Delaying the Inevitable

2009-12-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's been forever and a day but I'm FINALLY travelling again. This time I'm off to Africa, Nairobi Kenya to be exact, with my girlfriend Annie. She's going to be in a wedding and I'm along to eat and drink all the strange things I can. They won't have kava (I've checked), but there is sure to be all kinds of different things we don't have over here. I've purposefully NOT done a ton of research for this trip just to be more surprised and inspired.

My travel gear has changed very little since the last time I was overseas. Still going with a decent sized backpack and a day pack, nothing fancy. I purposefully don't take fancy gizmos and gadgets when I go places. Ok, so that's kind of a lie. I'm bringing my iPhone but ONLY because it can be useful in case I really REALLY need to make a phone call. It can also store movies. But no fancy camera, no GPS, no laptop. But same battery charger, new camera that runs on AA batteries, same ancient Nalgene, same toiletry kit.

Let's go find some zebras . . . and eat them.

2007-10-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

1-8-08

Way way way too long since last update. I can't count the number of times I've sat down with the intent of writing about all the things that have happened the previous but getting sidetracked with the multitude of events going on.

To put it simply, I've been the busiest I have ever been in the 26 years I've been on this planet. I'm not sure how it happened really, the job was going well and I was connecting with old friends but I needed to do more. So I found my old dance teachers to try and get back on the dance team (I used to dance salsa competitively). You know, to get back into the dance community. It turns out they needed another dance instructor for the new La Jolla studio (opening up Dec. 8th) and invited me to take instructor training, lots of ballroom classes and private instruction to bring me up to speed. So just about every waking hour I'm not working or sleeping (yes I can sleep while awake) I'm either dancing (amateur team, taking lessons, teaching) or en route to some dance event. And there are so many! Since I dance about 6 days a week in one form or another I've become quickly familiar with the local hot (and not-so-hot) dance spots.

But what else has kept me from updating, let's see. Oh yeah, I spent a few days in D.C. attending a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer conference that was awesome. There I was in a room full of people going through the same readjustment issues as I was, flipping out about traffic, fast food and hot water. Perhaps the strangest thing was meeting 3 other Vanuatu RPCV's at the conference. I immediately switched back into Bislama and started conversing, not even realizing that I was doing it. Our conversation went something like this (translated).

"Brother in law, how are you?"
"No, how are you?"
"No, I haven't seen you in a long time"
"Yes my brother in law, it is true we have not seen each other for a long time. When I saw you I thought you looked fat."
"Yes it is true I am fat now. But you are also fat! In fact I think you are more fat than me!"
" Haha, *expletive* I think you are right!"

So that was fun. We carried on for a little while longer, went to all the sessions and got caught up on all the gossip we'd missed out on. Later on I met up with some other RPCV's and took a tour of the D.C. monuments at night. I'd been to D.C. years and years ago with my family but had forgotten how everything looked, how European things resembled, and how the the area between the Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool was exactly like the view in Paris from the water fountain to the Eiffel Tower. Coincidence? Nope, they took the idea from Paris.

I got back home and some things happened. Can't really remember but that's because I don't have my journal on me right now and I record everything in there.

Right, Jenneric got married! For the uninformed Jenn and Eric (Jenneric, get it?) are two of my friends who met in Peace Corps Vanuatu and got married in New Jersey. I'd been looking forward to this wedding for a long time since it would be the first time I'd seen so many of my Peace Corps friends after leaving. Of course I wasn't disappointed, I arrived with my friend Katie and after some coordinating met up with what seemed to be 100 RPCV's, all cramped in two rooms, all drinking. The wedding was lovely, everyone looked great blah blah anyway at the reception there was a big kava bowl which was manned by my friend Joe. I'd heard that Jenneric had brought home about 10 kilos of kava and here it was, the vile elixir I used to drink every day for a year straight, smelling of fermented cucumber and tasting like mud and the silt from the bottom of the ocean. I don't remember how many shells I drank or how many people I got to drink with me or how I ended up supervising the drinking, but it all happened. And I have the photos to prove it.

2007-08-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

8-20-07

It's been an emotional roller coaster recently. In the midst of job searches and studies, I found out I got the job with the (breathe) California Solar Initiative, working with the California Center for Sustainable Energy, formerly known San Diego Regional Energy Office (gasp).

To celebrate, my friends and I went to go see Vanilla Ice down at Canes. Yeah, the same Vanilla Ice we listened to in . . . elementary school? Was it that long ago? Ice only played for a little over an hour and he's really more Insane Clown Posse than his other alter egos, complete with evil clown props and lighting pulled from a disco palette. And if watching Vanilla Ice trying (horribly) to get them to take off their clothes was bad, he proceeded to plug his appearance on Country Music Television's "Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge." Reality TV gone horribly wrong.

Of course in the midst of all this excitement I managed to get a recall letter (after the concert, not during) for a specific product because the company, in their infinite wisdom, decided that infecting thousands of loyal chili-eating customers with botulism would be bad for business. Don't know what botulism is? It's what happens when bacteria thrive in what should have been a sterile (tin can) environment. Oh, and it turns you into a quadriplegic.

Fun!

Maybe that's why my stomach was flip flopping more than a presidential nominee.

Anyway I'm now working for the California Center for Sustainable Energy. It's a mouthful but I make it shorter by saying that I work for the CSI program in the CCSE. Of course no one knows what that is so I say I work with "solar energy". It's quick, like our attention span.

Truncating my job description wasn't so difficult after explaining where (or what) Vanuatu is, and in 60 seconds encapsulating 3+ years of Peace Corps experience. I swear, I've got it down to a few sound bites. And if I have my island photos it's that much shorter. Pretty much it goes something like this.

"So how was the Peace Corps?"

"Good"

"Sweet, I always wanted to join the Peace Corps. Maybe you can tell me about it and I can act like I know what you're talking about"

"Sounds like a blast, here's some photos I took while I was there"

"Hey, black people!"

Ok ok, so the people I work with are actually a lot cooler than that. Our director even knows where Vanuatu is, which is definitely a good sign. My coworkers genuinely care about the environment, going so far as to banning plastic bottles in the workplace and turning off lights while they're still in their offices. Genius! We have a flex-fuel van and host workshops about their free shade tree program, calculating energy use and offsetting electric bills with solar systems.

I've been working for a week so far and it's been interesting (I'm still kind of man-bush) to say the least, as has everything I've done for the past 7 months. It's all part of the process, like learning how to manage databases, multi task and order office supplies.

Offices have supplies? Since when!? Oh yeah, that was a Vanuatu office. At least this office has free tea, coffee and water. Free tea and coffee! The Vanuatu office had free water but it was hell of the stomach, a far cry from the gecko-floating well-water I was used to on Tongoa. Mmmmm, gecko flavored water.

Oh Paris, with it's small stuffed mice and temporary monuments. Again, no transition.

2007-07-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

July 31, 2007

It's been a long time, too long actually. Since getting back a couple months ago I've gotten out of my "travel" routine which used to include lots of emails and frequent blog updates. But it comes with adapting to life over here. Luckily I've been keeping busy looking for jobs, schools and old friends to hang out with. It's funny how people change (or don't change) after I haven't seen them for so long. Some get married, have kids, gain weight, lose hair, gain hair, move on, stay put and do all the little interesting things that they find completely mundane. Of course to me all these "mundane" things are still as novel as ever, although I am starting to take running water for granted (damn). Luckily I still get a thrill out of seeing a gas stove light up.

For all you returning Peace Corps volunteers, don't expect any special treatment from Americans when you get home. I don't know how you're "readjustment" session in the COS conference but it's been pretty accurate for me. "Storian" is non-existent here, unfortunately. Maybe it's the lack of kava, the lack of aelan mommas making bunia, or the lack of fres win but laef i difren lelabet . Either way people don't know where Vanuatu is and spend about 15 seconds being genuinely interested in what you have to say before talking about politics or their dog. Not that I have anything against dogs at all. Oh, and if someone is talking about their dog don't mention that you're eaten dog before. Or that you really liked it. Or that it tastes like pork and chicken. They get all defensive like you're going to take their dog and eat it right in front of them. I never understood that really. I guess it's like being nervous around a cannibal, which doesn't make that much sense to me either.

I just got a cell phone this month and it's pretty cool. It can't get clips from the Daily Show or South Park like my brother's phone can but I can make and receive calls. Unfortunately since I haven't had a phone for so long I still tend to leave it at home, or in a room that I'm not in. I get to participate in my own 50m obstacle course whenever it rings, making a mad dash over furniture and around walls to try to locate it, then have to inevitably dig through a pile of clothes or papers to find it at the bottom. But it keeps me in touch (or on call, however you perceive it). If you want me to go through the next obstacle course, the number's (858) 531-8271. I haven't even started doing text messaging since it still kind of scares me and seems like the least amount of effort one can do to communicate. Then again, it takes so long to input each letter.

Since I spend a lot of time around the house and not wandering museums, dodging molten lava or killing edible animals, I've taken up running again. It's a great way to watch the rabbits running around at the local park, say 'hi' to all the dogs (determine whether or not they'd make good coats) and work on lowering my cholesterol which seemed to spike shortly after I got back home. I guess cooking with all that bacon fat and coconut milk isn't really that good for you after all. Now instead of making decadent, indulgent food I've gone back to what people in the Midwest call "That crazy California food" like tofu stir fry and roasted bell peppers. I didn't even realize how "Californian" I am until I started talking to my friend from Ohio about a certain kind of vanilla soy milk I enjoy with my organic cereal .

Of course amidst all the domestic pandering I've managed to get out and do a few touristy things. I inadvertently started following a band called "Red Pony Clock"(a 13 piece band complete with vibes and accordion), hanging out with an old theater friend (who believes he is Santa Claus) and enjoying all the local haunts of San Diego. I also took a stroll around Balboa Park, one of my favorite places in San Diego, where they have lots of museums and a botanical garden. Ok, so it's not Museumplein but has some works by Dutch painters. I also made it to our famous zoo where I managed to tear myself away from the binturongs (I want one) long enough to see the tigers, okapi and PNG pigeons (which we used to eat in Vanuatu).

The highlight so far has probably been spending time with Amanda, a girl I went to high school with and is now in Peace Corps Vanuatu. She came back for a couple weeks and we got together to practice Bislama and discuss all things Vanuatu: the food, the people, the school system, funerals, weddings (which are just as sad as funerals), other volunteers and the supreme courthouse that was recently burned, it even made it to the national terrorism page. And yes, that's kava we're drinking.

In some kind of anti-denoument, I discovered that my family had kept all the kava I sent home. Needless to say Amanda and I had a few shells and basked in the euphoric apathy that followed. I even made kava bowls out of coconuts I bought at the supermarket. After all my travels looking for kava (and discovering it's illegal in Singapore) it turned out to be right here (and growing at the San Diego County Fair).

How appropriate. I made a gift package for Amanda before she left and I started to get excited about it. I gave her all the things that I could have really used while in Vanuatu like strong plastic bags, instant pudding, magazines, gum and blank CD's. The only thing I was missing was quality dark chocolate in an airtight container but it's better than nothing. And the pudding was chocolate anyway.

I had a big surprise last week after mentioning to my friend that I wanted to go to Comic Con, one of the biggest media events on the west coast. What started off in the 70's as a bunch of nerds hanging out in a hotel basement is now an international affair where new movies are previewed, casts answer questions from fanboys (or fangirls), and people get dressed up in all manner of costumes ranging from simple eye makeup to complete cosplay antics. Anyway, I was asked by one of my acting friends if I wanted to take part in Comic Con by dressing up as an evil clown and terrorize innocent bystanders as part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the new batman movie. Did I want to help out? Heck yes! Following a secretive after-hours meeting and about 100 grams of grease makeup I was ready. But what was I ready for? The people in charge had been so secretive about everything we really didn't know exactly what we would be doing until the day of the event. We got it figured out in time to walk out of the Hyatt dressed up as the Joker's goons, ready to berate the convention goers and hand out clue-filled balloons. We looked like a circus version of the Reservoir Dogs and had a blast, insulting peoples' intelligence, making fun of Jedi's and handing out defaced 1$ bills. The funny thing is that even under our sweaty grease paint and business-casual attire we were some of the less freaky cosplayers present. Staff took lots of pictures, including some of me which were posted on www.whysoserious.com but the website has changed and I'm not longer up there in all my clown glory.

But we all looked like this

Oh hey, look what I found.

Unfortunately we didn't get to go into Comic Con itself since it was sold out and we were working outside but there's always next year. And the year after that. And the year after that and the year . . .

I wish the rest of my time here could be so eventful but unfortunately, we can't all be evil clowns all the time. I mean we can, but then we have to join the circus and learn to juggle.

Ah, Versailles.
No transition, just like the picture.

2007-06-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 13th

Jesus Christ, has it been a busy two weeks. I swear it has been non-stop since the beginning. In the time it used to take me to schedule a community meeting I've applied for no less than four jobs, gone through all my old clothes, organized all the things I sent home, cooked about fifty times, driven on the freeway, and gotten my hair cut no less than three times. But more on the hair later. First I'd like to talk about my rude awakening to the debacle that is American Culture.

Let's start with the supermarket. Now I'd gotten used to supermarkets during my stay in Amsterdam and overcome my somewhat irrational fear of the multitude of choices. When I came back home I decided to take it nice and slow and do what I used to do in Port Vila: walk down every single aisle and look at every single item for sale. And that's what I did, I walked to the store and looked at each individual food item. It's fucking absurd. Who needs over 25 different brands of peanut butter to go with 36 different kinds of bread? Do we really need milk to be broken down by fat content in .5% gradations? Is someone going to have a stroke over 2% milk when they realized they had not purchased their normal 1.5% milk? I was fine shopping in other countries because I thought "Hey, I'm just passing through, it's not such a big deal. Just keep focused and buy the zucchini." But here it's absolute madness. Everything comes in low fat, low sodium, no sugar, light syrup, chopped, diced, whole, or masticated. And that's just the packaged food which I try to avoid like a rabid third grader with one eye. But at least they have lots and lots of vegetables, which are also huge and equally distracting.

After I exited the Albertson's of Perfidiousness and made sure my body hadn't gone into shock I decided to press my luck and check out the Target next door where my body did indeed go into anaphalactic shock. It's HUGE! All the progress I had made in desensitizing myself to food selection was nothing compared to the selection of everything else in the world for sale. As I was looking at DVD's with actors I didn't recognize I met the mother of a kid I went to high school with. I managed to stammer out a few sentences before getting uncomfortable and saying goodbye. As I walked home I was thankful there isn't a Walmart close to my house. I'm afraid I'll get lost in the store and be found dead weeks later next to the camping goods.

Shortly after my trip to the store and a few other equally traumatic experiences: freeway driving, seeing an old friend leave for Oregon, etc., I finally decided to get a hair cut. So like a complete idiot I made an appointment with a local stylist, thinking that she could cut men's hair that was over 3 inches in length. Unfortunately, American's (unlike Netherlanders) can't cut men's hair and keep it long at the same time. Why? Cause in Holland long hair is normal in guys, in the States it's a pre-existing condition that will deny you medical coverage. Since this woman cut about a centimeter off my hair the first time I went back hoping she would fix it.

I was so wrong. I walked out with a girls haircut but hey, at least I still had long hair. But I can't go walking around with hair like a girl so I got it cut again from someone else and now my hair looks better but is much shorter than I'd like. Whatever, I'll live. Then I saw the date and realized that in a parallel universe I'm actually sharing this time with someone at San Diego Zoo, laughing at the monkeys and recognizing the tropical flowers at the botanical garden in Balboa park. However, in reality I'm actually stressing over jobs and credit cards. And then I think about the stores, the movies, the shiny devices that beep, whir, and have flashing lights; all the things that distract us and allow us to put off dealing with emotions. There's a point to this rant somewhere but I think it got lost between the low-fat and the all-natural-old fashion peanut butter .

2007-05-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Home, I'm finally home.

After a total of 17 hours travel time since Amsterdam I'm finally back in Poway, in the same house that I grew up in but this time a few years older and a little wiser. Since I just got back yesterday in the evening I haven't done anything really typically American yet so no shocking photos of supermarkets or electronic stores. The one thing I will say is that I'd completely forgotten how nice it is to be with my family, not only have they been supportive the whole time I've been away from the States but have given me a week before asking me what I'm doing with the rest of my life (which is more than I can say for some of my other RPCV friends). Of course I feel like a complete retard in my own house, I don't know how to use the microwave anymore, operate the washing machine or the location of the plates in the kitchen. Hopefully this "Where the hell is X" won't last too long.

However, before I left Holland I did take Marije to Paris for a couple days and it was nothing less than amazing. Of course she'd been there a couple times already and knew the city better than I did but we managed to see the Sacre Couer, Eiffel Tower, Nortre Dame, a local market and have a relaxing picnic in the garden in front of the Louvre. But for a few days we just enjoyed the Parisian atmosphere, good espresso (well, at least I did), and better weather than in Holland (which isn't saying too much really). All in all it was just about perfect.

Leaving was tough, as it always is when you leave someone and don't know when you're going to see them again. We had plans to meet up in San Diego where I would show her around the Zoo, Balboa Park, the beach, La Jolla and other sights San Diego is known for. Unfortunately as it sometimes happens, things didn't work out. The distance, time apart and circumstances outside of anyone's control were too much to bear and she won't be coming out to visit . . . ever. It's sad, there's so much I had planned including staying with my family and cooking amazing curry. But life goes on. Luckily I have a supportive family and lots of friends who I've seen in the last week. I also have the future to look forward to which means applying for jobs, finding a new means of transportation, buying necessities and aimlessly wandering the aisles at the local Albertsons where there are no less than 22 different brands of peanut butter. Of course I have more to write about but don't really feel like it now, maybe later when I put up some photos.

2007-05-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

After Dresden and Prague I took a train back to Amsterdam to spend some time with Marije and kill some time before Queens Day. Never heard of Queens Day? Me neither, but apparently it's a day where the citizens of Holland celebrate their Queen by dressing up in orange clothes and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, kind of like the Super Bowl but without the game and with orange clothes. Ok so it's not like the Super Bowl at all but I can think of few other dates in the States where it's appropriate to be drunk at 9:30 in the morning. Of course I wasn't one of those people but as I made my way through the Red Light district trying to navigate around many many people, having a few drinks started looking like a very good idea. So I did. The whole event was surreal, orange wig wearing Netherlanders on boats, holding spontaneous dance parties in the streets and beer tents every 10 meters. Every other person I talked to was from out of the country, another testament to the pull of the legendary coffee shops. One of the best things about Queens Day was the constant music. There were stages set up everywhere with DJ's spinning non-stop. I managed to catch a little of DJ Tiesto's set at Museum Plein but it was so incredibly crowded it was impossible to move so I left after only a little while. I ended up getting lost on the way back to the apartment but it let me see all the little road markets that make Queens Day a time to shop for um, antique candle holders and old Abba records. Wooooo Abba. But seriously, if you're in Europe around Queens Day get over to Amsterdam for a wild time.

The following day (not hung over at all) I jumped on a train to Paris, in an attempt to get some culture and end up broke and destitute. Cause that's what Paris will do to you, give you culture in spades and then take all your money, kind of like a mugging. Oh I'm not exaggerating. Have you ever paid $6.80 for a cappuccino? I felt violated. But enough about the costs, Paris is amazing. The first day I went to the George Pompidou building in part because we had a George Pompidou building in Vanuatu. But the one in Vanuatu doesn't really do anything while the one in Paris houses a number of art exhibits, including one on Samuel Beckett which I was this close to seeing. But as I was on limited time I opted to see the permanent Modern Art exhibit as well. I thought "Hey, I haven't been to a modern art exhibit in years". After 5 minutes inside the museum I remembered why I hadn't been to one in so long: it SUCKS! Yeah ok, sure some of it is interesting and in some circles passes for art but the rest, I'm sorry to say, is pretentious bullshit. Maybe I'm not hip enough to appreciate a sculpture of a stag having his way with a woman, or a canvas painted navy blue, or a tree composed solely of red-painted woolen gloves. I'm sure a paper mache monster covered in garbage would look great in the east wing of someone's McMansion but I don't know if it's really art. Maybe I'm too much of a square to "get it" or something olsem. But of all the thousands of exhibits only the ones by Phillipe Stark really earned my respect. Sure he may have sold his soul to Microsoft but his stuff is good.

Outside the George Pompidou there's a large pool with other modern and post-modern sculptures. I saw a collection of brightly colored ones near the back and though I saw a familiar face in Stravinsky Fountain. Holy hell, it was the Sun God! Straight out of UCSD! Ok maybe it's not really the Sun God but damn if it doesn't look almost exactly the same. Could it be that two different people made big Mexican birds on either side of the world at similar times? Nope, it turns out the sculptor of the Sun God, Niki de Saint Phalle, has exhibits in Stravinsky Fountain as well as UCSD. So either this or the Sun God is recycled work. Whatever, it's modern art. Of course I came to Paris for classical art. Luckily I had plans to meet up with Katie, a Vanuatu RPCV and explore Nortre Dame and the Louvre with her.

But before Nortre Dame I paid a visit to the Picasso Museum to see what they were showing, hoping that I would get to see Guernica, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, or even Gertrude Stein. But noooooo none of them can be in the Paris museum! All I got stuck with were a bunch of mixed media mosaics, a horribly ugly iron statue and some self portraits. I was about to write off the museum altogether (like the George Pompidou) but at the very end something caught my eye. It was in one of the exhibits that showed off some of Picasso's private ancient art collection that inspired cubism. And what was there but a truly amazing kastam sculpture from South Malekula, Vanuatu. I stared agape, and actually asked out loud "What are you doing here?" drawing a look from the security guard. I couldn't believe it, Picasso of all people knew about Vanuatu back when it was New Hebrides. Awesome, suddenly it was all worth it. The craziest part is that I've seen a fair amount of the sculptures coming out of Malekula (even bought some) and have never come across something like this. It's not a death mask because it's too big and is hollow inside. I showed the picture to Katie and she too had never seen something like it. Atink hemi wan kastam samting be kastam i finis finis? Tawi, traen telem smol long samting ia!

I met Katie at the front of Nortre Dame and after exchanging pleasantries we went inside, and saw what is claimed to be the true Crown of Thorns. We looked and looked at the display but didn't see any crown. But there were plenty of other treasures to see, like old clothes. Inside Nortre Dame was quite pretty, but not as spectacular as I expected. Maybe it's because I've seen so many amazing churches including St. Peter's Basilica in Rome but I found the exterior of the Cathedral more interesting than the interior. I mean just look at the exterior, buttresses, gargoyles, a Rose window, it's all so Gothic. Luckily there weren't any Goths around the Cathedral.

The Louvre Museum in crazy, inspiring and totally BSI. And it's HUGE! No, no you don't understand. It has over 35,000 exhibits, 4 floors and houses some of the most important art works in history: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Hermaphroditos Asleep, and other works that you never really bothered with in High School. And that's just a sample of the important art works, saying nothing of the Islamic pieces, Spanish, Dutch and other Italian works. The museum is intense, I found myself overwhelmed at times just trying to imagine the scope of the pieces it held. It was so much I went twice. At one point I started trying to imagine the net worth of the exhibits and then how much they were insured for, but I stopped before my head exploded.

I also found a sculpture that really touched me in a place few sculptures can. It's a statue of Minerva from the private d'Orsay collection. I fell in love with her poise and the organic folds of her cloak which looks to be made out of agate. She has a serene yet focused look of contemplation, confident stance and holds her (strangely cute) owl of wisdom. I don't know how long I looked at her, from all sides noticing the broken finger on her right hand. If the ancient Romans did anything right it's their art, even if they did steal if from the Greeks. To me this statue is archetypal and nearly everything I love in classical sculpture.

I have no idea what this statue is. It was in the Greek and Roman sculpture area but the bucket and copper don't seem that old. I personally think it's a woman getting spaghetti dumped on her head. Marije thinks it's a spaghetti, meat balls and petanque balls. I'm willing to meet halfway and call it an ancient documentation of the flying spaghetti monster playing petanque.

That night Katie and I had dinner at a local cafe after getting caught in the rain. Over a bottle of wine and a confusing food order, we caught up on everything: adjusting to western life, health issues, food, Europe, old gossip, new gossip, intimidating supermarkets, relationships, and the long arduous (sometimes intimidating) process of readjustment. Oh did we talk about readjustment. Basically it boils down to that it's impossible for other non-RPCV's to understand what we're going through, which is why it's so important for us Vanuatu people to hang out. It's not that other people don't want to understand, but after 3 years of adjusting to life overseas it will be a long time before I'm really "normal" again, not that I want to be normal anyway. But there are still things I have to get used to . . . like not eating food off of someone else's plate. When I finally get back to the States (May 28th) I'll have to start seriously thinking about going to school again, starting a career and developing some real life goals. Or maybe I'll go back to Vanuatu and husk coconuts for a while, at least there they don't have to worry about Roth IRA's.

2007-04-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

Prague is cool man, groovy even. I came to Prague with the same expectations I come to with any new city: zero. I find if I go in with an open schedule (and open mind) I have a greater appreciation of the sights than if I were racing from one destination to another, playing the 'Let's see how many pictures I can take in one day' game. Don't get me wrong, I love taking pictures of interesting sights but it's not the goal when I roll up to a new destination; it's not like I'm Japanese or anything. Oh wait.

Anyway Prague is different, ancient architecture rises out of the landscape surrounded by modern buildings that just don't seem to fit. I walked around the first day just saying "Prague . . . Prague man, wow" and "You see that building? It's in Prague. That woman over there? Oh yeah, she's from Prague." I managed to see a Dali exhibit, a chocolate painting museum and a couple other art galleries that day. The view from Charles Bridge is absolutely incredible, as are the sculptures that adorn either side. The bottom of the statue of St. John has been worn away by so many people rubbing the relief of him getting thrown off the bridge that the bronze is completely polished and starting to get grooves in it, much like the feet of St. Peter in the Basilica in Rome. I don't know what it is about rubbing the feet of statues but it seems to be a part of the human condition, as people in Fukuoka rubbed the feet of Billiken too. Now Billiken has two grooves worn into his wooden feet, poor guy. It's tough being a deity, people want to rub your feet all the time. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound so bad.

Prague Castle is far out. The view of Prague from the area around the castle (including the royal garden) is nothing short of spectacular. I spent over an hour wandering around taking in the view and marveling at it all. The castle (one of the biggest in the world) also contains the Royal Palace (which was closed, faken!), St. Vitus Cathedral and a number of museums and exhibits, too numerous to mention. I highly suggest taking the 'Story of Prague Castle' tour although it is a little expensive.

Come to think of it, every museum I've gone to has been pretty good although expensive, except the Sex Machines Museum which is while not dedicated to James Brown, is dynamite, slightly disturbing and flat out hilarious at times. It's like the Amsterdam Sex Museum with all the "boring" parts cut out.

The story of Prague castle is long and a bit boring at times until you get to the end and they show a short movie of the crown of St. Wenceslas (from the Christmas carol, remember?) and the coronation cross. The crown is crazy, simply incredible. They have a replica but the film shows the real thing: a crown so extravagant it makes the sultan of Dubai look poor. I mean this crown is made of gold and covered with jewels big enough to choke on if you were to ever swallow one. I took a photo of the replica but it doesn't sparkle and make you go "Oooooohhh" like the real thing. The video of the crown also showed a special cross which was also used in the coronation of kings. Not only is this cross also made of gold and jewel encrusted but it's also supposed to contain pieces of the cross on which Jesus was crucified and other stuff that he had when he died like nails from the cross, the sponge that gave him his last drink (vinegar) and thread from a rope that did something special like pull his donkey or something.

After visiting the castle proper I watched a blacksmith working on making a piece of metal sharper on one end and ended up buying an iron cork screw. I hadn't bought anything from Prague yet and wanted something that would remind me of it but not a key chain or anything retarded like that. So I bought a corkscrew which should last me the rest of my life and is only slightly less retarded than a key chain. Did I mention it can also open bottles? It weighs about a kilo and can double as a brass knuckle if I ever get in a brawl after opening a bottle of Merlot, "I got your mahogany and black currant hints right here pal!" Mobile blacksmithing seems to be a lucrative profession in Prague because I saw another one making a horse shoe on one of the main streets. He was also selling these solid iron knives that were really sweet but I'd already bought my bottle opener and I knew if I bought a knife it would just sit on my shelf somewhere, which I would point to it when people came over and tell them it came from Prague, then have to show them on a map where Prague is (Czech Republic).

I went to St. Vitus Cathedral and was overwhelmed by it's sheer size and amazing stained glass windows. I immediately wished I was Catholic so I could appreciate it that much more. Of course when I saw Ankor Wat I wished I was Buddhist and when I saw the Sistine Chapel I wished I was Catholic and when I visit the Dresden Frauenkirche I wished I was Protestant. What I really wish I had after seeing all these religious land marks is a degree in Religion. Not that you need to be religious to appreciate these temples of faith, but I think it helps. Anyway St. Vitus is huge, intimidating and even has a crypt underneath, the perfect ingredients for a horror movie (get on it, Jose!). St. Winceslas is even buried in the church as is someone else important because he there is a HUGE silver tomb right in the back. Ok, the tomb is for St. John Nepomuk, the same guy who got thrown into the river off of Charles Bridge. One of the best parts of St. Vitus is the view that you get when you ascend the South tower. One must climb over 400 steps inside a painfully narrow spiral stair case to reach top, which becomes difficult because half of the people who try to make the journey are clearly not in the best of shape. Going up I was behind three sweating Italian guys and in front of two beautiful panting Spanish women. I was living someone's fantasy I'm sure, but not my own. I kept saying "Come on!" when we stopped for the fat people coming down the stairs or when we stopped when someone in front had to take a cigarette break. But the view at the top was worth it, and coming back down I went so fast I got dizzy.

The next day (or maybe the same day) I went to a small art gallery which was showing off the works of Viktor Safonkin, a Prague surreal artist who received the Dali Award for painting really crazy paintings. I managed to take a picture of the best piece in the room before the guy playing solitaire on his computer said it was not possible for me to take photos of the pictures. Not possible? Well I just did didn't I? Unfortunately I don't know the name of the painting but am trying to find it out. All I know is that's it's downright crazy and leads me to believe the man does LSD on a regular basis. Ok, the painting's called 'Army of Irritation.'

In my wanderings I also found a place that sold cannabis iced tea. The website for it is www.c-ice.cz but unfortunately it's in some language other than English so I'm at a loss. I didn't try it so I can't comment on its effectiveness. But the shop claimed to have sold thousands of cans of it already so it must do something. I'm sure if I search hard enough in Amsterdam I can find it.

I left Prague by train an spent the night in Berlin. I could have left at 6 am and spent the whole day traveling by train but the thought of getting up at 5 wasn't too appealing. I arrived in Berlin with enough time to walk around so I thought I would swing by the Ka-De-We, the biggest department store in the whole of continental Europe. I had been there before and marveled at their selection of prepared meats and thought I'd try to grab a cappuccino there. Well, imagine my surprise when I found an enormous cue in front of the store filled with people dressed up like gangsters and flappers straight from the roaring 20's. At first I had no idea what was going on, then I saw the Spanish people on stilts and really had no idea what was going on. Look, one even has a violin case with cash coming out! Because nothing says 1920's like a instrument case full of uh, fake money. But he looks happy and is on stilts, who am I to judge? I thought about trying to talk my way in but then realized that not only were these people dressed up like the 20's but most of them looked like they were old enough to remember what it was like back then. I wanted to walk up to one and ask what they thought about Capone and his cronies.

2007-04-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, Dresden is probably one of the coolest places I've been to yet. Not only have a lot of the buildings been rebuilt since the carpet bombing of WWII but some of them are also incredible museums. Today I went to the new Green Vault museum and saw so many things, all of them treasures, all of them worth more money than I'll probably make in a lifetime. Not only is there the green diamond (made green from exposure to radiation while it was forming, sick!), but amazing clocks, lathed ivory pieces, a ship made out of ivory and golden wire (holy crap!), a magnificent tea and coffee set that was never used and a square meter recreation of the royal palace in India. In fact, a lot of the things in the museum were never used or meant to be used because they are too fragile or elaborate. Of course they didn't let anyone take photos but we all know I took some anyway. Unfortunately the connection here is quite slow so none for now. But man, everything was beautiful, especially the miniature ivory carvings and cutlery that had red coral for handles. I could honestly go on and on about the cherry stone with over 100 faces carved into it, or the hollow octagons of ivory with stars inside. Unfortunately I couldn't buy a ticket for the old Green Vault since it was sold out.

As for the food, I have come to the realization that most Germans survive on a diet of meat, bread and beer. Surprisingly the ones I see walking around aren't all that fat like the ones I saw traveling SE Asia. Of course those Germans are probably sitting behind desks and not walking around. Still, the typical German diet seems to have little to no fiber at all, I haven't even seen all that much sauerkraut.

2007-04-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

No photos this time, will have to put them up later.

Arriving to Berlin was an event that almost didn't happen. Although I thought I gave myself plenty of time to get from Annmarie's to the Central Station in Amsterdam, over an hour, it turned out to be only just enough. Thankfully I had my Eurail pass so all I had to do was run to the platform, scan the schedule to make sure it was the right train and jump on. 6 hours later I was in Berlin.

Unfortunately the next night I was robbed of 150 euros as I slept in the hostel. Yeah it finally happened. Statistically it was only a matter of time but I'm normally quite careful with my money, it was even in my bag under my bed when it got taken. Luckily they only took the euros and left me my credit card and ATM card so it's not a total loss. And they left my my Eurail pass which is great, cause I would have probably killed someone if they had taken that. The local Universities just finished up their Spring Break or whatever the hell they call it over here and they were mainly students in the dorm room, so it was probably some retarded student who mistook the floor under my bed for his parents top drawer. It's possible, people make mistakes all the time. The thing that tears it is that I know exactly when it happened during the night.

But besides losing all my cash at hand Berlin is great, I've seen so many museums it's been a whirlwind of antiquity. Thus far I've seen the head of Nefertiti, classical Greek ceramics, Warhammer 40,000 statues, sex carvings, SS uniforms and parts of the Berlin Wall. I was also able to buy a small chunk of the Berlin wall from an old couple on my walking tour which in my opinion, is about as authentic a memory as you can get.

It turns out that Berlin has its own Sex Museum, and right by my hostel. How convenient! It's not as extensive as the one in Amsterdam but at least they had a fairly good exhibit on Asia, even including all the infused rice wines I've been tasting throughout SE Asia. So that was fun, going by they displays and saying to myself ' I've drank that, that, that, not that, that . . .' I wonder if anyone heard me.

I have learned more about German history and seen more of Berlin in a few days than I had planned, thanks in part to the day tour that I took. It was with Insider Tours and for a 4 hour walking tour covered a lot, skimming the surface on places like Hitler's bunker, the Soviet War Memorial and other important monuments that can be covered in a day. I felt guilty for spending such little time at internationally recognized places like Checkpoint Charlie, but that's why I have 5 days here to go back and fully appreciate them. Having said that, 5 days is definitely not enough time to explore this city. Of course, unless you live in Bridgeport (population 836) 5 days probably isn't enough time to explore any proper city. There's also a huge plaza called the Sony Center in Berlin which is less than a decade old and houses lots of restaurants, and IMAX theater and a normal theater where they show movies in their original language. I got to see '300' in English, something I've waited a long time to do. I'm going to restrain my fan-boy urges and just say that it's the most entertaining movie I've seen in years . . . which isn't saying all that much when you think about the kinds of movies I saw in Vanuatu like 'Red Scorpion' and 'Rambo', god how they love their Rambo in Vanuatu. Sure 300 isn't completely true but what Hollywood movie isn't? And it's based on a graphic novel, inspired by a movie based on actual events. And as it's a Frank Miller graphic novel, the visual style is of course going to take some liberties and be bat-shit-insane (which I will be abbreviating to BSI from now on for the sake of brevity). I would just love it if Frank Miller and Greg Capullo worked on a book together. I would have said Miller and McFarlane, but they already did one and are doing another.

Today I went to the Berlin Zoo to see Knut, the new polar bear that is shown twice daily. I waited in the que like the rest of the people and was in the next group to see him. Then 30 minutes before he was scheduled to go back inside Knut left. What? I managed to see the top half of him leave as the German guy in charge said Knut wasn't feeling well and had to go inside. He also wouldn't be making another appearance today. So that sucked as Knut has become a kind of reunification bear, bringing East and West Berliners together like the World Cup did. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the zoo finding all my favorite animals. There was no binturong however, cause they are my all-time favorite animal. Their name means 'bear cat' so that makes them a cross between the king of the jungle and godless killing machines.

Tomorrow I leave for Dresden for a couple days and then Prague. I know little to nothing about either of those cities except that Dresden got fire bombed to hell during WWII and Prague . . . I know nothing about Prague. People say it's cool but I still have to read about it in my Eyewitness Guide book.

Unfortunately the only donuts I found in Berlin were Dunkin' Donuts which are tasty, but not what I was looking for.

2007-04-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Bodies and the Sex Museum (warning, graphic shit ahead)

Today was strange. It started strangely as I woke up with a killer headache that I had somehow acquired during the night. Within minutes I sneezed I was brutally reminded how bad headaches can get when you quickly move your head. I tried to remember how your brain can hurt even though it feels nothing but soon forgot as I got up to get coffee. The ápartment Marije and I were staying at, Annemarie's has this awesome Senseo coffee maker where you load a coffee "pad", press two buttons and you have a hot cup of love. Apparently everyone has one of these things in Holland but I still think they're absolutely amazing. I now look with disdain at normal drip coffee.

After a lazy morning of deciding which museums to visit today I caught the number 5 tram and saw Marije off at her stop. While she's working I will be exploring Berlin and then hopefully meeting up with her sometime next week after she moves into her apartment. After her station and continued to the Amsterdam Central Station and found my way to the Bodies . . . The Exhibition, which is different than Bodyworlds (as seen in the latest James Bond film). I had previously stumbled upon Bodyworlds on the internet months ago and though that this was what I was going to see in Amsteram. Of course Bodies the Exhibition is still bat-shit-insane, and I have the pictures to prove it. Yes they don't like people taking photos inside because they want you to buy the book at the end. Of course we already know how I feel about not taking photos when I already pay to see the exhibits.

The Bodies exhibit is a laid out a little differently. As a traveling exhibit everything is laid out on one floor with temporary walls, drapes, tactfull and signs telling you where to go to see the next wonder of anatomy. And these things are wonderful. Maybe it's our fascination with death, immortality or the macabre but these bodies captivate and enthrall. Perhaps so many people are drawn to these cadaver shows because of the immortality achieved in death, the plastination process completely replaces the water in the bodies with polymer (plastic) ensuring that they will never decay. The result is a muscle or organ that is slightly pliable but feels like rubber or thick plastic. At the end of the exhibit you could feel a liver preserved this way. The pretty woman letting me touch the liver asked if I had ever felt a real one before. I smiled, thinking back to my days on the island and replied "Oh yes, I have." I suppose that may have seemed a little creepy but I did handle a lot of livers. All the bodies are diplayed with the utmost respect which is funny, since the majority of them come from China and may have been acquired through no quite legal means. The funny part is that you can still tell they are (for the most part) Chinese.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. one of the first diplays was an entire human skin, laid out under glass. Anyone who has seen Silence of the Lambs or knows anything about Ed Gein will recognize this. I thought the fact that the face is covered was intriguing, hinting that maybe the rest of the displays wouldn't be so graphic. I was wrong.

The next display showed a man holding hands with a skeleton . . . his own skeleton. WTF!? They somehow deboned the guy like he was some kind of huge fish and he and his skeleton. It looks they they opened the hole in his chest, reached in and pulled it out all in one like a Mortal Kombat fatality.

"Chief medical examiner . . . finish him!"
"Okay let us begin the dissection. Bone saw, chest expander, scalpel . . ."

Hey I can dream.

Perhaps Amsterdam wasn't the best place to have this kind of exhibit as magic mushrooms are readily availible. It was at times like these that I'm glad I don't do drugs. Of course, no one living in Amsterdam actually smokes or does drugs, it's just all the English kids who come over for Holiday. Some of the Dutch people I've spoken to have never even tried the ganja. It makes sense of course as I've never tried cigarettes even though they're legal here. Anyway, the displays at Bodies are artistic but more than a little grotesque, I love it. I mean, holding hands with your own skeleton, just sit and think about it for a second. Ready? Ok.

The whole exhibit is set up in different sections, one for the muscular system, vascular system, nervous system, etc. It was in the part on the nervous system that I found a complete central nervous system beautifully preserved. I had to stop and marvel at the CNS, something I had studied for 4 years in University. Here it was, complete with eyes looking like something out of Robocop 2 where they do the same thing with Cain. Apparently the brain is the hardest organ to preserve as it tends to shrink during the plastination process.

In the circulatory section there were many diplays of the various blood vessels of the body, many looking like corral. They were all inside clear liquid-filled cases which added to their mysteriousness. The skull with blood vessels was cool, the torso incredible and the finale, an vascular system of an entire body is just, well look at it. Go on, click on it and notice the arteries of the neck, the network of veins throughout the body . They all look so delicate.

The majority of the exhibits are cadavars posed in ways to show off particular organs, muscular systems, etc. Unfortunately I only got a slightly blurry one of a female showing off her reproductive system.

At the end was a cadavar sliced into small cross-sections, much like the data from the Visible Human Project, a copy of which I saw in the Daejeon Museum of Technology in South Korea. Except these were real cross-sections of a human body and the one in Daejeon was on a computer.

In case you want to donate your body to plastination here's all you have to do.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The procedure to donate your body for Plastination after your death is as follows:

Read the information brochure on DONATING YOUR BODY FOR PLASTINATION carefully.

Fill in this form in duplicate.

Sign both copies of the form

Sign the body donor identity card.

Send the completed documents and ID card to Gunther von Hagens (see address below).

Witness signatures on the forms are optional,but may help make this gift effective if there is any questions at the time of your death.

If your relatives object to you donating your body for Plastination, you may wish to also have a lawyer witness your signature on both forms.

We will countersign one of the forms and return it to you by way of confirmation. You should retain the countersigned copy with your personal files, or give it a relative or your doctor for safe keeping. We will also laminate your signed body donor identity card and return it to you.

You should carry your body donor identity card with you at all times. You may withdraw your consent to donate your body at any time, by sending us a letter, signed by you, stating that you have withdrawn your consent. You need not provide a reason for withdrawing your consent.

Your consent will be deemed withdrawn as soon as we receive your signed letter. In case of death, the nearest embalming facility that works under the guidance of Gunther von Hagens should be contacted. The nearest embalming facility can be identified by reviewing the separate “Embalming Information Sheet” that will be provided to you and regularly updated as the US body donor program expands. Updates and other body donor information are also available on the “body donation” link of www.bodyworlds.com.

Your contact details
Last Name
First Name
Date of Birth :
Place of Birth
Street
City
State, Zip Code : Phone
Fax
E-Mail
Cell Phone
Body Donation Program for – Donor‘s consent – Please send your completed forms and any questions you may have to:
Dr. Gunther von Hagens
c/o Georgina Gomez
North American Body Donor Office
PO Box 34001, Granada Hills, CA 91394
You can also contact the IfP body donation program at bodydonation@plastination.com with any questions.
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After all these bodies I felt a little more mortal. So I decided to hop over to the Sex Museum and see what there was to see. Well, there's a lot to see, made even more surreal by the fact that my head had started to pound. The museum itself is like a maze, with multiple floors, corridors and lifesize models. It was all very educational except for the really weird and twisted parts. I didn't take any photos because frankly, what's inside the Sex Museum should really stay in the Sex Museum. Sure the little ivory carvings of huge penises were funny as were the small bronze sculptures of couples fornicating, I almost took a picture of a copulating Shiva to display as a Buddha having intercourse. But having the memory is so much better than actual evidence in my opinion. I also don't want to die and have these the last photos on my camera: a satyr having sex with a nymph. One of the more interesting parts were all the vintage pornographic photos of the bondage gear of the 1920's. Somehow they missed that part in U.S. History in high school. And I found the inspiration for all the tentacle sex in Japan, in old pornographic Japanese scrolls.
In case you ever decide to visit the Sex Museum there's a small room in the back lableled "Marquis de Sade". I suggest you steer clear of this room . . . or head straight for it, whatever you're into. There's even a disclaimer, saying that the displays may disturb you and that they don't want any complaints. It was great listening to people in there, exclamations of "That's a real picture!"and "Oh God, that's not normal!" They were all true. As I left, a large student group of British 15-16 year olds came in, cameras out and ready. They were only at the introductory hallway and they were already saying things like "Ewwww" and "It's so graphic!". I really wanted to shadow them or even show them the room in the back with the fetish photos and zoophilia but my head was really hurting and I can only take so much porn, as well all know from my exploits in Osaka.

I decided not to visit the Van Gogh museum today although it was in the plans. Instead I went back to Annemarie's, checked out hostels in Berlin and took a much needed nap. And I wrote all of this of course. I'm not sure when my next entry will be as I leave for Berlin tomorrow where internet is not free. I may do a quick one or just wait till I get back in Amsterdam. It depends on how much I do in Berlin. Maybe I try to find the donuts there.

2007-04-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I went to Dordrecht to visit two of Marije's friends, Ingrid and Nikos, and celebrate Easter with them. Of course this was no ordinary Easter this was Greek Easter, which just so happens to fall on the same date as normal Easter. What this means I don't quite remember. What I do remember is that Nikos is from Greece and he made an amazing meal (with help I assume). There was Greek salad, tuna salad, rolls, grilled lamb (yes!), eggs boiled in wine, stuffed grape leaves, tzatziki (hell yes!), and ouzo (which is a bit like pastise). All my Peace Corps friends will remember that pastise had a major role to play in creating the Adam Kane policy of no hard alcohol at PC events. I'd never had ouzo before but I'm willing to eat anything and this includes alcohol. After not even a glass I was laughing, talking about Japan and eying the roasting lamb like a wolf. The last time I had Greek food was when I and some friends made it in Port Vila so I was on the edge of my seat to try some of the real stuff. I was not disappointed in the least, and as we moved from ouzo to the wine I asked if I could make a calimocho, my favorite (and only) wine cocktail consisting of half red wine and half cola. As always, I was met with surprised faces and doubt but I went and made it anyway and gave everyone a taste. Some liked it, some didn't but Ingrid's father had about 4 which was a surprise because he doesn't even like red wine. I had about 4 plates of food, 1.5 glasses of ouzo, 2 calimochos and ice cream. To finish I brought out 2 of the 3 Cuban cigars I've been taking around the world with me, but never found the right time to light them. We even got Ingrid's Mom to try one. I love it when old people try new things.

The following day Michiel (Marije's brother) picked me and Marije up and drove us to Rotterdam to see the Euromast which gives an amazing panorama of Rotterdam including the harbor, Erasmus bridge (also called the Swan) and the Cube Houses which are freaking rad. It's incredible, in a few square kilometers you can spend at least a day just wandering around and looking at the modern architecture, and we didn't even get to the zoo. Afterwards we had a drink at the Hotel New York which was the head office for the first cruise line from Holland to New York. It's very expensive to eat there (it's expensive EVERYWHERE in Holland) but we only had tea, coffee and an appetizer plate with bitterballen and some other fried food.

That afternoon we went back to Michiel's house (after a small episode with a lost key) and I made a pasta dinner. No wait, "pasta dinner"sounds lame. This was a fucking Pasta Dinner! with farfalle covered in a home-made bacon tomato sauce with roasted red peppers (which Marije prepared) and fresh garlic bread. Yeah, I just kinda threw it together and it absolutely rocked. If you have never made a pasta sauce with bacon I say get off your high horse and start really living. Bacon fat is probably the best thing to cook with since duck fat or lard. I'm not joking.

The next day Marije and I went back into the city center of Dordrecht, her to get her hair styled, and me to get the first proper hair cut since I was oh . . . 7. I know it doesn't sound like much but getting a real hair cut was an experience. Not only did they cut and style my hair but my side burns, until yesterday I had no idea one had to style their sideburns. Anyway, in the last week I have gotten new clothes and a haircut, something that would have taken me 3 years back in the States. The only thing I have to replace now is my shoes which are falling apart and stink like 2-day old carrion, on a good day. Luckily no one takes their shoes off inside the house. Anyway, after the haircut we went to a small restaurant and ate poffertjes, which go great with beer. Hell, everything goes with draft beer, even . . . more beer!

The city center of Dordrecht is quite historical, complete with really tall buildings, canals and steam boats. It's all very old and quaint, preserved quite well from the Golden Age of Holland. In case you fell asleep in AP European Civ, the Golden Age of Holland was when the Dutch ruled the oceans, were the world's wealthiest nation, and founded New York (known as New Amsterdam at the time). You don't think "Harlem"got its name from an Indian chief did you? How about Brooklyn? Break into small groups and discuss.

Today we went into the city center of Amsterdam and I bought a Eurail Pass so now I have 15 days that I can travel on the trains here for up to 2 months. Yeah it's pretty expensive but since "youth" get a special deal on the Eurail Pass and 25 counts as "youth", I got the lower price! Hooray being 25! Suck it old people! Afterwards I bought an Eyewitness travel guide for the whole of Europe, now I have lots of places to visit and a little under 2 months to visit them. First up on the list is Berlin where I can hang out in a beer garden and take in some history. From there it's off to maybe Prague, Budapest, Munich, who knows.

Before we left back to Ann-Marie's I raced across the street to get a picture, proving I was indeed in Amsterdam.
Because nothing says "Amsterdam, biatches!" like standing in front of "I Amsterdam" with new clothes (normal jeans!) and haircut.

Tomorrow it's off to see preserved dead people at the Bodies Exhibition.

2007-04-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

The last week has been a maelstrom of activity. Firstly I went with Marije to Amsterdam to see the canals, eat some Dutch food and take a small tour of the city which is infamous to people everywhere. To clear everything up right now, no we did not smoke pot, get arrested or try magic mushrooms. Not that I am into any of those things but as an American all I had heard about Amsterdam was that there were canals and pot. That's it, sad isn't it? Of course in the real Amsterdam there are canals quite comparable to Venice, at least 10 amazing museums and a great tram system. Ok, maybe mass transit isn't the most interesting thing but I for one appreciate it.

We took a canal tour around which stopped off at museums to pick up tourists. I had the opportunity to see a Botel 'Boat Hotel' and the largest floating Chinese restaurant in the whole of Europe. The voice-over in the boat spoke quite highly of its Cantonese cuisine. It practically screamed 'Hey, we sponsor this canal tour!'

After the canals we went to the area where Marije will be moving into her new apartment this month. What I didn't know was that it is right next to a great open-air market. It doesn't get more European than this folks, there are stalls for clothes, shoes, cow hides (Yes!), anti pasta, cheese, and all types of things for locals. I had the chance to try the raw herring which I know, sounds a bit off but is really really good, comparable to raw tuna. I never thought I would ever compare raw herring to sashimi, but then again I never thought I would be referred to as 'short'; welcome to Amsterdam! We also had Vietnamese lumpia (some kind of spring roll) and a small waffle. All very good, all very Dutch. I even got Marije to try the raw herring since she had never tried it before.

Later we went to Dordrecht to visit her parents which, under normal circumstances, would be daunting endeavor to undertake in the States. However, after the train ride and finding their house my worries proved to be for nothing as her parents are extremely nice and made me feel right at home. Of course it was someone else's home and not my own so despite her father telling me to act as I did at home I didn't. It wouldn't do well to sprawl out on the couch, flip through the TV channels and raid the refrigerator. But even while on my best behavior (helping with dishes, offering to take my shoes of in the house, cooking Thai food for them) there are subtle cultural differences that became evident. Of course these differences may seem more pronounced since I haven't spent any considerable time in a real Western house in say oh, 4 years. The Pango house in Vila doesn't count, not because it was a very spartan Western house but because I say so and it makes the story more interesting. I also wasn't dating the volunteer I shared the house with. Like I said, the small things like closing the bathroom door when you leave may be American as well but I've forgotten those little things and never really paid much attention to them in the first place. It's possible that living in hostels and hotels for the past 4 months has made me a little more man-bush than before. And Dutch houses are clean, tidy and gezelligheid (don't even try to pronounce it). Luckily Marije got me a book explaining Dutch culture so I knew these things before hand, though it doesn't make it any easier.

Whatever, it's nothing I can't handle. Riding a bike into the city center of Dordrecht was harder. In Holland everyone rides their bicycles everywhere. And I can see why, they have their own lanes, not like bikes lanes in the States with a white line separating you from instant death but real lanes and their own traffic lights. I kid you not, traffic lights with little green and red bicycles on them for 'stop' and 'go'. It was great except I haven't ridden a bike since Ayuthaya and before that I hadn't ridden on in say, a decade. Marije had to ask if there was something wrong with the handlebars as I was wobbling all over the place, into the other bike lane, into buildings, etc. The seat was also a little high but couldn't go down any lower and something was wrong with the gear system. Regardless, we spent the day shopping (yes family, new clothes! And normal-people jeans!). I haven't bought new shoes just yet because even though mine are ugly and the seams are coming out in some places, they're still good. Later on I had the chance to drive her brother's car (manual, yes!) and her father's motor-scooter. It wasn't as hard as I imagined and make me want to ride a motorcycle when I get back to the States.

And of course it wouldn't be a trip to Holland without windmills. We went to Kinderdyke and saw a lot of windmills. At first I thought that back in the day they must have milled a ton of flour but then I learned that the windmills were used to pump the water into the river to reclaim the wetland. The windmills aren't used anymore for pumping water as they have electric pumps for that. But some people live inside the windmills which I think is way cool.

Oh and before I forget, here's the pie Marije's Mom made me.
It's all gone now, and for good reason. There are raisins in there.

I haven't had pie like this in . . . ever!

Go on drool, you're allowed.

2007-04-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

4-1-07

Amsterdam! City of canals and wooden shoes! So far I haven't seen either but hope to as soon as possible. It's my first full day here and am still jet lagged as all hell, suffering through a perpetual headache and strange sleep patterns. But that's not important right now, what's important is that I almost, nearly didn't make my flight. Dig:

A few days before April 1st I made my reservation online through KLM (Dutch airline) via their website, got an e-ticket booking confirmation, printed it out and thought I would be on the plane in a couple of days. The next day, however, I got an email from KLM stating that I would have to submit another credit card as the one I had previously submitted expired April 30th. A bit confused, I emailed them another credit card number and asked to be told if it went through or not. A couple days passed and no word from KLM so I assumed (incorrectly) that everything was fine. At Kansai International airport in Osaka the following day I was surprised when I was told by the pretty woman behind the counter that the piece of paper in my hand was only a booking confirmation and not a reservation confirmation. Huh? There's a difference? Apparently, as I was informed that I would need acquire a reservation before boarding the plane as the ticket had not been bought. What? I had just checked my email hours ago and no word from KLM. Ok ok, they try to contact Visa to see if it was charged but Visa Japan says we need to call Visa America to figure it out. Then later we discover that not even Visa knows what's going on as the credit payment is 'Pending'. Uh, right. I try to use the Mastercard information but no, they need a physical card. They say I can pay for the ticket right there and I think great, here's my Visa card which hasn't been used in a while. Nope, the Visa is freaking locked down! Fraud alert or some ridiculous crap like that, and Visa knows I'll be traveling! Accompanied by a flight attendant we go to the ATM downstairs to try to get out as much money as I can in order to pay cash. Unfortunately I'm down $120, damn. We try to pay the difference with the Visa but, as previously mentioned, it's locked down. Now the possibility of not making the flight is becoming a real possibility, as I can't even pay a ridiculously high price for even a spur-of-the-moment ticket. The flight attendant (who has been with me almost the whole time), suggests that we go back to the ATM even though I've told her I can't take out any more money. Entering the initial stages of total freak out, I accompany her. On the way she asks me "You need to get to Amsterdam today? You can't go tomorrow?" I say 'No', and then she says "I have 12,000 yen, I can give it to you and then you can send me the money after you land". Right then I am totally at a loss for words. This attendant is willing to give me, a complete stranger, money that in all odds she will never see again. I say "Thank you" in as many ways that I know how in Japanese and she says "Just don't tell me boss, maybe she kill me". We buy the ticket in cash and she rushes me to my gate, giving me her contact information and leaves as I look to see my flight . . . delayed 2 hours due to broken plane (technical problem). So all the running around, working up a sweat in the airport terminal was unnecessary but still, I had a ticket and I knew Marije was still going to be there to pick me up when I landed, over 11 hours later.

Waiting for the plane I looked at the woman's information that she sent me, her name is Tsuda Tsugumi and she gave me 3 email addresses, her mobile phone number and address in Osaka. I don't have the money to send her now but will be doing so as soon as I do have it and a way to send it to her. Of course I'll also be sending her gifts as well for bailing me out of a potentially very inconvenient situation. As far as the credit cards are concerned, there were no charges made on them and KLM apologized for not telling me that I had no ticket.

2007-03-31T01:54:00.000-07:00

3-31-07

Last day in Japan but unfortunately all my plans seemed to fall through. It`s not that I didn`t try to go see the Craft Village but when I got to the subway station there was no map and no taxis to ask to take me there. I wandered around for an hour or so before deciding that I could better find things to buy at the shopping district which is on the opposite side of Osaka. Unfortunately to get there I had to go through Umeda Station, a convergence point for a number of subway lines and rail stations. As I stepped out of the subway car and tried to find the next stop I was surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of people all going different directions. I thought I was ready for this but I clearly wasn`t. I don`t know exactly what it was but I was hit by the compounded daily interest of travel fatigue: the tired legs from walking everywhere, not being able to communicate, the austere living conditions, the lack of sleep, the utter foreignness of everything landed on me at the same time. I didn`t suffer a break down and start screaming or anything, just took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, which I managed to do but I wasn`t ready to go to a crowded shopping area. Something similar happened to me at the end of my trip to Vietnam, the population density of the area just got to me. Japan has been much better as people generally give you space but not today. It was just too many people, simple as that.

I took my time walking around Umeda Station, bought an SD card reader to upload pictures more quickly but it was still way over crowded. I knew I was through with the computer store when I saw this, I still don`t know what it is. Apparently you plug it into your USB port in your computer and something happens, maybe it lights up or something. All I know is you can`t eat it cause it`s plastic. But for 24,800 yen it had better wash my clothes for me.

I really thought I had my reverse culture shock under control but I obviously do not. I have it about as much under control as this pig-wearing guy has it under control. He and his friend were handing out flyers for something, after taking his picture I didn`t have the heart not to take one. I put it on a sign later on down the street.

So that`s about it, anticlimactic I know but I`ve been going at it for weeks now with little break. Tomorrow I`m out for Amsterdam and will probably hibernate after spending time with Marije who I hope will meet me at the gate, now that she has her flying wings. Amsterdam should be a blast, not just because they have canals and a Red Light District but because it will be a gateway into the other countries of Europe, some of which I`ve been to and other`s I haven`t been to. Oh yeah, and because Marije`s there too, haha.

And just because, here`s the giant Gundam covering in front of a fanboy`s dream building, nothing but Gundams and Gundam related toys. The walk up to the second floor even has a gigantic robot fist crashing through the wall.

They really don`t like you to take photos inside this building, as is the case with all of the toy or anime stores in Osaka. At first I was like `Why don`t they want photos?` until I went inside and realized `Oh yeah, cause the people who buy these things are wired a little differently`. I`ll be honest, most people are probably not going to understand what they see in these places anyway. The things people spend money on astounds me. Not that I haven`t had my fanboy moments, I saw Episode 1 the first day it came out and was excited as the next Frank Miller fan to hear that Sin City was getting the feature film treatment. But draw the line at dressing up in costumes to a movie theater or spending money on assembling the dream collection of`action figures`. I have better things to do, like going to the gym or going outside.

Anyway, back inside I managed to take a couple photos anyway. When have I ever listened to people telling me where and when I can take photos? And come on, everyone loves giant robots, especially ones that cost over $3,000.

WTF, $3,000? And it just stands there looking cool? For $3,000 it should do my taxes and tell me great I am. Once again, completely astounded at what some people will buy with hard earned money, money that could be uh, invested? Maybe, say, given to charity? Or maybe even used to (dare I say it) travel? Then again how can you resist a giant robot? If I ever, ever spend $3,000 on a giant robot I give anyone , I being of sound mind and body, the permission to beat me around the head and neck area umfercifully.

2007-03-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

3-30-07

So tired . . want to sleep but must go on!

I swear, the longer I`m in Japan the more I feel like an endurance athlete. I want to see everything and enjoy it but I have little precious time left. It`s tough choosing what to see in Osaka considering I have museums, shrines, temples, a zoo, a peace monument and a shopping district to choose from. Luckily Osaka Castle looked like a winner (my third castle so far) so that`s where I went today, after seriously considering sleeping in more on account of my sore and tired legs. But there were sights to be seen, food to be eaten and photos to be taken!

First and foremost was to get to Osaka Castle which proved easier than I expected as the transportation in Osaka is efficient but also confusing. There are so many different train lines and subway stations it`s hard to get them correct at times. After a false start I managed to get to the right platform which took me almost to the foot of the Castle. I still had to walk about 10 minutes but it was a leisurely walk, and look at the castle! Gold gilded, surrounded by a moat and beautiful. Sure it`s a reconstruction (psssh, reconstructions, give me Kumamoto Castle damnit!) but it`s a really nice one. Much of the wall surrounding the castle is original, the blocks are interlocking and held together without mortar, much like Borobudur in Indonesia. The layout itself is amazing, a past warlord had to lay siege to the castle by damming the river and flooding the area.

Outside of the castle were a few begging monks. If I hadn`t read about them first I would have thought they were cosplayers. But no, these guys were for real and so were their hats. Part of me wanted to go up to one and say `Are you Cain? Can you help me?` but that would be culturally inappropriate wouldn`t it? About as culturally inappropriate as eating while walking down the street? Maybe not.

Inside the castle was an impressive permanent exhibition of scrolls, paintings and videos (in Japanese) describing the history and heritage of Osaka Castle. It`s quite amazing, the history of castles is always interesting but Osaka Castle was struck by lightning, had the surrounding area flooded, and went through a civil war. However, the most impressive part was the special exhibition focusing solely on the armaments of ancient Osaka. Now we`re talking. As I mentioned in a previous post I love ancient weapons as most men (adult children) my age do. Not only were there swords but there were full suits of samurai armor, most of which in styles I had never seen before. I mean, when was the last time you saw a helmet like this? Hells yeah!

There were so many suits, so many examples of armor that I couldn`t take pictures of all of them, despite the plentiful `No Photos, No Videos` signs. Of course there was no enforcing of this policy, there never is where large groups of tourists are, the Vatican taught me that much. There they actually have people yelling at you to not take photos but people do it regardless. I always thought they should have the Swiss Guards lay the smack down on picture takers, at least then they could stop looking so funny in their Michaelangelo-designed uniforms and actually get to do something instead of pointing tourists in the right direction of the restrooms.

Anyway there were so many cool things that I actually bought a book on the special exhibition (first time on this trip) just so I could see them all over again. Because honestly, when is the next time I`m going to find a samurai helmet with bivalves on either side? At first I thought they were supposed to be donkey ears, but that didn`t really seem right as you can`t truthfully strike fear into the heart of your enemy by looking like a donkey. Muscles are much scarier cause they . . . grow underwater? I`m still working out why they put bivalve shells on the helmet.

Of course there were plenty of swords and halberds as well, some made by the best sword smiths in Japan at the time. As I gawked and drooled over all of them one in particular caught my eye. A famous sword maker titled `Osaka Masamune` was given permission to use the chrysanthemum crest on the nakago (the tang of the sword which is inserted into the hilt). Upon looking closer to the sword I realized `Sweet jumping jihad, that`s our family crest!`

It`s hard to tell in this photo so I did my best to clear it up and enlarge. Even then it could be another crest, but it`s pretty damn close. I know it`s difficult to see in this photo but if you`re family, you`ll recognize it. This now makes me re-evaluate my family crest hypothesis. Is it a cherry blossom of chrysanthemum? Did we come from peasant blood or samurai blood? I still have no idea but you got to admit this is pretty freaking sweet. Too bad my uncle working on our family genealogy is working on the non-Japanese heritage. Don`t we have any retired Japanese family with a obsession with genealogy? Why can`t we have any Japanese Mormons in the family? I would try to look up this example in the book I bought but it`s back at the hotel. Later I will check it out and see if I can`t get a better picture.

After the inside of the castle I went outside and found . . . a monkey! Jesus they`re everywhere aren`t they? This one was doing the usual Japanese monkey tricks, jumping over things, standing at attention and bowing. But this guy could also walk on stilts and jump over things while on the stilts. I`m working on getting the video online. This monkey was pretty cool but he couldn`t compare to the other monkey that was right around the corner.

Hell, this monkey can juggle knives while pulling off a balancing act! Street performers just love to hang around Osaka Castle. I was able to catch part of a mime show as well and the same monkey show but in a different location. After all this sight-seeing I still had time to stroll through the gardens around Osaka Castle and see some of the cherry blossom trees. Unfortunately most of them are still not in bloom or just stating to open their blossoms so it wasn`t as impressive as I would have liked it. I know, just know that as soon as I leave Japan I`m going to turn on the TV somewhere and see all the places in Japan I`ve been under a veritable carpet of cherry blossom petals and it`s going to be absolutely breathtaking. Whatever, I still got to see them which is more than I can say for the other 99.99% of the world population.

Oh yeah, I also (finally) got to eat squid on a stick. And you know something? It`s delicious! I don`t know why I never tried it before with all the other strange things I`ve eaten. Speaking of eating, I got to try a local (Osakan?) dish that looks like the cross between a pizza and a frittata and tastes unlike anything else I`ve had. I found out it`s called okonomiyaki and is about as Osakan as food gets around here. Except I`m still trying to figure out why they put mayonnaise on the top of it, probably the same reason they put mayonnaise on the octopus balls.

2007-03-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

3-29-07

Osaka is the second largest city in Japan (after Tokyo) and it is HUGE! I arrived today and quickly found the information building and found a real cheap place to stay but had to take the train to the other side of the city to do so. But no big deal, got a cheap room and started to explore. I found the Tsutentaku Tower (big metal thing pointing upwards) and went to the top to `ooohh` and `aahhh` with the other locals who did the same thing. I ended up buying another one of those ridiculous commemorative coins that you can get your name stamped into, that makes a total of 4 so far, 4 medallions that are cool, but utterly useless. At least I can`t be accused of any crimes I commit while over here since the date is also stamped into it. This one happens to have a picture of Billiken so that`s pretty cool. I knew he looked familiar but couldn`t figure out from where. His feet are all worn down by people rubbing them for good luck, kind of like the statue of St. Peter in Rome. I wonder who grants more wishes?

After that I noticed lots of flashing lights and since I respond great to binary stimulation I followed them to the Shinsekai district which (unknown to me at the time) is one of Japans scaaaary places meaning that people don`t bow as much or something stupid like that. Either way, there are tons and tons of computer, DVD and gaming shops around here. It`s overwhelming, one big main street flanked on either side with lots and lots of lights, buildings draped with Gundam posters and lots of people. I stopped for some fried octopus balls (balls made out of octopus, not the actual balls of an octopus) and had a great conversation, in English, with the vendor which basically involved me recounting whether or not I had slept with any Japanese girls yet. `Nihongo ga wakarimasen, sumimasen` I told him, `I don`t speak Japanese, sorri` which struck me as particularly funny since I had translated Bislama into Japanese. Nice enough guy though, his topic of conversation should have tipped me off to where I was, which brings me to . . .

The computer/media shops. They are typically about 5 stories tall and advertise selling DVD`s, comics, etc. I`m a curious kind of fellow so I go in to see what these places are selling, only to find that it`s all pornography. And not just any normal, vanilla pornography, oh no. This is not your father`s porn, this is the crazy kind of demented shit that ferments in the mind of a 33 year old still living in his mother`s basement who is thinking about starting his own business but can`t stand the thought of breaking out on his own. I don`t even know if this stuff is on the internet . . . ok I know that it`s probably on the internet but have never seen, nor have I ever tried to find it. I knew that animation is just another medium over here but good lord this shit is twisted. I managed to take a few pictures but then decided against it, not because multiple-appendage porn would look suspicious but because I thought about what would happen if I die over here and my camera is admitted into evidence, I can see the scenario now.

Policeman 1:`Well ok, let`s check out the last few things he took pictures of before he died, the poor bastard.`

Policeman 2:`Hey hey, look at this! Sick son of a bitch came over here for some shopping! Let`s go defile his memory by showing this to his family`

Policeman 1: `Yeah, but lemme see it for about 15 minutes first`

The crazy thing is that it`s not just one, or two, or ten of these buildings, there`s like blocks and blocks of them! Ridiculous! It`s worse than Vegas! At first I thought to myself `No, surely not all of these shops can be so lurid, so scandalous!` but after my 5th or 6th time going into these places and seeing the same vacant expression of the store clerk I realized that yes, all of them are the same. Except some sell costumes. After reading more about Osaka and the districts, this part of the city is apparently known as some kind of haven for anime watching, manga reading, cosplayers. The kind of place where the really insecure kids in the States think they would be cool if only they could come to Japan. Well, it`s not that kind of place. Most of the clientel are business men which makes it even more creepy since they all dress the same. It`s like seeing the same salary man in every DVD store. Of course it probably doesn`t help that I`m in the most run down internet cafe ever with non-smoking sections right next to the smoking ones. Remind me to stay away from places where the toilet is the cleanest smelling room of an establishment. And beware of green Fanta. Who the fuck in their right mind would make a green Fanta?! I`m going to have to wash my clothes just to get the smoke out of them. Tomorrow I`m going to see the castle and other parts of Osaka that don`t involve pornography.

But first, behold the sensation of Kyoto Station.

It`s a trash can that climbs up stairs! It`s a stair climber that holds waste!And it`s coming to get you!

Quick, someone call the giant stone Buddha!

2007-03-25T02:17:00.000-07:00

3-25-07

This whirlwind style of tourism is fun but it is exhausting! The problem is that there is so much to see in Japan but I only have so much time and even less money with which to do it. The solution, of course, is to race from one site to the next taking enough time to admire the scenery and trying to enjoy myself at the same time. Of course I enjoy myself, it`s the reason I`m still traveling after (how long has it been?) 4 months. But there is so much to write about and I am yet so weary from doing it all, so its going to be captions again.

I managed find the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum and surrounding buildings quite easily. It`s really quite hard to miss, there are signs all over the place just like in Kumamoto and Nagasaki in English showing where local sites are. The mass transit system also makes it very easy to get from one place to another, it seems like it was designed around tourist attactions and historical sites.

This statue is supposed to symbolize a huge cement coffin for the bomb victims. But looking through there is an eternal flame at the other end of the memorial. Many people come through here to set down flowers and pray.

Day after I arrived it rained. And rained. And rained. This normally wouldn`t be such a big deal except I wanted to get to Kyoto ASAP. So I decided to see as much as possible and then decide what I was going to do, even though this has been my plan pretty much my entire trip. I started out at the Atomic Bomb Dome, as it`s called, though it`s really the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It has been preserved to look exactly the same way it did immediately after the blast and is now a World Heritage Site. To be honest it looks horrible, the skeletal structure of the roof is the result of the metal melting off during the first few seconds of the atomic bomb blast which was detonated directly overhead.

I was able to go the the Atomic Bomb museum and I have to say I don`t know which one is better, the one in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. They both present similar material in differente ways. I`m tempted to say it`s "same same only differente" except I can`t stand the phrase as it became a kind of catch-all during my travels throught South East Asia. I don`t know how many shirts I saw with it as the logo or even as the name of at least 2 guest hosues. Both of them do have diplays of watches and clocks that are frozen at 11:02 and 8:15am, broken from the respective exploding bombs. One of the most heart-wretching stories that I have ever read was in the Hiroshima museum though. A little boy died in the blast and his father buried him and the boy`s treasured tricycle in the back yard because there were no proper burial sites. Years later the boy was exhumed and placed in a proper grave and the tricycle was dug up and donated to the museum. It`s the most touching thing I`ve seen in years, a completely rusted-over tricycle the Dad buried so his son could use it in the after life.

I also got to see the Children`s Memorial which was inspired by Sadako, a young girl who contracted leukemia after the bomb. It was surreal, I had read the story about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes when I was like in 4th grade and never imagined I would see her exhibit, let alone the actual cranes she made.

These cranes weren`t at the Children`s Memorial but inside the Bomb Museum near the end as part of the exhibits talking about those affected by the bomb who survived the initial blast.

After the Museum I wandered around and took photos of the clock tower, and other things. By this time the rain was really coming down and I still had to see the Hiroshima Castle. It`s a replica so that kind of bummed me out (the original was destroyed by the Atomic Bomb) but the exhibits inside more than made up for the lack of authentic building materials. Not only were there English videos explaining the rise of Hiroshima but on the third floor (or was it the fourth?) there were multiple displays of Samurai swords, katanas, wakizashis and tantos. The coolness factor was almost overwhelming, here were the relics every 15 year old boy would die for. Behind glass cases were the stuff of legends, Samurai movies and Saturday mornings spent in front of the television. Not only were these authentic swords but they were beautiful, simply breathtaking. They were so clean and unmarked, it was hard to believe they had ever been used at all, and I instantly coveted them.

This one in particular, I have no idea what it was called because all the writing was in Japanese Kanji. But it`s a remarkable piece, I just stood and stared at it for I don`t know how long. I`ve tried looking it up online, on wikipedia, nothing. It`s obviously some kind of long two-handed sword, but it`s straight, not bent like a katana or wakazashi.

It also has some amazing engraving of a dragon on it which makes me think it was ceremonial and not carried onto the battle field.

There was also a small display on the forging of katanas which was all in Kanji so I didn`t understand it but the physical examples were really neat, making swords takes a lot of time and work, often employing many people for one weapon.

Since it was still raining hard and I had no umbrella I decided to check out the Renoir`s at the Art Museum. However, I wasn`t about to pay 1000 yen for admission so I ducked into an internet cafe to try to wait out the rain. Unfortunately the rain lasted for the rest of the day.

Then lots of fun things happened (saw a wedding, World Heritage Shrine, fed/got bitten by deer, ate oysters) and eventually made it on the bullet train to Kyoto, city of buses and trains. Kyoto has one of the largest train stations in Japan and a great public transportation system. It`s cool and has a TON of Unesco World Heritage sites. It`s enough to make ones head spin at the number of things to see, let alone figure out the logistics of how to see them all. I had two days to see half a bajillion sites that are preserved national treasure, culturally important and just plain rad. Of course I didn`t see them all, I need to save some for the next time I visit Japan. I`m going to skip the things that don`t look good and focus on the ones that do look good in pictures.

Near Amida Hall in Kyoto is a huge pile of rope that was used to help raise large pieces of timber up to construct a temple. Normally this wouldn`t be a big deal except that the local rope wasn`t very strong and there wasn`t enough. After requests from the rulers, young women of the area cut off their hair and sent it in to be made into rope. The photo on the right? Rope made of human hair, in my opinion way cooler than clothes made of human hair. In case you were wondering, Ripley`s Odditoriums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odditorium) sometimes have clothes made of human hair. It must itch like crazy.

Since I`m a big fan of traditional crafts (and Kyoto is the traditional crafts center of Japan) I decided to go to the Traditional Crafts Museum. There were so many beautiful examples of bamboo baskets, tea sets, bento laquer sets, I almost didn`t want to leave. I thought it would be nice to pick up a set of these origami-looking lanterns but then noticed the price. There was no way I was going to pay $250 for one of these, it would be so hard to pack on the plane. The actually look like rip-offs of David Brill`s design for similar orbs made out of origami.

I managed to see Nijo Castle, Ryoanji Temple (the best example of a Zen garden in Japan), and the Imperial Garden which was absolutely gorgeous, filled with apricot, plum, and cherry blossoms, all of which blew my mind. I seriously spent over an hour taking pictures and wandering around in a daze muttering `Pretty . . . flowers` like some kind of metro-sexual Frankenstein`s Monster.

Here are some now. I have a lot more, so many more actually, but will have to post them a little later. Or maybe I`ll start a web album,

http://picasaweb.google.com/taylorokamura

2007-03-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

3-23-07

This is going to have to be one of those `Look at the pictures, read the comments` entry cause honestly I can`t remember all the things that I did in Nagasaki. I`ll have to recount my experience through photos.

First off I arrived in Nagasaki a little later in the after noon so I didn`t have too much time to walk around after finding a hostel to stay at. I`m finding that youth hostels in Japan are more restrictive than I would like, imposing curfews, allowing only one shower a day (very strange in Japan) and charging for everything from fresh sheets to using the kitchen facilities. But nothing a little beer can`t help right? Or maybe a lot of beer, perhaps 2 liters of Asahi out of a vending machine? Unfortunately vending machines in Japan require you to insert a Japanese drivers license before making your purchase, damn.

I had a map of Nagasaki but I`ve found that if I just start walking around interesting things will make themselves known to me. Lo and behold, a giant Buddha on a turtle appeared on a hill! I think in some cultures a turtle is supposed to support the universe on his back like Atlas and the globe. But it`s been a long time since I studied mythology so I`m probably wrong. Either way, the inside of the turtle is a shrine that isn`t all that impressive and is kind of a let down considering there`s a Buddha on the turtles back. Sometimes I like to imagine what would happen if the Buddha came to life and started attacking the city.

This is the hypo center of where the atomic bomb struck Nagasaki at 11:02 am. It was detonated high above the city with a fatality rate of 100% within a km radius of the blast. The black monolith was the first structure erected after the blast. Around this area are many bomb-related exhibits like the Peace Statue, Peace Park, Victims Memorial and the Atomic Bomb Museum. I found that all the bomb sites are extremely peaceful and are great places to just sit and think for a while. I thought it was nice that these kids were taking a picture.

This is the Peace Statue in the Peace park near the hypo center. One arm points upwards to warn against nuclear weapons and the other points out symbolizing eternal peace. I met a nice Australian woman here but her two daughters were really going at it with each other. I thought `Oh how nice, a relaxing family vacation.`

Here is a likeness of the Peace Statue rendered in paper cranes strung together. This was inside the Atomic Bomb museum and I walked past it not really noticing it. I did a double take and had to walk back to understand what it was. Paper cranes are supposed to represent prayers for the deceased and for the cease of nuclear arms.

My family has always thought that we had family members who died in the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the Atomic Bomb Museum there are internet terminals with databases of the victims and audio and video testimony. I searched for `Okamura` and found quite a lot of individuals.

This table is in the middle of the Victims Memorial center and is a place where visitors can put paper cranes in memory of the victims. I took a page from my journal and made a crane for the table. Mine is the small tiny one next to the pink cranes on the right.

There is also the Sanno Shrine that was blown in half by the atomic bomb farther away from the hypo center in what is now an apartment complex. It is still standing on its one leg. I love this shrine, the symbolism is unmistakable.

2007-03-20T02:50:00.000-07:00

3-20-07

I caught a train to a city called Dazaifu on Dave`s recommendation. Dazaifu is known for it`s culturally significant sites, huge shrines, Zen gardens and little sweet cakes made of bean paste. Little did I know, however, that the day I arrived was also the Plum Blossom Festival Ceremony Day (not really sure what you call it) where large groups of kids danced together in groups. I guess nothing says "Plum Blossoms" like costumed dance numbers? The whole day people were walking around in full makeup, walking around waiting for their group to be called. The music the groups danced to was a mix of traditional Japanese music with hip hop thrown in. This made things very interesting and allowed the dancers to really have fun, I could tell that these kids were having a blast, as I know I would be if I were still doing choreographed dance numbers. Ah, competitive dance.

After watching some of the dances I decided to try some of the street food. But I soon became distracted by a monkey. Wait, a monkey? It`s in a kimono? And jumping through hoops? What the hell is this? Apparently the Plum Blossom festival also means monkey shows. The funniest thing about the whole show is that the monkey actually bowed on command to the adoring crowd.

Eventually I found my street food and had another food day. The bean paste cakes were hot and so good, Dazaifu is known for their cakes (called umegae-mochi) and there were long lines of people eager to get their hands on these hot little things. And look, is that a flower imprinted on it? Less well know but equally as good were these kinds of pancake s covered in condiments (ketchup, mayonnaise, fried onion?) and served on un-snapped chopsticks on a rice cracker. I have no idea what it was called but it tasted great. Right, after eating lots of food I went to the Kyushu National Museum which looks like a huge wave from the outside. It focuses on Japanese culture from the perspective of other Asian civilizations, dealing with trade, religion and technology. Going to this museum really brought all of Asia together in comparison and made me glad that I had been to all the countries in South East Asia that I had gone to as I recognized most of them in the exhibits. Unfortunately I couldn`t take any photos inside which sucked as the displays were amazing. I knew katanas were beautiful swords but had no idea just how beautiful.

Tired from walking around the museum I found a shrine with some Zen gardens at the Komyozenji temple which was very peaceful. There was almost no one there and I was free to wander around and hang out on the rice straw mats.

Then it was off to find my guesthouse but not before passing by an ox cart that was handing out free sake, which I mistook for water. Imagine my surprise when I swallowed a big mouthful of sweet rice wine when I expected water. But it was good sake, probably the best sake I`ve ever had which isn`t saying much because my sake consumption is about a thimble-full just to celebrate the New Year. I noticed a couple men in the crowd who had obviously been drinking from the dark shade of red covering their faces.

Luckily I was able to get a spot at a local bed and breakfast and met up with Alex, a teacher from New York. He`s been teaching overseas but English and not mathematics, as became painfully obvious when he asked me for 1000 yen since he was broke. Of course I gave it to him (because he caught me off guard) but I though man, you come to Japan and run out of money? Hello! It`s expensive here! He tried to get a work Visa here but for some reason it didn`t work out. He also applied for the Peace Corps but was rejected for some reason. After all the fun people I`ve met in the Peace Corps, I really have to wonder why he was rejected.

Anyway, after Dazaifu I went to Kumamoto via Fukuoka. I literally had zero information on Kumamoto other than my grandma`s family is from there as well as Toyoda-san. I also heard there was a castle. So I came in on the bus, got a nice room for a couple nights and started walking around. Well the castle is impossible to miss, it`s huge and majestic and considered one of the best castles in all of Japan. The following morning (today) I was able to go inside and see just how majestic it really is. Let me tell you something, whatever you are doing you need to drop it and come to Japan and see this thing. It is HUGE! Huge and beautiful and clean and tall and a stunning example of Japanese architecture and lots of other things as well. I can`t remember everything that I read about it so I`ll just put up some pictures.
Castle very big, me very small!

And this is on the inside, there are walls outside of this leading in. Man, I wish I could express the scale of this this. Sure it`s not as big as Angkor Wat but it`s still huge. And it was able to hold off an army during Japan`s last civil war, pretty impressive. There`s lot so turrets, loop holes for shooting enemy troops, storage facilities,

and flower gardens. Even during war they had to tend to their flowers. The flowers on the inside of the castle are pure strains and have never been cross-pollinated before. Unfortunately, this Higo Camelia was the only species in bloom. There are 4 different flowers on the castle grounds, each one with a different way of planting and cultivating it.

There were other flowers outside the castle, but I don`t know what they were called. Here`s one anyway, that`s the castle in the background.

After the castle I wasn`t finished with the area so I went to the art museum and the Traditional Craft Center which is so Awesome. They make bamboo baskets, traditional wood furniture, porcelain, hand-made paper, knives and all sorts of really cool things, some of which I tried to make in Vanuatu. I really wanted to buy everything they were selling (especially the gold inlaid iron work) but it was all way to expensive. In the end I bought some hand-made paper and little things to give out as gifts.

Afterwards I went to the local park and found some girls eating lunch under a tree.

Thanks for sticking with me so far (assuming you`ve read it all). Last (but funniest of all) I found a woman selling cabbage in broad daylight. Long wan klia ples ia! Ating ol man i wantem pem kagaj blong hem.

Right, I`m exhausted. Tomorrow it`s back to Fukuoka, then Nagasaki.

2007-03-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

3-17-07

Tired, since coming to Fukuoka I`ve already seen so much. I got in yesterday and managed to find the capsule hotel quite easily. In case you didn`t know, capsule hotels are these places (mostly for business men) that offer capsules (or sleep coffins) cheapy to sleep at night http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S leep_coffin. It`s ok, but not my first choice of place to spend the night. Thankfully I got to use the bath house and sauna in the sleep capsule hotel so that was nice. I`ve since grown to love bath houses, say what you will about the gross amount of male nudity.

Anyway, I dropped off my stuff and went to a small shrine around the corner, taking pictures of what I believe is my family crest carved into the rock. My family`s is on the far left. I seem to run across it almost everywhere in Japan, which leads me to believe our family either stole it off a feudal lord way back in the day or that we`re famous over here and everyone should be giving me free stuff. I should just have to wave our flower symbol and be given free room and board.

Going through the shrine to the other side I found myself at Canal City, which is a HUGE famous mall in Fukuoka that has a movie theater and lots and lots of shops. I made it to the second floor and after looking down noticed a large group of people standing around what looked like a fountain. Sure enough, it was a fountain and started shooting up water synchronized to the Peter Gun theme.

I thought "Wow, this is pretty cool" and stayed on after the music and water stopped. Then some kind of strange kind of cosplay
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay) fashion show. I knew it was going to be weird when the first person out was wearing a gas mask and ripped clothes. I stayed, but everything after that wasn`t as interesting.

Hungry and looking for an internet connection I went upstairs to the Sega arcade where lo and behold, I found Guitar Hero in Taiko Drum form. I watched Taiko Hero for a while and the women playing was incredibly embarrassed after realizing that I had been watching her play. However, as entertaining as taiko drum video games are, they are not food.

Moving on I went up another escalator and found myself in the most amazing place ever . . . the Raumen Stadium, where Ramen from around Japan compete to achieve the title of Ramen Champion! Ok, not really but it`s still a place to try ramen from all around Japan. Now I know that in the U.S. ramen noodles are what poor college students and starving artists eat, but real ramen is amazing, fresh noodles thrown with whatever is available in a pork broth. The ramen places require you to buy a meal ticket before coming inside in what I think is another example of Japan flaunting technology like the automatic opening car doors and moving toilet seats. Anywya, after buying my first ticket to get Hokaido ramen I sat down and wondered if my meal would be worth it, luckily it was. Dear lord in heaven was it ever, simply amazing. After the first bowl I was amazed, shocked even at how tasty it was. Not only did I get my bowl of noodles but there was even fresh garlic to press into it! Delicious! Undeterred and still hungry I moved on to the next noodle place and got another bowl, then moved to the next shop for another. I was on some kind of ramen binge that I could not control, not that I even wanted to. I`m not going to say how much I spent on my meals up there but let`s just say that if in the past anyone had said that they spent $30 on ramen noodles I probably would have pushed them down a flight of stairs. Somehow I managed to cram an entire Food Day into about an hour of deliciousness.

Later on my way back I found a little cafe full of killer hippos. Don`t be fooled, sure they look cute but that`s how they trick you into being complacent. I figure this woman has about 5 seconds before being eaten alive. Imagine, a real life version of Hungry Hungry Hippos . . . everybody panic!

Today I met Dave, and his friends Aaron and Dave at Hakata station to go to Costco so they could stock up on food for Tsushima and get Costco pizza. However first we needed to stop by a manga shop so Dave could get a comic he needed for another teacher on Tsushima. But before even leaving the station I saw a woman with a ferret and had to stop to play with it. I`d never seen an actual ferret but it was cute and the owner (also cute) spoke great English and informed us the ferret`s name was Thomas. It must have been as hungry as I was because it started to bite me on my finger, you can even tell in the photo if you look closely. I thought it was great though, having never been attacked by a ferret before. It sounds like something out of a bad Monty Python sketch " . . . and we were attacked by a killer ferret!"

Dave also got to hold it but it must have known he was a gaijin and went for his eye, maybe it was some kind of attack ferret. Luckily none of us left with less vision than we started and off we went to the comic store. I already knew that the Japanese take their comics a liiiiiiiitle more seriously than their American counterparts but I was not prepared for the comic store. Jesus Christ, these people are serious comic book readers, 5 floors and book shelves with all different kinds, glass cases of collectible action figures and prints, and costumes that people probably live out strange fantasies with.

Don`t ask me why we got to the guy-on-guy section, but I blame Dave. Or Aaron, the one looking suspicious on the cell phone. For some reason they didn`t want anyone to take photos inside the store. Then again there are things in here that probably should`t be shown to the normal public.

After the manga shop we hit up a 100 yen store and then made our way to the train station to get to Costco. We had already walked what seemed like half of Fukuoka and were starving. After arriving at our destination by train and getting a taxi to Costco we go to the door and are informed . . . we can only go in with 3 people for 1 Costco card. Shit. We`ve come all this way and the only way we can get in is to leave someone at the door? Hells no! We start to formulate plans on how to sneak in, fabricate familial relations or rush the entrance when the checker in front informs us that since we came all the way just for Costco we can all come in. Sweet! We immediately go inside, get our hot dogs and combination pizza complete with free refils on soda. I break my soda policy and drink a lot of it. After paying through the nose for everything in Japan, free refils is just about the best thing ever, almost as good as the ramen. Buzzed out of my mind on sugar and caffeine, we start shopping for the guys and I walk around admiring all the Kirkland brand things I haven`t seen in years. Kilos of pork belly, pounds of spices and pallettes of Dr. Pepper, its all here just like in the States. In fact, apart from the Japanese writing (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji) it looks exactly like the Costco in America right down to the long lines at the checkout counter.

After buying everything they needed at Costco (I didn`t get anything because I would have to carry it with me) we left for Fukuoka, balancing 2 pizzas they guys had bought for the ferry ride back. They all left and I went to find an internet cafe. Did you know in Japan the internet cafes have free drinks? Some even have free soft serve ice cream and showers. I even know people who have spent the night in private booths there. The Japanese are serious about their internet, almost as serious as the South Koreans, except their internet is $1 an hour while Japans is $4 an hour. But free ice cream counts for a lot in my book.

2007-03-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

Japan! The ancestral homeland!

I'd been thinking about Japan every since I started planning my trip. I knew I had to come here since Japan is part of my heritage and no one in my family has ever been here before. I've been here less than a week but already I've done so much.

It's been a blast so far. I've been staying with Dave, the University friend I bumped into in Ayutthaya, Thailand. I was able to find his house easily from the international ferry to Izuhara. It was his birthday when I arrived so we went out with some of his friends and had an amazing meal, complete with raw horse sashimi, fried rice balls, deep fried cheese wantons, eel, and of course, edamame. It wasn`t the first meal I`d had in Japan (the first being rice balls bought at the supermarket) but it was definitely the best first real meal.

The next day I visited Dave's school and with the help of a translator talked about Vanuatu, showed them some vatu and some photos of my house and land diving. Talking about my situation in an environment like a Japanese class room made it seem more ludicrous than it really was. While the students and teacher were gasping as I described how I had to draw water from a rain-water well I found myself thinking "Did that really happen so recently? Did I really live through a category 5 cyclone in a house made of wild cane?". Luckily I had the photos to prove it. Everyone said "Ooooh" and "Ahhhhh" as I described the living conditions, the food I ate and how we made kava.

The following day I went to Evelyne's school to help her teach her elementary kids their ABC's. Everyone was so surprised when I told them I was American but my last name was "Okamura". I went through the story of how Dad is Japanese and Mom is American, I can get through most of it in Japanese so that's always fun to see the kids understand me. It was fun to be in front of a class again, especially since I was singing a different ABC's song and calling out letters for a children's game. Part of During lunch I sat at a table with the other kids on seat about 6 inches off the ground and tried to answer their questions in Japanese as best I could. Most of the started with "What's your favorite . . ." and Evelyn was able to help a bit. After lunch the kids completely lost any inhibition or reservations they had towards me. They were telling me their names, hanging on me and having a great time with a Japanese to English electronic dictionary Evelyn had brought. They kept typing in their names and then pointing to themselves. One little girl typed in her name, showed it to me in the dictionary and then pointed to herself. But she had put her name in incorrectly and the dictionary showed the translation as "pillow talk" instead. It took us a while to figure out what had happened, but I thought the whole thing was hilarious. I suppose it would make for a funnier story if the little girl rally had wanted me to say sweet nothings to her. With the full schedules the JET teachers have over here I can tell in my short time that the kids make it all worth it. And none of them ran screaming away because they thought I was going to stick them with needles. And the rest of the day people called me Okamura-sensei which I thought was really cool.

When I haven't been at a school a motherly woman named Toyota-san has been driving me around Tsushima and showing me all the interesting things here. This woman is amazing, something of a local saint here. I swear if she doesn't get into heaven there is no God. We've seen the Tsushima horses (only found on Tsushima), the Tsushima deer (only found on Tsushima) and the Tsushima leopard cat (also only found on Tsushima). She also pointed out the cherry blossom trees (Sakura) which are only juuuuuuust starting to bloom in certain places. I hear that April is the time when cherry blossoms really come out. From what I've seen to far it must be simply amazing. My last night in Tsushima she took Dave and I out to dinner where we got some amazing soup and an entire fried eel filet (!) , and after dropping me off at his place Toyota-san gave me money to eat lunch the following day and made me promise to come back to Tsushima sometime. I haven't come across this kind of hospitality in a long time and makes leaving this island that much harder.

My plans for the next part of Japan are simple: get to Fukuoka and meet Dave and his friends so we can hit up the Costco there. Simple plans are good, because there are lesst things to go wrong.

2007-03-08T22:48:00.001-08:00

3-9-07

My last day in Vietnam was great, definitely the best one I'd had that week. It started with a visit Ho Chi Minh's maoseleum which is sobering at best and downright depressing at worst. First of all there are no cameras and I mean NO cameras. You have to check them in at the front and even then soldiers will randomly go through peoples bags. Being the smart-ass that I am I offered my bag to every one, knowing that they would be less likely to search a bag some foreigner is pushing in their face. So no one checked my bag and I felt smarter for beating the system. Of course I'd already given them my camera in the beginning so it was kind of futile thing to do.
When you get inside the crypt it's very cold and everything is marble and ominous. Everyone walks in single file and then turn a corner into a large room with a the body of Ho Chi Minh in the middle except he's on this island and there's a dry moat surrounding him. In the room there are no less than 9 armed guards, to keep you from taking pictures or defiling the body of their great leaders. These people take ancestor worship to the next level, let me tell you. So that was kind of fun.

As I walking away, a funny man with horrible teeth started talking to me in English, asking where I was going, etc. Only this time he had a list of places he would take me for a cheap price. So I went to the Ethnology Museum in Vietnam where there are numerous exhibits on the indigeonous people of Vietnam and the surrounding areas. About half the things were in Vietnamese with a little English thrown in on the side. It was similar to the museum in Thailand in that some of the houses were similar as the clothing of the hill tribe people. This highlight is when you go outside around the back of the museum where they have all these local style houses. Some are raised meters off the ground and held together only with what looked like pandanas leaves, just like in Vanuatu. There was also a wedding about to take place so the bride was getting ready in one of the adobe houses.

After the museum we went to the silk "village" where I got to see the silk making process, buy some cheap silk scarves and drink rice wine infused with silk worms. Something about infusing rice wine always makes it better, whether it's the silk worm, snake, or various body parts of animals. Asians just love to put strange stuff in their rice wine, which brings us to where we went after the silk village.

As we were leaving I asked if there was a place I could eat dog, because it seemed like a crime to leave Vietnam and not tried (what I imagine) was the national dish. Ok, the national dish is Pho, but it should be dog! Anyway, we cruised around until we got to the dog restaurant, evident because there was roasted dog in the front. We sat down and Duong ordered for us. I'll spare the details but dog is really good, this being the second time I'd tried it. It's like very tender dark chicken, mixed with a little bit of pork. We ordered some different infused rice wine, but this infusion will have to remain a mystery for now, you'll figure it out from the video. The highlight of the meal was when we started eating what looked like a very large crispy rice cake and after I tried some, asked what it was made out of. He said "sticky rice" and then fumbled for the correct words. He took a napkin and wrote "Lard of Dog" on it. I couldn't stop laughing and still have the napkin in my journal, I think it's hilarious.

After Vietnam I landed in Korea and spent an absolutely freezing night is Seoul. It was cold! Cold cold cold! I got a bus to the "backpacker district" and planned on getting out and finding a hostel, essentially what I had done for all of my trip. What I didn't count on was that it would be snowing and there were no hostels in sight and I was wondering around in all my "cold weather" clothes. I ended up staying in a "Youth Hostel" that had freaking conference rooms! Hostels aren't supposed to have conference rooms! Luckily I was able to buy some warmer clothes at the local market in Seoul which is a great place to just hang out in, they love to sell ginseng in huge glass jars. I've been wearing no less than 3 layers every day and wearing a Vietnamese scarf I bought, something I've never done before.

I was also able to meet up with Christina, a friend since High School and she's been great, showing me around and making sure I have things to do during the day. I got to see the Catholic school she works at and meet a couple of the nuns who work there. They are some of the nicest people I've ever met, especially since I have this "Blues Brothers Movie" picture of nuns in my head, running around and indiscriminately hitting people with rulers. But there was no ruler hitting, in fact the first nun I met shook my hand and the first words out of her mouth (to Christina in Korean) were "Christina, he's handsome!" After laughing I pondered the irony of getting hit on by a nun. Before we left the same num gave me a couple sewn charms to keep. Well, I get to keep one of them but the nun said I have to give the other one to my girlfriend. The Blues Brothers can also be seen in Seoul, hanging outside a convenience store.

Thus far staying in Daejeong has been fun, it's kind of like the silicon valley of Korea so there are lots of museums to go to and a big zoo which I unfortunately didn't have the chance to see. Somehow I don't imagine African animals are very active in 32 degree F weather. But I did get to see some other museums which were nice, considering South Korea takes its science very seriously. And I got to go to a bath house for the first time, but that's a very long story that will have to wait.

*Update

My last night in Seoul was awesome. We all went out for drinks and dancing at a club in the city of Daegon which is a short train ride out of Daejeon. When we got to the club we were just about the only white people which was great. I hadn't really gone out dancing since Thailand and I was more than ready to stay as long as I could. People in our group started leaving around 2, 2:30 am but myself and a dedicated others closed out the club at 5 am. Operating on 4 hours of sleep I managed to get a bus to Pusan where I spent the night in a very dodgy hotel before catching the international ferry to Tsushima, a small island in Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan.

2007-02-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

2-21-07

Hey I'm in Saigon! After what seemed like an eternity waiting for Chinese New Year to end so I could get my Visa for Vietnam, I finally caved in and paid off the guard at the embassy to get my Visa for me. It cost me $60 and is only a 15 day Visa but whatever, I'm just going to be making my way through Vietnam anyway and into China and eventually Japan.

First impressions are that's it's noisy, with lots of crazy traffic. It reminds me a little of Ko Sahn road in Thailand but not nearly as many white people walking around getting their hair braided. If there's one sight I can't stand it's fat white people getting their hair braided, yech. Maybe it's from seeing so many getting it done in Vila or how utterly ridiculous they look afterwards for something they paid for.

Tomorrow I hope to visit the Viet Cong tunnels, find some rambutin and make bus reservations to get me out of this city. Unfortunately I haven't seen any rambutin at the food stalls. Could it be that Vietnam doesn't have any?

2-28-07

Hey I'm in Hanoi! Been here a few days after a 33 hour train ride from Saigon. I'm happy to report that they do indeed have rambutin here, not to mention a number of other interesting street foods. Probably the strangest one so far has been snails, and while I understand that France has had an influence on the cuisine here these are not escargot by any means of the word. I don't have pictures to post yet but these things are interesting to say the least. They're sold in the market by the kilo, and vendors steam bowls of them and serve them with a pepper vinegar sauce along with free rice wine. Unfortunately the rice wine doesn't really compliment the snails so much as give a way to distract from what can be an somewhat sandy meat. The snails are pried out of their shells with triangular pieces of metal and then dunked in the sauce. The result is a somewhat spicy morsel of meat similar to octopus. It's something to try but I think I would have to be drinking to try it again. Other than the snails there's the usual rice noodle soup, fried rice and baguettes that can be bought on many corners. No dog yet.

The reason I'm still in Hanoi is because I'm waiting on my Chinese Visa. For some reason Americans get charged $30 more for their Visas than people from other places, anyone know why this is? I know Americans are rich cocky bastards but don't we have a bazillion trade agreements with the Chinese? Hell, even the Governator was treated like a dignitary when he visited there a couple years ago. Why I gotta pay more?

After I get into China I'm going to jump on a ferry to South Korea to hang with Christina who's been teaching English over there for a little while. I'm looking forward to lots of soju, korean barbeque and kimchee, preferably in that order. However if I get really sick and tired of traveling I'll just hop a jet out of Beijing. I seem to have come down with a case of travelers fatigue but I don't think it's anything a night out drinking can't handle. Luckily I've been hanging out with some Lebanese-Australians who're pretty keen on going out, Film at 11.

2007-02-16T02:10:00.000-08:00

2-16-07
Monkeys!
Food!
More Monkeys!
More food!

After two days of sight seeing with the Royal Cambodian palace, the S-21 genocide museum and the Killing Fields I decided to have a wandering day, a day where I don't follow any map and just start walking. My sense of direction has gotten better over the months so I can normally find my way back and there are always tuk tuk or motorbike drivers ready to take you anywhere you want or sell you pot. Anyway, the killing fields were cool if graphic, S-21 is even more graphic but neither of which were very fun, nor did they have monkeys.

Today . . . there were monkeys.
Lots and lots of monkeys.

This morning I started walking around braving wild drivers and wilder cross walks and eventually found Wat Phnom, a large Wat in the middle of Phenom Penh that has lots and lots of monkeys. And these monkeys aren't in cages or anything, there are no people looking out for them, they just exist in the middle of the city. Sweet. I went to the top of the Wat and started to weave a new coconut bracelet/anklet from the coconut I still have in my bag from Ko Tao when a Japanese tourist started feeding some monkeys. I thought cool, these monkeys seem pretty used to people so I reached out and touched one on the back, big mistake! He got all up in my face, bared his teeth (sign of aggresion) and then jumped up on the bench I was sitting on (another sign of aggression). I remembered my friend Ben saying that monkeys are 8 times more powerful than people pound for pound and I thought of the horrible headline that may appear in the paper the next day "RPCV horribly disfigured by monkey in Buddhist temple" Luckily he went away and I got to keep my nose and eyes.

So I went on my way and eventualy found a small side restaurant with no AC or fan and no one really spoke English, my kind of place. Through a series of hand motions and signals I got some tea which was served hot in the pot but I was also given a glass full of ice . . . curious. Normaly my tea arrives hot and stays hot. Like some kind of village idiot I sat there looking at it, wondering if I was really supposed to pour the hot tea into the cold glass full of ice. Eventually it became obvious that that's exactly what I was supposed to do. So with the entire serving staff watching me I poured myself the strangest iced tea I'd ever had. And it was good! Surprisingly good, the best tea I've had so far. I think it was Jasmine. Traveling as farang normally I get crappy "yellow label" black lipton tea when all I want is some real tea. But whatever, it was good and I was able to drink all that I wanted to for 500 riel (even though tea is free if you order food). After getting my tea craving taken care of I hit the local market and after navigating streets smaller than in Thailand I sat down for some real street food, something I hadn't been able to get for the past week or so. I take back any bad things I've said about the food here in Cambodia, this soup was very good, full of noodles and fish and there were all kinds of things to put in, including a chili paste and some fermented beans that tasted suspiciously like natto but without the slime (the beans are on the right side of the photo); total cost: 2500 riel ($.62).

Encouraged that I had found some decent food I went and bought a kilo of rambutin because they're that good. Please God, tell me I can get rambutin back in the States, they are like crack cocaine. Seriously, if I had a choice between a kilo of hard rock and a kilo of rambutin there would be a very displeased drug dealer after I left. I'm basically the cookie monster of these things. Today I learned that there is a difference in rambutins, one kind costs 4000 riel a kilo ($1) and the other kind costs 5000 riel a kilo ($1.25), but I was able to get the 5000 riel ones for 4000 riel, ha! Behold my sick bargaining skills as I talk a woman down $.25 on a purchase! Pwn3d! I took my fruit and sat down by the river, sharing some with a couple local boys who were pulling wagons of green coconuts to sell. Btw, I realize that most of the time I'm getting a little ripped off like paying 500 riel for the tea, and if my name was Adam Kane I'd probably be able to get it for half that much, I'm just not that big a fan of bargaining. I mean I'll do it sure but getting all into it, making a show of leaving, it's not for me. If I'm leaving I'm really leaving, not waiting for them to call me back. I'll just walk down the street and find it for a cheaper price whatever I'm looking at.

Not completely filled by the rambutins I started walking down some side streets, eager to find the next thing to munch on. I'd read about some fermented fish paste called Pahok that's served on rice but hadn't been able to find any. But I did happen to see a woman who was making sugar cane juice, something I've only seen in Cambodia. It's pure genius, you squeeze all the water out of sugar cane with a heavy duty press and mix with some orange juice and serve over ice. Awe, mama blong Jesus, it was good! Even bett juice I'd had in Indonesia years agoer than the mango and I had stacked that as the top juice ever. But this, this was cold, crisp, sweet and a little sour, throw in a little savory and you have a Thai smoothie. Sure it looks like fermented horse urine but it tastes so much better! And the ice was chipped, not cubed. What is it about chipped ice that makes drinks taste so much better? I drank the cane juice in about 4 seconds and considered buying more, but I knew I couldn't over do it, there would be more later I was sure. It would also probably serve as the perfect mixer, so as soon as I find a sugar cane supplier back in the States . . .

On my way back to the Wat I passed a large group of men who were in the process of making some kind of fried dumpling. I'd seen them earlier in the day making the dough, rolling it out and making the filling and now they were frying them. I talked to one of the fryers and accepted when he offered me one. They were "pots of gold" that I'd had at some Chinese restaurant back in the States but never like this. I mean these were fresh out of the fryer and still steaming when I bit into them. I bought a kilo for 15,000 riel ($3.75). Back in the States I would probably get 4 for what, $2.50? But I was getting a whole kilo! I felt a elated, hungry, and a little guilty I was getting such a great deal. But Chinese New Year was the next day and he said they would be all sold out by 9 am the following day. These things are great beer food, and as I write I still have half a kilo left in my bag, these things aren't leaving my sight they're that good.

After the pots of gold I went and bought another kilo of rambutin. Hey I don't have a problem, I can stop any time I want! And went to go back and feed the monkeys. Unfortunately I forgot how smart monkeys are and after giving one rambutin to the first monkey he reached up and grabbed the plastic bag that was holding the rest of them. Luckily I was able to get it back but then I thought "Aw screw it, they're monkeys!" and gave them out to all the other ones that were close. Apparently monkeys love the rambutin as much as I do, fighting over them and eating them like the delicious pieces of heaven they are. I kept my fried dumplings safely out of sight, there was NO way I was letting them go. I watched the monkeys play and fight and pick lice out of each other's orifices and then went back to the guest house to crash for a little while and ponder what I'd accomplished during the day.

As it is right now I've spent a little over $6 today on food which means that with my $3 a night room I haven't even broken the $10 mark yet. And I probably won't get much to eat tonight as I still have a pound of pots of gold in my bag. Of course I'll have to eat them pretty soon so I don't repeat a mistake I made in Vanuatu and save my food for the afternoon by which time enough bacteria has grown to give me a lovely case of food poisoning. But even with the food poisoning it would be worth it. After all my culinary experimentation I have dubbed today "Food Day" and will try to have more in the future, preferably every time I enter a new country so I can get acquainted with the local "slop" as Doug puts it. I'm actually surprised I waited this long to do a food post, considering I freaking love food and everything food-related. It's times like this when I'm thankful for the poor sanitary conditions of Vanuatu. Just think, if I hadn't been eating food by sneezing, scabies-infested-baby-carrying women who never washed their hands, I might not be able to eat all the food over here without getting amoebic dysentery! Bird flu? Water-borne pathogens? Pssh, whatever!

And for all my island tawis please enjoy the following.

Pig pig pig!

2007-02-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

See Em. See Em Riep. Riep Em Riep!

2-13-07

Jesus Christ on a crutch, I had a great post written up and then the computer here decided to crap out on me, losing the entire thing. So instead of a witty, sarcastic update you're getting a cynical, self-depricating update instead. Happy? Well you should be. You're all in air-conditioned facilites while I'm on the street sweating balls trying to keep from getting dehydrated, only if I keep hydrated I keep sweating so the only way to stop sweating is to rid my body of water. I'm caught in this viscious cycle because Siem Riep is hot.
Hot and dusty.
Hot and dusty and . . . well, dusty. How did I get to this hot and dusty place? Well I'll tell you! It all starts back when I was in first grade, damn I remember it like it was yesterday . . .

Just kidding. My trip to Cambodia started when I left Bangkok for the bus station to take me to the Thai/Cambodia border. The 5 hour bus ride to the border was fine, good roads and we even got a little cake and some water. But after we got to the border, passed into Cambodia and climbed aboard a bus and started making our way to Siem Riep, things quickly changed. First off the bus was completely packed, my backpack squashed underneath a fold out seat and back packs piled up behind me, threatening to come down after each and every bump on the non-maintained road. And oh were there bumps, the road is more rock and dust than asphalt, a fact I was reminded of evey time I took in a breath and got dust since we had to keep the windows open for the fresh air. What was supposed to be a bumpy 4 1/2 hour ride to Siem Riep took a semi-hellish 7 1/2 hours that was extended from having to replace a flat tire and stop at a tourist restaurant for some tasteless food. When we finally got off the bus we were so dusty that slapping my chest caused my t-shirt to cough up a large collection of the dust it had accumulated from the road.

After arriving at the guesthouse at 10:30 at night I crashed, still dusty and exhausted. Come to think of it, I've crashed every night dusty and exhausted. The heat here drains energy and it's hot for most of the day. Luckily it's a dry heat and not the swelting Vanuatu oh-my-god-kill-me-now heat I'd grown accustomed to. Being used to the conditions of Vanuatu is probably one of the reasons I haven't dropped in the middle of the day. Anyway, after arriving at the guest house I noticed a bottle of rice wine that was half filled with some dark pieces of something. Upon closer inspection I saw lots of legs and apendages from a scorpion, centipede and tarantula. So with all these dead poisonous animals floating at the bottom of 3 year old rice wine of course I tried some, spooning it off the top so I didn't get any crunchies. Strangely it was much smoother and tastier than the rice wine I'd tasted in Laos where they make their own from scratch. The staff at the guest house informed me the rice wine w/critters would make me strong and act as viagra, sweet. So when I get old I'll be hitting up reptile and liquor stores instead of pharmacies. Who's with me?

The next day I started visiting the Wats of Angkor including Angkor Wat, a huge spectable of Kmer architecture, art and sandstone. The thing is huge, amazing and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's also a major tourist attraction, something that I realized as I saw the throngs of pasty white people wandering through and the wide-eyed Japanese groups. I searched for some peace and quiet at the top of the third level of Angkor Wat, only to hear the bantering of an American family at the bottom, talking about absolutely nothing at all. It's hard to contemplate the grandiose scale of an ancient, 1000 year old temple with people rambling away below you. Hey, I just lost an hour of writing, I warned you. After Angkor Wat I went to Angkor Thom, another huge temple with gigantic faces carved into the brick walls. I could go on an on about these temples, they're that freaking sweet.

The day after it was wash, rinse, and repeat except this time it was different temples. You see, Angkor is a large area with well over 10 major temples. The next day I went to more temples, starting with Banteay Srei in the north and seeing so many Wats that and the end of the day I was Watted out, dead tired and dehydrated. But in between I managed to see Pre Rup and some other temples that looked straight out of the Indian Jones ride at Disney Land, huge carved faces and everything. It was crazy, as in Jesus-Christ-this-is-so-cool crazy. I hightly suggest Angkor to anyone who has half a brain stem and a pair of eyes. I think even my cats (when they were still alive) would have appreciated it. Most of the temples have concentric walls, rising up into the air. At the top are normally statues of Buddha or other deities which have probably been removed. At the top of Pre Rup there was a small Buddhist shrine complete with two headless Buddhas. I talked to the guard at the top and he said that they were beheaded by the Kmer Rouge back in the day. I tried to be as culturally appropriate as possible and keep my head lower than the Buddhas, even though they had no heads. I visited all the Wats I could an d still enjoy them. I got to a point where I was looking up at the Wats thinking "Hey that's pretty neat" instead of "Sweet jumping Jihad, would you look at that shit!" which is pretty much how I was at the beginning of the day. You know it's time to call it a day when even 1000 year old temples fail to get you excited and all you can manage to think of is "Neat". Strangely, buying fruit later that night got me more excited than when I was at a low energy point at Angkor.

One of the best Wats I went to was Ta Pro

hm, where they filmed parts of Tomb Raider. The temple is supposed to be left as it is with no renovation so there are trees growing everywhere and walls which have fallen over and everything is left as is. Surprisingly, the front of the temple was covered in scaffolding from restoration! So I guess some government is forking over the money to make it look pretty.

She doesn't know it, but this Japanese tourist is 2 fingers away from being the Hobgoblin. That, or she's trying to be Little Bunny Foo Foo.

Yesterday I decided to take a break from the temples and wander around Siem Riep, as I'll probably head out to Phenom Phen in the next day or so and check out the Killing Fields and whatever museums they have there. After that it's anyone's guess as to where I'm headed, I want to get up to China as quickly as possible so I may do the train route through Vietnam or bus it through Laos. Luckily I have plenty more pages in my passport (after getting it refilled at the U.S. embassy in Thailand) so I don't have to skip any countries.

Today I took a trip to the war museum a little outside Siem Riep where they have a land mine exhibit and all sorts of old howitzers, Thompson machine guns, AK-47's and this beauty right here.

We olgeta, traen luk mi! Mi mi stap holem semak masket wea Rambo i usem long namba tu film blong hem. Mi mi olsem Rambo wan taem! Spos yu kam long ples ia yu tu i save holem masket. Mo tu, spos yu gat fulap vatu yu save sutum masket mo kilim ded sam faol mo buluk. Onest!

2007-02-03T03:30:00.000-08:00

2-3-07

Sometimes it's so difficult to remember everything that has gone on since I last posted. Luckily I have photos to job my memory and my journal to help out.

After Ko Tao Marije and I caught the fast boat over to Ko Phangan, home of the full moon parties and really expensive song taew rides. Marije and I managed to find a great place called the Hansa Resort which was out of the way, close to a 7-11 and had a beautiful beach to lay on, although the water was filled with sharp rocks. Even my travel hardened feet got a few cuts on the bottom. We had the great idea to watch the sunset and drink some wine so we went to the 7-11 since it's the only place to buy Western food, and bought some crackers with cheese, chocolate, rambutans, and were looking for some wine but couldn't get any. So the wine plan was scrapped and we settled for some beer and for a sunset that was completely obscured by clouds, but it was still fun! I got to play with a short-legged dog on the beach and eat my fruit.

The next day we ventured to Haad Rin where the full-moon party takes place every month on a very small strip of beach. How they fit over 10,000 people there is a complete mystery to me. Haad Rin is SO touristy, white people everywhere and no decent restaurants. But we did stumble upon a bar that was showing South Park on DVD's so we stopped by for an episode since Marije had never seen one before. Then we wandered around for a bit and tried to get something to eat. We stopped in a (very touristy) restaurant and I decided to order something different, as I normally like to do. So I ordered a baked potato with fri because instead of posting signs toed eggplant (aubergine) thinking it would be some great baked potato dish. But it was just a dry, baked potato with a couple pieces of eggplant on top, exactly what I ordered. Sometimes I still violate my own rule or ordering non-Thai food in Thailand. I had to laugh at it however, of course the Western food isn't going to be as good in Thailand as the Thai food. We went to a "Jungle Experiance" party which was actually a km off the main road in what appeared to be the jungle. Of course we were the only people who actually walked to the party which was nice follow there were beer bottle lanterns on the side of the road to follow. The party was in a great location, with places to chill out, food and drink to buy and lots of psychadelic posters and glowing shrooms made of coconut shells. We danced a little bit but unfortunately the music was all trance and jungle and not that good either. But it was still fun walking back home at 2 am, dodging tuk tuks and song taews, knowing we had to wake up early to catch the boat.

A couple days ago we took the boat back over to Ko Samui. At the pier I found a cat and so I had to play with it, it reminded me of Joe's cat back in Vanuatu, Niko-san. I've been playing with just about every animal I find, monkeys included. The cats and dogs are so friendly over here for the most part. And they're always exciting when they get petted.

Anyway, after we landed on Ko Samui we went for a night at the Amazing Peace Resort that just opened back up the night before from months of remodeling. Marije said it was a 5 star hotel based on the bungalow sizes and the layout. We were both extremely impressed by the accomodations (cable TV, bathtub (!), mini bar, sweet bathroom) as well as by the pool, restaurant and the number of large white people wandering around in bathing suits. It reminded me that some people never go outside except for when they're on holiday, I think my retinas are permanently scarred from seeing some very large Germans. I still think that the number of stars for a hotel is contingent on the size of the tourists.

I also took Marije out for her birthday which really wasn't on that day but we needed an excuse to get dressed up. See how dressed up we are? I put some product in my hair and Marije wore some makeup. We went to a seafood place where I had shark steak and she had salmon steak. Since traveling my stomach has shrunk considerably, I felt like such a wuss when I stopped after eating half of my plate was gone and Marije asked "Are you full already?" It was because I didn't have anything to drink during dinner. If you don't know already, I can eat enormous amounts of food if I've been drinking, probably 3 times as much as I normally can. I turn into the cookie monster and everything I see turns into a cookie.

After our flight to Bangkok we cruised Kosan road for a little bit, it's Huge! So many lights at night, Burger King on one end and Starbucks at the other end. We ended up going to Starbucks because I was really craving decent coffee (there's not much here in Thailand that I've found). We ended up meeting up with Jacco, Marije's friend from Holland and going out for drinks and some street food. Apparently the police are strict on having licenses for street food and we found this out the hard way, as a pad thai vendor literally wheeled his stand into a small alley as we were trying to order from him. After dinner I took Marije to the airport which was difficult since we'ver been traveling for over 2 weeks now, seeing her go was so hard. But I'm going to visit her in Amsterdam when I go there so that makes it easier.

Today on Kosan I saw a guy completely passed out. Here he is, if you know him please shame him unmercifully.

2007-01-26T21:53:00.000-08:00

1-27-07

Back in Thailand but now I'm traveling in the Southern islands. I arrived in Vientienne, Laso after a very long (and unenjoyable bus ride) from Laos and after some thought, decided to bite the bullet and take a plane from Vientienne to Bangkok and then Ko Samui. Marije met me at the airport with her friend Jacco and I was soon taking a blissful shower in a very Western guesthouse. As I got out of the shower we realized that Marije had left her mobile phone in a taxi. We called about 3 or 4 times but nothing. She used Jacco's phone to call home and cancel her SIM card so that no one would be able to make calls with it. Luckily, the next time we tried to call her phone someone picked up and it was the owner at a store right down the street, apparently it had fallen out of the cab! We rushed over and got the phone, trying to give the store owner a reward but she wouldn't take it. We bought some beers to celebrate instead.

Right, I'm feeling a bit schizophrenic so I'm just going to post photos and then storian smol long hem.

I love big dogs and big dogs love me. We found this Rotweiller on the beach on Ko Tao and he was just the friendliest thing ever. There are so many dogs on Ko Tao but they're all healthy and for the most part friendly, I haven't had to "Kuse!" one yet! There's one I'm always looking for, a beautiful white and brown Huskie who just looks miserable all the time. Sometimes he sprawls out like a bear rug and won't move for what seems like the whole day.

We crossed the island of Ko Tao yesterday, taking time to take a break on the foundation of a house that overlooks the ocean. After we walked down we found a small resort and I got the owner to open up a sprouting coconut, it was the first time I got to eat navara in months, it was so soft and sweet, just like on Tongoa. Later this guy in the photo ate a hibiscus flower. I don't know what his problem is, eating foliage like he owns it.

Marije, caught off guard taking a photo of the coast.

Hemi olsem meri blong mi. Mi mi harem glad taem mi stap wetem hem from mi neva faenem wan woman olsem. Ating spos hemi stap long aelan ol man bae i ded long hem. Hem tu i gat wan blog: http://www.marijejelly.waarbenjij.nu/

Traem luk samting ia from ples ia tu i gat sam foto blong mi wetem hem. Spos hemi bin stap long Vanuatu taem mi bin stap ating mi no wantem drink kava nating.

We tried to watch the sunset on the beach but there were too many clouds to try to see the green flash. Our guesthouse is very close to the beach which is great except that there are three bars VERY close and they all want to play the "Who has the loudest music?" game. The Red Hot Chili Peppers start to sound very annoying around 2:45 AM, especially when you know all the clientèle at the bars are old while men talking with young Thai women, yech!

The aforementioned sunset off the coast of Ko Tao.

Here I am back in Luang Prabang, at a guesthouse except they have an eagle!

Look!

Sure it just sits there all day and poops everywhere but it's a fucking eagle! I wanted to get closer but I'm a bit leary about wild pirds of prey. Later on the same guesthouse got a monkey (maybe to play with the eagle, who knows) but I wasn't there.

This is Doug, my travel buddy and fellow RPCV on some random land mass in Laos. We took a boat ride up to Muang Noi but had to get out and walk because we were too heavy. Of course Doug is happy because he's Doug. Everyone else was not so happy.

2007-01-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

1-19-07

I've spent the last few days in a small village in Northern Laos called Muang Noi. It took a 4 hour bus ride and over an hour slow boat ride but it was worth it, even when we had to get out of the boat and walk because the river was too low. Muang Noi is amazing, there are guest houses everywhere and there are "restaurants" but the village still feels like a village, not some tourist trap with some old temples thrown in. In fact there was only one temple and it didn't look like a temple at all, I would have completely missed it if I hadn't been woken up in the mornings by their bell and the sound of monks chanting, that clued me in.The villagers go about daily life, drying out swamp grass to eat, reforging old knives and doing what villagers generally do.

Just outside the Muang Noi are roads that lead to other villages, rice paddies and water buffalo that don't really care about anything other than eating dried out rice stalks. However, one road led us to a cave ($.50 admission) which was about the coolest thing ever. The first day we hiked in a ways until we realized we needed our torches (flashlights) to go any further. I just happened to have mine and so the five of us waded through shoulder-high water as far back as we could go. But we didn't get to the end and knew that there was still a lot to go. So the next day we all came back (each of us carrying at least one torch) and we spent a few hours exploring every bit of that damned cave, from the stalactites and stalagmites to the bats and all the way back till we found the source of the river and some graffiti that said "HELP! 10-7-2006" The whole time we were a little worried about cave-ins and getting lost since none of us had ever been that far inside a cave. We were always asking ourselves "Farther? Do we go farther?" luckily we did keep going and though my camera lens clouded up from the condensation I was still able to get a few pictures. It was the first time I'd ever gone back that far in a cave, let alone without a guide or anyone else who knew what they hell they were doing. And why did I do this? Risk being trapped if there was an earthquake? Cause I walk up volcanoes barefoot! That's why! Am I right? Only for the men!

The days before the cave exploration a few of us decided to visit another village in the hopes that it would be even more rural than Muang Noi. Well, we found two other villages and they were both more rural. The first one overlooked a dried up rice paddy and a couple signs that pointed to guest houses and restaurants. We met a few French people at the village while drinking tea, they'd been there for 10 days and so knew a lot about the area but hadn't really explored any of it. They told us about the white arrows in the cave that showed the way back out if you got lost. After we had our Laos Tea we walked to another village where we had some food, I was trying to find betel nut but the closest thing I could find was raw dried meat from these little dear that they hunt. So I had that instead, delicious! On the way back we ran into a couple of locals who were carrying matchlock rifles. I didn't know working matchlocks still existed, let alone were being used. They locals were very shy about letting us see them though, so I wasn't able to get a picture. Maybe wikipedia can help. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock

The second to last night in Muang Noi I was talking to the girl who runs the guest house I was staying at. I was asking how much it would be to buy a duck because Muang Noi has so many ducks and you can never buy them in the restaurants because there is no dependable refrigeration. So Huan started telling me how Laos people do this wonderful thing with Duck's blood, making a soup out of it or something. Of course the only way to get blood out of a duck is to kill it so we eventually found a duck that wasn't too expensive. Anyway, the spare you gory details we get all the blood out of the duck and then her family barbecues it and makes soup of of some of the meat and organs. Luckily I was able to snag some of the liver and roast it for Doug and myself, island style. It's the closest to foie groe I've gotten yet. It turns out the duck meat was very tough, Huan kept laughing at how hard it was, she said the duck must have been 10 years old, but then again she's crazy. The soup was a little better but I was so dis-heartened with the tough duck meat that I just drank the blood, it's good with bear Lao. Just kidding, this picture was Doug's idea. We just added some of the blood to our soup the same way I'd had it in Chiang Mai. This set off Huan again, laughing and pointing at us. It turns out Laos people don't actually add the blood to the soup, they make something else out of it entirely. Of course they never told us any of this but it didn't matter because my soup tasted much better.

2007-01-12T03:13:00.000-08:00

1-12-07

The connection here in Laos isn't so good so no photos for now but soon.

After spending a bit too long in Chiang Mai and realizing that I only had another week on my Thai Visa, Doug and I decided to catch the 2-day boat ride up the Mekong to Laos. I'd heard all kinds of stories about the slow boat: it's uncomfortable, it's too long, there's no food, so I was eager to see what it was all about. The truth is that it's just a very slow, over packed boat ride up the Mekong river, a place that until 10 years ago still had pirates on it. The boats are long, sit about 4 people in a row but have small cushions to sit on and plenty of Beer Lao to buy, or weed if that's your thing (that last part probably isn't mentioned in the tour guides). The first day was uneventful, bought our tickets and Visas in Chiang Mai, got to the Thai Laos border, sleep in a guest house with mattresses harder than the wood floors. Second day, take a small boat across the Mekong, wait around, finally get on the boat drive down admiring the views, meet some interesting people, pull up to a village where people tried to sell us more Beer Lao and Pringles, end up at some tourist town, crash. The third day was the longest, we left the shore around 10am and got into Luang Prabang around 5:30pm a bit tired and seeking shelter. But the scenery that third day was amazing. We caught a glimpse of the Buddha caves that are carved into the side of a mountain, some high water markers (the Mekong is really really low right now), all kinds of kastam houses on the shores and a beautiful sunset.

Luang Prabang is small, easily navigable in a few days and full of tourists. The lodging prices seem to range from $4 to $40 and yet we were able to buy a bottle of Lao Whiskey for $2. We're staying in a Guest House run by a Laotian guy who lived most of his life in Wisconsin, during our sign in he was giving up the update on the latest in the Ohio State game. I shouldn't be surprised at this point about the people I meet while traveling but it still catches me off guard every now and then.

The cost of living here is ridiculously low except when you take into account all the bloody tourists. Luckily the local population is laid back and there aren't the kind of obnoxious tourists I've found in Vanuatu or Thailand, making special meal orders and then getting upset when they get it wrong. The restaurants are all relatively expensive but water is cheap and there really isn't a need to take a tuk tuk or songthew anywhere. Today Doug and I walked around town, went up a hill to the Wat on top and had a great view of Laos, even watched a plane land on the runway, it felt a little like the island watching a plane land for entertainment. Later I went back to the guest house and had a nap, I still can't seem to shake this cold I've been harboring for what seems like weeks now. It comes and goes, always turning up at the most inopportune times. Oh well.

2007-01-06T04:11:00.000-08:00

1-6-07

How quickly plans can change

After three days in Ayutthaya seeing more Wats, Buddhas and Chedis than I knew what to do with I'm back in Chiang Mai. The original plan was to get down to Ko Phangan for the half moon party but then I met some people going back up to Chiang Mai and I noticed I only had about a week left on my tourist Visa. So the new plan is to go up north into Laos with Doug, get an extension on my tourist Visa, head down to Ko Phangan for the party then back up to Laos where I'll hang out until Christina arrives. Then I'll start making my way east towards Cambodia and Vietnam where it's cheaper and more rural.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and realized that it's about time to get out of the real touristy areas. I know Chiang Mai isn't nearly as touristy as Bangkok or some other places but there is still a pretty large ex-pat and tourist population. Not that I don't like ex-pats and tourists, they're cool but I think it's about time I got back to a rural place: no lights, running water or white people. Of course this time around I can't speak the language and have only a very basic understanding of the culture, although I have learned that the kids are very shy in class and try to hide from answering questions.

One of the the things I realized about myself in the Peace Corps is that I take things for granted very easily when they become availible. I know it's an easy concept to grasp and I never really understood it until I become overwhelmed with emotion when I got a care package on Tongoa that contained Reeses Pieces. I appreciate things so much more when I don't have them all the time. I've tried to limit myself to things like Western food, drink and posessions for this very reason. If I don't have them now I'll appreciate them so much more when I allow myself to have them. Of course this will be problematic when I eventually move back to the States because everything I want will be right there, in front of me, in the same isle as 15 different kinds of bread and 20 kinds of peanut butter (smooth, crunchy, extra crunchy, low sodium, no sodium, no sodium and no sugar, mixed with jelly etc.

It will be so easy to slide back into a routine, eating the same foods as before and acting the same way. I know if I want to maintain the island mentality in America it will take a lot of effort on my part, but I'm ready for that. The question is how easy will it be for me to adapt back to my own culture while keeping the lessons I learned in Vanuatu. I don't think there will be much chance to make my own rawhide or chew kava around a fire.

2007-01-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

1-2-07
Ayutthaya

New Year's Eve in Chiang Mai

New Year's eve started a little rough for me. I managed to roll my ankle early in the day and was fighting off some kind of cough that had plagued me for the last week or so. Staying out till 4am in smoke filled clubs is definitely not good for the old respiratory tract but it's still a good time. Anyway, after a day of visiting the post office (closed), the books shops (also closed) and the tourism office for a train schedule (open, yes!), I managed to run into a friend who informed me that he and some other folks would be ringing in the new year at the rooftop bar since the drinks are cheap and it would be a great place to watch the new year celebrations. Now I love the Rooftop Bar so I told him I would definitely be there. But first I had to hang out with some friends at the internet cafe where I get (almost) free internet since I fixed some of there computers. Partying at the cafe is always fun, most times we sit outside and drink whisky, soda water and coke and I try to learn Thai. However this time we went all out and roasted lemon-grass-stuffed-fish, kebabs and prawns outside as we drank the ridiculously strong Chang Beer (6.4% by volume), Red Label and Mekong Whisky.

Around 10pm I decide it's time to move over to the Rooftop so I pick myself up and start meandering over there. Well, there must have too much hitch in my giddyup because halfway over there I managed to roll my ankle again! Now I'm feeling a bit like my friend Michere but manage to get up to the Rooftop where it is packed! I mean, there is hardly standing room let alone room to sit. Luckily I find my friends and sit down with them but then get distracted by all the floating lanterns that are going up into the air every few seconds. Normally a few will go up every night but now it's like they're trying to light up the sky with these things. There's a band of them across the sky like the Milky Way. We all "oooh" and "aaaah" for about 45 minutes when all of a sudden we hear a loud POP and look over to see a lantern has caught fire and is now burning on the lower roof. We also notice the power has gone out and there is no music, curious. Turns out the power for our side of the street was knocked out by this renegade lantern. At the same time some of us were a little worried because we'd heard about the bombs in Bangkok. We look out over the roof to see if there is any police or military activity but all the armed guards are just hanging out, no rescue vehicles are racing about and some guy in a uniform is frantically making the international "OK" symbol up at us from the street. We wait for a little while longer, wave "OK" back to the guy and then go about our business. Some people are still concerned but whatever, it's New Year's and some of us had been drinking (I had not been drinking). I notice my friends had left but everyone was my friend that night.

After the power went out or before (I'm not too sure), I'd been talking with some other people and they were wondering if the roof could hold up all the people on top. Now the roof is just bamboo slats with cheap mats covering them. I kind of dismiss the idea, but then realize it could actually happen. I make some kind of remark like "Well, even if the roof does collapse, it makes for a great story doesn't it? I mean, who else can say they were at a New Year's party where the roof collapsed beneath them?" This kind of "Hey at least it's a good story" has pretty much been my attitude about things going wrong ever since my first year in Vanuatu where things often do go very wrong and yet in the end come out ok. So there I am drinking my water, calculating the best rooftop exit to make in case there's a fire, when someone says something and points behind me where a crowd has now gathered.

"What's with the crowd?" I ask.
"I think the roof just caved in," she replies.
"What? No!" I wheel around and sure enough, a large section of the roof in the corner has indeed collapsed and people are gathering around as if looking at it will somehow make it fixed, "Gee, maybe if we all stare at it it'll fix itself!" Of course with the decrease in real estate this means that there's even less space on top so a few people decide to slide down and hang out in the collapsed section. Now we have bombs in the country, cut power and a collapsed roof, I am not troubled by this at all. No really, I was laughing at the whole thing. So far it was the best new year I'd had in a very long time.

Time goes on and eventually the power gets restored, people are starting to leave the bar in search of clubs. I leave with some people and head to Bubbles, a club that doesn't have good music but a good crowd. I get bored so I leave and go to Spicy, a club that has great music but a somewhat questionable crowd. But it's cool, the place is packed and I end up dancing there till 6am when they finally close. I leave with some friends and get some rice soup as the sun is starting to rise, exchange emails and then check out of my guest house and head over to the train station where I've already missed the 4am train to Ayutthaya but don't really care because it's New Year's and I've left Chiang Mai the way I wanted to: with a bang and no sleep for the last day or so.

After a 5 hour wait I jump on the train to Ayutthaya and sleep for most of the 10 hour journey, waking up for juice and to play with the little kid sitting on her Dad's lap next to me. So here I am in Ayutthaya which is more hot and definitely more laid back than Chiang Mai. I'll be here for a few days recuperating and visiting temples before heading further South. I plan on taking it easy before going to Ko Phangan where there are supposed to be some really fun places to go.

2006-12-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

The Chiang Mai weekend night market is probably one of the best I have ever seen. Every Saturday and Sunday Tae Pae road is shut down to traffic and vendors from all over set up stalls and sell everything from rattan lanterns to fried quail eggs. Just walking around and staring at all the wares was enough for me, but having access to all kinds of different food was also a plus.

Alas, I was too full to try to fried bugs when I got to them. I talked to a guy who ate some but he didn't remember how they tasted. Apparently he ate them as quickly as he could and followed it up with a beer. Shame, in Vanuatu my friends told me the steamed ones tasted like lobster.

I still don't know what washing the Buddha is all about. I went to Waht Umong last Sunday and talked with an English speaking monk who told us that rituals have no place in Buddhism. So all the big temples, gold leaf statues and relics are all for people who don't really understand Buddhism. The monk also said that there shouldn't even be images of the Buddha because he didn't want to be worshiped after his death. So much for last wishes.

Buddhism is such an interesting way to live your life, focusing on how you interpret life's events instead of going out and changing them and just letting go. I feel like I can relate to it more after Peace Corps. By the way, the real Jade Buddha looks almost like this one, not very impressive.

These girls were just adorable. I don't know where they came from or what the name of the instrument is they're playing but I've seen it around before. One of the coolest things about the night market is that right in the middle of the street there are people playing instruments, doing traditional dances or asking for money to support schools. I don't know how to describe it, Bislama has robbed me of most of my English skills.

As I was about the leave the market I noticed a large crowd had gathered. Being the curious person I am I checked it out and found this little girls dressed up like some kind of ostrich? Flamingo? See, I can't even remember the name of the bird this little girl resembles. They have them at the San Diego Zoo, they live in some places in Encondido and are really annoying.

So if I had a checklist of things to do in the night market it would read like this:

- Walk down the market until I find finger food
- Eat finger food, find noodles
- Eat noodles, wander around and look at carvings
- Play with the pug dressed in a bee outfit
- Give money to the blind singers
- Buy freshly squeezed orange juice
- Watch people pour water over the Buddha
- Find the end of the market, people watch for a while
- Stare at white tourists
- Start to make my way back, avoid people calling out to me
- Eat sticky rice cooked in bamboo, watch random dancers
- Watch the old guitar player rip it up with his distortion effects
- Get back to the guesthouse, sleep

The End

2006-12-27T05:36:00.000-08:00

Here's my DOS (or Description of Service), the only "official" document that says I was in Peace Corps. Enjoy.

DESCRIPTION OF PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER SERVICE

Class 6 Primary School Teacher

Appropriate Technology Specialist

Name: Taylor J. Okamura

Country: Republic of Vanuatu (South West Pacific)

Dates of Service: December 12, 2003 – December 8, 2006

Assignment and Professional Training

After completing the Peace Corps application process which stressed both mental and physical health, a diversified background and a cross cultural understanding, Taylor Okamura was accepted into the U.S. Peace Corps as a trainee in 2003. He arrived to Vanuatu in October with group 16B and soon began an intense three-month training in the village of Epau on Efate island. During this time he lived with a host family and participated in all aspects of rural life including the planting and harvesting of root crops, listening to the traditional stories, learning to cook the local dishes and adapting to a foreign culture.

Practical training consisted of the following components:

Language Training: 120 hours of practical training designed to gain proficiency in speaking, reading and understanding Vanuatu's official language, Bislama.

Technical Training: 120 hours of practical training designed to develop requisite skills forfounding, developing, managing and teaching at a rural, community-based, school.

Cross Cultural Training: 180 hours of practical training designed to develop assimilation strategies for integration into rural Island village life.

Medical Training: 20 hours of practical training in medical self-sufficiency and emergency self-treatment in remote and medically isolated locations.

Taylor succesfully completed the comprehensive practical immersion training program on December 12, 2003 and ultimately achieved an 'Advanced High' score in language proficiency.

Life as a Teacher

In the two years that Taylor was at Naworaone Primary School, he taught math to fifteen year six students and often assisted the headmaster and other teachers with their classes. He taught Health and a science class called "Trees & Water" several days a week. Taylor developed strong relationships with the teachers, helping them to write future lesson plans, build the school garden and organize school fund raisers which raised over $600 USD.

Village Life

Taylor lived in the village of Purau on the island of Tongoa. While in the village, he was adopted into a host family, earned a kastam name and was given a local style house made of wild cane and thatch roof. Taylor discovered that life in the training village gave him a very basic understanding for life on Tongoa, but realized he still had to undergo a large amount of adjustment. Life on the island was very rural, much more so than Epau, even more rugged than the backpacking trips Taylor had been accustomed to in the States. Without plumbing, electricity, gas or refrigeration, Taylor had to rely on seasonal rain for water, candles for light, a wood fire for cooking, and trips to the market or garden every few days for food. Despite these radical changes in lifestyle, Taylor adapted to "island life" and grew to appreciate his new existence. He read over 100 books and wrote countless letters home to friends and family during service. One of Taylor's fondest memories was preparing kava, the local drink, in the traditional manner with his friends.

Cyclone Ivy

In Taylor's first year of service, Vanuatu was struck by Cyclone Ivy, a category four hurricane. Ivy devastated gardens, contaminated water supplies and uprooted local structures. Using the skills he learned in training, Taylor was able to secure his house and assist other villagers in preparation for the coming storm. After Ivy, Taylor made site visits to the other two volunteers serving on Tongoa and submitted a damage report to Peace Corps Vanuatu.

Volunteer Advisory Committee

Taylor began to serve on the Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) shortly after arriving on Tongoa. VAC is a group of elected Peace Corps volunteers who, for two years, present volunteer issues to the Country Director. Taylor was elected as the VAC Chairman in his second year and remained active as Chairman until the end of that year. While on VAC, Taylor helped to draft a new policies on alcohol use, safety and security procedures, per diem, cohabitation, mail, vacation leave, and living allowances.

Secondary Projects

In his second year on Tongoa, Taylor completed several secondary projects:

- Compiled and wrote the new Peace Corps Vanuatu cookbook to be used by all current and future volunteers

- Presented five cooking workshops on Tongoa Island for thirty villagers

- Taught several workshops on salt preservation of meat

- Taught a workshop on the production of brain-tanned rawhide

- Assisted in a local tourism project on Tongoa with marketing, publicity, security and meeting Western expectations

- Facilitated a five day business workshop on Santo Island with two fellow Peace Corps volunteers for over thirty villagers stressing the importance of market share, budgets, and book keeping

- Visited the island of Futuna to develop a local primary school for the island's first Peace Corps Volunteer.

Extension of Service

While serving his two years on Tongoa, Taylor became more and more aware that one of Vanuatu's largest problems is the lack of power on the outer islands. Reliable electricity is very important in sustatinable development and is cruicial in sectors such as sports, education, and health. It was for this reason that Taylor extended his service for a third year, moving to the capital city of Port Vila on Efate Island where he began to work with Vanuatu Renewable Energy Power Association (VANREPA), a local non-government organization working with sustainable energy projects. Living in the capital gave Taylor a unique opportunity to use his knowledge of the outer islands to develop energy solutions on a national level, installing several wind and solar power systems with VANREPA throughout Vanuatu and helping to write several successful grant proposals. In his third year he worked on a Solar Water Pasteurization project in the Black Sands community, a large wind turbine project on Futuna and Aneityum islands, and several solar and wind power schools in Vanuatu. Taylor also wrote and translated into Bislama several technical manuals for solar and wind systems and VANREPA policies. He also helped author VANREPA's website (www.vanrepa.org).

As part of an initiative to strengthen the relationship between VANREPA and Peace Corps Vanuatu, Taylor worked closely with Peace Corps in designing and teaching over 60 hours of appropriate technology courses to selected staff members and 48 new Peace Corps trainees on the island of Lelepa over the course of one year. These courses included:

- Soap making and personal hygene

- Water sanitation and ways to eliminate communicable water-based diseases

- Water catchment systems and acceptable water treatment options

- Desalination of salt water

- Construction of local toilets (Pit, Ventilation Improved, and Compost)

- Food preservation (smoked/salted, meat, jams, dried fruit)

- Rawhide production and basic leather working skills

- Alternative energy systems (Wind, Solar, and micro-hydroelectric systems)

- Designing improved cookstoves

- Community skepticism towards technology

- Solar cooking techniques

- Correct disposal of batteries

During this time Taylor also wrote the accompanying appropriate technology manual which has now been incorporated in volunteer training, benefitting the 76 volunteers currenty in the field.

Pursuant to Section 5 (f) of the Peace Corps Act, 22 U.S.C. No. 2504 (f) as amended, any former Volunteer employed by the United States Government following her Peace Corps service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps Volunteer service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave or other privileges based on length of government service. Peace Corps service shall not be credited toward completion of a probationary or trial period or completion of any service requirement for career appointment.

This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order No. 11103 of 10 April 1963, that Mr. Taylor James Okamura served satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He service ended on 8 December 2006. He is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one-year, except that the employing agency may extend for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities which, the view of the appointing authority, warrants extension of the period.

2006-12-18T01:19:00.000-08:00

It's only been a week out of Vanuatu but so much has already happened, so much so that living in a house made of wild cane seems almost like a dream. Straight out of Vanuatu, Mike and I headed for the hot and humid city of Darwin, Australia. We had decided a while ago to move slowly back to Western civilization and Darwin seemed like a good start and it was also cheaper flying through there than from Sydney. While in Darwin we saw the jumping crocodiles which are just that: crocodiles that jump. We took a river boat in croc infested waters while one of the guides held pieces of meat over the side of the like she was fishing for them. The crocodiles then jump up and try to snatch the meat as everyone watches. Not only is it amazing to see in person but these animals are less than 2 meters away when they leap out of the water for the meat. It was definately worth it, especially seeing the 5 meter long croc named Michael Jackson with the missing back right leg, he was huge. The rest of Darwin wasn't as exciting as that but we still managed to see Lichfield park where we swam in some waterfalls, did some hiking and saw huge magnetic termite hills. Our hostel was very good for the money and I swear to God a toddler started asking me questions in Bislama "Yu go wea?" I started to storian with the baby but realized it was an infant and could not storian.

After Darwin we jumped on a plane and zipped over to Singapore, which seemed like an Asian Disneyland compared to Vanuatu. It is impeccably clean, the subways are spotless and everyone seemed to have a working knowledge of the English language, something that can't even be said for the average American. It's a gorgeous city and Mike and I walked everywhere, from China Town to the Colonial District, from the Colonial District to Little India and then back to China Town. Along the way we stumbled into the oldest brewery in Singapore where I got to drink beer brewed with tamarind, orange peel and ginger. Not only was it great but due to a waiter's error we got a free serving of fish, chips, and chicken wings, not to shabby for being stuck in a bar during a rain storm. We ate at the food stalls every day in Little China and I managed to get down to the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo. Now I love zoo's since I was just about raised at the one in San Diego as well as Sea World so I had a blast, playing games with the otters, watching jaguar cats play and spending a lot of time watching the Binturongs which have to be one of the coolest animals ever. I mean, when was the last time you saw a freaking Bear Cat running through the trees? Unfortunately since we couldn't use the flash most of my photos came out blurry. Afterwards we went to the Museum of Asian Civilizations and while it covered south, southeast and west Asia there was no exhibit on Japan. It's cool though, Japan is so cool it doesn't need to be labelled as an "Asian Civilization." I mentioned this on the suggestion computer as we left the exhibits. We spent just the right amount of time in Singapore, I wanted to leave but hadn't gotten sick of it yet.

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday and got a cheap ticket up to Chiang Mai the same day, finally getting to a hostel last night around 9pm and immediately headed over to the Sunday night market where I ate way too much at all the food stalls. It was incredible how many people were in such a small space. I'm sure it wasn't too much but for me it was a little overwhelming. We spent a while walking around, admiring some bamboo lanterns and painting when Mike decided to get a foot massage. Not thinking much of it, I got one as well and had a very intense hour long session of calf and foot work done while trying to speak to the masseuse who knew about 20 words in English. Chiang Mai seems just busy enough for me without giving me vertigo, I'm very happy we decided to skip Bangkok as I have heard crazy stories about how busy and crowded Bangkok is. Today we started the first of 5 days at the Chiand Mai Thai Cookery School which was an absolute blast. I haven't eaten so much in a long time and it was all so so good, my favorite being the fish in red curry sauce. Mmmmmm, curry. We also met up with Jenneric and should be going to a Muy Thai boxing match with them and Joe and Karen.

So we went to the Muy Thai match and it is freaking brutal! We saw kids from like, 6 and up. The title bout was between two boxers who weighed 140 lbs of pure muscle. I was hoping that the guy in blue shorts would win and he made a great comeback but was ultimately knocked out, sori. Mike and I were betting on matches (just between the two of us) and ended up coming out even at the end of the night. We'll be in Chiang Mai for a while, I'll probably change hostels in a few days and take a trip or two up to the Hill Tribes and see the long neck women.

2006-12-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

It's been an awesome trip to Tanna so far. Me, Melissa and Joe went to go see Mike Hoffman in Middle Bush Tanna, check out the volcano and as a last something before leaving Vanuatu. We've been drinking kava at Mike's nakamal and walking around almost the entire island. The first day we met Mike at the airport, walked to Lenekal and happened to come across Matt, the 19A volunteer. We drank kava in Lenekal and slept on the beach near the bungalow where Brett has been staying since he doesn't have a real house yet. The second day we walked for a few hours until we came to Matt's house which can only be described as niiiiiiice. After a prolonged rest at the house in which we roasted, ground and percolated our own Tanna coffee we spent the rest of the day hiking to Mike's village in middle bush Tanna. Mike's site is interesting in that everyone walks about 30 minutes to either a waterfall or river just to bathe. After bathing in the river we went back to his site and he, myself and Joe went to drink kava at the nakamal and while Melissa made Tanna soup back at the house. On Tanna it's forbidden for a women to look at kava, which means she can not enter the nakamal at night since that's where the kava is made. Melissa was a good sport about it as she understands the importance of traditions here in Vanuatu, especially on Tanna.

Yesterday, we had the idea to get a nanni (goat) and then take it up to Yassur to eat with the wine we bought in Vila. So in the morning we walked down the road trying to find a goat to buy. We eventually found one and bought it from a man named Jimmy about 45 minutes away from Mike's house. We tried putting it on a rope but that didn't work so we took turns carrying it back on our shoulders. Joe was carrying it until we came across a group of kids and a momma. The kids said they would be able to lead it on the rope so we thought “Hey, maybe they know something we don't know. After all, they've lived here their entire lives and have probably pulled a lot more nanni's than we have.” So trying to be as culturally appropriate as possible, Joe took the goat off his shoulders and handed the rope to the pikinini. Well, the kids just kicked and beat the nanni with sticks and tried to pull it along but harder than we had been trying. Of course, this didn't work. “Got i no save rop” (The goat doesn't know how to follow a leash) they said. We went back to carrying it on our shoulders. Back at the house we made preparations to kill the goat. Since none of us had actually killed a goat before this took a little bit but we eventually settled on a game plan. Mike held the goat down, Joe knocked it out with a log of wood, I cut its throat with Mike's big-ass black Kabar army knife and Melissa captured the whole event on video. We then proceeded to field dress the nanni, cutting it into four legs, ribs, tenderloins and spine, saving the skin and brain for a brain-tanned rawhide demonstration I did in the nakamal for the men in Mike's village. It was pretty sweet, man Tanna loves blood. We then seasoned the goat with a wet rub, smoked it for a day and a night, roasted it and ate it as we hiked with a dipping sauce I made out of onions, garlic, wine, ketchup and Maggi seasoning. To say that the goat was good is a crime, to say it was exceptional is an understatement; I had never truly tasted goat until I bit into that roasted leg. We snacked on goat until Jungle Oasis where we ate two legs of it, even sharing some with the manager (who we saw for probably five minutes the two days we were at the bungalow). Anyway we told the cook there “Hey, we have a lot of roasted goat here, is it ok if we store it in your kitchen so it's safe?” And the cook replied “Yeah sure, it's cool.” We really wanted the goat to be safe because we put so much work into it and because we were planning to eat it for the next two days. Also, most of the dogs in Vanuatu are starving and love meat. In fact, earlier that day when we first arrived to Jungle Oasis and set all our stuff down, a dog ran over and was trying to eat his way through the plastic bags that the goat was in while we were showering. We put the two legs of goat and the two tenderloins in the kitchen, double bagged in heavy duty Ziploc freezer bags. Of course the next day the nanni was gone but there was an empty Ziploc bag. We asked the cook “What happened? Where's our God damn goat?” and the cook replied, “Oh I think a dog took it. You know, if you'd have told me you wanted to put goat in the kitchen I would have told you to keep it in your room where it would be safe.” I don't think I've ever been so close to murdering another human being in my life. All of us were speechless for about fifteen seconds. For the next hour or so we tried to play detective, searching the kitchen, the surrounding areas looking for clues and asking each other questions like “How could a dog have taken it if there's a clean Ziploc bag there” and “Do you think if we could eat the dog that ate our goat?” We're still not sure if it was a dog or man but we strongly believe that a staff member took it. But we were all very very pissed off, two smoked legs and two tenderloins gone. Just gone. After we realized that bitching and pointing fingers would get us no where, we decided to take jam and bread up to the volcano instead. I started the jam as I normally do and went to go take a shower, telling the cook not to do anything until I came back. Unfortunately when I came back the “cook” told me he had added the coconut milk, which totally spoiled the jam because the sugar didn't caramelize. I told him to wait for me but I guess he knows better than I do. We spent the better part of the day playing Euchre and waiting for the jam to cook down.
After we had our jam and bread ready we packed up and hiked to the base of Yassur volcano. Yassur isn't very tall so we planned to play around the ash plain until we needed to summit. We started to follow a dry river bed that looked like it might lead to the summit. After a while some folks wanted to turn back, stating that no one knew if the trail would even lead to the top. I was persistent, asking for just a little more time, give us a 4pm deadline. We kept walking, climbing over boulders, clearing a bush trail at times and trying to keep folks from turning back. Eventually, the river bed did lead up to the main trail, but only after leading us through sharp red volcanic landscape. Ironically, we were all barefoot since I had climbed to the top of Yassur barefoot the year before and had told everyone we didn't need shoes. At the top of Yassur we mailed some letters from the volcano post office box and went to the left observation ridge for some fireworks, wine and bread with jam. We had heard from several people that Yassur fires up when people drink wine at the summit. Sure enough, minutes after uncorking the wine Yassur really fired up. It was such a large explosion that the ground shook and we saw a visible shock wave go through the smoke and ash that was in the volcano. Being that close to something that powerful really makes one realize how small and meek they are, especially when hot lava starts falling down on you. After the initial reaction to the huge noise, we looked upwards and realized that at least two pieces of molten rock were coming . . . right for us. Very quickly we picked up all our gear and started running, nay, bolting down the side of the mountain lest we be crushed by melting rock.. I managed to look up and see a basketball size rock land maybe 10 feet away from where Joe was standing. Halfway down the volcano we sat down and tried to gather our thoughts and breath for a second. We all agreed that it was the closest we've come to death, closer than looking down the barrel of a gun, deer hunting or eating steak tartar. After we had settled down and stopped our racing hearts we decided to try going to the right observation ridge in hopes that there would be less chance of death over there. We took our backpacks up to the right and just chilled, admiring the power of the volcano when lo an behold, it fired up again but this time sending molten rock over our heads. Luckily we realized that it is better to see where the rock is going to land and then move accordingly instead of blindly running down a volcano bare foot. We spent a long time on the Yassur, only leaving after the sun had gone down and having an impromptu dance party on top. Upon reflection, it may have been a little culturally inappropriate to dance on top of an active volcano but we were so happy to be alive and I brought my speakers with me. Besides, volcanoes love James Brown.

The day after we almost died, we started back to Lenekal. After leaving Jungle Oasis we realized that all we had to eat was a few slices of bread and the water we had with us. After a few hours on an empty stomach we all agreed Tanna needed more stores, that is, until we found one and gorged ourselves on breakfast crackers, tin Santo Beef and peanut butter. As we ate the salty yet nourishing meal, I mentioned that the only thing that could make the meal any better is if we had that goat the bastards and Jungle Oasis stole from us. Everyone agreed. Luckily we were able to catch a free truck ride back to Lenekal, we had walked over 30 miles in so many days and were getting a little tired. We spent our last night on the beach we slept on the first night we were in Tanna but not before catching an absolutely breathtaking sunset.

The plan for the next few days is to pack up all my crap, cook tapas and party like I'm leaving the country. My next post will probably be from Singapore or Thailand.

2006-12-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

First off let me thank you for taking time out of your busy day to come visit my little web log. For all my friends and family I'd like to say “Hello” and “What's up.” For my Vanuatu and Peace Corps friends, “Olsem Wanem” and “Kusé!” For the next three months five or six months I'll be on the road, taking a long trip after three years of Peace Corps service in the island country of Vanuatu. For those of you who are unaware, Vanuatu used to be called New Hebrides and is located in the South Pacific near Fiji and Australia. It's one of the least developed countries in the world (by Western standards) and is one of the poorest countries in the world (also by Western standards).

But enough about its history, I leave Vanuatu on December 9th after myself and other volunteers finish our Closure of Service (COS) conference on December 8th. From there I leave with Mike, who came with my group and also extended a year, and travel to Australia for a few days, enjoying the food, infrastructure and wildlife. As a former Marine and Lawyer, Mike should be an interesting travel buddy. Then it's off to Singapore for some time as I try to get adjusted to Asian life. Of course Singapore isn't the more rural of Asian countries but it is a gateway to our next destination: Baghdad, I mean Bangkok. While in Bangkok we hope to meet up with Adam Kane, another RPCV who has been traveling the world for almost a year on the money he saved while in Peace Corps Vanuatu. Adam has to be one of the most misery, resourceful people I know. I don't think he plans on going back to the States anytime soon.

However, before I leave Vanuatu I plan on getting in some last minute travel in country. Tomorrow I fly to Tanna with two friends, Joe and Melissa to check out the volcano and visit the other volunteers down there. I've been to Tanna before but the volcano wasn't as active as I was hoping. I had the same problem when I visited the volcano on Ambrym. I seem to have bad luck with volcanoes. After a week in Tanna I may be installing a solar system on Mota Lava in the Banks (Northern Vanuatu). Looking ahead seems difficult when I still have so much left to do in country: paperwork, last kaekaes, medical checkouts, selling all my material possessions, etc.

I'm burning to CD all the music I think I can take traveling with me. This of course begs the question: what kind of music does one take around the world? I suppose one could also ask the question: what music would you take to a deserted island? The answer is: as much as you can take. I have artists ranging from System of a Down to Mozart, Rob Zombie to Bob Marley, Shakira to Tomoyasu Hotei. All the music I can't take will stay on my laptop, to be enjoyed by whoever eventually buys it. Selling off my stuff has been hit or miss. Some things like my travel chair and solar battery charger I've been able to sell very easily to my friends. Other things like my internal frame backpack have been more difficult to sell, I'll probably give a lot to my old host family in Epau Village. I find myself in a strange position in that I will have to fit all my worldly possessions in my backpack as I travel. No suitcases, no rolling monstrosities, just what I can fit in the overhead compartment (which seems to get bigger every time I fly an airplane).