Archived: Aug 30th, 2009

I'm Back in Thailand with my folks (more on that later). First an update. I got back to Bangkok and shared a cab to the airport with a South African Jewish women who works in Advertising. Of course I didn't know she worked in advertising so after telling her about my adventures in PR and asking what she did I got the "well I work in the shallow industry you left" reply.... AWKWARD. But then she quickly countered and said how I was right and everyone in Advertising hates it and wants to leave. That could've been much worse! Then I flew from Bangkok-Guangzhou and met some girl who sells freeze dried mushrooms on my flight. She took a picture of us on the airplane and emailed it to me. Awesome. Guanzhou was a shithole if I've ever seen one. A dirty, sprawling town with nothing in it. Plus I had poor English directions to the hostel, everyone only spoke Cantonese and my flight got in at midnight. I ended up in the back of a cab for over an hour while this poor cabbie stopped at every hotel he knew of to ask if they knew where my hostel was! Eventually he dropped me off at some random hotel at my insistence.... which ended up being RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the hostel we'd been looking for. Dumb luck! I met some old man at the hostel and we stayed up til 4am over beers shooting the shit. He showed me how to get the bus back to the airport the next day. Met the folks in Beijing and have been staying in nice hotels since with things like hot water and expensive internet. Beijing was cool. In one day we saw the Temple of Heaven, Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. It was awesome, but since we had a guide and had so much crammed into one day I can't help but feel like we only brushed the surface of these places. The summer palace is supposed to have some of the most amazing gardens in the world.... which we didn't see. They did take us to a silk factory though. Damn tour guides... After such a long day everyone slept so I went for a walk. Couldn't find much to do near the hotel. Day 2 took us to the Great Wall of China which was amazing. So high, so steep, so wicked. After we saw a Jade factory. We didn't buy anything. We also saw the Ming Tombs which were ok. Then we went to this place where they make vases and my brother, Daniel touched one this women was painting. She yelled at him. We had lunch upstairs from the vase factory (good food) and they served up 56% rice wine. Afterward we went to see the Birds Nest and Water Cube which were quite cool to see. We didn't go inside of either, but just walked around outside instead. I insisted we go to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner. They bring the entire cooked duck out to the table and cut it up in front of you. I thought it was awesome. My sister not so much. She ended up puking when we got back to the hotel. Chinese people seemed much pushier than Taiwanese... it was pretty night and day. Taiwan=civil, China=chaos. Then we flew to Bangkok and I had to wait for 4 hours in the airport for my families plane to arrive. It sucked. Met my folks and we went to the hotel. Day 1 we saw the Grand Palace and Wat Po, both of which I'd seen but it was cool seeing them again with a tour guide who answered questions and gave some history. There was a group of monks praying at the grand palace and they had an area roped off which my brother didn't notice so again he got yelled at. Afterward my Mom and brother went back to the hotel and my Dad, Sister and I went to see this other temple I'd been wanting to see. It was called Wat Arun and was right on the river. You could climb it to get a nice view of the city. It was cool. We took the Sky Train back to the hotel. That night we had dinner and saw a show which was kinda lame. It was a music and dance thing but even though we'd pre-paid for dinner the drinks were extra. We ended up spending 600B on drinks. Such a rip off. Day 2 we saw the floating market which was pretty cool. Very touristy though. It's just a bunch of people in boats selling fruit and souvenirs. Then we saw another Thai show which was more dancing and sword fighting and Moi Thai as well as an elephant show. Then we flew to Phuket where we are now. We've been staying at this very nice beach resort. It's very lovely looking but other than that I hate it. Despite that fact that it's a luxury resort you have to pay for EVERYTHING. Pool tables, internet, etc. and it's all very over priced. But since we're a 10min drive away from the nearest beach town they've got ya. Plus the staff are all clueless. It took me 3 days for them to help me get online! We leave Thailand tomorrow. Off to Hong Kong for a few days before my family leaves Sept. 2nd. I had planned to stay in HK for a few days but it's looking very expensive ($55US for a dorm room at the YMCA!) so I booked a flight to Singapore instead. Not sure how long I'll stay there but I'm thinking of going Singapore->Kuala Lumpur->Soeul and then taking a boat to Japan. I think that's the cheapest way. It's been nice seeing my family but after a while it'll be nice to be on my own again. Although I did kind of enjoy having a place to call "home" for a week. Packing and unpacking everyday starts getting old and I think once I start travelling I'm going to be moving at a slower pace. Spending more time in each city. Should be a blast.