merry christmas aapl!

santa left a little puppy in our stocking on christmas eve - 6 pound little aapl has made herself cozy in minneapolis.

aapl enjoys such things as shaking snow off her booty, partying at 3am, looking hip in her sweater and experimenting with that voice she was given...

here are a couple photos of her first days on fremont street!

bye aapl!

coming to america

Home to me is very debatable. I’m from Chicago, I live in San Diego, most of my family lives in Florida, and I’m moving to New York. Never before have I felt that my home is just America, but I do now.

It’s funny how traveling away to foreign lands makes you appreciate the subtleties of home - even though these foreign lands sometimes look like home. Like when you discover that Seven-11’s are more prevalent in Thailand and Japan than McDonalds. They’re everywhere! Or when you realize after you go into an unknown fast-food restaurant in Australia that it actually is a Burger King (The name Burger King was already taken before “Burger King” made it down under). But it isn’t until you look closely or are starving for some Doritos that you realize the Seven-11’s are quite different as is the rest. Instead of normal chips, they have hotdog bisque flavored chips or cheddar and prawns or #>~*). They do have Big Gulps, but don’t understand you when you say “Big Gulps huh? See ya later”. I know I’m supposed to go away to get away, but isn’t just being there enough?

I mean, we scuba’d the Great Barrier Reef! They don’t have that in America. I walked next to the hunky Russell Crow for 5 minutes. How cool is that? I kissed (and licked) Sydney’s opera house! Everyone has seen pictures of it from the Olympics but what they don’t know is that there are 3 foot bats that fly above it every night - or that it is infested with pet rats. I feel so fortunate to be able to take this time in our lives to go get $3 massages everyday (talked down from $4) – to rent scooters for $5 a day and go exploring or to meet awesome people and talk about their views of America.

While traveling abroad I felt like I was either 20 years in the future or 100 years in the past. Everything in Australia and Japan was so new and clean. Australia had problems, but they were problems you’d expect us to have in 50 years or so. For instance, the number one political topic for the upcoming election was where the country is going to get drinking water. Drinking water! Not war or welfare or the economy. Drinking water! Talk about an issue.

Tokyo – You have to go there to have a clue what I’m talking about, but it’s basically like the Las Vegas Strip meets 25 Times Square’s meets what ever image you have of some back alley flea market in Vietnam. It’s crazy. Katrina asked me where they were going to go from here (in terms of growth) and I have no clue. It’s already so built up and so crowded with so many people. Rush hour on the subway is always. These people must work 15 hours a day because we’d be going to a bar at 10:00PM and the subway would be packed with people in suits.

Thailand – Despite it’s natural beauty outside the cities, Thailand is so backwards. The streets are lined with row after row of broken down huts. It seems to me that they have lost their proud tradition and heritage and exploit the temples and religion for tourist dollars. The islands are another thing. They are still very poor and backwards, but are also very peaceful and fun. You might think that riding around on a scooter with no helmets on a street that’s not a street might be unwise, but when in Rome I guess. Despite the poverty, Thailand is a great place. You can find the smartest dogs in the world, a perfectly made banana crepe at 3:00AM and some really nice people.

Which brings me back to America. I’m always going to have a desire to explore this world and the unknown. I’ve always been interested in seeing things first hand and meeting new people, but when I took my seat on this plane to come back home, to come to a place that is familiar and known, I realized that I frickin love America!

konichiwa

tokyo, japan. what a madhouse. fortunately we were able to catch an earlier flight into tokyo, because even arriving at 8pm was exhausting. i think it took each of us several minutes of blank staring with completely dumbfounded looks on our faces before we snapped back to reality and realized we actually had to navigate through the massive train terminal.

thus, we have now found how far pointing, hand gestures, body language, sound effects and pantomiming can get a person. we also know to have our destination written in japanese with a map before we leave and to also ask what track number the train leaves from. at least to help minimize disaster or massive confusion. there is no clear address system, some streets dont even have names. each building has a series of numbers that roughly correlate to its location, so even taxicabs have a hard time. everyone has a business card with a map on the back!

what an impressive city though. one of the largest cities in the world (apparently it is debatable with mexico city?) and all of the streets are immaculate, the train runs flawless, and there is no trash to be found anywhere. even more impressive considering that there is actually a `pusher` whose job is literally pushing people into the train during rush hour to maximize people on each train. it is pretty funny to see a full train pull up, doors open, people kind of seep out accidentally, and the pusher comes over and shoves them all back in with a few more poor souls.

it is always rush hour though, even if it not that crazy at all hours, at 10pm the train is still packed with business men in suits. it is not uncommon for the men to work 14 hour days, 6 days a week. the woman still carries a very traditional role of wife and childbearer, helping tutor the children and guide their spiritual life, although that is beginning to change with our generation.

when we got to our first sightseeing stop in ginza we figured that we must have hit the best location on a whim. there are flashing lights, huge tv screens, basically looking like times square with all of the high end fashion stores lining the streets. but we soon realized that this is basically every where. the city goes on forever and block after block there are these lights and music and people, so chaotic. there is no real center of the city, and even an hour on the train out of the city doesnt get you out of tokyo.

the food. well. hmm. it is really hard to branch out and try the japanese food, even though each restaurant has little plastic models of what they are serving, what it is made of is still questionable and of course the menu is in japanese. needless to say, we have been eating a lot of sandwiches these days, which include a lot of may and corn and hot dogs. so i think it may be worth the risk on the japanese menu.

the sushi has been great though. out for lunch the other day, the cook, or i guess sushi preparer, fished an eel right out of the tank and jabbed a spike through it to hold it down. he then continued to fillet it right up before my eyes. i certainly felt bad when he saw me with the camera, looking more tragic than excited. he offered me up a nice piece of eel but after seeing what i just did, i had to look away and decline.

the fish market is amazing, and i think the largest in the world. at 5am these tuna fish larger than my body are auctioned off, some over $100,000 us dollars. there are crabs with bodies larger than my head and octopus with tentacles as long as my arm. thousands of fish are being traded and sold, the craziest fish possible and they are just so massive! i definitely should have brought the carharts and mucklucks though, the fish insides were being shlopped all around and i had to leave after being splashed one too many times. the sushi shops all had lines forming out the door and despite the fact that i am sure it tastes so fresh and amazing, fish at 7am just didnt sit right that morning.

so mike has left now, in his way back to san diego to get some things wrapped up. i`ll be off to kyoto in a few days before heading back to tokyo and then to the united states. now that the trip is coming to an end i dont know what to think. part of me is ready to get back to my normal life and routine, and part of me wants to just throw away all the responsibilities and keep traveling...

lets celebrate the half moon

i cant believe that we have made it two weeks in thailand with not one bout of stomach or otherwise intestinal problems! we thought it was a sure bet and although i planned ahead with a fully stocked minipharmacy, it didnt make it out of the bag once. thanks for the bandaids and antibiotic ointment though.

every one has scooters like crazy. there are absolutley no rules to the road, i swear there are trucks driving down sidewalks let alone scooters everywhere we turn. somehow driving home at 2am on a scooter after literally a bucket of `special cocktail` (for some reason that is a popular treat here, in the bucket!) seems like an ok idea. it is when you are driving during the day down a rocky `street` that theyll getcha!

let me go back to the day in chiang mai that we were off roading somewhere in the jungle of thailand all 15 of us crammed in the back of a pickup truck when...oops! the back door totally falls apart and yours truly goes rolling down the rocky terrain. i knew i had a special knack for special effects being a stuntwoman that i am, and mike said i rolled three times. so maybe i shouldnt be suprised that we took a spill on the motorbike reopening the large gash on my right lower extremity.

the good news is that we finally found the petrol station, otherwise known as a mysterious gadget loosly described as some sort of primitive pump with bright red fluid filled inside. after asking numerous people and continuing the get the same `20 meters the other way` answer, we finally came accross the mysterious gas pump. dont know why its red, dont know much about the opertion at all really, they just got the job done and the scooter continued to run after a 9 cent fill up.

another highlight happened to be a 2 hour yoga class right on the beach watching the sun set with this amazing yoga master who was seriously out of the book. hopefully he didnt hear me laugh at myself, thinking hmm, you really want me to do that? i have never seem so many sideways legwrapped inverted headstand while twisting right side forward type of moves. amazing.

snorkeling in shark bay was great, literally tons of reef sharks. i went by myself while enjoying alone time but oh my. had to call mike back in because even if they are reef sharks and dont eat people, it is still not relaxing to see a small school of sharks just feet away. or i mean meters away.

overall, the islands have been great, although not quite what i expected. there is still a very strong third world type of feel here, kids are running around dirty and there continues to be a mysterious smell of burning of shrubs and sewage every now again. this island has become very touristy, so there isnt much that has been left untouched by the tour industry. hence, the massages continue! boy will i miss them.

it was fun when to see one of the cafes playing the beach though. reminded us how pretty this place is and why we dont want to trust scary people we meet in hostels or leave shark attack victims lying for dead.

on that note, we are now back to bangkok where we next head to tokyo...

the islands of thailand

in the end we decided to forgo our side trip to hong kong and stay at the islands just a bit longer. we are here in koh tao, a small island off of the `elephant trunk` of the southern area of thailand. is it absolutely gorgeous.

the food continues to be great, the chicken cashew has become both a luxury and a staple.

the island itself is small and in the past several years has become significantly more developed according to the locals. just a few years ago there was no electricity after 10pm, but now koh tao has all of the modern conveniences except for flushing toilets and toilet paper. and air fresheners. but dont worry! the massages are still going strong!

we had another beautiful dive not too far from where we are staying, this island is often referred to as `the diving island` with dive outfitters nearly every other store. this area is known for `pinnacles` which are huge rocky formations reaching up to the top of the water. the colors are amazing, and we have seen tons and tons of the clown fish hiding in the anemones. the schools of fish are gigantic and so amazing to see. overall scuba diving is just an awesome experience, it is so serene and peaceful and absolutely beautiful.

the majority of accomadations are bungalows, so for about $35 a night we have an amazing ocean view, as long as you can ignore the occasional stentch that wafts up from the mediocre `sewer` system. the mosquito tents have so far kept us protected from the spider (we swear it was a tarantula!) and bugs that we find scurrying about. it is kind of a romantic tent, until we realize that, oh yeah, i guess it is actually meant to be functional. not so fun anymore.

there are also cicadas that at precisely 6am start chirping, which is actually more like a high pitched whailing type of scream, and it lasts just long enough to wake us up enough so that we can:t fall back asleep. we later saw one lonely cicada, and were amazed by the volume that little guy produced.

in a few days we are heading off to koh samui, for the half moon party. we have heard all about the full moon party, and apparently there is now reason to celebrate the full moon, partial moon, half moon, no moon, and any other moon you want to celebrate.

until then...

happy chinese new year

We have now arrived in chiang mai in northern Thailand, the second largest city after Bangkok of about 250,000. Like in Bangkok, everyone is so nice and cheerful and people are greeted with a smile and bow. For $35 a night we are staying in a quaint guesthouse with orchids on our balcony and a view of the gardens, pool and river. They serve American breakfast and we never thought a piece of toast would taste so good!

We rented motorcycles for a large sum of $6 a day and saw how the town goes from historic old town area to more stylish trendy area to free range cattle in a matter of three blocks. Chiang mai is much nicer than Bangkok though, but still somewhat chaotic with the motorcycles racing around. there continues to be no shortage of massage parlors where you can also check your email and get your laundry done for you while having your feet massaged all at the same time, again for about $6 total. Happy endings are optional.

Similarly, we found out you can also go to the local women’s jail where the inmates are learning the art of massage and two hours will cost you about $4 for the top criminal masseuse to save you a couple baht.

Dinner in chiang mai involved some more questionable ‘meat’ in noodles although the thai man covering james taylor was very entertaining. We also found a german brewhouse where the thai woman out front is actually costumed in leiderhosen drinking from a big stein, still speaking Thai.

Day two we went up into the bamboo forests in the hills for a day trek. We actually got to ride elephants down the river then trek through the forest to a waterfall pool swimming around to cool off. One of the couples that we were with didn’t seem to be getting along very well, and he apparently decided to end it on the oxcart ride and broke it off. Oh boy. This made for a very long and dramatic ride down the river, but it was still a nice ride on the bamboo raft. Fortunately tourism still has a strong hold in the jungle and a man floating his raft down the river sold us a few beers to soften the blow.

There are tons of night markets with rows after rows of fake handbags and bootleg dvds with of course more delicacies like friend worms and steamed frogs. Mike’s worms were a little burnt but found the mussel sauce more enjoyable. And nothing tops of the delicacies like another foot massage, twice in one day is just right.

Happy Chinese New Year! Maisie and Ryan invited us over to the state deparment compound where they all live in mansions with maids and everything. Ryan barbequed some GREAT burgers, we couldn’t believe that we were actually seeing pasta salad and brownies! I guess we have really become accustomed to shrimp flavored potato chips and fried eggs on EVERYTHING. Which reminds me that in Thailand, the Americano pizza includes an egg overeasy smack dab in the middle of the pizza (mayonnaise is optional). Which Americans are eating their pizza like this?

So now we are off to Kho Samui and the beach islands for some rest and relaxaton.

sawadee ka

I think the more time we spend in Bangkok, the crazier that city gets. With over 10 million people, there are no rules on the road, and anything goes. The streets are full of exhaust and commotion with a great need for a bit of a hose down.

There are no grocery stores, so locals get their food on markets held underneath highway overpasses and in clearly unsanitary conditions. All kind of fish sit out in the sun where you can also take away delicacies like cooked bugs, fried chicken or pork skin and yummy looking serpent heads. Um, no thanks.

The grand palace is a site to be seen. These are sacred royal grounds of the king, also where the story of The King and I was set when Anna became the tutor to the King’s son. However, after being misdirected by ‘an employee of the royal grounds’ that ‘royal palace closed - here is tuk tuk - go gem shopping - no charge’ we finally found our way in. And no it was not closed.

We were later warned that if any young person claims to be a university student and recommends sites to see off the beaten path, be wary, they are scamming you and so is the tuk-tuk driver (see last entry). Oops. But even amongst all of the dirty canals and poverty, the monks are everywhere and the beautiful temples are refuge from the hustle and bustle outside.

Later on we decided to get foot massages, and after the previous Traditional Thai Massage our hopes were high. Little did we know this ‘foot massage’ involved reflexology, which is a nice way to describe jabbing a sharp wooden stick onto various parts of the feet until immense shooting pain is felt. When did pampering become so difficult?

On our way home we came across the one of the many night markets where we discovered that yes indeed, we were being offered a peek at the ‘ping pong’ shows. Enough said? We had a good laugh, but it is so sad to see how much hold the prostitution industry has in Bangkok, where young women have become this desperate, hoping that a white man will fall in love and marry her to pay for a better life for her and her family.

Maisie and Ryan picked us up the next morning to head up to Ayuthaya for the day to tour the ancient ruins of the former capitol of Thailand and learn more about Buddhism. The history of the ruins is amazing, there are just so many temples and relics to be appreciated, they literally are everywhere.

In the blistering heat though, where the humidity is intense ant the temp gets up to 95 degrees, we couldn’t help but wonder how this can possibly be ‘the cold season’ ? Our friends were wearing jeans and the Buddha is wearing his winter coat to keep from catching cold (no joke).

More to follow from Chiang Mai..

bangkok, thailand

9 hours in flight from sydney to bangkok and here we are at the 4 star holiday inn. so american, right? but for $60 we have an amazing room and the holiday inns here are awesome, like a w hotel.

we started out our fist day by having a 2 hour traditional thai massage. well, i love massages as much as the next person, but this thai massage was more like a glorified chiropractor with a hint of the chinese torture chamber. we were in the same room together and i had to keep peeking over towards mike to make sure he was alive after hearing the painful ‘ouch’ so often. i think that we both felt better afterwards, but between all of the poking, prodding pulling and twisting they had us do, i am not quite sure. perhaps we will try the ‘american massage’ next time. either way, $11 isn’t bad for two hours.

we then made it up the chao phraya river in a water taxi to the historic bangkok district. after roaming around for a while we found our way the university where a young college student approached us and seemed really excited to hear we are from ‘america’. america to him meant new york city and oranges, which was an interesting thing. he ended up convincing us to try out these temples off the beaten track and hailed a tuk-tuk for us.

now. the tuk-tuk is quite the experience. kind of like a dirt bike rickshaw with three wheels and a little canvas roof to protect us from all of the near death experiences. he wizzed us around the highways and backalleys of bangkok which must have been the best way to see the city. after holding on for dear life, we ended up passing some of the houses which were basically some aluminum siding put together any way possible to create some type of shelter.


making our way around town we saw kids running around in their underwear with barefeet and crawling on the ground. other kids are running around playing on the streets, avoiding the heavy traffic, but clearly having fun together. dogs and cats are hanging around all over, and at least they stay on the sidewalks, out of the road. in some areas we were taken to we were definitely the only white people able to speak english. not to forget the smells in some areas, which combine the steaming and cooking of seafood with the raw smells of other meats and possible the sewage system which scares us a bit. we also saw one man was driving his motorbike with a woman on the back who had a grocery bag in one hand, and her tiny baby clutched to her chest with the other hand.

at the end of thd day, our cabbie had brought us all over the city to 4 amazing temples and a 40 foot buddha. the city is filled with beautiful temples, some tucked away in little shanty neighborhoods, with monks walking around on every corner in their bright orange robes. it is just breathtaking to see these temples and monks at work in their environment. the temples are painted a vibrant white color with amazing colors and sparkles adorning the roofs. just taking off our shoes to go inside is a moving experience.

so 3 hours later and a $2.44 cab fare, which included our private city tour, we needed a break from the important stuff. we went to khao sarn road for the night market where there is everything from tattoos to ‘really stiff drinks – we don’t card’ to knock off anything you can imagine. it was pretty fun to mingle and haggle and see where leonardo dicaprio started off his journey in the beach. i am wondering if he ended up with a mystery meat ‘cheeseburger’ as well?

so this is just the first day, and this is pretty dragged out, but already bangkok is truly a different world.

we ate the shrimp from the barbie

here we are in our final days of australia. I think that we both feel like we are leaving our new home, and keep thinking about how exactly we could make it work to stay here just a little bit longer… particularly since we have gotten used to visiting the chemist and answering ‘how are you going’ with a ‘good’ instead of ‘I think we are walking, but should we take the bus?’

before we left sydney we were able to make it up to the blue mountains for a day. it was a total escape from city life, with beautiful hikes amongst the waterfalls. the forest was so lush, and we agreed that it felt like a forest from the midwest, but with palm trees. after making our way down the ravine we were somehow convinced that it would be easier to climb up the scary ‘grand staircase’ than taking the tram, so over 1,000 steps later we made it to the top of ‘the three sisters’ and called it a day.

now we are in melbourne on our last day of oz. this morning a mate at breakfast compared sydney to a blond headed bimbo and said melbourne is the bookish brunette. hmm. don’t know where he came up with that, or if we really agree with it for that matter but it was an interesting thought.

melbourne is a bit like san francisco with the hills and street cars. the harbor definitely does not compare to sydney, but there is a river running through with all kinds of activity. people keep saying how melbourne is ‘artsy’ which we think means people with dread locks, tattoos and peircings. but there are several very quaint neighborhoods with a variety of both modern and very old styles of architecture and certainly many galleries.

the best part of our melbourne stay though, has been throwing the shrimp on the barbie! we met some friends out on the town and they ended up inviting us to dinner at their house for an australian barbeque. we had an amazing dinner with such a great family, a young couple with their two kids. it was so interesting to see how an australian family can differ in their views on life and politics. they also had a beautiful home in a trendy part of town and we just couldn’t believe that they would invite us, a completely random couple, over to their home and cook for us. Later on they took us out for some cocktails and we ended up in these hole in the wall places that were fantastic, and places that we never would have known to go into. they honestly made our time not only in melbourne, but maybe even in australia!

sad to leave sydney

four weeks later, we are still getting along and apparently are annoyed by each other 3-4 on the scale. that is with 10 being maximum and 1 being no annoyance whatsoever. great.

sydney continues to impress us. each day we start walking and end up in some ultra-chic neighborhood where everything is so clean and people are soo friendly. there are parks and gardens all over the city, with these fig trees on every corner. and the people are great! if we ask for directions, we will end up hearing about the kids and the cricket game and do we want to join in shepards pie for dinner.

so now we switched it up a bit, and are staying in kings cross. yes, that is right. the red light district. a very colorful neighborhood we could say, but one street off in either direction and the neighborhood turns back to these quaint federation style houses where everyone walks their 3 dogs.

on friday we leave for melbourne for four days then we will have to wave good-bye to all of our aussie friends. in the meantime we spent the day watching the chicago bears. sad day, but in the end we met some more american friends who also felt that the best way to recover was by distracting ourselves with a pub crawl through the historic rocks district of sydney australia. if only all of the worlds troubles could be softened with this therapy.

several tooheys new later and multiple gooday mates and cheers we ended up on the roof of some local bar, which are all called hotels, overlooking the city on what must be sydney's best kept secret. amazing view, and we are pretty sure that memory isn't decieving us.

tomorrow we are heading up into the blue mountains and will hopefully see some kangaroos and koalas. we still can't manage to sink our teeth into the kangaroo rump steak, or even slip into the koala skin bikini that was really tempting. anyway, here's to seeing some wildlife!

oh, and ps. mike saw russel crowe.

tropical queensland

it is not humid here, it is simply 'tropical'.

we are spending a few days in northern australia in cairns, where we are permanently kind of damp. the city is very touristy, on every corner we found the latest and greatest travel deals and hostels. it is very much a backpacker area, so there always seems to be something happening on the social scene.

we spent our first day scuba diving in the great barrier reef which was just amazing. the reefs were incredible and when the sun came out the colors were so brilliant. the best highlight was seeing the clownfish swim in and out of the anemones just like in finding nemo. we easily could have spent several days on the reef.

then we spent a day traveling into the rainforest via the jungle gondola. naturally, there was a thick tropical fog but that just made it even more mysterious. we could hardly see out a few feet in front of us in our little car. but the diversity in the rainforest was amazing to see and it even smells good. all the vegetation is so lush and thick and colorful, it seems like paradise despite the rain. we also went on a train ride to get back down the mountains which was pretty cool. save the rainforest!

we met a few more travelers who each have a great story. christina from london quit her job and left her boyfriend behind to travel solo for 3 months, somothing she has always wanted to do. others are taking a year of travel after college to see the world. most people seem to tell us that our 8 weeks will be too short. can you believe it?

out and about

we have now been in sydney for almost two weeks. what an awesome city, we both agree it is a favorite and don't really want to leave. sydney is a combination of the beach scene of san diego, the harbor feel of seattle and the cosmopolitan feel of san francisco. the city has it all, and it is so clean and easy to get around in. we have also become close friends with bus number 380

january in sydney is like july in the states, it is the height of summer with a huge festival going on all month. there are great music venues with outdoor concerts and cultural events going on everywhere we turn. at the end of the months things cluminate with australia day, one big party and fireworks over the harbor. everyone is very friendly and laid back, the city is pristine and people say 'no worries' at any chance they can get. run someone over... no worries mate!

we are staying in bondi beach, so our days have consisted of sleeping in until it gets too hot, taking a coffee at our favorite cafe, running along the beach and then going out. we could get use to this lifestlye!

we have learned the kings cross is NOT the place to go out, unless we are looking for some red light district action or a night show of a very particular persuasion. oxford street is not the place to go either, unless we are looking for rainbows and real life leather chaps.

so, in the end we have found some great places to eat crocodile and grab a cocktail, not too bad of a deal while watching the sunset over the harbor bridge and opera house. cheers!

aussie! aussie! aussie! oi! oi! oi!

say cheers and walk on the left. order lemonade instead of 7up. wear pudgy huggers on the beach and start the day off with a flat white instead of a latte. see the southern cross instead of the big dipper and watch the sunrise over the pacific instead of the californian sunset. and of course we love cricket, but go bears!

we have been here a week so far, and are still learning how to blend. soon we are off to tropical north queensland to explore the great barrier reef. some more pictures to follow soon...