Quick Note

I'm in Cambodia now, paying a buck an hour for internet. I'm a little over halfway done my trip. A few quick thoughts:

Cambodia is a lot like Vietnam and Thailand, not surprisingly, but it has its own flavor and quirks. I can't seem to get a proper Vietnamese coffee here, though, with the condensed sweetened milk. I'm pissed about that.

Cambodians hate their own currency. They prefer American dollars, crisp ones. They give change in riels (the local currency). It's 4000 riels to the dollar, and riels are a closed currency. Thus, any leftovers I have will have to go in the ol' scrapbook, because they're WORTHLESS and not accepted outside Cambodia.

My bill at the hostel in Phnom Penh came to $14.10. I tried to give the chick a dime, and she laughed and marvelled at it, then asked me for riels instead. Apparently it's a no-coin country. Even the riels seem to only come in bill form. I've seen as low as 100, a couple cents.

The vendors here are all about making you promise that if you DO get a manicure, or you DO buy a bracelet, that you'll go to them, not anyone else. One chick made me pinky-swear today. I bet she'll recognize me the next time I'm on the beach and call me out.

It's pretty cheap here. I've been averaging under $5 a meal, except at my second location at a pricey floating ecolodge that I mentioned in a previous preparatory post. Even there, though, I got free breakfast, and my lunch and dinner totals were under $20 a day. I was shocked.

I haven't bought anything yet. I was only in Phnom Penh overnight, and I was worrying the whole next morning about how I would get to the lodge; then at the lodge, there was nothing to buy and noplace to go. I'll buy some things here in Sihanoukville, though.

I took a three and a half hour bus trip today, for $6.25. There was no official rest stop, so I had to ask the driver if I could use a toilet when he dropped someone off, after I'd been holding it for two hours. The toilet was a bush.

I'm kind of afraid to carry around my camera here, being a chick alone, so I won't have as many pictures as on my other trips. I did meet two nice families at the ecolodge, though, who took some pictures of me, probably the only pictures of me I'll get on this trip.

Tomorrow I'll go on an excursion to Reap National Park for jungle trekking and beachy stuff. I think it'll be the only day trip I do, since I'm leaving Saturday and I want to have time to get a massage, enjoy the beach nearby (I just peaked at it today), and do a little shopping and relaxing.

More blogging to come on Sundayish. Happy New Year.

Birth-Giving

My birthday started on Thanksgiving Proper, since one of my classes whose students really like me (and having parties) doesn't meet on Fridays. Most of the kids came equipped with food for everyone: we got an ice cream cake, fried chicken with little rice bits in the batter; cups that had soda on the bottom and a long straw that goes up along the side of another cup full of chicken nuggets, nestled into the larger cup; fried potatoes cut into spirals on a stick, shrimp-flavored chips (gross), plus I had made chocolate pudding. We were all ludicrously full after that. I got presents from some of the kids, as well. Andrew's mom brought some flowers when she brought the potato sticks, Ashley gave me some potted flowers, which I still have on my window sill at school, and Melanie gave me a set of three little bags in varying sizes, for makeup and sundries.



Here's the ice cream cake:




Ashley's flowers:



Here's where Danny took over on the camera for me. He really loves that camera.



Then on Friday it was my real birthday and I had a party all day at school. There was a lot of food that day, too.


Here's my first class, Sean, Erin, Lucy, Albert, and Eric, watching the Simpsons. Those big cups you see are the chicken/soda cups I was referring to above:




Lucy gave me some earrings and a handkerchief set. I never know what to do with those things. The kids always give them to me. Albert gave me a back scratcher with a big stuffed heart on one end. I think you're supposed to pound yourself in the back with that part. Something I can actually use.

Here are Antonio, Steve, Ally, and half of Jane in my next class:




They brought more fried chicken, juice, cake, and tea, and I bought them sweet buns from the bakery nearby--Rotibuns, they're called.


Lucille set this little birthday wish up:



And they had kicked me out at the beginning of the class so they could do this and sing to me:

Lucille, and the cake Jane brought:

Ally:

Jane:

My next class also brought me a cake, and forgave me a year:

These are Monique, Ruby, Aimee, and Lilly:

The cake after the candles:

The boys in that class also brought me some individual snacks, like cookies and candies and such. Jimmy got me some lotion and body wash, and Ruby got me a whole bath set. Monique made a little stuffed dog for me, Lilly got me a warm, wide scarf, and Aimee made me a little card.

Here they are--Harry, Jimmy, Jeff, and the girls:

And from this angle you can see the last boy, David. He's just a peanut.

My next class is all boys--Dragon, Sean in the back, Charlie, Tom, and Jack's hair.

These guys gave me all these high-brow present ideas they said they would get when I mentioned my birthday previously, like manicures and makeup, but I think they were thwarted by their parents. I did get a little headband from Sean, and Dragon brought a cheesecake. Funnily enough, I didn't have any cake on my birthday, even though three kids brought cake, and I bought one of my own for my last couple classes. I was just too full from all the chicken and pizza all day, plus I find Korean cake infinitely disappointing. I like a nice, rich chocolate cake. White cake is a waste no matter what country it's from, and Korean chocolate cake just tastes like air. Stupid.

Jack, Dragon, Charlie, Alex, Tom:

I think Tom's going to be a little heartbreaker in like four years.

Cheesecake. It might be better than the other cakes, but cheesecake without fruit topping? Screw that.

Here are my last couple classes. I got multicolored pens and cell phone charms from Diane and Tara, but the older kids tend to be less givey. It's okay. I get the pleasure of seeing their shining faces three times a week. Joy.

Because there was so much cake from previous classes, we didn't even finish it, and I saved the cake I bought for my Thanksgiving dinner the next day at Heather's house. I'll have to save that story until next time. I'm leaving for Cambodia in a few hours. I'll czech back in after the holidays.

Japanese Souvenirs

I managed to bring back some pretty cool stuff from Fukuoka. Here's a little print I picked up. It reminds me of a pteradactyl, though I think it's supposed to be more like a raptor, or even some other nondinosaur creature.




Here's a flyer for the band we hung out with on Saturday night:


These are their cartoon representations:



This is a cool think I never saw before, although I've started to notice it around Korea a little bit, and on packages from home and such. It's a data-matrix code. You just take a picture of it with your cell phone and it takes you to the website. It seems to be exploding into use.

This is a stuffed doll from the coolest thing I saw in Japan. I was looking around this store called The Loft, where I got the print above and some other stuff. They had this display of these characters called Mame-Shiba, and were playing 30-second spots on a little tv. I watched it for a long time. It was very funny. They were animated commercials, in which some person was in a normal situation, eating. Then a little live bean would fall out of a bag, or get picked up on a spoon, and say something to the person. I didn't quite understand what the beans were saying, but it would deeply affect the person, so he wouldn't be able to eat his food. After looking around at the merchandise and seeing shirts and caps saying "Did you know...?" in English, I figured the beans were giving some disgusting fact about the food on the plate.

Since I've been back, I've used the internets to figure out what the beans were saying, and I was almost right. They just give somewhat random gross or weird trivia facts that don't have anything to do with the food they're in (are), but still make people lose their appetites. Here's a link to a Mame-shiba video on Youtube. There are links to other videos there, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mameshibavideos#p/a/4F7D4F3F2B624714/0/Ss6d3ogxfXc

Here's the jacket I bought in a mall there. I think this is probably the first item of clothing I've ever bought purely for fashion. The sleeves are only elbow-length, so it's not very functional. But it has lots of zippers and snap buttons, and it also has wires in the collar and along the length of the zipper, so I can shape it. It's cooool. There are pictures of me with it on in my last couple posts.

Japanese Bathroom

The second greatest thing about Japan was the bathrooms. I'll get to the greatest thing next time. It's awesome.

We did a lot of drinking and walking around in Japan, so there wasn't always a bar or restaurant restroom to use. But there always seemed to be a public outdoor toilet around, and that was highly convenient, despite there being no toilet paper.

The hotel bathroom was really cool. In Korea, they have the high-tech toilet seats in fancy places, as well, but there aren't handy English directions for me to read at Lotte department store or the posh bars around here. But at the Japanese hotel, I was warned that upon sitting on the seat, a flow of water would begin and last for a few seconds and that the seat was heated. I also learned how to use the bidet properly, which was amusing. It made me wonder about the testing process in getting the stream direction, temperature, pressure, and diameter just right. Yes, very funny. The only thing the directions did not explain was which flush control was for light flush and which was for heavy, but that's easily solved through trial and error.

The first morning after my shower I discovered the suitest thing:

It's a little hard to see because I had to go next door to borrow Emily's camera and the bathroom had cooled down by then, but notice the difference between the left side of the mirror and the right side. The mirror covers most of the wall over the sink and toilet, as I recall, but there's this very clear rectangle over the sink that doesn't fog up while the hot water is going, so you don't have to wipe off the glass to style your hair, shave, do makeup, whatever. That's so awesome.

I also liked that the hotel didn't use miniature bars of soap or shampoo and conditioner bottles. Instead they conserved a lot of plastics by having wall-mounted, push-button containers of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower, next to the sink.

Japan Last Night

For our final night in Fukuoka, we went back across the canal to the row of outdoor food stands overlooking the water. We figured it would be kind of cheap (for Japan) to eat at a stand, but evidently eating on prime view real estate costs kind of a lot. We ate like a little variety pack of meat on a stick and some noodle soup, as I recall, and I don't remember how much it actually was per person, but we were all very disappointed with the price. We were also getting a lot of silent, and then more vocal, pressure from the proprietors to get the hell out, as some of the group were taking their time with their beers. It didn't really seem like anyone was waiting, but I'm sure they would rather have a table ready to rope customers in.

Afterwards we found these two chicks who were doing quite an entertaining musical performance. We stayed and watched for a while and talked to a couple of the locals.

Here are some shots of the bridge. This is the silver statue lady:

And some street (bridge) musician:

And us. This is my new jacket, by the way:

Next we were on our way to a bar, but got distracted by all these bands lined up in the park that was giving the music festival earlier in the day. We heard this band of strapping young lads, called Sept Couleurs, and decided to listen to them for a while. I think we stayed about two hours, drinking beers from the corner store the whole time. They were quite good, and a lot of fun.

The dude in the white hat we met over where the two chicks were playing. He was talking to us for a while and seemed cool and I figured he could find us a good bar, so I invited him along when we left, even if only to be polite and not leave him hanging. He ended up being pretty annoying, continually bothering us to get going to the bar, while we were enjoying the music from these boys. We told him to go ahead if he wanted, but he waited for us, anyway. When we finally were ready to go, he brought us to this bar called Broadway (he had previously told us he had been an actor in New York and worked on Broadway, and we were very impressed, but I think that was a miscommunication).

Eventually Emily joined in while the others took a break:

The coolest thing about these guys is that although they didn't speak a lick of English, the singer was still able to sing Beatles songs, and even read the lyrics he didn't know (in English) WHILE PLAYING AND SINGING as someone scrolled down a lyrics website on a cell phone.

When we got to the bar, we ordered a very large pitcher, which I guess Emily didn't take a picture of (these are all her pictures), and the white hat dude drank some of it, but didn't contribute any money. What a douchebag. Evidently he was a promoter or an employer for the bar, and had been antsy all night because we were wasting good money-spending time away from his bar.

This is how I feel about THAT guy: