I suppose apologies are in order for not sending this email a couple of months sooner and divided up into several smaller pieces, but if it's any consolation I've been spending (most) my time not keeping in touch well. I haven't forgotten you guys and I've been spreading the Seeqpod gospel of free music and oreos for all (I especially miss the oreos, I haven't had one since I left the office) whenever I get an excuse to. My purple and neon green Seeqpod shirt has been collecting dirt and sand from all around the world and plays a prominent role in more than its fair share of pictures. So what follows is a fairly long email, feel free to ignore without guilt, read in small doses, or hopefully just read since I put some effort into this email and composed it for you guys. You're not working right now anyways...
Currently, I'm in Hyderabad, India. I flew here about three weeks ago from Seoul, which is about a week after I planned on getting here because I missed my scheduled flight (note to self: figure out how long it takes and how to get to the airport before leaving for the airport). For better or for worse, I haven't left the clutches of my extended family since I've gotten here. As it happens, I'm ready to come back to familiar surroundings and this is not the best time to be visiting India since it's raining pretty steadily in many places. So, it looks like a trip to the Himalayas will have to wait yet another few years.
My trip started in Australia, specifically West Australia, and even more specifically Margaret River. Margaret River aka Marges, which is one of the larger towns in Western Australia, boasts an enormous population of 60,000 people. I met up with two of my friends who had already been in WA for over a month doing odd jobs on farms and wineries through WWOOF, which is an online directory of jobs for itinerant travelers in various different countries. Fortunately for me, since I didn't save up money for traveling to spend my time working on farms, for the month I was there, my friends managed to get by without spending more than a couple of days working and I spent everyday I was there with them.
Due to some good luck and the amazing hospitality of the people we met in Marges, I managed to spend a whole month in Australia whilst only paying for lodging one night in Melbourne. In a personally beneficial turn of events, prior to my friends picking me up in Perth in a white, beat-up 1980s Toyota Corona (yes, Corona like the beer) they had just been injected by a sizable shot of good luck in the form of a guy named Ben who would prove to be the best friend we could have possibly made in WA (if I say so myself). Prior to my arrival, Justin and Steve were basically wondering around WA (still having a great time doing it) without a home or any permanent group friends to make them feel at home.
As it was, I still got a taste of their former lives as beach bums, or I should say, well-equipped beach bums with surfboards and a mummy bags from REI. However only a week after I landed in Perth after a night stopover in Sydney, the three of us were camping out in the backyard of the gorgeous house of Ben's stepfather. I met Ben for the first time at the Settler's Tavern, while he was playing one of his regular sets. The Tavern is one of two bars in Margaret River and the town's main evening hangout spot/watering hole/music venue and just an all around awesome place. When it's hot and sunny out (which fortunately it was, and often), it's a wonderful place to go on the weekends and just lounge for hours because it seems like everyone is town is there and they have a perfect outdoor patio and stage to take in some of the local musical talent while gorging on plenty of good food and booze.
It doesn't take too many words to explain the essence of what my month in Australia was like. I spent about 90% of my time there surfing, hiking, eating meat pies, smoking, drinking, and playing music. I purchased a $50 ukulele before I left the States, which I was correct in assuming would be the perfect travel companion. It's a load lighter than a guitar, a small fortune less than my violin, and it gives people an excuse to walk up to me and ask me what happened to my guitar and why it only has four strings. I got a chance to show off the skills I acquired after three weeks on the uke by playing with my friends at an open mike at the Tavern.
The waves in Margaret River are the most consistent, beautiful waves I have ever seen (even compared to Maui); and even though the waves were about 3-4 feet too big for me to feel comfortable on, I'm excited about coming back to Santa Cruz and testing my newfound confidence after scaring the bejesus out of myself on the waves in WA. And there are loads of breaks scattered throughout the coast, so most of the time we were alone on coastlines that would make any Northern California surfer jealous (which is welcome change from having to fight for every wave back at home).
By the time I boarded the plane out of Perth, leaving was a bit difficult as I was starting to really feel at home in my month-old surroundings and developing a solid community of friends in Margaret River. On the bright side, as a nice parting gift, the lot of us was invited to an underground psychedelic trance rave (I was a bit disappointed to find out that the rave was, in fact, entirely above ground - bastards!) in the middle of the woods an hour outside of Perth. In addition to being quite psychedelic, the rave had a couple of bonfires going, a homebrewed speaker system that was quite phenomenal (the bass could be heard clearly from more than a mile away - I know because I walked about that far for a bit of peace at 5am and felt no qualitative difference), a laughing yoga class, and I was informed by a DJ whose set I found particularly good that my favorite type of psychedelic trance is the full-on, intelligent type (who knew?). I think the best part is that the entire soiree was meant as a wedding reception.
The fact that I was still wired the next morning when we left around noon (in large part due to the fact that the music had not stopped yet) turned out to be somewhat helpful in helping my friend and I catch our flights later that evening. What wasn't helpful was the fact that our beloved Madame Corona decided to keel over and die when we were about 20 miles away from the nearest gas station. Fortunately, the heavens smiled down on us. But before the smiling commenced, the heavens decided to be a bit sadistic and sent a tropical shower as we were staring at our engine trying to figure out what happened, which I found a bit annoying. A couple hours later we were sitting in the airport with more than enough time to ponder our luck at having hitched a ride with a typically generous Aussie who drove us all the way to our terminal at the airport about an hour from where he picked us up.
After a night stopover in Melbourne, I got off my international flight and found myself in the smoggy, constantly changing zoo that is Beijing. I met my friend Lisa at the airport a few hours after I landed and we miraculously made it to our hostel after an hour taxi ride through what seemed like a quarter of Beijing. My first impression when I finally got a chance to stroll through the streets a bit is that, yes, the pollution is really that bad.
On the bad days it's difficult to see more than five city blocks in any direction and it is noticeably more difficult to breathe. Apparently the government is making a concerted effort to freeze production in heavily polluting plants around Beijing and limit traffic about two months before the Olympics in order to reduce the particulate matter in the air. They had better be doing just that, because there is no way that I would be able to run a couple of miles, much less a marathon, under normal Beijing conditions (otherwise, of course, a marathon would be a piece of cake). My friend who we would meet later, and who speaks Mandarin perfectly, informed me that the centrally controlled media often attributes the air quality to unexplained, "anomalous" weather conditions.
I saw all the things that I am required by universal mandate to see when in Beijing, like Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. The only remarkable part about visiting these three famous monuments for me was the Great Wall. The small portion that we walked along was one the more difficult hikes that I have ever been on. I used to wonder what use a modestly high wall would serve in deterring supposedly countless, ruthless, determined Mongol hordes. With the help of the surrounding terrain, it seems that the wall would indeed be quite a deterrent. I can't speak for the rest of the, god knows how long, wall; but, the portion that we trekked over was mountainous and steep. There were portions of the wall so steep that I had to scramble up the stone "steps" using my hands to guide myself up seemingly 70-degree gradient. I imagine confronting a 10-meter wall after struggling through miles of mountains would be somewhat discouraging.
My interaction with Chinese people was somewhat limited due to the fact that I couldn't communicate with anyone in any other way besides hand gestures and smiling, however my trusty ukulele provided a nice substitute. At one point, Lisa and I attracted a crowd of about twenty people on Tiananmen Square while we were taking a break sitting on a curb. However, our set was cut short by the fact that we could only remember one real song. It was a bit disappointing to have to gesture to the crowd hanging on our every movement gathered no more than a couple of feet away from my face that the show was over. It's amazing how quickly anything remotely interesting will attract a moderately sized crowd. Chinese people don't have the same compunctions that many people do about approaching strangers and staring at people for extended periods of time. In a way, it's refreshing; of course, in another way it can be a little uncomfortable.
I can safely say that most of the beauty of China does not lie in its big cities. Fortunately, I got a chance to explore a smaller city and the surrounding countryside around Jishou, where my friend Aron is teaching English at the local university. Jishou is in the Hunan province directly east of the Seschwan province where the huge earthquake hit. I was actually in Jishou when the earthquake hit, although we were hiking in the surrounding mountains and didn't feel the tremor at all.
Hunan is best known for it's excellent and admirably spicy food, which wins the award of the best food I have had on my trip. One of the gastronomic highlights in Jishou is the street food culture. Street food is present everywhere in China, however the food of this kind that I found in Beijing and Shanghai was somewhat less appetizing than that in Hunan; although, I'm certain that having my own personal top-flight guide in Aron contributed significantly to the improved experience.
Aron tipped us off to the stands displaying a variety of vegetables and meat, which we could than pick and then have deep-fried or barbucued (depending on the stand) - outstanding! At night, these stands have the added benefit of providing beer and seating in the middle of street. We found somewhat similar stands in Beijing; the difference was that picking out what to put on the grill was much more of an adventure. In particular, one night I pointed to what appeared to be some appetizing cuts of meat and was informed by the vendor when he flapped his arms that it was chicken. It wasn't until I was handed about five pieces skewered on a stick that I realized I was definitely eating chicken, specifically five whole baby chicks. I wouldn't call the snack unappetizing, but I think I've had enough for a lifetime.
I personally would have been satisfied eating street food everyday in Jishou, but of course I tried other things as well. One interesting experience was sharing a duck hot pot with Lisa and Aron. A duck hot pot is essentially a giant bowl of soup with a whole chopped up duck minus only the feathers. It was a bit like dissecting an animal in biology with the added benefit of getting to eat all the parts that I dissected. Highlights include the feet, the head, the brain, and various internal organs.
Sandwiched in between eating various novel dead animal parts was a weeklong trip to Ulaan-Bataar in Mongolia by train from Beijing. Before I came to Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan (hereafter known by his proper Mongolian name Chinggis Khan) evoked images of absolutely nothing. Now that I've spent a limited amount of time in the country, Mongolia evokes images of vast expanses of nothingness sprinkled with gers, horses, and awesomely serene landscapes.
I've never been to Russia, but Mongolia will make for a sufficient substitute until I make it there. Mongolia was the first country to join the communist revolution and fall under heavy Russian influence and the signs of the continued Russian presence in Mongolia is seen everywhere. Most noticeably in the use of cyrillic script and fact that the small percentage of people who speak English sound like cronies from an old Bond movie. There are still countless statues of Lenin everywhere and I was informed by reliable comrades that by contacting the right people one can take a joyride in a Soviet tank due to the surplus of Soviet munitions that are apparently just laying around. While I was in Ulaan-Bataar I stayed with a friend of Lisa's named Sunari who is currently serving a stint in the Peace Corp.
The highlight of my stay in Mongolia was spending a couple of nights in a ger camp. A ger (also known by its Russian name - yurt) is the traditional Mongolian housing unit. It's a cylindrical structure about six meters in diameter and three meters tall topped by a shallow conical roof with a hole in the center to accommodate a wood-fire stove. Gers are heavily insulated and can be assembled and disassembled fairly quickly, which is quite useful for nomads and marauding hordes in the middle of a winter so cold that it makes me uncomfortable just imagining. They are surprisingly cozy and warm. Lisa and I spent the majority of our time in the countryside sitting in and moving between the small communal dining room in the camp and our ger. Even though it was supposedly the beginning of spring in the country, a slow steady snowfall over the course of two days and a wardrobe more tailored to Australia made strolling around outside to enjoy the scenery a bit uncomfortable at times.
If the meals we were served at the tourist camp were any indication of traditional Mongolian home-cooked food (at the time this seemed somewhat plausible), then traditional nomadic Mongols subsist almost entirely on sheep meat, rice, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. The six meals that we ate at the camp consisted almost entirely of various combinations of these five things, salt, and various other spices. This is definitely not at all to say that I found the food unappetizing, however I've grown accustomed to a ridiculous amount of variety having grown up in the bay area and, not surprisingly, the desert and frozen tundra that make up much of Mongolia are not hospitable to a great variety of agriculture. Also, sheep, not on my list of top edible animals to begin with, is quite difficult to eat every meal. Its very fatty and tough, but its traditionally the main source of protein in the country, so what are you going to do?
If I ever make it back to Mongolia it will only be after I've learned to ride a horse because I imagine that a horse trek through the country would be quite remarkable. All of the nomadic Mongolians ride horses from the age they can walk and our young tour guide for the ger camp expedition informed me that his two favorite hobbies were horse racing and archery (probably the two most common answers for a nomadic Mongolian).
I flew out of Shanghai (having stayed there just long enough to take a few pictures of the night skyline) and landed in Seoul halfway through May. Korea presents a welcome return to some of the cultural norms and comforts that I enjoy in the United States, since Korea is heavily dominated by American businesses and culture (and now, against the will of the average Korean, beef). I indulged in McDonald's, Starbucks, and pizza several times while I was in Korea. I can count the number of times that I had eaten Korean food before I traveled through Korea on one hand and the first week I was there I found the food to be disappointing. However, after three weeks of eating kimchi and bibimbap, my mouth waters just thinking about the food there - especially the kimchi.
I never thought that I would crave anything with cabbage in it, but just writing this is making me hungry. For the uninitiated, Kimchi is the name for any vegetable that has been fermented in a special way and spiced, however most of the time kimchi is specifically fermented cabbage. It's probably the most well-known Korean food item and until this trip I just found it weird and slimy, but since every Korean is addicted to the stuff and it's served as an appetizer before every meal when eating out, I learned to like the stuff pretty quickly.
The other thing I will forever associate with Korea besides kimchi is drinking. No matter where I found myself in Korea, if it was the weekend and it was past evening then people were drinking heavily. And if it was past dinner then there were people stumbling in the street. The Korean drink of choice is soju, which can be found practically everywhere. Soju is a little more alcoholic than your average wine, but tastes a bit like vodka. Most foreigners agree that it's a bit foul tasting, but does the trick. My fondest memories with soju include wandering all night down the coastline of Busan in the southeast with bottle in my hands and my visit to a noraebang. A noraebang is exactly like a karaoke bar except with private rooms. I think it's a great twist on the idea because people are apprehensive of having fun singing in front of strangers; also I don't have to share the microphone with anyone but my friends.
The last thing I'll say about Korea is that the youth are infatuated with B-Boy culture. My first night in Seoul, my friend Daniel (who hosted me while I was in Korea) and I stumbled across a band playing in a park in a college neighborhood accompanied by several b-boys and tap-dancers hooked up to a mike. A couple of weeks later, thanks to some friends I met on a couchsurfing (look up the website if you don't know what this is – it's a great idea) outing, I found myself at an internationally televised b-boy competition with teams from Brazil, France, Russia, US and South Korea to name a few. The competition was taken, quite convincingly, by one of the two South Korean teams.
Aaaaand...that's all I have the energy to dish out. Anywho, I congratulate anyone made it to this point of a hideously long email and I'll probably be visiting the office a few weeks after I make it back to California. So I look forward to seeing you guys soon.
