Dude, Where's my Life?

PPP and My Love Affair with Australia

2008-08-24T08:37:00.000+08:00

Ok, so this summer has been a lesson in the different between nominal and real exchange rates. In 2002 when I left my real of australian living, the AUD was approximately US$0.5. Despite higher nominal prices when I converted to usd I was saving tons of money. Now, despite its recent tumble, the AUD is still $0.85. Not only does that mean things are expensive by 2002 standards, it means they are expensive by US standards!! The little noodle shop charges (like a takeout panda express joint) $12!!! This is nuts! The AUD is waaaay over ppp. What's that mean for me? I will not be returning to sydney after this trip until the aud drops a LOT. Fyi the same noodles in indonesia cost about us$0.75.

Meanwhile, modern australian fusion cuisine is a delight! Where else do people insist on drinking wine with every cuisine, including indian and pizza! I'm at a modern oz chinese joint where the word shoyu is sprinkled liberally across the menu. No idea if shoyu has a chinese meaning but in japanese it means "soy sauce". I guess shoyu sounds fancier than soy sauce and that japanese trumps chinese on the "pretensiometer". Sorry Shanghai Tan! On that note, I hate it when I am breaking my ohashi the they don't break evenly and one is shorer than the other.

Today's australian accomplishment: meat pie, flat white

Tomorrows goal for my australian relaxation holiday: vegemite toast, turkish pizza, Cascade

PPP and My Love Affair with Australia

2008-08-22T08:39:00.000+08:00

Last night in Asia

2008-08-13T01:15:00.000+08:00

When I got to the airport today they offered me HK$1500 (about US$200), a free upgrade, lounge access, hotel stay, and free breakfast+lunch. How could I say no?? It turns out the hotel is actually pretty swanky, so no complaints, although the cost of internet access is HK$5 per minute (about $0.75) and I am waaaay too cheap for that!

Meanwhile I ended up blowing through crazy money here in HK on things like tailored shirts and booze. The good news: I am set for work wardrobe for a while with my SEVEN new tailored shirts. The bad news: I still need to buy shoes for work or get my old shoes “cobbled”. Apparently I have loved the bally shoes that I bought in 2001-2002 whilst in Australia (my year of living large on the strong USD) a bit too much, as I have worn THROUGH the leather sole, resulting in a hole in the bottom of the shoes! I have never gotten shoes re-soled before. Ugggh.

The other good news: I got a haircut, so I don’t look like a hippy anymore.

Alright this was kind of a silly blog entry.

One Lake, Two Cakes

2008-08-08T16:28:00.000+08:00

So the rest of Medan was pretty fun. I guess I had a bad impression of the city because the taxi and becak drivers were soooo aggressive and because the largest night market that was flagged by various websites and tour books as being AWESOME was SHUT DOWN. That’s right. They somehow shut down a massive street-wide festival of 500 food vendors that was in all of the guidebooks. I was pretty disappointed, although my amazing hotel room and FREE internet made up for it. Then I was off to Danau Toba (Lake Toba)

So Lake Toba was amazing. For some reason I decided to rent a bike, which was a good move. In case you don’t know my history with bikes, here is a recap:

Junior High – I rode a bicycle to school every day until my bike was stolen.

2005 (like 15 years later) – My Beijing host family let me use their 1-speed bike to get to school in Beijing every day. I thought I would die every morning amidst Beijing bicycle traffic.

2008 – I rented this bike in Danau Toba.

Long story short the bike was lots of fun and Lake Toba is amazing. Definitely the highlight of my trip to Sumatra. Well, ONE of the highlights. Another was meeting British people that I found be to ridiculous. Years ago I went to New Zealand with Colleen and me paired up with these two british girls that we referred to ask “Patsy and Edina” because they were overdressed for everything and always had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. This time in Danau Toba I met three British girls that for some reason had been victimized in every city they went to. They literally had men peeping into their hotel room windows like FIVE times! It happened again in Lake Toba! They were good fun, especially when one of them asked me if we binge drink in America, o which I replied “no”. She also asked if we had weed, and when I pretended to not know what weed was she believed me and was like “hmmm, maybe you call it something different…?”

Good times.

Another fun thing was later that night when I got into one of those conversations that only I seem to get into (along with Whitt and Fidler and Zelenkovich and JWalker and Wendy) about which are the nastiest expressions ever used. I was fairly drunk at this point but one of the british dudes used the expression “klunge” and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was referring to but it was no doubt deliciously vulgar. Also the expression “those fertile daughters of Odin” (referring to some girls with big hips) made me smile. Yes, I can recognize poetry when I hear it.

Then I was off to Medan again, where I promptly set out for “Mie Aceh” which is possibly the best noodle dish I have ever tasted. Here is my rundown of my favorite noodle dishes:

· Mie Aceh (spicy orange spaghetti noodles with crab on top)

· Those razor-cut noodles in northern china with vinegar and the two kinds of sauce

· Char kwai teow (fatty, greasy, and amazing)

· Laksa ayam (thanks to Limmy for introducing me to it)

· Pad Thai – Seriously, it never gets old. Even bad pad thai is still good.

· Fettucini alfredo – Its noodles in a buttery, cheesy, cream sauce. Thanks Olive Garden!

· Cold somen noddles with dippin’ sauce at my parents house of a hot summer day

· Mah jiang mian – Sesame goodness with build-it-yourself veggies. Aww, I miss my Beijing family!

· Nasi goring megelangan – Like a cross between fried nice and fried noodles!

· Garlicky Korean Noodles…is that Jap Chae or am I confusing things?

Meanwhile, I bought some Lapis Legit (thousand layer cake) and bika ambon (spongy moist delicious cake) from Medan to hopefully enjoy with some B-school friends in Melaka. I bought two ½ sized cakes, but people on the flight with me left with BOXES AND BOXES of cakes! It was a spectacle, although less impressive than the boxes and boxes of dunkin donuts that I usually see on flights within Indonesia.

Anyway, I got to Melaka today and my first reactions to Malaysia: wow, this place is so clean.

Orangutan Adventure

2008-08-02T01:11:00.000+08:00

OK, it wasn’t much of an adventure. I got picked up from my hotel and came to Bukit Lawang. From here I went with a guide into the orangutan preserve and national park where I proceeded to see ZERO orangutans. Three hours of sweat-drenched (did I mention that its hot as fook here and like 100% humidity) bug-infested trekking and 20 minutes of inner-tubing down the river later, I was back in my little boarding house bathing myself out of a plastic tub of cold water.

BUT, on the way back from buying some bottled water I saw, just across the rivr, a LONE orangutan lumbering along. Sadly nobody here seemed to CARE that there was an orangutan. I know this because I kept pointing and telling anyone who I saw “ada orang utan! Di sana!” (there’s an orangutan! Over there!), to which they smiled and continued about their business, which for the most part appeared to be gathering dead fish from the shore of the river, tying inner tubes together, or playing soccer.

It was a small victory for me that I choose to cherish. Tomorrow I will have the real adventure: a 3-4 hour bus ride back to Medan! I’m scared mommy….

Old friends, Old Enemies

2008-07-29T00:25:00.000+08:00

Today was both fantastic and miserable.

The good news: I got t meet up with my old friend Carmen whom I haven’t seen in almost 10 years!! We went to college together, then she moved to Hong Kong followed by Jakarta. Now she is living in Jakarta full-time, and is a mother of two!! Its always so great to see old friends, and it was lots of fun to catch up. Also we had the most amazing Japanese dinner ever! Teppanyaki with foie gras, abalone, steak, and lots of garlic! AMAAAAAAHZING!

The bad news: Last night after a big first for me in Indonesia…my first case of food poisoning! As you may know if you have ever spoken with me about anything, I there are two forms of food poisoning. 1) barf and 2) poop. If you’re especially unlucky you will get hit by both! In this case, I had an attack on #2 (literally), which kept me up all night. I tried the pepto tablets, which did little to help. Then I upgraded to immodium, which also didn’t help. So then I pulled out the big guns and popped a cipro. I know, it was an aggressive move, but I can’t afford to be suffering from the sh*ts, so I drastic times called for drastic measures.

Yes, it was just a matter of time before I wrote in my blog about my bowel movements on this particular trip.

Skating, dancing, and training (as in taking a train)

2008-07-26T23:35:00.000+08:00

Just when I thought my life of surreal ridiculous behavior was behind me I got dragged right back in! I can’t decide if I want to do this chronologically or by them, but lets try the former and see how it goes:

Thursday – My newfound friend Simi (she’s Canadian, but the good kind) and I went to Borobudur I had to write an essay in Indonesian about it). FYI, Borobudur is this massive Buddhist temple from the 8^th century covered in reliefs depicting the road to nirvana. Anywho, the highlight of the trip was when some rando Indonesian woman asked our teacher was was effectively “Excuse me. Can I take a picture with your two bule?” (bule = foreigner). The answer was “yes” and we were props in this woman’s photo. As if being posed in pictures like pets wasn’t bad enough, five minutes later we saw the same woman with a DIFFERENT bule! I felt so cheap! for a school field trip (I’m not kidding.

Thursday (Later) – After we got back from the temple, we went ICE SKATING (anyone who has been to Indonesia or anywhere in Southeast Asia realizes how ridiculous this is), followed by dinner at a restaurant which even in Yogyakarta is known for being really spicy. Here are the fun takeaways:

a) Ice skating. Seriously.

b) It was Simi, myself, and four of our Indonesian teachers who are also college students. Simi and I are both around 5’9”, and I’m betting the average height of the teachers is 5’4. The AVERAGE. Imagine two tiny teachers on motorcycles with two seemingly MASSIVE foreigners riding on the backs.

c) After about 6pm the teachers started to get extremely silly

d) In Bahasa Indonesian, there is a specific word for the situation in which you tell a joke and nobody laughs.

e) No alcohol was involved.

If you don’t believe me about the ice skating, I will be posting pictures shortly on flickr.com/photos/dohgi under Yogyakarta

Friday – I had to pay for my language school AND my three nights at the Hyatt in CASH. In order to do this, I had to go to the money exchange and do some serious currency trading. Long story short, I left the place with around 10,000,000 (yes, 10 million) rupiah in my pockets. Sure it sounds like a lot, but in USD its not nearly as impressive. HOWEVER, its still a lot of bills. I have never carried so many wads of bills around! It was very empowering.

Friday Night – Big party at the language school, which included musical renditions of Sheryl Crow and Wham. No, I didn’t sing…this time…I did get my shake on though.

Today – 8 hour train ride from Yogyakarta to Bandung. I got a little sniff-sniff about leaving Yogya and all my new friends there. Bandung seems like a pretty cool town though. I can’t believe how many kids there are here wandering around the bazillian outlet malls! They’re the kind of kids my mom would see walking down the street in Orange County and say “bad kids!” A plus – since most of these bad kids are here for the weekend away from Jakarta, there is definitely more beer available than back in Yogya. Also they have dutch bakeries. Once again baked goods save the day. FYI, free internet in my hotel here, so I might not pry myself out of my room tomorrow…just kidding. I have more fried food to try!

Skating, dancing, and training (as in taking a train)

2008-07-26T00:24:00.000+08:00

Thursday – My newfound friend Simi (she’s Canadian, but the good kind) and I went to Borobudur for a school field trip (I’m not kidding. I had to write an essay in Indonesian about it). FYI, Borobudur is this massive Buddhist temple from the 8^th century covered in reliefs depicting the road to nirvana. Anywho, the highlight of the trip was when some rando Indonesian woman asked our teacher was was effectively “Excuse me. Can I take a picture with your two bule?” (bule = foreigner). The answer was “yes” and we were props in this woman’s photo. As if being posed in pictures like pets wasn’t bad enough, five minutes later we saw the same woman with a DIFFERENT bule! I felt so cheap!

a) Ice skating. Seriously.

c) After about 6pm the teachers started to get extremely silly

d) In Bahasa Indonesian, there is a specific word for the situation in which you tell a joke and nobody laughs.

e) No alcohol was involved.

If you don’t believe me about the ice skating, I will be posting pictures shortly on flickr.com/photos/dohgi under Yogyakarta

Friday Night – Big party at the language school, which included musical renditions of Sheryl Crow and Wham. No, I didn’t sing…this time…I did get my shake on though.

A little excitement!

2008-07-22T21:03:00.000+08:00

Today I met the Belgian Ambassador to Indonesia! He’s taking Indonesian Classes at my school. I know, I’m such a star fucker for name dropping like this. Like I keep saying, my life is full of glamour and intrigue. I am constantly hobnobbing with diplomats, the rich and famous. Meanwhile, I went to the giant Batik store today to purchase brightly colored fabric that I will probably use as a tablecloth or bedspread in my fantastic luxurious one bedroom/studio apartment of the future. Yes, not to rub it in, but my life is filled with culture and art in addition to glamour! One more fun story for today: I was walking down the main tourist drag after my batik shopping experience when I ran into 100 vendors selling lumpia (spring rolls) and other fried goodies. I was honesty sticker shocked when I saw the the lumpia were 1700 rupiah (approximately $0.20) EACH!

My inner monologue was as follows:

What?! Its 1700 Rp for EACH lumpia? That seems a little steep for one lumpia! I am just getting ripped off because this is the tourist area and I’m white-ish!

Ohhh, but the lumpia smell soooo good…and they ARE kinda big…but I hate getting ripped off…but…sooo good….ok…just this once….

I got two. They were amazing.

One other note: I’m amazed how different the crowd here is relative to the crowd from my language program in China. First of all, nobody here worked in for-profit enterprise. Literally everyone in my language school works in either:

a) Education (i.e. at the language school or is some other kind of student)

b) Non profit, which they keep calling “NGO”, which I guess means Non-Governmental Organization, although I would think that acronym includes for profit corporations but it doesn’t. Let me tell you, some of these people have some pretty sweet perks for working at a non-profit

c) Diplomats

I think I’m the only person in my school that will at some point in the next year work for a for-profit organization. Everyone is like “I work at the embassy” or “I’m working in an AIDS prevention program” and I’m like “I’m on vacation! I do language schools for fun. It’s a nice way to reduce my housing cost while traveling and meet people more interesting than myself. In two months my job will be to help rich people get richer. So you’re helping midget orphans in Papua New Guinea find work making baskets? That must be very fulfilling. And your NGO is putting you up at the Four Seasons while you’re here learning Indonesian? How nice for you!”

I’m kidding though. I have met some really interesting and nice people here. I’m having a blast and learning lots of fun stuff. Also I am eating four meals of fried food per day, including something which is like a combination of fried rice and fried noodles…its like fried rice with noodles in it. Like spicy heaven.

First week of Bahasa Indonesia Class DONE

2008-07-19T20:59:00.000+08:00

Despite claiming to be finished, I am once again BACK IN SCHOOL! This time I’m attempting to learn bahasa Indonesian, which has been heaps of fun. My days this week have consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, 6 hours of intensive language classes, scrounging the streets near my homestay/school for fried street food (the best stuff is always fried), doing some homework, and going to bed Oh, I also fill in the time gaps by making hotel reservations online for the various random places I will be seeing before I head back to the states.

So today I left my homestay and moved into a hotel. I was sad to go, as my host parents (who I think are younger than me) are incredibly sweet. Maman is a videographer, and Laras is an English teacher. Interestingly Laras has decided to wear the jilbab (head scarf), so I have never seen her hair. When I first saw them (Maman with a short beard and Laras with her jilbab) I thought they were going to be quite a stern muslim couple, but it turned out that they are HILARIOUS! Anyway, it was a sniff-sniff moment to leave the homestay, but as soon as I took a nice hot shower in my western-style hotel bathroom I felt better about the decision. Right now is peak season in Yogya, so the homestay was full!

In addition, I spent much of today on the back of a motorcycle touring around various temple ruins of 8^th century hindu and muslim temples (think Angkor-Wat). On the back of the motorcycle all I could think of what the Indiana jones them song!! I am so lame. We (myself and the two other students that I have totally attached myselves to here) were considering staying at the temples to watch a Ramayana ballet performance by moonlight tonight (full moon), but after schlepping around in the hot sun all day we put a stop to those plans with a resounding “oh hell no!”

Now I have been fed, saw some live music (nothing to write home about, and yet here I am writing about it!), and I’m getting ready for bed. Life is hard.

My photos are up on flickr.com/photos/dohgi

2008-07-18T17:43:00.000+08:00

flickr.com/photos/dohgi

LIfe is Hard in Flores

2008-07-07T17:42:00.000+08:00

Here is my schedule:

Last night, 8pm – Finish dinner and head to bed. Fall asleep at 10p

7am – Wake up

7:30am – Breakfast (fried rice) and get on boat for island filled with giant lizards

10am – 3 hour hike through giant lizard territory. It was pretty awesome.

1pm – lunch on secluded beach followed by amazing snorkeling. I saw sea snake!!

4pm – Return home to hotel (there are only 3 guests in this bizarre resort with limited electricity and no hot water)

5:30pm – Watch sunset over perfectly still ocean

7pm – Dinner

Now – type in bed until falling asleep again. Life is hard.

Its back baby, this time in Indonesia

2008-07-06T17:40:00.000+08:00

Its back baby. My blog is back in business as I am once again on the road exploring the world. This time its Indonesia, and I’m pretty psyched. I just left LMP and some new global friends back in Bali as they returned to the USA. Meanwhile, I’m in Flores prepping for my trip to either Komodo or Rinca tomorrow to check out some seriously giant lizards.

Here’s what has gone down since my last journal entry:

- I attended and completed graduate school. Which includes

a) an amazing/ridiculous trip to Puerto Vallarta for spring break

b) an amazing/ridiculous trip to Nepal to hike to the Mt. Everest

c) Winter break trip to Hong Kong and London

d) surfing in Costa Rica (which I think I blogged about)

e) Wine tasting in Chile/Argentina (AMAAAZING)

- I landed a job in Los Angeles, so I will be living there for the foreseeable future starting in November. Yehaw!

- I will be in NYC for September and October.

So here is the timeline:

July – Indonesia

August – Indonesia, Malaysia, HK, LA, Seattle, LA, Sydney, LA

September – NYC

October – NYC

Nov 15 – Move to Los Angeles and start work (sigh)

As for Indonesia, it has been an experience in how to not manage a trip. I went with a tour operator used by my friends for their diving trip, and honestly it has been a bit of a zoo. I don’t know if the agent and operator have any idea what they are doing, but it has been a huge pain dealing with them. I’m glad I go independent as soon as I leave bali. I’m sorry, but having my airport transfers taken care of is not worth all the pain in the arse this has been causing me. I should just get a cab from the airport! BLAH!

OK, enough bitchery. I’m loving life and loving

Indonesia

. I thought I would try to lose weight, but all the delightful Indonesian eats will probably prevent that. On the bright side, I can have fried rice for breakfast every day. YEHAW!

Costa Rica - Days 1-3: Lost Luggage, Lost Motivation, and Going Commando

2007-01-09T11:40:00.000+08:00

Notes from my recent trip to Costa Rica over New Years:

I have been on some ridiculous trips, in which I have really had to “rough it”. These have included:

1) Pooing in a tupperware toilet at 14,000 feet

2) Riding on the back of a horse with gas to a lamaist temple

3) Walking out on the tab in a kazakh yurt after being overcharged

4) Getting sex-iled by my Auckland hostel roommate (I was 25, a little old to be getting sexiled!)

5) Insane papaya salad runs in Bangkok

But nothing has compared to the terror I felt when I thought that I last lost my laptop computer!! OK, here’s the rundown:

Dec 27, Midnight – Leave LAX for San Jose, Costa Rica

Dec 28, 7am – Arrive at San Jose

8am – Clear customs and make mistake of leaving the international terminal only to discover that the “domestic terminal” doesn’t EXIST! I also realized that all of the restaurants are behind the security gate, meaning I couldn’t get a cup of joe!

9am – Walk to “Sansa Airport” (local plane to take me to Nosara) which consists of a small room and a seating area outside in front of the building. I proceed to check in, only to be told that my flight will not check in until 11am. I then schlep back to the international terminal to look for ANYTHING to eat (iced tea and Papa John’s Pizza)

11am – Check-in. Because the plane is so tiny, I need to check both my rolling suitcase and my carry-on (note: carry on includes my laptop as well as all of the details of my destination hotel in Nosara, Costa Rica). I am told to wait out front and that the flight, originally scheduled for 11:45, will board 15-20 minutes late.

12:10am – I check with the counter to find out when my flight will board. They tell me that the flight has ALREADY LEFT! Funny, because with only 10 passengers per flight you’d think they would notice if one of the boarding pass holders hadn’t boarded. Apparently they realize that they f*cked up, so they agree to drop me off in Nosara as part of the next flight to Tamarindo, scheduled for 1:15pm. FYI, my checked luggage is on the plane and will land in Nosara.

2:55pm – Flight to Tamarindo finally leaves after 1) low fuel and refueling 2) enging failure. We boarded and deplaned 3 times!

4pm – Arrive in Tamarindo and board my Sansa provided cab.

6:40pm – After 2 hour ride to Nosara, the cab driver can’t find my hotel and leaves me at a restaurant in the middle of Nosara, which is frighteningly similar to Lovina in Bali. For those of you who have been to Lovina, you understand that its basically a TINY VILLAGE. I get the phone number for my hotel (remember all of my paperwork is in the checked luggage which theoretically arrived in Nosara before me so I have no phone numbers) and call them and they pick me up.

7:00pm – Chow down on food and a couple beers and reunite with my former coworker, who is the best in the world for putting up with my retarded drama. After dinner find our way to the room we have in this huge mansion house (the hotel was full, but they put us up in the room in this house).

10:00pm – Crash

Dec 29, 6am – Wake up and head to hotel.

7am – Meet up with driver who has agreed to help me find my lost luggage. Bear in mind that I was sweating bullets all night because I thought I had lost my LAPTOP, which as a grad student would be like DYING. He ends up taking me to the airport (read: air strip, complete with cows), the Sansa office (open at 9:15) and the other airline office. He then buys a loaf of bread at the local baker and decides to take me to his house where we will wake for the Sansa office open. There his brother makes a phone call and learns that my luggage is being held in a convenience store across the street from the airport (read: cow pasture) and I pick it up. WHAT A RELIEF!

9am – Back at the hotel to enjoy breakfast and more coffee

10am – First surfing lesson and life goes on….

So besides the terrible play-by-play on all of the drama, there are a couple of good takeaways from my trip. First, surfing is SO FUN! I LOVE IT! I am having a blast, despite having to wear a rash guard, which is a ridiculous piece of clothing. Second, meeting people in other countries rocks. Third, I am finally starting to de-stress. Fourth, I have had several chances to use my terrible Spanish, which is always a treat.

Today was amazing, with two surfing lessons and I was able to get up on my own and stuff. Hopefully soon I will be good enough to go to the “outside” of the break. Also I need to send some postcards and relax a bit more. Also, drinking as usual began today…celebration mojitos for reclaiming my lost computer. What a sad life I lead…(just kidding. My life is pretty awesome, as evidenced by my hitting four countries in the past month. Five if you include my stopover in Canada)

Lost Motivation

I have lost all will to read my book, do my "homework/interview prep" or even write this blog!

Going Commando

One of the wonders of wearing board shorts/bathing suit all day is that I haven't been wearing underwear. I don't have any good analysis yet, but just something to note!

I am a jetlagged mofo!

2006-12-18T04:49:00.000+08:00

Update: I woke up at noon today, after landing at Ohare around 10pm last night. I couldn't fall asleep last night, and even with 10 hours of sleep I am totally BEAT!

Sometimes it is better to be working, because it forces you to confront the jetlag. Instead I'm sitting in my living room drinking plunger coffee and watching the first Lord of the Rings movie...we'll see if I end up watching all of them.

GAWD I'M PATHETIC!

OK, enough self pity for a sec. I'm sure you're thinking to yourself: "Enough about you! How was the freaking Hong Kong trip!?"

Well I'll tell ya! I got to see a bunch of old friends, and I got to meet with some potential employers. The BEST (and by best I mean worst and best at the same time) thing about this year is the fact that I have NO IDEA where I will be after I finish grad school. 75% of the reason for me to go was to figure out a way to land myself back on the west coast. Now I think I have about a 20% chance for West Coast, 40% for HK and 40% for London. I can't say I'm disappointed with either of them, but the uncertainty is a bit frustrating.

I was thinking about it this week as I met more and more of my expat friends, and I realized that a lot of my friends have done exactly what I have. They all worked in finance, then realized they were very tired, took about a year off, then ended up in another expat post after they realized that life back home is never the same. I guess there is some chance of that happening to me too.

In the meantime, I head to CA tomorrow. I still need to buy xmas gifts...bleh.

Crazier and crazier, my mini-life update

2006-12-04T11:38:00.000+08:00

So I was supposed to settle down now that I'm in school, but it seems that my travel schedule is just as aggressive as always! I think the only thing that has changed is the airlines I'm using to travel. When I was a "road warrior" this past year, it was all OneWorld, but now that I'm totally price-sensitive, I'm all over the place with Airlines. Although I have a few personal rules:

1) No AWA/ATA - These airlines suck

OK, so I only have one rule. The rest has been all over the place. For example, my travel schedule for the late autumn:
-Two weekends ago: NYC (via Continental)
-Last weekend: London (via Air Canada. NEVER do that! You have to clear customs twice)
-This weekend: Binge eating and studying for finals. (loneliness and deep dish pizza are a losing combination)
-Next weekend: Fly to Hong Kong (through Newark via Continental)
-Following weekend: Fly back to Chicago and then to SoCal (via Southwest)
-Right after x-mas: Fly to Costa Rica on miles (via AA)
-Right before class: Fly to Miami and then Chicago (via AA)

Life is nuts. Thats 4 continents in 6 weeks people! And I'm a grubby student! WHAT IS GOING ON?!

Sadly a lot of this is job-search related, but I gotta admit that I am having a BLAST seeing friends and also meeting awesome new people. I admit I'm a travel whore...but what can you do?!

OK, time to go back to my martinis and econ final exam....

Chicago Life - I continue to Regress

2006-10-09T01:38:00.000+08:00

So, everyone says that when you go to graduate school (especially a professional graduate school like medicine or law or business or whatever) you regress back to college. I would definitely agree, but I think what they fail to mention is that you don’t necessarily regress back to your OWN college experience.

My life here in Chicago is a definite case-in-point. Allow me to paint you a little picture of my life in college. I went to UPENN, which is one of the eight “Ivy League Schools”, and typically the 4^th choice school for most of the students (after Harvard, Yale and Princeton..not necessarily in that order). My college experience was definitely not normal for either a Penn student, or college students in general. For example,

-I didn’t start drinking until the 2^nd semester of my sophomore year

-I never got high

-I never went to any football games

-I didn’t start binge drinking until I was literally 21 years old

-I didn’t wear anything from J. Crew, the GAP, or Abercrombie & Fitch

-I only pulled 2 all-nighters for class in my entire college career, both during my senior year

-I never threw up (silly me, I probably should have on many occasions…live and learn!)

-I never played any drinking games

This is a SHARP contrast to my life here in Chicago, which has regressed to SOMEBODY ELSE’S COLLEGE EXPERIENCE! Highlights of my newfound life include:

1) Getting flat-out wasted at least once a week

and I don’t mean heavy-buzzed, had one or two martinis drunk. I mean stumbling, hideous hangover, possibly throwing up, telling random people I love them, Russian-Samovar-style, big-night-out-in-LanKwaiFung-style, drunkety-drunk drunk. I have been hungover twice a week at least since school started.

2) Pre-Gaming– For those of you who don’t know this expression, it basically means drinking at someone’s house BEFORE you go out in order to be drunk-on-arrival at whatever destination you are hitting. For some reason we never did this in NYC (with one exception, which was making martinis with Colleen in my apartment before heading to her friend Matt’s birthday party. It was a night that will live in infamy forever). Here in Chicago it has become pretty standard, often involving jello shots, another thing that I heard a lot about in college but never really did!

3) Drinking Games – Again, I heard a lot about these in college, but for some reason I never really participated. Last night I played “Circle of Death”, and in a week or two Pong/Beirut will be played. A couple weeks ago it was flip-cup. What is up?!

OK, so its not an exhaustive list, but you can definitely see the trend forming, right? Fortunately I’m too cheap now to buy any new clothing, otherwise it would probably say “Old Navy” or “American Eagle Outfitters” on it, which is a sad testament to my new surroundings.

Question 1 – Am I having a good time? Yes, yes I am. However, I am scared of the where this path is taking me. Pray for Dan!!!

Peru Writeup - You know you want it!

2006-09-11T06:30:00.000+08:00

Before I start up my writeup of the Peru Adventure, I'm going to give a little reminder about who I am and why the idea of going to Peru for a hike of the Inca Trail is absolutely ridiculous. For those of you who know me well, you'll understand why the idea of my sleeping in tents and not bathing for 5 days is absolutely ridiculous.

I may be a lot of things. I could be described as adventurous, self reliant, or even impulsive (on occasion). However, I don't think ANYONE would ever describe me as "rugged". In fact, here is basically how I would imagine my friends (and enemies) would describe me:

Top 5 Way I think Other People Would Describe me:

5. Loud

4. Obsessed with food and drink

3. "potty mouth"

2. High Maintenance

1. Fiercely Independent (think hermit)

OK, lets take a closer look at these items. 5 and 4 are self explanatory. 3 is something I have developed over time. A case in point: my favorite word in the whole world starts with C and ends with UNT. I love using it, but usually have to do so only outside the US. I end up using my second favorite word a whole lot more. Hint: it starts with F and ends with UCK.

More importantly, #2 is "High Maintenance". What does this mean? No, it doesn't mean I need people to call me every night and tell me how great I am. Sadly what it means is that I end up being the dude that my other dude friends (including the gay ones) go to for advice on their skincare regimen. I can be painfully urbane, and yes at one point I had my own "point person" in the men's skincare counter at Saks who would hook me up with deals and discounts on "my favorite products". True I survived the dubious bathroom situations I faced in a year of travel through rural China and Bali etc., but I always had RUNNING WATER. Camping is completely out of the question.

Why did I decide on the Peru Trip? OK, Machu Pichu is definitely one of the "Yuppy Destinations" that all the backpacker/yuppy traveler-types need to hit while they are still in the throws of singledom. For those of you expats/yuppies out there, you know exactly what I'm talking out.

Top 5 "Crunchy Yuppy" Hotspots (in no particular order)

Machu Pichu

Ankor Wat

Mount Kilamanjaro

Full Moon Party at Koh Samui

Great Barrier Reef

But I digress...the point is I wanted to see it, and I knew that I would never hike the Inca Trail on my own without the prodding of a group of strangers.

OK, so enough of the preamble...here is the rundown on the trip itself. I'll try to leave out all the retarded details and only give you the good stuff. So here goes:

Pre-Trip

Unlike all the other business school trips, as soon as I had paid for this one I was sent a crazy checklist of "gear" that I was required to bring with me. This included such items as a sleeping bag, "sock liners" (??), thermals, and a "gortex shell". Several hundred dollars and a hidous 3 hour busride to the burbs of Chicago later and I was good to go! The night before we left there was a little pre-trip soiree at a moderately cheesy bar in the clubby part of chicago, where I met a handful of my future tripgoers. More interestingly I met up with my friend Billy that night who was visiting for a friend's party. Also I re-met his friend Lindsay (who is a dude) and his girlfriend, who agreed to hook me up with some of their hot successul friends. His girlfriend's roomate was there, and she seemed to belong to the "pretty and successful" crowd, so hopefully she is just the tip fo the iceberg!

Trip

Day 1: So our flight was cancelled they moved us to another flight on another airline! The bad news: with only a 1 hour layover in Houston I was certain our "gear" would be lost. The good news: They showed "Mean Girls" on the flight, which made me super happy. Also my fellow travelers and I bonded over jokes about "Snakes on a Plane" (which we ended up seeing almost immediately after returning to Chicasgo). Long story short, we landed in Lima, our stuff was not lost, and I was completely tired. My trip members weren't total losers (i was probably the most loser-ish of the bunch, which is just the way I like it!)

Day 2: Early morning flight to Cusco. As we got off the plane, like literally 100 feet from the airplane ON the offramp, some old guy had collapsed, presumably from altitude sickness. NOT a good sign. My heart was beating really fast, even by my grossly unhealthy standards. We spent the day wandering the town and I had some AWESOME sweet corn tamales that I bought on the street. I LOVE STREET FOOD. Then tried alpaca chili that night, which was good despite my quasi-nausea. YUM. Didn't sleep much that night as my heartbeat never really calmed down!

Day 3 - Bus to the beginning of the trail, which was decently easy. We ended up sleeping in a peruvian blah blah blah. Takeaways: a) no booze for 3 days now b) little indian porters did all the heavy lifting for us, c) altitude sickness slowly abating

Day 4- LIterally walked uphill all day. I have never breathed so heavily, and I could LITERALLY HEAR my heart pounding. Day 4 with no booze. That night we slept on this freezing plateau where we saw wild alpacas and froze. I gave in and gave birth to a big brown baby in the plastic port-o-potty. GROSS! I felt SO MUCH better afterwards!!! Slept at around 13,000 feet.

Day 5 - 10 hours of up/down/up/down/up/down/up/down. So sore at the end, but pleased with the knowledge that the next day would be spent in a hotel! YEHAW!

Day 6 - Downhill ALL DAY! WHOOHOO!!! The views were awesome, and so was the Aji de Gallina that the chef made us for lunch. YUM! Descended into Machu Pichu after encountering a herd of grossly obese spanish women. Our group realized that our days in isolation made us into a sort of "collective hermit" that hated all outsiders. After a rousing exchange of songs (the indians sang some local song and we sang the Righteous Brothers...it was weird) we left our porters and descended into Aguas Calientes, the bizarre little tourist town. We literally took over a bar, including bartending, DJ and table dancing duties. I took a 30 minute triple-hairwas shower and an awesome power-dump in my western-style toilet!! I had never been so happy!

Day 7 - Morning in Machu Pichu, freaky train ride back to Cusco, overpriced dinner in Cusco, and an evening filled with drinking Peruvian tallboys, flirting with hookers (presumably female) and enjoing the free drinks purchased for us by our the local drug dealer.

Day 8 - Flight to Lima where we enjoyed delightful ceviche, decent helado (not Argentine quality, but who is to complain) and delightful dinner amidst ancient ruins. Overnight flight to Houstn.

Day 9 - Transfer from Houston to Chicago. Watch "Snakes on a Plane" while drinking vodka lemonades. A ridiculous end to a ridiculous trip.

Takeaways

1) True I'm high maintenance, but I can be rugged too (assuming a band of 26 porters are there to cater to my every whim)

2) I'm not the most twisted person in the my program, although apparently I swear the most

3) GSB people aren't as dorky as I had previously assumed (i was definitely the biggest dork on this trip, which made me happy)

4) My spanish really does suck

5) There is nothing as satisfying as a good boweling, except perhaps wontons filled with cheese

Simple Pleasures

2006-08-31T12:23:00.000+08:00

How I have missed you, my sweet sweet bed. There are fewer simple pleasures in life than sleeping in your own bed. It has taken roughly 13 months (since October of last year) for me to get back to my own bed, with its supple mohogany headboard and firm yet comfortable mattress. I decided to retire my ivory duvet cover in favor of a combination of the green duvet cover from my Australia years and the green/red/blue/gold textile that I foolishly bought in Bali. It all seems to work, and more importantly I have been sleeping great.

So my apartment is basically setup, and after a zillion loads of laundry the piles of clothing are almost sorted away. Also I bought a new teapot, which makes me very happy.

If the preceding two paragraphs don't give it away, I am currently obsessed with simple pleasure in this, my last week of freedom before grad school starts. It has been an amazing year of freedom, but I guess its time to accept that my last adventure has finally ended. On that note, here are my top 5 Simple Pleasures:

Top 5 Simple Pleasures of Living Alone in a 1 Bedroom Apartment
5) Sleeping in and then not changing out of sleepwear (preferably during a blizzard) followed by watching TV
4) Cooking something yummy and grossly unhealthy that involves a freshly opened bottle of nice wine
3Nice music, nice book, nice sofa + bench ottoman
2) Having people over for wine and cheese and maybe some sort of dip (7 layer, artichoke, spinach, etc)
1) Glass of port before bedtime

Chicago-time!

2006-08-15T04:19:00.000+08:00

I'm logging some serious hotel time here in Chicago since I have discovered my newest fun toy. I call it www.priceline.com. Hands down the best way to get a hotel room in NYC, but also apparently not too shabby for Chicago! So I have gotten into my new and awesomelicious apartment, but sadly I have non of my furniture! Tomorrow is my first night in the apartment and I will be spending it on a borrowed flotation device. Sadly I also have to buy the following items in advance of my ridiculous trip to Peru that will take place on saturday:

- Fleece (200 weight, whatever that means)

- Gortex Shell, which there seem to be thousands of so my trick will be to find the cheapest possible

- Hiking pants..i don't even really know what these are, but apparently i need the kind that are "fast wicking" (??)

- thermal shirts

The problem with the whole peru trip is that they keep asking me to buy things that seem to contradict themselves...some of them are things for hot conditions, while others are for cold conditions. I have no idea what the actual temperature will be!

Sadly I have a feeling its hot at the bottom and cold at the top as we approach machu pichu.

SOOO in order to prepare for the big trip, I am declaring this "UNhealthy week", which I have christened with the following activites:

1) Moving to Chicago, America's fattest city (this year)

2) Eating Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which is friggen awesome and horrible for me

3) Failing to go to the gym since last thursday

4) toasted ravioli...a new addiction?

5) soup in a bread bowl

Good news though...today was completely alcohol free! Lets see what tomorrow has in store!

*Note* For those of you that care, Ish and I would frequently declare certain weeks "healthy week" in an attempt to force ourselves to eat healthily and go to the gym. While it was frequently unsuccessful, it created fun office morale. Whee!

Good Books, Travel List - And ITS HOT!

2006-07-26T06:48:00.000+08:00

OK, I'm in Pasadena...its like 95 degrees (thats somewhere in the 30s or something for you metric people) and I'm toasting! Fortunately I have been hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop getting hopped up on ice coffee ALL DAY. My folks just left for Japan so I'm housesitting and watching over their anti-social cat for the next couple of weeks before I head to the great midwest and peru. Time flies whilst you're having fun, hey? Only two agenda items right now:

Great Books

1) Karen Armstrong, "The Great Transformation". This book ROCKED. Its a history of religion and philosophy across four cultures (Greece, Israel, India, China) over the same time period, from like 2000BC to 100 AD I think. Its really amazing and informative. HIGHLY recommended!

2) Piers Anthony "The Incarnations of Immortality". OK, I'm a dork and these are books that I read back in High School, but I picked some of them up again and they are really clever! I like them much more than the standard sci-fi/fantasy stuff because there are elements of humor in these.

Book Thoughts

Has anyone read these books or has any thoughts on them?

I. Claudius

A Random Walk Down Wallstreet

Stocks in the Long Run

Any other book recommendations?

OK, so now that I'm in a writing mood and my plane is finally descending, I'm thinking of which places were my favorites and why.So anyway, here is my roundup of "Top 3" for each city, and I'm not going to say FOOD as a category because that would get way way carried away. So here are some thoughts:

Best Airport:

Hong Kong

Singapore

Madrid

Worst Airport:

Selcuk (Izmir) - Whats up with the bus that takes us to the terminal 30 feet away?

Bodrum - Two terminals? Whats up with that?

Prague - Ever hear of a line?

Easiest Transport to/from Airport:

Hong Kong

London

Beijing (because the cab is only US$8.50)

Hottest Women:

Madrid

Rome

Prague

Worst Women:

Selcuk - Women? We like to hide them or make them work in the field while we sit around drinking tea and playing dominos

Shanxi Province - Women? What are those? We just have coal...sigh...

Ice Cream / Gelato:

Buenos Aires - Dulce de leche anything...mmmm

Rome - Moorish rice...who knew?

Prague - Tiramisu with chunks of cake inside...mmmm

Best Knockoff Designer Crap:

Beijing (cheap and convincing!)

Rome (convincing, but not so cheap)

Bali (cheap but you have to deal with the aggressive hawkers)

Worst Smelling:

Shanxi Province - Smells my burning! Now my throat and eyes hurt!

Hong Kong - A nice combination of broth, seawater and trash

Penang - Its ok to love durian...just don't loooove durian....

Worst Local Liquor:

Bai Jiu (China) - Tastes like burning!

Plum Brandy (Prague) - I'm sure after only a few months I might get used to it....

Unicum (Budapest) - Zwack is wack!

Hottest Accent:

Italy - Oh! Mi scusi!

Argentina - Es muy lindo!

Spain - Como se dice "HOT"?

Heinous Accent:

Singapore - Apparently they have it in both chinese AND english la!

New Zealand - Sounds a lot like "bahhhh bahhh bahhh", or perhaps I was talking to a sheep? EIther way I couldn't understand a damn word they was sayin!

Beijing - WANR, liao tiANR, fu wu yuANR (anr pronounced "arrrhhh" like a pirate. I love it, but it takes some getting used to!)

Best Complimentary Breakfast

Beijing - Can't beat warm milk and fried stuff!

Turkey - Yogurt, cucumber, tomato, fresh bread, nutella, EVERY DAY BABY

Bali - Pan fried egg noodles or fried rice along with freshly squeezed pappaya juice? I'LL TAKE IT!

Lamest Tourist Attraction

Buda Castle Labyrinth - Terrible use of an awesome venue to showcase RETARDED art. Pretentious much?

Kai Feng "Historical City" - Like a cross between Midieval Times and Disneyland, with puppets, acrobats, and LOTS of souvenir stands

Ephesus - What a piece of crap. JUST KIDDING! Ephesus was AWESOME! AWWWWWSOME!

Places to Go when you only have a few days

Dubrovnik - Perfect for a week or a weekend getaway

Penang - Go for the food, stay for the KING COBRAS

Prague - Yes its beautiful, but how many breathtaking rivers, castles, monestaries, and shops can you look at?

Places to go for a month and still feel like you haven't seen even a small fraction of everything

China

Argentina

Australia

Turkey

SURFING!!

2006-07-23T03:08:00.000+08:00

I just got back from a surfing lesson. It was SO FUN! I can totally see why people get really addictive and only want to surf all the time! I went with VanAn and I was able to stand up! Actually toward the end I was standing up on pretty much each run...so exciting! Sadly I don't have enough time or energy to go again before I leave for Chicago. Its sad that I spent 18 years living in the Huntington Beach area just 6 miles from the beach and never went surfing before!

America's Most Overpriced Cities

2006-07-16T01:45:00.000+08:00

So Forbes just published their "Overpriced Cities in America" list. I think last year Seattle (my dream town) was #1. As I'm sure you recall, this list crossreferences cost of living vs. job growth, housing affordability, and salary to create an "index" of expensiveness. This year the ranking is

1. Essex County, MA

2. San Francisco, CA

3. San Jose, CA

4. Honolulu, HI

5. Cambridge, MA

6. New York, NY

7. Oakland, CA

8. Tucson, AZ

9. Boston, MA

10. Los Angeles, CA

So apparently this list reflects the "winners and losers" of the housing market bubble. It seems like with the exception of Hawaii and Tucson, its basically Boston, CA, and NYC. Surprise surprise. Interesting that Seattle and Portland both fell off the map! That bodes well for me!!

Oh yeah, I have a blog! - Free Pictures Inside!

2006-07-13T05:14:00.000+08:00

BLOG UPDATE - I found an apartment!!!

So because of the screwup with blogger, ( you know, that time when I emailed like 20 blog entries to them and they entries were never posted so I had to blog all 20 of them at once like a month after they happened) I took a little break from blog mania. Now I'm back in the USA, found an apartment in Chicago, and I have one month to chill out in California before the madness of business school begins. Am I excited? I'm excited about a couple of things:

1) Having an apartment - Oh how I have missed my furniture! My old bed, my comfy couch, the matching bench ottoman, my wine stand, all of my glassware...the list goes on and on.

2) Having all of my clothing - Don't get me wrong, I have gotten used to living out of a suitcase, but the ability to go for several weeks (maybe even months) without having to do laundry is very appealing to me. I'm worried that I will get into my clothing and realize that most of it in downright unwearable. The saddest part is that after 6 years of banking I have accumulated a bazillion button down collared shirts, all of them overpriced and few of them that fit just right. Sadly the fancy italian shirts weren't fitted. Meanwhile my $10 chinese shirts are are lovingly tailor-made.

3) Cooking for myself - OK, not much to get excited about, but there is definitely appeal in being able to control my own diet 100% of the time.

Things I'm NOT excited about:

1) Being a student again. I'm not one of those people who looks back longingly on college thinking "wow, I miss being in school." College sucked. OK, the partying and the chilling with friends didn't suck, but working all the time, obsessing over grades, writing papers, feeling guilty about wasting time...all of that sucked royally. I'm not looking forward to having no free time...as opposed to banking!!! OK, i'm starting to talk crazy-talk, but my 1-year adventure has made me lazy in some ways

2) Debt - 'nuff said

3) Chicago winter - Although I did buy my giant shun da yi, which should protect me from the elements whilst making me look like a fool. LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!

Anyway, I DID find an apartment in Chicago. Its in the Gold Coast, which is a pretty decent area close to downtown. The good news: The apartment has a gym in the basement, a pool, a free WIFI cafe, and get this: free breakfast. Who does that!? The bad news: frightening proximity to both Giordano's and Gino's East...to of the best Chicago deep-dish pizza joints. I was in Chicago looking for apts for 6 days and had deep-dish pizza THREE TIMES. I may have a problem.

Picture Time!

So I had to post a photo to my grad school for their "first year facebook". We all remember the facebook in college right? It basically served 3 purposes:

1) So you could figure out what your roommate looked like before you showed up to school

2) So you could point out to your friends people that you thought were hot

3) Provided hours of entertainment by literally BROWSING the facebook for attractive people

Given this, I recognized the crucial importance of the facebook photo. Unfortunately the photo had to a) be 2"X2" and b) be just of me. Who takes a SQUARE PHOTO?! I absolutel;y ridiculous. So I had to thumb through all the digital photos I have on my computer, crop out some 2X2s, and try to figure out which one makes me look the hottest and yet also the most respectable just in case some prospective employer alumni is thumbing through the book. So I sent an email to some of the women I know that have lots of good taste and judgement, and they gave me feedback. Here are the photos. Guess which one they ended up endorsing the most highly?

BEER

The consensus was that I shouldn't include a picture that shows me with beer, even though it was weak-ass Chinese beer.

These two were dinged because of the quasi-obscene japanese finger gesture. The concern was that I would look foreign. We wouldn't want that.

Evil - The concern was that this picture looked to evil, or that I was trying to look sexy. Ironically this picture was taken by mistake when I was trying to figure out how to self-timer my camera. Maybe I look evil/sexy in my natural environment. HAW HAW HAW

THREE FINALISTS

Happy

Tuxedo

Fleece

Guess which one was the winner? Thats right, it was "Fleece", airbrushed to perfection! The problem with the happy picture is that perhaps I look a little TOO happy? The tuxedo picture has a weird light issue on the left that makes it look like i have either a white sideburn or something stuck to my face. Fleece is just poor enough resolution to hide any noticeable skin flaws. Sadly I lost the fleece in that photo, which I bought in Australia for US$10. Sniff sniff.

Favorite Places Rundown

2006-07-13T05:09:00.000+08:00

OK, so now that I'm in a writing mood and my plane is finally descending, I'm thinking of which places were my favorites and why. Just a reminder, here are the cities that I hit this year wherein I stayed at least one night (in order):

Buenos Aires

Montevideo

Bariloche

Ushuaia

Auckland

Wellington

Sydney

Melbourne

Bali - Seminyak

Bali - Lovina

Bali - Ubud

Hong Kong

Beijing

Shanxi Province

Henan Province

Turpan

Urumqi

Penang (Georgetown)

Singapore

London

Istanbul

Ephesus (Selcuk)

Bodrum

Prague

Budapest

Hvar

Dubrovnik

Bari (barely counts as I was only there for like 8 hours but technically stayed the night)

Rome

Madrid

So anyway, here is my roundup of "Top 3" for each city, and I'm not going to say FOOD as a category because that would get way way carried away. So here are some thoughts:

Best Airport:

Hong Kong

Singapore

Madrid

Worst Airport:

Selcuk (Izmir) - Whats up with the bus that takes us to the terminal 30 feet away?

Bodrum - Two terminals? Whats up with that?

Prague - Ever hear of a line?

Easiest Transport to/from Airport:

Hong Kong

London

Beijing (because the cab is only US$8.50)

Hottest Women:

Madrid

Rome

Prague

Worst Women:

Selcuk - Women? We like to hide them or make them work in the field while we sit around drinking tea and playing dominos

Shanxi Province - Women? What are those? We just have coal...sigh...

Ice Cream / Gelato:

Buenos Aires - Dulce de leche anything...mmmm

Rome - Moorish rice...who knew?

Prague - Tiramisu with chunks of cake inside...mmmm

Best Knockoff Designer Crap:

Beijing (cheap and convincing!)

Rome (convincing, but not so cheap)

Bali (cheap but you have to deal with the aggressive hawkers)

Worst Smelling:

Shanxi Province - Smells my burning! Now my throat and eyes hurt!

Hong Kong - A nice combination of broth, seawater and trash

Penang - Its ok to love durian...just don't loooove durian....

Worst Local Liquor:

Bai Jiu (China) - Tastes like burning!

Plum Brandy (Prague) - I'm sure after only a few months I might get used to it....

Unicum (Budapest) - Zwack is wack!

Hottest Accent:

Italy - Oh! Mi scusi!

Argentina - Es muy lindo!

Spain - Como se dice "HOT"?

Heinous Accent:

Singapore - Apparently they have it in both chinese AND english la!

New Zealand - Sounds a lot like "bahhhh bahhh bahhh", or perhaps I was talking to a sheep? EIther way I couldn't understand a damn word they was sayin!

Beijing - WANR, liao tiANR, fu wu yuANR (anr pronounced "arrrhhh" like a pirate. I love it, but it takes some getting used to!)

Best Complimentary Breakfast

Beijing - Can't beat warm milk and fried stuff!

Turkey - Yogurt, cucumber, tomato, fresh bread, nutella, EVERY DAY BABY

Bali - Pan fried egg noodles or fried rice along with freshly squeezed pappaya juice? I'LL TAKE IT!

Lamest Tourist Attraction

Buda Castle Labyrinth - Terrible use of an awesome venue to showcase RETARDED art. Pretentious much?

Kai Feng "Historical City" - Like a cross between Midieval Times and Disneyland, with puppets, acrobats, and LOTS of souvenir stands

Ephesus - What a piece of crap. JUST KIDDING! Ephesus was AWESOME! AWWWWWSOME!

Places to Go when you only have a few days

Dubrovnik - Perfect for a week or a weekend getaway

Penang - Go for the food, stay for the KING COBRAS

Prague - Yes its beautiful, but how many breathtaking rivers, castles, monestaries, and shops can you look at?

Places to go for a month and still feel like you haven't seen even a small fraction of everything

China

Turkey

Australia

Europe - Time slips by too fast...read one of my business school essays!

2006-07-02T08:57:00.000+08:00

So my trip is basically over. I'm on the plane back from Madrid to NYC. Madrid was an incredible place, not unlike Buenos Aires on many levels, but much cleaner and with (if possible) an even more buslting night scene. Or perhaps I simply didn't take advantage of my late mights in BsAs. However, this time I definitely took advantage, eating lunch around 2pm and then Tapas for dinner around 11pm each night and tucking myself into my comfortable bed around 2am. I'm proud of myself for being such a late-nighter when I was by myself. The madrid style of living is such a sharp contrast to Beijing, where if I wasn't home by 6:30pm my host family would have already eaten dinner! No joke, it happened a couple of times.

Anyway, I was also surprised how much I fell in love with Rome, which was probably the most expensive city on my trip after London. I guess what surprised me about Rome was how compact the city center really felt. It seemed like I couldn't go 10 steps without running into something very old, or at least that looked very old! Also I fell in love with the food in Rome. I felt like I couldn't eat anything that wasn't ridiculously awesome! HOWEVER, I did a random sampling of gelato in Rome and honestly I can't say that its difinitely better than in Argentina. I mean, c'mon they're both awesome, but the Buenos Aires helado to me was a little more insanely addictive, although in Rome I was able to have some rice-flavored gelato that was pretty amazing. Also I tried a real old-fashioned zabayonne, which blew my mind. I really need to watch out for daibetes! I take in so much sugar!

As for Prague/Budapest/Croatia, they were incredible and I miss them already. I had a chance to bond with both Kelly Stevens and my cousin Joyce, both of whom are awesome. I got kinda freaked out by traveling with other people after about two weeks, but then as soon as they left I missed them terribly. Hopefully I will see them in July when I'm finally back in Sunny CA.

Anyway, now I am faced with the depression that sets in for anyone who has spend siginificant time traveling and needs to face the reality of being back home, or in my case being back in NYC which isn't really home and is quite honestly a place that I literally turned my life upside-down in order to escape. But hopefully I will be able to have fun and I think my sticker shock post-China will be gone a bit now that I have been in Europe for a little while.

I distinctly remember having a conversation with Samidha in Buenos Aires when I went there in 2003. I had met up with Samidha there, and South America was the last leg of her massive 2-year trek around the globe. She was more depressed than I am about going home, but I remember trying to convince her that ordinary life is in itself a bit of an adventure. Making a new life for oneself and finding the things in every day that make us happy can be just as exciting as trekking around the world. At the time she seemed unconvinced, just as I am unconvinced now as I face the prospect of mundane domestic existence. At the same time I don't think I have shaken the bug that makes me want to live abroad again, or maybe even move away.

Anyway, I have decided to spoil you and let you read one of my business school essays. This one is to a certain Southern CA school that I am in love with, accepted me, and even offered me money to go there, but like a fool I declined and instead will be going to nerd school where I can learn better ways to come up for prices of things like securities. Anyway, I thought of this essay because one of my best friends Billy is getting married this weekend so I will see 4 of my best friends from high school together for the first time in about five years. Give it a read if you life...actually I might have already posted it, in which case give me a break...i can't keep track of everything!!

Please provide us with a summary of your personal and family background. Include information about your parents and siblings, where you grew up, and perhaps a highlight or special memory of your youth. (Limit to 2 pages.)

Our heroes stepped forth in the dark night and entered the field covered in fog so thick that five feet in any direction was completely invisible. Slowly, they noticed small shapes in the fog, and as they walked deeper into the field the true nature of these shapes became apparent: hundreds of fluffy, lop-eared bunnies crouched, munching on the green grass. Despite their lack of activity, the five boys all knew what would come next: Bunny stampede.

"NOW!!!!" The boys took-off running toward the herd at fully speed, instantly alerting the hundreds of bunnies of their presence. The stampede had begun.

This was a sight few would ever glimpse: the mad frenzy of hundreds of bunnies running in all directions through thick fog. Eventually the boys realized that they couldn’t actually catch these animals that were literally "quick like rabbits", so they went back to their cars and drove home. None of them would forget what they had seen that day and the lesson they had learned: if you see a story on the local news about five hundred escaped petting zoo bunnies living in a field next to the local elementary school, it presents an opportunity for at least one night’s adventure. I was one of those five boys, and that was a typical Friday night for my four closest high school friends and me in Huntington Beach, California.

My background was typical for the Orange County suburbs of the 1980s and 90s. My father was, like most Orange County dads at the time, an aerospace engineer. He had worked his way out of East L.A. poverty after moving back to the

U.S.

following World War II as a child. As a

U.S.

citizen during the war, he was distrusted by the local Japanese, and as an “F.O.B.” (“Fresh Off the Boat”) in post-War California, he was mocked by his English-speaking classmates. He put himself through UCLA for college and graduate school, and spent 35 years working for McDonnell Douglas before retiring in the late 1990s. My mother was the child of white Midwesterners of Dutch, Norwegian, and Irish descent who moved to California before the Great D epression. Her childhood was spent in the then ethnically diverse city of Compton. She attended Cal State Long Beach during the late 1960s as a full-fledged anti-war “hippy”, and worked as a computer programmer, florist, and high school math teacher before becoming a full-time housewife and raising my older sister and me. It wasn’t until I was in high school that she started teaching again full-time. Despite their 12-year age difference, interracial marriage, and contrasting religious backgrounds, my parents’ experience was typically “Californian”, and so was that of their two children.

My sister and I grew up sheltered behind the “Orange Curtain” that separates pedestrian Orange County from its interesting, cosmopolitan neighbor to the north. My sister, the only girl to play on our high school’s varsity water polo team, was also a member of the Huntington Beach Lady Republicans, her class salutatorian, and the first person from my high school to attend Caltech. Between the two children, she was the “good one” and appeased my parents’ ambition to have one child become an engineer. It was only after she left for college that she cut and dyed her hair (many times and many colors) and rejected her religious and conservative past. Years later she would quit her job with Applied Materials to move to Boston and work with homeless animals, finally achieving the personal satisfaction that had eluded her for years.

She may have been the “good one” growing up, but I was hardly a “bad kid”. Despite being lazy and unmotivated during elementary and middle school, I become obsessed with classical music and public affairs in high school. My parents’ greatest fear was that I would decide against professional life and university education and instead opt to become a classical musician. In reality, I wanted to be a lawyer. My friends and I didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, not because we were against them, but because the thought of trying simply never occurred to us. All of us were in “Band” and “Model UN” together, contributing to our already high collective nerd-factor, and I went to a summer band camp (yes, band camp) with one of them. We never noticed that we were five nerds in a city of surfers until after we all left home for college.

My friends, however, provided the one deviation from the typical sheltered existence of my youth. The field of bunnies was just one example of our creativity finding adventure in suburban life. Often, we would dress in business suits and “crash” events at the many hotels surrounding Disneyland. We crashed eight high school proms each, a casino night raising money for victims of head injuries, a convention for “co-dependents anonymous”, a national cheerleading competition, a giant 15th birthday for someone named Joyce Gore, and several sorority formals. Those adventures were some of the best experiences from my youth, and bonded the five of us for life.

My upbringing shaped me in countless ways. My parents’ combination of immigrant, eastern, western, Christian, Buddhist, defense contractor, and flower-child brought a variety of experience to our family that made me value diversity in every aspect of my life. My sister’s ambition and self-transformation challenged and inspired me to push myself, but not to take my identity for granted. Finally, my friends, their creativity, and their drive for new experiences inspire me to explore the world around me but also remind me that adventure exists in everyday life. Mine was a typically suburban, sheltered, and nerdy background, but it contributed in countless ways to who I am today, and I love it.

Eastern Europe...what's not to love?

2006-07-02T08:56:00.001+08:00

Eastern Europe so far (basically 4 days in Prague and 1 day in Budapest) has definitely lived up to expectations. Beer is both cheap and good, wine is delicious, music has been plentiful, and the American tourists are a-plenty. If prague wasn't so big it would start to feel a bit like Solvang. Fortunately its large enough for one to realize that they're actually in Europe rather than a bizarre Euro-centric community in middle-California. This has been a week of many highs and lows.

Highs -

-Realizing that staying in apartments is WAY better and cheaper than staying in a hotel

-Listening to a woodwing sextet play "czech composer's greatest hits"

-Seeing beautiful people again after being in unattractive places for so long. Yes, the czechs are hot. I hear the croatians are even hotter. Sadly the only real czechs we saw were out cute little waitresses, but they were hot nonetheless

Lows

-Realizing that the Turkish delight I bought in budapest is nowhere near as good as the fresh stuff from down in bodrum...sigh

-Finishing "The Historian"...i was sad because I wanted it to go on forever!

-Further realizing just how cheap China was when paying $10 for a meal seems like highway robbery

So now the only crises in my life are the following. As usual advice would be appreciated:

1) Financial aid - I need to do the paperwork and get it started, but honestly who has the time?

2) Fat - I seem to be accumulating it, which bodes poorly for Billy's wedding in which I need to squeeze my ass back into my navy Joseph Abboud suit for a day. Gonna be tough.

3) Lodging/Ferry/Train - Due to a weirdness in my schedule I have 3 days to get my ass from Dubrovnik to Rome via ferry (8 hour) and train (4 hour) in order to catch my flight to madrid and subsequently to Spain. I need to figure out logistics, but right now I'm thinking 2 nights in southern Italy, 1 night in Roma, 2 nights in Madrid before my magic flight back to the motherland (USA).

4) NYC in June - For those of you there that I haven't seen since December, we must hang out! i"m planning 2 days in Washington DC, but otherwise I want to see people. Hit me up if interested or I might be hitting you (up that is)

5) Sunburn - I got a nasty one on my neck in turkey and now its peeling. SO GROSS. I haven't been this tan in years, and I realize now that I don't like it. Maybe i can make it disappear!

OK, thats all you get now. I finished the Historian and now I'm reading a book about ancient religions....

Budapest Wackyness

2006-07-02T08:56:00.000+08:00

OK, so Budapest has been rainy as sh*t! We had a group of six folks today (Kelly, cousin Joyce, Mike - friend of Kelly's, Gillie - no idea how to spel, and Eve) and we wandered the Buda castle area IN THE RAIN this afternoon before ducking into the WACK-ASS Buda Castle labyrinth, which is this weird set of ancient tunnels under the castle + art installation that tries really hard to be "deep", which I of course hate. There was a point in which we were watching a video which was literally an ad or the labyrinth WHILE WE WERE IN IT, and I just couldn't stop laughing (i mean like ridiculous tears and heavy belly laughter) because the movie was so terrible. I was literally laughing AT the video.

So anyway, long story short we wandered through the rain all day and it sucked, but Budapest itself is really awesome. I feel like its part evil cousin to Paris, part evil twin to Vienna, part second cousin twice removed from Buenos Aires, and part kickass eastern-euro big city. This place is huge and I'm loving it. Also the Hungarians themselves are really diverse (for white people) and love spicy food! So of course I'm a fan.

I will have more to write, but long story short the trip keeps pluggin along. I can't believe that I'm so close to ending my "big trip". China feels like such a long time ago, although I feel more than before that I really miss it...I guess some things can be surprising....

Ruins and Book List

2006-07-02T08:55:00.000+08:00

OK, two points on the agenda today:

1) Inane update on what I have been up to in Turkey

2) Inane update on which books I have been reading recently and solicitation (once again) for some books to put on the list

3) Update to my "global superfriends" list

1) Turkey

So I have been on the road with Quyen and Ishika, my former coworkers, along with Ishika's college friend Caroline. It has been soooo easy-peasy this time around. No "adventures" (read: massive screwups or problems), but at the same time few random ridiculous stories. We chilled in Istanbul, we chilled in Selcuk (in which we saw literally hundreds of dudes hanging out in cafes and on the street, but no women to be seen. I guess they are at home with the kids or out plowing the fields), and now we're chillin in Bodrum. Bodrum is exactly as we imagined a mediterranean resort town to look...its beautiful and seems laid back. We are all psyched. Plus it has been a long time since I got to spend more than 18-hours a day with Quyen and Ish, so this is like the "good ole days" at Citimonster. Turkish delight is actually insanely good, and turkish wine hasn't been horrible. So all in its not a bad gig.

2) Books List

So I have read some interesting books, but I'm on the lookout for new stuff to fill the days when I'm on the road by myself or flying around or on a train, so any recommendations would be helpful. Here's where I stand:

The Historian (Anna Kostova) - This historical/vampire novel is totally what I like. Its filled with fun facts about eastern europe, and ironically it has long chapters about Istanbul and Budapest, so its very timely for my current trip! I'm diggin it.

How to Be Good (Nick Hornby) - I just finished this, which I got from LIsa in XinJiang as we both tried to lighten out book load. I really dug this book too, but it made me depressed a little bit about all the things to look forward to in married life.

The Oracle (Manfredi, the guy who wrote the Alexander Trilogy) - This book was great from a history standpoint, but the book itself was a bit WACK and didn't really tie together in the end. I liked it, but only if you're a classical world buff or interested in that kinda thing. I bought this in the Hong Kong used bookstore, along with my China history book and my David Sedaris book which I haven't cracked open.

A Traveler's HIstory of China - This was a great read since I was IN Beijing, but it was written in 1997 so everything after like 1993 had to be ingnored because it just wasn't accurate. I would love to get my hands on the other "Traveler's History of" books, but I just don't think I can do so without the assistance of Amazon.com! Definitely a nice easy concise history of the last 2000 years in the goole ole middle kingdoms

Villa Incognito (Tom Robbins) - Kelly loaned me this book, but I left it in China (sorry!) so I owe her one. This was a fun little read and made me want to brush up on my Japanese folklore. I don't know if it makes me want to run out and read every Tom Robbins book though, or perhaps on in case of a book emergency!

I Lucifer (Glen Duncan) - I bought this because it was on sale in paperback and I had wanted to pick it up for a while. Actually I really loved it, especially all the references to Dante and Milton. It kinda reminded me of when Wendy gave me her abridged version of "Paradise Lost" while we sat in the Steinberg Deitrich lobby waiting for pizza some saturday back in college. Good times. I think Wendy would dig this book a lot, and I liked it too. Sadly I didn't get to do tea at the Ritz while in London, which is where a lot of shit goes down in this novel.

Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco, yes I know I butchered the spelling) - This book took some WORK to get through, but fortunately I had an 18-hour busride in which I could really dig in. Once I got over all the intellectual namedropping and the funky sense of humor, this turned out to be an AWESOME book, the kind that makes you really think about life, history, humanity, and other cool shit. I don't know if I could ploy through another of these books though...

Anyway, any new recommendations would be totally helpful! PLEASE let me know!

3) Global superfriends

So I have a couple of new ones since I last posted the list:

Pierre KW (3)

Maryrose E (3)

Gerry F (3)

Matt C (3)

Rachel C (2)

Elaine L (2, and she was on before but I forgot to put her!)

Sharon P (2, not sure if I included her or not before)

Lisa M (2)

Quyen T (2)

Ishika M (2)

Min C (2)

Frances C (2)

David M (2)

I think thats it, but let me know if I forgot anyone!

Tukey-lurkey Time!

2006-07-02T08:54:00.001+08:00

This is my third day in Turkey, and it is awesome! OK, its not as dirt cheap as I would have liked (its about as expensive as going to Canada...maybe a little bit cheaper, but sadly not as cheap as Australia was back when I lived there in 2002-2003. And maybe it isn't as pristine and clean as I would have liked, but there is something awesome about seeing buildings that are 1500 years old and MASSIVE. Also the people here seem super friendly and the weather has been great. Life is good. I'm traveling with my former Citi-monster coworkers Quyen and Ish, and it has been good times. Not as much beer/wine consumption as I might have been used to, but I'm in good shape. I still miss China, but I'm slowly getting used to life in the western world again! The craziest thing is that here in Istanbul there is the "European side" of the city on one side of the Bosphorus, and the "Asian side" on the other.

Anyway, I have posted my HK/Singapore/Malaysia pictures, and I was lucky enough to be able to spend 24 incredibly expensive hours in London. Somehow 90% of my Australian friends are currently in London, and it was really awesome being able to catch up with them. Definitely a good bunch of kids, so I was really happy, and now I feel like I want to spend some quality time in Europe! ACK! The world is too big but too small at the same time. So now my challenge is somehow optimizing the following:

1) Finding a job

2) Being someplace interesting and near friends

3) Oppotunities to travel

4) Trying to retain the Chinese I learned (and maybe the Spanish I learned)

5) Somehow managing to see my family

Any thoughts?

Penang - Land of my Dreams

2006-07-02T08:54:00.000+08:00

OK, maybe not my normal dreams, but definitely my food dreams! Anyplace that combines Malay, Chinese and Indian foods so effectively with a heavy emphasis on spices is my kinda place! Last night I wandered through a hawker stall (best invention ever!) and enjoyed some delicous Laksa Ayam and PohPia (fresh spring rolls) along with Lychee drink! YUM!!!

Today was also fun, because I decided to skip all the temples and blah blah, instead choosing to go on a tour of an organic tropical fruit farm and a spice garden. The spice garden was a bit of a bust (except the random wild monkeys that I saw), but the fruit farm ROCKED! The guys were so excited about talking about fruit, and they loved to dish on the goings on in Penang. I took way too many pictures, and sadly probably won't remember the names of all the fruits, but in all it was a great day. Then I came back, schlepped around Georgetown in the sweaty heat, the came back to my hotel for the free cocktails provided by the club lounge (thanks expedia.com for hooking me up with a club floor room! Yehaw!). So I'm enjoying some Australian wine now (note: wine in China basically sucks. Stick to beer, although the beer there also sucks. How psyched was I to have a cold Crown Lager in Hong Kong?!) In 45 minutes I will head out to another Hawker stall for some more delicious eats!

So to answer the question thats in all of your heads, YES, the real Penang is every bit as good as the restaurant! Yes, its everything I expected. Yes, I want to buy a house here and become part of the scenery. Also I'm loving the Malaysian folks that I meet here. Surprisingly my tourguides all complain about their Arab tourists, who apparently are very rude. I guess that Arabs are literally not allowed to visit Thailand after some sort of hooker murder incident (!?) and they flock to Malaysia for tropical fun. I saw my first woman in full body and head covering, although I don't believe she was an arab as her companion looked distinctively indian/pakistani. Islam is fun!

Actually, I'm not kidding, I am more intrigued by islam after visiting XinJiang and now Malaysia. One of these days I will do my big middle east tour, but later for that....

CHINESE GIRLFRIEND SEARCH

I have decided that it would make a lot of sense for me to have a Chinese girlfriend, preferably from Northern China. Why? Because I need to practice my mandarin and I don't think I want to spend my class credits at UofC on Chinese class, which will only lead to stress and frustration.

Why Nothern China?

A) Because Shanghai women are reported to beat their husbands/boyfriends

B) Hong Kong women don't speak Mandarin, and are also reported to beat their husbands/boyfriends, and

C) Taiwan girls don't like me (not sure why, but might have something to do with my Japanese surname)

So if you have any leads, definitely hook me up. And I'm not talking Chinese American, I'm talking PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, so keep your eyes open!

OTHER NEWS:

1) The rest of my trip is basically planned at this point:

Tomorrow/Thurs - Singapore

Friday - London

Sat - Sat - Turkey with Quyen and Ish

Week after - Eastern European excursion

June 10 - Spain

June 17th - Bill's wedding in NYC

Then I'm just going to schlump around NYC and maybe Washington DC for a week or so, followed by fun in Seattle with Elaine and maybe even Rocio is she's around?? Then I'm back in CA for July 1 but hopefully I can swing by Vegas to celebrate the birthday with Queen B (Bea), which promises to be crazy.

August - Inca Trail with business classmates. This could be insane or it could be really cool. Either way, I already paid and hopefully don't have to buy anything!

Other updates:

1) If I get into China stuff I will get all choked up and nobody wants that

2) I have too much crap in my suitcase and need to figure out some way to lighten it up

3) Through some miraculous act of God, I didn't gain any weight while in China. I think it has something to do with fat weighing less than muscle, so my deterioration in muscle mass was just perfectly offset by incremental fat gains. This trip to Malaysia isn't doig much to help me out though!

Keep your eyes open for new fresh pictures of my last days in Beijing as well as fun with fruits and spices here in Malaysia. Wish me luck in Singapore...la!

Trauma in Hong Kong!

2006-07-02T08:53:00.000+08:00

OK, not real trauma, but to continue with a previous theme, my surly haircut guy QUIT the HK salon! So now I can't go to him and I'm forced to go to someone completely untried whilst here in HK! Unfortunately if I don't get my hair cut here it will be like a month before I'm back in NYC to visit Hiroshi. If you know me well then you know both of the people that I mentioned (Hiroshi and surly guy, Davy, who apparently has quit the salon. I'll get the details later this afternoon). So anyway, for those of you who knew me in high school and college, you know what happens to me when I don't get my hair cut on a regular basis and it starts to grow out. I start to look like that guy from the Cure or the guy who plays young Voldemort in the 2nd Harry Potter Movie (read: it gets big and ugly).

Cross fingers for me. I'm writing this on my laptop while riding the airport express on my way to Hong Kong.

On the bright side, MAARTJE is in Hong Kong! And if you know her then you realize she is super awesome!!!

More about my HK excursion later...

Side note: despite shipping stuff home and ditching all my heavy books, for some reason my bags are still massively overpacked. I don't know what is wrong with me,but another shipment home is probably in order. Life shouldn't be so complicated!

China - Last Minute Thoughts

2006-07-02T08:52:00.000+08:00

One day left in China, then back to the familiarity of Hong Kong for a couple of days, then off for Round 2 of my great adventure. These 12 months off have been the experience of a lifetime, and once again I'm confronted with the thought of leaving a place that in many ways I have grown to love. My love for Beijing has nothing to do with the overcrowded streets, the painfully depressing weather than fluctuates (in the spring) between numbing cold with freezing wind and stinky/hot/humid and stagnant. It also has nothing to do with the supposed "Chinese Miracle Economy" that has given people around the world China Fever as they flock to the perceived gold rush of opportunity. I have my own thoughts on this, but I just don't feel like sharing them now. My love of Beijing comes from the incredible hospitality and friendliness of the people I have met here. Despite their initial gruffness, the people I have met here a genuinely friendly, loving bunch. I have been shown incredible generosity by people I barely knew, and my bad attempts at speaking Chinese have been met with only support and excitement that a foreigner like me would want to learn Chinese. Sadly the same can't be said for my fellow language learners, many of whom are extremely critical of one another and very eager to correct someone else's mistakes. I guess a lot of people learning Chinese feel threatened by others doing the same thing?

As for Chinese itself, I have fallen in love with the harsh Beijing accent, with its gutteral "h" and the addition of "er" (pronounced "arrrgh", yes, like a pirate!). Some people hate the way it sounds, but I LOVE IT! I think perhaps part of the reason I love it is that the Beijingers seem so happy to say it! They also seem so happy when they get to explain that the "er" is a part of their local accent. The Chinese people I have met love talking about China, and they also LOVE talking about Chinese food! Don't get me started on that!

So thats it for my pre-nostalgia for Beijing. Over the "spring break" to XinJiang I spoke to my new "global superfriend" Lisa about the phenomenom of going to places and thinking to yourself "yeah, i'll definitely be coming back here". Sadly I don't know if this little promise I make to myself is actually true, although I have to say that I have been pretty decent about it in the past. China is definitely on the list, but some other places I'm not sure. The problem is that once you fall in love with a place, you really do have to come back, and I know some places are beckoning. Also once you make friends in a place, you owe it to them to come back. I really need to find a job that lets me take advantage of how small the world is. My old boss Richard Blackett (i'm sure he doesn't mind me using his name. Might I add that he might be my favorite person EVER) had the craziest job. He had to fly all over the world meeting with companies and bankers as sort of the "international guy" for years and years. He was a road warrior in the truest sense. However, I traveled with him a couple of times, mostly to Canada and the midwest of the US, and I'll never forget the things he said to me about it. For example, after waking up at 4am to cath a 6am flight to Montreal following a midnight night in the office, we then had meetings all day only to get back to the airport two hours before our return flight on the same day. I fell asleep in a chair at the gate, and when I woke up Blackett was there looking at me and said "Welcome to the Glamorous World of International Finance". I'll never forget that, but at the same time I think he was addicted to the travel and the work in the same way that I was/am. The real question is whether, as Blackett predicted to me over drinks on my last day with Citimonster, I'll try out other jobs and find that they just don't give me the same rush/energy as my capital markets gig. No idea what the answer is.

OK, this wasn't meant to turn into a self-reflection on my old job! It was meant to be a quickie on my final thoughts about China. OK, here is the synopsis, then I'll give you (of course) a LIST of my repeat destinations.

Synopsis from Beijing:

Good: People, food, trains, history, tea, exchange rate, cost of living, fake luxury goods

Bad: Wine/Baijiu, traffic, pollution, piracy (a problem i choose to contribute to), aggressive silk market merchants

So riduculous you MUST see it: Beijing Opera (runner up: Beijing frizzy mullet haircut)

Totally Overrated: Hot Pot

Exactly What You Expected: Great Wall

Surprisingly Awesome: Tiantan (temple of Heaven) park

Surprisingly Terrible: Foreign students overly obsessed with learning Chinese

Potentially Addictive Everyday Item: Bao ze

What I'll Miss Most: My host family and classmates

What I'll Miss Least: Walking over the stinky river

OK, here's the fun list that you've been waiting for: PLACES OUTSIDE THE US THAT I HAVE BEEN TO MORE THAN ONCE! Now I can actually fill this in with some decent results!

Hong Kong - 1983, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006

Australia - 2001/2 & 2005

Bangkok - 2002 & 2005

New Zealand - 2001, 2002, 2005

Singapore - 2005, soon to be 2006

London - 1990?, 2004, soon to be 2006

Paris - 1990?, 1998

Argentina - 2003, 2005

Canada - A lot

So its not a super duper list, but I feel like I'm doing a decent job of hitting places more than once, especially once I have friends there. China is definitely on that list, and actually most of these are places I'll like to see again. In fact, I'll

Xinjiang Fun, Catherine's Chinese Fun, Bizarre Dream Fun: Part III

2006-07-02T08:51:00.001+08:00

BIZARRE DREAM FUN

No, I didn't dream about a bazaar. However, on my last night in XinJiang I had a bizarre and rather baffling dream about myself posessing superpowers. Actually, this isn't the first time in a dream that I have possessed superpowers. Actually I typically am able to fly, and telekenesis is usually not out of the question either. In fact, sometimes I also have the ability to see into the future, which is a little weird to dream about. But this time I had the choice, which was a little strange, but I had to write what I wanted down (presumably on the ground) and would receive what I asked for. Examples include: "The RIng of Invisibility", "THe Belt of Strenght" or "The Teleportation Shoes". Really the dream was a bit like playing the old "legend of Zelda" where you pic up little weapons along the way. It was good fun. But sadly when I woke up I was forced by my own sense ofcuriosity to analyse this dream, and the only thing I would come up with was that I currently feel a little powerless and lost and these dreams about superpowers show me that I crave control or at least sense of direction.

What do you think?!

I also thought I would share with you the following:

1) Bizarre recurring dream from college: In this dream (what I will refer to as "The Donut Dream") I am in a donut store surrounded by delicious donuts, and I literally can't decide what I want. All the donuts look so delicious, and for some reason I also want the biggest one! So I sit there pondering donuts for what seems like a very long time, never knowing whether to take the simple glazed donut, the bear claw, the weird strawberry glazed one that sometimes is good, the twist (basically the standard glazed in a different shape), or something else. Sometimes the muffins look good! Anyway, in the end I choose something (FYI, its usually the Apple Fritter) and wake up right before the delicious first bite. When I wake up I usually crave a donut.

In college I had this dream a lot, and my friends insisted that the whole thing was about sex, with the round shape of the donut and its delightful whole providing a cunning vagina-symbol. To that I have no real response. Thoughts? These are the same friends that first introduced me to the idea that the whole movie Grease is all about sex. I didn't believe them at first, but when I watched it again I started to wonder what I had been blinded by all my life! What's next? Is "Three's Company" all about sex too?!?!?!

2) Business School Essay - This one was a "risk essay" meaning that I thought it would either work like a charm or end my chances immediately. I couldn't have been more wrong, as I was promptly waitlisted, and on the waitlist for that school I remain! Enjoy!

Describe a personal characteristic or something in your background that will help the Admissions Committee to know you better.

I don’t talk about it much, but one personal characteristic has driven me time and again to most major life decisions. It has shaped my values, guided my leadership style and interpersonal interactions, and has often been my greatest downfall. Of course that characteristic would have to be my all-consuming LUST FOR POWER.

Upon first meeting me, it is hard to believe that I’m consumed by lust, especially LUST FOR POWER. I am neither dominating not controlling. The power I crave isn’t the power to command or control others, but power to control my own destiny, the power to influence personal outcomes, and the power to create.

Power means self-determination. My most important decisions in life have been made to preserve or exercise this power: leaving my family to go to school, leaving my friends in NYC to live abroad, and leaving my career at Citigroup to start a new life. Even choosing to work in investment banking was a demonstration of my desire to live unfettered from debt. Power means being able to try new things without apologies. It means freedom and self-reliance.

Influencing outcomes and affecting change are exercises in power. There is no better means to do so than through the spread of one’s ideas. I have found that communication is the best way for me to influence both people and outcomes, whether through tutoring, training, being a mentor in the office, recruiting, creative writing, or even the performing arts. Similarly, I prefer to lead through education, as a teacher and mediator, rather than a field captain telling people what to do. Real power is about changing people’s minds, not commanding their actions.

For me, the greatest exercise in power is the act of creating something new, something that is unique to me. The creations themselves could vary widely. A great onstage performance, telling a good story, building a useful and robust financial model, or even forging a bond of friendship are all acts of creation that bring me a tremendous sense of accomplishment, often the most satisfying validation of one’s power. In order to achieve this I strive to accumulate knowledge about the world around me, including politics, history, commerce and economics, culture and language. I will forever pursue a breadth of knowledge about the world and its people as the fuel for creative power.

Lust for power has driven many of my decisions, but has also been a great vice. Almost 30, I am still nowhere near marriage or starting a family, both goals that I, and society, value highly but that have been superceded by my overwhelming needs for self determination and greater knowledge about the world. The type of power that I pursue comes at a price. It’s a characteristic, personal and precious to me and often resulting in positive outcomes, but I never said it was a true virtue.

Xinjiang Fun, Catherine's Chinese Fun, Bizarre Dream Fun: Part II

2006-07-02T08:51:00.000+08:00

CATHERINE USES CHINESE

So Catherine, as some of you may know, is one of my classmates here in Beijing (checkout my myspace for a link to hers). She is also American, but unlike me she lives in an apartment rather than with a host family, so her opportunities to use Chinese are more limited. As such, she admittedly only has a couple of expressions and conversational topics that she is totally comfortable using. One of these is the bargaining language set, which she uses with vigor at the Silk Street Clothing Market ("The Silk Market"), which is the Beijing tourist-focused market in which aggressive chinese knockoff booths attempt to rip-off visiting tourists with fake LV, etc. You can get fake anything here, and the staff are the kinds and queens of the "i'll give you a good price" routine. Here is Catherine in action:

Store Girl: You want these shoes? I give you a good price.

Catherine: I like these shoes. How much?

SG: These are very good ones. 1000 kuai

C: I'll give you 75 kuai

SG: What? You are joking! These are my high quality shoes!

C: 75 kuai

SG: No really, what's your real price? Your no-joke price?

C: 75 kuai

SG: No really. How about 750 kuai

C: Ni juede wo shi erbaiwu? ("Do you think I am an idiot?" using the expression "erbaiwu" which means 250, which everyone in beijing uses to mean idiot but assumes that the foreigners don't know what it means, meanwhile its the first thing we learn when we get here)

SG: 500 kuai, thats my last price

C: (says nothing, just leaves...she makes it about 5 paces outside of the stall)

SG: Wait! 250!

C: 75

SG: 125

C: 75

SG 75

And Catherine wins. My other friend Carino once got "1000 kuai" shoes for 25 kuai because she literally didn't want them!

Anyway, this is all beside the point. The real story is this: Catherine went to the silk market to get a suit made at one of the tailors on the top floor. I would attempt to retell the tailor story but I simply can't do it justice. The punchline is that the suck sucked. But my favorite part of that longer story is this:

While waiting for her friend to get her measurements done, Catherine used her (at that time) meager assortment of Chinese expressions to make small talk with the other shopgirl. Topics probably included:

1) The weather

Then the conversation died, and Catherine, feeling uncomfortable, dipped into reserve and used the only remaining chinese expression she knew:

Catherine: Wo you le ("I'm pregnant")

Let's me clear, Catherine was definitely not pregnant. However, he also remembered the expression for married, and so when they asked in follow-up if she was married, she replied with a firm "No". This sent the shop girls into a frenzy! I still can't believe that she would tell these strangers falsely that she was pregnant JUST TO KEEP UP THE CONVERSATION!!!

Imagine if I did sometime similar and in the midstof a lul on conversation with my tailor said something like:

Dan: Wo yo lao dutze ("I have dysentery")

Would hilarity ensue? Clearly in Catherine's case her clever conversational ploy worked, because she has always had a conversational topic with the silk market tailors ever since.

Xinjiang Fun, Catherine's Chinese Fun, Bizarre Dream Fun: Part I

2006-07-02T08:50:00.000+08:00

Ok Kids, it has been a while since I posted, so I have decided to play catchup in a massive way. There are three stories that I want to catch people up on, and I'm not sure how to title them in such a way that people will read all three as they are equally important, so I am just got to post them as one massive blog entry in three pieces. If you are bored with one, just skip it and you can check out the next one. So there are three pieces to this puzzle:

1) My recent trip to XinJiang

2) My friend Catherine's Fun with practising Chinese

3) The bizarre dream I had recently and some other bizarre dreams - you get to psychoanalyze me, which is always good as I hate to pay for therapy but free therapy online is worth every cent!

TRIP TO XINJIANG!

So I finally made it through the passport insanity and was able to fly to XinJiang. Sadly I had to skip the Kashgar leg of the trip, which would have been super fun, but instead met up with Lisa "Brown Girl", who is an old friend that I have known for almost ten years, but whom I have only met in person probably about six times. Anyway, we met in college through Model UN (one of the pillars to my three legged "dork stool" that was my life whilst in high school and college, but at least in college the trips were free) and subsequently saw eachother another two or three times, followed by about 7 years of infrequent emails and then finally meeting again in NYC last summer. I saw her again a couple times since coming to Beijing (she lives in Shanghai but is a freelance writer and the reason I was able to go to the weird Paul Smith fashion show here). Anyway, we made plans to go with her friend Anh-Thu (who looks frighteningly similar to my friend Betsy while at the same time completely different!) to XinJiang, "the land of song and dance" as well as "the land of honey and wine".

Couple of things to note about XinJiang:

1) Its technically an "autonomous region" in China, much like Tibet, which means that it was as one point "aqcuired" by the PRC

2) The majority of people in XinJiang are not Han Chinese, they're Uighur, which is a turkic central asian ethnic group that is predominantly muslim

3) There are also random Kazakhs and Khyrg people in parts of Xinjiang

4) Since most of the Uighur's are to some degree a mix of the caucasian and chinese, many of them look a lot like yours truly (except not as pretty)

5) Xinjiang is the midpoint of the famous "Silk Road" that connects China with the middle east

So these were all things that I knew before I made the trip. However, I soon learned a number of fun facts upon arrival. These included:

1) The Uighur women was very "sturdy" (read: buxom) with a penchant for wearing what westerners would consider evening gowns during the day, covered in shiny/sparkly things like sequins

2) While many of the Kazahks remain pastoral nomads and live in yurts, they're not like the amish, and Karaoke is a perfectly acceptable form of entertainment

3) Be wary of any restaurant that has no menu and responds when you ask about prices with "i'll give you a good price"

About that, so on day 3 we went to Tian Chi, which is this supposedly beautiful lake in the Tian Shan mountain range of northern XinJiang. After a 3 hour car ride, we finally got there to discover that the whole area was covered in a thick mist (ie. pea soup). Our visibility was about 30 feet. It was a lot like the fields of bunnies from my childhood (if you don't know what Im talking about, read some of my other posts). Anyway, we basically couldn't see anything, took the supposedly 30-minute trek up the steps to get to the lake (more like 90 minute), realized that we wouldn't be seeing any lake (literally...it was there, we just couldn't see it...i'll post the sadly comedic pictures of us next to the big "nothing" that reminded us of the Neverending Story, except I was Atreyu or Bastian but short one friendly luck dragon...) and decided to park our asses in a yurt for some grub. So the not unnactractive Kazahk women doesn't give us clear prices on food, and we end up ordering what we think is about 60 kuai worth of stuff. The food comes out, all of which is pretty mediocre except for the milk tea, which is apparently similar to the tibetan yak-butter tea. While not bad, it doesn't really taste like tea and in my humble opinion tastes more like Campbell's cream of mushroom soup with extra salt. ANYWAY, bill comes and the woman wants 200 kuai! Why? Apparently there is a 100 kuai fee for "renting the yurt" and she charged us 15 kuai PER FISH that was included in our gross fish soup! So one extra loud shouting match between Lisa and the woman (i think Lisa's command of mandarin was better than the kazahk girl's) and we're on our way without paying anything! We refused the 200 kuai, offering 70, which is 10 more than what itsould have been, to which the woman replied that if we're not going to pay the whole amount she doesn't want our money. Apparently this is a ploy that works with the "face saving" Chinese who would then either a) not want it to look like the money is worth more than their pride and would therefore pay the full amount just as an "F*ck U" to the restaurant or b) feel guilty for just walking off without paying. Fortunately we were all three americans and neither of these cultural snafus applied to us. We stormed off. Later the woman's brother found us and we gave him the 70 kuai...apparently he's the peachemaker of the bunch. I'll never look at a yurt the same way again!

So aside from that, the trip was pretty breezy and good fun, punctuated by wandering through markets and ancient ruins, drinking beer and eating nan bread, and enjoying lots of lamb. Also I had the pleasure of seeing THE WORST BATHROOM IN CHINA, which is definitely a hotly contested title. The winner: it was literally a set of boards placed on the side of a mountain with a little playpen around it. I have a picture. Good trip? Definitely.

Holy Crap!

2006-07-02T08:48:00.000+08:00

So I have been trying to post to my blog via email for all this time, and only now am I realizing that they didn't post! I am going to repost all of them now!

THIS SUCKS!

Travel Issues Resolved...sort of...

2006-04-24T16:03:00.000+08:00

So after much chasing, apparently my visa needs to be reprocessed, which is going to take until Sunday, which means I can't fly out to XinJiang until Monday, which means my 7 day trip is now a 5-day trip. I'm bummed because I will miss out on Kashgar, but hopefully I will still see some pretty cool stuff. Cross fingers for me that I even make it to Urumqi at this rate...the visa still needs to be submitted!!! ACK!

Now on to bigger and better...gotta plan the turkey trip along with the spain trip....thats still down the road!

Passport Fun

2006-04-22T11:14:00.001+08:00

OK, today was bittersweet because I got my new passport, but I had all of my passport/visa related issues (see Angry Blog)

So anyway, since I have my nice shiny new blank passport, I thought I would thumb through the old passport and reminsce about some of the good memories attached and its contents:

Origins: The passport was issued back in 1997 in Philadelphia just before I went with my college orchestra to France as part of an amazing weeklong trip. That was the first usage, and that trip rocked. I hung out with Sid and Cordelia most of the time, but it also included such fun memories as:

a) Staying in a run-down ex-orphanage with crazy orchestra kids
b) Getting really sick after walking through freezing rain on the day of arrival, which included (but was not limited too) loose bowels on the day that we had dinner with a local "host family" and I got to use my rusty high school french with the host mom

c) Waking up every morning to rhythm of TonyToniTone (the person, not the group) and his bouncing bedsprings. What was he up to that make them creak so much? Pushups…(I know, we thought it was something else too at first)

        d) Falling asleep in the Musee D'Orsay (see most ridiculous experiences list)
        e) Sid saying "Stupide Americains" repeatedly with a bad french accent
        f) TonyToniTone and others chasing a women they thought was hot around the Louvre for three hours
        g) La Belle Epoque (ask Cordelia, because she does the face the best but honestly it is an experience that none of us really want to talk about)

Anyway, it was great way to christen the passport. Since then this thing has been with me to a lot of places. Some of the contents include:

Visas for:
        Australia
        Hong Kong
        China
        Indonesia

Stamps from:
        Canada
        Australia
        Japan
        Hong Kong
        Thailand
        New Zealand
        Argentina
        Singapore
        UK
        Macau
        Indonesia

Some noteworthy places I have been to during this period but for which I lack stamps:
        Belgium
        Netherlands
        Uruguay
        Vietnam

Ah, so many memories attached to them. If you ever want a full rundown on any of these venues I can give you the details and some anecdotes about the most memorable experiences in each. Just post a comment…yes, I take requests!

Angry Blog

2006-04-22T11:14:00.000+08:00

OK Kids, since I haven't done it enough, here is another post in which I am going to bitch about stuff. Today's topic: VISA/Passport issues. OK, this is going to be complicated, and involves my travel plans, among other things.

I have been on the road and planning a number of things. At this point, some things are set in stone:

May 13 - Depart China for HK
May 15 - Depart HK to Malaysia

These are set in stone. Meanwhile, the following was the plan for the next several weeks:
This Weekend - Party like a rockstar
Next Friday (Apr 28) - Fly to XinJiang to meet up with old friend Lisa (aka Brown Girl for those of you "in the know") and her friend for the May Holiday

Following Friday (May 5) - Return from XinJiang

So althogether I was going to be doing a lot of travel. In the meantime, my passport has gotten old and crusty and the photo was close to falling out. As such, I was getting more hastle from the immigration checkpoints and at some point soon I would no longer be able to use it. Since I still have to hit up 10 more countries, China was my only choice for a place to replace the passport for a new one. HOWEVER, the old passport had my Chinese Visa in in.

OK, so the plan was going to be easy (and the US Embassy actually came up with it):
1) Replace Old Passport
2) Have Old Visa (still with 50 Days validity) transferred to the new passport by the Chinese government

Step 1 has been accomplished. When they gave me the new passport, they punched holes in the old one and told me to bring both to the Chinese Police Authority to transfer the visa. When I went there, I was told that I would need a new passport since the old one was no longer valid. Make sense? It doesn't to me either!

So anyway, this all went down this afternoon. Later I spoke with the woman from my language school (which sponsors my Visa) to ask for assistance. Her response was that a) she was going on vacation next week and b) asked me why I didn't check with the Police Authority before getting the new passport. OK, this is what pisses me off:

A) She knew this was the plan and said nothing about it being problematic
B) The US Embassy also advised me that this was the correct course of action
C) The Police Authority doesn't exactly have the best command of English, and since I'm no expert on Chinese immigration law I'm kinda screwed her and would assume that my "visa sponsoring school" would be a little more supportive in this process.

Anyway, I'm just stressed because
A) nobody has any bright ideas about the best course of action (although I have to go into school tomorrow, Saturday, to try to sort this out

B) I might have to surrender both passports for some period of time while I'm supposed to be in XinJiang, which means I need to kabosh the trip which pisses of Lisa, makes my travel agent angry, and I'm stuck in Beijing for the week which could also kinda blow

OK, that’s me venting. Any advise of course would be appreciated. Have a good night!

Chinese Dad's Birthday

2006-04-19T12:29:00.000+08:00

OK, this has been a ridiculous week. Sorry for being delinquent with the posts, but a lot has happened. Here, let me give you the scoop:

This weekend: I literally hoofed it ALL OVER the souther part of Beijing. Get out your maps kids and plot my path! I started on JinSong Lu, which is southwest of the city, headed south to the retardedly fun Panjayuan Dirt Market for some antique shopping (yes, I ended up buying nothing. I'm just not the type that’s impressed by crap), walked west all the way to TianTan (that’s the Temple of Heaven) which was BEAUTIFUL despite that fact that the Temple of Praying for the Good Harvest (or whatever its called) is closed until May. Fortunately they filled the surrounding park with purple flowers that kept me occupied for hours! I was so happy. Then I swung by the DIRTIEST RESTAURANT IN BEIJING for some heavenly bao-ze and Shanxi-style razor cut noodles. Then I continued my schlepp up Qianmen Dajie through the grittier hutong districts all the way to good ole TianAnMen Square (you may remember it from the massacre back in the 90s? Or from the giant picture of Mao?) at which point I swung a left and walked west along Jianguomen for a long time until my friend Cameron called and I met him and Sam (Cameron is like 6'2 and Sam is 6'5) on Tea Street for some tea tasting and bargaining followed by SiChuan yummies for dinner. Can I tell you the blisters on my feet were insane? After a day like that I had to spend the following day (Easter Sunday) scrounging for new comfy shoes in XiDan, which rocks.

OK, enough name dropping. Here's the real dirt:

1) Yesterday (Monday) I got painfully sick in the morning with some sort of fullness/bowel issue that haunted me all day. I literally came home at noon and slept all day and night until today, except for the part wherein my host parents helped me to translate some medicine and I learned the words in Chinese for "digestion", "abdominal tightness", "feel nauseous" and subsequently consumed some of my host mom's PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE. Later I dug through the good ole Citimonster first aid kit and found some pepto-bismo, which also seems to help. Today was ok until….

2) Tonight I went to my host dad's birthday party! This was CRAZY. Picture it: 12 of your friend's chinese parents sitting around a giant table with a hot-pot in the middle. Everyone has brought to the table a heaping plate filled with different cookables to be dropped into the pot. These include (but are not limited to): thinly sliced lamb…mmmm, fish skin, tripe, chicken's head, squid, fish balls, chicken's feet…I think I have said enough. Anyway, the food was great, but I was shocked by how much these folks ate! Plus they kept bringing more and more. I mean, if you know me you know I like to eat, and I like to eat in BULK, but this was even scaring me! Also one of the dudes (I swear this is true) only had ONE TOOTH in his mouth, and it was one of his front teeth so it really stuck out. He was super nice though! Anyway, no judgement here, I'm just telling you it was a little hard to keep from starting.

FYI, as I write this a dust storm is brewing outside and I will probably find the ground tomorrow littered with dusk as though it snowed dirt overnight.

Back to the story: so if you have lived with a Chinese family you know that most typical family conversations go something like this (bear in mind I am translating, often word for work):

Parent: You eat or not eat this?
Dan:            I eat.
Parent:         You eat or not eat this?
Dan:            I ate too much. I cannot eat anymore.
Parent:         Eat eat eat! You eat! Eat! You Eat eat!
Dan:            I can't. I am so full I will die.
Parent:         OK. You eat a little?
Dan:            OK.
…and repeat! This dialogue goes on until there is nothing left on the table to be eating. Every meal ends the same way:

Dan: I am so full Thank you. Everything was so good. I am so full I will die.
Parent: If you eat until you are so full you will die, we are very glad. You don't eat very much. If its good food you should eat it all!

So I wondered what would happen tonight. Would I be the victim of 5 sets of couples force-feeding me hot-potted savories? Interestingly, NO! They turned on eachother! The conversations went something like this:

Person1:        You eat or not eat this?
Person 2:       I eat. You drink! Drink drink drink!
Person 3:       I don't drink this. You give some to her.
Person 4:       I don't drink.
Person 2:       Drink drink drink!
Person 1:       Eat eat eat! Eat fish skin! Its good for your skin.
Everyone:       Eat eat eat!

I also was told repeatedly that I was very pretty, which I guess is a compliment?

The pinnacle of the evening was when all of the women at the table decided to steal their thousand year-old eggs by putting them in their purses, realized that I saw them in the act, and burst into laughter! Later they also stole bread, cucumbers and regular eggs. I was loving it.

I have decided that Beijing rocks! As my friend said, the people here may not be the most beautiful or the most cosmopolitan, but dammit, they will drink, eat and burp with you all day long!

BEIJING ROCKS!
(Wish me luck with the stomach thing…seriously, it hurts)

Top 10 List - Ridiculous Experiences

2006-04-10T20:13:00.000+08:00

Well children, I have decided to take a break from my inane China ramblings to recap some of the better moments in my life. I'm not sure how accurate this is going to end up being, but I come back to this list of my most ridiculous experiences because I mentioned it in an earlier post. It is hard to rank an experience by ridiculousness, so think of this as a simple collection of ridiculous experiences, each ridiculous in its own particular way. I'm not going to delve into the details of each, but if you really want to know about one, just post a comment here and I'll be sure to elaborate on the experience.

Anyway, these are based on a couple of factors, including:
        1) The "In can't believe we just did that" factor
        2) The "If anyone asks, this never happened" factor
        3) The "what the f*ck was the all about?!" factor

So here are my top 10 (for now)

Roadtrip home from San Francisco (with high school friends): taking a detour, getting lost in the hills during a forest fire and winding up on a dirt road, seeing two cows fucking, and miraculously emerging from the forest fire into Six Flags Magic Mountain, all within a four hour timespan

Trip to San Diego (with high school friends): crossed border into Tijuana, immediately got nervous and turned car around only to get caught in a two hour traffic jam back into the US, subsequently failing border crossing immigration check and ending up at "Station B" wherein we were told that Jack's lack of a greencard and absence from the greencard database "must mean he was naturalized at some point" and were told we were free to leave

Week in Montreal (with Wendy, Kevin and Mandy): Lost control of our paddle boat and were washed into a small park wherein we saw a crowd of children gather around a couple of teenagers that were dry humping whilst later that night we drunkenly made friends with a guy chaperoning escaped mental patients ("Les Handicaps")

Any time House of Pain's "Jump Around" is played and I'm in the same venue as Colleen (ie. College Graduation Formal, Spotted Cow Bar in New Zealand, Colleen's Basement)

"La Belle Epoque" with Sid and Cordelia. Just terrible…

Black Water Rafting with Colleen, Patsy and Edina in Waitomo New Zealand. Despite the wetsuits, inner tubes, eels, glow worms and kneepads, it REALLY got ridiculous when Collen got stuck on an underwater rock…

Riding rented horses up Wu Tai Shan with my Chinese language classmates on a horse with a bad case of the farts. Yes, I captured the magic on video…

Bunnies in the mist….

Stroopwafel Eating contest with Robin in Amsterdam. I don't remember much of it, but the photos are incriminating

Hotel Hopping: Illegally parking at the Irvine Hyatt in order to crash a convention for Co-dependents anonymous and a Casino Night for "Survivors of Head Injuries"

Runner's Up
Riding the coin-operated carousel (built for 3 toddlers) in front of Swensen's with my high school buddies circa 1999
Memorizing and re-enacting "Transformers the Movie" in high school french class
Billy "messing up his wink" intended for the hot tuba girl in band camp
Falling asleep for two hours in the Musee D'Orsay with Sid and Cordelia
"The Naked and the Nude"

If you can think of any others, or would like elaboration on any of those listed, please let me know. There is a lot of potential for ridiculous out there, and perhaps I'm overlooking something especially awesome rigth now. Feedback is encouraged!!!

Rugby Sevens

2006-04-03T15:53:00.000+08:00

I survived my first Hong Kong Rugby Sevens!

Some of you may recall that I attempted to go to the New Zealand Sevens in Wellington but was completely negged on getting a ticket. Well fortunately Sharon was able to obtain a ticket for me! So I went with her and her awesome coworkers to the matches, sat in the hot sun, drank some beers and of course cheered for the PRC team after the US team was destroyed. Also I ran into Alan and his girlfiend, both of whom are super awesome, and was finally able to see Bernice, who is the best! Of course I saw Cordelia and Sam, both of whom also rock. All in all it was a good weekend, and I managed to get a swanky, if not overly british, haircut. Pictures will go up eventually.

Surprisingly I didn't get too drunk this weekend. Also I decided that if a critical enough mass of people move to Hong Kong (ie. 2 more of my friends) I will consider working there again. It’s a fun town!

Quickie from the Road

2006-03-31T14:00:00.000+08:00

I'm at a Pacific Coffee (the low budget starbucks in Hong Kong that I actually prefer simply because its NOT starbucks) waiting until 3:30 when I can get my haircut from Davy, who is my surly hong kong haircut guy.

Dan's Haircut People:
New York - Hiroshi, the meticulous and super friendly flamboyant japanese hair artist who spoils me with tales of okonomiyaki and wows me with his exploits as the hairdresser of Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Naomi Campbell. His wife once cut my friend Ella's hair. I once cheated on Hiroshi and to see Heidi, who cut my friend Ishika's hair, but I felt too guilty and also the hair grew out badly, so I went back to Hiroshi.

Hong Kong - Davy, the surly motorcycle riding cantonese fella who always says terrible things about my previous haircuts every time he sees me. Last time he said "your hair is such a mess. Don't worry, I will fix it."

Sydney - Sadly I forgot her name, but she was a really cool welsh girl who kinda looked like boy george if he were a woman. She always wore a lab coat and did funky things with her makeup.

Funny asides about my two things:
1) Ishika stopped going to heidi, because she didn't cancel in time and was told that she would be charged $50 anyway. Rather than pay, she had to blacklist herself from Heidi, which sucks because Heidi's joint is only a 3 minute walk from the Citi-mothership

2) I bought some product once from Davy's Salon in Hong Kong for the steep price of HK$150 (about US$20). Anyway, I once crashed on Colleen's couch and she saw the product with the $150 price tag on it and thought I paid $150 for hair product! THEN she emailed Melissa and told her, and they BOTH believed I would spend $150 on hair product! I mean, I can be high maintenance, but that is ridiculous! Sometimes I wonder what kind of image I have cultivated!

Anyway, enough about my hair! I don't have too much to say. I'm hitting rugby sevens tomorrow, which is HK's biggest citywide party and a huge draw for pasty commonwealthers from across the globe. I told this to my friends Melissa and Jack (the same melissa that believed the hair product thing, see above) that you know you've been in China too long when you go to hong kong and think to yourself "Wow! Look at all the white people!", but its actually true. Actually, I think there are extra white people this particular weekend.

Anywhom, my goals for this weekend are the following:

1) Get haircut (CHECK!)
2) See Cordie and Bernice since I didn't really get to so much last time
3) Eat non-chinese food (yeah, not exactly the perfect town for it, but I figure I can get some thai or indian that will make me quite happy)

Alright, this wasn't much of a quickie, nor was it very straightforward, but at least its not as retarded as my last entry, right?

I should have titled this one: Dan is a high maintenance WIFI whore

Shaolin Showdown and Other Fun Surprises

2006-03-31T13:29:00.000+08:00

Wow, so much to cover in so little time!

OK, here are some fun updates on whats going on with me:

1) My visa is expiring!!! WHEE!!! Whats that mean? It means I need to leave China for another country and then come back in order to activate my second entry (it’s a dual entry visa, go figure). So I had two choices: a) Korea or b) Hong Kong. Once I found out how much more expensive the flight to Korea would be the choice became obvious! So I'm going to Honkers this weekend, which happens to be the weekend of the Rugby Sevens (some of you may recall that I was in Wellington for their rugby sevens, which was great fun even though I couldn't get tickets!). I don't plan on actually going to any of the rugby matches, but it will be fun to hang out in Hong Kong while it is jam packed with drunk pasty british and australian folk. Also I am super excited to get a HAIR CUT which I desperately need. Haircuts are fun!

2) Min came to visit me! This makes her an official global superfriend, which is super cool. She's here for business, but we got to meet up and go to this incredibly ridiculous restaurant called the "Green Tea House". This place is insane. First of all, our table was made of clear acrylic on top of white cusions in the window, so it was like sitting on a window bed eating delightful fusiony stuff. Green tea pan fried dumplings anyone? How about foie gras with fish roe served on top of a rose petal? FYI, my green tea martini was GREAT, as was Min's green tea mojito! Plus we were able to catch up on old times and new plans. Yay Min! (and yay food!). Sadly this expat-extravanganza was not without its price, and I think dinner cost the same amount as my flight from Tai Yuan to Beijing (which isn't saying much either way.)

3) Tomorrow is my host-mom's birthday. Thinking I will try to pick up a birthday cake for her, as I'm running blank of a suitable birthday gift. It has been so long since I have bought anyone a non-wedding gift that I don't know if I can do it anymore!

4) Lisa Movius might be visiting Beijing next week! I haven't seen that kid in forever, but my social calendar is certainly filling up! Life is crazy!

5) OK, this weeked at the Shaolin Monestary was RIDICULOUS.
Voices in your head:    Dan, was it as awesome as last weekend?
Dan (telepathically)    no.
You:                    Was it ridiculous?
Dan:                    Yes, totally.
You:                    How so?
Me:                     OK, first of all the first day we went to some sort of freaky fucked up theme park in Kaifeng, which is the old Song dynasty capital. I will refer to the theme park as "China-Land" since I have no idea what it was called. We basically wandered from one ridiculous show to the next, seeing people swallow fire, a puppet show, some acrobats, and some other stuff. All-in it was pretty lame. Then that night we went to dinner at a restaurant whose theme was "Cultural Revolution", which I also thought was a bit bizarre. Stranger still, our tourguide decided to take advantage of the "open mike" in our tour bus, and SANG to us. Awkward much? I wish I hadn't been sitting so close:

You: But Dan, how was your hotel?
Dan: Can I tell you, using a modern shower has never felt so good. Plus I was able to pick up some delicious bitter melon beer and have some fun conversation with the kids from my school. Not a bad night.

You: But what about the Shaolin Temple?
Me: Sadly the Shaolin Temple would had been in a beautiful area if not for the smoke. Meanwhile, seeing thousands of little kids practicing kung fu, all in the hopes of being the next Jet Li was pretty interesting. As were the white trash kids that were part of the "martial arts program" put on by my school. Could they kick my ass? Yes. Did they try to steal a cusion, a potted plant, a tea cup lid, laundry bags and towels from the hotel and subsequently get busted by the hotel for it? Also yes.

You: So the temple sucked?
Me: Are you even listening? I said it was cool. OK, well I meant to say it was pretty cool. Plus my friend catherine got her picture taken with the cutest baby ever! Also hey were practicing some weird propaganda mass participation thing next door, so I got some fotos of that. Later we ended up at Longmen Grottos, which were basically more caves.

You: Whats up with you and caves?
Me: I don't really love caves, I just seem to end up at them in a tourist capacity. Perhaps I should become a dwarf, although I'm already too tall.

You: So was that it? This trip sounds pretty lame.
Me: Well, it was ok, but the read madness started on the train back to Beijing. We boarded at 7:30 and would arrive around 6 or 7 the following morning. So we get on, and of course started drinking beer. 4 big beers later, I'm haning out with kids from the other school along with white trash kids from the martial arts program. By 10pm I'm hanging out next to the bathroom with German classmate Karina, mohawk dude (self explanatory), some guy who I kid you not is named Honey or something that sounds like Honey (which reminds me of that awesomely bad Jessica Alba movie wherein she shows a lot of midriff and looks cute for 1.2 hours), and some guy that looks like one of the hobbits from Lord of the Rings (except taller). 2 big beers later I'm having a deep and meaningful with my buddy Rachel (non-jew) who has taken a vicadin. Long story short, I'm not sure how much of that conversation either of us remember, but we're planning to have tea at the Ritz in london in May now. Whoohoo!

You: Is this story going anywhere? Cuz I have to pee…
Me: Hang on! So long story short, two more beers later, total beer count of 8 for me an Karina, we're locking Honey in between the rail cars and wandering through the dark hallways of the sleeper cards. FYI, they turn off the lights at 10:30 of so. Whilst wandering through the dark cars I keep saying to Karina "Das ist nicht schtaken-blacken", which if you have seen it on Conan O'Brien is freaking hilarious. Karina and the mohawk are looking pretty cozy, and we end up in the dining car surrounded by jovial sino-dudes (and girl) with oodles of bai-jiu (think paint thinner). They offered, and I accepted.

You: So did you go to bed?
Me: Funny you should mention it! Somehow I ended up getting back to my car, despite Karina picking a fight with Honey and potentially making out with the mohawk, drinking a shitload of bai jiu, making friends with the other people in the car, and having no idea where I was meant to sleep. 7am rolls around and I can't find my camera. I assumed it was lost and got really depressed, hopped on the bus back ot my flat in Beijing, bought some giant bao-ze, ate said bao-ze, and checked myself into bed. I woke up around 3pm with a monster hangover. At 3:30 I realized that my camera was in the backpack. Life is good.

You: So the point of this story is that this weekend was interesting because you got really wasted on a train?

Me: Pretty much, yeah.

6) I am very very tired…and got a nasty cold which I am attacking with hours of sleep and have been skipping school...

I can't....

2006-03-22T15:22:00.000+08:00

Post pictures from my awesome trip! SUCKS!

So instead you need to go to http://flickr.com/photos/dohgi

Hopefully those will work and you can see how awesome the trip was!

Best Weekend Ever! - Xianxi Changes Dan's Life

2006-03-20T16:28:00.000+08:00

OK, this was literally the best weekend ever. I am going to write a short version (to tease you) and a long version to raise your consciousness per request only! First, couple of notes to keep in mind:

1) The total cost of this weekend (including flights, hotel, trains, food, horses, etc.) was about US$100
2) I'm writing this while in the WIFI raggae bar in Beijing
3) I may have permanent lung damage from the amount of smog I ingested this weekend
4) Our group consisted of 9 people: 6 guys and 3 girls ranging in height from 5'3 ABC to 6'5 blond white football player. For once I wasn't the oldest, as Sandra the organizer was 29!

OK, so here is the "short rundown" of my weekend:

HIGHLIGHTS (I think I have pictures for each of these...will post soon)
1) Receiving a private performance by a troup of drummer/acrobat schoolkids in Pingyao
2) Impromptu horseback trip to one of the 5 terraces of Wutaishan (my horse had extreme gas...video available on request!)
3) The monks we came to Wutaishan wanted to take pictures of us!
4) Being told that we were the first americans that many people had ever met
5) Whenever we stood in a group for more than 5 minutes a group of chinese people would gather around us and stare
6) "American Style Breakfast" in Wutaishan - We were their first americans!
7) Catherine carrying a birthday cake around for 6 hours. Whose birthday? Nobody in particular. Cake was good though.
8) Drinking beer and bai jiu in a van at 8am after an 8 hour overnight train ride
9 ) Seeing a river that was literally BLACK
10) Fitting 50 people into a bus with 10 rows...we were in the seats, but the chinese dudes had to stand!

SHORT RUNDOWN
Thursday Night - Caught a "hard sleeper" train from Beijing to Datong leaving at 11pm
Friday:
7am - Arrive in Datong, negotiate with van driver to take us to Northern Wei Caves, Hanging Monestary, and Wutaishan
7:30am - Eat delicious noodles that we convinced the driver to buy for us!
8am - Visit 2000 year old buddhist cave temples in the middle of coal mining mecca. Couple swigs of beer and baijiu in the car...
11am - Visit hanging monestary, which is literally built into the side of a cliff! Its amazing what women will do in high heels.
1am - Drive through landscape more bleak than Mordor in which we saw a million shades of brown. Did I mention that its like 30 degrees out?
3pm - Arrive at massive wooden pagoda built with NO NAILs (1000 years old) surrounded by miles of mud-hut houses in the sea of brown. FYI, this is China's most polluted province
5pm - Depart for Wutaishan
8pm - Get ripped off by toll station, arrive in freezing Wutaishan to deflect attempted ripoff by hotel. In the end we got them down from 30 kuai per night per person (US$3.75) to 17 kuai per night per person ($2.125).
9pm - Wander freezing cold dark streets of tiny buddhist temple town looking for food. End up drinking bitter melon beer and enjoying delightful dinner!

Saturday
8am - Wake up, head to breakfast at the same place, where they promised us "American Style Breakfast". In reality, breakfast (for five of us, all dudes) consisted of two plates of scrambled eggs on tomato (??), 15 loaves of fluffy Chinese poundcake, and several jars of jam. When we asked for some fruit to put on the pound cake the night before, they literally ran to the corner store and bought 6 jars of jam!
10am - Headed to giant buddhist temples (Wutaishan is one of the holy mountains) where we were more of a spectacle than the monks. We wanted to see the giant 12 meter-long scroll written in blood, but it was closed that day.
Noon - Decided to climb to one of the mountain temples, but passed by a herd of horses and their riders. We bargained them down to US$7.5 per person to take the horses to the temple and back. My horse apparently ate a lot of broccoli and beans before the trip, as she was releasing gas like nobody's business!
1:30 - We run to the local vendor to buy hand-made Shan Bing (literally made by the dirtiest woman in China without gloves or spatula!) and fried nooddles. We pile into our bus, which continues to fill. I'm sure the bus was meant to seat about 25 people, but somehow they crammed about 35 into it, with people standing in the aisles or busting out little stools.
This trip continued until about 7pm, over the course of which we made about 75 stops, each bringing more people. It was like a clown bus, and I had to pee bad! We also made friends with the girls sitting next to us, who enjoyed reading out chinese character flashcards. We tried to stump them, but they knew every character!

7pm - Arrive in Tai Yuan, snag a sweet hotel (we had our own bath!) and head out for delicious dinner!

SATURDAY
8:30am - Hard seat train to Ping Yao, which is this old chinese walled city. The buildings are beautiful and old, but their contents are the usual tourist crap and expensive "western priced" restaurants, although I don't think this place has seen any western tourists in since last August.
10:30am - Purchase return tickets only to realize that they are for "standing" (ie. no seat).
11:am - Enter the walled city and immediately purchase copious amounts of delicious northern style xiao lum bao....mmmmm....like a cross between a dumpling and a bun.....mmmm.....
11:30 - Sam decided to walk into one of the courtyards and play ping pong with some high school kids. Their teacher walks in, introduces herself and explains that we're in a school for performers. She takes us downstairs where we 8 or 10 of them practicing on drums. 5 minutes later 90 other kids (including the ping pong kids) come into the basement and we're told they're going to give us a dress rehearsal. Bear in mind that this is Sunday, their day off! So we are treated to an AWESOME drum and dance performance, including kids doing flips and acrobatics!! At the end we clapped for them then THEY CLAPPED FOR US! Awesome awesome awesome.
We ended up wandering around the walled city for a couple of hours exploring all the tourist crap and eventually buying the kids a big cake to thank them. Catherine bought us a cake too (she had some serious cake cravings) which she carried around for the next several hours.
3 - 4:30 - Standing in train back to TaiYuan. People asked to take pictures with us.
5pm - McDonalds break. I felt really guilty, but my friends really wanted it, and a chocolate shake has never tasted so good!
6pm - Cab ride to airport. 70 kuai ($8.75)!!! We got totally ripped of!!
8pm - Flight to Beijing
10pm - Arrive at home and collapse

Yes, it was an insane weekend, including hanging monestary, coal mines, a black river of soot, child acrobats, monks on cell phones, horseback treks to secluded mountain temples, a city of dirt, and of course bitter melon beer. This may have been the best weekend ever. It also may have been the most ridiculous. Stay tuned for my "Top 10 Most Ridiculous Incidents" list that I'm working on. Pictures to come.

Blah Update

2006-03-12T15:53:00.000+08:00

So I hit up the big wall yesterday. It was cool, but pretty much exactly as expected. Guess I can check the box!

Today I had a lunch of Lamb spine and bone marrow. It was delicious, but too much work for my taste! Also I managed to buy one of the PLA Army Jackets that I have been eyeballing. They look SO WARM. I am excited, and hopefully can use it in Freezing Chicago next year! Fingers crossed on that. It is so freaking cold here…SO COLD!

Also these chinese characters are kicking my butt. I need to put in some power studying tonight I'm afraid. Did I mention that studying sucks? I'm sooo sick of it.

Also joined the gym…hopefully I can go tomorrow for an hour….wish me and my fat ass luck!

Beijing: Another Surreal Night....

2006-03-10T15:33:00.000+08:00

Last night was my "classmate" Aaron's birthday, so he invited basically the whole school out for drinks and dinner + karaoke. Sounded fun. Here are the reasons it was totally wack:

1) Drinks + Dinner was at this tiny bar that I like, but Aaron had basically rented it out and prepaid for a ton of stuff, so we didn't have to pay. This was fine, but I was a little weirded out by it

2) Karaoke Place was MASSIVE. When I say massive, I mean like it was a towering structure designed specifically for Karaoke. Picture an office building. Each floor had giant karaoke lounges and a buffet! It was ridiculous, but also kinda makes you think….a culture that places so much importance on karaoke…..

3) We were having a conversation mocking the man purses that Beijing men are always carrying (they love them) and I mentioned that I have seen so many Prada man-bags. Anyway, this swiss dude that we all agree is a bit shady said something like "the only guys in Zurich who wear prada are the brazilian money boys" (ie. Hookers). So of course I had to joke that he was probably a "money boy" himself, so which he replied something like "well, I only tried it for two months, and I didn't like it so much". Anyway, it turns out he WASN'T KIDDING! So it was a fun evening asking him about his escapades as a male gigolo. Good times, but strange when ya think about it!!

4) I was hungover without even being drunk!!!! I think because I drank whiskey, beer, and taro milk tea all in the same night. Bad move on my part!

5) Herd of chinese language students (like 50) wandering the streets of beijing as a mob is never a good thing!

Anyway, tomorrow I hit the great wall, or "Chang Cheng", which should be interesting. I had a crazy 20 minute conversation with my host family in which I inadvertantly said "Chang Cheng" (Great Wall) instead of "Chang Chang" (usually/frequently). Hilarity ensued, but I won't bore you with the details.

Also I have decided to ditch my overachiever gene and switch back to the "regular" writing class instead of the "accelerated" writing class, mostly because I'm lazy. I'll take my own sweet time to learn the characters, thank you very much!

Food update: People here have realized that I talk about food too much, including the teachers!! Also my host mother made 100 DUMPLINGS! She boiled 50 of them, which the three of us ate. I also broke down and joined the super expensive gym here…I figure if I can burn 500 extra calories per day I may be able to escape total obesity…its gonna be all cardio baby!!!

History Repeats Itself

2006-03-07T16:17:00.000+08:00

So yesterday my life literally transformed into the bizarro version of my life in Southern California during the months of October and January.

Guess what I did?

I got drunk with my CHINESE host-father!

It was just like home with my real dad, so I'm not homesick! Actually, a friend of my host parents came over bearing a gift: a bottle of yellow liquor with scorpions soaking in it. Yes, they were dead, and apparently give the liquor some sort of medicinal property (good for the joints they told me). Anyway, we ended up NOT drinking that liquor, but the three of us polished off 20 cans of cheap Chinese beer. I wasn't really very drunk, although including the 2 beers I had in the afternoon my total count was probably 10 or 12 cans (or tingrs as I learned last night). They kept trying to get me to drink the scorpion booze, but as they themselves were unwilling to I decided to shy away as well.

Anyway, some fun takeaways from yesterday evening:
1) By the time I got home from school at 6pm, they had ALREADY EATEN DINNER
2) Chinese beer is pretty weak
3) I need to do more exercise or I am going to explode considering how greasy the food here is

General China note:
You know how you can go out to Chinese food with Chinese Americans and eat eggplant with garlic sauce or Kung Pao chicken and they'll say things like "This isn't real Chinese food, blah blah blah"?

They're full of shit! Beijing Chinese freaking LOVE kung pao chicken! I feel like every place I go people order it! Also I have had mushu pork (although totally different from "American" mushu pork). Also I had eggplant with garlic sauce as well. Clearly its better here (and greasier!) but those items are in fact REAL Chinese food!

Beijing - Acting my Age

2006-03-05T17:20:00.000+08:00

Its 11:27 PM, and I just got home. I met up with my classmate Catherine and her buddy Matt to go to some bars/clubs, but ended up doing "Pre Game" at someone's apartment and bailing before actually hitting the club, someplace called "Mix".

Couple notes:
1) I haven't done "pre game" (ie. Drinking BEFORE going out) since I was like 21 years old, which is like 7 years ago.
2) If I go clubbing this weekend, it will be the most clubbing I have done in over 5 years
3) I was far and away the oldest person at the "pre game" tonight. The next oldest was Stephan, who I believe is 24. He would have been a college freshman when I was a senior, if that!

4) The youngest person was 21 years old
5) More than one person acted schocked when I said I was 28, and most said something like "I thought you were 22"

This is all fine. I got used to it in Argentina, but I expected people in China, who all look 15, to think I looked really OLD! And lets face it, I have looked better! But I guess maybe something on my dad's side keeps me in a perpetual state of 24-hood? My dad looked 32 for about 20 years, so there are worse things that could happen.

Anyway, tonight was absolutely silly. I show up with my friend, and people were all excited because someone had "scored them some hash", so they were smoking hash and getting ready to go clubbing. They were listening to the Ministy of Sound (which is fine) and planning on a late night of clubbing. Am I wrong to say to myself sometimes "I'm too old for this shit"?

NO, because that’s what I did tonight. I have no problem being the oldest person in a group (which I should get used to because it will be more of the same in business school). In fact, I kind of enjoy it! But there's a difference between going out for the sheer novelty of passing for someone younger, and going out to actually have a good time, and tonight I just wasn't feelin it. Tomorrow I'm hoping to eat "exotic" chinese food and drink beer. Karaoke might be involved as well…hopefully it will be interesting. In the mean time, I'm a tired 28 year old, and its time for me to hit the sack. 28 is a great age. I love it.

Beijing Hangover - the randomness continues

2006-02-26T15:38:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was Saturday the 26th. I decided to check out Tian'an Men Square and the Forbidden City since they are right next to eachother, which was good fun. They never show you on TV just how MASSIVE the two are. I took the audiotour of the Forbidden City, which was actually not bad, then ended up to the north of it and walked to the two parks nearby, then I proceeded up to the area north of Beihai Park, where my surreal tourist experiences continued.

Surreal? OK, first of all the Forbidden City is like a national treasure, and yet it is FILLED with little shops selling crap. Crap? OK fine, everywhere there are vendors at tourist attractions, but instant noodles?? So after getting over seeing people eating instant noodles while walking through what is effectively a museum, I next got to see the hundreds of tiny bars in the area north of beihai park plus the hundres of rickshaw drivers. I guess the area is a "working hutong", which means alley, so I have no idea what a "working hutong" is supposed to be. Either way, it gets passed off as a tourist attraction in its own right, although I couldn't figure out what the attraction really was. Either way I stopped for lunch, so all was good! I had stinky bean curd for lunch, which was good although a bit "pungent"

OK, I hate reading when people just recount their day (I get a lot of those emails and think to myself "why are u emailing me this?") so I'll get to the decent stuff. So I ended up meeting up with my schoolmates for dinner at this "brazillian bbq", which was basically like a sizzler but with grilled meat. They had the most random salad bar ever! It was like chinese food (tripe, jellyfish, greasy stir fried veggies, etc.) plus pizza, french fries, potato salad, fruit, and an open tap of beer. The pizza is what threw me off, especially since it had things like corn in it!

Anyway, after fun at the bbq wherein I realized the diversity in ages at the table (33 on the high side, 15 on the low side. That’s right, 15. Some parents let their 15 year old son go by himself to china. I find that impressive, but that’s just me with my fear-driven American upbringing). So I think I was the 2nd or 3rd oldest person, which in my book isn't bad. So we ended up wandering the bar district until we ended up at a night club! So I'm in this night club with 12 other students randing in age from 15 to 33 in CHINA! I just couldn't get over it. And all the music was like hip hop R&B and bad dance music. So bizarre. The club itself wasn't too bad, and we saw these two HOT girls dancing with eachother near their group of friends. One of the friends kept trying to get us to dance with them, a little too aggressively I might add, which leads me to the conclusion that they were whores. Ah well…

Then I ended up arguing with my cab driver on the way home because he couldn't find the intersection that I wanted. Thinking that I might be pronouncing it all wrong I busted out my MAP of Beijing and showed him, ON THE MAP, where I needed to go. He STILL couldn't get me there. Finally I recognized some things I knew and we were able to get my ass home. 2:30am I crashed, a long day.

So I woke up this morning and FREAKED OUT because I couldn't find me phone. While taking my hangover shit and hangover shower, I kept putting together scenarios of buying a new tri-band phone, how to ask for it in Chinese, calling my old phone number and trying to explain to the cab driver (the last place I saw it) that I had lost is, etc. Actually last night at 2am the guy kept trying to get me to call my host family to give him directions and I was like "I can't call them now, its 2am!". Sucked.

So after going through my insane scenario analysis in the shower I realized that my phone was under my laptop. I'm so dumb sometimes. I'm sure I will lose it soon though…

More pictures from the trip..only the good ones!

2006-02-24T15:48:00.000+08:00

OK Kids, I finally have put up some of the "good pictures" from my trip so far!

I went to this cool art exhibit in Sydney and they had these "vag badges" that were kinda like beanie-babies! I was tempted to buy one, but I just didn't have room in my carry-on for any more fake vaginas!

This is my indoor/outdoor bathroom and jacuzzi in Bali. My little villa was so much fun, and who knew I would enjoy outdoor nudity so much?

I tried SO HARD in the Monkey Forest in Ubud to take a picture of monkeys fucking (seriously, like 8 attempts) but those little fuckers (pardon the pun) are really fast!! It was like a 2-second kinda operation and then they were done!

Sadly the best I could get was a picture of this old male monkey and his gigantic balls!

This little gecko was living in my bathroom! Look, he's smaller than my (sexy) toe! We became quick friends and would spend hours just laughing and laughing over dirty jokes and reinacting our favorite scenes from "Airplane". Then I caught him trying to steal my passport so I flushed him down the toilet. I really miss that little guy....sniff sniff...

I met this woman while touring the Neka museum in Ubud. She is 85 years old and in the last five years went to the North Pole, the South Pole, South America, and lots of other places! I think she drew her eyebrows on with a market though, as they had an interesting sheen. The dude is our tourguide, who seemed so happy to have people hang out with him at the museum (he had to hang out there anyway, which would be boring by yourself).

Chinese Teachers

2006-02-24T14:10:00.001+08:00

Today was the first day of classes, and it was very much like the first "Harry Potter" book and/or movie, in which each of the teachers is more ridiculous than the last. First of all, my bus to the school was not only insanely crowded, but also insanely slow. Couple that with quickly weakening stomach and gastroinestinal system and I wasn't much use at all. I jumped out of the bus at the wrong station and then had to get back in. Once at my stop (10 minutes late), I had to do my "fast walk" to the school. Fortunately I had my iPod, so I could listen to the latest "Fallout Boy" CD, which although kinda juvenile makes for a good fast-walking soundtrack. I tend to listen to it also at the aiport as soon as I get off my plane and want to make an aggressive b-line to the customs counter before the usual herd of tourists. Richard Blackett taught me well!

Anywhom, I finally go to class which had already started. Apparently the first class was "listening class", and our teacher was there working a tape deck with pre-recorded chinese words. While he seemed relatively normal, althouhg very "HK" if you know what I mean (and I think you do…tight fitting clothing, spiky hair, fashionably nerdy glasses). The part that got me was how he would laugh every time someone didn't know something in Chinese or would screw something up. Hello? It’s the first day of class and we've paid lots of money for these classes - why would we do that if we spoke Chinese already!?

Second Class - The teacher reminded me of one of my T.A.s in college on whom I had a minor and slightly twisted crush. She was a 21 year-old 3rd year PhD student in the Poli Sci department who had apparently spent her earlier life in China. While her English sucked and she wasn't super pretty (like a 5) she got sexy points for being an overachiever from what then was still a pretty commie-ish country.

Anyway, 2nd class teacher was a little chinese woman (ambiguous age) whose chinese name was completely unintelligible, but whose English name was Jasmine (that's right, like the Princess in Alladin…yes, the one with the bare midriff you dirty little monkeys). Anyway, Jasmine spent about an hour on introductions, in which each member of our class would introduce themselves and she would process to say HORRIBLE things about them. It was hilarious. For example:

Me - "Your father is Japanese? You are what we call in Chinese "xxxx", which means half-blood". That’s not bad, right? It got better when she referred to me for the rest of the class as "Mr. Half Blood" or "Half Blood Boy".

To the Girl from Germany - You are from Germany? I love the Germany, but when I went there I would see people from behind and I couldn't tell if they were man or woman. I think because the woman are so manly. They are very strong".

To the American Girl from Germany (immediately after) - Oh, you are American? I thought you were from Germany too!

To the English Boy - "You are in university? You look so young! I thought you were teenager! When I see you, I think to myself "what kind of parents does he have that send their little teenage boy away to China?"

Later she was trying to explain how when american's swear, they use the "4th Tone" (intonation) to say the words. "Listen to yourself next time you say the fuck words". Priceless.

If you know me at all, you'll understand that none of this was offensive to me. In fact, I was dying with laughter. I loved it! I don't think the class loved it as much as I did, but perhaps my commie fetish is rearing its ugly head again?

3rd Class - The professor is tough to describe. Imagine if hello kitty mated with piikchoo from Pokemon, and the offspring of that coupling mated with a chinchilla (the earth's cutest animal). If it could speak Chinese the offspring of that coupling would be this teacher. She was soooooo sweet I nearly burst into crying laughter every ten minutes. She also seemed on the verge of laughter all the time, and sometimes just couldn't help it. At one point I did start to crack up for now reason, and got busted!

Her (whilst laughing): I don't understand. What so funny?
Me: Uh….

Then she explained that he friends call her by "Xiao" and her last name, which is a petty common practice here in China. However, she also explained that her last name combined with Xiao could be considered to mean "Little Monkey". At that point I just lost it.

Don't get me wrong, the teachers are great and they seem very nice, but I just found the day terribly ridiculous, which is what I wanted. Also I at a yummy lunch, which included flat pieces of hard tofu, kinda like tortillas, which we used to scoop up delicious sweet-tasting stry-fried pork. YUMMY!!!

Also more dumplings with dinner. Dumplings made me very happy. VERY HAPPY!

Wish me and my gastrointestinal system luck tomorrow kids!

First Day in Beijing

2006-02-24T14:10:00.000+08:00

Its funny, because all the advice about the program I got so far has been wrong. Apparently the program used to be in the outskirts of Beijing near all the universities in a crusty old building with terrible internet access. Ironically, they have moved into a brand new building in the Central Business District with great internet connections! Classes start tomorrow and we'll see if I actually learn anything! Fingers crossed.

Otherwise, today has been uneventful. I only have like 2 airborne tablets left, which is freaking me out. I know they probably don't have any actual effect, but the psychological benefit of something that you just take and feel better can be huge. Hopefully I can find the equivalent product here in the land of the rip-off fake products, so I'm assuming they must have a ripoff of Airborne tablets, right?

Anyway, I'm happy to see that most of the other students so far are also absolute beginners. True, I took an 8 week class in NYC, but it was so short and I really don't feel like I learned a whole lot. Well, maybe I did, but I have been having a hell of a time trying to communicate with people. Bring on the classes!!!

OK, time for my gastrointestinal update - Don't Continue if you are easily grossed out!
So I haven't gotten the runs yet! I am so happy, but I don't want to speak too soon as I'm almost positive it will happen here in China. Its really just a question of when. I had them once when I went to Bangkok after B. Bea convinced me to eat Som Tum salad off the street…SUCH a bad move…followed by some street durian (also possibly a bad move). I was sure I would have problems in Indonesia but I didn't! Seriously, I was totally psyched. Here in China I'm not really sure what will happen. However, I did eat some spicy stuff today (Sichuan style spicy…slow burning…) that probably will give me some problems. Cross your fingers for me and for my stool!!

Quick Note....

2006-02-16T14:25:00.000+08:00

Internet access is spotty. All I can say is that my hotel right now is absolutely ridiculous. I literally have my own small swimming pool and the bathroom is the size of my bedroom in NYC.

Staying in Ubud, the art capital of Bali. I went to a dance show last night that literally blew my mind.

Tomorrow I fly to Hong Kong. Will try to write more and post more pictures. Take a look at my photos page on flickr in the meantime.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dohgi/

I will try to post the bali pics sometime soon. I also took some cool video files (.avi i think) that I will try to post.

BINTANG ROCKS!

Bali - Day 3

2006-02-14T21:49:00.002+08:00

Apologies if the following is tough to follow. I'm having hard time accessing the internet, so literally sending stuff as I can.

OK, so I hit the market today. It was good fun, although I'm not sure how sanitary it was after I wandered by the live chickens, etc. I guess its not worse than the Chatuchat market in Bangkok where I saw baby squirrels for sale! So today I think I am going to wander down by the beach and hopefully find someplace that sells cheap lunch eats! I'm sure that in Ubud now I'm going to try to hit the non-gourmet spots as they will be a bit more authentic perhaps. Don't get me wrong, the restaurant here in my little mini-resort is AWESOME, but in some ways it’s a little too western, to "modern balinese".

Tangent: I like how in Australia all the good food is "modern australian" and the only non-modern Australian food that has been able to survive seems to include vegemite and pie floaters. Apparently "Ancient Australian" food is the worms and grubs that the aboriginals ate, and the "pre-modern" food is british food, which we all agree sucks.

So anyway, hopefully today I can fetch some old-school balinese eats.

Fruit Update #1 - Today at the market I picked up some iwan, which is kinda like a cross between a pear and a mango. It looks like a pear, but the soft white flesh has the texture of a mango. The taste is tough to explain, but I was really diggin it! Apparently it is also seasonal, so I got lucky this time.

Fruit Update #2 - Rambutan is in season! I LOVE RAMBUTAN! Yay!!!!!

OK, yesterday was pretty boring, although I did SWIM for the first time in like 5 years. I realized that I reall don't remember how to swim very well! I sort of floundered around and got tried really quickly…so sad. So I think that once I'm settled down I will fork out for some swimming lessons, or make friends with people who know how to swim for real. I'm pretty sure that if I were in a giant oceanliner that hit an iceberg and sank, I would be fooked, as I can probably only tread water for about 2 minutes and then I would keel over and die. Its odd to see one's own mortality so vividly! And drowning would suck, FYI.

The straw I'm using to drink my mixed fruit beverage is a literal straw, like a reed. How cool is that! I'm so sick of plastic straws anyway!

Coffee - So I went to a coffee factory today and saw them roasting the coffee and grinding it and putting it into little bags. I couldn't tell if the coffee excursion was a sales pitch, but they didn't seem too focused on getting me to buy coffee (unlike all the jewelry scams in Bangkok and Amsterdam).

Also here in Lovina I haven't seen any tourists at all (outside of my little hotel). I think I was the only white-ish person in the whole market today, although admittedly the market trip is probably not everyone's favorite thing to see. Its fun being a total minority. Whee!

I'm also amazed that given basically the same set of ingredients indonesian and thai food are so very very different. My friend Jan explained it once that Thai people love every dish to have two flavors (ie. Sweet and spicy or sweet and sour or sour and spicy, etc.) where Malay and Indonesian cooking goes with either one flavor or every flavor. Not sure if I agree or not, but an interesting theory. Maybe I will take a cooking class in Ubud, but I kinda doubt it at this point.

Soon I will start to complain about this grad school decision that I have to make. Also plan to post my application essays at some point…..

Bali - Yes, its awesome

2006-02-14T21:49:00.001+08:00

OK, I'm in Bali now…got in yesterday after a whole heap of "pain in the arse". Why? Well, couple of reasons that yesterday went pear-shaped, as my australian friends like to say:

1) I arrived at the domestic terminal for Qantas, assuming that made sense since my first flight was to Darwin (Aus) and my second was to Denpasar (indonesia). I assumed I would be on a domestic flight and then change to the international transfers section for the second flight. WRONG. The Darwin flight left from international, which meant once I got to the aiport I needed to schlepp through domestic check-in (including security) and then go to the international transfers section, go through security AGAIN and then RUN to my plane. Going through security twice sucks.

2) Once I got to Darwin, there was no place for me to store my stuff, except if I took the shuttle to darwin central and stored it in the shuttle bus office. Fine. Unfortunately this meant I was really far from the "Crocodylus Park" (Croc park, nuff said) that I wanted to go to! So I got to downtown Darwin and found out that a) it sucks and b) everything was closed! It was a nightmare. Suffice to say, I had some beers and FINALLY some wedges (if you haven't had wedges in Australia you are totally missing out!)

Wedges = seasoned (like curly fries) steak cut french fries served with sour cream and sweet chili sauce (kinda like the duck sauce you dip spring rolls in at bad chinese restaurants)…SO GOOD

So I downed my beer (A$3 thanks to happy hour) or should I say beers, went back to the airport, checked in and flew the f*ck out of darwin

3) Apparently my passport is FULL, meaning there are literally no blank pages to put stuff on. This gave me some grief at the check-in area, but I made it through. However, I'm a bit worried about when I arrive in China. I might have to go to the US embassy in denpasar in order to get new pages! I'm not sure how to deal with this, but once I'm in China I will have tons of time and I can get a new passport easy-peasy

4) I was tired as f*ck last night

But its all worth it now. My hotel in Seminyak was just what I needed: giant bed, nice bathroom, awesome breakfast included. I broke down and took a private car here to my hotel in Lovina, which is AMAZING.

Why so amazing? Well, I was expecting nice…meaning I was expecting the typical balinese villas: my own little bungalow overlooking the water. Also I chose this place specifically because their restaurant was mentioned in so many guidebooks as a must see. However, I was a little bit mislead about the surroundings. This place is actually NOT on the beach, but up in the mountains, which is awesome. I have a spectacular view over rice paddies to the nearby ocean in my own private bungalow which includes its own jacuzzi and outdoor shower (nudity outdoors is always fun, but usually I'm not the nude one), its absolutely beautiful. I'm a happy guy!

So I will post some pictures of my sweet villa. I think tomorrow I'm going to wake up early to go on a tour of the local market with the chef at the hotel restaurant. Yes, I am a market whore. Some of my friends have their own weird hangups that they always love to see when they travel or in their daily life. For example:

        - Samida - Glaciers
        - Mandy - iMax movies
        - Wendy - Mac & Cheese
        - Johnny - Anonymous women from Craig's list
        - Betsy - Craigslist as well as Odd News (you know, the weird stories about weird stuff)

For me, its all about local markets where you can see all the delicious ingredients. Going to the market in bangkok was sweet, and Cordelia's mom took me to the old Hong Kong Central Market (before bird flu and before it was shut down), and Lisa and I went to the GIANT adelaide market together. Lets not forget the old standbye Reading Terminal Market in Philly either. The only markets I really don't like are full-on wet markets, which smell narsty. Shit, I even like going to the grocery stores back home!

So Bali has so far been relaxed and delightful. I'm not too ambitious about seeing "things" and more into just chilling out, but tomorrow should be good and perhaps I will see more "things" once I get to Ubud.

OH! I almost forgot that I tried two new fruits today that were unexpected:
1) Snakefruit - Kinda weird, like a cross between an apple and an onion in flavor. I can't decide if I liked it yet
2) Yellow passionfruit - SO MUCH better than purple passionfruit! I can't even explain it!

Bali - Day 3

2006-02-14T21:49:00.000+08:00

Apologies if the following is tough to follow. I'm having hard time accessing the internet, so literally sending stuff as I can.

So anyway, hopefully today I can fetch some old-school balinese eats.

Fruit Update #2 - Rambutan is in season! I LOVE RAMBUTAN! Yay!!!!!

The straw I'm using to drink my mixed fruit beverage is a literal straw, like a reed. How cool is that! I'm so sick of plastic straws anyway!

Soon I will start to complain about this grad school decision that I have to make. Also plan to post my application essays at some point…..

Darwin - This kinda sucks

2006-02-12T14:26:00.000+08:00

So I was all excited about the 8 hour stopover I would have in Darwin. I was going to stow my bag, head to the crocodile park, and then grab dinner and get back on my plane to Bali. Sadly my flight was late so the stopover was more like 6 hours instead of 8, and there was no place to put my bag during the day! Then the croc farm closed early today and because its sunday all the museums and stuff are closed. PLUS its FREAKING HOT AND HUMID, and much of the tiny town area is shut down. I hate it when all of my plans fall apart. On the bright side, I had another chance to enjoy some aussie beer and got to enjoy the heat a bit!

So tonight I land in denpasar...spending the night in Seminyak, which is supposed to be nice, then to the beachy chilled out Lovina for some solitary time. I have a narsty farmer tan from the intense sydney sun, so maybe I can eliminate that in bali...fingers crossed, although I think the ozone depletion down in Australia "helps" for tanning purposes.

As for the Australian experience, it really made me miss living in Australia. Such a great country to live in on a daily basis...great weather, great food, relatively nice people, and increasingly diverse. I think I actually liked Melbourne a lot more than Sydney this time, but the whole experience makes me wonder if I should start looking for Australia-based jobs after grad school or just try to make it home to CA. Decisions decisions....

I'll be posting Australian pictures on the picture page soon as well....

Error Correction - Global Superfriends

2006-02-10T08:35:00.000+08:00

Elaine is also a global superfriend with 2 continents (I forgot about our fun trip to Tokyo!), Jenny Jau and Tak Okamoto as well (same Tokyo trip...good times!)

Melbourne - Fun facts from Australia

2006-02-10T08:14:00.000+08:00

This cafe has free WIFI, which is my favorite thing in the whole world (that I can't eat).

OK, so here are some fun facts about Australia trip to wet your appetite:

1) I flew down last minute to Melbourne and went for drinks with my mate Vivek who I worked with telephonically for a year or so but never actually met. We ended up at like 3 divy bars last night, each with its own live cover bands. Unlike Sydney, Melbourne hasn't outlawed smoking and I subsequently reek like an ashtray

2) Melbourne rocks. I want to live here.

3) I spent a decent part of this morning debating if I want to ring up my old boss who lives in Melbourne. Finally I got the courage to ring and see if he wanted to grab coffee (if you know this guy you understand why it was such a debate) and it turns out he's in Sydney today! How ironic!

4) Vegemite shits all over marmite. I forgot how much i love a good slice of sourdough toast with butter and vegemite. Its like the perfect anti-hangover remedy.

5) Australians have so many words for female genetalia, and two nights ago I feel like I heard them all. Words I would never have known had I not come here. Some I knew, some I heard for the first time. My three favorites are: c*nt (a classic really), twat (has a bit of an upper class feel to it), mut (pronounced moot...very old school) and my new favorite is minger (or minge for short).

6) It took me several days to remember how to speak the Australian dialect (no the accent, the expressions and stuff). Por ejemplo, I totally messed up ordering coffee. I was all "can I have a tall black?" and they were all "you mean a LONG black?" and I was like..uh...yeah. It was like messing up a masculine/feminine article in spanish/french. Je voudrais un pamplemousse. Oops! UNE pamplemousse.

OK, thats all you get for now. More fun notes soon. Have a dinner party tonight, drinks with McWilliam tomorrow (top bloke) and then my big flight to DARWIN coming up.

Stay tuned.....

Melbourne: Notes from the road

2006-02-10T07:42:00.000+08:00

OK, in case you haven't seen fotos, I have created a picture page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dohgi/

These are fotos that I have posted as they become available. The camera my folks got me for x-mas is really working out, although sadly my ability to take fotos isn't! I may be the worst photographer ever! Fortunately the camera does all the work for me. Australia pictures will get posted once I'm done here I think.

These are literally notes from the road as I am on a shuttle bus taking me from the dinky tiny airport in Avalon, Victoria to the city of Melbourne. The tickets were ultra cheap on the Australian equivalent of Southwest Airlines, and I bought them yesterday! I have only one friend left in Melbourne (my old boss Bartels doesn't really count as he doesn't drink), and I have never actually met him! We just know eachother from all the global citi-friends emails that were passed back and forth while I was slaving away for the C-monster. Anyway, will be fun to match a name with an email address!

The past few days have been more surreal than I expected as I spent them in Sydney. Following my quickie trips to Auckland and Wellington, I flew into Sydney and took the train directly to my old office building in the CBD to pick up keys to Frances Cranston's apartment, which is MASSIVE. I hadn't been back to Sydney since I tearfully left back in August 2002 (the tears were for my oceanfront apartment, which I was literally in love with…). Anyway, literally NOTHING has changed! Everything is exactly the same as I remember it, which is something I can't say about Orange County or NYC or Hong Kong, which seem to change radically after only a couple of weeks. Sydney looks the same, and my old haunts are still around. Fortunately Turkish Pizza and beer are still popular in Sydney, so I have been a happy camper.

FYI, turkish pizza is the best thing ever (better than beer even!). I am convinced that it’s an australian invention although if any of your turks out there can provide contrary evidence I'd be happy to hear it! I'm hitting Turkey in June, but am trying to manage my expectations and not assume I will get turksh pizza in Istanbul. Anyway, picture this: A giant slab of turkish pide bread covered in cheese, mediterranean grilled veggies and possibly kebab meat, rolled and baked, and then DIPPED in dips (ie. Hummus, baba, etc.) OK, getting hungry thinking about it! Stupid bus…

So anyway, Sydney is awesome and the same as I remember it. What I didn't remember is how lonely of a place it can be as well. Many of my Australian friends have left for other places (mostly London and HK) and Sydney isn't exactly the easiest place to meet people. I have had fun seeing the people I know here, but I think the wanderlust to move here again has kinda passed, much like it had for HK. That’s not to say that if someone offered me a juicy high paying job in either place I would turn it down (depending on hours of course!), but I don't know if I have the burning desire to live here any more. Or maybe on some level I just assume that I will keep coming back…which means I'm assuming I will always have money? Maybe not the safest assumption!

Wellington, however, was AWESOME. Not a huge town, but really beautiful and very walkable (except the steep hills). Also according to the Sydney people apparently Wellington gets really cold in the winter (not sure what that means to a sydney person). But the food in Wellington is also AWESOME. For example, at one place I had a parmesan brulee. You heard me. PARMESAN BRULEE! Imagine crème brulee, but instead of sweet creamy yum it’s a savory cheese flavored creamy yum, caramelized on top and served with a small dollup of parma-prosciutto ice cream! HOW WEIRD, but at the same time creative and delicious!! Wellington is ok in my book!

Melbourne also would be an awesome town to live in…more city vibe than Sydney and a bit more old-school…one of my favorite towns. I'm kinda sad I'm only here for the night and tomorrow morning, although hopefully I can squeeze some decent eating and drinking in (the neverending quest!).

Neverending Quests:
1) Finding a city for me to live in
2) Finding the best mac & cheese (this is a joint quest with Wendy and Robin, although they have made much more progress than i!)

3) Finding the perfect gin (for martinis, not for gimlets or with tonic, although those are good too)
4) Losing those elusive 10 pounds…I think this may be inversely linked to quests #1-3 (FYI, Chicag is america's fattest city. Philly was a couple of years ago…)

5) Finding the perfect pair of travel shoes (slip on, matte leather, cheap, rubber sole, durable, look ok for biz casual but don't mind getting mud on them….)

Dan's Global Superfriends

2006-02-02T12:01:00.000+08:00

OK, little note: Hilary Duff sucks. Her video is on NZ MTV equivalent and it sucks. Also she has totally become a mini-Kylie Monogue ripoff, only not as hot.

Now what you were wating for: My list of Global Superfriends!!!!

How do you qualify to be a global superfriend? Well, you simply need to meet me in more than one continent! There are some people I have seen in more than two continents! (They are the lucky ones). Here is the current list. If I have forgotten someone please let me know!!

Superfriend	Continents
Parents	4
Alan K.	3
Colleen	3
Cordelia	3
Gerry	3
Samidha	3
Sid	3
Alan R.	2
Aurora	2
B. Bea	2
Bernice	2
Blarke	2
Clay	2
Colin	2
David W.	2
Ella	2
Jack	2
Kellie	2
Kenny	2
Limmy	2
Lisa	2
McWilliam	2
Melissa	2
Pierre	2
Robin	2
Tony	2
Tyler	2
Wendy	2

Auckland: Journal Entry

2006-02-02T11:36:00.000+08:00

This is a new experiment for me. I'm going to actually write down the journal entry that I made today in my little Moleskin notebook. If you don't own a moleskin, I highly suggest you buy one. Its the perfect travel accessory...compact, durable, has a pocket, bookmark and strap. I prefer the grid paper version, but you can get blank ones too.

New Beginnings

Its windy. Its 10:00am in Auckland, at the peak of Mount Victoria in the little suburb of Davenport, which feels like an island even if it isn't. Auckland always reminds me of Seattle, although I imagine that it may actually be larger. Something about the skyline (both have giant tall needles, although so does Toronto and its nothing like Seattle!) or the climate, or the water, or the cafes and coffee shops. I have been awake for 5 hours already since touching down at the airport on this, my first day of travel as part of my "big trip". Perhaps new beginnings is an exaggeration, as this trip is the culmination of two years of planning, distraction, work stress, and finally relief. So yes, a new beginning but also an old story, and despite the fresh sence of starting anew I find myself struggling with the same of conflicts in my life. Let me remind you (myself) briefly as this may save time late:

Dan's Personal Conflicts
Settle Down vs. Live Free
Make Money vs. Have Free Time
Live Near Family vs. Exotic Locations
Budget vs. Extravagance
Independence vs. Beneficial Entanglement

So now you're all caught up. I will also remind you that at all times my fundamental conflict is and has always been the search for someplace I can consider "home", whatever that means. Perhaps after hitting a dozen countries this year and movin to Chicago I an start to figure that out.

Oh, and my "new moleskin resolution" is to write more stuff that is blogworthy. Perhaps I should post this entry itself?

Iguacu
No, not the waterfalls in South America, the restaurant in trendy upscale Parnell, one of the snotty parts of Auckland. Snotty is relativem, as the restaurants that would normally in NYC mock someone dressed as I am (faded grey cargos, black giodano t-shirt and slightly dirty Mossimo via Target sweater/jumper thing) are warm and hospitable. I forgot just how bad a thick kiwi accent can be to understand, and how the headline prices in this town are tough to digest. True, its US$0.70 to the NZ$, but even so I'm used to travel in dirt-cheap Argentina where my food costs are basically negligible. Hopefully Bali will be easier to swallow. Iguacu was an easy lunch choice: i have been here before, back in 2002 after my backpacking escapades with Colleen. After a week of low-budget living I needed to splurge and experience "pacific rim" dining in this classy establishment and fell in love. Fortunately similar cuisine exists in the U.S. in cities like Seattle (Dahlia Lounge....mmmmmmm....). I'm disappointed that John Dory isn't on the menu as its my favorite fish and popular here in NZ. However, I'm intrigued by the venison in a tamarind/lemon grass sauce. Yes, I'm a whore for tamarind sauces, including that addictive indian red sauce that makes samosas taste that much more AWESOME (its thats possible! Yes, I'm a whore for samosas too). Also need I remind you of the duck breast in tamarind sauce at VONG?

Also like many a NZ restaurant the wine list is extensive and heavily local. Unlike in the U.S., I am actually congratulated for choosing a glass of cabernet rose (in NYC I would be mocked for selecting any rose!). Its yummy and dry, and since its summer here, rose is definitely in order.

I'm experiencing a sense of nostalgia. Despite the four years that have passed, New Zealand's vastly improved economy, and my rise and subsequent fall from opulence, Auckland seems pretty much the same, although 50% more expensive! (Curse you weak US$!!!) At times like this I'm glad the Chinese government keeps its unofficial US$ peg and my Chinese purchasing power remains intact!!

Pictures from Argentina!

2006-01-18T06:57:00.000+08:00

I finally got my Argentina pictures developed! Some are a bit sub-optimal, but have a look:

This is my class in Buenos Aires. My teacher is to my right. Laura was from the U.S. I forgot the other guy's name, but he was German and liked to hit on the ladies!

This is my house-sister Cristina and another guy staying in the house, Ryota. Ryota was from Japan and spoke no Spanish and little English, so I had to use my terrible Japanese skills with him. Look at all the pretty plates they have on the wall!

These were the scottish kids that I hung out with in Bariloche. They gave me a book called "Fat, Forty and Fired", which I LOVED!

This is my boat team in Ushuaia. We went in a conoe together and got snowed on!! We were the english-speaking boat, and the other boat spoke Spanish. We rowed a lot better than them. Look how sexy I am in waterproof pants!

This is Loic. I can't get the two dots over the i in his name, so you will have to imagine. He is from Switzerland and stayed in the same house as me in Buenos Aires. Later I met him and his parents in Ushuaia. His parents are awesome!!!

This is my house mother in Ushuaia. She loves to chat on the internet! In fact, she would stay up all night chatting with people around the world!

This is a pretty waterfall in Bariloche, and the two dutch people I hung out with. Dutch people are cool, and very tall!!!

This is Bruno, another spanish language buddy. His hair is very curly!

These are the penguins I saw (except the one big king penguin). They are fun, and like to swim. They also liked to tell me jokes, but the jokes were dirty, so I won't repeat them here. Penguins have dirty minds!

Something smells good in stinkville

2006-01-17T08:01:00.000+08:00

Meaning my blog seems to be messed up.

Not sure what happened, but the post with pictures I think messed it up, so I'm posting this as a test.

In the meantime, good news: I am making fondue tomorrow for my parents! YUM!

OK, seveal hours later...tonight was a "get drunk with dad" night. I had a couple of martinies...always good fun. The best thing about my dad is that he's very price-conscious when it comes to gin, and he tends to know when to buy a giant jug of bombay saphire! I have actually gravitated to Hendricks, a slightly snottier gin for my martinies, but tonight the bombay saphie was good for some gin and tonics...and hold the tonic!

So anyway, our drunken conversations tonight related to my studying chinese characters, the state of affirmative action, teaching evolution in school, and some other very relevant topics. I think some fathers and sons bond over football, and some over shooting, some over golf, and some over baseball. My dad and I bond over gin, and lots of it! It was a good night, and even when my mom came home from bible study we were able to hang out! Family bonding is a great thing my friends. Family values: I'm all about that shit!

FINALLY! Some Pictures!!!

2006-01-14T06:48:00.000+08:00

I realized I don't have any pictures on this thing, so I thought I would include some to share! Sorry if I incriminate anyone who doesn't want their foto included! If you want me to remove your foto, just let me know. I will replace these at some point once I get my Argentina fotos developed!

So this is me! Here I am in my room at my parent's house in Orange County (which is a total mess!). I was testing out the new digital camera my folks got me for x-mas...it is so tiny! Also you can see some of my awesome childhood posters, including:
1) Upper Left - Huntington Beach Public Libary including a strange combination of both Marvel and DC comic book superheros
2) Upper Right - Japanese Goldfishes (the weird obese looking ones)
3) Lower Left (behind me) - California's Rare and endangered wildlife. I think most of them are extinct now, including the California Condor, the Peregrine Falcon, bald eagle, walking commuter, etc.
4) Bottom Right - One of those caricatures that they do at amusement parks. I think I am skiiing in that one...my giant head is almost the right actual size!

This is me at brunch with Elaine. Look how happy I am! I was happy because I had just been fed!

This is me with my cousin Joyce. She might join Kelly and I in Eastern Europe in June. Joyce and I got together in Palo Alto in October and introduced eachother to our favorite drinks. Mine is a gin martini, extra olives, while hers is Jamison on the rocks! EWWW!! But even Jamison is fun when you're with family. Family values, that's what we're all about.

This is my with my friends Ella (left) and Maartje (right). We all survived banking together! Maartje is from holland, which explains why she is so tall! The three of us like to go to French brasseries together and eat foie gras and beef tartar (actually, they like that stuff, while I usually get something else). I miss these two!!!

These are my former coworkers. They are fun! They sent me this picture from an after-work party they went to! I sure don't miss having to dress up like that for work!

This is my friend Colleen on a camel! She is always riding camels or other beasts of burden! Colleen likes the NY Giants. One day, Colleen will enslave humanity.

2006 Starts Fast...and Crazy!!

2006-01-12T07:44:00.000+08:00

Good News! I got into the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business! This means I have a place to be next year and can delay working for another two years! I am very excited, although I find out from a couple more schools before then.

Big Chicago Question:
Where to live in Chicago? Hyde Park near campus? Lincoln Park with all the yuppies? Someplace without the word "park" in the name? (or is that too crazy?!)

More big news: travel planning is now in full force!!! I reserved my fatty-fat ticket to circumnagivate the globe, and now I'm looking for suggestions on several spots. Here is the current itinerary, and all comments are welcome, although some places I know better than others (highlighted in red) and some I could REALLY use advice.

INTINERARY
Feb 2-4 Auckland *been here before, so this is easy
Feb 4-6 Wellington *Any ideas of good restaurants? I heard there are TONS
Feb 6-12 Sydney *used to live here
Feb 12-17 Bali *I'm trying to avoid the tourist traps
Feb 17-19 Hong Kong
Feb 19 - May 14 Beijing *here for 3 months, so if you know people who live there...
May 14-15 Hong Kong
May 15-17 Kuala Lumpur *going to try to hit Penang and/or Melaka if possible
May 17-18 Singapore
May 18-21 London
May 21-27 Istanbul *help!
May 27 Frankfurt *only a city to meet friends..advice for one night there?
May 28 - Jun 11 Prague/Budapest/Dubrovnik
Jun 11-12 Milan *only staying overnight to catch my morning flight to madrid
Jun 12-15 Madrid
Jun 15-18 NYC
Jun 18-23 Seattle

So any good advice for any of the blue cities? Everything is welcome!

In other news, I have until the end of the month here in California. I'm literally just planning trips now and possibly hanging out with some local friends. Also I got a new haircut and I look awesome.

2005 Year in Review!!!!

2006-01-06T03:42:00.000+08:00

Hey Kids,

I was going to send this really kitchy "New Years Newletter" out to all of you (that I know), but then I got lazy and thought people might find it invasive, so instead I have decided to poste it here. I hope you enjoy:

I decided to send out a quick self-involved update about what is going on in my life, much like the other inane holiday newsletters that you receive every year (from people like my parents). Hopefully you are having a fantastic holiday season, filled with excitement and mirth (that’s right, mirth). Happy New Years!!!

2005 Year in Review – Key Events

· Dan Quits his Job! – Yes, Dan quit his job in February, and was actually able to leave at the end of May after spending three months in Hong Kong! Dan’s got his ass kicked in the Hong Kong office, but managed to fly to Arizona for his buddy’s wedding, a weekend away in Bangkok, and a one-day “roadshow” in Singapore in addition to his last “all-nighters” in the world of banking.

· Dan “Hangs Out” in NYC for the Summer - After a quick weeklong vacation in Vancouver, Dan returns to NYC to begin his life of leisure, which includes going to the gym, 2-for-1 martinis, and studying for the GMATs. Dan also enjoys a Spanish class, a Chinese class, a bartending class, and grad school applications.

· 10-Year High school reunion! - It could have been a disaster, but thanks to his friend the martini, the reunion was a huge success for him and his friends! It was a good opportunity to get in touch with lots of SoCal people who were probably happy not seeing Dan for 10 years.

· Argentina – After three weeks in Buenos Aires eating delicious steak and gelato, Dan moved to Patagonia, where he spent several days in Bariloche and almost two weeks in Ushuaia frolicking with the penguins.

Dan’s 2005 City Roundup

Dan visited the following cities in 2005

· U.S.: NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Detroit, Salt Lake City, St. Louis

· Non-U.S.: Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Montevideo.

2006 New Years Resolutions!

2005 was a year of big resolutions, all of which were a huge success! This year he has gotten even more ambitious:

1) Practice Spanish!

2) Get a life

3) Drink fewer martinis

4) Rediscover lost sense of childhood wonder

5) Use the “F” word less and the “C” word more

6) More self-deprecating humor and less potty humor

7) Learn to use digital camera for good, not evil

8) Develop stronger opinions about

9) Eat more fresh fruit

10) Join/found secret society

2006 Forward Calendar

New Years Eve - Philadelphia baby!

January - Southern California

February - Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Beijing

March – April Beijing

May Beijing, Prague, Budapest

June - “The Gathering” in Dubrovnik, Croatia on June 8^th (See Dan for details if interested). Spain, London, home to the USA.

July - Southern California

August – December If I get into grad school, I will be there by August.

Dan’s 10 Hints for Safe Holiday Fun!

1) Never mix all three types of alcoholic beverage in the same evening (wine, beer, liquor). Two out of three you silly goose!

2) Revenge is a dish best served cold. Spinach Artichoke dip is a dish best served hot.

3) Avoid alcoholic beverages that include dairy (milk, cream, etc.) or references to sex, rappers, or the word “ghetto”.

4) If you’re in a canoe, and it starts to snow on you, you’re going to catch a cold..

5) If you are going to leave your office holiday Christmas party with your coworker of the opposite sex, make sure you do it discretely to avoid embarrassing conversations the next day!

6) If you meet a woman in a bar who claims to be bisexual, it may not be a good idea to ask her to hit on your female coworker and propose a threesome. Your female coworker may not find it as funny as you do!

7) When you come home drunk, try to keep some of your clothes on before you get into your apartment building. If you find that the keys to your apartment don’t work, double check that you are at the correct apartment BEFORE falling asleep in the hallway.

8) If you are planning on drinking in a group of 12 or more of your loudest friends, avoid Russian mafia dens that apparently prefer a “quiet” atmosphere.

9) When you leave the strip club completely wasted with all your buddies, it IS a great idea to buy the group an entire large pizza “for the road”. Your friends will appreciate how considerate you are!

10) Drunk born-again Christian 23-year old blond girls who like to yell the word “analingus” at the top of their lungs in the middle of a crowded bar while obsessing over their 25 year old virgin boyfriends are probably not worth your time or the time of your buddies. Better to focus your energies on her slutty friend.

Xmas in Orange County

2005-12-26T08:15:00.001+08:00

Back in SoCal at last!!

My adventure in Argentina was a blast, especially the last 2 days in Buenos Aires, which consisted in me eating, walking, eating, and walking some more. I managed to pick up some local items of note:

1) Mate
2) Mate cup and straw
3) Six bottles of delicious wine

I am happy.

After much deliberation and a quickly fading laptop, I also purchased a new and improved laptop that is TINY! This combined with a couple of other items and I am good to go for my China trip. The list includes:

1) Little Laptop - CHECK
2) Tiny digital camera - CHECK (Thanks Mom and Dad! Apparently they got sick of me not being able to send them pictures. I still haven't developed my disposable camera from the Argentina trip!)
3) Rolling carry-on - STILL NEED TO BUY. I am thinking of either a 22 inch or 24 inch...I want to travel as light as possible but still have something to lug extra socks, undies, extra shoes and misc. crap
4) Travel Shoes - ALWAYS LOOKING

So now I am in the planning stage.

As for x-mas, this year has been pretty mellow. Since my grandparents both died this autumn, the family didn't really have any plans, so x-mas was pretty chill. I'm not sure when I will have my annual "get drunk with dad" night, although it could be ANY night quite frankly! Maybe tonight?