new, New, NEw, NEW!

Well hello there! How have you been? We haven't been in touch for a while. I know, I know, it's all my fault. I do hope you can accept my sincerest apologies and look forward to picking up where we left off. 2012 is still young and I hope to do all I can this year to revive my dying, if not already dead, travel blog.

To begin with, I left my job at the chocolate company and took up a teaching position. I now teach English oral to primary school students (1st-6th graders or 6 to 11-year-old children). I'm loving the new gig and the time it frees up for me to travel, explore and breath life back into The Amateur Explorer.

I started my 2012 explorations in Thailand, a country I have been dying to visit since I arrived in Asia nearly a year-and-a-half ago.

I hate to sound cliche, but the Thailand trip was amazing. Amazing in the sense that I have never seen or visited a place like it. As the only country in South-East Asia that was never conquered,  Thailand has retained a certain sense of self that its neighbors don't possess. Its identity is clearly its own.  Thailand's people, language and alphabet, infrastructure, food and drink, Muay Thai (AWESOME) and countless other aspects that make up the country's culture all exude a distinctly Thai attitude.

Now, that's not to say that other cultures haven't influenced Thailand. They have. China's presence is strongly felt there as is the West's. But still, there is something in the air that distinguishes it from other places. I guess I cannot quite explain it. I don't mean to sound like I experienced the country on a deeply profound level because in truth I only skimmed Thailand's surface in the 10 short days I was there. Nevertheless, I felt that shit! It's real and when you go you will understand.

Visiting Thailand was also an eye-opening experience. Eye-opening in the sense that traveling to Thailand for the first time as a Western white chick wasn't as...organic as I'd expected. I fell victim to the ol' tourist traps more than once. Everything from seemingly friendly civilians leading me to expensive custom-suit makers and jewelers to "tourist friendly" travel agencies that convinced me to take the pricey "air-conditioned" bus to the Gulf. Needless to say, everyone was trying to squeeze money out of my seemingly fat tourist's wallet. Unfortunately for them (and me), my wallet is rather skinny and all to often toes that precarious line between starvation and healthy weight loss.

I was angry about all this when my naivete first came to light (oh, so you didn't give me those pointers and directions out of the goodness of your heart?) but it's all pretty funny now. I guess I have to accept the fact that I will be the stupid Griswoldesque tourist from time to time during my travels.

There is so much more to tell but you will get bored with my rambling if you haven't already skipped over the text. Take a look at these photos from Bangkok and Koh Mak. I think they came out very well!

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

Pictures from Last Week

As promised.

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

Day Trip

Justin and I just returned from a day trip to the island Cheung Chau (May 10 marks Buddah's birthday, which means I had the day off). What a lovely and tiring day it was for us! We left this afternoon on the ferry from pier 4 at Central Piers and arrived to find a very busy and celebratory Cheung Chau. The main street, which faces the harbor (see pictures) was PACKED with people. We could barley move anywhere. Music from the not-too-far-off festival and various dragon dance drums (I don't know the offical name for this dance, which they seem to perform at every Chinese festival. A man--or in many cases boys--steps into a giant dragon puppet and dances to the beat of a little percussion band around him. Pictures below) filled the hot, humid, kind-of stinky/fishy air.


I don't feel like going through all the details of our trouble navigating through the crowd, so just imagine a people packed shoulder to should in 90 degree weather with 70% humidity and everyone pushing and poking you in the eye with their open umbrellas. That's what we had to get through. After managing to find our way out of the mess we rounded the designated festival area and came to find quite streets, and low rise apartments decorated with laundry lines filled wrinkly t-shits and baggy, shapeless pants that all elderly people seem to wear.

From here, we found our way to the beaches. The first once we found was covered in filth. I popped a squat on this one and then we continued along. Further down the coast we found our way to the "Mini Great Wall," which we walked. This winding uphill path paved in stones and delineated by a fun little wall took us to clear air and good island views. Unfortunately, it didn't take us to this "Italian Beach" Justin told me he read about and wanted to visit. The wall dead-ended much to Justin's dismay. We turned around to go back and came to a split, I suggested we go up but Justin didn't want to risk another dead-end so we returned the way we came.

We walked and walked and walked all day around the entire perimeter of the Island determined to find this Italian beach. We walked up and down and over and under and finally came to a sign that blocked the path said, "DANGER," path under construction. We could not continue any more and Justin admitted defeat only to find out two minutes later, thanks to his iPhone, that the beach was indeed up that little path off the Wall.

A scrappy little boat captained by a  scary Chinese lady who only seemed to know how to communicate by yelling very loudly ferried us back to our starting spot. We (rather, I) ate a quick meal and wandered back to the ferry. The line for the ferry was literally the longest line I have ever been in. It had to be a half mile long. It moved along quickly though and we headed back to Hong Kong tired and happy and ordered pizza and are now watching tv.

Pictures on the next post. My comp is way to slow right now!

Roaches

We have a small cockroach problem. Its quite scary. They creep around in the dark and are seriously large bugs. Justin did some research and discovered that they also tend to carry salmonella and other nasty stuff around. Our apartment is a tidy little place (so the problem really isn't our fault!) but we live one the first floor above a vacant space that was a restaurant just months ago. An exterminator came today and sprayed the place before things got ::BAD::

In other news, I am learning more cantonese! My vocabulary is pretty hilarious/random. It includes the words for garbage, garbage can, "thank you," "excuse me," troublesome, stupid, good morning, "you are", enough, toilet...I think that's it. Working on my numbers...and pronunciation. Everyone laughs at me when I try to say anything in Cantonese. I'm sure I sound ridiculous.

Hong Kong Rugby 7's

Debauchery of all debauchery.

Litre beers and (yes!) bloody maries. No rules really. Hilarious.

Some chants included:
"Stand up if you hate the French."
"Who's the wanker on the phone?!" (Haha, Alicia, you are!)
Something else on the subway about why Jesus can't play rugby that I'm not going to write in the fear that I might offend one of you.

Beyond that, I will let the pictures (what little I have :( )speak for themselves.