back to life, back to reality

so a week back and already i'm not liking this "real world" everyone speaks of. it's not just the mental readjustment that i'm having trouble with, but my body isn't happy either - fever, chills, nausea, dizziness, cough, cold - looks like i got a good souvenier from my trip....bird flu?!? let's hope not! pretty sure it's more than just jet lag though.
off to the doctors today to figure this all out and though we were in contact with live chickens and roosters on our trip, i'm pretty sure that if there was any risk at all, they wouldn't have tourists trapsing through these villages infested with live poultry. at least that's what i tell myself so i can sleep at night. hmmm....
it has indeed been difficult getting used to being home - the food, the weather, the pace - it's all so sub par!!! i'm convinced us westerners have got it all wrong.
the last part of our trip was great. hong kong is an intense but amazing city, definitely worth a visit, but not for the faint of heart or those of the passive persuasion! it's absolutley every man, woman and child for themselves and you'd better hope your elbows are braced before you take on the busy streets. it's insane, but we managed to get used to it towards the end, merging in and out of the crowds with ease...well, somewhat! the mong kok/temple street market waspretty cool and the prices were a welcome relief from the rest of the not-for-a-budget-backpacker-city. we picked up our last few souveniers and worked our haggling skills. fun fun. dinner was once again at a thai restaurant and yet again, the food wasn't even comparable to the real stuff, but we could resist a comfort meal! funny how thai food became comfort food....delicious. our last night we ate dinner at a japanese restaurant (i know, i know..."when in hong kong...") and ate sushi from a conveyor belt of rotating sashimi, edamame (finally!) AND, get this....california rolls! i was just happy to have a taste of avocado...it had been way too long and they definitley skimped on the good stuff in my california roll, but hey, i got a taste. in fact, later on, we found a supermarket with all the food faves from home (including ice cream!!) and i couldnt' resist purchasing an avocado and slicing it open at the food court, eating it on its' own. well boy, did i ever get a few weird stares from nearby diner's...."is she actually eating that?!? plain!?!? yuck!" of course a few of the same things could have been said about their cuisine choices, but we were used to the plates of snails and bowls of still-moving meals...i'm not even kidding.
thanks to our lonely planet book (aka, the bible) we took a couple of walking tours of different districts on the island and got very opposing perspectives of this vast city. there is so much to see and yet again, we only saw a fraction in the short time we were there.
our last day was spent packing and heading out to lantau island - toward the airport - and though it was only about half an hour away, it felt like we were in another world. the island itself seems fairly uninhabited (this is relative to the rest of hong kong keep in mind) with the exception of a penetentiary overlooking the ocean to one side and lush green hills to the other (tough life, eh?!?) and, the purpose of our visit, the po lin monestary with the tian tan buddha statue. its' supposedly the largest outdoor buddha statue and well, it was definitely huge! very cool and a nice way to spend our last day. the drive to and from the temple was a sketchy one. by this point though, the winding one lane roads and extreme inclines and descents barely phased us - we have definitley become passive passengers when it comes to those situations...and i thought highway 26 was bad! it's a walk in the park compared to these crazy roads.
the flight home was more or less uneventful with the exception of a 1 hour 40 minute delay (long story, not worth re-telling) and a pushy old lady beside me who thought she should be entitled to half my seat as well as her own. ugh....made the long flight even longer and we were happy to be on home soil once we finally landed.
this trip was one of a lifetime and the travel bug has definitley bitten in a bad way. i'm already itching to go back and spend more time in the places we loved. we did so much in such little time and i will remember and cherish every single moment.
next big trip is one down the aisle!

the engagement

it's been so long...i've been neglegent with this thing. easy to do when you're having the time of your life. not to mention the sky high prices for internet on the popular tourist island of koh samui in thailand.
the real magic happens on koh phangan though. and i'm not talking about the infamous full moon party (of which we had absolutely nothing to do with), but the nightly shows the sky puts on - heat lightening. wow. it was during one of these shows, with the power out (but no rain) that ken proposed. whoa! i was blown away and because it was so dark i guess he couldnt' see my facial expression - jaw dropped, eyes popping out of head - and i was just in such shock that i didnt' respond at first. i mean, obviously my answer was "yes" but he couldnt' see the sheer excitement and shock on my face and wasn't able to read that answer based on my expression. so i guess after a few painful moments, he was like "is that a yes"....and of course it was.
i couldnt' be happier and it couldn't have been more perfect. chalok lum beach on koh phangan is on the northern part of the island and is basically a little sleepy fishing village. we had a cool beachfront bungalow where i spent a lot of time in the hammock - i still think i have the mesh imprint tattooed on my back!
our time on the beach was spent mostly relaxing - which was a nice break from our hectic busy schedules in previous cities. it was nice to take a breather and really soak it all in. and that we did...i've got a mean tan right now, but being in hong kong and having to cover up cause it's freezing (actaully only a balmy 18-20 degrees), i'm afraid it might lose it's darkness.
most of our days on the thailand islands of phangan and samui were spent chilling and trying to stay cool - it's blazing hot there and cold showers were a must several times a day. none of our places had AC, but we did have fans, which were blasting on us as often as possible. fruit shakes were a good way to cool down too and the freshness of them....amazing. we indulged in several thai massages - 5 dollars for an hour - and my first one was definitely the best massage i've ever had. no "happy endings" here (thank god!) but they did come dangerously close to private regions....yikes! other than the aformentioned private regions, pretty much none of your body goes untouched by these people with magic hands. i could seriously go for one right now.
right now we are in hong kong. did i mention it was cold? i thought i was done with long pants and sweaters after we left tokyo? speaking of which, this place resembles tokyo quite a bit. large volumes of people crowd sidewalks, except teh difference here is that people in general have no concept of personal space. it's hard to get used to and you just have to be aggressive. it's generally a pretty clean city with signs posted everywhere informing people of the penalties for littering and spitting. yuck. the food is something we're not so sure about. first of all, vegetarian food is hard to come by in authentic chinese restaurants and the meat looks questionable at some places where they display all the chickens adn fish on ice outside. hmmm....we've stuck to ramen noodles for the first couple of meals and have definitely had our fill of MSG! yikes. definitely missing the food in thailand....delicious curry and pad thai....my mouth is watering.
tonight we're off to the night market in mong kok - hoping to exercise our bargaining skills (something that was big in thailand and apparently at the markets here) and get a few more things to shove into our bags before we go home.
can't believe it's almost over, i'm enjoying every last minute of this crazy, exciting trip (figuratively and literally).
will post more soon.....
jules

trekking in thailand

picture this: we are in the middle of nowhere, having walked for many hours through the doi inthanon national park, staying in a hill tribe village with the native karen people and suddenly, after a few chang beers and thai whiskey shots (p.s., not a good combo), our trustee guide, neo, begins breaking out in song. this boy loves to sing and we caught him earlier in the day singing "my humps" which was hilarious because we had to explain what the song was about - but this time, at night, he begins to sing LIVING ON A F*CKIN PRAYER!!! we pretty much lost our shit and tried to take a video, but my camera was dead. booooo! it was the funniest ever watching this litttle thai dude belt out bon jovi. he knew the most random western songs and would sing to us and when he got tired of singing, he would tell us stories or joke about ladyboys.
the trek was amazing. definitely a challenge (we walked in total 28 km in three days in the hottest season here) with steep inclines and the constant threat of dehydration, but i made it and it was worth it. we stopped at a total of 3 waterfalls, all equally amazing and breathtaking (not to mention refreshing!). at the beginning of the trip we rode elephants which was pretty cool. not quite what i thought, but our guide on the elephant let us sit up front on its' head when all the other groups had to sit in the basket/seat thing. pretty cool. elephants LOVE bananas too and ours was greedy, constantly throwing its' trunk back towards us for more and when we didn't feed it, it would blow snot chunks on us...no lie. i had the hugest loogie ever on my arm and almost barfed. nasty. then it would splash us with stagnant water that i'm pretty sure was contaminated with a few foreign diseases and parasites - good thing we kept our mouths shut! at the end, we got to go bamboo rafting after riding in the back of a pick up truck (can you say sketch!?!). since it's the songkran water festival/new years coming up on the 12th everyone is all about splashing and i have a feeling we'll spend a few solid days being wet once it arrives. all along the river we rafted on kids were splashing us and laughing and we splashed back - very fun, very wet.
had no intentions of seeing livestock before we left, but all along the trek we encountered water buffalo, pigs, dogs and ..uh oh.... chickens. a little concerned about the whole bird flu thing as you're supposed to avoid live chickens at all costs (especially sketchy looking ones with no back feathers...?!?), but we figured they wouldn't be bringing tourists out there if there was any kind of risk. guess we'll have to just wait and see.... i'm sure we'll survive!
got back from the trek yesterday, exhausted, hungry and dirty! nevertheless, we met up the 9 other people we were trekking with and had dinner at the night bazaar, followed by some real muay thai boxing. wow. walked in just as a canadian dude was in the ring and fully knocked out his opponent and won the match. like, out cold - it took a few minutes for him to come to. we tracked down the canadian later to congratulate him and chatted for a bit about the fights, training and his stay in thailand. turns out we witnessed his first thai fight - not too shabby! the dude was huge though. towered over the thai guy. anyway, we watched probably 4 or 5 fights in total and it was pretty awesome, with the exception of the two 14 year olds kicking the crap out of eachother. even though it's an art, it's hard to watch kids go at it (apparently they fighth as young as 6). surrounding the ring is a row of bars/pubs/discos and we found ourselves a nice english run pub where one of the girls in our group decided we needed our proper thai initiation and ordered us "buckets". buckets are basically a mickey of sangsom (thai) whiskey (not nearly as harsh as JD, but same percentage), red bull and coke, or as i like to refer to them, barf in a bucket. it was soooo nasty but we drank them (you stick a bunch of straws in and pass it around) and needless to say after the 4th bucket, we were feelin' pretty licked. today is not so good, but a fresh mango smoothie this morning helped replenish some of those damaged brain cells. also in the thai boxing area, we had heard that following the fights there would be a ladyboy cabaret show. turns out there wasn't cause the fights ended late, but tonight there is one and we might just check it out with our group of trekky friends! the whole ladyboy phenomenon is a little odd here. i mean, it's just like transvestites, but it seems like every gay man in thailand dresses as a woman. and it's a bit confusing because i definitely spotted a few checking out not just ken, but me too. not sure what theyr'e after - not that we're interested. anyway, they're harmless and fun to watch them work it. our friend heather adn i actually danced to "hollaback girl" with a ladyboy - check that one off the list! it was kind of surreal dancing to gwen stefani in the middle of a muay thai fight, drinking buckets, in thailand. i definitely have to pinch myself every now and then to reassure me that this is real. we've had a lot of amazing experiences so far and the journey isn't even half over yet.
tomorrow we fly down to the gulf of thailand for some much needed r and r on the beach. even though we're on vacation, we've been non stop since we landed and spending some time in the sand with no schedule will come as a warm welcome. looking forward to trying some snorkelling and sea kayaking hopefully.
a la prochaine....

pt.1 touring tokyo pt.2 welcome to thailand!

hello! we are alive and well and loving it here in asia. today we are in thailand - our first day in chiang mai - but i wasn't able to get on here to write about tokyo. so here goes.

TOKYO - MAR.31 - APR.3

tokyo is a humongous city like no other. the streets are impeccably clean and the people are amazingly friendly and accomodating. they have no problem offering to escort you to where you're going, even if it requires them going 10 minutes out of their way and they expect nothing in return. not as many english speaking people as we'd thought there would be, but the language barrier was only a small hurdle which was overcome most of the time t hrough gestures and other forms of communication. we were only able to visit a few districts while in tokyo and probalby only saw a small fraction of them - made it to harajuku and while there weren't as many outrageous looking kids as i'd hoped, it was still wild and felt like another world. found the 100 yen store and had a blast - it's like a department store where everything is a dollar. shibuya is insane with 6 way intersections and people yelling in japanese outside of stores to attract shoppers. the noise poullution is a huge factor, but you tune it out after a while. found the ikea equivalent in shibuya - a store called loft - six stories of furniture, art, homeware, stationary, bikes, gifts...you name it, they had it. it was crazy and tempting to blow our budget right then and there. shinjuku was another trip - pachinko slots and gambling outlets EVERYWHERE! our main reason for visiting shinjuku though was for the cherry blossom park. little did we realize that the day we visited was a holiday to celebrate the begning of cherry blossom season. have never been in a larger crowd in my life and was a litlte overwhelmed, but nobody is pushy which makes it nice. the park was crowded (not the quiet retreat from the hustle and bustle of the busy street as we'd hoped), full of people having picnics, bbq's and DRINKING! their liquor laws are a lot more lax than ours and everyone was just poundin'...awesome! another day we also managed to visit a temple in th emiddle of what seemed like the finanical/business district. in amongst the huge skyscraping towers was a park area, with dozens of red tori gates at the entrance. very cool. once inside, people seemed to be making offerings and saying prayers at the main temple. this place was very quiet and almost deserted - a total 180 from everywhere else we went.
we managed in teh short time we were there to master the subway system. in fact, it was quite simple and we didnt' get lost on it once. it's very efficient and user friendly so tha twas a pleasant surprise. a not so pleasent surprise was the lack of vegetarian food while we were there. it was almost impossible to find places that served strictly vegetarian food and in fact the only place we did find a decent veg meal was at an indian restaurant! go figure.... no sign of edamame, tempura or veg sushi though anywhere. not like japanese food at home. needless to say, we consumed a lot of ramen noodles....MSG'd!!! definitely done with those for a while.

THAILAND - APR.4

now we are in thailand - chiang mai to be exact. we arrived early this morning after a brutal 12 hour train ride on the "sleeper" train. sleeper my ass. i barely got a wink in which is frustrating because i was just begininnign to adjust to the time change and get over my jet lag. now, it's noon and i'm ready to crash for the night. boo! gotta get my energyu though as tomororw morning we head out on our trek - 3 days in the hills, hiking through tribes, riding elephants, going rafting and swimmiing in waterfalls. bring it on! the heat has been a warm welcome (no pun intended!) as tokyo was chilly and we had very littel warm clothing.
the food situation has greatly improved with an abundance of vegetarian restaurants clearly marked on every busy street. the guest house w'ere at even has a nightly vegetarian buffet which we're going to sample tonight. just had our first real meal here and it was delicious. pad se ew with pineapple shakes! two dishes and two shakes came to 110 baht ... less than 3 dollars. i think i could eat until i explode here. so much for losing weight on this trip.
so far so good here on this side of the world. can't wait to continue exploring....