Josh & Jenn's Travels

Carmel under snow. What were you doing at 4am?

2009-01-28T03:25:00.001-08:00

The snow. To some it's a destination. Before Jenn moved here, it was a place she would go to. E.g. "Today we will drive up the mountain and go see the snow." But, if you live in Indiana during the Winter... Well, it's just everywhere.

I actually enjoy many aspects of snow and got suddenly inspired to do a photo adventure at 4am. So I loaded up my new Suby with snacks, water, tripod, flashlights and things. I then put on several layers of clothes and grabbed my Nikon. Here we go.

My first bit of photo advice. Don't ever buy a cheap tripod. They are just a pain in the butt and you don't end up using them anyways. So just save your $20 and put it in a fund to get a carbon fiber Gitzo.

So I brought my tripod, but didn't use it. So granted, these photos are not going to turn out too fantastic because I had to go hand-held. But hey, there's a blizzard out there that is demanding to be photographed.

As I drove my Suby out of the driveway, I noticed that there was some serious snow on the ground. I nearly got stuck pulling out of my neighborhood. This is a little disappointing because I just sold my 96 Subaru to get a 2005. My 96 never got stuck. Not once. My new one seems much more slippery, and as I said before I nearly got trapped in a snow drift. I hypothesize that the weight is different, or maybe a manual transmission version works a little differnetly? I don't know.

So I immediately downgraded my plans. I had wanted to drive around Carmel a little bit, then go downtown. But considering I barely made it 4 blocks, I thought I would keep it local.

So the town was dead except for an army of snow plows. I think in 2 hours I saw only 2 cars pass by. But there was every type of truck and tractor imaginable pushing snow this way and that. Which made me do some serious thinking. For some reason I have always liked driving around in blizzards. I also like staying up late. I suddenly realized that it must be my destiny to become a snow-plow driver. It's perfect. I would love it. I'm not sure if you need a degree or some kind of driving certification, but I will be looking into it for next year.

So I cruised around Carmel, mostly near Main Street in the Carmel Arts District. There are several statues of people doing random activities here. I shot several pics of those covered in snow, or getting blizzarded on. Is blizzarded a word? It is now.

I also realized I should have brought a towel. Snow is getting all over my camera and lenses and is melting. This probably isn't good. I hope my camera works after tonight.

But it was fun. I would just throw my blinkers on, stop in the middle of the lane and get out and start shooting. Just walking through the snow made me miss skiing a lot. I need to do that soon before Winter is over.

So anyways, check out the results. I wouldn't say there's anything spectacular here. It was cold, my camera was wet, and I was getting blizzarded on the whole time. It was good to go on a photo adventure, but shooting in a snow downpour is a pain in the butt.

Welcome Christmas Card Readers!

2008-12-05T01:02:00.001-08:00

We recently sent out some Christmas cards with this link and wanted to let everyone know what we are up to. I figured I better add a quick "Hello!"

We just moved to Carmel, IN and are looking for jobs and things to keep us occupied. We just returned from traveling for several months. In May we quit our jobs in Virginia and drove across the US and nearly back, went to Southeast Asia for several weeks, spent a little time in California, then spent a few weeks in Europe. You can find lots of stories and pictures from our travels in this blog. If you go back to the very first post you will see the start of our road trip. Southeast Asia is also very well documented with tons of photos. Europe...well... I dropped the ball on that one. I'm not sure if I have even looked at all the photos I took there (probably in the 1000's). My teaching job takes up a lot of my free time! But Christmas break is near, so maybe I'll get that stuff up yet.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by. If you are in the Indianapolis area don't hesitate to drop us a line. We owe a lifetime of hospitality to our guests after all of our freeloading we've done across the world!

Merry Christmas!!

-Josh (and Jenn)

Found a home!

2008-11-10T21:38:00.001-08:00

Hi Readers!

Our travels have come to an end. We have decided to settle down in the Indianapolis area. We just signed for a really nice house in Carmel, IN a really nice suburb just a bit out of town. We are very excited and are moving all our stuff this week.

The cost of living here is extremely low and we are near some friends and family - which is important to us as we want to start our own soon.

On a sadder note, we regret to say that we have given our kitty over to sunny California. On our last visit she told me she really preferred the sunshine there, so she has a new home with the lovely Stephanie and Kyra who will take really good care of her. We will miss her much and wish her well! Bye Moo!

Well that's all I have for now. Maybe I can post some more information about our home soon.

I may also have to change the name of this site, since our major traveling is indeed over. We defintitely won't be constraining ourselves to Indiana's limits though. I think we'll always have a bug to get out.

Workin!

2008-10-09T01:35:00.000-07:00

We've been near the LA area for about a week at Jen's mom's place. This weekend we are going to Disneyland with a bunch of family which should be fun. Then we are heading to the Bay Area.

I would have posted some pictures by now, but I'm working pretty hard at getting my resume and portfolio up to date. It's not really there yet, but I'm making good progress.

I'm about done with a resume on the web. Check it out so far. Let me know if it stinks before I send it out.

Resume

Lisbon

2008-09-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hey, we made it to Portugal. The weather here is awesome! It's 80 degrees and sunny all week. We'll be sure to take advantage. There looks like there's some fun stuff to do. The only issue at this point... our Portuguese knowledge is at 0%. We know 0 words, 0 foods, 0 nothing. Wish us luck!

Spain

2008-09-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

We have spent a couple days in Barcelona with Lois and that was good fun. We saw a lot of work by the artist Gaudi, and that was some really unique and interesting stuff. We ate a lot of paella (sort of like Spanish jambalaya) and drank some Sangria (cold wine mixed with fruit) which was nice.

We have had a lot of trouble getting food for the most part. Either we have fallen into tourist traps ($17 for two Cokes) or just haven't a clue what to eat. Our Spanish isn't too good, and neither is our Catalan (a Spanish derivative spoken in most of Barcelona).

We have flown to Madrid and are struggling a bit to get motivated. I have come down with a crummy cold and Jen might be heading there. We have two days here and we're going to try to catch a bull fight.

On Monday we head to Lisbon and spend our last two full days abroad there.

I have decided to work on all my pictures when I get back. I want to learn with my new photos how to do a nice professional work-flow and work with these photos in Adobe Lightroom. So look for a mega-picture post around mid October.

More Europe!

2008-09-23T17:10:00.001-07:00

Oiy! So little time.

We've been pretty busy bouncing about. We enjoyed Venice thoroughly and visited my friend Jen/Brian in Venezia as well as my old Italian teacher Mara (ciao!) in Padova. Good stuff.

We checked out Milan and saw giant churches and more.

Now we are in Barcelona. We found out Barcelona's largest festival is this week so there is TONS of stuff going on. Plus, Lois is here! Fun! Fun!

More updates later. Maybe some pictures. School is ending in a few days so time is short as I have lots of grading to do.

Buon Giorno!

2008-09-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

We arrive near Venice and are at a lovely bed and breakfast outside of town near the airport. The room here is huge and there is Internet in the room. We're going to head into town today and begin the eating! My commitment this week is to eat as much as possible and have ice cream (gelato) every night. Magnifico!

Stuttgart

2008-09-14T05:01:00.001-07:00

Hanging out in Stuttgart with Brian and Anna. Being lazy for the most part. Eating. Mostly eating.

Heading to Venice tonight. Bellissimo!

Ich bin ein Berliner!

2008-09-12T04:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm not a Jelly Donut, but I digress.

We spent the last few days in Berlin, Germany (not Ohio). It is a very nice city! We walked all over town and saw lots of things. Some highlights:

-Brandenburg Gate
-Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
-Seeing the big TV tower
-Parliament Building
-HUGE dome church
-Learning TONS of history at the German history museum.
-Celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary!! Yeah!!
-German pretzels for breakfast, Turkish soup for lunch, breaded pork for dinner

Already it's apparent this place is WAAAY easier than SE Asia. We can eat fruits and veggies right off the street, we can communicate fairly well, and the hotels aren't nearly as scary. Although we are paying for the luxury as 1 Euro costs us about $1.40 USD.

We arrived in Stuttgart today to visit Brian Fuller and Anna. We'll be here for the weekend, then off to Venice.

No pictures for now. But maybe I'll get some up at some point.

Finally!

2008-08-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here is the rest of the story of our Asia trip told by my lovely assistant Jenn. Pictures for this section can be found here:

Kuala Lumpur , Singapore Part II

I'm (Josh) heading to Indianapolis today and plan to visit my parents, friends, Chicago, etc. Jenn's going to hang out in California a bit more. After that I'm on to Bob's bachelor party cabin weekend in NY. Then I'll meet Jenn in Berlin where we will spend a little over 3 weeks over in Europe. Stay tuned for more action...

July 19 – 22: KL Sightseeing

Hi all, this is Jenn. I’m taking over blog duty as Josh hasn’t had much time to write lately, as you may have noticed. He’s been busy teaching and going to conferences. So here we go…

After sleeping in after a long night we went to a very fun lunch. We ate outside at a Southern Indian establishment where they serve you on banana leaves and you eat with your hands (of course I mean hand). The food was delicious, especially the roti canai. Most of us really enjoyed lunch, but Josh’s stomach was a bit weak, so we made a mad dash home after lunch so he could get some rest. That afternoon the girls had a fabulous, relaxing pedicure (go happy toes!). That evening we relaxed at Aida’s house and enjoyed her enormous movie collection. Since you can buy movies on DVD while they are playing in the theatre, most people just skip the theater and watch movies at home…for about $5 a pop, who can blame them.

The next morning, Aida took us to the Batu Caves. This was pretty cool. There were several Indian temples and many statues to look at, wild monkeys climbing about, and after two hundred and sixty-something steps up and then back down again, it was also quite a work out. After working up our appetites that morning, we went to lunch at a local mall “The Curve.” For dessert Aida treated Josh to a Big Apple Donut. This place is like Krispy Kream, except they have many more flavors and fantastically decorated donuts. It is quite a treat just to look at them.

Josh and I decided to spend the rest of the day at the movies. In Malaysia waiting in line for movie tickets can be quite a time consuming process. This is because each person selects their seat at the time of purchase, just like a theater performance. So, we got in line and booked both of our movies for the day: Wanted and Batman. For two movies, popcorn (caramel is the only kind they serve, which I loved) and a soda, the total came to about $15. What a deal!

After the movies, Aida suggested that we hire a taxi to take us back to her house. Sounded easy enough…yeah right. We started by going to an adjoining hotel taxi line. We made it past about ten parked taxis and taxi drivers then asked the man at the front of the line to take us to the house. He looked at the address and said “No.” Hmmm….ok then. Being a bit bewildered, we continued walking and noticed another taxi parked across the street with the driver casually standing beside it. So, we crossed four lanes of traffic and asked nicely again if this driver would take us. Yep, you guessed it. The response: “No. There is too much traffic.” Huh? Don’t these people get paid to drive in traffic? Ok, so now what? There was a security guard back on the opposite side of the street, so we crossed over once again. I asked him why the taxi drivers wouldn’t take us (considering the house was only about ten minutes away) and he said that there were too many stop signs/traffic and that we might have to wait a couple of hours, but that we could keep trying to ask passing taxis. So, after a few more minutes another taxi came by and Josh waved him down. We again asked if he would take us to the house and once again were told “no.” Seriously!?! At this point, I was getting frustrated. We then decided to walk back to the hotel and ask the front desk for help. The lady at the desk was very nice and said she would call us a taxi. Shortly thereafter, she told us that our taxi was waiting for us out front. OMG! To my surprise, when I opened the door and looked at the driver, it was the last driver that Josh had waived down! I guess this time he was under obligation from the hotel to take us, so he was stuck. Too bad. I just wanted to get home. It seems the driver didn’t know where the house was, because he spent several minutes talking to a couple people and then we were on our way. Or so we thought. It turned out he really didn’t know where he was going. After taking us to a condominium complex, and then driving around a business center for about fifteen minutes, the driver asked a man walking nearby for directions. Luckily this guy knew his way around. Finally we made it to the house. After all was said and done it was about an hour long taxi adventure that I hope to avoid in the future ;)

The next day we took the subway train (LRT) from KLCC to the Central Market. This is a huge building full of local crafts. We spent quite a bit of time looking around and shopping. We also cruised through Petaling Street, where you can find knock-offs for almost anything. It was a nice relaxing day of sightseeing.

The next day’s moto is “Three Times a Charm,” which applies to our visit to the Petronas Towers. The first time we tried to go up to the sky bridge, the tickets were sold out for the day. The second time, the towers were closed for the day. But, today, finally we succeeded. We got there pretty early in the morning, but apparently we weren’t the only early birds because there was already quite a line forming for tickets. We made it through the line and got tickets for the morning session. The views of the city were amazing and we were lucky to have snagged 10:15am tickets because shortly after our tour, the sky turned dark and stormy.

That afternoon we met up with Aida for lunch at a popular restaurant called Little Penang where we had our last Malaysian meal.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Malaysia and hello again to Singapore. We took a short flight from KL to Singapore, where Borna and Alex were gracious enough to once again collect us from the airport.

July 23 – 27: Back in Singapore

Well, there isn’t much to tell about our first day back in the Garden City. Josh had quite a bit of work to do, so we stayed in. That night though, we enjoyed pizza and movies with Borna and Alex.

The next day we walked to the train station to head over to the Jurong Bird Park. So far, we have been extremely impressed with the animal and nature parks in Singapore, and this park was no different. The tropical green scenery was the perfect landscape to the more than 8,000 birds and over 600 species! We enjoyed two bird shows and Josh even got to hand feed a flock of beautiful Lories.

Borna took the next day off work and we explored the Singapore Discovery Center, which included an IMAX movie of the Canadian caribou and a bus tour of SAFTI, a military training compound. We also took a look at the Army Museum, which had a great interactive video. Later that evening Alex joined us for dinner and sightseeing from the top of Raffles Hotel. The 70th floor viewing area allowed us to gaze upon the beautiful Singaporean skyline. The night continued onto the biggest night club I have ever seen. Basically, there is a huge complex divided up into numerous clubs (sorry I don’t remember exactly how many…nine or ten?). We listened to a live band in a jazz club, which was great and then spent most of the rest of the night in the Latin club, where another live band was playing. Alex and Lloyd joined up with us for an evening of dancing. I’m glad that all of the years of dance lessons finally paid off. There was a small dance area in front of the stage where we were able to show the crowd our moves! We had a great time!

After a late night, we still managed to get off to a decent start the next day. The four musketeers (Alex, Borna, Josh, Jenn) set off for the Singapore Botanic Gardens. We enjoyed a casual stroll through the gardens and along the ponds and streams, taking pictures of the beautiful plants, flowers, and animals. And, yes, Alex continued the shrine to Borna.

That afternoon, we drove to Sentosa Island to visit Underwater World. The highlights in this small aquarium were the tunnel with a moving sidewalk that allowed us to see marine life swimming all round and above us, the sea turtles, sea angels, yellow seahorses, and the pink dolphins. The pink dolphins performed in a lagoon at a different location on the island. They are beautiful animals and are quite entertaining!

That night we enjoyed a Mexican dinner in Holland Village, where Alex and Borna were given a brief lesson on Mexican cuisine and Alex begrudgingly put together his own dinner of fajitas.

For our final day in Singapore, we went on a morning canopy walk through the Southern Ridges with Borna, Alex and two of their friends. This was a great two hour walk through and above the jungle. That afternoon we joined Borna and Alex for church…and guess where it was (remember, this is Singapore)??? Yes, a MALL! Location aside, we enjoyed our experience there. That night we were spoiled with home cooking care of Borna’s Mom. She prepared several veggie dishes and fried rice, all of which was delicious. Thanks, Mom!

Late that night, Borna’s parents drove us to the airport where we awaited our morning check in.

It’s time to wrap up our South East Asia experience….we’re heading home!

July 28 – Singapore, Hong Kong, USA

Today consisted of being in three countries, sitting in two planes for over 16 hours, and crossing one international date line. We safely landed in LA where we were warmly greeted by my Mom. Oh, it feels great to be home!

Thanks for reading our blog. This trip has been an experience of a lifetime and we’re happy to be able to share a part of it with all of you. Stay tuned for more Josh and Jenn adventures. Next stop…Europe!

Back!!

2008-07-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

We are back safe and sound in the US. We are happy to be back and had a quick stop at IHOP. Next on the agenda is about 15 hours of sleep!

In the next couple days I'll probably be able to post up the remainder of our trip. There are a few more things in KL and Singapore to mention before the trip story is complete.

July 18 – KLCC

2008-07-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

We went with Aida to her work at the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center).

She works right near the Petronas Towers. Since my classes are in full-swing, I spent most of the morning doing some grading at a Starbucks. Then Aida got us for lunch where we had kebobs in the mall. We hung out around there and later met up with Aida’s husband Ikhwan, otherwise known as Q, or IQ. Together they call themselves “Q and A”. I think they may have been doing engineering for too long.

Here are the famous Petronas Towers (seen in the movie Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Z-J). More on these in a later post.

They took us to a locally famed Hawker Center stall where we tried several local dishes including: Sotong Kang Kung, which is squid and veggie on fried rice. Jen had rice for the rest, but the other three of us had Lala Chili, which are mini clams in an orange sauce. Finally we had Katam Curry which was curried crab.

This was very messy as we picked apart the crabs to find the meat. It was all very good though. Also our stall head “chef” made quite a performance cooking it all up. He was very frantic throwing ingredients here and there and sometimes he’d throw a big pot of water or oil or something onto his huge wok and the flames would rise 20 feet up in the air.

There are more food pics on the second page of the KL gallery here. Will get around to explaining more of these pictures soon.

After dinner we went to Bossa Nova in town for a bit of salsa with a live band. They also have Kilkenny beer here too –whoo hoo! Fun night overall!

July 17: On to KL

2008-07-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

We had wanted to try to get up to Bangkok at least and see the big crazy city. However, we were so sick – we really didn’t want to risk being in such a hectic and hot place in that condition. So we stayed at Samui a little longer than we would have. Today we were to head out on a flight back to Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur (known by Malaysian’s as KL).

There was a bit of challenge getting good airlines tickets. We found out about some cheap flights with Berjaya Airlines, but you couldn’t really buy the tickets online.

I used Skype to try to call some local offices around Thailand but was definitely having language barrier issues. We ended up buying a little bit pricier tickets from a travel office across the street from the hotel.

Probably looking back we could have saved a fair amount of money if we took buses and ferries and didn’t fly around so much. But there is a little bit of hassle and risk (of theft) involved in these routes and we just didn’t want to deal with it.

We flew out of the Koh Samui airport.

I have to comment on this. It was probably the most unique and beautiful airport I have seen. It was all outdoors for the most part. There were roofs to cover from rain, but it was all open-air from the check in area, to where you pick up your bags when you arrive. There are beautiful gardens, bamboo walls and roofs, nice fountains. Apparently it has won some design awards.

More pics of Samui and the airport can be found here.

We arrived in KL and awaited my friend Aida at the airport. This is another one of my old friends from Purdue that I met somehow through dancing. I actually haven’t seen or talked to her (besides the occasional email) for I dunno, 5 years?!

Aida picked us up and took us to a little restaurant near our house for some nice, cheap Malay food. It was a 24 hour “Denny’s” type place. Sorry no pancakes, eggs, and such though.

July 14-16: Back to Samui – hack, cough, wheez, pllpttt!

2008-07-23T04:45:00.000-07:00

We had grand visions of spending more time back at Samui. We liked it a lot so we thought we’d go back and spend more time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get outside our room too much to enjoy the sun. We both had come down with illnesses and spent a lot of time in bed actually.

Jen had a nasty cold of some sort. I had some traveler’s stomach, as well as lost appetite, headaches, and such. We were both convinced that this had something to do with the stank room that we had been in the previous 3 nights.

We did catch a couple more movies. We saw Hancock and Wall-E.

July 11-13 – Koh Tao, Thankful to be alive

2008-07-23T04:30:00.001-07:00

After our brief stay in Samui, we took a ferry to Koh Tao (Turtle Island) which is a much much smaller island.

It is one of the prettiest islands in the archipelago and is a great place to do diving. So that’s what I decided I would try.

Jeremy in Japan recommended we try the Big Blue Dive Resort. So we checked it out. They picked us up at the ferry. As you can see there was a little bit of miscommunication, but I think this was for us.

We hopped into one of those pickup truck things with seats in the back (called a songthaew or something like that) and headed to the resort. A dive master greeted us and asked us what we were there to do. Originally, I was just going to try a 1-day “Discover Scuba” class. But once I got talking to the dive guy, I thought I would go ahead and get a certification with a 2 day course. I signed up and they showed us to our room and my classes were to start that evening.

Our room – oh boy. At $6/night, perhaps we shouldn’t expect much. But this is easily one of the worst places we have stayed.

There were lots of problems. It was quite small and pretty dirty looking. Really these places would look so much nicer with just a quick coat of paint. Anyways, that wasn’t the only problem. Our room was located next to some sort of sewer hole out the back. So pretty much, our room had this funky sewer smell that didn’t ever quite go away. The bathroom was also very basic and a bit gross. It was another shower/toilet combination. Let me just say that Jen was a real trooper for putting up with this. I thought it was kind of cool and bohemian to start, but by the end of the 3 nights I was so happy to leave.

One other problem was it was extremely noisy at night. Luckily it died down some after midnight but there was techno music all night, dogs barking constantly, loud neighbors. It was a mess.

So after some book study the first night, I was well on my way to getting my SCUBA PADI certification. After reading some it sounded a bit scary as there are many ways you can hurt yourself. If you sink too quickly your eardrums can get messed up from the pressure changes. Worse though, if you ascend too quickly your lungs blow up like balloons. Although they don’t quite explode, you can get severe lung over-expansion injuries that could mess you up pretty bad. And also there is just the whole freaking out/drowning possibility. Problems are a little harder to deal with 30 m underwater.

Our first session in the water turned out really well. We started in shallow water and practiced techniques such as losing your breathing regulator or getting the water out of your mask if it fills up. Here’s a picture of my main instructor the night before one of our dives. Would you trust this guy with your life?

He was from Denmark and actually did a really great job. Thanks Hal for helping me survive.

We (me and a young Dutch couple, Duuk and Bing) did our initial drills so well that we had a lot of extra time and we went on a “fun” dive. This is when things got a little scary. I didn’t feel I quite had a grasp of everything yet, but there we went. I think it might have been a little too much too soon.

Anways, the biggest problem was when we first started descending, my mask completely filled with water. Although we just practiced that, I had only done it once. It’s a lot harder when you have fragile coral below you and you can’t see very well in the salty water. It got me a little freaked out and I was having some difficultly clearing my mask. But I eventually worked it out and calmed down. We continued on, but I didn’t feel like I had very good control of becoming neutrally buoyant. This is when you sort of become weightless in the water and don’t really go up or down. When we got done I was a bit happy to be done with it for the day.

That night I was nervous about the next day and a little unsure if I liked doing it or not. But the next morning we set off really early for another dive. I told my instructor I was nervous and I think they kept a little closer eye on me. There was also another instructor who was my buddy that made sure I was doing alright.

I was nervous at first, but we descended the second time in a more controlled manner on a line. We went a bit deeper I believe, but I had much better control this time and no mask problems. This time I really enjoyed myself down there and was starting to get the hang of things.

The ocean is amazing. We were continually surrounded by fish and all kinds of creatures. I saw anglefish, barracuda, jellyfish, moray eels, and a cute clownfish family (Nemo!). There was dozens of other types of fish.

We did a second dive later that afternoon and we practiced more techniques. I was really starting to like diving. I am now officially certified SCUBA. Here's my temp card:

So I’m quite grateful that I didn’t drown and got to do such a scary thing and got so much better at it. I would definitely do this again sometime.

While I was doing all this, Jen just stayed at the resort (got out of the room!) and relaxed on same chairs near the beach.

Again thanks to Jen for letting me have some fun for a couple days. There wasn't much else we did here other than eat and enjoy some stunning scenery.

July 9-10 – Evening flight and arrival at Koh Samui

2008-07-23T03:55:00.001-07:00

After a sad goodbye at the Pacific Club Resort, we had a wild taxi ride (they all are) to the airport where we hopped on a flight to Koh Samui. This is another fairly large island, but is on the opposite side of Thailand in the East.

Here we had a brief stay at the very nice Lamai Wanta hotel on Lamai Beach.

This is the second favorite beach in the area, with Cheweng being the most popular. Our strategy worked out again as this beach was very nice and not too busy.

The area in town was nice and we had some authentic Thai food. Jen had a chicken/veggie dish on rice and I had a crab curry that I wasn’t quite sure how to eat. The crab was very thick and they didn’t provide anything to break it with. It did provide a nice flavoring for the soup.

We then wandered to a bar/restaurant where there was a chick rock band playing. Their singing voices could have used a little work, but they really rocked it out on their guitars and were fun to watch. The lead singer at one point was doing the Chinese splits across two chairs, banging her head, and playing guitar while singing. Very entertaining indeed.

I also discovered that here I could find on tap my favorite beer, Kilkenny, which you cannot get in the US. It’s an Irish beer that I discovered in New Zealand.

The next day we did a bit of Jet Skiing on the water. We switched drivers midway through our time out there and had a blast.

Our hotel had a nice restaurant and we probably had one of the better serviced meals we’ve had in Asia.

The location was also stellar. It was just 20 yards or so away from the water and there was a real nice atmosphere. Jen had spinach ricotta ravioli and I had a delicious mix of asparagus and prawns.

That night we caught an illegally shown movie at a movie theatre (“open air bar/restaurant”). Let me explain. There are a lot of illegal copied VCDs and movies on DVD that are sold around Thailand. In fact, I’m not sure I saw any legal selling of movies around. You can get movies that have just been released in the theatres. So anyways at this place they project up the movies on the screen. We just popped in, bought drinks and enjoyed a free show. We watched ‘What Happens in Vegas’.

I should also comment on the Thai shopping experience. There are lots of small stores up and down the streets that have things on display on the outside sidewalks. The shopkeepers are very aggressive and become quite annoying. They try to guess where you are from, become your friend, and then try to sell you something. So as we walk down the street we here “G’day mate – you Aussie? Hello friend? Nice couple! You come look inside! Massage Massage! Very cheap! So annoying these people! I would actually go look in stores where we WEREN’T harassed into coming in.

Additionally annoying there were only 5 types of stores repeated up and down the streets:

7/11 (same as US-convenience store)
Tailor (Sir! Madame! Come look, very nice, Armani!)
Knick/knack shop with various Thai things, magnets, postcards, clothes, bags
Massage places (Massage! Massage!)
Travel/Tourist bureaus

Then if you got through all this mess and wanted to actually buy something ,then you have to negotiate. They will give you the “White Man” price at whatever price they come up with. Then you have to start to work them down. You might offer them half the price, then they come down some …and so on. It’s an annoying process and we’re not very good at it.

So that’s about it for Koh Samui.

July 6 – Backtracking to Koh Phi Phi

2008-07-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

While we were in Phuket we spent most of one full day visiting the Phi Phi (pee pee) islands. Our hotel recommended a tour that turned out to be pretty good.

We were picked up early in the morning from our hotel and dropped off at the pier. Pretty much immediately we boarded a small speedboat and made our way. We had several stops on our journey including a few different islands including Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi Ley, and Khai.

One beach we stopped at near the beginning was the same beach that was used during the filming of Leonardo Di Caprio’s “The Beach”. It definitely was the perfect island paradise described in the movie with white sand beach, super clear water, and gorgeous plant covered limestone cliffs. We were there for a short time and a quick swim on the beach there.

Next we stopped by “Monkey Island” where there are dozens of monkeys hanging out near the shore. We pulled up in our boat and one of the staff began feeding a bucket of bananas to the monkeys. Even more came out when they knew that it was feeding time.

We also passed by some caves in the rock that contain a special kind of bird’s nest. In this area the locals have a delicacy called “Bird’s Nest Soup” and they use these nests to make them. They are guards to these places as they don’t want people messing with them as this delicacy is also expensive.

From there we stopped at a coral reef out in the water near there. Jennifer stayed on the boat and I jumped in for some snorkeling. The scenery down under was beautiful and the fish most about was the Tiger fish. Jen lured me near the boat, then through bread into the water so that the Tiger fish would swarm around me.

As many as there were though, they hardly even touch you at all. It was very cool.

Next was lunch and we sped off to the big island (Don) where there was a hotel resort that had a buffet lunch prepared. Here you can see me enjoying a coconut from right off the tree.

Actually, I didn’t care for it to much. Because it was fresh off the tree, the liquid is about a room temperature. Something colder would have been more refreshing. Although, I’m sure if I was stranded on some desert island it would likely do the job.

After another boat trip, we ended up on another one of the islands. Jen set up camp on the beach while I went in for more snorkeling. We heard that sometimes there are reef sharks in the area, so a couple Aussies and I went looking for them. I didn’t have any luck, but I did see a pretty creepy looking sea snake. That is one sea creature you don’t really like to see coming at you – they do move quite well in the water.

After that we headed back and got back to our resort by dinner time. We got quite a bit of sun that day and despite two sunscreen applications, I ended up with pretty bad burns. I was pretty much in pain on my neck and back for the next couple days and after that a lot of skin peeling.

Overall we had an awesome day of hopping around some jaw-droppingly beautiful islands.

For many more photos click here.

July 2-9 – Paradise

2008-07-19T06:14:00.000-07:00

After a pair of delicious orange-juices, today we hopped on a flight with Firefly Airlines to Phuket.

Yes this is the very Phuket you saw on the news so much several years ago when the devastating tsunami … nasty stuff. After all this time they have recovered nicely. In fact it’s very beneficial for them to have “us tourists” around.

This is the part of the trip that we have planned for pure laziness. No planning. No worries. Just several days of chilling out in paradise and having nothing to do other than to remember to get up and eat… and maybe go see the beach.

We settled in Karon Beach at a lovely resort, The Pacific Club Resort and Spa, where we were welcomed with a smile and a pair of tropical drinks.

After inspection of our suite, Jen had learned another way of folding tp ;) Quite amazing!

This resort was very nice, although not too expensive ($60/night). **Note: Thais use the word “resort” very loosely. Pretty much a room with four walls could be a resort. THIS was actually a resort.

Also of note was the resort restaurant. What caught my eye about this place is that on the web site it said there was a Mexican restaurant downstairs. It also had high speed wireless internet access. So Jen and I were covered respectively.

We did have to set our alarm to wake up because we wanted to make the included USA-like buffet breakfast every morning. Again, happiness for Jen. It was no IHOP, but not too bad. It ended up not really being a Mexican restaurant, but they did have a good deal of Western favorites including fajitas, spaghetti, grilled cheese sandwiches, Philly steak sandwiches… normal stuff. Getting the picture here? What surprised me is one night Jen ordered some Pad Thai (a common local food here). Over normal food!!! Progress!

Another thing to point out is the Thai’s unique presentation of food. At first I thought it was just this fancy resort restaurant, but it turned out to be most places we went to in Thailand. They do a great deal to pretty it up. They shave carrots into roses and other vegetables into other shapes on your plate. Your drink is adorned by a pineapple, or other fruit cut into some shape, with a flower attached. Very pretty, and being generally starved for veggies on this vacation, eaten by myself.

There was a nice pool on the roof surrounded by jungle canopy. You could see the ocean just a short distance away.

Down on the lower level, there was a nice cool water Jacuzzi that had two waterfalls splashing in from the top. You could sit under these and get a nice neck/shoulder massage.

We originally booked this for five nights, but ended up staying for two more because we liked it so much.

Here the days start to blur a little because we lost track of time and space. Here are some of the highlights:

The beach here, Karon Beach, was quite good. It is the second most popular beach in Phuket, behind Patong beach. It was very quiet and never too busy really. There weren’t too many Thais around peddling us to buy something. The sand was pretty and the water was clear. The surf came in nice and slow and provided perfect waves for taking walks through.

On another day we went to the more popular beach, Patong. It was pretty wild there, MUCH busier. Still pretty though and we caught a beautiful sunset after a nice Thai dinner on the beach.

This also happened to be July fourth. Some Americans (I’m assuming) we’re shooting off a few fireworks on the beach. It was great to see a few fireworks and remember the good ol’ USA. Afterwards, we scoped out the town a little and I probably have never seen more outdoor bars. There were blocks upon blocks of small bars. Everything was pretty empty though. I’m not sure if we were there too early, or if it was just because it was the off-season. But random partying doesn’t appeal to us much, so we just got a taxi back home.

Taxis are a pain in the butt here. They are everywhere and if you are walking they assume you need a taxi. You will continually get called at and talked to and honked at hoping you’ll use them. Taxis sometimes are cars, but in this area there are these things called tuk-tuks. They are like little baby vans with two rows of seats in the back. There’s a roof in the back, but it’s pretty open. It’s kind of an interesting ride, but you have to negotiate with them furiously if you want a good price. I often-times end up cutting the negotiations a little short when I realize that I’m arguing over 20 baht, which is like 65 cents.

A couple days there was some clouds/rain. We were here at just the beginning of the rainy season of this part of Thailand. We did get a lot more sun than rain thankfully, and good prices all around. On the rainy days we just stayed in, watching movies on TV.

One day we took a full-day tour to Koh Phi Phi (or the Phi Phi Islands). I will do a separate post for that.

One night we saw some of the girls from our resort at a night market buying little baby turtles. They wanted to set them free in the lagoon near the resort – how cute.

Also that night we ran across a couple monks. They wear bright orange robes. Women are not supposed to touch them, so Jen steered clear. I however, proceeded to give them high fives. Just kidding.

We also saw some temples that had some interesting green dragons surrounding them.

That’s about it for life in paradise! Shoot – a task! We have to decide which paradise to go to next.

Busted!

2008-07-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

Ok so I'm busted. I need to amend my previous post and also mention that my dear friend Lois was also born in Penang.

So retrospectively: we imagined her riding her little tricycle around town picking flowers, doing whatever baby Penangian baby girls do.

July 1 – Penang: Tze(Z) and Johnson

2008-07-15T09:15:00.001-07:00

Today we explored the home of Tze and Johnson. We could just imagine them as little tykes riding their little mopeds around in the relentless heat. Sweating furiously as they labored away in little shops at whatever trade their family did.

We went to the Penang State museum and learned all kinds of things about Penang. We learned of all the different types of people that came here to live. Chinese immigrants hooked up with the locals to create Baba Nyonyas. Others combined to create other groups like Chittys. There are some similarities here as in Melaka.

We visited Fort Cornwallis to learn even more history about the area. It was built by Captain Sir Francis Light, who is sort of the local legend as the founder of the British colony of Penang. This fort was built for military purpose, but never actually used in a battle.

Here is a clock tower that was knocked crooked by some bombings in WWII.

We also passed by several other government buildings, a large church, and many temples. There was a China Town which we didn’t spend too much time in.

There was also a Little India.
Here you can see me eating as the Indian locals do. They eat with their hands, well hand actually. You are supposed to eat with just your right hand as your left hand is reserved for bathroom duties (no TP - figure it out).

We also stopped in at the Komtar Complex which we originally thought was a giant mall.

We could only access the first few floors of it though and it was a bit ratty in there. We did ascend to the 60^th floor to see some spectacular city views.

It was a fine day in Penang!

Click here for more photos.

June 30 – Bus Day

2008-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

Today was basically spent on the bus. Borna and Alex left us the day before and Jen and I struck out on our own to Penang. Penang is the home of current and former Purdue students Tze and Johnson.

Our guidebook said taking a bus this far would be horrible, but it wasn’t horrible. It did take a few hours longer than we had thought it would be. It ended up being about 10 hours total. I guess it’s just your state of mind.

One thing was interesting as we stopped on the road at a rest stop. I have seen this before, but they sell corn here like it’s cotton candy or something. They have these little carts where they spoon you up a few scoops of corn, add a little butter and salt and hand it over. Reminds me of those Indiana days where we just sat around and ate corn.

We took a taxi to the Banana Guesthouse. When we arrived some guy tried to trick us into going to his hotel instead acting like they were the guest house we were looking for. I think not.

This turned out to be a decent joint, however the bathrooms were not particularly spotless as the guidebook suggested. The room was a little dark and jail-like, but had the basics: concrete floors, bed, a/c, running water (cold only), wifi. Actually apart from the Internet access and the slightly wider space it wasn’t too different than Alcatraz. The bathroom was down the hall where there are shower stalls that double as a toilet. I think my brother Jon would truly appreciate the bathroom multi-tasking that could be accomplished here.

One redeeming feature of the Banana house was their orange juice. This had to be the best orange juice I ever had. I’m not sure exactly what they did, but it seemed as if they just had a juicer and they put a couple freshly peeled oranges in. They must have been good oranges.

That night we took to the streets and experienced our first real Malaysian hawker center. It’s sort of like a big Asian food court with all kinds of creepy, mysterious foods. There is a bit of a process that you have to figure out to get going. You first claim a table somewhere. You have to do this first because when you go to the food stall you tell them what you want and it gets delivered to your table when it’s cooked. That’s also when you pay them, on delivery.

Here’s a video of some of the delectable food options available for purchase. If your connection is slow you might have trouble running this.

I tried some Char Kaoy Teow, which is some mix of Asian things. It was quite delicious. Jen attempted some skewed chicken bits. She said it had a nice spice grilled into it.

Melaka-meka maki

2008-07-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took off with Borna and her boyfriend Alex to the historic town of Melaka.

First I have to say they are a very cute couple as they were taking photos of each other all day. I’m convinced that Alex is using all these photos to build up a Shrine to Borna somewhere. Here is my contribution to the shrine:

We walked all over town (probably 10 miles worth!) and saw this historic town that had been run by the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and, Japanese, and finally became independent of all those fools. We learned a lot about the Malaysian culture at the museum. There was also a very interesting mish-mash of cultures here including large numbers of Muslim, Indians, Chinese, Malay, and all kinds of hybrids (Chittys and Baba Nonyas) . Unlike most places in the world, all these cultures have gotten along quite well for hundreds of years. I think it is a miracle.

We saw Christ Church and St. Pauls church in the area and Borna treated us to a nice dinner in guess what…. a mall. Haha.The mall-ness wasn’t nearly as bad here though.

We also saw a bit of a crazy parade that ends up in a big celebration in Portuguese Square. We didn’t quite make it there because by that point we could not possibly walk any further.

We stayed at a decent place called the Hotel Accordian and had noodles for breakfast (Continental as they called it). I guess we’re on a different continent – hah!

For more Melaka pics click here.

Google Map Update

2008-07-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Updated the Google Maps of some of the places we've been.
Click here.

June 27 - Singaporean Mega-Mall Nightmare

2008-07-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty sure I’m going to have nightmares about Singapore. I’m going to be stuck in an underground mega-mall that I can never get out of. There will be lots of escalators involved. Miles of escalators.

This is what we faced as we took off on our day today. We just wanted a simple walking tour of the city, but I guess because it is so hot half the place is underground… and a mall.

After we got a little help from a nice Singaporean fellow, we escaped the shackles of mall-hell and emerged to the outside. Here we found the city Mer-Lion. Unfortunately, the water for the great statue was shut off though.

We saw the huge theatre near here that resembles the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

We also checked out the National Museum of Singapore which had some nice exhibits explaining why Singaporeans do what they do.

After that we met up with Borna, Zhang (yet another Purdue alum), and his friend Lloyd after dinner. They took us to Clarke Quay where there was tons of fun nightlife.

One place that stood out was a place called “The Clinic” where you sat in wheelchairs and hospital beds as nurses delivered the drinks in IV bags. Pretty unique indeed!

Zhang treated us to a few cocktails at a fun Cuban joint and we called it an evening. Thanks Zhang!

June 26 – Zoo-tastic

2008-07-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

Today, we slept in and headed to the Singapore Zoo. This place is AWESOME. This might be the best zoo I have seen as that the animals were very up close and personal. We followed zookeepers around on a set feeding schedule and saw many animals devouring their vittles. Highlights were the White Tigers, Rhinos, elephant show, and all the various forms of monkey-life.

Once it gets to be night-time you go to the neighboring wildlife park called the “Night Safari”. This opens around dusk and what you do is you go through the various zoo exhibits in near darkness. They have some blue-ish lights that allow you to see the animals as you pass. You can take the tram or just walk through the trails and we chose the latter. Here's Jen, Borna, and Borna's boyfriend Alex.

Particularly scary were the laughing hyenas who just stared us down as we passed. They were probably only 30 feet away and they just glared at us like we were lunch.

We also saw a couple cool shows. One these tribal guys danced around and blew fire. Also there was a Creatures of the Night show where little critters ran around the stage doing tricks.

I highly recommend these zoos – this was an awesome day!

For more zoo pics click here.

June 25 – Trains, Planes, and Singapore

2008-06-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

The rest of Japan. There's a quite bit more we could say about Japan but there just isn't time for it all. We have a few more pics posted on our galleries. Check out these sections:

Food
Signs
Everything Else

Today was a bit tough. We got up really early to catch a train to Narita to fly to Singapore. We had to travel through Tokyo rush hour on the train. Those people are nuts. I would never commute 1-2 hours on the Tokyo trains every day. I’m pretty sure I would kill myself.

Imagine the DC Metro on its worst day. Now add about 100 people to that train car and you get Tokyo rush hour. I really wanted to see one of those guys that are paid to shoe-horn more people into the train, but I didn’t. Perhaps it was because I was too busy getting crushed.

Anyways we made it to the airport in one piece. We had a very nice flight to Singapore on ANA airlines.

There our friend Borna met us at the Singapore airport. She promptly took us to a mall where we had our first taste of Singapore food. I had Laksa which was quite nice and Jen had chicken rice. More on malls in further posts.

Borna is another one of my friends from Purdue. Her family was quite nice letting us stay at her brand new house. Thanks B!

June 24 – Disney SHHHeea

2008-06-30T10:15:00.001-07:00

Today we spent our last day at the Tokyo Disney resort. They have two theme parks and several hotels. Tokyo Disneyland is much like Disney World or Disney Land containing such rides as the Pirates of the Carribean, etc. We didn’t go there. Instead we went to the totally unique Disney Sea, or as they pronounced it Disney Shhheea.

I believe it’s called Disney Sea because all the areas sort of had to do with water. There was the Mediterranean Harbor, Mystery Island, etc. and everything was connected by a waterway around the park.

We had a great time here. The park was very clean and it was our first sunny day while in Japan. We also were there at a great time as there were very little lines or crowds.

The best part of the park had to be all the shows. They were all quite elaborate and had tons of great dancing and costuming.

The afternoon water parade was probably over 30 minutes.

Anyone know if this is Chip or Dale? I can tell you that the girl next to him is Jen.

Thanks Mickey – good times.

June 23 – A Lesson in Directions!

2008-06-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Today was quite fun as we went to Jeremy’s school in Oisa just a train stop down. Here he teaches a wide range of kids from elementary school age through Junior High, and then also at the high school across town.

We arrived at the elementary school and it was nothing like we have ever seen before. We arrived at recess or something and when we walked in there were children running all over the building. We could hardly see any adults. The kids just ran wild up and down the floors, stairways, outside, all over the place. It looked like a great day to be a kid.

Then some little bell chimed and amazingly all the kids ran straight to their appropriate places. I don’t know how they get them to do that.

We observed Jeremy teaching two classes about “Directions”. He sang a little song and did a little dance on LEFT, RIGHT, FORWARD, BACK, etc. We also joined in the fun. We were part of a demonstration where we were given blow up swords and blindfolded. Put across the room from each other, Jen and I were given directions by the kids on which way to go and when to STRIKE. It was a little hard to make out the directions of dozens of screaming kids. Also Japanese do not end their words with consonants, only vowels. So by mistake they have a tendency to say RIGHT-O and LEFT-O.

Jeremy also warned us to guard our butts. One of the thing the little boys like to do is run up behind and stick their fingers in your butt. I forget the name for that, but I think we avoided it successfully. Jeremy got a couple though and had kids hanging on him most of the time.

After class we joined the kids for lunch. We brought our own lunch, but the kids actually serve each other. A group of them put on aprons, gloves, and chefs hats. They pushed little carts around that had the food and everyone got served and cleaned up after. We also sat down with the kids to interact with them. This was a little challenging as they only knew a few things in English. A typical conversation went like this:

ME: Hello.

KID: Harro!

ME: My name is Josh. What is your name?

KID: @#$@#$@#???

ME: Thank you very much.

Jen managed to strike up a conversation about baseball with her table. It is a very popular sport there.

And speaking of cleaning, that was next. There was a time called Soji where they CLEAN. Everyone there, 6-year olds up had some sort of cleaning task. They sweeped the floors, wiped down the stairs, and whatever else you can think of. Again it was quite amazing and I’m convinced that students in our schools are lazy and worthless.

We also stopped by the high school where we nearly put a standstill to the classes. As we walked by the classrooms that were in session you could see heads popping up in surprise by the unexpected white people in the building. When they had a break Jeremy tried to get them to practice their English with us. They were mostly very shy, but we had a little more involved conversations. When we mentioned that we were married they would all scream and freak out. It was pretty funny.

We regret not having many pictures from all this, but we would have felt a little weird taking pictures of the kids at school. For this one folks, you are going to have to use your imagination.

For Lunch 2, I stopped by McDonalds. Yes I know, why go to McDonalds, but they had a unique item I had to have. It was some sort of Mega Mac that had at least four burgers on it, bacon, and a fried egg on the top. It was pretty darn good.

For dinner that night we went back to Jeremy’s Ramen place for some more great noodles.

June 22 – Tokyo, e.g. LOTS of people

2008-06-30T10:02:00.001-07:00

Today we took the train into Tokyo and it’s time I had a little bit of commentary on that. Despite it being fairly difficult to figure out the map, the train runs extremely efficiently here. The trains are almost always on time and inside the trains there are usually digital displays showing what’s next in Japanese and in English. They are always pretty full of people. Most of the time you have to stand, so to get to Tokyo we had to stand for nearly an hour and a half. It can get a little tiresome.

We stopped in an area called Harajuku where we saw another shrine (Meiji Shrine). It was a little bit bigger than the others. I guess on the weekends there is just a non-stop train of weddings, although it can be quite expensive to get married there. The wedding parties cross each other in the main walking areas as they go from place to place. They walk in a train of people really slowly led by the bride and groom and a guy holding an umbrella type thing above them. The bride in particular had a very elaborate gown.

We also went to Yoyogi Park where most of the time you can find some the Japanese youth who dress up like Goths and other strange things mainly for the benefit of the tourists I guess. We didn’t see too many of these people though, perhaps we were too late in the day, or maybe their makeup doesn’t work with rainy days so much.

Next we took the subway to Asakusa. Here we saw the Senso-ji Temple where you can see Jen below rubbing on the Nade-Buddha’s bald head for luck.

For lunch we had Soba noodles. You can get these cold or hot. They served the cold ones on this interesting tray which we suspect they use to actually drain the noodles of their water. Getting better with the chopsticks still.

From here we went down a very busy strip for shopping where all the hip Japanese teenagers go for clothes. It was loud, busy, and crazy.

Next we went to the Electric City, or Akihabara. Here they sell every type of electronic gizmo you can think of, some old and some new. There was a ton of cool old-school video game stuff and one store in particular was really fun. It was raining quite a bit so I’m surprised we didn’t all get electrocuted.

Next we buzzed over to Shibuya, which is sort of like the Times-Square of Tokyo with huge signs and flashing lights.

This is also where you can find one of Japan’s busiest intersections.

It was even crazier when you add in the fact it was pouring and nearly everyone had an umbrella. We have never seen so many umbrellas in our lives and it was tough not to get jabbed in the eye or have someone dump the water off the top of their umbrella on you by accident. I managed to climb up above the fray and get a couple pics, as well as a shot from an overhead Starbucks.

We got some really good Indian food which satisfied us all. It was an all you can eat buffet, but you were warned if you didn’t clear your plate you would get charged more.

June 21 - Kamakura, Fujisawa

2008-06-30T09:52:00.001-07:00

As the weekend began we got a late start to the morning and headed to Kamakura. Kamakura was Japan’s capital between 1185-1333. Here we got our first experience in Japanese Buddhist temples.

We went to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine, Hase-Dera, and saw the “Great Buddha”, Diabutsu.

After we went to a few of these, they are very similar. You purify yourselves by washing off by ladling water onto your hands and such.

Then you breath in some of the incense for good luck, etc.

It is the year of the rat, so there were places where people wrote their wishes on little cards and attached them to this board. Later they are all burned and your wishes are supposed to come true.

You could also get your fortune told by these people who don’t like their pictures to be taken. You take the little slip of paper and tie it to a board where this will help the fortune to come true.

There are also many shrines here that people pray towards. I’m not sure of all what’s supposed to be going on there, but what I observed was people would come up, throw money into this thing that looks like my grill at home. Then they would clap their hands to “wake up” the God/s. Then they would pray for whatever. Each shrine usually had some sort of specific purpose either for long life, wealth, love, lost children, etc. It was interesting to watch, however it made us a little uncomfortable with all the idol “worship”.

We also walked around Fujisawa but didn’t do too much there other than eat. We went a little astray from the Japanese norm and had Fish/Chips at a pub.

June 20 -Yokohama, Yaki-niku, and Karaoke

2008-06-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today we got out of the house and took a train to Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city.

It was a bit gloomy, but we wandered around town checking things out. There is a large mall, a huge ferris wheel, and Japan’s tallest building, the Landmark Tower. See how it reaches into the clouds:

We checked out the Museum of Art as well as the Mitsubishi Industrial Museum. The latter was really nicely done, having all kind of interesting interactive displays.

We also got to try a pretty life-like helicopter simulation. I was the pilot and I realized I might want to rethink my life-long dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. After a detailed instructional video, we forgot how to fly forward. We also managed to fly into a couple buildings and really muck up the landing.

We went back to Hiratsuka to meet up with Jeremy and his Japanese girlfriend.

Here we did a really fun thing called Yaki-niku. Here they place a burning charcoal grill right in the middle of the table and they bring you raw meat to cook on it. We got a 2-hour all you can eat and drink special. We ate many different kinds of meat but I managed to try something uncooked. It was raw beef covered in raw egg.

Supposedly they don’t have as many problems with Salmonella there. I had a bite and wasn’t completely repulsed, although I will never eat such a thing again.

After this we stopped by a bar to meet up with more locals and we ended up at a karaoke place. It was pretty fun, but we didn’t stay long because the place was very smoky and making us ill. Which reminds me; the Japanese smoke like chimneys. We encountered tons of cigarette smoke virtually everywhere (hack, cough, wheez…)

Anyhow, it was a great evening.

June 19 – Ok Already – Let the Japan Begin: Getting Oriented in Hiratsuka

2008-06-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

Well after getting into Hiratsuka the night before we had our first experience with Japanese food. We had yakitori, which is basically grilled meat on a skewer. Pretty tasty. I also had some nice cold Saki which they serve in an overflowing shot glass into a little wooden box. You can also drink directly from the box which gives the saki a nice woody taste.

So today we thought we’d need a little jet lag recovery time and we’d sleep in. We woke up at 5 and noticed the bright sun outside. We panicked as we thought we had slept until 5p! However, that wasn’t the case. The sun rises somewhere around 4:45a. So we went back to sleep.

Good thing we were tired, because that town is noisy. I wasn’t even quite sure of everything we were hearing. The most consistent sound was a continuous beeping coming from the crosswalk down below us. Additionally we kept seeing these vans driving by and random Japanese gibberish being blasted from its speakers. Turns out they do campaigning by yelling at everyone in town as the vans drive around. Finally, right across the street dozens of old Japanese geezers would hang outside this shop. After a while they would let them in and, well, we really have no idea what went on in there.

So taking it easy, we started the morning by taking care of breakfast. We made our first mistake of our trip by going to the “gourmet” grocery store. Prices were a little high, but nothing unlike what we’re used to in the US. We got cereal and bananas. However, later we found out about this wonderful thing called the 99 (Yen) store. Here you could get darn near anything for 99 Yen, which is about a dollar. You could get a loaf of bread, a half dozen eggs, a pint of milk, some double A batteries, soda, frozen dinners, a fish, etc. etc. Seriously, that store rocked as far as prices go.

We took a leisurely stroll to the beach just a mile or so down the road. Here we dipped our toes in the Pacific thousands of miles from the California beaches.

After that we came back and had a long nap. Still recovering…

That night we met up with Jeremy and he took us to his favorite Ramen Noodle shop. Ramen here is a little more substantial than the 3 for a dollar junk you get in the US at Walmart. You would have thick spaghetti like noodles in a delicious broth, sprouts, veggies, and if you like some slices of pork. Here we had our first lesson in chopsticks and we caught on pretty quickly. We also realized without Jeremy we would have no idea how to order food since the menu was completely in Japanese.

I probably did not introduce Jeremy properly. He is one of my friends from Purdue that I met through the dance team. He has been in Japan in this area for about 4 years now teaching English. His Japanese was pretty good and he was quite useful.

After dinner we walked around town more and we checked out an arcade. The video game setups here were pretty elaborate. There were many virtual reality type games, DDR type games where you beat on drums, and a 4 seater Super Mario Cart game where you could actually drive the games. There were also miniature video game systems that stood about 3 feet high for the little kids. Do you know those games where you use the claw to try to pick out a prize with it? Well, here they have that concept, but you get to go for much larger and interesting prizes: a large box of Ritz Crackers, huge toys, bathroom floor mats, and other weird stuff.

Singapore

2008-06-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

Made it to Singapore. Doing great. Japan update coming soon :)

Still in Japan

2008-06-23T07:31:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post to let you know we are still alive. We have been quite busy and haven't had a lot of time to post. Soon we will share a big gallery and perhaps tell a few stories about all the crazy Japanese things we have seen.

Made It! Now in Hiratsuka.

2008-06-18T18:12:00.001-07:00

We made it to Japan! We even managed to figure out that train map. It's not too bad once you figure out where you are actually going to, and then you just work your way back.

The flight was nice - it went by rather quickly and was pretty smooth. They fed us a lot. I think we had like 4 meals on the plane. I think if airlines want to cut back on expenses, they should cut one of these maybe instead of taking our drinks from our domestic flights. Bah!

We got there and I had a few problems with my ATM card. After some tinkering we managed to acquire some Yen. 1 dollar =~ 108 Yen.

Then we took the trains to get to Jeremy's in Hiratsuka. It is a decent ways from Tokyo actually. It's probably about as far as Springfield, VA was from DC, though, so not too bad. We haven't checked the town out too much, but here is a view from our balcony:

By the way, we are staying at the place of some guy Jeremy knows, named Eric. Eric's not even here! Thanks for the room though. Here's the bedroom. Note the Japanese style tatami flooring. No shoes allowed!

Jeremy took us to a fun little local joint where we had cold saki and yakatori, which is grilled chicken on a stick. Jen also got her first lesson in proper chop-stick usage. Apparently, if she's going to feed herself over in Asia, she's going to have to catch on quickly.

I also have to comment on the toilet here. It's a toilet/sink. When you flush the water that fills the tank comes through the top like a sink for hand washing. Pretty wild. For more info click HERE.

Here's a new feature for you to check out. Go to THIS google map link to see where we are at.

That's it for now. We are going to the beach this morning which is just down the road.

Finally caught up! And now we're turning Japanese!

2008-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I'm finally doing this blog properly - as in real time. How cool. We'll see how it goes :)

We're flying out to Japan today. We leave around 1p from LA and get there 11 hours later. Strangely we still arrive at just 4:30p. I'm hope we have our senses about us when we get there because we have to figure out how to get to Hiratsuka using this map:

Please pray.

June12-June16: A few more days in the US

2008-06-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

We rolled into Lancaster, CA to stay with Jen's mom and April. We have been well spoiled. It was nice to spend time with them and we are preparing for the next journey beyond the U.S. Sorry for the brief post on this one, but I gotta get going soon!!!

June 10, 11– More driving??!? Colorado. Yet more driving…

2008-06-17T07:34:00.001-07:00

Again on the road. This time wanting to avoid hotels altogether we planned to take a straight shot to Bob and Jen’s new place in Denver. It was about a 15 hour drive and wasn’t too unpleasant. Thanks again to Subway for the $5 footlongs!

We did notice the water rising in Iowa. Apparently I-80 is closed now so good thing we got through there when we did!

Bob and Jen are just outside of Denver and I would have to say I quite like Colorado. Perhaps we will end out here with them very soon.

Here's a picture of us with Bob and Jen at their $7 lake nearby:

Here's a picture of where they live. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside. Go to http://codaandlola.com to see if they have properly moved in yet.

June 8-9, 2008: Sweet Home Chicago

2008-06-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

This morning we stopped by Campus House for a nice visit of my old church. Today we drove up to my (Josh) favorite city – Chi-town. Our first stop was over at Stan and Nicole’s place in Oak Park. I hadn’t seen Stan in many many years and I ran across him on Facebook. We had a nice little afternoon visit and got to meet their a little past a year old son Shawn (Sean?) It was nice to catch up –we’ll have to visit them again sometime.

From there we drove downtown to catch the tail-end of Bluesfest. Content and food-wise this has to be one of the best street-festivals in existence. First order of business was to get some Chicago-style pizza. After putting a couple extra digits on our cholesterol numbers, we headed to the main stage to listen to B.B. King, King of the Blues.

B.B. King is amazing. He plays unconsciously almost and can sing with the best of the 82 year olds out there. It was nice to hear him, but the environment was not very pleasant. It was very muddy from quite a bit of rain. Additionally, there were people chain-smoking all around us who were generally drunk, obnoxious, and seemingly inattentive to the King. I have to say, it sort of spoiled the evening somewhat.

From there we drove out to the burbs to visit with Beth and Tom in Barrington, IL. They were already asleep for the most part so we’d meet with them tomorrow.

The next day we slept in and relaxed a little. We met up with Beth and Tom in the evening and had a great night. They took us to a great place for dinner that served amazing breakfast food. I had an omelet with some fantastic Jalapeno cheese. From there we went back home and played some Lego Star Wars on the Xbox which was pretty fun. Thanks Beth and Tom! Hope to see you again real soon!

June 7, 2008: Still Boilering Up

2008-06-17T07:30:00.002-07:00

Today we relaxed for the first half of the day. Jen saw a movie with Erin and I played Mario Kart with my bro Ben. His girlfriend had her brother’s dog over at the apartment. It is a 1 year old Great Dane and that thing is HUGE.

We had dinner with Ben and Brooke at a new place in Lafayette called Red Seven. It was actually pretty good food. The owner will probably make a fortune as that there aren’t too many classy restaurants in town.

Late at night I went for a nice 5 mile run around campus. It was a cool and pleasant evening and it was nice to have memories of things as I jogged past them.

June 6, 2008: Everybody Boiler Up

2008-06-17T07:30:00.001-07:00

Mostly driving today as our main attraction should have been the corn fields of Iowa. I think they must have just harvested all of the corn because all of the fields were stripped bare.

But our goal today is Purdue where we’ll visit with old friend’s and the Polk brothers.

Tonight we saw most of our friends over at BW3s. I have missed those wings.

June 5, 2008: Cornhuskers

2008-06-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

Today, we thought we would have big trouble with the weather. Tornadoes, hail, and violent thunderstorms were throughout the area. We saw this early on which was NUTS, but Jen busted a move out of that town asap!

For the rest though, we were blessed with just a bunch of rain, nothing worse really. Today we drove through the rest of South Dakota and down the border between Nebraska and Iowa down to near Omaha. On the way we stopped by the Corn Palace. It’s a giant building in South Dakota made out corn and other grains. They create murals on the building using their crops to celebrate what they grow all year. It’s sort of the Taj Mahal of corn on the cob.

From there we had dinner with my aunt/uncle who live near Omaha. He was a B-52 pilot in the Vietnam war and he had many great stories to tell. He commanded some of the B-52 bombings that helped free many POWs, including current Presidential candidate John McCain. He told us how McCain personally thanked him for his efforts.

We stayed the night at a Days Inn in Council Bluffs, IA.

June 4, 2008: South Dakota (....meh)

2008-06-17T07:21:00.001-07:00

Today we rolled through South Dakota. Now there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in South Dakota. There are some national parks and caves in the southwest. There is also a well-known motorcycle rally in Sturgis.

But we did stop at Mt. Rushmore to see four of our greatest leaders: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Although we have all seen this image many times in media, it was awesome to see the monument in person. Click below for a larger view:

We also drove past the Indian leader, Crazy Horse monument. We just looked at it as we passed by on the highway, we didn’t go up to the visitors center. This actually is a work in progress, but you can see most of the head and it’s easy to envision what the final concept will look like.

Once you get east of there, there is not much going on in South Dakota. It is so empty that a drugstore has become an attraction. Wall Drugstore, in Wall, SD is a giant country western themed set of stores. They have a few hokey things like a big animated dinosaur, fountains, and other things.

Through some GPS/Priceline confusion we got a little a little bit off track when we booked our hotel and ended up in the state capital of Pierre. Again, not much here.

June 3, 2008: Yellowstone Day2 , Grand Teton

2008-06-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

Today we did the lower part of Yellowstone and headed to the Grand Teton National Park. Most of these photos are courtesy of Jen who can be seen here leaping for joy.

The highlights of Yellowstone were some very colorful geyser craters and hot springs, especially the Grand Prismatic Spring. We also saw Old Faithful, and faithfully as always produced a little steam show for us.

We then headed down to Grand Teton and drove past several of the highlights. We finally saw a grizzly bear!
It was quite the sideshow as many people had pulled off and there was a ranger nearby with his bear pepper spray ready in hand. Jen was actually out closer to the bear than the ranger was. Hmm. We feel our trip was completed with the sight of a bear. We also saw a moose today. Now if we could find a bear eating a moose…

Here's a better view of a buffalo. I shot this one (with my camera).

And here's another random shot I took on the colder side of the park.

We rolled in quite late into Lusk, WY. Although there is scarcely anyone in Wyoming, for some reason the majority of the hotels are booked for the next two weeks. Crazy.

June 2, 2008: Yellowstone Day1

2008-06-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

After seeing the Mesa Falls in Idaho, we headed to Yellowstone for the day.

This is a pretty fantastic place and I would recommend it to anyone. The weather was supposed to be cold and stormy, but it turned out to be pretty nice for most of the day.

Today we saw a ton of bison and these white-butt elk. One of the elk started running straight at our car at one point and I rowed up the window quite quickly (like that would have done any good). At the end of the day we saw a wolf stalking around a big herd of bison, but we were hungry for our own dinner so we didn't get a chance to see if the wolf picked off a baby bison.

Which leads me to the question of the day. What is the difference between a buffalo and a bison? I have no clue. They are both big and hairy and apparently can charge at you at 3 times human speed if they get pissed.

We saw a few geysers and other steaming/volcanic things. More reports on that tomorrow as we are going to the major geyser area and will see Old Faithful.

We also saw some very cool waterfalls. Don't miss them if you come. The lower falls near Canyon Village (observed at Artist Point) in particular was probably one of the most beautiful I have seen.

Food: Running Bear Pancake House. Great pigs in a blanket. Very fast.

Lodging: Pioneer Motel. Cute little rustic lodge type place. The carpets were heavily stained but the place was otherwise clean and it did the job. The lady there was very nice.

June 1, 2008: Leaving Las Vegas

2008-06-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Left Vegas today towards Yellowstone. We ended up in Pocatella, Idaho. I got a mad craving for hash browns as an Idaho sign advised me to get some.

May 29-31: Vegas Baby

2008-06-11T18:41:00.001-07:00

There's something about Vegas that makes Jen and I very lazy. I'm not sure what it is, but we barely left the hotel during the day. We needed a little recovery from all the running around, and it was definitely worth it. We had a pretty nice off-strip suite at the Desert Rose, which was next to the Hooters resort.

Along with Brian and Anna, we rejoined Sapana and Lois.

We remembered our eating bill from our honeymoon and for the most part avoided the fine dining on this trip. We tried a couple buffets: at the Excaliber and the Palms, neither of which impressed me very much. The Palms had pretty good King Crab though which Anna took several large plates of. The MGM buffet from our honeymoon in my memory was 10x better than either though.

We did go out at night and wandered all over. We were impressed by all of the new things being constructed. There are some new resorts going up right on the strip. There was also the addition of the Planet Hollywood resort that wasn't there last time. We popped in there and it was pretty nice.

We met up with Shunsuke, Yvonne, and her siblings during a Bellaggio fountain show, which is Jen's "all time favorite thing" at Vegas.

Jen and I checked out Studio 54 at the MGM. It was fun and the music was pretty hard hitting. Although we realized quickly the club life has passed us by and that we've practically forgotten how to dance. Look for us in the next edition of "White People Dancing" on YouTube.

Jen, Sapana, Lois and I also did a whirlwind of things on our last night. First we saw the "Show in the Sky", a mardi gras type thing at the Rio. Then we rushed to catch another glimpse of the Bellaggio Fountains (just a drive by this time). Then we headed to Fremont Street. This is like the side-Vegas that the locals go to. It was pretty interesting, but the people around there were a bit scarier. Or maybe it was just because there was more lighting - I'm not quite sure.

Fremont Street does have this huge curved Jumbo-tron like display over the top of the entire place that is probably 3 blocks long. It is probably the biggest LED screen I have seen. There was a little show of sorts that wasn't as nearly as impressive as the screen. They could have done a LOT more with it.

From there we went to the top of the Stratosphere and soaked in the great Vegas cityscape. We also went on this ride that basically dangled you off the edge of the building. It was pretty cool.

Overall great times as usual in Vegas, but I always feel a little scuzzed out by the place. It definitely can be a pretty seedy place.

Photos for this edition were provided by the lovely Jennifer.

May 28: San Francisco Treat

2008-06-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

Although I didn’t try any Rice-A-Roni, this had to have been my best day in San Francisco out of all the times I’ve been there. Somehow I think I had missed many of the typical highlights in my prior visits. Perhaps it was because my family was busy buying $9 sweatshirts when I was here with them previously.

First we stopped by the Coit Tower and saw a nice view of the city. Next we went to Pier 43 ½ and had some of the famous Boudin sour dough bread for lunch. I have to say it was quite good. Again with the clam chowder – no crackers! But I guess the bread made up for it this time.

Next we walked to Pier 33 and took the boat over to Alcatraz. It was neat to see the old prison. It definitely would have been terrible to be a prisoner there.

After we got back, we walked to Pier 39 and saw the sea lions. There’s a great fruit market near here with very good fruit, but it cost us like $8 for a few strawberries and a peach.

We then meandered down to Ghiardelli Square and indulged in some free sample chocolates.

To get to dinner near Chinatown we took the well-known San Francisco trolley car. We got to ride on the side of the car just holding onto a rail and stepping on the edge. It turned out to be an awesome ride as we whizzed by other trolleys and zoomed up and down the giant hills. If you ever go to San Francisco, you have to do this – it was great fun.

May 27: Aquatic Wonders

2008-06-08T00:24:00.000-07:00

In my opinion Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the nicest museum/zoo type places I have been to. It is extremely interactive and had really great displays. You could really interact with the sea life in many different ways. There were also tons of beautiful jellyfish, ocean otters (which are a lot more entertaining than river otters in my opinion), penguins, and other crazy sea creatures I have not seen before. This place is amazing.

One thing we figured out at lunch is that people do not know how to eat clam chowder in California. Seriously. Everyone knows you put oyster crackers in clam chowder. This place in Monterey not only didn’t have oyster crackers, they didn’t have ANY crackers for the soup. Upon further inquiry, they said that they stopped serving crackers because they got mooshed into the carpet by kids too frequently. WHATEVER!

We then continued up the coast and stopped by Santa Cruz. There is a beach boardwalk here, but during the week it closes at 5p. We just missed it. But it was still a nice day.

By the evening we made our way just outside of San Francisco in San Lorenzo to Praveena and Ketan’s place. Thanks P&K for the hospitality!

May 26: Wine, Castles, and Further up the Coast

2008-06-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

Starting the day a little late we first stopped by the Castoro winery. I took wine tasting in college, but this was my first winery. It was quite nice and the lady who helped us was very nice.

Next we went to the Hearst Castle. Jen and I just visited here, so it was more for Brian and Anna. They explored the place while we had a picnic and took a nap.

Just up the road from there we saw a huge pile of Elephant Seals bathing in the sun on the beach. They were pretty entertaining to watch.

We then we rushed up to Monterey to catch a sunset off the bay at the very last moment. We ate at a great bbq place and we fully indulged in the bbq goodness.

May 25: Malibu, Santa Barbara and Split Pea Soup

2008-06-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

Brian and Anna joined us for a trek up the coast. We thoroughly enjoyed the Pacific Coast Highway (US1). The views are spectacular and nearly rival New Zealand. We had lunch in Malibu at Paradise Cove Beach Cafe.

From there we headed up to Santa Barbara and walked around a bit. Here we saw a thoughtful memorial to those killed in the Iraqi war.

Santa Barbara was nice, but the people there seemed a little weird. The bums were a little more obnoxious than in other places. Sorry about the bad panoramic here, I didn't spend the time joining the image properly.

We grabbed some infamous split pea soup off of the highway and then stopped in for a soak in the hot springs in Paso Robles. We stayed at Jen's sister's in Templeton who was nice enough to let us drop in.

May23-24: LA and Asian Matrimony

2008-06-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

We witnessed the lovely Jessica Wang and Jonathan Yeh getting married ... in Chinese. I couldn't tell you what went on exactly, but it pretty much seemed to resemble a typical wedding ceremony. We saw a lot of friends and later saw the new Indiana Jones movie at Universal City. I have to say, it was a really well done flick. We have been to LA a few times already, so we didn't do much touristy stuff.

We also visited Jen’s brother, Jeff. He is an LA Highway Patrol Officer and he told us some interesting stories.

May 17-May23: Evansville, Missouri, and the long haul West

2008-06-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

Well the first thing we did before leaving Virginia was to go visit the Great Falls. This is a nice little waterfall mere minutes from our house that we had wanted to visit since we moved in nearly 3 years previous. I swore that we would not leave Virginia without seeing it, so that was our first stop.

Next we drove straight through to Evansville. Nothing notable here other than I nearly destroyed both of our cars suspensions. At about 11 hours of driving we hit some construction and I mistook a pothole ridden gutter lane for the actual road. Jen claims one of her rims got a little bent up.

After a nice visit with the Parentals, we drove straight on to Independence, MO. Here we stopped by my Uncle Mike and aunt Joann's place and had a nice visit. We probably should come back at some point and visit Branson and all the other wild country attractions.

Through Oklahoma we found a strange sign saying "Don't drive through the smoke". We're thinking...what smoke? Apparently there was a big forest fire many years ago that caused a huge pileup. So now they have those signs everywhere just in case. That's just silly.

From there we had to spend a night in Albuquerque, NM. And finally we arrived at Jen's mom's place outside of LA.

Props to Subway for having $5 footlong subs. With that and a couple free cups of water we're definitely keeping our budget on track.

Intro

2008-06-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

Well we quit our jobs and left D.C. Life is short, we're young and child-less, and I have this great job that lets me teach online.

So here's a blog to keep our "fans" updated on what we're up to. We have a few adventures planned.

I will try to make this entertaining and perhaps instructive as well. Please feel free to chat back to us. Leave us some comments if you have anything to say.