Okay so I just wrote about half of a really long post about how awesome Thailand has been... and then it got deleted somehow. It's a shame when things like that happen to computer geniuses like myself. So... from the top. Todd and I reconvened on the small island of Koh Phi Phi (where The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed). But this time we had company. ...

The Atlanta Hotel in Bangkok is within walking distance of the tailor district, the Siam Paragon, and Lumpini Park. It's also right next two of the three red light districts of Bangkok. When the owner's son took over, he decided to make it "Bangkok's Bastion of Healthy Tourism." The guy must have had some pretty traumatic sexual experiences.. he clearly has a complex. Staying there, you're also constantly ...

As you can clearly tell from the little asterisk on the itinerary on the right, Todd and I parted ways temporarily for a few days. His cousins were in Thailand so he headed up there by plane and seaplane from Singapore while I intended to take a train all the way there. Things didn't quite work out that way. I made a video on my phone (go e90!) ...

Ah, Taiwan, we hardly knew you.  Though our M.O. of working for the first month and seeing the country for the second isn't very fair to a one-month stop, I was getting pretty fond of it by the end. So what did we like about Taiwan?  Let's check out the report card. Nocturnal resident friendliness: A For starters, Taipei stays up late.  At ...

Our original gear list has changed. We've added a few gems and have also dumped some poor performing or no longer useful stuff. The Losers: Stuff that hit the trash can. #1 on the loser list, a spot earned for being total failures, are those Solomon XCR Pro 3D shoes. They served me well for a while, but then when it got really wet they soaked through and ...

Sleeping on concrete isn't so easy, even coming from a night on the floor of a cave. And without the sleeping bags we decided to rent at the last second? We would have been completely miserable. So at the first hint of light I started making enough noise to be audible without sounding like a wake-up attempt. Soon we were all awake, laughing at each other as we ...

We've lived in three countries now, which has given me some perspective on America that I didn't have before. Sure, I'd been to a bunch of countries before (only 15 total!), but things are different when you live there. You learn how the city and the people in it tick. When I left I expected that everything I'd find in other countries would make me like the US ...

When you're in a foreign country, you don't question signs as much as you might have if you were at home. You're just so happy to see a sign that makes sense, that you follow it. I don't know if there was anything that should have made us second guess our course, but if there was it might have been wise for us to pay attention to it. ...

I've always hated anime. I never really gave it much of a chance as it combined two things that I didn't care for: cartoons and words I couldn't understand. One night I was at my friend Charlie's house, hanging out in the living room. Someone in his family put on Hayao Miyazaki's anime mastepiece, "Spirited Away". At first I ignored the movie, giving it just a small fraction ...

We were in Yoyogi Park for the Hanami celebration. Then this happened. Catch the killer move at 1:04? These two girls and their very feminine wizard call themselves Bercume, after the all-girl J-pop group they emulate, Perfume. But all they do is dance and lip-sync with ice cream cone microphones? I got a huge kick out of it, but I don't really get it. Then again, if I ...