Japanese Days, Tokyo Nights

July 28th, 2008 - Tokyo, Japan

Well, I don't really know how to explain Tokyo. Despite the date above, I'm writing this on August 4th, about a week after leaving Tokyo to come to the states. Its probably the week of reflection that I'll be drawing on to write this, because while I was there I was completely overwhelmed and entirely entranced. A difficult combination for articulate writing, I think!

Let me explain by saying first that Tokyo, at first blush, is a crazy place. A week before leaving on my trip, my friend Sabina (who I must thank for being amazing) directed me towards a subway map of Tokyo, so that I could find my away around the city on the cheap. I laughed out loud when I saw it, as I'm sure you will too. How can anyone make sense of this?

While my initial impressions of Tokyo aligned closely with those of the map above (Colorful and confusing), I have to say that all it took was some getting used to. Although the map is incredibly complicated, it represents a subway system that is unbelievably efficient and pleasant to use. Sitting here typing this in Chicago, home of a schizophrenic and frustrating subway, I can only grow in my appreciation of Tokyo's efforts. Anywhere (practically) you need to go in Tokyo, the subway will get you there. Not only that, in my experience with it, it is ALWAYS on time, usually to the minute. In fact, there are times posted on a board above the track telling you exactly what time the train and the one after it will come, and they are usually right. You can set your watch to it.

But the coolest part for me is that the subway system will tell you exactly how long it takes to get from one place to another. You just look at the maps in the station, and look at the stop you want to go to. Under there will be a number in a circle, and that is exactly how long it will take you to get from your current stop to the one you're looking at. Its easy to take a less efficient subway system for granted (thank you Chicago), but for those days in Tokyo I realized how much public transportation improves quality of life. The confusing map itself only obscures how amazing the subway is once you get used to it. Pretty much my Tokyo experience in a nutshell!

Another cool experience that took some getting used to was vending machine ordering. Most of the food I got in Tokyo was pretty expensive, and the city itself is really hard to live in on a budget. However Chris and Steve brought me to a restaurant that gave you good food, in a good quantity, for relatively little money. All you do is walk up to the vending machine below, insert your money, and pres a button. Then you grab a seat and wait for your food to be brought over to you. There obviously isn't any room for customization of your order, or generally much service at all, but if what you're going for is a hot meal with relatively basic ingredients, you're good to go.


I was a bit freaked out the first time I tried this, I think Steve and Chris brought me there for my first meal in Tokyo. I was jet lagged and tired and ordering hot food from a box. But given some sleep, some relaxation and some perspective, it was a cheap way to get good food. Put another one on the board for Tokyo!

Something I've been thinking about now that I'm back is my overall attitude toward my month abroad. I billed it to myself as a chance to wander and explore, generally go where I liked and do what I wanted. This had some negatives and a lot of positives, both of which I experienced in Tokyo.

On Friday night, arriving in Tokyo without hotel reservations, an understanding of the geography or of the city, and without an idea of how much everything costs, not having made plans was quite stressful. However on Sunday morning, with a day to myself and with Tokyo to explore, it was amazing. On the spur of the moment I decided to attend a baseball game, and spent the next 45 minutes trying to make it so. By chance there was a game that Sunday afternoon, and a big game: The Yomiuri Giants, the biggest team, against someone whose name I now forget. Tickets were sold out, but I managed to get to the stadium and buy standing room only tickets for $10.

What an awesome experience. The Japanese take baseball very very seriously, and cheer and yell with the best of them. There is a video at the bottom of the crowd celebration after a run scored, but the key thing to realize is that they cheer all the time. It reminded me of a soccer game. Not only that, the standing room area was like a celebration of an entire culture. Families squatted against the walls eating homemade food out of tuperware, paying scarce attention to the game unless a young kid pressed his nose against the bars to watch for a moment. It seemed more like an afternoon picnic than anything else.

As I was leaving the game (only stayed for a few innings, things to do), I remembered to administer an important test: The Hot Dog. Unfortunately although there is a lot commend the Japanese on in their celebration of The Great Game, there is not much praiseworthy in their frankfurters. Different stadiums or games may tell different stories, and hopefully I'll experience more one day, but the hot dog I got was thin, bland, sprinkled with stale bacon bits and covered with a yellow gruel reminiscent of American mustard. Dangit.

As I walked out of the stadium, I noticed an ornate building entrance along the walkway to my subway. Walking up to it, it turned out to be the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. Cool!

However at the end of the day, I was tired enough that the Hall of Fame didn't appeal to me very much. I went inside, checked ticket prices (expensive), got some written material and turned around and left. For some reason rehashing another history of baseball, separate form that I learned as a kid, didn't grab me the way it might have.

I'm sure its very interesting, and on some other day its possbile I would have gone in. But not today! Below, check out the stone pillars built into the wall that make up some of the decoration of the HoA. Very impressive up close.

And now for something completely different.

As I was walking out of the baseball game, outside the stadium and to the larger complex beyond, I started to notice very colorfully dressed people milling about in groups of 3 or 4. It looked to be mostly girls, and I can't really tell you what I first thought was going on. People were taking pictures of each other, posing and generally putting on a show for their friends. It wasn't just that they were dressed colorfully, it was a coordinated outfit that involved hair, makeup, shoes, the whole nine yards.

This colorful stretch of park-ish area turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg. The large convention center I was walking around was filled (once I paid to get in) with hundreds of these people sitting in groups, standing, eating, looking at costumes and other things for sale, and generally hanging out. I can't begin to tell you how intimidated and confused I was, and it was a bit disconcerting. There I was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and I felt very weird.

After a few false starts, people pulling me aside and scolding me, some difficult English-Japanese translation work and (of course) more money from me, I secured a ticket to take pictures. I didn't really understand I had needed one before, but I guess it makes sense.

What follows is a set of pictures that I took over the next two hours... enjoy!



I have since learned that what was going on was a Japanese Cos-Play (Costume Play) convention that happens once a month in various spots around Tokyo. My luck to get to it on the one day in July, no?

Cosplay is a performing art type behaviour in which people dress up, usually mimicking characters or figures from arenas as diverse as comic books, Japanese manga or Anime (or so sayeth Wikipedia).

The funny thing that happened to me was that during the convention itself, I had a hard time making myself clear to the people I wanted to take pictures of. I know English is spoken decently by much of SE Asia, but in Japan in this convention, they couldn't understand it for the life of them. So I had the will to take the pictures, but not the way... and you know what they say about that.

Enter my new Japanese friend Shun. He spoke a bit of English, it was his first time at one of these too, and most importantly he was scared and shy. Thus began a funny two hours. Shun would walk up and explain to the girls (in Japanese) that this American had come all the way across the world and had never seen something like this, would it be ok if he took a picture. Then after I had, Shun would snap one as well, making editorial comments the whole time on the cuteness or lack thereof of the various girls we saw. High comedy, believe me.

The next picture is when Shun convinced me that it would be perfectly ok if I actually stepped into one of the pictures with the cosplayers. This was certainly one of the funniest and most unsettling moments of the trip, cockroaches and all.

And once I did get that picture, I swung right into comfort mode, running about, asking for pictures, playing the videogames along the side of the center and generally enjoying myself. Everyone was really nice once you understood the customs and protocols of the place, and it was easy to see that the cosplayers themselves were having a great time in general.

By the time the convention ended, I was having a great time and couldn't resist the last picture I took that day. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!


And after finishing my Cosplay adventure, I made my way back to the hotel for a shower and another run out into the city. No story of my time in Japan would be complete without mention of my new friend Mizue and her husband.

I met them through couchsurfing.com, a site that could (and should) get its own long post on my blog. Its basically a way for people traveling through a country and people living in a country to meet, hang out, exchange knowledge, and have a good time. I was lucky enough to meet Mizue on the site, and she and her husband showed me around lots of Tokyo, got me some local food, gave me advice and answered lots of my questions. For a place that scared me as much as Tokyo did, it was great to have it disarmed so completely and in such a friendly manner.

If Mizue and her husband are ever in Chicago or the U.S.A, they know to reach out to me!

As a last memory and summary of my trip in Japan, I wanted to rehash my sleeping patterns over the 3 nights I was there.

My first night I ended up staying in a Love Hotel (a place one normally brings prostitutes) by mistake, without realizing what I was doing. I guess the requirement that I not take the room until 11pm and the availability of 3 hour "Rest Period" rentals of the rooms should have given it away. Or perhaps the condom left thoughtfully in the room on the night table, or the pornographic media that blared at me when I turned on the tv desperate for sleep.

My second night I crashed with Steve and Chris in their extremely close-quartered hotel room. I had been planning on getting my own room, but what with karaoke and beer going on all the time, I couldn't even have started drunkenly looking until around 1am. However Chris and Steve's room was extremely small, and the two single (I hesitate to call them twin) beds they had took up the entire floor space of the room. The bathroom also used a cool rotating sink feature to have enough space for a shower area and a toilet, which meant I wasn't crashing in the bathtub. Thus I spent my second night crashing curled up under the desk in a hotel room, in a space small enough that my 5'6" self had to bend and twist to fit in.

And my third night I was at the fish market, and didn't really get any sleep. I had booked a rather nice hotel room to relax in though. Sigh.

Tokyo, ladies and gentleman. Exhilirating, exciting, enticing... exhausting.

MMSS 4 Eva - Japanese Edition

July 25th, 2008 - Tokyo, Japan

There are only two more posts to write about my trip, and both about Japan. Everything happened in such a whirlwind there that I have to catch up ASAP.
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It seems as though my month abroad was bookended by my Northwestern friends. I hung out with Snow and Tim a lot when I started in Thailand, and met up with Steve and Chris as it ended. So this post is dedicated to Chris and Steve, and the shenanigans that went on for those few days in Tokyo.

For anyone starting this blog at this post, welcome. You're coming in right at the end of the good bit, as we hurtle towards the less interesting bit of me and my life as a consultant in Chicago. I suggest you start from the beginning and read up on past events. If you do, I can also refer to them to make my points, like this: As you all know from reading my earlier blog entries, my initial response to Japan was overwhelmed shock.

If not for Chris and Steve, it would have been a disaster. I met up with them on the Friday I arrived, and had a much needed pint of beer ($9) and some relaxation. They also took me to get food and gave me a subway tutorial.

On the next Saturday morning, we all met up to go to Hakone, a day trip spot with great views of Mt. Fuji. It was a nice relaxed way for me to settle in Japan, as it necessitated 2 hour train rides on either end of the day to go to and from. Once we got there it was a fun day, seeing a wide variety of sites and traveling around an area diverse in its geography. We got some of the better views of the day from one of the canopy cars that takes you out over the river and the forests of Hakone.

Unfortunately the reputed view of Mt. Fuji is also from the cable cars, and it is not a good idea to go there when the weather is foggy. Supposedly the picture below points in Mt. Fuji's general direction, but you can't really know.

While we were all a bit dissapointed by this, it wasn't really the end of the world. We were still 3 young guys touring a part of the world we had never been and that spoke a language none of us knew. So we amused ourselves as best we could. Don't ask what hes saying, I'm not sure. Any Japanese person out there care to translate for us?

And most importantly, at the end of the day, we still made it all the way out to Hakone, a significant feat. We rode over beautiful landscapes, explored a new area, relaxed on train rides and generally gave each other a lot of crap. For a first day in Japan, I would say success.

I also realized that my camera has a function that allows you to take a black and white picture, but that colors only highly contrasting elements of the picture. This led to about 500 attempts to get a cool, artsy picture, but for the day in Hakone this is the best that I could come up with. See the way the yellow, blue, and green stand out? I was trying to take it with just the green showing up, but again, crappy photographer.


And, to really round it all off, A PIRATE SHIP! For some reason the designers of Hakone decided it would be best to set up the ferry portion of the tour on mocked up pirate ships with fake plastic pirates on them. I can't honestly say I have any idea what was going on, except that they also chose to fly the Japanese flag as a proud-looking standard on the ship's bow. Hmmm... While fun to ride, and a treat for my roomate Shyaam (who has aspirations at the buccaneer's life someday), I can't say it was more than a cheap novelty standing a bit back from it. Sad.


We came back from Hakone full of vim and vinegar, ready to tackle the world and all that lies within it. As a dedicated Sushi eater (again, read earlier blog posts), our first stop of the night was not a big challenge. But for my two friends, who either loathe or are actively allergic to sushi, it was quite the event. Below you'll find the 3 of us, giddy with the day's travels and for the sushi we were actually eating in Japan.


However, looking at the plate of fish below, the novelty wore off quite quickly everyone but me, and was replaced with a lot of pushing food about the plate, poking it, asking for ingredients and generally questioning its safety. I have to give my respect to Chris (the guy on the right in the green in the above picture) for eating most of his sushi despite a physical reaction that didn't look pleasent. He later confirmed he is partially allergic to shellfish. What a way to find out. And to Steve, thanks for suggesting McDonalds for desert. I don't know about your french fries, but my ice cream was tasty!

Unfortunately one other thing has to be mentioned here, and that is my singing ability. I suck at it, and I think it only gets worse when I get drunk. As one of the stops of our night, which included drinking tall beers from Family Mart in a park, we went to a karaoke bar. We ordered a couple pitchers of beer, chose the sappiest stuff we could find, and then drank some more. When I woke up next day, this video was somehow on my camera. Thanks Chris... Well, it would be a shame to not put it up here, right?

And to give you a flavor of the atmosphere of the weekend, I've included another video below. If you can't tell who gave the crap, and who enjoyed laughing at it, and who looked really serious, you haven't watched the video. It was great traveling with Chris and Steve and just a lot of fun and laughs.

Paradise: 8 days on Railay

July 15th, 2008 - Railay Island, Krabi, Thailand

Railay was one of the most beautiful, and certainly the most relaxing place I have ever been in my life. No cars are on the island, and so subsequently there aren't any roads. Although the island is still being developed as a tourist location, its pretty bare right now. Its a small island, and you tend to meet the same people day after day, on the beach and at dinner, at the bar and while climbing. To get onto the island you have to wade ashore (if its high tide) or walk along a sandbar (if its low tide). Guess which one I ended up with...


You get to and from the island in these little motorized 'long-tail' boats, which are cute in their size and shape but scary in their tendency to tip and sink when any amount of weight is added onto them.

They are, however, really colorful and actually change depending on the owner's whim, as new colors are painted on or added via the tarps and coverings.

No matter what kind of a ride is necessary to get to the island though, the beachs are worth it. If I had to wade through water, run a couple miles, and crawl through some ant-infested tunnel or something, it would be worth it. Check it out below:


This was just one of 3 beautiful beaches that you can get too easily on the island. On good days, I can't imagine many places nicer in the world. The water is warm and crystal clear, surrounded by cliffs and rock formations, and inhabited by monkeys leaping too and fro.


I spent whole days at the beach, lieing on the sand, juggling, swimming in the water and throwing my frisbee. I talked to people for hours, played soccer with them, or just passed the time chatting with anyone who looked interested. On the down side, all of this beach going resulted in my first burn and peel of my entire life. I didn't put on sunscreen for the first day I was on the beach, and was subsequently nicknamed 'Mr. Red Breast' by a group of Germans.

There was a lot to do on the island beyond beaching though. I went out kayaking with a friend, took the cooking course I've discussed in a previous blog post, and climbed and bouldered. I had a lot of fun climbing, and its a great work out. So i'm going to try to get into it now that I'm back here in Chicago, and the gym I want to join has a great climbing wall. We'll see how that goes, but hopefully I can keep it up.

Another activity popular with people visiting Railay is to try to climb to the "Lagoon". This is basically a small lake set deep inside the mountains, up some hills and down some treacherous terrain, about 300 meters deep. Another American and I decided to try to tackle it one morning, with mixed results. It was a lot of fun and it was great to hang out with someone, but the hike/climb itself was a lot trickier than we thought. You had to use a rope to abseil down slippery rock faces, slide down the mountainside with very little support and generally contemplate your own mortality every couple of minutes. Despite the smiling picture below, I was a bit freaked out.


At the end of our climb, Adam and I faced a 10-15 foot sheer drop with some annoying looking rocks below, with only a slippery rope to support us. After coming about 290 meters in red clay, mud, and bugs we turned back. We did have a great time though, and it was worth it in the end.

Otherwise on the island, I spent my nights with the various people I met and traveling with, rotating between a number of bars and night spots. For a while my favorite spot was the Bamboo Bar, which opened up to the beach and had futons you could relax into while you drank and talked. Then I moved on to the 'Last Bar', a place that had twice weekly pool competitions and lots of friendly staff. It was usually full, and I met some cool people. I've never really liked bar scenes before, but this had an entirely different vibe to it.

Since I went during the low season, prices were a lot lower, the beaches were a lot less crowded and more clean, and the bars and restaurants still had plenty of people. For anyone with some flexibility, on a budget, or looking for a slightly lower-key time, I'd say go during low season. The weather is great in patches, but occasionally we'll get a day or two of heavy rain for most of the sunlight hours. When that happens everyone heads for the nearest cover of restaurant or hotel!



Overall though, Railay was an amazing place for me, and perfect after Bangkok. Very very relaxed, no pressure, not much to do but sit on the beach and decide how active you want to be. I'm so happy I got the chance to go and I suggest it as a stop for anyone in Thailand.

Fishy fishies

July 28th, 12:00am - Tsukiji, Tokyo, Japan

"Be careful, its dangerous," warned the immaculately dressed man in white waving a sharp, sinuous knife casually in my direction. I nodded fervently, glanced down at the slimy wriggling thing on my plate, checked my watch, and realized it was going to be a long night.

My father, several times as I was growing up, took me to the pier fish market in Boston early Saturday morning (6am-7am) to watch various fish, freshly caught, brought from the boats, cut up, boxed, and shipped out to retailers and restaurants. It was not particularly hectic, and although I had never seen fish in that elemental state before, it was more of a casual Saturday than anything life changing.

Flash forward a few years to this past Sunday night/Monday morning. While in Tokyo I had long planned on visiting the largest wholesale fish market in the world, and one of the largest wholesale bazaars of any kind: The Tsukiji Fish Market. The only catch is that the market begins humming around 3am, and is not so much a casual Saturday as a frenetic buzz of motor carts, people, and fish reputed to be the final resting place of many an adventurous tourist. "Just remember," one website advised, "if it comes to saving a box of fish or a person, the vendors will choose the fish every time".

I spent the first 3 of my 4 days here in Tokyo planning on going to the market Monday morning. However for reasons that are beyond this blog, I didn't get much sleep Friday or Saturday night, and on Sunday around 11pm I was already falling asleep while moving around town. I planned on going to the market for the 3am opening, but because of the train start/stop times, if I went back to my hotel for a couple hours nap, I would have to take a cab at 2am or so (the last train from my hotel to Tsukiji was at 12am). Because cabs are obscenely expensive here, I gradually realized I'd be pulling an all-nighter on an already small amount of sleep.

Put all this together, and what do you get? An hour-by-hour blog of the whole experience, delirious from lack of sleep and overexposure to fish, brought to you by half a dozen pieces of paper I hastily grabbed from a restaurant and scribbled on throughout the morning. Here we go...

12am - Just to clarify, I swore off soda several years ago because I was trying to live a bit healthier. Since desperate times call for desperate measures, and as I was nodding off around midnight, I just bought and downed the first of several Tsukiji-based Coca-Colas. I arrived at the market area around 12:15am to overall deadness and lack of activity, but amused myself by wandering the streets and areas to get a feel for the place. A lot of sketchy people about, but what do you expect?

1am - Stroll into a sushi place for a snack and to kill some time. Its open 24 hours, like many of them around the fish market, and there are a good dozen people around in groups and pairs. People seem to be laughing and joking a lot, and eating a good amount of food for so late at night. The two sushi chefs behind the bar are constantly moving, and seem to give the orders around here. The one closest to me, Tony, speaks very good English, and we talk a bit about sushi. I mention how I ate it a lot of it growing up, and challenge him to give me whatever he can. Its probably going to be expensive, but what the hell. When will I get this chance next?

He starts me off easy with some octopus and salmon caviar, but rapidly accelerates into the "weird zone". He throws some lightly toasted horse meat my way, and then reaches into a tank of live sea creatures. He pulls out a live shrimp, chops in half in front of me, and then throws one half of it onto my plate. "Shrimp Odari," Tony explains, which turns out to mean 'Dancing Shrimp'. See why below, as I watched and Tony encourages me to eat it already.

After I consume some other interesting stuff (Abalone, octopus, clam, salmon eggs), Tony waves his sushi knife in the air and gave me his aforementioned warning about the danger of going to the fish market. I guess it isn't really meant for tourists, and hasn't made many accomodations for them. Nonetheless, I'm going to venture outside again and check it out. Pay my somewhat steep tab ($40) and hit the streets.

2am - I'm realizing that, as many people told me, the market doesn't really get busy until later on, and instead of being cool by getting there early, I'm just alone and doing a lot of walking. Crap. I retreat to a Denny's-like diner and buy the cheapest thing possible. I wait out about 30 minutes and make my way back outside. Feeling a bit tired. Realizing the battery power on my camera is inexplicably low. Dang!

Slowly the shops begin to open up, almost one by one. People arrive in cars, on bicycles, motor scooters, in groups and alone. Wearing chef's clothing and street clothing and heavy boots and shoes. Nobody says to much, but everyone begins to move, push and pull doors open, tables out, and gradually things are starting to assemble.

The way I seem to see things happening is that the big trucks arrive, and dole out their packages onto smaller, one man motor carts. These are the carts that will happily run over you and they zip with abandon down the stalls and streets of the market, bringing goods to and fro. The carts deliver the goods from the trucks to the store owners. In the end, lots of activity to get something from one place to the other.

3am - Ok, wow, the number of stores is actually getting quite impressive now. Once they start opening, you see that they stretch and stretch off into the distance.

Just watched 2 older women in the back of a small restaurant stall, through a side door. They are rolling bunches of sticky rice into balls, and then wrapping the balls in seaweed sheet sheets to make rice snacks. Its all very smooth, repeated gracefully for the 10 minutes i'm standing here.

Camera died, arg. This is going to suck. I drop into Tony's sushi place to say hello, but he is taking a nap from 3am-4am. Baby.

Wow, almost run over 3 times just now by those flying carts... a few conclusions...
A) The market is picking up
B) I'm standing in the loading area
C) I'm getting tired

Just ducked into a second sushi place for another slug of coke. Is this what work is going to be like?

4am - As I watch through a window a fish is put through an entire factory process. First its soaked and scaled, then washed. Then another guy chops it up, and passes it along until we end up with bite-sized chunks of fish in plastic bags, being placed in front of the store for sale. Pretty fresh, no?

OH MY GOD. I've found the fish market. Everything else I've said until now was actually just the retail/consumer side of an unbelievably HUGE operation. This is like a gigantic rummage sale of fresh, fishy, football-field proportions. Some of the things I'm seeing as a I walk along:

1) A tuna as big as me, fresh and on a slab a foot away
2) A basket of sea snakes alive and in bags at my feet. They jump and snap at me as I walk by, holy crap
3) Whole fish that remind me of red snappers, a vivid, blood red
4) People running, running! back and forth to get places
5) Cart operators weaving their carts backwards (!), in reverse! through the small aisles in between the stands
6) Craftsman cutting up the tuna with everything from a table-mounted buzz saw to an intricate thin knife a couple feet long. The former is used for chopping up frozen fish and the later is used by up to 3 people at a time to carefully quarter the Tuna into pieces of meat for sale. I don't know what else to say, but these tuna are huge!

I just asked one of the counter guys how expensive this tuna is. He said it was caught off Australia 3 days ago, and is 4000 yen per kilogram. To translate, thats about $90/pound. And of the hundreds of Tuna I can see in my immediate vicinity, this one has to be 150 pounds, at the very least.

5am - Just gotten my first good long look at big-game fish cutting up, and it is spectacular. In this case a swordfish, of which one piece was 8kg, and from which many more are coming one by one. The cutters are like samurai: They measure, plunge in the blade, pull it along, and then rip it out. They examine the cut, wipe the blade, and repeat. These fish are HUGE.

Ah, I've come upon some of the auction mechanism. There are gigantic freezer bays with rows and rows of fish lined up, with buyers walking among them poking and prouding. The public isn't allowed into these rooms, but I can look through the window. Lots and lots of fish. Have I said that enough?

The sun is out, when did that happen? I'm seriously swaying at this point, and realize that I still have a long walk and some subway rides home. As I'm winding my way out I find the parking lot that is jammed full of trucks, serving as the destination for lots of this fish. Where it goes from here, who knows?

Walking out, some conclusions as I sit here on a bench... These are mostly working people here, doing a long, hard job over and over each day. At least while they are here, they are generally pretty serious with moments of brief levity. There are some food stalls set up within the market to provide for food and drink for people, but nobody really seems to go there. Its pretty much continuous hours of work with very little break.

POST SCRIPT: As I tried to get home that morning, I walked to the wrong subway stop, got off at the wrong station once I got on, fell asleep a few times, and generally made a mess of myself. By the time I got back, I was the incarnation of the walking dead. I had about two hours before I had to get up and check out, and I woke up from my nap 3 hours later, stomach aching from sushi intake, feet aching from walking in sandals, wallet aching from the whole process. But was it worth it? YES! The fish market in Japan did not dissapoint, in terms of sights, sounds, smells, and experience. If you're ever in Tokyo, take a morning and go there. But maybe show up at 4am, ok? :)

Tokyo... and beyond!

July 28th, 12:36pm - Tokyo, Japan

Wow, it has definitely been a whirlwind these last 3 days. I think that if you spend less time in each place (3 days in Tokyo versus 7 in Bangkok), it becomes a lot harder to find the time and the comfort zone to blog.

Here I am, leaving for Chicago in 6 hours, and I haven't written a single thing about Japan! Arg. I think this blog is going to stretch for about a week or two once I get back, as I write about the time I spent on the island of Railay, my time in Japan, and hopefully some reflections on traveling.

I'm also thinking that I'll continue writing the blog about present day stuff even when I'm back in the States. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed writing until after I started doing it for this trip, and its a good way to help remember things. Hopefully I won't go crazy one day and write anything over the edge though...

Its been an amazing trip, so many stories to remember and share. Thanks to everyone for being so supportive with emails, comments, and thoughts. I'm going to head to Narita soon, see you all in the States!

Lost in Translation

July 25th, Time Unknown - Tokyo, Japan

Oh my god. Wow. Hopefully over the next few days I can come to understand this city and its people to some minimal degree, but I have to say, as of right now... damn. I am getting my ass kicked.

Now to be fair, I did absolutely no planning or research before coming here, in terms of where to stay or what to do. I found a hostel on hostelworld last night and wrote it down, it looked very cool. So when getting off at the airport I did the customs thing, and found a bus someone recommended (airport limousine) and asked to go to Shinjuku. This is where a few of my friends are also staying (I think), and also a sweet place with a lot going on. The bus ride there = 2.5 hours from the airport... ass kicking #1. After exiting the bus, I've just spent the last hour walking around with my bags trying to get my bearings. Very few people seem to speak English, or will to me, my hostel directions are useless, for some reason cabs are refusing to take me anywhere (they shake their heads after my stuttering attempts to read my hotel name), and let me try, dear reader to explain the atmosphere of Shinjuku, Tokyo for a newcomer.

BOOOM! POP! SHIMMER! POP! BUZZ! BABBLE! POP!

There are lights, neon, flashing, bright, and broken, EVERYWHERE. Every street and side street seems to be another similar attempt to blind me, and to add insult to injury i've found 3 or 4 KFCs, the same number of McDonalds, but very little else besides that and Starbucks wanna-be cafes.

I ducked into the internet cafe where I sit now, which puts every other internet cafe i've ever been to to shame. I'm in a sweet reclining chair, the computer has dual screens, a fast connection, and all the extras. Looking around me when I walked in, I kid you not, of the 6 computers in this room, two are playing World of Warcraft, two are sitting there reading comics, there is myself, and one other person. Did I mention one of the WoW guys is sitting next to me, aged about 35, making shooting noises while he kills bad guys?

I've just pulled one of the Japanese people over to try to show me directions to the hostel... not so successful. On the bright side, I realized he found it on Google Maps and that it is only a block away. On the downside, its a measure of my lack of sleep, lack of coordination, bearings, and language ability that that block may yet prove to be an insurmountable obstacle. Ah well, sally forth, wish me luck! As Albus Dumbledore said... *I reread HP 6 on this trip* Let us fly to pursue that flighty temptress, adventure!

I believe in Harvey Dent

July 25th, 2:36am - Lub'd Hostel, Bangkok, Thailand

So I'm sitting in the lobby of this random hostel, soon to meet a girl on the same Tokyo flight as me, and then off to the airport for an early flight in the AM. Believe it or not, we met going on the same flight from Krabi to Bangkok two days ago, and then realized we were traveling further together. For those interested in such vagaries of fate, we met because I had a gigantic book in my hand in the boarding lounge, and we soon discovered our mutual love for Terry Pratchett.

It is thus at 2:45am, sitting in a random hostel in Bangkok, watching two random chinese guys play chess next to me, that I ask you the following question: Why are you so serious??

I just went with Faisal, a guy I've been crashing with that I know from NU, to the Siam Paragon theater for the 11pm showing of The Dark Knight. And let me tell you... hells yea! It is such an amazing movie that I wanted to take these 10 minutes I had available to me to blog about it. Great movie. (The 'Why are you so serious?' question is a Dark Knight reference, as is the 'I believe in Harvey Dent' line.)

Ok, I'm off to the airport soon, and then onward from there to Tokyo. I just found out I won't be able to crash with two of my NU buddies, as their room is pretty small. Arg, if anyone knows a good place to stay in Tokyo ;). But then again, i'm not worried. After all, why should I be so serious?

An Homage to Pad Thai

4:00pm, July 24th, 2008 - Bangkok, Thailand

On my last day in Thailand, and after a great plate of Pad Thai here in Bangkok, I feel the need to record my love for this simple dish. Kind of a swan song for Thailand and for one of my favorite foods. There is little hope for me to do justice to its virtues (many and profound), and to its allure and sex appeal here on the streets, but i'll try my best.

Pad Thai was my very first meal in Thailand as well as my last lunch in Bangkok today. Although I eat it at home once in a while, and its possible that one plate of Pad Thai can taste like any other plate of Pad Thai, the food here is different, has something special. Its a bit spicier, a bit more flavorful, very fresh, made to order, and full of life. The street vendors seem to dance with the Pad Thai in the wok and play with it like a puppet, up and down, backwards and forwards (see video at bottom). To see a plate of Pad Thai made here is to see a celebration of energy, food, culture and people. People say that the best Pad Thai is to be found on the streets.


It is a food for all hours. While a bit oily, it can be eaten as a breakfast portion directly after waking, fortifying you for the day. It can be eaten as a lunch, by itself for a light meal or with a spring roll for a hungry day. It isn't really my thing for dinner here, but at home its how I eat it most often. And of course its a great, cheap snack for every hour in between, from the late afternoon to the early early morning. I think I went 6 straight days here eating Pad Thai between 3am and 5am, and didn't once have a stomach ache to show for it. I wasn't really looking for much, but late at night often found a kind of essence of Pad Thai distilled down into its most basic element, shorn of most of the extra baggage.

It is a deceptively simple dish, composed as i've eaten it here of a couple main ingredients: the noddles, the veggies, an egg, the meat, and the sauces and garnishes. Yet its varieties are endless, and i've enjoyed eating it with all of different noodles you see below. I toy with spice, with dry chili flakes at the stall that crisply modulate the dish from 'safe and easy' to 'fireball intensity'. The same goes for the fried egg, which is something I didn't really like before I came here, but have come to love in partnership with the rest of the plate.

I think I could continue onward at this point, invoking crushed peanuts and their attractions, as well as dried shrimp and slices of lime, but you get the idea. I love this stuff.

Though I've done interesting things here, and seen a lot that was beautiful and much that was new, one thing I know i'll be talking about whenever I sit down for meals is 'that Pad Thai in Thailand'. I'll still be posting more from the last week I've spent on the beach in Railay, but while I have it here now, thanks for the memories Thailand.

For everyone's entertainment and my own recollection, here is a video I took of the Pad Thai being made for lunch today. My father asked me for the recipe the vendors used, and all I can say is: Get some noodles, some sprouts, some chicken, crack an egg and use some oil, and do it just like this...

The Soul of a Chef

July 17th, 2008 - Railay, Krabi, Thailand

I'm writing this post retrospectively, as it were, sitting in a nice air conditioned internet cafe in Bangkok. I would have posted this before, closer to the date listed above (today's actual date is July 24th), but on Railay there was no way to get the pictures/movies off of my camera and onto a computer. There were at least 3 places that advertised this particular service, but all 3 were found wanting when it came to the meat and potatoes of the matter.

There is a good amount to do on Railay, and I'll be expanding on this in later posts. For now, I'm focusing on one of the most fun aspects of the island for me: cooking lessons. Although most people do cooking lessons in the north of Thailand, specifically Chiang Mai, I figured that cooking lessons were cooking lessons, so it didn't matter where I took them... and I wasn't going to be in Chiang Mai anyway.

As it turned out, this was a good decision. I saw a sign for cooking lessons right near the dock, and despite singularly unhelpful hotel staff members (an unfortunate theme in much of Railay's dining and hotel establishments), I eventually meandered my way to the beautiful open air kitchen that formed my canvas for this particular afternoon of cooking. For anyone visiting Railay in the future, its near the Rock and Stone Bar up on the hill behind the Diamond Cave Resort complex.

For 1000 Baht ($30), I got an afternoon of cooking lessons, use of the equipment and all of the food I cooked. I was told to come hungry, and that was great great advice. I was given a choice of dishes to cook, in the form of one appetizer, two entrees, a curry, and a desert. I chose to make 1) Spring Rolls, 2) Chicken in Coconut Milk, 3) Prawns in Tamarind Sauce, 4) Phanang Curry with Beef, 5) Pumpkin in Coconut Milk. So much good food!

The overall experience was great. Since it was the low season, I was cooking 1 on 1 with the instructor and her friends, and I had a lot of freedom to ask questions, move slower or faster, pause to eat or write and generally watch everything going on. I didn't do about 25% of the cooking, things like deep frying and preparation of some of the meet beforehand. But the instructor Oom was careful to explain it all for me, especially with some of the deep frying.

Now, I can't pretend to be a connoisseur of Thai cooking or anything like that, but at least for tourist fare, A LOT of the food that comes my way tends to be deep fried. I've noticed it in restaurants and on the street, and this cooking class didn't do much to dissuade me. Although not the healthiest thing I think i've experienced, its very cool to watch in a place like Oom's kitchen. You get a big big wok and fill it with LOTS of oil, probably much more than you'd ever thought you'd see outside of a high class massage parlor. Then you heat the oil up really really high, to the point where something like garlic should brown pretty much immediately. Then you toss in whatever, and watch it pop and sizzle in a satisfying way. Since I've been on this trip I've seen it done with everything from vegetables to meats to cockroaches and crickets, but I think my own spring rolls below turned out the best out of all of it ;).

As you can probably imagine, my rough and unwieldy cooking style was the source of a good deal of amusement in the kitchen, as it took me twice as long to do things like chop ingredients. However I plan on practicing and learning until I can do it well, dang it. The spring rolls above were the first thing we made, and I have to say it felt awesome to construct something like that from start to finish. At the end of this post check out a video of me actual rolling one up.

Here are the spring rolls post-massage parlor quantity of oil. Oom made up the presentation with the layout and cucumber/tomato garnish, and we magically have a presentable meal. Woohoo!

The next thing on the list was phanang curry with beef. Generally served with rice, and eaten with spoon and fork (surprisingly the spoon is the main instrument), the curry was the amazing, and the best thing i've eaten in a while. If people want stuff like ingredients or recipes, just email me or ask, since I don't want to clutter up this space by laying everything out here. I'll say that since I'm a guy who likes his food flavorfull and heavy, there is little else better than taking a dollop of flavorful sauce, some meat and veggies, and rice all on the some spoon. I think its the reason I like Indian food so much.

The curry above, without the rice that makes it so special. Let me emphasize... eat it with rice, its great.

The chicken in coconut milk was really the only dish I found wanting. From the picture below you can see that it looks appetizing enough, and it was promising based on the ingredients. I love tumeric for its color, and thats what you see on the top of the chicken in the picture below, and its what gives the broth that yellow color. I also like coconut, and it seemed like it would have some spice from the red pepper.

However at the end of the afternoon, it just didn't taste that great. Almost bland, with the chicken leaving something to be desired. Oh well, can't win em all, right?

The prawns with tamarind sauce, however, reassured me of my tremendous cooking ability. Thanks to the magic of the deep fry (once more), the prawns were really flavorful and the sauce was very sweet and sugary. I didn't really feel like eating the entire plate, drenched as it was in something more fat-heavy than chicago deep dish pizza (see picture below), so out of the entire plate you see you I ate 4 prawns and a bit of toppings.

At the end of my cooking experience, I'm ready to go home and do some real cooking. This was fun, it was great to eat food I cooked myself, and it was interesting to mess around with different flavors and ingredients. I only hope I have enough time in between work and everything else to get in some quality time with my wok!

Lastly, since this blog represents the latest and greatest in multimedia and 'blog' technology, I've decided to include a short video for all of the doubters out there that said my cooking skill 'wouldn't never amount to nothing', and who think this blog post is a just a big fabrication. I hope we can all take this as proof that I am a budding chef, and that my future years will contain many meals well-constructed and elegant.

Ok, here I am: rolling a spring roll!

All of this food is now part of my repertoire, and anyone visiting/living/dining with me should keep that in mind. I see a lot of good Thai food in our future.

My dad

July 20th, 7:44pm - Railay Island, Thailand

As anyone reading this probably knows, I like to talk. A lot. I especially like telling stories, and often stories I feel impart some valuable message or lesson to the listener. Unfortunately I feel like I'm sometimes a bad judge of which stories are strictly worth repeating, and usually I just stick to stories I think I sound good telling.

Yesterday on the beach I had an occasion to tell one particular story, about traveling and meeting people, to a couple German guys I was sitting with (So many Germans here!). They were about 38, drinking beers, and nodding while I talked, smiled when I finished, and then pronounced my father a just and wise man. This was enough of a catalyst that I felt like I should tell the story here, because I often give my dad the impression that I think hes a senile doofus who only likes food and cooking, and here is a chance to correct that publicly...
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Last December I went to Israel with a Birthright group, and stayed a while after the tour to be with my brother, who was working there, and my parents, who came to visit us both. Israel was a fairly exciting place, in the Middle East, and often felt like a different world than the US.

My family took a day trip to Jordan, and inward from there to Petra, to see the city cut into the rock face there. It is one of the new wonders of the world, a UNESCO World Heritage site, etc. etc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra). We had to go.

To get there we had to take a bus across the Israeli border, through some rather undeveloped parts of Jordan, and into Petra, which was relatively developed and touristy. On our bus ride in Jordan through the more rural areas, we stopped at a very broken down ramshackle building that had a toilet and a shop. When I say ramshackle and broken down I mean ramshackle and broken down. Awful smells, no running water, no toilet paper, on and on. It was worse than some of the places I've found in Cambodia during my travels in SE Asia. Needless to say the surrounding areas were only more dire-looking, if possible, with the lone buildings in the distance very decrepit housing structures. I imagined they had no running water as well, likely no electricity, probably no education, and possibly extremist. I think I was under the impression that if we went more than 10 feet from our bus we'd be mugged, kidnapped, shot, beheaded, put on the news and in the annals of American tourists captured and killed. If the bathroom was this bad, who knew how awful the rest of the area was??

I hope then, that you can imagine my surprise, shock, and dismay when my father stepped out of the bus, looked around, took a deep breath of dry desert air, and started walking briskly toward one of the housing structures. One of the housing structures far away. One of the housing structures with people around it. With more than one person, in fact at least 3 or 4 people, mostly adults and a few young kids. As we approached (I had followed him out of some mad impulse) my nagging pleas and their stares intensified. "Dad, what are you doing? This isn't safe! You're crazy! This is dangerous! Who are these people? They are staring at us dad! They are staring at us right now..."

With what I thought of as testicles (although not brains) of iron, my dad and I ended up walking up to the house, smiling, me in a sickly sort of way, and then stepping up onto the porch were the people stood. Although nobody spoke English, they didn't immediately shoot us, and there were smiles and nods all around. I became distracted by a smaller housing looking thing up on a hill behind the house, and pointed to it to ask my dad what it was. One of the men followed my finger, looked at me, and bustled off into the thing. With some trepidation I saw him emerge holding a bundle that could have been anything from a claymore mine to a series of knives and swords. It turned out, magically, to be a real live, very cute, very cuddly, baby goat. He pressed it onto me and had me hold it, pet it, and hug it. It was possibly the highlight of my trip, Petra and all. The picture on the top of this page is something i'll treasure for a long time.

I held the goat, there were more smiles and nods, and I have to say the house suddenly looked quite cozy, and the welcoming and kindness much better than any kind of expensive decoration I may have been looking for.

As we walked away, I wasn't really sure what to say, and so silence followed us as we walked back to the bus. As we approached, my father looked at me and smiled: "Zach, anywhere you go in the world, pretty much anywhere, 99.9% of the people are going to be friendly, kind people just trying to make it. Remember that wherever you go people are generally good, and that if you're open and friendly great things can happen".

As I travel around Thailand meeting people and having adventures, I have to say: Thank you Dad. I don't know what being a father is, but it has to be something like what you did.

One is the lonliest number

July 18th, 11:46PM - Railay Island, Thailand

Well first, I spent part of yesterday taking a cooking course with a wonderful woman named Oom, and I took lots of pictures and even a video of me rolling a spring roll (!). I will soon post some writing, pictures, video, and recipes, turning this blog into a Thai cooking channel for one entry, but first I need to get the media off of my camera and into the computer, and its hard to do here on the island. I'll post it sometime soon though, no worries! I also had some other adventures that will hopefully be posted sometime soon, but ont to more important matters...

I've also met lots of people in the last day or two, as the frequent rain storms here drive everyone under cover to get food or drink, and inevitably lead to conversations. Its the last 2 days of frenzied people meeting and hanging out that I'm thinking about right now.

I like meeting people. I like sitting down, sticking your neck out, coming together for that one fleeting moment where the conversation might die or flourish. I like laughing with people, learning about their culture, their lives, what they are passionate about or what they are doing traveling. In general, I don't think I'm alone in that, I think lots of people feel that way. If they wouldn't express it in the langugage I have, I still believe there is a general feeling that other people liven up one's trip in a positive way.

For me, traveling alone, with backpacking supplies, freedom, and plans to go to SE Asia, I envisioned a decent amount of downtime in isolation. I would relax, contemplate who I was and where I was going, and generally enjoy life before getting slammed with work. But Bangkok was chock full of more people than I could have imagined, and Cambodia and Railay have also been relatively touristy and populated places. I have rarely gone a night without meeting someone, eating, chatting, drinking, or otherwise commingling and trading email addresses. I feel, based on the last few days, that this has a lot to do with me. I try to reach out, be aggressive, and talk to people, its just who I am. I don't really think about it. Other pepole in my situations may not have had the same experience, and I cant say I'm feeling real great about that trait of mine right now.

For me, traveling alone and reaching out to people, for just 18 days so far, is fatiguing me in a way I couldn't have appreciated before. It is that fatigue, at 12:17am, after a day of meeting different people and hanging out, that is speaking now. I know I'm very very very lucky to be here, to have the resources and support and guidance to experience this, but hopefully this post gives you a window into my mindset at this moment.

Though I've met lots of cool people from all corners of the world, in almost every case its likely that I will never see that person again. When you say goodbye and walk away from the day/night/weekend, its a weird feeling. It is hard getting up and reaching out to people every day, and sometimes even more lonely when you don't. And then it can seem as though the relationships themselves border on the inconsequential, friendly affairs that ultimately aren't anything more than a blip on the other person's radar. Usually girls on these trips are traveling with boyfriends, or traveling alone with a boyfriend back home, and guys rarely travel in groups of less than two or three. I'm sure that i'm learning and growing just by talking and listening, by experiencing people, but what about some close friends, ya know? I think 3 days on a couch watching basketball with friends and playing videogames sounds fun right now.

I haven't really felt like there are that many single travelers here. It can be a difficult pill to swallow realizing that most people you meet have an anchor, a solid relationship they can reflect on and that precludes anything rewarding developing. Its funny to read that sentence, because it sounds like I'm trying to find a wife or best friend, but it goes beyond that. I came on this trip with unrealistic expecatations, I think. I hoped to make lifelong friends, and instead have (generally) made acquaintances. Its a bit crazy thinking about it because I have so many great people who care about me, but I think this has been a learning experience for me. Its hard for me to know if everyone else is making great friends, and I'm just deficient in that area: maybe my personality lies more in the "Hello" direction.

Treasure the people you have in your life, because one is a lonely number. I'm so glad I came on this trip, and I've been learning about myself and this world in a way impossible under any other circumstance. I've had such a great time in so many ways here, but part of this trip for me is that I'm coming to appreciate so much more the close friends and family that i've been blessed to have. This has certainly been a post that I've written as I wrote it, and developed as I thought and looked over the words that came out of my fingers.

I feel so lucky and so great in so many ways, but can't help feeling encroaching ennui, like the dark storm clouds approaching the beach from the distance. But maybe its the sunburn :). Hopefully a good night's sleep will shake this off, and I can get back to what I should be doing here: Meeting people, tanning, living a life of relaxation!

See you all on my next post,

Zach

Chilling the chill

July 16th, 10:52pm - Railay, Krabi, Thailand

Ok, an attempt to describe whats been going on... a bit stream-of-consciousness, as it were, because I've had a couple of the drinks...

I went climbing today with a really cool guy named Riit, a local Thai who runs part of a climbing shop here. The morning started at 9am with myself, Riit, and 2 Irish people. We got a tutorial on how to belay, rope knot tying, the works. After about 2 hours the two Irish people left, and it was just me and Riit, which meant I had plenty of coaching. I was dead tired though, and around 12 I ducked out and grabbed lunch. I was walking back to my hotel when the heavens opened up and dumped bucket of water on everything. Literally, one minute, beautiful, next minute, POURING. It was cool though, because it ended up with me and this English guy chilling at a restaurant and talking, and we went to the beach together when it stopped raining.

Oh, the beach. I've never loved a beach so much as here. Its serene, picturesque, quiet, with warm sea water and towering cliffs in every direction. Lonely planet said Railay was the most beautiful island/beach in Thailand, and damn they were right! After throwing a frisbee around for a while, my English friend headed out and I did what I now do when chilling on the beach: juggle. I stand there in my bathing suit, juggling and juggling to my hearts content. I chat with people, run around, dip in the sea, but mostly I juggle. And tan. Sublime. Zen. Fitting. Peaceful.

It was around 9pm at night that I realized I wish I grew up on a small farming community that doubled as a hippie commune. I was hanging out at a bar, having a drink, when who should show up but Riit, the guy I was climbing with this morning. The island of Railay is still small enough (though developing, dang it) that you'll pretty much see everyone you know once a day. So instead of drinking a fruit drink by myself, I ended up in a circle of Thai climbers with Riit drinking some kind of scotch/coke/water concoction and watching them grill lots of food and smoke various herbal medicines. It was awesome. I need to learn how to have a life of climbing during the day, drinking at night and grilling good food. Its pretty much Nirvana, and only costs 1/100th as much as the American kind. Everyone is so friendly, its amazing. I had some of the grilled food, lots of the alcohol, joked with Riit, talked to everyone around, and generally, slowly, began to relax. I'm not good at it and it will take a while, but its a start :).

Tomorrow I'm going to climb with Riit again, hopefully I'll skill up a bit! My hands are full of sores and such from hanging from rocky protuberances, but for some reason I want more. So, my schedule for tomorrow: wake up, figure out where I'm staying for the next couple of days, hit the beach and juggle/swim, go climbing, watch the sunset, dinner, relax. Beat that, USA.

I love you all,

Zach

Quick Post

July 14th, 5:31pm - Khao San Road, Thailand

This is going to be a fast post, because I leave for Krabi and the southern islands in about 30 minutes. I just spent the last 2 hours loading up the rest of my current pictures for the blog, and when I get out of my bus 14 hours from now I'll add some captions and such and post the whole thing.

For my last couple of days in Bangkok I've hung out, eaten a lot of food, practiced juggling, and slowed down from the hecticness of Cambodia and of Khao San itself. I spent an hour or two talking to a Danish woman a few days ago, and we both agreed that Khao San Road (the tourist section) is a pretty awful place to be in a lot of ways. Its a touristy mess, devoid of much real culture, and basically a place for young people to get drunk and ripped off. I liked it a lot at first for its energy, the services (internet cafes, travel agencies, hotels, English speakers) and because there were plenty of people to meet. But now the sheen has worn off and it seems like a place that could be found anywhere in the world, devoid of much culture, filled with young people really concerned about their appearence and with sleazy girls and merchants. I'm ready to go.

On the bright side, wandering among the used bookstores here I managed to find a Terry Pratchett book I hadn't read before (a mean feat, considering i've liked him for a long time), so now I have something to do on the bus ride down. I also got my phone to work internationally, which means if I fall off a cliff somewhere I can still call home and give a play-by-play to my parents :). And last night with Tim and his cousins I tried Snooker, which is like an English version of pool, but with much more difficulty and fun.

Ok, onward to the south! Tropical islands here I come!

Hope everyone is doing well, thanks so much for reading this and for those who post comments. It helps me keep going :).

Zach

Pictures, Pictures, Everywhere, Part 2

July 16, 1;07pm - Railay Island, Thailand

I'm writing this from the most beautiful tropical island I've ever seen, after an afternoon of rock climbing. This is just what I needed :). I'm sure i'll add more about this later, but for now, on to some pictures!

To start us off, unrelated to much else, a sweet picture from Angkor Wat, at the temple of smiling faces. Creepy, and really really cool in person.


So the bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat, was about 15-16 hours long, much of it in the dark and on bumpy bumpy roads. As such, we need sustenance to fortify ourselves. Below, one thing I picked up on the road in a spirit of inquiry. Not bad, but not good.

This is a picture at the Cambodian border, and the difference between it and Thailand is stark. It is a lot dustier, less clean, less developed and houses less technology. The poverty is immediately apparent. One crazy thing in Cambodia is that they use the U.S. Dollar for much of their economy, so menus are priced in U.S. Dollars and merchants often give change in U.S. Dollars. Wild!

Pictures have a really hard time doing any justice to the Angkor Wat, or its size and majesty. Arg. It really is stunning, and when you realize it was made over hundreds of years using very basic technology, its even cooler.

See, I'm in a picture with the Angkor Wat. I'm not faking this trip!

Another shot of one of the 'Smiling Faces' at the temple named for them. I'm not sure why a ruler decided to make a boat load of rocks grin creepily, but supposedly it had something to do with the king being godlike, difficult to comprehend, and thus creepily smiling.

All around the Angkor Wat there are other temples and cool stuff, which can lead to a nice long day of traveling. Dan and I biked around, and at one point passed these cool trees that actually grew over and into the ruins. If you take the stones out, the trees would collapse.

The crazy thing is that this temple was almost completely empty when we went into it, was ill-cared for and absolutely beautiful. We felt privileged to be inside.

The crazy thing about this temple is that there is very bad access, (sorry US Disabilities Act) and so often you physically have to climb your way up. This is not a trick of picture taking, these stairs are actually that steep and the only way up.

Me grinning like an idiot.

After leaving Angkor Wat at nighttime on our bikes, we realized we were in the middle of nowhere and needed to take a highway about 5-10 miles back. Oops. On the bright side, everyone on the high way was going really slowly, and we often passed pickup trucks and motor bikes, high fiving the kids inside them. At one point we pulled into what looked like a festival, and turned out to be a community soccer league of sorts. Lots of kids playing and adults watching on motor bikes. Also lots of food stands with many delicacies.

These delicacies included: Whole chickens...

...Some kind of mollusc or shellfish...

...Cockroaches (don't they look tasty)...

...And crickets (jiminy!)

Doing my father and several generations of my ancestors proud, I ate everything I could get my hands on!

This is also an instructive picture because of the white line peeking out of my shirt neck on my left shoulder. I am getting tan.

I leave you with this picture of a carnival type thing we found on our way back while on the highway. It pretty much sums up my time in Cambodia. Beautiful, fun, and exciting!

Ok, I'm gonna go climb around somemore and then hit the beach. I'm debating spending a couple days in Singapore, anyone have any thoughts?

Cheers,

Zach