Pulling down on some Chinese karst

I'm embarrassed at how little I take advantage of traveling around Asia sometimes. I've been over here a couple of years now and have never ventured outside of Thailand. So when my friend Marshall told me he was going on a climbing trip to Yangshuo, China, I didn't hesitate for a second to invite myself.
Oddly enough, Yangshuo wasn't too much unlike the westernized version of Thailand; English speaking, pizza parlors, night clubs, all the knock-off shopping you can handle. I got about as much of a sense of Chinese culture as a tourist in Jackson gets a sense of the old west. That being said, the area is crazy beautiful. Surrounded by over 70,000 towering karsts, it's mind blowing just walking out your front door. Here is a video from the top of one of them. In addition, I'll go on record as saying the food there was as good as any I have ever had in my life. We literally didn't have a single meal that wasn't outstanding for the whole 2 weeks.
Of course, that was all just a bonus, because the real reason we came was for the climbing (video here of starting a warm up). One of my traveling companions, Josh Morris (also Pui's boss) is an avid climbing photographer. Please check out the photo album for some sweet shots.

Also I must say that my Chinese blogging efforts have been pretty weak. You can read a much more comprehensive review at my friend Marshall's blog.

I Love my New Neighborhood

Moving to a foreign country is kind of like being an infant (or so I think). The littlest achievements seem so big.


Wednesday nights find Pui working late and me all alone in the big city. (So I'm not alone, there are lots of people to hang out with but I chose to take a lone evening). On a street about a block from us, there are food stalls lined up either side. Most thai people get take away from these stalls, although many of the vendors have set up a table or two behind their place to sit and eat. I'm a little shy to stop and eat because it can be hard to figure out what it is that each stall serves. However, I haven't really found anything I don't like to eat (except maybe that chicken foot floating in my bowl of soup the other day) so I decided to just try whatever this particular stall has. The guy was really nice, told me to sit down and brought me a plate of rice with some of the best chicken that chickens can make sitting on top. As I'm eating an older woman sitting next to me figures out somehow that I'm not thai and kind of keeps looking over at me. So I say hi. She says hi and then starts asking me various questions in English. I answer in Thai. She just finished taking a course in English from the British consulate and really wants to practice her english. So here I am, sitting at a food stall in my neighborhood, talking to my neighbor and feeling like I belong here.


After a while, I leave the stall still feeling a bit hungry so I go to another stall that is only take away and order some Kale type thing, rice, and some amazing chile sauce all in thai. The woman serving it up smiles and waits patiently as I speak thai, and sure enough, I get what I thought I was going to get. I'm pretty much feeling like the man.


This must be how infants feel the first time they learn to communicate exactly what they want.

Location, Location, Location

I've never been much of a commuter. When I lived in Melody Ranch for a couple of years, that extra 20 minutes every day just about killed me. My house on Nimmenhamen isn't that far from town (maybe 15 minutes) but I commonly have to go back and forth 3 times a day: Drop Pui off at work, go home, drive to Thai class, go home, go climbing at the gym, go home. So basically, everyday, I'm spending up to 2 hours in some pretty nasty traffic. Here is a map of said commute.


So when a friend sent me an ad for a house in the old city I jumped at the chance for a move. My old place was basically a small studio with an attached bathroom (video of old place). The neigborhood was very urban- I could throw a baseball from my room and hit 4 high end sushi restraunts - and I've got a pretty weak arm. The new place is the antithesis of that. It's in a really quiet Thai neighborhood. I can walk just about everywhere. I've now got 2 guest bedrooms, an office, a kitchen, and a sweet ping pong table. I'm dealing with problems like spiders and chickens at 4am instead of traffic jams and car exhaust.
Here is the video of the new place. And the video of the giant spider that jumped on me while trying to get him to move.

My 2nd Family

There is this little noodle shop not 30 meters from my condo. It's famous for two things, really good noodles and a family of 10+ rats that hang out about 2 feet from where you eat. Every night I come home I will check out the goings on. Sometime there is garbage strewn about and they will lose all the inhibitions that a well behaved rat might have. Last week their was something particularly tasty in one of the bins and they all piled in, probably 3 or 4 deep.
They have also become one of my favorite things to photograph. I've got some touching shots of a mother rat either giving food to her kids (or stealing it, I'm not quite sure). Recently I had dinner at the noodle shop. I brought along a cliff shot (energy power gel). I poured it out right next to the noodle stand and setup my camera. I'll let this video show you the rest.


Rat Update (2 weeks later): Pui thinks it's because of the publicity they got on this blog, but somebody got wise to them and slipped them something a little less healthy than my energy gel. Rest in Peace good buddies.

The Bulk of it All

As many of you know, I'm about as obsessive/compulsive as you can get without getting a diagnosis. Usually whatever I obsess about has some end in site. If it is an athletic obsession, it usually ends with me blowing out my knee or something equally dramatic. If it's fishing, the end of the season comes sooner or later. Seinfeld only went for 9 seasons and then that one died out, etc.

It is to my chagrin that my obsession with learning Thai has no such quick resolution. I've been enrolled in the university since I got here. 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. On top of that I'm seeing a Thai tutor for an hour before and 2 hours after every class. I then proceed to batter Pui with questions for another 3 or 4 hours. I'm speaking a little better, I can listen a lot better, and my reading/writing is going off. My vocab is probably getting close to 2000 words which is more than I thought I would ever know.
I'm still perplexed by all the special case rules for the reading/writing. I came across the word for 'culture' the other day: wat-tha-na-tham. However the word is spelled as such: watntrrm. After applying all the special rules of what do do with 2 r's, n's followed by t's in the middle of a sentence, etc., you end up 4 syllables where before there was 1!
Also, here is a lame video of me talking Thai with Pui so you have an idea how I sound.

Fingers and Toes

I just read what I wrote about this festival on last year's blog and suffice to say, it hasn't changed a bit. There are still just as many people losing their fingers and toes to all the fireworks. Bangkok has prohibitted all fireworks in the city, so as it would happen the festival is bigger in Chiang Mai than anyplace else.
This year Pui and I decided to celebrate it in the traditional thai fashion by building a Kratong (a little floating candle) and send it down the river. The building of it is actually quite fun; you use misc. parts of a bananna tree and piece it all together with some flowers. Check out the photo album to see the 'making of'.
Getting it to the river however, wasn't quite as much fun. The problem is every other person in Chiang Mai has the same idea. We waded through about a mile and a half of shoulder to shoulder traffic (and people throwing random firecrackers) to even get to the river. Then we walked down this little ramp to the river that is right below the biggest bridge in the city. Having people see how close they can fire a bottle rocket at your head without actually hitting it was more fun than I could handle.
After watching the video from last years festival, I was reminded that it's not all bad. However, I took another video this year that captures some of the stress.

Paying the Bills

So I had this sweet standing desk made for like $50. It's right next to the window of my condo in the high rise, and it's everything I ever wanted in an office space. Last summer I took on a job with Vertical Media running their hosting division. Between that and working with some clients consulting in Jackson, I've got the mix down pretty good. About 4 hours total; 2 morning and 2 in the evening, with my entire days free to do whatever my little heart desires.

The internet connection this year is easily twice as fast as last year. Same phone number, 307-739-8680 and it rings right into my room here. I still think that is pretty wild.
Anyways I'm working on websites like a banshee, so if you have any updates or web work you need done, I'm your guy.