more right-of-way you have. Green pedestrian walk signs mean virtually nothing if anything larger than a unicycle is coming your way. When pointing at menus what you 'hope' something looks like is never what it is. I am 90% sure I ate rat my first night (it tasted ok but seeing a small spinal column gave me pause). Beer is laughably cheap, and Budweiser is laughably premium. I have eaten street food several times and have not gotten sick yet. (Watch what happens after writing that...). Bus and subway drivers slam on both the accelerator and the brake for no reason I can think of - people constantly fell into me on the Shanghai metro. I saw a toddler pee on the floor of a train station and the mother laughed. Then a cleaning lady came by and swept it up. And I haven't seen a taco truck anywhere.

But. The Shanghai skyline is one of the most impressive I've ever seen. When I smile at people I get genuine smiles back, even though I really only use two words of Chinese. Well three. I know a few more words but no one ever understands them except for 'pijiu'. Which of course means 'beer'. I'm seeing less and less English the farther from Shanghai I go but the more difficult it gets the more rewarding everything is. I am not that far at the moment - I'm only in HangZhou, but tomorrow I have to catch a bus to a main station and then another bus to Tunxi, near HuangShan mountain. I am not sure how I am going to find the station from the first bus, and once at the station I don't know how I will find the bus to Tunxi. But I'm willing to bet I'll get there. And on Tuesday I will climb the mountain. And I might do it again Wednesday, or I might move on to the deep South.

Quick story. My current hostel gave me directions to it for my arrival. I was taking a taxi from the train station, which they told me should cost 11-13 yuan, but when I got in I couldn't find any taxis. I was starting to get frustrated. I finally found one, but when I told him my destination (Gulou) he just shook his head and said something while making a hand gesture. Another guy stepped in and said the same thing. Then another guy. A small crowd of taxi drivers was forming. At first I just thought the first driver was off duty. I had no idea what they were telling me. I repeated the word they kept saying, and they nodded. I didn't have a clue what it meant. I kept saying "Gulou" to no effect. I tried deciphering the hand gestures they kept making. A map? No. Writing maybe? They wanted to see it in writing?

Luckily I had written the characters for Gulou in my notebook. "Ok, just hang on a moment there boys!" I said. I pulled out my notebook and they nodded. They understood the character. "Gulou!" they said. Yes, I had said that 10 times already! One guy said "one hundred", then typed it in his phone and showed it to me. Highway robbery! I laughed and shook my head and gave him my "what do you think I am, an idiot?" look.

Another stepped in and typed "40". I laughed at him too. He put the phone in my hand so I typed "12". His eyes got wide and he looked at me half like "you are killing me!" and half like "oh you are not stupid!" He typed in 25. I gave him the same look. 20. I made the universal hand sign for "a little bit lower". I made the number '15' with my hands.

He nodded with approval, smiling and laughing like I just took him for a ride. Then he mimed someone riding a scooter...

And that's what he had. A tiny scooter. It was raining and I had my large backpack on. I immediately thought of D-1 (only a few people will get that reference). I wanted a regular cab... with a roof... but had gone through too much already. Plus I figured it would be worth the story.

I couldn't stop smiling as to wove in and out of traffic in the rain on that tiny lawnmower of a vehicle, me with a huge backpack hanging off the back and clutching a tiny Asian man with my knees. I talked to him the whole way there, saying things like "ok buddy, don't blow this!", "oh man, the guy driving that car is a complete moron!", "you should really get a windshield on this thing!", "why did that horn sound like it was inside my skull?", "boy this place sure blows when it's getting the remnants of a super typhoon, huh?". Et cetera. He replied to everything and I'm convinced he knew exactly what I was saying by the tone of my voice, and context (ie he just cut off a tour bus, he almost ran over a small child etc).

Finally he stopped. "Gulou" he said, pointing toward a stone wall. I only had a 100 yuan note and figured there was no way he'd have change, or admit it if he did, but sure enough he had the change and gave me 85 back. I gave him 5 more even though you don't tip in China. It was worth it.