Memories of China: Train to Chongqing 10/12/08

The Chinese have transformed the land for their singular use.  No wilds or refuges for this lands original inhabitants.  Farms, rail and road stretch out crisscrossing into the horizon.  Massive communist era construction projects are strewn haphazardly across the red and greens of the land.  These seem to be made with no forethought, void of centers or intersections.  The fields are sprayed with workers.  I can’t comprehend if they toil in the red, brown soil for any reason beyond that of staving off the boredom of another monotonous day.

Our train crisscrosses this country side.  Over piles of rubbage and human habitation.  The people below work like ants of a singular mind, building one-brick-thick walled rooms destined to collapse before they see completion.  We rush through the myriad of tunnels that pot mark the mountains.  Smallpox unchecked.  Every so often we pass over towns and try our hand at recreating the peoples lives below in our own minds eye.  This is a fruitless exercise though.

The train only begins to catch a full head of steam when it is pulled back to a halt.  There is no explanation except that it is the slow train.  Perhaps we were getting along to fast.  I retreat from my upper-berth perch every so often to smoke and stretch.  Beautiful train workers scurry through the halls, occasionally laughing and saying hello.  They are as girls of 12 though, entirely to innocent for our calloused American minds.

They move out the water and turn off the lights.

 

Xin Chao from Sapa, Vietnam

Hey everyone, I’m alive.

Suprise, suprise the Chinese government blocks wordpress.  Hence the reason I haven’t posted in 45 days.  I’ll write more about China soon (the people are the treasure, not the sights).  I’m in Sapa, Vietnam now.  I took an overnight bus from Kunming, China where I stayed for five days celebrating the countries victory entirely to much.  It was such a feeling of elation watching his speach with 20 other Chinese and foreigners gathered around watching intently.  I cheered with Craig over a Budweiser (only 4% in China, sacraligious) and took it in as people congradulated us.  Maybe we have come far as a nation, I  don’t know.  I guess we’ll see in the coming years.  Here’s hopeing.

Crossing over the boarder from Vietnam to China not much is different.  The language on signs, more people speak English, touts are plentifly and suprisingly, the public art is ages ahead.  I took a breathtaking minibus to Sapa through valleies and mountain passes.  The mountains are covered with rice terraces which one could mistake for steps of an ancient race of giants who acended the mountains daily to greet the sun.  There are multitues of streams, white rushing water cutting down the mountain side breaking the sea of green.  Every now and again they would thin out, turning into a high waterfall and then crashing into rocks continuting their journey to some unknown end.

The roads are not much to speak of and rules of the road don’t exist.  You do as you please and need to realize everyone else will do the same.  Rock falls are common and the locals pull off for them and look at the rocks, sometimes just small bolders a man could move.  Yet they stand there and watch, as if they have never seen a rock before, or know how to move one to continue.

Once we arrived in Sapa your gut wrenches.  What is this dutch/french fake colnial wind up toy of a town?  Touts are out in force, following your mini with their hotels cards, screaming in the window when you stop.  Of course you don’t stop where you want, the drivers forget English once you arrive in town as they turn into robots designed to bring you to a certain hotel so they can get their commision to keep on running.

You get out and the money boggles the mind, how do you divide 17,000 to make a dollar? what is 102,000 dong?  People assult you with wares, following you for what seems half the town.  Ladies with blankes pull them up to show bags of hash, opium and weed whispering,

Good price, only the best for you my friend.  I can get you boom boom too, all for 50 American dollars.

Everything is for sale, at a price.  Bargining is expected and you need to get used to paying 400% what the locals do, its the name of the game.  It’s hypercapatalism to an extreme.  All in the country that America tore apart with war 30 years ago to stop the spread of communism, and thus the USSR.  Before the Americans there were the French.  Yet they accept us, if only it is to make money off us before we are gone.  But then again, what is tourism?

It’s a mind fuck, to see this, to be in this country.  That shaped so much of our music as Americans, our politics, people and social structure.  That affected every family, even my own.  Yet all the foreigners who travel here seem to forget this.  They treat the locals as the dregs of a common whorehouse spitton.  Red faced they yell and spout over a few thousand dong, 20 cents USD.  They complain the locals can’t speak English as well as they need, even if when they speak I have trouble understanding.  I guess that’s what most travel for, a new sight, a new trinket, another stamp in the passbook.

I’m thinking of buying a Russian Minsk motorbike and doing the hills down to Saigon, just Craig and I.  Off the trail, away from this drivel that make up the travelers we’ve met so far.  But then again, am I any better?  How do you not deface a 3rd world nation when all you know is 1st?  Do you pay to much to the lucky few who meet you or become red faced for 20 cents?  Does any of it help?

 

The Great Wall

I know I haven’t written much lately beyond my journal which is hard to digitize but there is a legitmate reason. Suprise suprise, wordpress is blocked in China, maybe this will update once I get to Vietnam.

Things have been nuts; blazing with the locals in Hiroshima, meeting a record breaking marathon runner from Kenya and talking to him about conspiracy theory for hours in the shadow of the A-Bomb Dome, taking a shinning-esque ferry from Japan to China while eating chestnuts and singing karoke with our Japanese drunken master, being confronted and disallusioned with the rawness that is China and in the same breath being called off the street in Qingdao to drink and karoke with a former Olympic swimmer as he threw women to our feet as a jesture of good faith but also as a honing dart to break that very glass house of disallusionment we had created on our minds, getting lost on a cliff/hilltop and finding our way home to only get dropped off on that same cliff/hill by a blind taxi driver as we rushed for our train to Beijing, wheeling down the cliff/hill at utmost haste to hail a local to take us to our correct location as we ran and caught the train as it started pulling away, being led around Tienman square by whom we first thought was a tour guide, then a secret police, then a pimp only to finally realize he was a bit slow as we met his mother at his house and he showed us his toys cars and had us play. All of this has happened in the span between the first and second debates as the Dow fell 1700 points, our goverenment writes a $800 billion blank check, the U.S. Economy hits the rocks and cracks, world markets teeter and sputter and suprisingly, yet, thankfully Obama holds a lead in the polls (maybe my cynisicsm towards the intelligence of the U.S voter is ill placed). All of this seems petty and trite after leaving his majesty the Great Wall.

Craig and I started late as has been the m.o. of late. We left our hostle at 2:30 pm compared to the 7:00 am most venture out at to visit the wall. Ours was to be an all together different trip though.

We had heard from a French traveler you could sleep in the many guard towers along the wall if you knew how to avoid the guards. This was for us, away from
the crowds, the hawkers and the basterdazation of this triumph of will. He had said it would be cold, we hoped a litre of jack and three t-shirts would serve as an ample substitute to the sleeping bag.

Things seemed tight as the wall closed at 6 pm and the ride was 3 hours but we found the right buses to Huauriu and haggled the taxi to Mutianyu so we made It there on the cheap with great speed. We got our tickets, shoed off the driver who was insisting he drive us home at 7 and that only a fool would sleep on the wall and started our ascent. It was ‘only’ 550 meters of steep steps but trying to jog them with over loaded packs didn’t agree with the incesive smoking that we have fallen into traveling China. Step after step seemed like hell but just before my lungs were about to collapse for good we arrived.

There was no one. We had the wall to ourselves. We hiked a portion of his length in the renaining light, scoped out security cams, likely places for guards and finally a tower to call our own for the night. As darkness fell we scurried off the wall to the old unused guard paths of yesteryear. We decided that hiding in the walls shadow was our best plan of action to avoid guards and unwanted attention. After night fell we quitely returned to the tower that would shelter us for the night. In return we would be as the sentries of old; keeping watch, playing cards and drinking. Things the tower has probably missed out on for the last 1000 years.

We started out on the towers stone roof. Drinking wiskey while trying to keep quite and watch for guards. We strained to hear loud speaker announcements from thppe town below and jumped at shadows expecting Mao himself to appear and haul us off to jail and out of China. Soon the wiskey started to warm us and numb us of fear. We were the new tower guards.

I kicked myself for not having portable speakers for my iPod but the whiskey made me have a Magavier moment as I took my ear buds and fashioned amplifiers out of a can of cucumber melon Pringles I had just finished. We laughed, took photos, listined to music and drank more as the night drifted on. As we lay under the stars I began to feel the first drops of an autumn storm. We quickly gathered our things and decended the ancient steps into the fortress that would house us for the night.

We looked around and found a suitable corner hidden from
the whipping winds of the exterior and the drafts of the interior. I even found a reed broom and I went directly to sweaping the entire area ’till craig slapped me out of my OCD old maid mode. We set up our megar posetions; sleep sheets, thin worn blankets we stole from the 747 over to Japan, a head lamp set to red (fittingly), cards, the Pringles boombox and of course the our friend John. We drank the bottle dry listening to the ghetto blaster and playing high-low.

The rain subsided and as decided to explore, not smart 35 feet up after a bottle. We climbed up towers like spider monkeys, balanced on walls and hiked the length looking for treasures undiscovered. Around 1:00 am we setteled into bed with Chopain and a renewed rain serenading us to sleep.

We woke at six frozen to the bone and stiff but we had accomplished what we wanted, slept at the wall making him our own. We climbed the stairs of our tower to be greated by the sunrise and clear skies. It was breath taking. The wall snaked over knife sharp mountain cliffs and disappeared into the horizen. Valleys streached below still covered in blankets of fog not yet disappated by the morining rays. The sun glinted off the wet the rain had left. The wall shimmer as the sun danced and played with his design. I began to ponder it’s creation, I couldn’t have cairred two stones up to lay in place for this wall. How could man in his sheer determenation create an inch of this masterpiece much less a foot, a yard or the whole baffeling 2000 miles the wall stretched.

We walked his length once more and were awarded with more jaw dropping views and vistas as the sun continued to change the nature of the beast as it’s continued assult on the night took place.” We left as the sun was still low in the sky to avoid the tourists and keep this little section untarinshed in our minds. As we decended we saw the first people attempting to reach his majesty as they looked at us puzzled as we walked away from him, not towards. The wall was built to keep out the mongals, but it helped keep them in.

As we left the hawkers were starting to open, the basterdazation was beginning anew. I bought a mao shirt and went on my way.

 

Floating on in Hiroshima Part 2

The train to Osaka was nice, half hour and 5 bucks.  Can’t complain.  Once we arrived Craig and I already felt rejuvenated.  More people running around, less touristy, better looking girls.  Not missing Kyoto one bit.  We called Hiro’s friend off the bat, Mina, and she agreed to meet us and show us around her city.

We took all the right turns and ended up face to face with the  beautiful Mina in no time.  She was an amazing host.  Spoke English well and even had lived in NYC for a year.  She walked us through Osaka’s streets to her apt so we could drop off our bags.  There were themed love hotels everywhere.  People were louder, smoking on the streets, j walking; it was like being back home.  She took us to some crazy manga store with out of this world toys and figurines, most of the adult persuasion.  After laughing at Craig and I play a game of baseball on the NES in one store we got some pancake balls with octopus in them, I’m lost for a name but they were hot and delicious.  We walked the crazy streets of Osaka some more in search of a bar or some type of food.  People yelled at us to come into their restaurants, get a beer with them, there was a weird dog petting shop (zoo for adults?) and all other sorts of oddities.  She asked if we could stop at a small bar she liked, Hiro had put in her mind that we were looking for clubs which isn’t Craig or I, we obliged and found ourselves in Bird/56.  This place is amazing.  A small jazz club upstairs, maybe 10 seats total including the bar.  The walls are covered in old records and the music is record only.  It the most amazing place I’ve seen in Japan, temples included.  Haim would have fallen in love.  I ordered a Jack on the rocks in memory of him and sat down with the owner, master, for what turned into 7 drinks.  Master had on a Japanese Communist Party shirt and we talked in our best broken Japanese and English about politics, history, culture, our trip and ourselves.  I introduced him to Brad Mehldau, had him play me Bill Evans & Jim Hall’s Intermodulations, some Monk, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and a few others.  He introduced me to The Toshiko Trio and many others in his ultra cool and slick style.  The whole setup was just records plugged into a 60’s Kenmore receiver.  He had a spot to hold the records he was playing so the cover could be displayed, I felt like I was home in 36.  Again I found myself wishing my buddy Haim was there so him and Master could pick each-others brains on jazz.  He must of had over a thousand records and had them all memorized as to where each was and the songs on it.  Interestingly he only played the A side of the records, all the way through, they switched them.  What was supposed to be a quick beer turned into a learning experience and 5 hours.  One of Mina’s friends met us there and decided we needed some food so we hit a local cheap Izakaya.  More beers (half priced), food and talking we saw the time was closing in on 2 so decided upon going home.  Mina offered us her floor and Craig and I gladly accepted.  We walked in a haze through Osaka from these fairytail bars and were amazing by the people, still out, partying, talking, smoking.  Once reaching Mina’s she offered us glasses of Glenlivet and a bunch of Asahi tall boys.  We laughed into the night and I only remember brushing my teeth and falling asleep around 4am.  We all awoke around 3 and after a huge spread Mina layed out for breakfast we decided upon seeing Osaka one last time.  Mina and her friend set up our overnight bus to Hiroshima, 3600 yen, decent.  Craig and I were really hung over but saw a few more sights, danced in the streets and stopped by Bird/56 for a last drink and talk with the master.  Again this turned into a couple hours as we preformed show and tell and talked about the red revolution.  He showed us a bottle his customer brought from Laos, snake whiskey, with two snakes intertwined inside the bottle, one biting the others neck.  The master left me with something for the trip, he got out his fortune book and decided to tell me mine.  After much deciding upon proper translation he came up with this,

If you forget the past, the lucky goat will smile upon you.

By the past he meant our culture, us being American.  He said we needed to act as Japanese in Japan, Chinese in China and so forth.  They were profound words of wisdom and Craig and I have been seeing the lucky goat all around since that point.   We left the bar after talking politics with a french foreign national for an hour or so and made out way to the train.  We parted ways with Mina at the subway.  Again I can’t speak enough about her as a host, she did everything in her power to make us feel at home.  I guess its a trend among Japanese.   She drew us a whole map and directions in Japanese in case we got lost.  To amazing

Once we got to our stop we were looking at a map no longer than a minute when a middle aged Japanese came up to us, asked us where we were going and then told us to follow and walked ahead of us fast in a certain direction.  She must have walked us 25 minutes all the way out of the subway, to the right exit right to the spot our bus left.  She left in sight of the bus stop and saw Craig and I wandering around for a minute looking for a place to sit and returned, walked us directly to the bus and made sure it was right.  It wasn’t and she proceeded to call the line and ask about where to sit.  She didn’t leave until she was sure we were in the right spot and had seats.  Amazing, she didn’t look much like a goat though. 

We were early but it was good to relax and rest off the hang over.  Four hours later we were on our way to Hiroshima, no gut rot in sight this time.

Continued…

 

Floating on in Hiroshima Part 1

I know I’ve taken along time to update, I haven’t had time to be near a computer and things have been so insanely busy lately.  Craig and I have been sleeping in an Internet cafe though in Hiroshima  for the last few days so I have computer time abound.  First let me say, Internet cafes are amazing, 10 times better than a hostel could be.  Free ice cream, pool, ping pong, massage chairs, Japanese porn, manga, drinks, showers and your own room!  We’ve been living it up to the fullest, even if we are the only white devils running around these places.  This post might be long, a lot of things have happened in the last days.

First, let me say Tokyo was absolutely amazing.  It rained as we were leaving the city, fittingly,  I’d like to say they were her tears for us leaving but honestly they were mine for having to leaving her and all the people we met there.  Sensi said it best, your traveler. 

It never quite hit me until after our last crazy liquor and cheese burger party how much of a toll this trip would take on us and yet how much it would teach us.  I’m so grateful for being taken in by these strangers, now im proud to say my friends, lives.  Jhon Nam, Michi, In-Suk, Hero, Mr. Han and the rest of the gang, thank you (come visit the US as soon as possible, you’ll always have a bed).  I learned so much in my short time there and hopefully taught some along the way. 

We did Korean BBQ with beer all night long followed by karaoke and on-sen.  One shouldn’t ask for me but then we were treated the next day to a home cooked breakfast, taken to a soba restaurant in town and got fresh ice cream.  Jhon Nam went out of her way to drive Craig and I to crow castle and together we stumbled upon a surreal sake and yakitori bar were we got all right for the train ride home.  She even ran ,following our drunk selves, onto the train to make sure we got the right one home.  Hero going out of his way to show us Tokyo, Jhon Nam taking us to get Chinese dumplings (she’ll be upset I forgot the name) and then sushi with Hero followed by the red light district.  In-Suk showing me around Tokyo even though she’s been there 10 days longer than me and my ignorance towards language.  Of course Yo-Yogi Park and the crazy liquor and cheese burger party.  It didn’t have cheese burgers but Craig and I got into calling everything dirty from trailer park boys and couldn’t stop with the references.

We went out to sing Karaoke where Jhon Nam did an amazing Hakauna Matta, In-Suk with her Maria, Mr. Han’s rap, Michi and the rests amazing songs and our under the sea rendition.  We ate in abundance and all drank a bit to much as Jhon Nam bought a bottle of shoju for our going away party.  After we went to Hiro’s studio and got into more drink, food and laughs.  I found myself taking a train home around 5 am with the Craig and Hero, happy for the party but sad that Tokyo was over, that I had to leave my new found friends.

The overnight bus to Kyoto was horrendous but Michi and Hero did wait for an half hour to make sure the bus started right (I got the feeling one gets when going off to college with concerned parents looking on). 

Craig was sick the entire way while I was stuck running up trying my best Japanese (from the book of course) to get the bus to stop so he could have a proper burial.  When we arrived, we were both exhausted, still hung over from the previous nights going away party.  We wandered the city for an hour with packs in tow looking for a spot to nap and came upon the bridge, decided it was to sketch, and finally settled on an hour in a karaoke bar to sleep.  The workers all found this quite hilarious, but, it worked.  We rented the Budget Hostel in Kyoto for the night but couldn’t check in till 4 pm.  Torrential rains started coming down on the city as Craig and I found ourselves taking refuge in Kosho Kaikan Institute looking on.

The rains subsided in 3 hours, about the time for our hostel.  Craig went to sleep, I walked the block and then followed suit.  We woke up to find a bunch new tourists in our room.  There were two travellers we got on with though from Britain, Duncan and Sema, who had just returned from China on their round the world trip and gave us their lonely planet for free.  We drank each a half a cup of warm free sake and both still depressed from leaving our friend and Tokyo (maybe I more then Craig, but he was still pretty sick) tried to put the abysmal day behind us.  The next day we walked Kyoto, saw Kiyomizu temple and decided the temples were beautiful but the city to touristy for our likes… On to Osaka 

Continued…

 

Harajuku Park at 4am

I’m sitting at an internet cafe as I write this, I’d call it less an internet cafe but more private jet. We get free drinks, food and magna! My cublicle is all blacked out, leather floor and seats, I feel like I’m snoop five miles up in his own personal pimp palace. Lets get right into it, Japan has been redicilious. Complete strangers takeing us into their lives and going out of their way to show us, perfect strangers, around is all one can ask for. Craig and I have been waking up later and later, getting back into our usual routine, up at noon and out all night. We went to Ropongi yesterday around 4:00 PM to walk around and sight see and then met up with our friend In-Suk we met in Nagano. It’s strange, siting around in a foreign place waiting to meet a Korean girl that has been here nine days longer then us to have her show us around a city she knows evenless. We kept on getting the feeling the giant spider statue in the square was going to turn into a walking camera and the people on the benches were really the audience for a twisted version of catch a predator Japan. Thankfully this was only a day terror and we met our new guide as we let ourselves get lost and immersed in Tokyo.

Ropogi turned out to be to expensive for our blood and we went on our way to find food and drink in cheaper, rougher areas. In-Suk turned out to know the subway worse than us and the first half hour was a experience in patience as we knew how to get to our destination but had to defer to our guide, you can’t show around the guide. We’ll atucally you can, Craig and I decided to say fuck it and just go without questioning. We arrived in Yoyogi and tried to walk to Harajuku for food, ended up in Times Square, Tokyo where by chance would have it we had been drinking at few nights prior after out boozed out ride back from Nagano.

Turned around, we went back to where we had came from. In-Suk, Craig and I can’t read Japanese characters well so finding a place to eat and drink on the cheap was alot harder than one would think. We ended up getting beers at AM-PM (the local bodega) and walking down the street being redicilious, it’s to much fun not to be when the langage barrior makes everything comedy hour. We went thru a few malts and decided upon a place with prices in roman characters that looked reasonable. More beer, a huge meal, amazing. Strange thing is mine and Craigs roles have reversed, he came with no appitate and now I eat a piece of toast and I’m full and he just keeps on going. Must be my body trying to shed those extra pounds before we get into that third world.

The food was good, rice, a fish miso? and some shrimp mushroom concontation to die for. Our beers were extra sized, perfect for us. We have taken to calling ourselves white devil as an inside joke, some Japanese get it, some don’t but it’s strangly a comfort being called that while at dinner going through cheers in four langagues. Thank’s to Haim’s tutalage I taught everyone in Nagano a few Hebrew words as they taught us japanese and korean and they have caught on with the crew. I know he’ll be proud.

More drinks, decided upon Karoke and got right into it. In-Suk gets transported to a different world in that booth, dancing and singing as if she was born with a mike in her hand. I sang Picture by Kid Rock for some odd reason and did both the female and male voices in their respective octaves. Craig and I then paired up for a duet to Buddy Holly by Weezer. I haven’t listened to that band in seven years now I can’t get their songs out of my head.

After karoke we wanted more drink and this is where the real night began. It was catch the train or stay out all night till it starts at 5:00 AM. We chose the later, convinced In-Suk the best thing to do in times likes these is get a bottle, a chacer and find your local park and bottle up for the night. We stumbled apon Harajuku Park, found a way in and proceeded to the nearest off the path statue and used a dragon’s foot for both our chair and table. It could only be more perfect if we were on the side of the lonely mount.

Wiskey through a staw is just wrong but In-Suk loves straws,I guess she just did’t know the taste of wiskey. After a few chance encounters with the cops where Craig and I just repeated visa? passport? gomenosie, sumimasen we found ourselves finshing that nasty stuff on a park bench in the light. We all were feeling pretty good and decided to explore. Wandering around the paths we heard a sierins song and sought it out. I thought It was music through speakers and to my suprise we came upon three Japanese with a guitar, sitting a lake singing and playing. One had a green tarp on his back as he walked around doing his best impression of Yoda as he spit out a sick freestyle.

We found our people.

Sat and watched, scared to make contact beyond the occasional Sugoi or Umai we decided after more liquor that our reslove would strengthen untill we were part of the group. Headed off for AM-PM and a bottle of Gin and juice, respectfully. It was nice to get into that dirty stuff. Getting your mind off your money and money off your mind is what it is all about, if only fleetingly. We made our way back to the lake and they were still there, singing and dancing on. We made offerings of tobacco and Gin to the musicians and in no time flat we were dancing with them, laughing and singing along. We all practiced our best Yoda, I worked on my best foot shuffle and we all got lifted away by drink. In the middle of it all is when it hit Craig and I, we were all the same. Bums, nomads stuck with a task of wonderlust. The muscians were off from school living in the park the weather gets worse, In-Suk has been in country for threeweeks traveling for a year around Japan and Craig and I on our journey.

We wandered home around five to catch the train, Craig and I butted drunken heads about how to keep In-Suk safe and which train would take us home. After it all, as we feel asleep on Hiro’s floor I know this trip will be oddly harder than I had though, a growing experience one can’t hide from.

I found myself missing Chrisitan, Haim, Adam and Seger most of all as I drifted off to sleep slowly, on the cold hard cement.

Hours up at the cafe, I’ll keep everyone updated as I can on my travels, and hopefully upload more photos, seven gigs of data is a slow transfer. I’m thinking maybe i’ll only post the best, but, then, what do I do with the rest?

 

Welcome to Wonderland

We’ve arrived in wonderland.  Amazing.  I can’t begin to explain the last few days in Japan.  Touching down, being given a Japanese lesson by a group of 12 Koreans at their Japanese lesson, whisked off to a mountain side mansion in Nagano, private onsen, 6 hours Korean BBQ followed by karoke and way to much shoju and beer, sake in a off the track bar.  I guess none of this compares to the fiasco that is american banking at the moment though.  Leahman Brothers bankrupt, Merrill Lynch sold.  Lets hope for Obama.  It’s refreshing being taken away from American politics but to wake up to news that we’re hitting a new depression is a trip.  I’ll post more on my travels later, can only use an Apple store as an internet cafe for so long.

 

t – 1

so i leave in one day.  i’ve been so busy trying to get in all my last minute packing, planning and goodbyes that it doesn’t really hit you till the insomnia sets in.  i don’t know where i’m going to be in 6 months, i don’t know my path till the completion.  i have generalities, but all that gets thrown to the wind in a day.  its been 3, almost 4 years since i’ve been in a spot like this.  its a strange feeling, to be letting go of that quilt of comfort that i’ve surrounded myself with.  i always wanted to lose it, but with that exact thing happening I can’t help but remember it fondly and know i’ll miss its warmth.  i guess its my pre-trip trepidation, the breath one takes before the dive.

i’ve always liked to swim though, the water will be nice.

 

Live a Little

I’ve started this blog to document my 6 month odyssey through South East Asia.  I’m going with a long time friend I just reconnected with, I’m finishing school, he’s quitting his job and we’re chasing the dragon through Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand (hopefully more, money allowing).  We’ll be leaving Sept. 10, 2008 and returning sometime January 2009.  I hope to keep everyone updated on my travels, thoughts, ideas, gripes and general life on the road.  I’d explain why I’m going more but these quotes can do it better then I ever could hope to:

1. iacta alea est
2. Never eat in a restaurant called Moms. Never play poker with anyone named Doc. Get your laundry done at every opportunity. Never refuse sex. Order any dish containing wild rice.
3. Zorba the Buddha: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutsche mark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine; a man who can do business when business is necessary, yet allows his mind to enter a pine cone or his feet to dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to turn his back on beauty, this Zorba the Buddha character finds in sensual pleasures not a contradiction but a affirmation of the spiritual self.
4. to those learning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings – mary baker eddy