Southeast Asia 1

Singapore's Changi airport has a pretty fantastic reputation: fancy lounges to sleep in, showers, a pool, a gym, whatever you want. Bountiful amenities notwithstanding, when you arrive at 1:45am, bleary-eyed and stiff-jointed, it is really fucking hard to find a place to crash. We ended up getting a hotel in the red light district for the night. (No bed bugs, yay!)

We spent the next two days wandering about the city, being baked alive in the tropical heat. It is really, really draining to be out in midday...just wake up early and do stuff or sleep through it. My duffel, similarly exhausted, finally split open along a side. It served me a good 10 years, but I found a cheap and stylish replacement in Little India. Singapore is a tiny city divided into cool ethnic villages (e.g. Chinatown, Little India, Arab Street) -- allowing you to walk from a Buddhist temple to a Mosque in less than five minutes. However, Chinese food seems to dominate as the cheap fast-food of choice on the street and in hawker centers alike. What really matters is I finally got to have my siu gap ho fun (roast duck rice noodles).

Now we're in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where I will probably die as so much roadkill -- flattened by a stinky herd of mopeds. Christ, the HONKING! It never ends! Do NOT wake up here with a hangover. Crossing the street here is like being Frogger in a very dense, noisy level. Walking around for a couple hours leads to sensory overload. Food, however, is stimulating in a good way and tasty cafes are a dime a dozen.

Restaurant and hotel staff are sweet, but most of the locals in this area of Hanoi do not give a flying fuck about tourists. I can't speak for other areas of Vietnam, but many are indifferent (once they realize they're not getting your money) and some are downright rude. Living in Japan, I take pleases and thank yous and common courtesy for granted.

I was looking at some items in a market today, and I was blocking a woman's path. She had a heavy bundle of goods on her head, but she didn't give me so much as a warning -- just yelled "OY! OY!"and swatted me upside the head with a book in her free hand. I felt bad for being in her way, but I also wanted to punch her in the face.

We're gonna check out the west side of town tomorrow, starting with Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse. Maybe that will be less intense.

Hinduism is OLD

I found a nice site for a quick history brush-up (before I embark on my little Southeast Asia tour). Reasonably accurate, 90-second flash animations for that instant gratification we've become so used to.

Maps of War

sugar!

I finished The Dark Tower on Sunday. I had been listening to the audiobooks for the second half of the series, and good god audiobooks take SO MUCH LONGER (especially unabridged) than reading! Basically, every moment of the day when I didn't have to multi-task, I had my headphones in and the Dark Tower playing...probably with a very tense, anxious look on my face. On the bus to and from work, during downtime at work, walking around town, doing dishes in my apartment...pretty much constant Dark Tower for a week or two. Anyway, now that I'm finished (it was very good!), my ears are finally free to relax and listen to some goddamn music.

Listening to music can lead to spiritual epiphanies, but more often silly epiphanies.

If you follow health food crazes at all, you've probably heard of the weird health "tea" that is kombucha. Basically, you culture a mushroom/sponge/zoogleal mat of yeast in a mixture of tea and sugar, pour off the fermented liquid, and voila! Gross-sounding health drink. (And just an aside--I wonder how similar this is to the hooch I pour off my sourdough starter?) The whole thing really confused me at first, because we have a seaweed in Japan we call kombu, and people drink a salty tea made from it called "kombucha." Kombucha and kombucha -- different things. Go figure.

Anyway, today I was feeling a bit nostalgic, and I put on some System of a Down. (Helloooo, high school metal obsession!) And I heard the opening lyrics to that radio hit, "Sugar," and I totally did an out-loud "OH. MY. GOD." I get it now! KOMBUCHA. MUSHROOM.

10 years later, some psychedelic nu-metal lyrics make just a little bit more sense. It's good to know my brain continues to develop, and I'm just a wee bit more granola than I was a decade ago.

The kombucha mushroom people,
Sitting around all day
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray...
(sugar!)

Taiwan photos

Okay, I've given up on actually writing a blog entry about Taiwan. Go take a gander at my photo album instead.

Taiwan favorites