Jen Hawse – Page 8 – Jen Goes Rogue

By Jen Hawse on Asia tagged Bangkok, Birthday, Prices, SE Asia, Thailand, travel

Bangkok Birthday Madness

You all are owed a Hong Kong post. I’ll try to get to that, but I feel this one is best to write fresh, because it’s been a doozy of two days. Let’s start on October 21st.

Khao San Road is the most famous street in Bangkok. When you think of sin and excess and ladyboys, you’re thinking of Khao San. It’s about a 10 minute walk from our hostel, which was intentional, because prices are good here and entertainment is clearly easy to find. Bangkok is a great many things, including a highly religious city with ornate golden temples and Buddhist monks in their beautiful orange draped robes walking the streets, but it’s known for the sin. We’re old, we don’t need much sin any more, so we’re here to witness sin more than imbibe it (save a few beers, of course!).

Earlier in the day we had went to a shopping mall, a huge monstrosity that has shops as you’d expect, with stores and walls and whatnot, but also vendors set up in an open style floor plan packing in as many people selling as much cheap crap as you can imagine. We know the rules here in Thailand, to truly be respectful, you have to wear pants that cover your knees or more and shirts that cover your shoulders. The outfits on Khao San aren’t what you’d call respectful, but they’re not expected to be. You can wear little to nothing and be OK there. If we’re to go to the famous temples we need to dress properly. So, after trying to get vaccinated and forgetting our all important passports, we decided to skip the heat, get into the mall, and buy some clothing items that show the proper respect Thailand deserves. Jason didn’t find much, but I grabbed two scarves, one shirt, and one pair of long pants that are very common here in Thailand. They’re light material, open and free flowing, and have elastic on the bottoms so they don’t drag on the ground. All this for about $15 USD and lunch for the two of us for about $4 USD. Pretty good!

Now back to Khao San, where our heroes are taking pictures, drinking beers in the streets, and getting ready to sit down to a nice meal of Pad Thai (a national dish) for again about $3 – 4 USD. My camera is my phone (something I now am seriously considering changing) and so I often have it out taking shots of damn near everything. Wearing my new Thailand approved pants, I snap this picture below (didn’t realize how bad it was) and slide the phone back into my pant’s pocket. Well, these new pockets aren’t really phone approved and it slides right out and into the wet wash puddle that you see below. Whoops! Phones and waters don’t mix! Happy birthday to Jen!

I scramble to grab the phone as quickly as possible and RIP my pants in the process. HUGE HOLE! UGH! Jason, being the sweet man that he is, immediately jumps up and tries to find rice from the nearby 7-11. Meanwhile, I’m taking napkins (thank GOD this place has them, so many don’t) and trying my best to clean the dirt water off my phone. This is wash water that the street vendors use to clean their food dishes. It’s nasty. My phone starts freaking out. Turning off and back on again. It’s going into cardiac arrest. Jason returns with the rice and a flimsy plastic bag. Immediately, we empty the rice into the bag and deposit the seizing phone. I try to get rice all over it and massage it around and, of course, the bag tears a hole and now rice is coming out. Great. All the while I’m angry/upset and taking it out on Jason (not fair of me). He’s upset because I’m upset. The server finally comes to our table to take our order and I tell him I don’t want to eat, I want to go back, I’m so done with the night.

I storm home, Jason in toe, and go straight to our room. I transfer the bag to a better, stronger bag and pray. I’m still upset and Jason is too, so he leaves for a walk around to block to cool down. I brush my teeth, read some post on the internet about how life could be so much worse, and go to bed feeling guilty for how immature and upset I was over this stupid piece of property.

In the morning it’s my birthday. I’m not well. Physically, I’m fine, but emotionally I’m drained and depressed. Birthdays are kind of stupid. They’re suppose to be your special day and that level of expectation always leads to disappointment. I wake up at 6:00 a.m. and write Jason an apology letter. I see my mom has given me a sweet birthday tribute on Facebook. I’m crying. I’m up till 8:00 when I crawl back into bed to see if I can sleep and give Jason a cuddle. He accepts it, which is more than I can ask for after being nasty to him, but I still can’t sleep. I think of my family and friends. I think of my dad. I miss those that I love and wonder, “What the hell am I doing here?”. Before I left I knew my birthday would be difficult and I’m proving myself right in the moment.

Eventually, after being up and down and up again I do fall back asleep for a few hours. I wake up, tell Jason how sorry I am, cry some more, for a long time, and then eventually get the strength to go out for the day. Depression feeds on stillness and quiet. It wants you to sit and wallow. When you move, it helps move it away from the foreground and into the background. I suffered from clinical depression for years as a teenager. I recovered after finding some purpose in life in my mid-twenties and thankfully didn’t require medication, but I still know what depression looks and feels like and I certainly felt some of that on my birthday. Long term travel can be tough; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but at least you’re afforded the opportunity to experience something new every day you want to. Far later in the day than I had originally planned we did just that, we left to experience something new and see a sculpture garden in a museum.

Entering the main road from our neighborhood we swam in a sea of people wearing all black. We’d been in Thailand for days and had seem many wearing black, but not to this degree. We trudged, slowly, so slowly that when Google said it would take 10 minutes it took nearly 20 to get near our destination. All black. Merchants sold black clothing on the street for those not prepared. Food stalls fed Thai people all manner of eats. Free water and bread was given out. It was hot, but the people wore black. We did not, and so we felt out of place, but knew we’d be forgiven or at best ignored as tourists. Traffic was stopped. People were out of cars as there was no hope of moving for some time, but they packed into buses waiting for them to pick back up again so they didn’t miss their chance to move from the crowds. These crowds, in numbers we’ve never witnessed, were later estimated between 150,000 to 250,000. We had no idea it would be like this. A true moment in history is taking place here and we, by pure chance, have the honor and privilege of witnessing and taking part in it (video from yesterday as pictures do no justice).

We never made it to the sculpture garden, but I don’t think we could have even if we tried. It was located through the masses and this was clearly more important than seeing some carved rocks. We did grab lunch, pad thai from a street vendor on the same property that a McDonald’s is on, then headed back to the hostel to rest till going out for birthday dinner and drinks.

Months ago, when we booked our stay in Bangkok, we planned to go to Mikkeller for my birthday. It’s a special Western treat of amazing craft beer and rich foods we couldn’t get elsewhere. Getting to the restaurant was a journey in itself. We’ve relied on Google Maps so much that when they aren’t accurate it really throws us. After some serious tech issues we did finally make it on the bus, paid our 6.50 bhat (about $.20 USD) and asked the attendant who takes the money if we were going in the right direction, just to be sure. Google said we’d be able to take the bus most of the way, which was great because it was raining and a long walk wasn’t what either of us wanted. The attendant eventually seemed to say sure and we settled in. At least GPS works without WiFi, so we could follow along the route to make sure we were heading the right way. As we’re nearing an expected turn the attendant seems to indicate we should get off. We know we’re suppose to go further, but maybe the bus is doing something different today (who knows around here) so we jump off and start walking. We’re still over a mile from the bar, but we figure better to get off than go the wrong way. After about 15 minutes we see a bus stop with our bus number on it, and then a bus, in the right direction that we were heading…. We didn’t need to get off, but oh well, onward we go.

Mikkeller couldn’t have put themselves in more of a dark back alley if they wanted. Shrouded in trees we were sure we were lost over and over again. After nearly giving up twice we see a the light and the familiar cartoons of the Mikkeller brand. Wow… What a trip! You can’t really see my face here… but man was I done!

When we got in, all was well. The food was amazing (so much richer than we’ve been eating!) the beer was superb, and the service was lovely. They had coloring books and colored pencils and so, of course, I had to color! My favorite. At some point I say to Jason, “This is really expensive, I wonder if they don’t take credit cards.” He says, “They can’t expect you to carry thousands of bhat around. They’re an international establishment. They have to take credit cards. If they don’t I’d be insulted.” Well, they do, but just not tonight. I was heading to the bar to get one final birthday beer when I see a “No c/c. Sorry” sign. I said, “You guys don’t take credit cards?” The server says, “No, we do, but the machine is down right now. I’m working on it.” OK…. I refrain from getting another beer to not rack up more tab and tell Jason the news. The bar is never able to get the machine working while we’re there and, long story short, we left with Mikkeller’s banking information and no charge (thus far) for our most expensive meal. Oh Bangkok…. (that’s the name of the hostel next door to us too. Now I know why.)

At least there’s Uber here! We had a really nice ride with a great English speaking Thai person who told us about his province in Thailand and gave us some free lessons in Thai. I learned how to properly say thank you and hello (I was saying them wrong before, of course). Jason gave a tip and still the ride was about $4 USD for 6 miles. Whew! We tried to get one more beer at the 7-11 when we got back, but it was after midnight and so Bangkok was telling us it was time to call it quits.

We still have more days here in Bangkok and then Thailand itself. Chiang Mai is next. Then, we go to Malaysia next month. The journey continues! Thanks for listening! ลาก่อน (goodbye in Thai)

16 Oct

By Jen Hawse on Asia, City Review tagged asia, rain, rtw, taipei, taiwan, travel

Torrential Taiwan: The Country That Wouldn’t Stop Raining

Talk about a downpour! In Taiwan, we slogged through the rain each and every day. Truth be told, we hadn’t had a truly sunny day since Tokyo. All through the end of our time in Japan it was fairly cloudy and rainy, then into Taiwan the rain continued. Yes, we dodged two typhoons, but rain didn’t care.

We’re troopers, we’re still new to this travel adventure and eager to explore the big and small parts of the world we’re living in, but rain made it tricky. Nonetheless, we preserved and both of us certainly learned a thing or two about Taiwan. When I left you all in the blog we had just arrived, one day in, and had explored a night market that was pungent and overwhelming. My impression was that every area of Taipei would be like this: smelly, crowded, and too compact for comfort, but I was wrong in the best way.

We didn’t give up on night markets after the first one; no sir! Night markets were in fact the top reason I wanted to go to Taiwan in the first place. Food of all sorts is my cup of tea, and Taiwanese/Chinese is no different. When you think Chinese in the states you imagine sticky, fatty fried rice with the chopped up dried pork bits and nearly dehydrated carrots and peas. It’s a sad state and it’s not how Chinese food should be viewed because it’s truly so much more than that.

Night markets give you a chance to try a bit of everything for an incredibly reasonable price. We would spend $5 – $10 tops, collectively, feeding ourselves dinner. That’s eating a bit of fresh fruit, meat on a stick, a pancake of sorts, cream filled pastries, and more. I never knew I’d like pork floss, but I love pork floss omelettes! Heaven.

The variety at these markets would go on and on and into areas that I wouldn’t touch, like dried squid, chicken feet, and various pork products sold in carts that were in unknown stages of jerkying or other transformation. I didn’t ask, they couldn’t tell me even if I did, we left it alone.

Despite cooking and washing out in the open the night markets Jason or I didn’t get sick (a welcome surprise!). I’m now a little shaky about food borne illness and trying to be more cautious, but it’s difficult to be cautious when there’s so many abundant and tasty goods. We made sure to get our water from only clean sources or bought it sealed from the convenient store at least. It was about $.30 USD for a litre of water.

Prices were great in Taiwan, and the dollar took us very far. The conversion rate was a little screwy, but we eventually figured it out. $30 Taiwan dollars = $1 USD. So, sometimes prices looked very high, but you divided by 3 and moved some zeros around and you could figure it out fairy quickly. $60 for some Pringles! Oh, no, that’s just $2, no problem! Hong Kong is about 8/1 HKD to USD, so a soda costs $8 HKD, but it’s really only a buck. Currency conversions are a great way to exercise your brain muscles! Currency exchanges are a way to frustrate them. We lost about $1 when we converted our Japanese Yen to New Taiwan Dollars. When we converted from Taiwan to Hong Kong dollars we lost about $8. A bigger sting! We’re trying to spend all the cash we get out in every country to avoid these fees, but sometimes you can’t, and so we’re learning the hard way how to properly convert our cash.

Moving on, while we were in Taiwan they celebrated Double Ten Day (October 10th), the day the uprising against the Qing Dynasty began, which lead to the Republic of China being formed. It’s a Taiwanese national holiday. We stayed about a block from the Taiwanese president’s palace and on October 9th we visited the Chiang Kai-shek memorial, which is a sight to be seen. The memorial itself has a museum and art gallery inside of it and is a monolith of a building. Incredibly beautiful and clean. A big tourist attraction. We witnessed the changing of the guard (picture below). I won’t get into politics here, but Chaing Kai-shek was a prominent figure in Taiwa. It’s controversial which country owns the island or not.

When we’re visiting a place we want to dig into the culture and experience the why and how of the location. We are history museum lovers (I also enjoy art museums, Jason not as much). In Taiwan, we tried to go to two museums that were either closed for the day or permanently closed. Big bummer! Jason wanted to see the Miniatures Museum, but if there’s a government holiday on a Monday then museums are closed the following Tuesday. Whoops!

Taiwan had a World Religion Museum, which I was very interested in, but when we trounced through the heavy rain to the museum’s destination we discovered its doors were shut and signs in Chinese out front seemed to say, “Closed!” OK, not great, but we got some lunch and then visited a beautiful temple where we did our own world religion studies in Taoism before heading home. Taiwan seemed to have the most active religious community thus far, with worshipers chanting and lighting candles while we were onsite. It was a sight to see!

The museum we did get to see was the National Taiwan Museum, established in 1908, and considered the Louvre of the East because of its extensive art collection. We wanted to see a piece of jade carved into the shape of pork belly. A pork fat tribute! We didn’t find this piece, but we found so many other treasures that it didn’t matter. The museum has a garden attached where you can feed coi and birds food pellets. The continuous dreary rain didn’t keep us from playing in the park! Fish and waterfowl don’t mind a little downpour, so why should we? While there I saw my first black swan pair. The mother was clearly nesting and unpleased that I wanted to feed her. The father was ungrateful for my food as well. Suit yourselves, the ducks and coi like it! Check this out!

Taiwan was tough. I came in not feeling well, with little sleep and a bad attitude, and walked into a smelly situation and a crappy AirBnB. There was little bright side that I could see, but I just wasn’t looking properly. In the end, I loved Taiwan’s character and how the people were more real than Japan and Korea. The rules were looser and so were the people’s attitudes. The food was hit or miss, but when it hit it was a hit out of the park! No middle ground here. And, despite the rain, I learned that you can’t let a little weather get in the way of your adventure. Live once, live it well, and if it takes you a little longer to get up in the morning to make sure you live it, then so be it.

A few more pictures for the road from Taiwan!

6 Oct

By Jen Hawse on Asia, Travel Philosophy, Uncategorized tagged asia, flying, food, food porn, japan, kyoto, nintendo, osaka, taipai, taiwan, tokyo, travel

The Rising Sun Has Set: Departing Japan

For those following along at home, here are some stats about our journey. We’ve been traveling now for 23 days and thus far we’ve had:

7 Accommodation locations
5 Cities visited
5 Flights
5 Museum visits
3 Countries visited (not counting China since we just had a layover there)
2 UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited
2 Typhoons missed, but several days of rain
2 Illnesses for Jen
1 Checked bag, everything else has been carry on

Travelling for the long term isn’t like going on a week long vacation. When you’re on a quick vacation you pack whatever you want, spend money like it’s no big thing, and generally just live it up hard seeing the sites, eating and drinking, and having fun. At least, I do! But, this long term travel requires a much more measured pace when possible and much more planning to save money along all available points while also trying to get the most out of every location you visit. Talk about balance!

Yesterday, we flew in from Japan after two weeks there. We visited three major cities, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Each city has it’s own history and personality, along with pleasure and pain points. Getting to Tokyo itself was a bit of a struggle. Our flight was delayed by a few hours from Seoul and the train ride itself from Narita airport to Tokyo took 80 minutes. We had thought we’d arrive around 8:00 p.m., but it was nearly 11:00 p.m. when we got to the AirBnB. The directions we had weren’t “enter this address and walk there via Google maps”. It was a bit more complex than that. Thank goodness we printed out the four page picture directions our host provided!

When we finally made it, dropped our stuff, decided we should eat, and headed out for the night it was nearly midnight. Outside, there was a construction crew still working on a tall building. We were staying in the busiest nightlight district in the city, Shinjuku, so that was quite a trip to see not only this entire neighborhood electric and drunk and bright as day at midnight on a Wednesday, but a construction crew soldering and hammering and working their butts off in the middle of the night. First Japanese culture shock.

My camera phone can't capture the madness — My camera phone can’t capture the madness

Tokyo itself was a bit much for Jason and I, we have to admit. While we’re so glad we went, it was like placing NYC on top of NYC and then in some places putting another NYC on top of that. Overwhelming is the right word, expensive is another good one, delicious works too, but crowded is probably most appropriate. Every shot I took that tried to capture the scope of people failed. 13.4 million people live in Tokyo and over 19 million tourists visit Japan each year, many going to the capital to see the craziness of Tokyo themselves.

Overwhelming, but well worth it. Going to the world famous fish market, navigating the swarms, trying free samples of who knows what, and getting a big platter of the best sushi we could find was a memory we won’t soon forget. Neither is eating lean to mid to fatty tuna from a street vendor for a few dollars that melted in your mouth and required not a drop of wasabi or soy. Heaven. Getting a vending machine beer was a hit too! Bowls upon bowls of ramen will keep swimming in our minds for months to come. I hadn’t eaten much ramen before. Everyone’s had their share of Cup Noodles in the leaner times, but true Japanese style fresh ramen is different and something I began to crave after a while. One of the chain restaurants has a sign that says, “Try three times then you’re addicted!” and, they’re right! By the end I could have eaten ramen every day and will probably carry that love with me for a long time coming.

Navigating Tokyo is an art. It takes practice. They have ticket attendants at automated machines that help poor tourists such as ourselves find the right line and pay the proper fees. There are three organizations that operate lines in Tokyo, so it’s not one integrated subway system like we would have anywhere else. If you’re on the JR line you can’t just transfer to the IC line without getting off, going out, getting a new ticket, then going back in again. It’s a hassle. There are 158 transit lines in Tokyo and, according to Wikipedia, “40 million passengers use the rail system daily at 14.6 billion annually”. We stayed in Shinjuku, and again according to Wikipedia, ” Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world by passenger throughput.” If you’re going to dive in, DIVE DEEP!

After a week in Tokyo we were ready to put some breaks on the madness and go to a calmer place, Kyoto. We jumped on the plane and headed first to Osaka, the second largest municipal city in Japan and still on the mainland. It was a 2 hour flight, nothing too crazy, and we fairly quickly made it to our AirBnB for the night. This place was hilariously small. Like, there was no floor space at all. The only floor space we had was in the bathroom and right at the entryway. The bed took up the entire room, and it was a double. People live here! People cook in these apartments and they have physical belongings and even raise children. They spend their lives in apartments that we’d call closets. Physical space constraints might be tight in NYC, but I can’t imagine they’re near what this was in Osaka. It was only one night, but it was illuminating to see how people there live.

Osaka is fun, hip, and artsy. We had two nights in there, sandwiching our Kyoto trip, and on our second night we stayed in a capsule hotel in Little America. I don’t know if it was actually called that, or just embodied it with the pint sized Statue of Liberty on top of a tall building, rap music, and endless streets filled with American fashion and plethora of English, but it felt like Little America. Unfortunately, I was suffering from a bout of traveler’s diarrhea, something I am afraid is about to become far more common with me, and so I had a pretty shitty time, no pun actually needed.

The capsule hotel was something I really wanted to check off our list. It’s this crazy concept where you sleep in shipping container sized room with people on all sides of you. It’s strictly in Asia, as far as I know, and I figured one night to see what all the hype is about should be fun. If I’d know I was going to be ill I’d have went for a real hotel, but you can’t predict the future. Regardless, it reminded me of staying in a hostel, only a little nicer actually. You had your own space and walls at least. In a hostel it’s bunks and curtains if you’re lucky. Much like a hostel, the women above me was loud and her alarm wouldn’t stop beeping at 5:30 in the morning. We were getting up at 7:00 so… not feeling well + annoying person above + having to catch a train to a flight = bad night’s sleep. Almost two days later and I’m still not fully recovered, but feeling much better than before at least!

Ground control to Major Tom. In the capsule hotel (double waters for the belly) in my Japanese pj’s.

Last location update is for Kyoto, the culture capital of Japan. Kyoto is temple town. There are 1,600 + temples in the city, in fact. Kyoto is shrines on every corner. It’s bamboo forests and endless orange gates. It’s hip and artsy, but not as stuck up as Tokyo. It’s peaceful while still being rather touristy. Our AirBnB in Kyoto was one of my favorites. We had sleeping mats instead of a bed, so every night we pulled down the mats and put them back in the morning to open the room up. There were no chairs in the apartment, just floor cushions that you put on legless chair seats so you could sit back. We had a kitchen, which we used to make PBJ for breakfast most of the week, and free coffee and tea, which helped us save money. There was no burner, so we couldn’t cook, but we didn’t expect to. The shower was big enough to have a curtain! What voodoo! The room felt homey and the city, the former capital of Japan (To-Kyo, Kyo-To), was lush with green.

img_20161002_180550785 — Fushimi Inari Taisha first temple lite up at night

We loved Fushimi Inari-taisha, the golden orange arch walk way leading up a mountain to a city vista. Once you get past the hoard of visitors in the beginning it’s quiet and less crowded and full of kitties! Many kitties live on the mountain, a happy surprise. Keeping with the animal theme this particular area has dozens of fox sculptures, who are regarded as messengers. Foxes holding scrolls and keys are found throughout the shrine and look mischiefly adorable.

One our last full day we went to the bamboo forest Arashiyama for a rainy walk amongst the tall, green stalks. I was feeling poorly so it was very difficult to get me motivated to move, but I’m glad we went. The sunset alone was worth the effort. If we’d arrived earlier we’d have done more, but the thing about long term travel is you do what you can, when you can, and you don’t push yourself to the limit because you are always moving and you need to preserve yourself while doing the best you can to do it all.

Today, we’re in Taiwan, a place I was feeling enamored with prior to our arrival and now am striking less so. It’s dirty. I know I’m going to see dirtier places soon, but this is the dirtiest place I’ve ever been. Last night we went to a market that smelled of very fresh sewage. Mix that with garlic, fish, and general rubbage and that’s been Taipei so far. I’m very nose sensitive, plus stomach is still crampy, so it’s taking some getting used to. I’m positive we’re going to find the bright side of this island. We’ll discover the places I know exist from my studies. But, for today, we’re resting up, getting my stomach back in order, and doing laundry (something else you do on long term trips!). Then, later on, we’ll hit another night market and wish for the best!

Sayounara for now, my friends!