tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46749691024791127352024-03-05T04:40:36.607-08:00Venture and VoyageVanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-40762280140842251532016-11-28T07:49:00.000-08:002016-11-28T15:02:46.017-08:00The Snail Man of Morocco<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">a mule transports raw leather through the tannery district of </span><span style="background-color: white;">Fès, Morocco</span></i></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">“Now down here, this is where you can see Camel heads on hooks.
You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Over
here, you will start to see big brown arrows painted onto the sides of the
medina walls. Follow them. They will lead you to a tiny hole in the wall in a
dark alley. You will need to crouch.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>People
will very aggressively tell you there is nothing to see down there – that you
should follow them to their friend’s carpet shop instead. Ignore them. Go
through it. At the end of the path you will find a courtyard where the last
remaining weavers of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Fès</span> are working.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Now,
to get to the tanneries, follow the smell. You’ll know it when you smell it. You
will see a door with a tiny number 10 written above it, go up the stairs until
you get to the roof. Ignore anyone trying to lead you away. At the top you will
be able to see all of the tanneries.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If
you get lost, and you will, you can get back to us by walking uphill and to the
right. When you see the snail man, make a right and keep going. The Snail Man
is how you know you are on the right track”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>The blue city of Chefchaouen, Morocco</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Getting
lost. It’s so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">romantic</i> when it works
out in that serendipitous kind of way. You know, where you just happen to
stumble upon that perfect café in the most beautiful hidden garden, away from
all the tourists. I love the idea of it, I may even give the impression that I
do it a lot when I travel – but I am a control freak. I like to make sure I
don’t miss anything. I love to plan, obsessively.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
“get lost”, with my handy dandy, GPS enhanced, cell phone in my back pocket… <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just in case -</i> Because before smart-phones
existed, I managed to miss the entire state of Kansas on a road trip across the
US – simply because I forgot to check my archaic paper directions every five
minutes and missed a left turn. I passed the city of Albuquerque on that very
same trip. I never got to say I ate Turkey Jerky in Albuquerque. It was
literally the only thing on my list of things to do there – but still, I was
denied that joy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My
GPS didn’t work here<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. With
all of the meandering alleys and pathways that wove and intersected on each
other like a corn maze, the poor little location marker was hopping all over
the place like a grasshopper on a hotplate. He wasn’t sure if I was in a mosque
or a butcher shop - the tanneries or the copper district. Not only do I not speak
the languages. I don’t even understand the alphabets (whether it is the
beautifully cursive Arabic one, or the gloriously goofy, wingdings looking one
of the Berber language). Going by small handwritten street signs wasn’t going
to help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The medina of Fès el Bali is arguably
the largest, car-free, urban area in the world (which I would learn does not
mean “motorcycle or donkey in a 5 foot wide, two-way alley” free). It is
Aladdin’s Agrabah meets David Bowie’s Labyrinth. Words can’t really describe
how huge it feels, how wild, how dense, and how intimidating. so I’ll just
leave this here…</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Medina of </span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fès el Bali </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
lack of control in a Moroccan medina is suffocating and intoxicating. The aroma
of honey, leather, mint, and hot donkey dung is dizzying. Flea freckled alley
cats, missing teeth and eyes and toes, weave in between your legs and vibrate
with purrs so strong that their whiskers quiver like the strings on a strummed
guitar. You hopscotch over piles of chicken guts until you realize you just
dipped your toe into a puddle of sheep’s blood and say “screw it” (or something
more obscene). You squat through small, haphazardly cut, holes in walls to find
the weavers and climb to the rooftops of leather shops to see the men below –
waist deep in a rainbow of vats filled with cow urine and saffron and pungent pigeon
shit. They smile and wave. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Children giggle and clod clumsily down the streets with bare feet as they play “knock knock ditch” on their neighbors. They make concentrated eye contact with you and put their finger to their mouth to tell you to keep mum. Their grandmas watch and laugh heartily as they scrub their calloused feet on the stoop. Men will grab you against your will and wrap river snakes around your head for good luck and demand that you pay them for the honor. Around sunset the haggling and the harassing halts as the call to prayer begins to envelope the city in waves. First behind you, then in front of you, then all around you – staggered like a performance of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">row row row your boat</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in the round – echoing from every megaphone atop over a hundred mosques; the cries bounce off the walls and rattle in your brain and belly and soul. Raw and loud and accented with vibrato. Even an atheist like me has a lump in the throat and a stomach in knots and a heart that feels like it might burst. And then the jackals in the hills beyond the walled city will begin to yip and yowl in their own call to prayer and make you feel like someone just slid an ice-cube</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> down your back.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
just when you feel like you will never find your way back, when you accept the
idea that you may stay here forever, getting gluttonous on fried honey dough
and couscous, when you will end all of your long days with a cup of mint tea,
when you barely bat an eye at a little old lady hanging sheep intestines on a
clothesline out her window, you will see him – a nonchalant fellow, sitting next to a neatly arranged
display of netted bags and woven baskets, bursting with fresh snails; a comically
large tub of snail soup sending streams of steam toward the sliver of sky above
the medina. The Snail Man.</span><br />
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-54904156993133081362015-02-28T16:23:00.000-08:002016-11-28T15:03:23.869-08:00A Chandelier of Skulls & The Birds That Fly At Night - Kutna Hora & Prague, Czech Republic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Human skulls perch, jawless, on a ledge by an ossuary window; cobwebs building gossamer bridges between them.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's easy to imagine them mocking you. It must be my morbid sense of humor, but I didn't feel disturbed or sad in the Sedlec Ossuary. Surrounded by the bones of over 40,000 people - strung up into chandeliers and bedazzling the windowsills with femurs and fibulas - I am ashamed to admit that the first thing that popped into my head was a scene from <i>The Last Unicorn</i>, one of the cornerstones in my personal childhood film canon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I chuckled. And probably should have felt guiltier, because we were inside of a church, after all. </span></div>
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It took us a couple of hours to get to the Bone Church in Kutna Hora. Our morning actually started at the butt crack of dawn, because I don't understand the concept that when on vacation I am supposed to relax. As painful as those first few minutes are when the alarm clock goes off, and I am cursing into my pillow, I love meandering around cities before people are awake. Not only is the light perfect for photos, but you usually avoid the hordes of tour groups. Usually. Not always so... as you will see below. </span><br />
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You just can't beat the color at sunrise. You can't. Sunsets are beautiful, but often crowded. I love the peace in sunrise; the pinks and purples that hang thickly in the low fog. The color feels so close, tangible. It changes so drastically and so boldly every few minutes as the fog dissipates. Sunsets are more golden, more far away, more defined, with the clouds floating away so far up in the sky and on the horizon. </span><br />
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I love that short period of time where the street lamps are still on as the sun comes up. The sculptures on the Charles bridge are so large and solid. They are dark silhouettes against the foggy sky, except where the turquoise patina has crept into the crevices, and where the birds have perched; thin white stripes of bird droppings draping the shoulders of every saint.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />When I saw this large monstrosity of a group from the other end of the bridge, wearing bright matching jerseys, I thought that it was a large group of my people. A big group of Americans boldly displaying their touristyness with their loud guffaws at dawn. A morning rooster call, if you will. Alas, they were just a group of our neighbors to the north. I was a bit relieved. And annoyed that they were impossible to avoid in my photos of the bridge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The contrasting hues of the blindingly bright reddish orange on their jerseys with the lavender sky is actually quite lovely. Castles in the background. Canucks in the foreground. Juxtaposition at its finest. Think positive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All of their shirts say "Fungals" on the front. Some sort of play on words that I'm sure must tie together their ability to have a good time with being a large group of canadian women... hopefully not a common interest in ringworm and athlete's foot. Note the large maple leaf on the back of that jacket. Upon closer thought, these must be hockey jerseys (Thank you, HOCKEYWITCH 13). The sport of their people. Most were wearing beanies, sorry <i>toques</i>, the hat of their people. I observed from afar before closing in for more inspections. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We made the train to Kutna Hora by negative 1 minute. We hopped on as it was starting to pull away from the station and could not find a single seat left. We rode in between train cars, sitting on the floor of the bathroom car. It simultaneously felt like we had our own private car, and like we were stowaways. Other than the occasional awkward moment where someone needed to use the bathroom, it wasn't a bad way to travel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Kutna Hora, the city of the bone church, smells like honey and sewers. We both noticed it as soon as we got off of the train and followed the train tracks into town. So sweet. The air was so sweet and delightful. And then BAM, the smell of sewer. Then BAM again, honey. It was so weird. I noticed a lot of people with beehives in their yard. The buzzing puts Ryan on edge. He has a humorously large fear of bees. I love bees. I used to rescue them from my grandma's pool when I was a kid - set them on the side of the pool and wait for them to dry off the chlorine and fly away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we got back into Prague, we happened to stumble upon a farmer's market. We passed on the Deer and wild boar bratwurst, and partook in the hot cheese potatoes, melted directly from the giant roll of cheese. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We encountered a lot of rude tourists in the popular part of town near the old clock tower. We heard the intro song from pulp fiction being played on violin. We saw hundreds of people wait anxiously by the clock tower and stood amongst them, waiting to see what all the commotion was about. People were so aggressive, pushing for a better view of the clock tower. It had to be worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After several minutes, everyone began to cheer and take pictures. We realized that a very tiny, comically quiet, golden rooster, came out and crowed on the hour. I think it was a rooster. See him there? So tiny and gold? He is right below the arch, above all the pretty astronomical clock goodness.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v_Lm54JuKv0/VNfTqguSYAI/AAAAAAAAGME/GLTQO3J_hcc/s1600/Prague%2B276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v_Lm54JuKv0/VNfTqguSYAI/AAAAAAAAGME/GLTQO3J_hcc/s1600/Prague%2B276.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was so unimpressed with the tiny golden rooster, that I almost wrote off the main old town square right then and there. I was so over the clock tower. I missed the castle area on the other side of the river. It was more touristy, way more crowded, and people were pushy over here in old town. Ryan wanted to go up the tower, a tower that had an hour long line and cost a few bucks. Being cheap and bitter about lines, I almost convinced him it wasn't worth it. But, I obliged him. And my god. I'm so glad he is right most of the time.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nSg4UPss54U/VNfTqWHDkjI/AAAAAAAAGMA/PxkC4f7KOxA/s1600/Prague%2B277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nSg4UPss54U/VNfTqWHDkjI/AAAAAAAAGMA/PxkC4f7KOxA/s1600/Prague%2B277.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Found this bit of graffiti on the stairway up the clock tower.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Prague continues to prove it is the real Disneyland</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ryan's prince charming shot</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1o3Jtk6fEW-ODoUivUFrxDm_NFIXzz4xDRs3diwr6UvTTQZmtdPZM0qX_ZOzOU4hk5MLEP_6og9Ylc8X6eYQDR0jLKNIhwnNDlrFdO_UE2-9ColZxT9KgPgJPA8k0cI_eeyfixN6mWiHe/s1600/Prague+284.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1o3Jtk6fEW-ODoUivUFrxDm_NFIXzz4xDRs3diwr6UvTTQZmtdPZM0qX_ZOzOU4hk5MLEP_6og9Ylc8X6eYQDR0jLKNIhwnNDlrFdO_UE2-9ColZxT9KgPgJPA8k0cI_eeyfixN6mWiHe/s1600/Prague+284.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My fairy princess shot</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn't even have to tell Ry to look longingly in the distance, he was truly enamored</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just stop it, Prague. Stop being so beautiful. It's unfair to the other cities.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Click to biggify!</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I really wanted to see the old Jewish Quarter of Prague on our trip. As one of the few jewish ghettos that remained intact after world war II, it is unique. Since one side of Ryan's family came from Czechoslovakia, I thought it was important for us to see the jewish quarter from a historical standpoint. I had heard about the bizarre looking cemetery with the tombstones crammed in next to each other at odd angles. </span><br />
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Of course, it was just our luck that we arrived during sunset on Yom Kippur. Everything was closed. Ryan lost some jew points for not realizing this sooner. We were able to peek into the cemetery from a small fist sized hole in a wall that I crammed my camera lens into. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For some reason, this building in the jewish quarter reminded me of some of the buildings you find in San Francisco.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The marionettes of Ryan's people</span></div>
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Somehow we stumbled upon the National Marionette Theater and went in to see a puppet performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The theater was so tiny. It felt miniature. Somehow they fit balcony seating into a room that looked as small as a two story version of my own living room. The chairs even felt small. I know I have a larger than average rear end, but I had to squeeze my butt into those chairs. Once my butt was firmly planted in the seat, I noticed the very upright, hard, wooden backs. It was like some sort of mild torture device, the kind that aims to annoy you into submission. Ryan and I felt like giants. Nevertheless, the performance was really fun to watch. The marionettes were huge. I'm talking about 4 ft tall. Despite how cute it was, Ryan and I were exhausted and I kept nudging Ryan as he nodded off every few minutes. We left during intermission and took the couple mile trek home in the dark.</span><br />
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When we got to the Charles Bridge to cross back into the Castle Quarter, we noticed that lots of things were swooping around in the sky. Big white birds took off from the rooftops in unison, like big albino bats against the moon. I tried so hard to capture it, but I just couldn't get a picture of them in flight, it was so dark. But here they are on the rooftop, waiting a couple minutes before their large group flights in the sky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Violinists and musicians played on the Charles bridge, some playing classical music, others playing ABBA. I searched for the glass harpist we had seen the night before, but he was nowhere to be found. Part of me was glad. It made that moment special. Happenstance. I feel lucky to have stumbled upon it once, and if I had seen it again, I would have been comparing it to the first time. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it as much. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the same reason, I don't plan to ever go back to Prague - no matter how much I love it. There are just too many wonderful things to see, and every place I fall in love with confirms that more. I have so many places to go. I could be in Venice by the same time tomorrow. And I would.</span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-31076569345976227152015-02-03T21:58:00.001-08:002016-11-28T16:02:52.787-08:00Disneyland Shmizbeeland - Gimme Prague, Any Day<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ooooooooh, that title may get me into some boiling hot water. But I'll say it again: Disneyland wishes it was Prague.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But you wouldn’t know it
from the path out of the airport. Foggy plains surround the airport, cut up by
tall concrete walls lined with barbed wire. Ry and I both agreed, as we
struggled to stay standing on the very much packed, and very much jolty, public
bus, that it just <i>looked</i> communist. Drab,
bunker style buildings and shipping containers, in varying hues of sidewalk and stone, peppered the landscape – some buried in thistly weeds and
brush. Even though Prague hasn’t been ruled by Communists since the late 80’s,
some of the décor on the edges of the city didn’t quite get the memo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The city morphs so rapidly
as you enter it, that I was dizzy with craning my neck around to absorb everything. The wide, straight, four lane streets funnel into
tight one ways and questionably slim two-way streets – kinking up into curvy,
crimped alleys and dead ends and pedestrian zones. Like a pop-up fairytale
book, the rusty red roofed buildings huddle in on each other – playing with my
mind as they seem to get larger in the distance and mock the laws of
perspective. Instead of the long, gridded streets of cities like Chicago and
Los Angeles, where you can see so far in the distance that the buildings get
blurred into the smog, streets in Prague will end abruptly with medieval
churches and brightly colored buildings with facades so unique and considered, that
they look like a film set. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I shit you not, As soon as we stepped out of the bus, we heard a woman belting opera music from a 3<sup>rd</sup> story window. In the distance, on a hill overlooking the city, was the multi-spired cathedral of the largest ancient castle in the world. As we rounded another corner, a man played clarinet out of his window above a marionette shop, down the street from the picturesque bridge lined with larger than life sculptures. REALLY?? This is some straight up, fairytale kingdom shenanigans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like the little walrus drawing on the left</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Lennon wall. Before I saw it, I heard it. This guy was totally jamming to The Beatles as we walked up to the note and graffiti covered wall. Honestly, I didn’t know about the wall or what it stood for when we visited, so I eavesdropped on a tour group that shuffled quickly past it. The wall, as I gather, stood for freedom, rebellion, and expression around the end of communism in the 80’s. Some of the graffiti was all hippy dippy and optimistic, while other scrawlings were raw and brutal. People would post love notes to Prague and grievances to politicians. It has been painted over before by authorities, only to be filled up within days. It turns out that a bunch of art students actually completely painted the wall white and wrote “Wall is over” on it only a couple of weeks after I took these photos. I’ll admit, I got a little bit farklempt listening to the music and reading the wall. I don’t even like The Beatles all too much (sorry again, two offensive opinions in one post), but it was a beautiful moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ten points for a creative use of band-aids</span></i></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Ok. This guy. He is the one ever so joyously playing the Beatle tunes. He looks so eerily like a friend of mine that we have coined him as CzechChris, our friend Chris's doppleganger. Let me show you a couple pictures for comparison. I'll let you come to your own conclusions, but I think I make a fair argument. Here, below, is our friend Chris.</span></o:p><br />
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<o:p>Exhibit A:</o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are so many things right in this picture. Uplifting Settlers of Catan T-shirt, Unicorn mask...But back to the point.</span></i></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I rest my case.</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Around the corner from the Lennon Wall is the love lock bridge. Some argue vandalism, but I am, and always will be, a romantic. I thought it was beautiful. All those rusty old locks with names scrawled in sharpy or etched on with paperclip tips. I'm a sap.</span></o:p></div>
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Ryan surprised me with an engraved lock that we spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to lock onto the bridge. Not only were we trying to wait for a nice, private moment in between the occasional tour group horde, but you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a spot of real estate on this thing. If you lock it onto one of the dangling lock strings, it will eventually get bolt cutted off to make room. The key is to find a spot that is inconvenient to cut. After much too much hullaballoo, we finally found a spot and tossed our keys into the river below the bridge. Awwwwww. Cue the sighs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I may have said that Prague reminds me of disneyland, and it does, but it also has a grittiness to it that I adore, and which was missing from my very brief visit to Stockholm. Prague has been on my radar since I started becoming obsessed with puppet making and stop-motion animation over a decade ago. Marionette and puppetry shops are everywhere. Puppetry is serious business. Shop windows are filled with pop culture, Harry Potter and Michael Jackson puppets strung next to traditional hags and hobos. Some are made of cheap plastic, others are hand widdled from wood. They even have a National Marionette Theater.</span></div>
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Some of the best puppet makers and stop-motion animators are from Prague (Jan Svankmajer, Jiri Barta, Jiri Trnka), and they aren't necessarily making children's stories. Some of the films are quite disturbing and creepy. Eerie. Think taxidermy and porcelain dolls come to life. It's this juxtaposition of fairytale fantasy and creepy that makes me love eastern european stop-motion animation. Original fairytales used to be dark, people, and I liked them that way.</span><br />
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In places like Prague, Ukraine, and Russia. Puppetry grew into a safe and subtle way to criticize a government that didn't allow free speech in a way that more "proper" theater and media couldn't get away with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I couldn't stop laughing at the Segway stampedes. I mean, come on. There's just something funny looking about it, right? They just look so out of place in front of the medieval churches, clunking down the cobblestones. Not that it doesn't look <i>fun.</i> The helmets add to the comedy. It kills me. Look at the serious lady near the front. And the jolly looking dude with the elbow patches (he isn't taking himself too seriously, good chap), and that very skeptical looking gentleman in the back... he seems embarrassed. </span></div>
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Churches next to Absinthe Shops next to gingerbread museums.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Delicious, cinnamon and almond rolled, pastry goodness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gargoyles don't just perch on the ledges of the castle cathedral, they are leaping off of it, precariously frozen into a position that doesn't seem to make sense with the laws of gravity and physics. I don't know how they haven't fallen off under so much weight supported by so little. </span><br />
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Some of the village houses surrounding the castle are so tiny that we had to bend to walk through the doorways. We shot some crossbows, looked at a bunch of armory, and engaged in general touristyness. There was some very fancy stone with engravings in the Basilica that everyone was swooning over... but honestly I had no idea what it was about. I am a really bad tourist with all of the important, historical business. It just doesn't interest me, what can I say? I've been to New York twice and was not interested in seeing the Statue of Liberty. I've been to Washington D.C. twice and have never seen the White House. To each their own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8 Hours of walking on cobblestone, 3 cinnamon pastries, a bowl of Goulash, and several hills later, we were about ready to pass out. But with no time to waste, we decided on a classic refresher, a cheap thai foot massage. On the massage price menu was a not so discreet logo of a cartoony silhouette of a set of frank n' beans with an X over it, surrounded by "NO SEX, NO EROTIC" in big, bold, english, lettering. Just in case there were any questions. Someone had to design that logo. Someone got paid to design that logo. I had to refrain from giggling while I paid.</span></div>
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</i><i>No, that's not a creepy thing to put in a window at all.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We ate so much delicious meat covered in so much delicious gravy type stuff decorated in so much tasty lingonberry sauce at the Medieval Tavern. Supposedly the place is super historical, and so old that the stone on the front stoop is worn down into a deep slope(this part I can confirm), and that Mozart once drank there, and that it has been open since 1375. All of that could be true... but most importantly, it made me feel like I was in Game of Thrones - and that is friggin fantastic. The fire shows, belly dancing, and uber creepy, taxidermyesque, statue dude were pretty entertaining as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seriously, try eating with this guy behind you. He's got a side mullet.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we got out of the tavern, all of the day tourists had gone to sleep and the alleys and streets were nearly empty. The street-lamps washed all of the colorful buildings in a sepia tone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In front of our hotel, a relaxed looking gentleman stood behind a table filled with glasses of varying sizes filled with varying levels of water. Port glasses, wine glasses, champagne glasses, crystal glasses... Slightly slouched, he lit a cigarette, played a couple practice notes,took one long last puff, set it behind him, and then dipped his hands into one of the glasses of water. What he did next, is one of the most beautiful things I have ever been lucky enough to witness, and I only wish my video below could do it even a shred of justice. The sound was haunting. It surrounds you, and echoes inside of your head in a way that can't be felt in video. Kind of like how when your ears are ringing it feels like it is inside of your head, but way more pleasant. I really really recommend watching the whole thing, but if you don't watch the whole thing, start at 3min 50 sec.... that's where it goes down. This captures what I love about Prague. Painfully beautiful. </span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-15927127211149356452014-12-23T19:19:00.001-08:002016-11-28T15:05:00.737-08:00Viking Bars and Cobblestone Streets In Stockholm, Sweden<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Somewhere between Newfoundland and Greenland, sometime between
midnight and 3AM, I was awoken by zombie sounds. The wet gurgles and snorts,
the asthmatic wheezing of ludicrously long and shallow breathing… it was spot
on, sound effect worthy. This person must have been possessed, or infected, or
something. Their snoring was so loud, so jarring, so creepy, that I couldn’t
possibly go back to sleep, and I was so dumbfounded that anyone else was
managing to sleep at all, that I was offended at the concept. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am usually pretty good at sleeping on planes. I am that
annoying person that falls asleep within an hour of take off and wakes up 9 hours later in another country like nothing ever happened - no jet lag, no
sleepiness, no problem; As long as there is no turbulence at least. I am a wimp
with turbulence. A few little bumps in the air and I am clutching Ryan’s arm so
hard it should probably be categorized as abuse, while my mind races through
all of the episodes of LOST like a flipbook. Sleeping deeply on planes has
become my avoidance technique to dealing with turbulence… sort of an ignorance
is bliss thing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, as you can see, I was mad to be woken from my slumber.
Full on grumpy-pants. I sat in my ever so mildly reclined seat, staring out at
the blurry plane cabin(because putting my contacts in felt like defeat), giving
the full stink-eye in the direction of the offender.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then I slid up my window cover, wondering what stars
would look like from the midnight route to Stockholm. And I saw something.
Faint. Evanescent. Creeping in from the edge of my view out of the tiny portal
window. I smashed my face against the window and squinted
to see out into the night sky. Being near sighted, everything was blurry in the distance - compounded by the foggy moisture caught between the double panes of the window
and broken up by the snowflake like ice crystals on the outer pane. But I saw
something, like a drop of milky absinthe in the sky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I elbowed Ryan (ever so gently, I assure you) to wake him up,
as I stabbed my contacts into my eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me, to Ryan: “RYANIT’STHEAURORABOREALIS!!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Granted, at this point I had only seen what was most likely the
light on the end of the plane wing through the blurred vision of a half asleep
madwoman. But I was so damn sure. Ryan, being the wonderful sport that he is,
began to wipe the crusties from his eyes to give into my lunacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I crouched down on what tiny bit of floor I had, facing the
back of my seat, and pressed my whole face against the window, looking back
toward the hint of light I had seen. I think I might have whispered, very
loudly, some expletives that I won’t type here. But sometimes I get excited and
can’t control myself. Some words are changed for your innocence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me, to Ryan: “HOLY DUCK”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There it was. A fuzzy outline of key-lime pie tinted glow,
snaking down in a ribbony pattern toward the horizon. A melting, lime
creamsicle. It looked like smoke that had frozen nearly still, but that glowed
and bled like watercolors in slow motion against a backdrop of sky so black and
stars so bright that they looked like kosher salt spilled on tarmac.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I always imagined it would move fast, like lights dancing in
the sky, like some production put on by Disneyland… and maybe sometimes it does… but this didn’t. It moved like molasses.
It morphed. I couldn’t see it moving if I kept my eyes on it, but it looked like it was throbbing and
stretching in my peripheral vision. It wasn’t <i>doing</i> anything particularly amazing, but I couldn’t stop
staring, craning my neck, pressing my cheek even harder against the cold cold
window, to get a better view. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I clambered over sleepyRyan, stepping on his toesies, to get
to the bathroom, because in my excitement I almost peed my pants, and I needed to let
him marvel at the beautiful thing outside. And when I came back, it was gone.
And all that was left was the zombie snorer in row 22. Suddenly it didn’t even
seem to matter. I slept like cat on a sunny warm day the rest of the way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were late for our layover in Amsterdam. Amsterdam airport
has these convenient little signs that tell you how long it should take to walk
from one part of the airport to another, which quickly brought in a wee bit of
panic as soon as we got into the Amsterdam terminal. We had 20 minutes to get to a
part of the airport that should take 25 minutes to get to. With customs in the middle. Oh Duck. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So we ran. Past tulip selling stands, and tourists wearing
clogs, and miniature, cardboard windmills, and a restaurant where you can eat
inside of a giant blue and white Dutch teacup. We laughed - gasping, sweaty,
and mildly resentful as we ran past people voluntarily biking on gym bikes to
charge their phones and laptops. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ryan, to Me, breathing loudly and not breaking stride:
“That’s… So… Cool!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And that was all we saw of Amsterdam. The good news being
that we made it to our plan on time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And soon we were in Stockholm. Like, immediately when we got
off of the plane. There was no customs, there was no one patting us down or
making sure we weren’t evil or trying to smuggle in things or whatnot. No one
stamped our passports or interrogated us on what business we had to be in their
great land of meatballs and lingonberries. We stood at the exit door and were
dumbfounded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ryan: “We just… go?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me: “I don’t understand. This feels weird. Are we going to
get arrested if we just… walk out there?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ryan: “Don’t they want to know who we are first?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me: "Don't we need to get frisked or questioned?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh man, the lady we talked to at the help desk gave us the
sweetest “Aw, how cute, but no no, that’s not necessary” face when we walked up
to her and practically shoved our passports in her face for approval. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then we waltzed out, feeling slightly rebellious,
despite being given full permission by the lady at the help desk. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stockholm, at least by the Arlanda airport, feels like
getting out at O’Hare airport in Illinois. It was clench your toes and rub your
nose cold, with that delightful feeling that comes with seeing your mouth and
nose breath. The landscape around the airport looks a bit like the Midwest
too. Flat land, with a decent speckling of trees on the edge of turning orange
and yellow. Taking the bus to our Hotel by the airport felt like taking the bus
out to the Schaumberg Ikea in Illinois too. It all felt very familiar, despite
the signs everywhere in Swedish that said funny things like “UTFART” (which led
to several giggles and lots of whispered mutterings throughout the entire
trip). Our Hotel continued playing the part of “Ikea” by adorning itself with
very modern furniture and color themed hallways and rooms. Each hallway was
colorcoded into bold purple, orange, blue, or red. And the walls, carpets,
bedding, and furniture matched accordingly. It was like sleeping in a
catalogue. Luckily, no assembly was required. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We only had enough time to spend one day in Stockholm, since
it was really just a layover for us. We rode a bus 30 minutes into Gamla Stan,
the old section of Stockholm that is known for cobblestone streets and general
cuteness. Stockholm was such a weird juxtaposition of modern and medieval. I
should’ve taken pictures of the modern parts, but I didn’t realize until I was
gone that I didn’t seem to take a single picture of the modern side. I’m a
little biased to the crumbly and historical bits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cobblestones were no joke. It wasn’t just one or two
streets that were cobbled. The whole old town of Gamla Stan was covered in
bulbous stones (which look fantastic, but are much easier to trip on for a
clumsy one like me). Souvenir shops are full of tiny, pinochio nosed trolls and
slightly friendlier, cherry nosed gnomes. Keychains plastered with Viking hats and
moose heads. Viking shotglasses, moose mugs. All the same kind of stuff. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the buildings. They were so beautiful. Walls in every
shade of terracotta, cream, saffron, cumin, rust, salmon. Sunset colors. It was
a cozy color to be surrounded by. And with the streets being so narrow, you
really were surrounded by the orange hue. The windows all had some sort of
tinting on them that gave them a blue tinge that only contrasted with the
oranges even more and made them appear more colorful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I particularly loved seeing all of the signs filled with
compound words so long and ridiculous sounding that they, on more than one or
two occasions, took up multiple lines. I loved that in the bathroom of a Viking
bar, that someone tagged on the walls… in the Runic alphabet. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh my God. This meal was so delicious. Those lingonberries. That sauce. That meat. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This store had the strangest window display. I can't even.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> How's that for a street name?</span></i></div>
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<o:p><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I hid the horsehead in my luggage and surprised Ryan in this picture. He may look confused here, but he couldn't stop laughing right after the picture.</span></i></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On our way out of Stockholm that night, we passed by a
store, “Americana”, that delightfully portrayed to us American
stereotypes. The store was full of racks and racks of overalls (WHAT YEAR IS
IT?), football jackets, basketball jerseys, military cammo gear, cowbow boots,
and cheerleader outfits. Yet again, I wish I had taken a picture, but I’m sure
you can google it. We were so busy laughing it up, and throwing around the
“y’all”s, we forgot to snap a photo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <i>Yes. That is a Gremlin hanging from a string in the alley.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This is a panorama, click to make it big</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That night we slept in our Ikea catalogue, on our “King”
bed. Which, turns out, was two twins pushed together. Let me tell you, that
when you have two feather-light, Ikea-quality beds pushed together, on a floor
so shiny and slippery and modern, that if you so much as attempt to spoon in
the middle, or just simply go in for a hug goodnight, or roll over in the
middle of the night, or even cough too hard, your beds will slip apart so
quickly, as if parted by Moses himself, into a giant chasm… and your butt will
fall so hard onto the hard, modern, floor betwixt the beds that you begin to
think maybe sleeping on an airplane isn’t so bad.</span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-28421640946981785592012-09-28T10:25:00.001-07:002016-11-28T15:30:45.883-08:00Bubble Bath Ponies<link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CMCOUTR%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CMCOUTR%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CMCOUTR%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Smell can trigger a memory so strongly, so distinctly, so
quickly. I remember right before my brother was born, my mother gave me a scented
My Little Pony that smelled like a
bubble bath. It was peptobismol pink with cotton candy blue hair. Whenever I
smell bubble bath now, 23 years later, I have an instant flashback to holding
that pink and blue pony in my chubby little, 3 year old hands - I am overcome with
that mix of excitement and jealousy that precedes a sibling.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;"> I remember thinking-
at that moment- that if I rejected the gift, maybe I wouldn’t have to accept a
little brother – as if it was some sort of barter situation; maybe I would have
my mom all to myself if I simply gave back the bribe gift. Ah, but my mother knew
how much I loved My Little Ponies. Those little toys were like crack to a 3 year
old. Clever mother. I would accept the brother in trade for this enticement,
just this once. It’s surreal and
hilarious having flashbacks of the emotions and thoughts of a 3 year old. Smell
memory is strong.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Despite my nose being rather stuffed up the last couple days
(in my attempt to kick a fondness/addiction for a powerful nasal decongestant
spray), I whiffed something so... aromatic
that I was hit with memories of Thailand. For just a moment, I was transported
back amongst the stalls of roasting meats and vibrant silks – dripping in sweat
and craving coconut curry. My stomach growled. While the trigger probably
wouldn’t have been my first choice (hovering over a drain of exotic-animal-poo-water,
for the curious), it was a fascinating little trick of the senses. Oh stinky Bangkok, ripe with Durian and faulty
sewage systems, I miss thee.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Life at the zoo is chaotic, overwhelming, wild and
wonderful. Walking onto a foggy zoo before dawn to the sounds of calling
Gibbons, a roaring Lion, and the haunting call of a Hyena is as magical as I
could ever hope for. It is getting easier and easier to wake up when the constellations
are still out. I love the moist chill of the morning mist, the feeling of every
little hair rising on my arms, the cold air in my lungs
like a jump-start to the body. Few people are awake and I feel like the world is
mine. I wish I could go into the intricacies of my day to day life at the zoo,
but I cannot. Feel free to use your imagination as you will of all the
possibilities for life as a zoo student. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I just did a search to see if I could find a picture of my
precious pony toy from before my brother’s birth. <a href="http://mylittleponycollection.info/g1-my-little-pony-perfume-puff-ponies-sweet-suds/" target="_blank">Here it is!</a> I remember the
hair being darker, more vibrant blue. The memory is funny like that, constantly
storing things in a more idealized state. Past follies are romanticized, events
more epic, relationships smoothed out – we love to glorify the past. I guess
that’s the story of the Big Fish, right? It feels good to be living a life that
doesn’t need any embellishing; it is so important to actively make your dreams
happen. I make it a habit to constantly ask myself “what do I want to be doing?”
and if it isn’t happening, I make plans to do it. No excuses. It’s so easy to
be your own hurdle. I have to stop
myself from stopping myself all the time. I was a master of excuses for the
longest time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I already have that itch to do something adventurous again.
I’ve heard scuba diving with sea lions in the Channel Islands is amazing, so
methinks a scuba certification is in order.</span></div>
Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-53509366329742767572012-08-19T14:35:00.004-07:002016-11-28T15:06:56.636-08:00Lost in Translation: 12 Hours of Gastronomic Adventures & Language Mishaps in Toky, Japan <div style="text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We were back in Japan for a 12 hour rendezvous in the wild, wonderful, bombastic metropolis of Tokyo. While we passed through quickly on a train on our first day in Asia, dumbstruck by all of the stereotypical school girls with Hello Kitty backpacks and pigtails, we were going to dive down the rabbit hole this time - getting lost in the streets of Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku. Tokyo is everything I ever imagined and more - music seems to echo down the streets providing a soundtrack to the larger than life cartoon characters and competing signs, sights and sounds at every angle, inch, and scale of the buildings.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Imagine Times Square in New York, multiply the lights, signs, people, and size by 10, and bring in all the buildings tightly around you so that the sky is a narrow sliver above you between the neon and Kanji. Unlike other bright, active cities like New York and Las Vegas - where wide boulevards separate the sidewalks and cars are king- there are endless walking streets here. Every alley has a surprise hidden down it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The crowds line up and squeeze into the packed trains in perfect time to a musical jingle that plays to let you know when the doors are going to close. At the end of the jovial tune, the doors close. It brings a friendly atmosphere to the hustle of getting onto the train before the doors close, musical chairs in real life action. There is an efficiency and order to the whole ordeal despite the mass of people, an order that makes me extremely aware of how ungraceful, clumsy, and american I am. Leagues of people are standing on the train, one hand on the ceiling rail, one hand texting on a phone, maintaining a seemingly superhero ability to sway smoothly without brushing, pushing, or hitting the person standing an inch away from them. We clunkily make our way out at the Shibuya stop, home of the world's busiest crosswalk.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The most dapper of crosswalk sign men</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nobody is as polite about being sick as the Japanese. They don't wear the masks to prevent getting sick from others, they wear them when they are sick so they don't spread their germs. I saw this a wee bit in Thailand, but you see so many more people in Japan wearing masks, going about their daily activities, dressed up, hanging out with friends, and shopping, that you get used to it. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The busiest crosswalk in the world. People build up on the edges before they fill the streets- the REMARKABLY, Disneyland levels of clean, streets. Seriously, look at that street. Flawless.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ryan, trying to mimic how happy all of the people in the ads look. Let's just say, "look natural" is probably not in the advertising director's vocabulary. Look at this guy holding the puppies in the picture below. So happy to be holding puppies. Well, to his credit, we should all be happy if we were holding puppies.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As you can see, there is no English anywhere (quite different than Thailand). Nobody really tries to talk to you in english, and may even start talking to you in Japanese at dizzying lengths and speeds. I love this, it's one of the feelings I love about travel - being completely out of my element. What sauce did I put on my chicken? Who knows. It was good. Thai people were much more urgent to accommodate English speakers. While this can be helpful, I think it is good to feel uncomfortable sometimes. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The beginning of our gastronomic adventures. We ate so much food.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Pickle servin' Pig? So strange. I love strange.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Karaoke, of course</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Plastic food in every restaurant window.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Why not put cute stuffed animals in your dash?</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fast food Eel, rice and mystery meat (that looked remarkably like tripe... we may never know). One thing I found surprising is that there was Mayonnaise at every table at every restaurant we went to. I never really think of Mayonnaise when I think of Japan (it would seem more fitting for America wouldn't it?), but boy do they like Mayo. There was even a stuffed animal(well, not an animal) mayo bottle at one toy store we went into.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B9F7y24HrRw/T_j4HXeTvoI/AAAAAAAADn4/0gYmQKCXfLQ/s1600/DSC_0283.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B9F7y24HrRw/T_j4HXeTvoI/AAAAAAAADn4/0gYmQKCXfLQ/s640/DSC_0283.JPG" width="428" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We meandered into a claw machine arcade filled wall to wall with various claw machines, photo-booths, and this strange drum arcade game. It was a clash of sounds, lights, and bright colors. Only after watching <i>Lost in Translation</i> after we got home (we were going through Asia withdrawals) did we realize this was the same claw machine arcade they go into in the movie. It was the same surreal experience.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The claw is so comically small compared to the stuffed bunny head.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The cutest crumb sweeper you have ever seen</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Tiny boxed food filled with tiny pasta and rice</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Size For Men. I especially like the dude twirling his wig with a goatee.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>It says for Ladies on top, but I think they are cool with men wearing this too.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for your head or your chest.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Remember my favorite, bloated, strange, teletubby-esque, peach candy character from my first day in Japan? Well, apparently there are more disturbing characters to go along with him, and they are kind of a big thing. they have a children's book. The most terrifying of children's books. What is happening here?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Safari Animal Butt Magnets, Oh Japan.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cute things to plug into the headphone jack of your phone. No spot left un-"cute"ified.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Store my Ducks</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My favorite Peach candy character has headphones. As bloated as ever. I would love to know what that piece of paper taped on says.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>They have toys too!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And pens! I bought one. I needed to remember the peach man.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And, my god, a giant pillow! Look how angry the little green man on the paper right below the pillow is.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Keychains, bandaids, puzzles... I can't take it. My mind is blown. This is so bizarre.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Peach man 3d jigsaw puzzle. My heart grows 3 sizes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Strange, terrifying Rice ball tupperware.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's an easy thing to just look at the pictures and scan over them quickly, assuming it is just a wall of toys and knick knacks. But look a little closer. That is a packet of skinny barbie legs in the middle there. Just the legs. In thigh-high lace stockings. Who buys just the legs of a doll? I don't want to know that person. No.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the sun starts to set, we are traversing between the bizarre cartoonish streets of Harajuku to the slightly darker, seedier alleys of Shinjuku. I say seedy because there are giggling girls beckoning you into "maid experience" bars and nightclubs, themed sex hotels, and strip bars speckled in between pachinko casinos, cat cafes, and amazing restaurants - but this is still the cleanest and most friendly red light tinged district I have ever seen. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> Piss Alley, a row of closet sized restaurants serving 5-10 patrons the most delicious plates of sizzling food.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the hustle of the smells and lights, Ry and I were ushered into an elevator for a restaurant that displayed the yummiest of pictures on the sidewalk. We were packed into an elevator and whisked 7 stories up to a restaurant overlooking Shinjuku. Of course we would find ourselves in a restaurant that had a menu with minimal pictures, entirely in Kanji. Being too ashamed to turn around after stepping inside and making the elevator trek with the smiling hostess, we sat down and proceeded to play a game of charades with the waitress. It appeared to be a Tepan restaurant where the food was cooked in front of us. This could be cool.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a hilarious attempt to order 1 chicken Okonomiyaki (a Japanese savory omelet- imagine a lot of arm waving, head bobbing, and egg cracking miming), the waitress came by and dropped off two bowls of raw fish, egg, and vegetable before leaving us to our own devices. This is the point where we realized we were supposed to be making this dish on our own. Seeing as how I have never had it before, I was clueless. The hostess, laughing ever so politely at our demise, came over and insisted on cooking the whole meal for us in between seating customers. She was amazing. We had some hilarious moments in broken japanese and english (and more charades, of course). I accidentally said Good Afternoon instead of thank you, which gave her the extreme giggles. My poor japanese was a point of great joy to her.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The Hostess with the mostest.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Regrettably, by the time our omelet was almost done, the abundance of food we had eaten over the course of the day had started to settle in. We were practically full. We were not intending to order two, and there is no "doggy bag" in Japan, so we stuffed ourselves with as much Okonomiyaki as we possibly could to save us of the shame we got ourselves into. The hostess put so much effort into making these marvels that we couldn't leave them behind untouched.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Japan is expensive. We spent more in one day on food than we did in a week in Thailand. After buying our train tickets back to the airport, we had 102 yen to spare. One 100 yen bottle of water later and we departed asia with 2 yen left (about 2 cents). A miracle in foreign cash rationing. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then it was over. We slept through the entire trip back home, giving the strange impression that we really hadn't flown very far - when in fact we were halfway across the world. I still have this lingering sensation that if I wanted to go back, and I so desperately do, I could take a short boat ride and be there in the blink of an eye. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We had an absolutely amazing trip. We jumped down rabbit hole and made it back out. I've been back home for a month and a half now,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the memories are still so fresh that I feel like I was there last week eating curry and running from monkeys. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've already begun my next adventure. I started EATM, the Exotic Animal Training and Management program I have been waiting years for, last week. They are currently revising their social media policy, so in the meantime I can't actually write anything about the experiences I am having in a public forum. Once I find out what I can and can't post, if anything, I will. Until then, I may start blogging about my experiences in Costa Rica that I never wrote about. I have ten pages of notes and scribbles saved back from 2008 when we went. We shall see. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Life is a good ride if you make the choices to make it so. The whole reason I went on the Thailand trip was because last year I did not get into the EATM program. It was out of my hands, a random lottery, but I needed to do something that was in my control that would make my year of waiting worth it. It was worth it. I cannot imagine having missed out on the experiences I had this summer. I would not change a thing about how it all turned out.</span></div>
Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-10303884804942548052012-08-16T17:58:00.004-07:002016-11-28T15:14:49.422-08:00Swimming with Sharks and Cabaret Shows In Koh Tao and Koh Samui, Thailand<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have never seen water as clear as the water I saw surrounding the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Tao Thailand. Well, maybe in a glass of water... but not only is the water clear, it is ridiculously vibrant. In the day, below the wakes of the ferry boats, you can see the reefs overflowing with zebra striped fish. At night, while eating bad beef bolognese on the beach with toes dug deep into the cool sand, chinese lanterns float farther into the sky - the soft glow illuminating the frantic silhouettes of bats diving for mosquitos.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> A shirtless thai man hops onto a platform on the wet sand, waves licking at the feet of the stage, and creates a million shooting stars on the horizon.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wish I could provide you with a more fascinating story of our days in Koh Samui, but they were full of pure sloth and glutton - a state of being not entirely conducive to intriguing detail. We ate pad thai for breakfast, floated in the ocean, lathered ourselves in sunscreen, had amazing thai massages on the beach, swam in pools until we were as wrinkly as raisins, and (for shame) indulged in a little bit of thai Mcdonalds. I promise you, while you can get terriyaki and buffalo wings in Thai Mcdonalds, the Mcnuggets taste the same halfway across the planet.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On our last night in Koh Samui, we crammed into the back of our favorite form of transportation (the songthaew, of course), and headed to Chaweng Beach. You can erase any image of swaying palm trees and soothing ethnic music from your mind. Chaweng is where people go to party. The road to the beach strip was bumper to bumper songthaews and pimped out Taxis outfitted with blue LED lights lining their bumpers. Rocky music squeeled out of a giant loud speaker perched atop the truck in front of us, advertising an epic upcoming muay thai boxing match between Thailand and Australia. Five lanky boys sat disenchanted on lawn chairs in the back of the truck bed, each one holding a trophy half their height. A living advertisement, who would have thought.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I know I shouldn't have been surprised, but during dinner we were surrounded by men coming from table to table with baby gibbons. I knew where these gibbons came from. It is illegal even under thai law to own one of these. To get them, poachers kill the parents and take the babies from the wild. They make a decent living peddling around to tourists who want to take pictures with them. The babies cling to these men, squeaking and chirping as they are handed off from person to person. I was furious. The men practically shove the babies in my face trying to get me to pay them for a picture with the ape. The most infuriating thing is that they get away with it, tourists love it, and the cycle continues. Dozens of baby gibbons were being walked up and down the beach that night. I couldn't stop thinking about it all of dinner. I wish I could say I was more heroic and did something, but it's hard to know what to do. I was in a foreign place, with foreign languages and foreign laws. It's not as simple as calling the humane society(though I did write a stumbling, desperate email to the rescue foundation that attempts to curb this - it's largely futile), it's not how things work here.I felt powerless.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Walking down the main walkway of Chaweng is an assault on the senses. Night clubs try to outcompete each other with clashing choruses of pop, hip hop, and house music - young girls(...well, they looked like girls, you learn in thailand that that doesn't necessarily mean it is so) stand on the sidewalks urging you to come in and yell out in their best engrish that there are half priced buckets during happy hour (a happy hour that lasts from 5pm until 2am). Yes, let me repeat that. BUCKETS. BUCKETS of alcohol. Imagine a bunch of people walking down the street carrying sand-pails full of mai thais and you have a good image of Chaweng. While I did not indulge in the buckets, it was a marvel to be surrounded the the bright, loud, energetic atmosphere. This is the point where we get shuffled in to the Ladyboy Cabaret. I could try and attempt to explain it in words... but really, I think videos are the only way to explain it. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> If you think we look a little close to the stage, you would be right. Somehow we got seated into the very front row in what I like to deem "crotch to head level". I don't know how I get myself into these situations. It was entirely awkward, entirely awesome, and entirely bizarre. We had a blast. Some of the men in our group... participated (not really a choice it seemed).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our night commenced with a wee bit of dancing to a copious amount of 90's music (a standard soundtrack in Thailand, it seems) before we collapsed in bed exhausted, sweaty and sunburnt.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One long ferry ride away and we were in true paradise. Really. I thought Koh Samui was beautiful, but Koh Tao was so perfectly picturesque, the sand so creamy smooth and white, and the water so clear. Our hotel was a one minute walk from the beach- a beach where little fish swam around in the tide puddles and you can find feathery tipped white crabs with purple claws. We indulged in more massages, ate delicious kabobs on the beach, and snorkeled with black tip reef sharks, long spine sea urchins, and parrot fish. You wouldn't believe how many times I got bit by <a href="http://www.createareef.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/l/u/lunarwrasse.jpg" target="_blank">this fish.</a> Sure, they may look beautiful and gentle, but they bite... hard. I've never cursed a fish so much in my life (if ever before?). Sunburns, bug bites, and fish bites aside, it was a wonderful way to end our trip in Thailand. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Look at all the Sea Cucumbers!!!!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>An uno game between five countries: </i>Belgium, England, Luxembourg, Russia, and America</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thailand has carved itself a special place in my heart. Farewell Land of Smiles, time to go back to Japan.</span></div>
Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-29296029059734472792012-08-03T15:08:00.001-07:002016-11-28T15:16:02.539-08:00Khao Sok: River tubing in a prehistoric landscape<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The air conditioning on the overnight train south is not exactly up to arctic levels. Knowing that heat rises, and that we were in Thailand in the summer (a place where you could conceivably grill chicken on the sidewalk at midnight), I probably should have chosen the bottom bunk.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I spent the majority of the bumpy night plastered against the cold plastic wall, palms flat against the paneling like a gecko. I like being cold when I sleep. When I was a teenager I used to sleep on the tile floor by the front door in the summers when it got hot, sometimes I would stick my pillow cases in the freezer - anything to chill myself into a mini hibernation for the night. In the morning we hopped onto a bus to finish our voyage to Khao Sok, a rainforest older than the amazon where wild tigers, elephants, and gibbons share the forest with muntjacs... otherwise known as barking deer - a deer so badass it has fangs. Yes, let me repeat that incase it didn't process - a DEER, with <a href="http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/103/c/d/skull_stock__reeve__s_muntjac_by_krissyfawx-d3dx0f4.png" target="_blank">FANGS</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The bus was something in itself to behold - oscillating metal fans hang upside-down from the pumpkin orange ceiling. Strings of marigold and jasmine flowers tied to hot pink ribbons droop from the rearview mirror in various stages of wither, bone-dry petals dropping onto the Yoshi green dashboard with every pothole. A large round wall clock is strapped over the speedometer, the thick layer of dust suggesting our driver hasn't been concerned with his speed in quite a while. The driver straddles the wheel. His bare feet dance between the tetanus garden of rusty clutch, gas, and break pedals to the splintery wooden floors of the bus. A paperclip is taped to his right ring finger, extending out from the tip into a hook. I don't know what the hook was for, I wasn't going to ask.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There it is again, that distinct smell of feces or fruit. Nuddy, our guide for the south, assures me the smell is coming from the rubber tree plants ("like for making condoms or shoes", Nuddy says). In the middle of a sea of rubber farms, we pass by a roadside carnival stand. A rainbow of balloons fill the back of the stand, waiting for passersby to pop them with darts. An enormous winnie-the-pooh awaits the winner.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For a couple who is used to roughing it when we travel, we were shocked to arrive at our individual bungalow on the river. The bathroom had pebbles in the shower and a mosaic on the wall. This was not motel 6 (or whatever its rainforest equivalent would be). Looking out our back patio was a truly dinosaur worthy landscape. Colossal limestone cliffs covered in dense forest poked at the clouds above the river. We hopped into tubes and cascaded down the river, surrounded by craggy peaks so vertical that trees appear to defy gravity as their roots dangle down the side of the stone."BUMS UP!" echoes through the canyon from our fellow river tubers to warn us of rocky waters ahead. Caves bite into the base of the bluffs, we stop at one to swing from a rope into the river. I don't purposely seek out those moments that take my breath away, but when they happen I lock the image in my head so that I can look back on it forever. Floating down that river, looking straight up at the rocks above me, drips of water racing down the side of the cliffside, wooden houses lining the riverbank... it was one of those moments. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The most gorgeous eyes I have ever seen on a cat. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I have never seen such a mix of green and blue on a cat before.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next morning, we took a long tail boat through the Khao Sok lake. As the boat passes the bluffs, more slide quickly into view like a life-size pop up book, creating an infinite horizon of forested crags mirrored on the teal water. We rode deep into the veinous avenues of the lake where we stopped for a swim and some lunch. The water was so deep that we could never reach the bottom - no matter how many times Ryan tried to touch the lake floor with his many, various attempts at Olympic diving. The water was so richly teal that you would think the whole lake was dyed to match a perfect shade of Disneyland moat water. Next to the table where we set down our bags was a netted off area of water overstuffed with a gang of snaggletoothed fish.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As you could guess, when we got out of the lake we were welcomed with plates full of those very same terrifying fish - their giant bodies hanging over the edges of the plate in all their sharp toothed glory. The heavily salted bodies were carved open to expose a tic-tac-toe of sweet potato colored meat and splintery bones. Luckily for me, a hesitant and rare fish eater, the fish was accompanied with a king's quantity of the most comically spicy chicken curry I have ever had the pleasure of consuming.</span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-78748502543226482302012-07-27T12:33:00.001-07:002016-11-28T15:16:48.102-08:00Bangkok: The Grand Palace Incident of 2012. Or, Why You Shouldn't Trust a Tuk Tuk.<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>What are those bright orange balls suspended in equally vibrant liquid you may ask?</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> I may never know.</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first thing I see when I ride into Bangkok are the slums, enclosing Bangkok like a moat - thatched walls, wavy tin roofs, and peeling paint stacked, slapped, criss-crossed, and splayed over, under, and within each other like an Escherian labyrinth of compressed walkways and living spaces. Within poles reach of the train tracks a man in a hammock watches sports from a t.v. propped on an egg crate, the light flickering onto the teal tin wall - the only solid wall separating him from his neighbors.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> A motorcycle zooms behind him and disappears into the narrow pathways. The fact that I was able to take in all of this detail from my wooden bench on the train speaks to the swiftness of the Thai railway during midday.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bangkok was an assault on the senses. It really was as hot and wild and fragrant as I had been led to believe. For someone who prefers a lush forest over a concrete jungle, I expected not to like Bangkok - But I did. Something about its wild freedom appeals to me. Around every corner you seem to find something new and unexpected, like a man singing karaoke in the middle of the street or a little girl with a squirrel on her shoulder. The rebellious side of me appreciates that I was able to buy a year's supply of contacts for the cost of simple renewing my prescription in the states. It's the the simple things, folks.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Naturally, being in the capitol of Thailand, we decided to go to Chinatown. While the Chinatown in Los Angeles maintains remarkably tame, with every other store selling coin sized turtles and bonzai in tidy window displays, turning the corner onto Bangkok's Chinatown was like stepping into another country all together. Bundles of power lines weave around the buildings, powering the plentiful stacks of signs in Chinese and Thai. No alleyway is wasted, being filled to the brim with stalls selling bags of pork rinds and dried fish. Vendors grind up pomegranates and Durian next to stalls selling vibrators on the street outside of wholesale coffin shops that sell pork bao buns to their perusing customers. I saw a tuk tuk driver cruising through traffic while <i>shaving his beard.</i> Seriously, Ryan can vouch for that fact.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While I am not usually one to succumb to tourist attractions, I occasionally desire to engage in traditional tourist activities. I wanted to see the Grand Palace with the giant Jade Buddha. One five minute taxi cab out of Chinatown and we were there, stepping out of the taxi in front of the giant palace walls surrounding pointy temple tops of gold.A modern day Olympus. Thus began the Grand Palace incident of 2012.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As soon as we stepped out of the taxi a smiling man with an official name badge walked up to us and welcomed us to the palace. With a twinkle in his eye, he asked us where we were from and got excited to talk about American baseball with us (little did he know we are not exactly sports talking people, but we smiled and nodded). As an "official" Grand Palace guy, he showed us a chart explaining that we would need to rent long pants before entering the Grand Palace grounds. No worry... they are free to rent and can be rented from right inside the palace gates. Ah, but see the shutters on the temple wall? They are shut right now, that is because the monks are in midday prayer so visitors must wait one hour until they are finished. Seems legit. He explains that the palace can provide a short 1 hour tour of the nearby temples before the palace reopens. He shows us on a map where exactly we will go, 5 beautiful temples and back within an hour. A tuk tuk will do this for 20 baht total. That is the equivalent of 60 cents. Why Yes! Please! Take us around the city and show us things! Why not?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Meet our Tuk tuk driver - seems nice enough, right? He led us across town to the "Big Buddha", an adorable temple where we released birds into the sky. Rainbows and Unicorns! Ladeeda! He even has an official looking Thailand tuk tuk driver sticker. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While the temple seemed nice enough, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the one he showed us we were going to on the map (I did some obsessive research on the sights of Bangkok before the trip). Oh well, I was going to go with the flow and enjoy myself. I'm not sure exactly why this didn't raise any red flags for me. Honestly, the man seemed so nice and I had just let my guard down to the kindness of Thais. In Chiang Mai we would be approached by random strangers who wanted to talk and tell us about their city. My jaded american mind would remain suspicious... anticipating the moment they would ask for money. But it never happened in Chiang Mai. People were sincerely interested in being kind and telling us about their beautiful city. Ah, but this is not Chiang Mai, this is Bangkok.</span></div>
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We crawl back into our tuk tuk and tear through the streets at the mercy of our driver, defying the theories of modern physics as we squeeze between buses and motorcycles at dizzying speeds and turn radiuses. He takes us far into the nethers of Bangkok and into a neighborhood that seems suspiciously far from any "tourist" area. He parks on the side of the street and says "I get gas, you go look around, 5 minutes and I go get gas". Aha, our tuk tuk driver must be running low on gas and he needs to get some, then surely we will be on our way. Ok. I get it. We hop out and start walking down the street, taking the opportunity to explore the neighborhood for a bit. An adventure! "No", he says firmly, "You go in here, 5 minutes." He points us to the tuxedo shop. I figure maybe there is some sort of loss in translation here. Maybe he wants to make sure we stay inside somewhere safe while he gets gas. Skeptical, but ok. We go inside to wait for him. </div>
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As soon as we step in a man attacks us with a smile and a handshake at the door and ushers us to a couch where he proceeds to fill our hands with brochures and samples. Trying to be polite, we assure him we don't need any suits, that we are just waiting for our driver. He doesn't seem to hear us, I leaf through the brochure for a minute before I look back out the window. Our tuk tuk driver is leaning on his tuk tuk, utterly relaxed, not at all concerning himself with filling up on gas. This feels wrong. We get up to leave. After brushing off the hard sell from the suit man, who urges us to try out the fabrics, we get back to our driver.</div>
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Me: "Where are you taking us next?"</div>
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Tuk Tuk Man: "I now take you to Jubilee."</div>
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Me: "Oh, what is that? A temple? A festival?"</div>
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Tuk Tuk Man: " Oh, no no. A Gem shop. You look at Jewelry."</div>
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Me: "Oh, no, sorry. We agreed to seeing temples, we don't have time to go shopping. We don't need any jewelry. We aren't in Bangkok for very long. No time, sorry."</div>
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Tuk Tuk Man: "No, You go to Jubilee, couple more suit shops, I get gas. They give me free gas. You do me favor."</div>
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Me: "Sorry, this isn't what we were told we were doing. Can you just take us back to the temple?"</div>
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Tuk Tuk Scam Man: "No, you shop, I get gas. Do me favor. I can't take you back now, Palace closed until 1!"</div>
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Me: "I really just want to go back to the temple and wait there. We will pay you the money either way, can you please take us back?"</div>
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That's about as far as me congeniality and patience will go. After a few more minutes of back and forth, with the man getting more aggressive and forceful in his desire for us to shop for diamonds and suits, I have had it. This man refuses to take us back, he refuses to take money to take us back, he guilts the bajeezus out of us and ultimately leaves us stranded in some far end of Bangkok while maintaining to the very end that the palace is closed until 1pm - Which is utter bull honkey, as we now know. I can be relatively shy around strangers, but if I feel like I am being ripped off and taken advantage of, well, watch out. I ripped this man a new one. I know in Thailand we are supposed to "save face", but screw this. As we now know, these scam artists get commissions and free gas for bringing dumb tourists to their shops. Yes, I am a dumb tourist. We hail a legitimate tuk tuk to take us back to the palace.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As soon as we get out at the palace, we hear loud speakers blaring warnings to not trust anyone outside the palace gates. Do not talk to them, do not trust them, they are scamming you. This speaker repeats itself every few minutes. We have such poor timing.</span></div>
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We walk into the palace gates, which is NOT closed, and rent the free pants and long skirt. Still being a bit perturbed at the whole tuk tuk ordeal, Ryan and I made a half hearted stroll for the temple with the Jade Buddha. I see a sign that says it is 15 dollars for tourists to enter the temple and immediately turn around. Nope. Not today. Almost all temples are free and I was not about to spend money on this tourist trap from hell. Ok, I may be exaggerating... but in all honesty I was over seeing the main tourist attractions at this point. It was 20 degrees beyond hot. I was as sweaty as a sausage in a sauna and equally as bloated and red. Let me just wander the streets. At the end of it all, I never got to see the Grand Palace, and I am more than ok with that.</div>
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Looking back on it, it is hilarious. Youtube heals all wounds!</div>
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Trying to get a legitimate taxi or tuk tuk away from the Grand Palace is no easy feat. Prices are doubled, sometimes even quadrupled. When I try to haggle a decent price(a price our hotel assures us it would really cost if we weren't tourists), more than a couple of taxi drivers pause before saying "you give me 1 stop?" I know what that means. NOPE. </div>
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Somehow we managed to get to the subway station, a form of transportation I trust dearly, where we head to the Chatachuk weekend market. A place that delightfully fills in the lack of tourists and tuk tuk drivers with an abundance of grilled meats and carved woods.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">N<i>o Durian or Balloons. Never has a fruit sustained such prejudice.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The market was enormous, pulsing, delicious, smelly, sounded like 90's hip hop, and ultimately so engrossing that after staying there for several hours we went back again for a second day. In this market you could find traditional tribal headgear, baby squirrels and bunnies, meme rage face shirts, freshly shaved coconut ice cream, thai tea popsicles, and waffles injected with banana or sausage. Ryan, being enticed by a large crowd surrounding a grilled pork establishment, decided he needed to get in on the grilled meat action. Being limited in his ability to write down an order in thai on the order sheet, a young gal helped him out by filling out his order form. Somewhere on the sheet she wrote a note in parenthesis before handing it to the order taker man. Whatever it was she wrote on that slip singled out Ryan as the owner of the order, because when his order came up the vendor's eyes zoomed right in on him, a white boy in a sea of thais. I would like to think she wrote "hungry, confused, white boy" in the parenthesis.</span><br />
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<br />Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-5181151658336795962012-07-20T12:35:00.004-07:002016-11-28T15:17:23.131-08:00The Road to Bangkok Is Full of Monkeys and Ancient Cities<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a few days in the wilderness, it is no surprise that Ryan and I needed time to relax our badly blistered toes. With a morning to spare before our night train to Bangkok, we decided to go to the most obvious place for a relaxing afternoon: a spa run by the women's prison. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Seriously, the women's prison in Chiang Mai runs a wonderful spa where you can have a 2 hour massage for the price of a few hamburgers. Ryan and I were led to a lavender scented room where we were told to put on a pair of tiny, see-through underwear and a towel. Being an oil massage amature, I didn't realize that I would be quite so nude in front of these strangers and left my underwear on under the pair that was provided to me in a final, futile attempt at modesty (and because their provided underwear barely covered half a butt cheek). This caused quite the moment of hilarity for the two masseuses when they came in. They excused themselves from the room as I corrected my error, giggling profusely. Needless to say, any tension was broken. While it may seem a little unnerving to be in a room alone with ex convicts, laying extremely vulnerable in a flimsy pair of too small, paper thin underwear, never fear. While I will opt for the traditional thai massage over the oil massage from now on, it was worth every butt crack chuckle.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>A very happy Ryan procures some legit Thai Tea after our massage</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Corn Pie and Terriyaki Chicken at Mcdonalds</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The bowing Ronald</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>A family on a scooter with their daughter. Fare well Chiang Mai!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The night trains from Chiang Mai to Bangkok are surprisingly clean, air conditioned, and cozy. Each car is set up in bunk bed style with a bathroom between each car. While I spent a good deal of time worrying about having to use the train bathroom after a day of eating spicy and foreign curries (because really, trying to hover over a squat toilet on a cramped, bumpy train is nobody's idea of fun), I was pleasantly surprised to find that the bathroom stall had no smell at all - I'm sure due to the fact that there is no waste storage on the train. That's right, the bathroom on the train is simply a hole that releases onto the fast moving tracks below. This makes for an awkward experience when you are at a train station and are made suddenly aware that someone on the stopped train is using the bathroom. Yeah.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Before getting into Bangkok, Ryan and I had planned to make a stop at a tiny town after sunrise, Lopburi. Lopburi is not particularly beautiful, and would not be worth mentioning if it wasn't for one particular feature - monkeys. As the train pulls into the station you start to see them, hundreds of macaques crawling the streets, climbing light poles, tumbling across phone lines, and swarming the temples. A giant golden monkey statue welcomes you into town. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>So rude.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's hard to get over the initial shock of being surrounded by hundreds of fearless monkeys. Breastfeeding mothers scramble over temples and trashcans to grab remnants in grocery bags beneath our feet, males hump females on the sidewalks, babies tug at my shoestrings while I am photographing a tussle on the telephone pole. A pitbull behind a glass store window pounds and slobbers all over the glass as a gang of macaques mocks him from the outside. Babies are everywhere. I see one mother laying on her side with a fresh, wet, baby nursing from her. A rotund male chews casually on something he picked from between his toes. An elder, hunchbacked, liver-spotted female sits against a brick wall of a temple while a baby stretches the skin on her arm and tugs on her nub of a tail. Her skin hangs around her like a shawl, the fur having fallen out in patches. She looks so human. Watching them is mesmerizing. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We hopped back on the train for our next stop, Ayutthaya - the ancient capitol city of Thailand. No longer being on the air conditioned confines of the sleeper cars, we were wedged onto the too upright, stiff, wooden seats of the commuter car - 90+ degree humid air washing over us from the giant windows. Every few minutes, people selling juice, beer, and pork balls walk up and down the aisles hoping we have changed our minds about buying food or beverages. "Sawatdee kaaaAAAAaaaaaaaa" becomes the soundtrack of the train ride as the vendors try to get our attention. Apparently a longer extended "Ka"(for females) or "Kup"(for males) is more polite and respectful, but it gets so long that it becomes an endless whine that only remind you how hot the train is and how long you have been there. KaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa. After an hour of being on the muggy train, we gave in and bought a water from a boy who must have been no more than 7 or 8. Having few common words between us to show our appreciation for the water, Ryan and the boy shared a universal sign for gratitude - the fist bump.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ayutthaya was gigantic, so gigantic that we couldn't possibly hope to see it all in a matter of a few hours. We picked a place on the map that seemed particularly promising, found a tuk tuk and pointed to a spot on the map. The ruins surround you so much that it is hard not to imagine what it must have been like when it was still the capitol city. Beauitful.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Next stop, Bangkok.</span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-30294028838182195182012-07-14T15:42:00.001-07:002016-11-28T15:18:51.892-08:00Oh my Buddha! Hilltribes and Tigers!<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DnuDHFJb3sQ/T_eGbGwu8bI/AAAAAAAACSA/OYAZK8ir_pw/s1600/DSC_0166+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DnuDHFJb3sQ/T_eGbGwu8bI/AAAAAAAACSA/OYAZK8ir_pw/s640/DSC_0166+2.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><i>One of the hilltribes near the Myanmar border </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Before heading into the jungle for our three day hilltribe trek, the eleven of us cram ourselves into the back of the truck for our final stop in civilization: a large, rural market where we buy the necessities -sunscreen and Deet. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Crowded under the wavy tin roofs are tables upon tables of furry fruits and sweaty meat. Large, slimy fish on steel slabs gasp in the humid air, a certain musky odor that dances between rotten meat and outhouse sweeps over their gills. I reassure myself that the smell must be coming from the table of ripe Durians, a fruit known for being so violently pungent that it is banned explicitly in subways and shopping malls. Some people describe it as being the combination of sour milk, old gym shoes, rotten meat, and a bit of dog doo. I hear it tastes great. Somehow, thinking of the smell as being from a fruit makes me stop myself from holding my breath. Ignorance is bliss.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A tidy lineup of pig heads sweat under the lights, snouts to the sky, surrounded by their rumps and hooves and indiscernibles. In a creative and bold attempt to keep away the hovering flies, one vendor has tied a plastic bag to the end of a fan blade. The bag, which is full of what looks like bloody entrails, swings above the meat. It certainly kept the flies away, I can say that. At least he double bagged it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While pontificating the physics of centrifugal force on fans and meat, I felt a small warm hand tug at my fingers. I looked down to see a small hunchbacked woman smiling toothlessly at me. With the severe 90 degree angle of her legs to her back she couldn't have stood more than three feet tall. In what must have been the slowest kidnapping of all time, she proceeded to grab my hand in a grip that was shockingly firm, nodded her head, and began shuffling me away, past the stalls, and out of the market. Being curious, and thinking maybe she just needed someone taller to get her through the crowd, I allowed myself to be shuffled away. When we got to the edge of the market she sat down on the steps, looked up at me, and said what could only be deciphered as "banana". She repeated this over and over again, but I simply could not figure out what it was she meant or why she had taken me out into the back alley of the market. I will never know.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our next stop on the way up the mountain was at Tiger Kingdom, a place where you pay a ridiculously small fee to hang out with tigers. I had read about the Tiger Temple in the middle of Thailand which was rumored to drug their tigers into a calmer state, so I was wary of that being the case here as well. This place, which raises the baby tigers for all of the zoos in Thailand, was supposed to be better, so I was hopeful. In we went. All of the tigers were under two years old, once they are old enough they get sent to different zoos.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The beads of sweat on my brow give a hint at the humidity</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The babies are ridiculously cute, but not very soft. Their fur is surprisingly wiry and rough. One of them hisses at Ryan. All of them love belly rubs. The belly rubs are true to the bigger tigers as well. While they may seem remarkably calm, they went through bouts of wrestling with their siblings every few minutes. They didn't appear drugged at all, they just seemed like a bigger version of my own rascally cats.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While all of the tigers seemed to be kept relatively healthy and well looked after, something about the tiger kingdom didn't feel as special to me as the Elephant Farm. We were told that the babies are taken away from their mothers almost immediately after birth. The purpose of this isn't for the health of the babies, but for the sake of tourism. That sits weirdly with me. The whole thing felt like we were being shuffled in and out to take pictures. It had that awkward familiarity of being posed in rushed, uncomfortable positions for Prom</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> photos. Any time the tigers started to play, they would get bopped on the nose with a stick until they sat back down. While I understand that a dangerous animal needs to be trained not to bite or attack trainers, not allowing them time to play seems like winding up a ticking time bomb. There are simply too many tourists going through in a day to allow the tiger or the visitor to have an enriching experience.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> The artificial feeling of it overshadowed a lot of my experience. I didn't get the sense that conservation was a big issue for them like it was for Patara Elephant Farm. Tourism was definitely their priority. While I wouldn't particularly say anything bad about the Tiger Kingdom, by far their facilities were astounding compared to others I have heard about in southeast Asia, it doesn't seem like the best possible situation. With so many visitors a day, it is hard to find that perfect balance, but not allowing the babies to be with their mothers for any part of the day, to make money, seems wrong. The tigers themselves were wonderful and magnificent, but they deserve better.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After another 30 minutes up a bumpy, muddy road, where we occupied ourselves with conversations about british chocolate and bad accents, we stopped for a visit to a beautiful leech infested waterfall and had lunch at a nearby roadside restaurant. The path to the waterfall was covered in vicious ants and carnivorous plants. The bushy carnivore plant had long fernlike leaves that clasped shut, seeming to wilt, when touched. The leeches had a magnificent way of sneaking into socks. I was prey to the biting ants.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At lunch, we befriended a couple of local cats. This was the first of many cats that decided Ryan has a good lap for napping. The cats in Thailand were all tiny with huge, mesmerizing eyes. Most of them had tails that kink halfway up the tail into a small ball. It was so common that I thought it was a modification done on purpose, like docked tails and ears on dogs. It turns out the trait is genetic and has become the dominant one among cats in this part of the world. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After another stomach churning ride up the curvy mountain we were finally at the starting point for our trek. Being the optimistic dweeb that I can often be, I did not bring hiking shoes. On most of the pictures I was able to find of the trek before the trip, it was on mild inclines. The trek was rated at mild-moderate. I brought my hiking water sandals, thinking my biggest issue would be potential thunderstorms...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was ridiculously unprepared. While yes, I have done some long hikes/backpacking in my day, I should have remembered that it was almost all done in the lovely low altitude of the desert, or in the colder mountain weather of northern California. I have never hiked in such high altitudes in 90+ degree humid weather. Add that on top of comically wrong shoes, and I was a disaster for the whole trek. Every mountain seemed to add on another blister; by the end of the first day I had about 6 blisters on each foot. After popping one particularly bulbous blister that first night, I was somehow not surprised to see a blister within the blister. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, the hills of Northern Thailand were remarkable and entirely worth my exhaustive use of every curse word in my vocabulary and the mop like sweating of my reeking armpits. The benefit of being a wobbly mess in the back of the pack is that I saw so many little details I probably would have missed if I was chugging along. I saw baby birds, enormous stick bugs, and was able to do some mushroom farming with our astounding guide, Boone, along the way. He taught me about how he knows which mushrooms are safe to eat based on the way the insects act around the mushroom. We filled a whole bag.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh Boone. We couldn't have had a better guide over the 3 day trek. Being a native to the hilltribes, his family escaped from Burma a long time ago to reside in Northern Thailand as free people. He was older than all of us, but never broke a sweat on the whole trek. Like most Thais I got to know on the trip, he had that lighthearted and yet honest thai sense of humor that pokes fun at us silly foreigners while still being charming. "Young people! Old Body!" he would chuckle at us with a twinkle in his eye as he jogged up and down the mountain singing Bob Marley and Beatles tunes. I was wincing all the way down the steep muddy mountains to the tune of <i>No Woman, No Cry.</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Some more Booneisms</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Oh, that's ladyboy milk!"- Boone o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n the honey we used for breakfast</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"No money, no honey" - Boone on why he isn't married</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Ladyboy no like the thai banana" - Boone on both our observance of how tiny bananas were here in thailand, and also why ladyboys prefer white boyfriends.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Oh my Buddha!" - Boone on everything exciting or treacherous</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Uh Oh! My King Cobra!" - Boone on almost getting his family jewels smashed between a rock and a bamboo raft.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Click on it, another panorama</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After literally slip n' sliding down the final hill into the village, we settled down into our cozy accommodations for the night on thin bed pads surrounded by holy mosquito nets - I don't mean holy in the blessed sense. I slept remarkably well, though I had a few more bug bites waking up than I had going to sleep.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At approximately 4 in the morning a chorus of roosters began a round of cockadoodledooing around the village. I had to slam my hand over my mouth to stifle my delirious chuckles as a rooster in desperate need of crowing school blurted out the most pathetic crow right on the other side of the bamboo wall from my head. A buffalo peeked into the window above us. The absurdity of the situation was more than I could bear. I was a giggling mess.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That morning we trekked to Boone's village, where piglets and cows ran through the streets. We hiked to their rice fields nearby where everyone was rapidly tilling the hillside with new rice. Two little boys watched, machetes in hand, as their mother seeded the hills. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Furry Fruit</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Boone showed us a plant that you can blow bubbles with. Just crack the stem and blow!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Ryan is helping out in the gray shirt in the back</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Another panorama, click to big it up.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Boone's village with the gorgeous cows</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our second Elephant ride on the trip was a heap more terrifying than the first. On these elephants we sat on top of lofty metal seats, perched precariously on their backs. My arms were sore from holding onto the bars so tightly. I allowed this Elephant to eat my walking stick.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our next mode of transportation would be by bamboo raft. We tied all of our backpacks to a bamboo perch in front of the raft and sailed our way down the river surrounded by jungle. Water buffalo chewed their cud while they cooled off in the water next to us, big heads peeking out of the murky brown water. Our group was split onto two rafts with Boone leading the other raft. While our river guide seemed to be taking his job very seriously, needing every moment to maneuver us around boulders and fallen trees, Boone was effortlessly leading his raft while simultaneously fishing and swimming. Only Boone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a couple of hours on the raft we arrived at our village for the night. Resting at the table outside of our new bamboo bedroom we were almost instantly surrounded by a group of women from the village who insisted on giving us massages. I say insisted because all of a sudden they were rubbing our shoulders despite our attempts to tell them we were fine. Honestly, a massage was too much sensation after the hiking we had done the past couple of days. And in case I haven't mentioned it yet, Thai massages are not gentle. One little kid kept covering my arms in loads of bracelets until I gave in and bought one. A villager walked by with a rather relaxed chicken clutched in his hands. He went right into the kitchen. We had chicken pumpkin curry for dinner.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to Boone, this village eats dogs and monkeys. They also sell their babies to the more well off villagers in the tribe. Apparently the black dogs are worth more because they can cure more ailments when eaten. Boone has tried dog and monkey but doesn't chose to eat them if he has a choice. As he says, monkey is too similar to human and he doesn't like the taste of dog. Underneath the table was a sleeping black dog with a lame leg. On the bench across from us an elderly village woman wearing a tribal skirt and flip flops smokes a long pipe with an "I don't give a shit" face on. We drink their homemade rice whisky and catch fireflies in empty jam jars.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Our trail mushrooms!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I woke up the next morning to the smell of smoke from breakfast cooking and quiet mews. Nothing can get me out of bed faster than kittens. They did not disappoint. Ry and I picked them up, their bony little bodies vibrating violently with their purrs. We walked through town before getting back on the raft for our final two hours down the river.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Boone told us the owner of this house was one of the wealthiest in town. He works in Chiang Mai and uses the money to better his home and family. Notice how he has wooden boards instead of woven bamboo for his walls? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While our raft ride began with a beautiful, dare I say almost chilly, sprinkling of rain, we soon started to come upon a bit of mild white water. Now, in a bamboo raft even a bit of whitewater is going to be a problem. While Boone was able to still fish and swim and raft simultaneously, the same could not be said for our doomed raft. In Titanic like fashion, our guide broke his bamboo pole and we went barreling into a boulder. We all slid forward violently as our raft began to sink under the pressure of the relentless water. We all had to abandon ship before getting pulled down into the river and rocks with it. After scrambling off of the raft the water quickly took the opportunity to carry us down the river until we all seemed to hit the same boulder where we hung on as our raft twisted into a mess of sticks and rushing water. While I should have been worried about my scraped thighs and the potential leeches, I couldn't keep my eyes off of my backpack with my camera inside. Ryan, the good man that he is, secured my camera tightly inside of it's hopefully waterproof bag before he jumped off the raft himself. Priorities, haha.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other raft came to our rescue as the strongest lifted the raft out of the mini rapid it was stuck in. Remarkably, and this is a testament to the miraculousness of bamboo, the raft untwisted itself and looked no worse for the wear. It was missing a couple of bamboo poles, but it was good to go. So good to go, in fact, that it started passing us by at a rapid speed while we cheered from the rock we were all stranded on. Seeing Ryan almost fall off of the now swiftly moving raft triggered me to leap after him in overly dramatic fashion. I tumbled into the water and over a bunch of rocks until I smashed myself up against the raft. Others followed suit. We were back in action.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We ended at another village where hot pad thai awaited us, along with our truck ride back into town. On the way back down the mountain we stopped at a gas station with a convenience store and a bathroom. Now, without getting too gross... let's just say I was overjoyed to see a bathroom after being "bunged up" - a lovely term I learned from my british trekmates - for 3 days in the jungle. "Lobster Hot Plate" flavored Lays chips welcomed us back into civilization. That night in Chiang Mai, tired and sore, our whole group made a pilgrimage past night bazaars and dogs dyed purple in front of sketchy massage parlors to a place that we were all undeniably craving after days of eating nothing but curry and pad thai... we found an amazing American Burger place, Duke's. Fries never tasted so good.</span><br />
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<br />Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-1908099836798474932012-07-09T16:25:00.006-07:002016-11-28T15:19:37.610-08:00Swimming With Elephants and Ant Egg Omeletts at the Night Market<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-yFhH3gW8TPdAijl7gh-TFUdItFFKSAM4ag5ULiub8aYlE9LO6We2YkUwRDSLOMwAkW0DfXJjBzqQQB3ckmwEkvwRVBBLWM0VknEWUmINsKXvYF8NAm5sS9Lvtwhs9N__2MjIs8sakZf/s1600/DSC_0829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-yFhH3gW8TPdAijl7gh-TFUdItFFKSAM4ag5ULiub8aYlE9LO6We2YkUwRDSLOMwAkW0DfXJjBzqQQB3ckmwEkvwRVBBLWM0VknEWUmINsKXvYF8NAm5sS9Lvtwhs9N__2MjIs8sakZf/s1600/DSC_0829.JPG" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Elephants are not difficult to see in Thailand. There are dozens of Elephant "sanctuaries" and tourist attractions where you can see an elephant for a few dollars and get a picture sitting on their backs. Unfortunately they are paraded around everywhere in, more often than not, disturbing situations for the benefit of the tourist. While on the trip I saw Elephants on more than one occasion, made to work with limping legs, still bleeding from prod marks behind their ears, and in various states of poor health. Because of this, I put in hours looking for the right place to go and after narrowing it down to a small handful of reputable places, chose the magical haven that is Patara Elephant Farm.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I had a decent idea of what to expect, I had read hundreds of reviews, and I looked thoroughly into the mission statements of the owners, Pat and Dao. One of the main reasons I chose Patara was because they only allow about 15-20 visitors a day so that each person can be paired with an individual Elephant with that Elephant's Mahout. Money was not their main focus. With their amount of Elephants, and their massive piece of land, they could have shuffled hundreds of visitors in a day, but they don't. I was still not prepared for what my day would entail.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Getting out of the Van that picked us up from our hotel, I was instantly floored by the beauty of the Farmland that Patara is on. Pat is passionate about organic farming and runs his Elephant farm on the same land that his family owns. The hills are so green that Ireland would be ashamed. The grass grows comically thicker and taller, making you feel like you have shrunk into a child sized version of yourself. The air feels cooler in the mountains, surrounded by clouds and jungle and rivers. I was so preoccupied with taking in the beauty of the landscape that I forgot for a moment that I was here to see Elephants. I was not prepared when my scanning eyes landed on a herd of free roaming Elephants nearby, untethered, free of barriers, Ivory tusked males and freckle faced females flapping their ears and eating the incredibly large grass alongside their bumbling babies . I felt that bursting, frantic, pounding in my chest that I feel right before a vertical drop on a rollercoaster. My throat tightened. Replace the dinosaurs with Elephants, and this is almost exactly the moment I had. Being the nerd I am, I actually did yell out to Ryan, "I feel like I am in that scene in Jurassic Park!"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We cross a River where an Elephant was bathing itself and come upon a small clearing of benches where we wait for the rest of the visitors for the day. Piles of corn and bananas are being hoovered up by a pair of mother Elephants and their babies. All of us cautiously stand back - because these are, after all, extremely dangerous and prehistoric looking creatures. Lanky roosters and hens cluck around stealing bits of corn and husk, oblivious to the giant beasts hovering over them, defiantly kicking away corn from under an elephant foot. A baby elephant picks up a bunch of palm fronds and chases away a rooster, looking as awkward and adorable as you can imagine, stumbling over his tree trunk legs and waving his fronds to and fro. His eyes are so wide that you can see the whites and the patches of hair on his head stand up so firmly as if he had stuck his trunk into an electric socket. They are an utterly goofy sight to behold. The other baby stampedes a nearby tree and begins frantically scratching his body against it like Baloo from The Jungle Book. He does this to a soundtrack of guffawing onlookers for at least five minutes. The thin tree bends and quivers under his weight. At 4 feet tall and stronger than a bull, baby is a misleading word. Nonetheless, they are tumbling around, causing mischief and being goofy like typical babies. </span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Look at that chicken on the left, now look at that grass, HUGE.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> The baby elephants attempted first contact</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> The mahouts gave us bananas as a friendly offering</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can tell you from experience now that Elephants have big, gooshy, slimy, soft, tongues. Their skin is rough and their hair is so hard and prickly it feels like a bristle brush. They were all so gentle when taking food directly into their mouth, but if you hesitated too long with a banana in hand, you were going to get your arms molested by a slimy, huffing trunk. The are very grabby, the babies have no manners yet, but they are so full of personality.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Each of us was given a traditional mahout tunic to wear for the day, hand made by the women of the tribe that the mahouts come from. The shirts not only make us look way cooler than we are, but help the elephants understand that we are to be trusted, part of the tribe that has been taking care of them for years. Pat, the charming and wonderful owner of the farm sits us all down for a long, impassioned talk about the state of Elephants in Thailand, the way he runs his farm, and what we will be doing for the day. It's hard to summarize his entire talk, but I can walk away from here knowing this is a good man, with great intentions, doing his absolute best with a smile and a great sense of humor. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Spraying on sunscreen like a good pale boy</i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Modeling Mahout Wear</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My mahout for the day, Un (I know I must be spelling it horribly wrong), walks me through the long grass, past piles of herby elephant dung to meet up with the elephant that was chosen for me. MeeMai is both the leader of the herd I was with and a mother of a boisterous 1 year old. She has that beautiful freckled snout that so many Asian Elephants are blessed with coupled with the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. They are at least two inches long. She is beautiful and terrifying all at once. When I first meet her she lets out a low, gutteral rumble that sets my heart racing before she flaps her ears slowly, a sign of contentment. Her baby bumps into me slowly and almost knocks me over.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> Eyelashes!!!</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have to give due credit here for the pictures you see where I am included in them, and where we are swimming. The lovely Mahouts there took some amazing pictures of us. My Mahout was constantly using my camera to get good shots.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> Goofy baby crawling all over the young adult male. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We spent a good chunk of time learning from our Mahouts how to keep the Elephants healthy, checking their poop for moisture, smell, and fiber length is crucial. It smells surprisingly earthy, like wet grass and mud. After brushing them, scrubbing them in the river, feeding them, and checking their feet, we were ready to mount them for a hike up to their favorite waterfall to swim in. At Patara, people only ride on the necks bareback because it is the least painful to the elephant. At most other places in Thailand you see these big wooden or metal seats strapped to their backs, depending on the place it can leave deep scars and marks. Honestly, the riding is more terrifying than enjoyable, but we had a long way to go, so it was rather efficient. I got more comfortable with it as we went and I developed a slightly less shoddy form of balance (or lack thereof).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The big elephants quicken their pace when they see the water and immerse their giant bodies into the river while we eat an array of coconut dishes wrapped up in banana leaves. Then we join them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As if the day wasn't already the most surreal, amazing, adventure I could have ever imagined, swimming in the river with the elephants was beyond my wildest imagination. I never could have guessed in a million years I would ever be so privileged to get to do this, and that's considering I am going to school at a zoo. I think my face says it all. The babies kick their big legs into the air and roll around in a way that they never could under their heavy weight on land. They spray water at us, they wrestle with us, they grab our arms with their trunks and pull us around. We gladly oblige.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is my definition of heaven. At the end of the day I felt so fulfilled, exhausted, and happy that I felt like I was actually living someone else's life. Before we left, I watched one of the locals carving elephants out of wood, pet an adorable cat, and snapped a picture of my Mahout before hopping back in the van to our hotel. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>My Mahout!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The day was not over. As soon as we got back to the hotel, collapsing on the far from soft bed with legs sore from riding elephants, we had to meet up with our guide and group that we would be trekking into the hilltribes with tomorrow. We all hopped into a songthaew (imagine that little pick up truck, and pack 11 of us into it) and were driven to a questionable location on the edge of town where we were told our itinerary and packing list for the next few days. Some stranger was standing in for our regular guide, who was not in town yet. On the wall was a very much not to scale, handcrafted map of the hilltribe villages and our path through them. In the background a Looney tunes video played for a couple of children. I think we might have been at their house/office, but I will never be sure.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That night, because I like to over extend myself, we went to the Sunday Night Market - one of many night markets in Chiang Mai, but arguably the best. Expanding for blocks on blocks on blocks, the market starts around sunset and goes late into the night, weaving itself around the lit up temples and into alleyways and crevices for as far as you can walk. Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, you can find anything here to eat, from Pad Thai and Fried Bananas to Omelets filled with bug larvae and cuttlefish on a stick. I'm ashamed to admit I am not very adventurous when it comes to meat, so we played it pretty safe, but we gorged ourself on street food nonetheless. We must have had at least 10 different dishes by the time the night was through. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We bought 3 of them. I'm not ashamed.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>She is hand painting those right there</i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thai sushi was disgusting</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> Delicious fried mashed potato balls. A huge pile of them for 60 cents.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I asked him what meat was in his dumplings and he squeezed that rubber chicken, which then shook and clucked violently. We got some, of course.</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Making glass unicorns like a boss.</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> The walled city</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We wandered from stall to stall, passing blind musicians singing karaoke in the middle of the street, listening to the chatter of conversations we couldn't even hope to understand, and simply enjoyed ourselves. The sounds of clashing street performers and the smells of fruits and meats command your attention in all directions. We got 30 minute, 2 dollar foot massages while sipping on freshly made passionfruit smoothies as we watched teenagers play music in panda masks. They take their massaging seriously here, cracking toes, slapping calves and grinding arches. The more you wince, the more they grind, the bigger they smile, "Good! Good!" </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Stumbling home in the dark, we were serenaded by geckos so large that when one plunked down behind us onto a fallen tin roof I jumped and squeeled. I thought someone had followed us, but it was just a gecko. Just a Gecko, as if I could say that everyday.</span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-19205367798844429942012-07-08T17:38:00.003-07:002016-11-28T15:20:31.943-08:00Monks With Iphones and Precarious Modes of Transportation in Chiang Mai, Thailand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ridiculous beauty</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because of my newfound ability to sleep through whole 11 hour flights like a hibernating bear, the 7.5 hours to Bangkok seemed to go by in a blink. Before I knew it we were landing, the doors were opening, and my hair was recoiling into a state of frizz previously unseen. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a welcome gift to Thailand I received a permanent, all encompassing, coating of sweat that remained with me during the entire duration of my stay. Bathing twice a day here is not out of the question. If the airport wasn't full of abundant orchid displays and golden statues, I would have been a lot more grumpy. We shuffled past the "Waiting Room for Monks" and breezed through another friendly customs check before crashing for the night in a nearby hotel.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Already, Elephants everywhere</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Pee Place"</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Detail on the Airport Doors</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We wake up the next morning, after a night slept on sheets doused in sweat, and head back to the airport. Already, Thailand is a completely different world from Japan, but equally contrasting from my own. Monumental arches span the freeways and line the roads with images of the King in his prime- "Long Live The King" embossed in golden script. The taxis pay their own tribute with kitschy king portraits in tiny wooden frames hanging from their rearview mirrors and clipped to their visors. The King is omnipresent. Watching over the asphalt of the grey highway are periodic golden statues surrounded by planters overflowing with greenery and flowers. It is SO HOT that I am fanning myself in the air conditioned shuttle.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Birds must be causing some problems here</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Obligatory Snack Assessment </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a brief one hour flight - spent in the company of a large Texan Ex-pat who taught us the phrase "Mai Peht" ("Not Spicy" - more of a laughable suggestion than an actual request as we eventually found out) and helped correct our pronunciations of "Hello" and "Thank You" to a mildly less embarrassing butchering of the Thai language - we are in Chiang Mai.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If in Japan there are vending machines everywhere, in Thailand there are food carts everywhere. In the remote alleys of residential neighborhoods, behind mechanics, in a ditch, you will find a steaming metal cart, attached to a motorbike, serving up complicated soups and roasting whole ducks. They are everywhere, and they are on the go, winding through aggressive traffic before popping up for an hour or two here and there. While I guess it shouldn't be so shocking to me, considering I live in Southern California where the Taco Truck reigns supreme, there is something defiantly miraculous about a single man on a motorbike stirring up coconut milk and mixing in freshly roasted meats over a blazing stove, a never ending abundance of herbs and vegetables seeming to flow freely out of an impossibly small compartment below the stove. Mary Poppins would be impressed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Equally abundant are the massage parlors and the temples, juxtaposed next to one another, across from one another, and all around one another - big shining golden dragons crammed up next to establishments that do "massages" into the midnight hour. It doesn't take much effort to separate the legitimate massage parlors from the seedy ones. The good ones usually don't look like a nightclub from the outside. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chiang Mai is still an old city in the very traditional sense of the word. The old part of town is surrounded by a moat and a very ancient crumbling wall with tall, heavy gates that you pass through to get in. The modern and the traditional carry on side by side here: monks texting on iphones, four story buildings erected with bamboo scaffolding, Ronald McDonald stands with his hands clasped together in a permanent bow in front of every McDonalds, grandmas and ten year olds weave motorcycles through traffic with chickens and pigs in tow. Miniature buddhist shrines can be found in almost every backyard, protected by walls of concrete with shards of beer bottle glass sticking up at all angles towards the sky. Geckos climb the walls in bars where they blast hip hop. They do seem to love American hip hop. I haven't heard so much Snoop Dogg since the 90's. Chiang Mai is wild, busy, cozy, calm, and holy all at once.</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bamboo, the wonder grass</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Clothes hanging from... you guessed it... a bamboo rod</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bananas on barbed wire</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That is not how you hold pizza</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Backyard shrine and pigeon mansion</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even though temples are as common as Starbucks in the states, there is one temple that outshines them. With little wiggle room in our schedule, I was determined to squeeze in a visit to Doi Sutthep on our first day in Thailand. So, as the sun was threatening to go down, we hired a songthaew to take us up the mountain, into the clouds, and to the steps of Wat Doi Sutthep.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Let me take a moment to express the already shifty form of transportation that is a songthaew. A songthaew is essentially a covered pickup with bench seats in the bed of it, without a back to hold you in. There are no seatbelts (and if there were, the driver would give you a rather offended look with a quick "nonono" if you tried to use them, as I found out in a bangkok taxi), so the only thing between you and the pavement is a rough stop. Couple this with traffic so intimate that I had a conversation with a motorist about his high quality tattoos while dangling out of a songthaew at full speed, and you have a good idea of how fragile the situation is. Motorcycles and cars alike will speed up right behind one another before making mad dashes to the side where they squeeze within centimeters of neighboring cars and bikes, motorcycles piled high with families of four, large appliances, and live animals to boot. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now add on top of that a blossoming thunderstorm and you have a fairly good idea of road, but it is only a suggestion. Our driver drove on the right side of the road until the very last moment before a head on collision was about to occur. This sweet, kind, elder man in a straw hat gave us a wild ride with the biggest smile on his face the entire time. Songthaews do a poor job of keeping you dry in sideways rain.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We find absurd situations hilarious</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Sorry for the shoddy camerawork, I was holding on with my other hand for dear life, this is actually a very non crowded street. No Danger here.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When we got to Doi Sutthep, every tourist was leaving, food carts were packing up, streetside vendors were huddling under tents, and even the stray dogs and pigeons were giving us warning looks from under cover. As we got out of the songthaew, we bought a couple of ponchos from a brood of old women who couldn't control themselves from laughing heartily at the silly tourists who wanted to climb up 304 slippery steps in the rain to see a temple.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Yes, the handrail is a dragon head expelling four more dragon heads</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the top of those 304 steps is the temple. A monk asks us to take off our shoes before entering the grounds and warns us to be careful because of the puddles. The place IS one giant puddle. No other tourists seem to be around as we shuffle around in the water, listening to the monks humming their evening chant (we have a habit of walking by right at that time of day don't we?). Their bright saffron robes - which stand out on the streets of Chiang Mai - fade into the background of the rich golds and reds here. Words don't do justice to the architecture and artistry of the place, so I won't even try. To say "pictures don't do it justice" is a cliche I am willing to use in this case. The picture can't give you the sense of what it feels like to be surrounded on all sides by the colors and detail. Sensory overload. Chimes, humming, rain, distant thunder.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Ryan writes on the fabric to be wrapped around something special in the temple (translations not clear, but it seemed like a good idea to join in)</i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Back down the steps as the only other tourists we saw come up</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>So Green</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-51769072928058244852012-07-05T20:06:00.002-07:002016-11-28T15:21:18.121-08:00Pocari Sweat, Peaches, and Bidets in Narita Japan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Gravestones in Narita, Japan</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We never intended to go to Japan this year, it was the serendipitous outcome of inflating gas prices and inconvenient airport transfers. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We had our eyes set on a very specific flight that would have a layover in Hong Kong. I watched that flight every single day, and mapped out all the equivalent flights to find the precise point where it would drop. I would buy my ticket on a tuesday, 3 months prior to the departure date. That was the sweet spot.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But as gas prices rose, so did the ticket price. That ticket never hit the sweet spot, and we found ourselves in a very uncomfortable situation. All of the flights were a good 400 dollars more than we expected to pay. That was when we found what looked like the most inconvenient flight imaginable... one labeled with a whopping 40 hour travel time... and an airport transfer to an airport almost 2 hours away from the first one. Not only would it be like this on the way TO Thailand, it would be the same on the way back. It sounded like an atrocious waste of our time and a horrible idea for the severely jet lagged. We passed over this flight more than a few times over the course of a week before realizing we were in desperation. This flight would save us about 600 dollars each. Nothing else even came close. We booked it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we began planning the logistics of transferring airports, which is insanely intimidating when you look at the knotted up yarn images that are the Japanese railway maps, we started to realize we would have a perfect amount of time to explore a small town near one of the airports. Ryan read on a blog somewhere that Narita has one of the best sushi spots in Japan. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ryan loves sushi. I mean, he really loves sushi. One of his life goals is to walk into a small sushi spot, in Japan, and have the sushi chef lovingly carve up the best fish of the day for him. After Ry read to me the glowing review of this "little sushi shop" that has no signage in English, he paused and gave me the same look that I once saw in an old home video of him on Chanukah morning after receiving an abundance of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures. With eyes welling up and a tear on its way (really), Ryan said to me - in a high pitch whisper somehow befitting a grown man channeling his inner 9 year old- "Do you know what this <i>means</i>???" And somewhere, in a land far far away, a unicorn was born and a fairy given its wings.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To give you an idea of how ludicrously perfect our trip went, we landed into the Land of the Rising Sun as the sun was, literally, rising. To give you an idea of how stereotypically adorable Japan can be, the first thing I saw when we landed in Haneda was a Pokemon Plane... and then a Hello Kitty plane. Clearly, they are trying very hard to break the stereotype.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Seriously.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I couldn't make this up.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We slept through all but an hour or so of the 11 hour flight, so we were feeling extremely well rested and ready to galavant through the land of cuteness and raw fish. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now let's be real here. I began and ended my asian journey on a Japanese toilet, so it deserves a little type time. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... the most high tech toilet that Japanese innovation could create. This is the norm. They take their toilets seriously. There was even a map on the outside of the bathroom that detailed which toilets had which options available. How many options could there be you might ask? Well, let me show you.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <i>"The Angle of Cleansing water coming in contact with the buttocks is adjustable"</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can't tell you what the difference is between SPRAY and BIDET. I certainly tried both out (You know, for science). I also don't really see a big difference in the positioning of the bidet towards the "FRONT" or "REAR". Both seemed rather inefficient, but I give them an A for effort. Maybe they aren't engineered to maneuver an American Derrière.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Honestly, this was one of the most primitive of the high tech toilets I found compared to the Narita Airport bathroom. The one in the Narita Airport was trying it's hardest to relieve you of any embarrassing moments you might have in the bathroom stall.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Powerful Deodorizer" and "Warm Seat" options. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don't know about you, but a "warm seat" is alarmingly unwelcome when I sit on a toilet. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Flushing Sound: Press to play back flushing sound to muffle toilet sound"</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, I had to try every single option. While great in theory, the flushing sound is probably the least likely thing to distract others from your bathroom activities. Imagine the worst, midi quality, flushing sound from any cartoon you can imagine on a never ending loop. The sound was so bad. I kept waiting for it to end, painfully aware of how loud and obnoxious and inauthentic it sounded. If I was a wee bit smarter I would have realized I have to press "STOP" to end any of the features. It will gladly bidet your behind into a raw, raiseny rump. I learned this while simultaneously learning you can have all the features going at once (a consequence of attempting to turn off one feature by starting another.)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While it might seem that I spent our entire 12 hour layover in the bathroom, we did manage to zoom through customs in matter of minutes and somehow managed to buy a train ticket to get us through Tokyo and into Narita City. I think it says a lot about the efficiency and "sense" of the Japanese train system when I can honestly say I had a harder time navigating the subways of Washington DC than those of Tokyo (And this goes for Bangkok as well). This is not to say the system is easier and smaller, it is huge and complicated.. but the train workers are beyond helpful and it runs flawlessly in a way that feels intuitive.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I assure you Ryan is only telling you that we were buying two tickets, not trying to emulate a stereotypical Japanese tourist</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first asian man we happened to meet waiting for the train turned out to be a guy from LA that was headed to Bangkok as well. The three of us stuck together for the hour and a half ride to Narita. We humored ourselves with public transportation, the amount of "cute" everywhere, and the astounding habits of sleeping Japanese business men. I don't know how, but swarms of business men ride these trains, go into what looks like deep, REM quality sleep within moments of sitting down, wake up right before they need to get off, and strut off the train as if they weren't just sleeping on some strangers shoulder- mouth agape- moments earlier. Even more bizarre is that the strangers don't seem to mind the intimate interaction of practically being drooled on. This was not an isolated case either, this was happening all around us. Couple that with a comical amount of girls in schoolgirl uniforms with pigtails and hello kitty backpacks and you have a fairly thorough picture of the train I was on. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Superhero panda, with puffy lips and hangover eyes, wants to remind you that </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>if you try to block the closing doors you might cry</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After getting over the initial shock of how predictably "japan" everything was, I started to notice all of the little things that reminded me I was far from home. Ambient sounds were foreign to me. Every time the train would pull into a station and the doors would open I was alarmed by the bird sounds. There was nothing special about them, but they were just so different from the typical sparrow, starling, crow, and songbirds that I hear all over the US. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We were finally in Narita city as all of the shops were starting to open. Making a stop into the train snack shop we had to asses the snack situation of Japan, because I believe it says a lot about a place. We were not disappointed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I think this is shrink wrapped snack sushi. It looked like rice wrapped around velveeta, but who knows</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By far my favorite find was what can only be described as bloated-harlequin-baby-teletubby peach candy. It was altogether adorable and disturbing. I couldn't resist. Better yet, each candy was individually wrapped with an equally terrifying yet different character. I was starting to understand why my biggest fans on Youtube are from Japan. We share a common appreciation for gross cuteness.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you notice, I also got a peach tea. Peach flavored candies and drinks were everywhere. Literally everywhere. As common as vending machines. And I really mean it. You can find a vending machine in the middle of a deserted alley in Japan. When you are lost in the twisted streets of Narita and you find yourself between a clothesline and a hardplace, there it will be... a bright glaring drink machine begging you to buy "Pocari Sweat".</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What is that you say? Could that be Tommy Lee Jones plastered in all his stern, pock faced glory on a Japanese vending machine? Yes. Yes it is. Like a BOSS.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You see, what Bill Murray was in <i>Lost in Translation</i> is what Tommy Lee Jones <i>really</i> is in Japan. His face is all around billboards and commercials advertising Suntory Coffee. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Youtube is full of these. You're welcome.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you feel compelled to watch 13 minutes of these lovely relics in a row... by all means.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And apparently he's not the only one to do this. Having rather famous American movie stars act in ridiculous japanese advertisements is a "thing". He is following in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery. The list is expansive. Enjoy. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">http://www.japander.com/japander/archive.htm</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I encourage you to devote some time to that webpage </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Japan had already won over my heart and I was still only a block from the train station.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All around us were small, impeccably clean, one way streets that fold in on each other. With not a trashcan in sight, these streets rivaled disneyland in cleanliness. With the street signs being entirely in Kanji, I had started to lose a bit of hope in finding the Sushi shop Ryan so desperately had his heart set on. All I had to work from was a picture in my head and the name of the place... which was not helping us since nothing was in a recognizable alphabet.We are lost. I love it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have a weakness for rice crackers. I will tear through a bag like it's candy. Also, while I hate most fish, I love to eat Eel. Don't ask how I make sense of this, there is no logic to it other than the fact that Eel is abundantly fatty and covered in delicious sauces. To my great delight and joy, Narita's streets are freckled with both Rice Cracker shops and Eel shops. I don't just mean stores sell both of these things... I mean there are full shops devoted entirely to rice crackers and eel, respectively. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Rice Cracker heaven, made in the shop</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>A girl who has seen heaven</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It really doesn't get any fresher than having your eel meal gutted and deboned right in front of you. In fact, they display it for everyone walking by on the street. Grab, nail, slice, debone, grill, repeat.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Flan ice-cream. Enough said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>You couldn't find two dorkier people happier to be in Japan</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This is meat or fish of some kind</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Most of the tourists we saw were Japanese coming from other parts of Japan to see the huge temple in the middle of town</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the end of the long curvy street of Eel and Crackers is a giant park with an enormous buddhist temple... I would tell you more about it, but I really know nothing. All of the signs explaining the significance were in Japanese. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We descend up the steps, passing by ponds full of lazy
turtles sunning themselves on coin
covered rocks, hazy pagodas filled with incense, and thick stones carved with
kanji and cradled in moss. We walk through woods and stumble upon splintery
wooden buildings painted in intricate reds, blues and golds, each one more
beautiful than the previous. At last we come upon the Pagoda of Peace, the
highest point in Narita, a pagoda atop a hill upon a hill. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Inside of the Pagoda, we have to take off our shoes before
we can go to the main room. My feet welcome the
cooshy orange and green carpet that lines the narrow stairwell up to the main
room. We walk up the stairs until we get to a gigantic room covered from floor
to ceiling in astonishing gold detail. To say it was intricate doesn’t do it
justice. I couldn’t take any pictures in there, but trust me when I say it was awe-inspiring.
The ceiling and lights were as detailed as lace in hand painted red, blue, and
gold designs that met at the middle of the room where a giant, blue, lion
headed man surrounded by flames sat facing the balcony that overlooked the park.
One girl was sitting in front of the lion man, crying uncontrollably. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>No Scotties, clearly.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On our way back to the front of the park, we took advantage of the plentiful vending machines.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Walking back to the gates, we started to hear this loud vibrational chanting. It was echoing all around, so naturally we ran to find the source of it. We were led to the main temple in the front of the park. Walking up to the door of the temple the vibrations became so strong that it was hard to categorize them as just a sound. It was a feeling, shaking my whole body.Inside of the temple, monks were chanting in front of a room full of people praying on their knees. Peeping into the temple was a small crowd of the only other white tourists I had seen so far, craning their necks for a glimpse of the action inside. Feeling that same cautiousness of being an outsider inside myself, I decided to do something I don't normally do. Who knows when this opportunity would come again. I took off my shoes and went inside. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am not religious at all, but being in that room could make me understand what people get from it. A room full of devoted people being filled with the rythmic hums of the monks, incense smoke twirling around the room as the gongs echo off of the walls. Flutes were playing, but not in the room, they were muffled, coming from behind the walls, giving the sense of some sort of ancestors or past or something otherworldly joining in on the ritual. My whole head vibrated with the humming. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was hauntingly beautiful. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I found out later that we had stumbled upon the sacred fire rite that they do in the afternoon. I felt lucky beyond belief to witness it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sandwhiched between an apartment complex and a rice cracker shop was a tiny cemetery filled to the sidewalk with gravestones and shrines. Efficiently packed into the tiny lot were stone buddhas wearing red knit beanies and cups of tea, cans of soda, and glasses of alcohol. At first I thought someone had left behind their teacup while they were visiting a relative, caught up in a hurry to the point where they forgot to finish their tea... but then I noticed that almost every gravestone had a drink sitting on it, like an offering to their long gone relatives and friends. The most heartbreaking was a small children's cup with a jolly elephant on the side. Leaves rested on top of the tea that filled the cup. Long, flat, wooden sticks would stick out from behind many of the gravestones, haphazardly angled in all directions like too many french fries crammed into too small a box.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The day couldn't get anymore perfect, because across the street from the graveyard was the sushi shop we were looking for. Kismet. I don't eat raw fish, so I sat there eating Eel and staring in shock at the giant pieces of fish lying gluttonously over tiny morsels of rice.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am personally an American sushi gal (dragon rolls and all that fancy rolled up junk), but Ryan was in his own form of Nirvana. To top it off, our sushi chef was really funny and sweet. As we were about ready to leave, he looked at Ryan and said the magic phrase... </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"I make you something special". Ryan looked at me with that same little boy face; I swear he squeeled. Behind the counter the chef carefully selected a piece of Toro, seared it lightly with a blowtorch, sprinkled a bit of salt on it, and squeezed a fresh lemon on top. As he handed it to Ryan he said "no soy sauce". Ryan gladly listened, nodded his head furiously and Arigato'd the man to death. Ryan is naturally someone who shows great appreciation for good food with a satisfying sequence of faces and sounds that could be described as great pleasure... but I have never seen him so satisfied with a piece of fish.</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> The man who made Ryan's dream come true</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now naturally, since I hadn't eaten much, we had to go on another food journey through town. No red bean dessert or eel dish left behind. We turned down streets with little care as to how to get back to where we were. We didn't care. Every street had new surprises, whether it was a residential hill of old grandma's hanging laundry or streets lined with paper lanterns and karaoke bars. </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Kabob? Steak? I can only guess what flavor of Cheetos this was</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can't believe how much we fit into the day. By the time we got back to the airport we were thoroughly exhausted and slept like babies for the 7 hour flight all the way to Bangkok. I would say That's not bad for a 12 hour layover. </span><br />
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<br />Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-14654945715465126962012-06-28T04:28:00.003-07:002016-11-28T15:29:24.105-08:00I'm Home!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Actually, I've been home for a couple of day now, wandering around like a zombie, eating broccoli and popcorn and stale chips(crisps, for my new, better accented friends from across the pond), waking up at 3am and taking midday naps for several hours. I don't know what time zone I am on, because it certainly isn't Thailand time, and it definitely isn't Los Angeles time. My cats seem to be delighted to find me up at the wee hour of 3am though, and relish in coming to nap with me in the middle of the day, so maybe I am on Pacific Standard Feline Time.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am ridiculously excited to be home. I love to travel, but I am a homebody deep down. Laying down on my carpet, which is thoroughly and permanently laced with cat hair, stained with craft glue, and speckled with deeply imbedded seed beads from too many clumsy craft calamities</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> that the vacuum can't correct, I sprawl out like an upside down starfish and can't wipe the grin off my face to finally be home, to be able to cook and paint and snuggle kitties and play boardgames with my friends. All of my muscles relax in a way that none of the 5+ thai massages I got could ever hope to reach. It is a romantic notion to be a gypsy, a nomad, wandering from exotic place to exotic place, seeing everything there is to see... but I get some hardcore warm fuzzies from seeing that my tomato plant has doubled in size along with my kitten (actually, she has quadrupled in weight from 1 pound to 4 pounds in 3 weeks). I get my own sort of zen from feeding my fish while listening to John Williams soundtracks in my underwear. I guess that makes me more of a crazy cat lady than a jet- setter, but I am alright with that.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Japan and Thailand were so amazing that words can't even begin to describe them. I will make a humble attempt to in the next couple of weeks as I decode my barely decipherable chicken scratch, scrawled onto the backs of maps and hotel stationary. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Until then, I leave you with one undeniable truth: baby elephants are clumsy, playful, and have no idea how big and heavy they really are. Swimming with elephants is one of those things I never even conceived was a <i>possibility </i>to put on my bucket list, but it probably should have been right at the top.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-88763848426851807782012-04-18T07:21:00.002-07:002016-11-28T15:29:35.296-08:00Time<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Time is a temperamental thing. All at once evanescent and heavy, it is one of those things I will never have control of, though it seems to have control of me. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This year is one of the most rapid years I can remember: a year filled to the brim with adventures in cooking, camping, sculpting, gardening, and laughing with friends; laughing so loud, in fact, that our neighbor would bang on the wall for us laughing so heartily.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I worried this year would run at a snail's pace. I wanted it to go by fast, as if it never happened, as if I never got rejected from my dream program. It did go by fast, but not because I was waiting idly for chance to come my way, but because I knew I needed to make this year worth it. This was not going to be a lost year. Not getting into EATM was an amazing lesson for me. As someone who always gets what I want through sheer determination and hard work, it was a reminder that life can be unfair, unexpected, and unplanned.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I am not religious, I do not believe in fate, and because of that I do not believe "everything happens for a reason." I do believe though, that when things don't go as planned, when tragedies happen, or when we don't get what we want, it is our responsibility to see the positive in it and design our own outcome. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That being said... The last few weeks have creeped up on me. I turned 26 two days ago, and I am not where I thought I would be at this age. The rapidness of time in this past year has reminded me that my body is mortal, I'm getting older... I am closer to the age of having kids than I am to being in high school. I started to ask myself, if this isn't the year either... how long can I really wait? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Whether true or not, I have been told by doctors that I will more than likely have a very difficult time having children. My body is not predictable and while it can happen, I have been told it will more than likely "take time". The reality of not getting into EATM became a very real fear for an entirely different reason than last year where I worried about finding a job, paying off college loans, and not getting what I "wanted". Despite my positive attitude about this past year, I felt a very real fear, but an entirely biological one. I can't wait forever to roll the dice and hope for something that isn't a guarantee. But this school has become a second home for me, and I don't want to give up on it. For the last 2 and a half years I have been here as a bit of an outsider looking in, taking some of the classes with the students, watching them interact with their animals, go on amazing internships, and have experiences most people only dream of. This place<i> is</i> a dream. One of the only places in the world where I can go to school at a zoo with lions, hyenas, and monkeys. My odds this year were about 1 in 4.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That being said...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I got in.</span><br />
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-39940881281175485782012-03-25T13:08:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:29:57.607-08:00Puffers and Bulbous Noses<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It feels like Christmas outside, which is to say that when I
open my window my skin tightens up with the chill of standing in front of an
open freezer, smells like a distant fireplace and Jasmine, and comes with an
unexplainable sense of anticipation. I love this feeling.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I will just ease my way back in here without much
hullaballoo. I can’t believe how long it has been, and yet it feels like it
hasn’t been that long. I’ve been doing much of the same all along: spending
time with loved ones, sculpting, playing too much Zelda, accumulating a
ridiculous amount of aquatic life and naming them after Harry Potter characters...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is Luna, the best fish ever. Ever since I was little I have loved Porcupine Puffer fish for their badassery(Poisonous and adorable all in one) and their personality. She lives up to all my expectations. At a little over 5 inches, I look forward to seeing her (and my tank) grow over the next decade until she gets a whopping 12-18 inches. SHe chases laser pins, spits water at me if I take too long to give her food, and cuddles with my Ribbon Eel (Literally sleeps right on top of the eels tail). She currently resides with some other types of puffers, hermits, urchins, and eels that I will try to showcase in time. For now, appreciate that smile. </span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-14122637531201552322011-07-29T12:01:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:31:49.553-08:00When You least Expect It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I don't know when exactly it happened, but I realized recently that I am extremely happy. Despite not getting into EATM this year, something I was relying so heavily on and working towards for the last 2 years, I am happier than I have ever been. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I would never expect that I could be this happy considering the numerous rejections I have gone through recently(not only EATM, but another more short term animal keeper program at the LA zoo), but I really am. I adore living in the home Ryan and I have created. I am enjoying just being alive right now - cooking wonderful food, snuggling with my cats, watching my garden grow, and spending a lot of time with my friends. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have always considered myself a pretty pessimistic person. Though I do put on a rather good "optimism" face for the sake of others, I have a horrible temper and react impulsively when things go poorly for me. It usually takes a lot of self coaching to slap the stupid out of me and look at the bright side of things. I don't like to let others see this side of me because it is embarrassing, self absorbed, and childish. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I feel that for the first time ever I am truly optimistic. It is easy to be optimistic when you get everything you want and everything is going perfectly as planned. I am used to getting what I want. In the last couple of months I have had to deal with a lot of shitty things(school-wise and personal wise that I don't really want to lay out here). I have learned a lot about myself and the kind of person I want to be by not getting what I want. It wasn't some sort of conscious decision I made. It just snuck up on me one day when I realized how extremely lucky I am in all the places that really matter. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For a while there I was feeling guilty about where I was in life. I am 25 and still in school (and not because I am getting anything fancy like a PHD). Even "worse", I was going to school at a community college. Taking classes with 18 year olds can really make you feel like a senior citizen... which is entirely ridiculous because I am by no means old (...right?). Now I know that in reality the program I am trying to get into is one of a kind and astounding... but it is hard to explain that to people that don't know about it. Other friends of mine are making good money, moving up the career ladder, getting married, having babies, doing "things". I felt like I was in some sort of stunted life.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Whenever I get the dreaded "please donate money to the Alumni fund!!!" calls from students at Northwestern, the conversation usually goes like this...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well meaning NU student: *insert initial greetings and pleasantries* <i>So can I ask you a few questions about what you are doing now for the student newsletter??!!???!!?? They showed your animation in my class that you did with the Elephants and circus people and stuff, it was great!!! *giggle* *high pitch tone*" <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">(note... there were no elephants... but it was in the title, so maybe they assumed?)</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me: <i>Oh, um, sure.</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well meaning NU student:<i> So where are you working now?</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me: <i>I am an Outreach Ambassador at a college. </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well meaning NU student:<i> Oh, at a college? How did you go from being a film major into doing that kind of work?</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me: <i>Well, I started going to school again, so I work on campus.</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well meaning NU student: <i>Oh that's great!! It's great to see our alumni going off to higher education!!!! *giggle* What Master's Program are you in?? Or is it a PHD program?!!!</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me: <i>Well... actually... It's not exactly a master's program... hey I'm kind of busy right now....</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well meaning NU student: <i>Oh, that's ok, I'll call back later!!!!!!!!</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">*click*</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And they really do call back later. Consistently. Every couple of days. Right around dinner time or when you are most likely meeting up with friends. Over. And over. Now, don't get me wrong. I may come off as a douche, but this has come after the last 3 years of being fooled into 15 minute conversations with these students, chatting about life and thinking they legitimately are interested in what I am doing in life now.... to then be slyly cornered into the importance of "donating to the alumni fund". I innocently yakked on and on "bonding" with the first girl to call me. We chatted about the joys of stop motion animation and the yuckiness of 3d animation,and how fantastic Triplets of Belleville was("OH YES!! HAVE YOU SEEN <i>WALTZ WITH BASHIR</i>??" she had said after some flattery about one of my senior projects). She really did her homework on me. Impressive. I had to say no about 5 times before she let up on the donating. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyhoot, my point is that for a while there I was feeling a tad behind where I felt like I should be by this point in my life. And I am here to tell you, <i>fuck that. </i>I am the happiest I have ever been. Life<i> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">is less about what you are doing and more about how you are doing it, if that makes any sense.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If this year is not the year where I begin my career, it is the year where I will nurture my relationships, indulge in my artsy hobbies, and travel. I have always wanted to go to Thailand, seeing it as some far off dream that I couldn't afford. I am gonna do it. Ry and I made up a savings plan so that next June we WILL go to Thailand. I have already planned out a wonderful 3 weeks with a detour to stop in Hong Kong to see my Uncle, Aunt and baby cousin that is being born there in September. I also planned a weeklong trip exploring some villages in southern China(Yangshuo, Longsheng, Guilin... might as well since we are making the stop in China). If I can't have one dream come true this year, by golly, I will find another one to put in its place. I am beyond excited. I am a thorough believer that we are responsible for making our own happiness. I will have to wear the same holy pants and stay home to eat instead of going out for dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant to do it, but damn it it will be worth it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not getting what I wanted may be the best thing for me this year. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In other News... </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My grandma moved away to Arizona. I feel like my umbilical cord was cut. I love my family to pieces, so this was very difficult for me to accept at first. I now feel so happy that she finally has a house where she can grow tomatoes and can live within a few miles from where my baby cousin is growing up.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I never talked about it, but I had an amazing trip in the Desert with Ryan and my Uncle Tony back in March. It was a treasure hunt adventure of epic proportions that no real description could do justice to. Lots of hiking, backpacking, galavanting in old Silver mines and caves, reading ancient languages... It was like a real life Indiana Jones adventure. My uncle creates these massive and elaborate adventures with hidden puzzleboxes, archaeology sites, full handwritten journals full of fantastic stories and crazy scenarios. No one does anything like it. The guy welds his own puzzle boxes using rare earth magnets and inscribes ancient languages on them. It was wild. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Houdini laid two more eggs this summer. She thinks Ryan is the Dad.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Beanie/Romeo died after the move to Arizona with my grandma. I almost didn't want to type this because it still hurts. He was killed by a coyote after escaping from the new house.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Boots, my rat, is very sick. She has a mammary tumor and can't walk very well anymore. Hard to imagine that just a couple of months ago she got me 100% in class for doing this....</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here is a Snail Teapot. I got awarded the Ventura County Potter's Guild Scholarship this year (mainly for the Chess set I made - I will take pictures soon since I finally got my lens back from Nikon Repair. Woot!). So I am now a member of the Ventura County Potter's Guild. Yay :D</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XyJPTo1toro/TjL9bpoqLjI/AAAAAAAAA0I/CPkOAzEc2Vs/s1600/Snail+Teapot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XyJPTo1toro/TjL9bpoqLjI/AAAAAAAAA0I/CPkOAzEc2Vs/s640/Snail+Teapot.jpg" width="428" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPRXxhWeVYc/TjL9kZq6bGI/AAAAAAAAA0M/ja2fHvAIoC0/s1600/sanil+teapot2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XPRXxhWeVYc/TjL9kZq6bGI/AAAAAAAAA0M/ja2fHvAIoC0/s640/sanil+teapot2.jpg" width="427" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, he is missing an eyeball. Some asshat decided it would be a good idea to lay their mask on my teapot while they were on the cart to go into the Bisque fire. Juice/Tea come out of his mouth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I finished the 4 ceramic classes at school. I am going to miss throwing on the wheel so much. I did sign up for Figure sculpting next semester though, so I will be using the same clay and glazes, just focusing on more sculpture instead of pots etc...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZWeo3UYApIzcKh-h4kaQ4JuRc9olt2dUKJXwXfJU8X94WZv6uTx4WS0yGn1VI_XMip9kEZ20QQTMDOy5D6uqdxK2uk6Gk4Jig35egY2bfGczuxlbcYMsAUKrxkFICl93dAcUj7Hrd8Ke/s1600/tomatogarden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZWeo3UYApIzcKh-h4kaQ4JuRc9olt2dUKJXwXfJU8X94WZv6uTx4WS0yGn1VI_XMip9kEZ20QQTMDOy5D6uqdxK2uk6Gk4Jig35egY2bfGczuxlbcYMsAUKrxkFICl93dAcUj7Hrd8Ke/s640/tomatogarden.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A very big portion of joy I have been having comes from seeing my garden grow. I grew this cherry tomato. My squash plant is growing comically large. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I went with a totally different plan for this year. I am staying a full time student since a) I get to take classes for free since I have a fee waiver, b) I can keep my job as a student ambassador, a job where I feel appreciated, enjoy my coworkers, and have a lot of freedom in my schedule, c) No animal/vet job wanted to hire me since I have a film degree(not even as a receptionist) d) I can take kick ass classes like Figure sculpting, jazz dance, choir, and Anatomy of a murder(taught by a real homicide detective!) for fun, e) It allows me to postpone my undergrad loan payments if I am still a full time student, and f) I have my weekends free to volunteer at a wildlife rescue, rehab, and release in Ventura County. I am uber excited to help nurse Racoons and Bobcats back to health so they can be released back in the wild. How cool is that?</span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-38491924467860824392011-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:32:05.059-08:00Pictureless Saturday<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No photos today. My Nikon Lens is still in various states of needing to be repaired and I have no clue when that will happen. Going back to a camera phone and my boyfriend's point and shoot feels so wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I usually don't like to post without photos... it's the candy I use to entice people to maybe read. I guess I don't particularly care if people read most of the time anyway, I just hope they like my pictures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today though, I just need to vent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yesterday I got the dreaded waitlist e-mail for the EATM program that I applied for in December. I know a lot of people I talk to regularly still don't quite realize that I am not actually in the zoo program. I always get the question... "Wait... but aren't you going to school there already?". Well, yes and no. I am taking some of the basic Animal Science classes they open up to regular students... but I am definitely not in the program. The program itself is a 7 day a week commitment complete with a uniform and actual animal interaction. I basically just read books, go to class and take tests. Only a portion of what the zoo students actually do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I got the e-mail while at school, a good 30 minutes before I had to go to the zoo campus for class. Almost immediately upon getting the e-mail my heart started pounding so hard that I could hear it in my head. I left the building I was in and proceeded to sob like a baby, dramatically sliding down the side of the building until I collapsed on the floor like a pile of limp laundry. Dramatic? Oh yes. I am not someone who likes to flaunt my sadness around, and I hate public displays of emotions that draw attention. I don't like the attention. It was embarrassing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It sounds especially over dramatic when you consider that I was at least getting put on a wait-list. It wasn't an outright NO, that's true. But the wait-list is over 90 people long, which doesn't exactly instill a sense of hope. I will find out my exact number on the wait-list sometime next week.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I debated not going to class. It is my favorite class(Primate Behavior), but the thought of going to class immediately after and having to face my EATM friends amidst fellow classmates that I know just got accepted made me feel nauseous. I decided to go anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I was walking into the zoo grounds one of the EATM students passing me told me to make sure to answer my phone if it rings in a rather cheery tone. Salt. Wound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I spent a good deal of time washing my face and trying to look strong. I was doing rather well until I saw my friend Kristen in front of the classroom. The waterworks continued to flow with every single EATM buddy I knew that came and gave me big, sincere hugs and words of hope. I really like these people. They are wonderful people. They welcomed me into their world even though I wasn't "one" of them. A huge part of why I am most sad to not get in this year is because I wanted to continue to see and work with this class of people. This is my dream, and I know I will go through this program eventually, but these people will be gone after next year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It feels like almost every other prospie I knew from my classes got into the program. I know that's probably an overstatement, but most of them did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall I was glad I went to class. I did not end up feeling embarrassed like I thought I would. I felt really loved. People were so supportive and were so kind to me, and riled up for me. If anything it just solidified to me even more how badly I want to be there, to not give up hope.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don't fail in things very often. Before this, I had never gotten a rejection letter from a school I applied to, I never get a bad grade on a test, and I do well at a lot of things. I am a classic overachiever. Maybe that is why this stung so hard. In my gut, I believe that if you try at something hard enough, that you can do it. I tell this to people all the time. In this case, no matter how hard I tried, how well I did in my classes, how far I have come to get here, it all didn't matter. My decision was literally left to the luck of the draw. Complete, random, lottery process. It just seems so unfair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are a lot of wonderful people that got in. People that have been waiting longer than me, people that have applied 3 or more times.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is still a sliver of hope for me. Every year a bunch of people decide not to start the program and the first 1-10 on the wait-list have a very good chance of getting in. Some years it goes as high as 20. I am assuming it is another lottery to see what your number on the wait-list is. I have a small chance, and while I am trying to come up with a plan B for this year, a large part of me is hanging onto that hope.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Plan B was to try and find a job at a place like Underwood Farms and take the Horse/Equine classes at Pierce College while volunteering at a wild animal rescue of some kind until the year comes that I do get in to EATM. Underwood is one of my favorite things about the area I live in; they have animal shows, pick your own produce, fall festivals... most of all it is a job where I can be active and work outside in an atmosphere I really enjoy. Pierce has classes where you can learn to train horses, ride horses, and care for horses. It's not the worst plan B in the world, but I still hope for Plan A.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chin up. I've been through worse in my life. I will carry on. This is not the last that school will see of me.</span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-29399945715319284292011-04-21T20:05:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:27:47.275-08:00Spring!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Due to the tragedy of my SLR Lens breaking on my birthday(BOOOO), I bring you a shoddy camera-phone image of the strawberries I have been growing. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Notice that color! My boyfriend and I each ate one today. They were small, but incredibly juicy and delicious. I wish I had snapped a picture of Ryan's face when he popped it in his mouth; he confessed that he thought they were going to be sour and hard. HaHa!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is a wee little peek at the chess set I have been making all semester. Non of these have been glazed yet, but you can see what they look like as greenware and bisque. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pWwkJD6m3FQ/TbDuVptHSyI/AAAAAAAAAzw/j3fJEAO0_Fg/s1600/205670_803627287335_2402969_40401853_5573290_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pWwkJD6m3FQ/TbDuVptHSyI/AAAAAAAAAzw/j3fJEAO0_Fg/s1600/205670_803627287335_2402969_40401853_5573290_n.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I am trying to keep myself as busy as possibly to keep my mind off of the fact that within the next couple weeks I will know whether I get into EATM (The Exotic Animal Training and Management program I applied to). I have been so anxious, nervous, and worried about it lately. When I was little, my mum used to call me a worry wart. It is definitely true. I worry about everything.</span>Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-46696751337412564842011-04-13T20:08:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:28:59.836-08:00Captain Obvious: Food is Delicious<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We have made some delicious meals since we have our own kitchen again; some so delicious I forgot to get the camera out to document them before they were gobbled up.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Exhibit A: Further Proof of my boyfriend's awesomeness. He made me sushi from scratch on Valentine's day. Tempura sweet potato rolls with cream cheese, spicy brown mayo, avocado, cucumber, and Unagi sauce. While I love the Shrimp and crab rolls too, those Sweet potato rolls are my favorite, an inspiration from our favorite sushi restaurant in Chicago. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Exhibit B: After trying Indian food for the second time a year or so ago (The first time involved some dry Tandoori Chicken and gritty Samosas), I have been on a journey to learn how to make it at home.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I took a Korma base, and then added a bunch of my own ingredients. Add some Naan from Trader Joe's, and Voila! Not exactly fully home cooked... but that Naan from Trader Joe's is so delicious I can't imagine replicating it at my Indian Cooking Skill Level yet.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Exhibit C: Not food related. Just an Obligatory Cat Picture.</span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-5025062692753019492011-04-13T19:41:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:34:41.581-08:00Nesting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been in my own apartment with Ryan for the last 3 months now. I think most of you know how good it feels to finally have your own place. I am a nester. I love to collect little items that remind me of all the things I have done and places I have been.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I think it is really important to make every place you live in unique to you. Even when Ry and I were moving into a new apartment every year in Chicago, I always took the time to put up pictures and decorate it to feel like home. I need to feel like it is my own nest, not just a place I am passing through.</span><br />
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<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lhGkBfc1GgY/TXGRv-vhpOI/AAAAAAAAAxk/bsMerhgeNpc/s1600/chimey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lhGkBfc1GgY/TXGRv-vhpOI/AAAAAAAAAxk/bsMerhgeNpc/s640/chimey.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One thing I have always craved to have was a little garden space. It didn't have to be big, but I wanted a little private piece of the outdoors all to myself (and Ryan of course). I have a wee bit of an obsession with plants that goes beyond a hippie-ish need to sit under trees. I like to know their scientific names and how they grow. I enjoy knowing all the different kinds of plants I see. I competed in a Horticulture contest in High School (Identification and the like) and got Third place in LA County. I love plants hardcore.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Sadly I have killed nearly every plant I have ever owned. Even Cacti. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shame.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Proof that I have the best boyfriend in the world: With full knowledge and disclosure (even personal observation) of my black thumb, my boyfriend decided to give me the gift of plants when we moved in to the new apartment in January. Passion Flower vines, Jasmine, Ferns, Bougainvillea, strawberries, tomato plants... many many wonderful things. He gave me a little trust.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And in the past three months, even though there was one casualty of a rainforest plant getting scorched in the sun... I have managed to make most of my plants thrive. Here's to achieving little goals :)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since moving in I have undergone many a DIY project... including buying cheap used furniture and fixing it up into something more me....</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Every day when I walk through my front gate I smile. Every single day. I love having a place to call my own again. </span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-82696859820324915552011-02-11T18:59:00.000-08:002016-11-28T15:33:40.854-08:00Why Hello There<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <i>My dearest bestie peeks out from an old crusty shack in Malibu Canyon</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My busy little hands are sore from all the furniture staining and ceramics making and reupholstering I have been doing this past month. So pardon me if this post is all over the place. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Tagine! I am uber excited to make some Moroccan food in this dish... </span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have recently switched the kind of clay I have been using from Recycled Soldate to B-mix with no grog. In basic terms... I have gone from a clay that is dark with a lot of iron and "bits", to a white clay. As you can see in the Tagine, it means I can use translucent glazes and they look more vibrant. More contrast = awesome.</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have no grand excuse for my absence except to say that I have finally moved back into my own place. It feels damn good. I didn't turn on my computer until a week ago eve though we have been here for a month already. I have so many pictures that I have been hoarding up of the new place, my new projects, and life in general. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My wonderful bestie came to visit this past month and I took her out to Paramount Ranch for some galavanting. She is always fun to photograph.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Life has been so exciting lately. I have been cooking a lot, battling my black thumb in my little garden, and trying to keep my mind off the fact that I have only a few more months before I find out whether I get into the EATM program at the Teaching Zoo. It is unbelievably hard to keep my mind off of it when I am at the zoo campus taking classes 4 days a week, but alas... it is out of my hands now. Application is in. I just wish it wasn't all based on a lottery. I feel like my future is out of my hands right now. Being an obsessive worry wart since childhood, I am practicing my patience and focusing on all the wonderful things I have in my life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of those things is my new found love of gardening. I always like to joke about what a black thumb I have for a person who loves plants so much. I went to an agriculture high school and competed in horticulture identification contests in LA county in high school (yes, no joke, some of my friends don't even know I have a statue awarding me for placing third in LA county from a high school competition. I once read 5 books on different types of wild grass last year). Despite all this, I have killed every plant I have ever owned. This includes everything ranging from ferns to cacti. I tend to over love. The usual culprit I have a problem with is over watering, which eventually has rotted the roots of my plants to death. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After much care, and a lot of resistance to bring out the watering can every day,I finally have the makings of a delightful little garden. I compiled a menagerie of resilient plants (i.e. pests and over growers that you practically have to butcher to stop from growing) and sprinkled in a few delicate ones to try out. So far, a month and a half layer, I have not killed a single one. My Jasmine vine already grew over a foot of new growth! I squealed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I love my new apartment. It is tiny, and has no bedroom door(which is interesting at 6am, living with a very talkative parrot), but it has a small private patio, and a wonderful cozy feeling. It is by far the smallest apartment I have ever had, and by far my favorite. I love my new home. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have been feeling inspired again lately. Some time around November last year I started to feel an itch again to make things. I wanted to paint and draw and make things. I have been in a slump for a while... not having any ideas. I really feel that now that I am studying something I love, I feel inspired to do other things I love. Art itself doesn't seem to get my juices going. I am just happy to feel excited about making things again.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have no delicate way to end this post other than to say I am tired and feel like eating some chocolate covered almonds. Adieu!</span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-83724600837716491312010-11-05T16:47:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:35:28.321-08:00Flies should not be breeding in my Pumpkin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a few of my recent ceramic adventures and glaze experiments</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My dear rotting pumpkin. He got more and more sinister as the days went by. This is him at his freshest. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Day by day he contorted and dried out... his grin growing more sinister as his teeth shriveled into pointy evil nubs and his nostrils enlarged into a full flare. Yesterday I decided it was time for his removal when I saw a bevy of flies escape out of his eye holes.The green mold was a tad much as well.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And now a couple more pictures of the pieces up above... Trust me when I say there have been a lot of busts lately. I have been experimenting with my glazes more and it doesn't always lead to greatness. I should probably put up an example so you can see what I mean. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3dKTC3xJPgBzvvFyV3bIxyy62ahWOuckFF7cIkUYPG5zn3N0HxlTQsAy3Z5m_8Mb8Of4Db9YffirvZa8CJJppo4jd5b0sFvSVSQy5MyKOgE9kTAd35T9312xMOQ2XLlew2MgBL4bqdhjX/s1600/mashbowl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3dKTC3xJPgBzvvFyV3bIxyy62ahWOuckFF7cIkUYPG5zn3N0HxlTQsAy3Z5m_8Mb8Of4Db9YffirvZa8CJJppo4jd5b0sFvSVSQy5MyKOgE9kTAd35T9312xMOQ2XLlew2MgBL4bqdhjX/s640/mashbowl2.jpg" width="428" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Fk6EitCq0Yw/TNSQYwOA8yI/AAAAAAAAAtY/4oHGQXx2HsQ/s1600/owlmug1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Fk6EitCq0Yw/TNSQYwOA8yI/AAAAAAAAAtY/4oHGQXx2HsQ/s640/owlmug1.jpg" width="428" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I brought back the owl in mug form to test it out for the possibility of making something that is quick and easy to sell. Everyone loves mugs right?</span></div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4674969102479112735.post-48145131137266946072010-10-14T09:42:00.000-07:002016-11-28T15:36:26.225-08:00Zig Zag Road<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9tEkNiYzdULijeRK-CeTCaCHo5d9R_U__bHK4OeAwrbTHeh4dAOksfkXNBLHzdZPyIsGRgaqf_vOVQromAYPsT504LOOlhCowPpkrNZBPq7BfZ-eWm5BsU74bd16c1wP2qC_XCK7oatS/s1600/road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9tEkNiYzdULijeRK-CeTCaCHo5d9R_U__bHK4OeAwrbTHeh4dAOksfkXNBLHzdZPyIsGRgaqf_vOVQromAYPsT504LOOlhCowPpkrNZBPq7BfZ-eWm5BsU74bd16c1wP2qC_XCK7oatS/s1600/road.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>An Aerial shot from my plane window on one of my numerous flights to and from Chicago</i></div>
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Sometimes I forget that I have been essentially living out of a suitcase for the past 2 years. It can be liberating realizing that the huge pile of stuff I have in storage is not necessary for my everyday life. <br />
<a name='more'></a>It appeals to the roaming nomad yearnings in me. Look at me! I have no ties! I can up and move wherever I want! Woohoo! If only I had an endless bank account that allowed me to take advantage of my loose rootedness, wah wah.</div>
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The other part of me can't stop thinking about finally having an apartment again. Ryan and I have been taking tours of apartment complexes for our move out in December/January. I daydream about getting an apartment, decorating it just the way I want.... a place where I can dance around in my underwear in the living room listening to embarrassing music. I want to fill my apartment with hanging plants and terrariums, cook curry at odd hours, and open all the windows when it rains. These are things you just don't do when you are trying to be considerate of your ever generous family that is letting you be a bum in their home. </div>
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2 years. I can't believe it has been 2 years. So much has changed since then. Sometimes I look at how far friends I had in college have gone in their careers and lives and I feel like a stunted child. I am still in school, and it's not with the excuse of getting a Master's or PhD. People often mistake me for an 18 or 19 year old because I am in a community college, which makes me feel like I am going backwards. I have had dreams where I was suddenly transported into high school again, adults treating me like a teenager, not believing me when I tell them I am not. These sound like ridiculous emotions to be having. I feel silly for having them.</div>
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At the same time, I feel more like myself than I have in a long time, years. While I loved college, when I look back on it now, it seems like I was living someone else's choices. The relationships I made, the adventures I had, all very real and important and mine; but if I am entirely honest with myself, the real reason I chose to go to Northwestern was because Ryan was in Chicago, not because Northwestern had always been my dream school, not because I always wanted to be a great film Director. I always hated to admit that, it seems so silly and girly and lovesick, but it is true. I am ok saying that now because I know I made the right decision for me. I would never change my decision, wish that I hadn't gone to film school, or redo anything. It was an experience and part of my life that was vital to me.</div>
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My main point here is that I am finally learning that there is not a perfect path to follow to get to an end. No Recipe. No order. I have been sporadically panicking that when all is said and done, all my efforts this year could end up in me not getting accepted into the Exotic Animal program at my school. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much effort, no matter how badly I want it... the selection is at random. What if I don't get in?</div>
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As hard as it is to accept, I can't worry about things that are out of my control. It may take a while, I may not take the straightest, quickest, and easiest path, but eventually I will get there. And I better damn well enjoy myself along the way.</div>
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Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02046658450667682966noreply@blogger.com2