You’re the U to my Q

I wish I could say the words in the title were spoken about me, but they were not. If only… Although Kevin did do something sweet for me – he sent me my yellow immunization card in the mail so I could get it updated (got my last shot on Wednesday). Unfortunately, I forgot that I had asked him to mail something to me, so when I got that in the mail, I thought to myself, “How sweet! Kevin sent me a letter!” and then opened it and was confused by why Kevin sent me a sheet of scrap paper folded around a yellow piece of paper. When I told Kevin this later, he said, “Yeah, I meant to write something on the paper so you wouldn’t get excited, like ‘This is a piece of scrap paper,’ but I was in a hurry.” I don’t know whether to feel touched that he didn’t want to disappoint me or to feel upset that he couldn’t take 10 seconds to write on the paper. It’s a tough one.

Besides getting that last shot, there hasn’t been much travel-related action these past few weeks. The only thing I can think of is that I bought some solid shampoo and conditioner from Lush. This means I can take a lot more tiny sunscreens and tiny toothpastes! I’m thinking of asking Kevin if he can sneak a big thing of sunscreen through the airport in his pocket. Maybe to make up for the whole mail disappointment.

Anyway, that’s all the travel-related news for this week. Right now, as I am writing this, Kathleen and her roommate Kate are sitting on the couch next to me cross-stitching and watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” on which KATIE HOLMES will be guest-starring. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Katie Holmes dances. For some bizarre reason, I’m more amazed by that than by the fact that she (supposedly) gave birth in complete silence. So if you were here right now, this is what you would see:

Ok fine, so they haven’t been sitting like this smiling and showing off their cross-stitches all night, they just did that for the pictures. They were more concentrate-y before this.

[UPDATE: Katie Holmes did not really dance so much as strut. But she has great legs.]

Before this, the three of us had Thai food for dinner. Here is a picture of Kathleen and me repeating the heart theme of the sticky rice. (She wishes me to say that we walked six blocks in the rain before taking this picture and that we are better-looking in real life. I think we look pretty pukingly adorable.)

I never had black sticky rice in the shape of a heart before this. It tasted like regular sticky rice.

Lastly, just for good measure, here is a picture of Kate’s cat, Lily.

I can hardly stand the cuteness.

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Puzzles for Postcards

Where Am I? (Name the city.)

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Scrabble Log

Games: 55
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

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Inundated, But Not Constipated

The last few weeks my brain has been inundated with travel-related activity and wedding planning. (More recently though, my brain has been inundated with thoughts about whether or not I can use the word “inundated” in that first sentence. Did you know that word is not recognized by dictionary.com?) So although I know I’ve been a stickler for strictly sticking to the travel-themed blog posts here, this week will be more of a “I do what I want” post, like Zhou often likes to do.

First, I have to review the new Blackberry Storm, AKA “Lookie here, it’s typing ‘Reno Nevada’ instead of ‘Rhino Fertata’ or ‘Emo Pinata’.” My mom recently got a company-issued one, and it works great! Oh wait, she doesn’t have that one anymore. It broke. So did the next one, and the next. I think she’s on her fourth one now within the past three months.

But what about its functionality? To sum up my frustration, my family and I recently drove aimlessly around Indy looking for a Men’s Wearhouse while my brother sat in the back seat and tried to find the closest location on my mom’s Storm. We found one long before he even got close. Despite Steve’s skinny fingers, he was unable to type in the necessary commands to get to one website on the Storm in the 20 minutes that my family drove around. And Steve’s not alone – earlier I got so frustrated using that thing that I gave up without ever being able to enter in the password to unlock it. I still don’t understand why Blackberry would make such a shoddy piece of equipment three years after Apple put out its flawless iPhone.

…

I was able to keep my mind off of travel-related stuff for the last three minutes, but I give in. This is a travel blog, so I should discuss how the planning is going.

Zhou and I were about to book our hike on the “finest walk in the world” today, but backed out at the last second. Instead we have decided to do a nearby hike – the Routeburn, which supposedly stays a lot drier and, according to National Geographic, “the scenic payoffs far surpass those of the Milford.” If anyone has done either of these two treks, please let us know what you think, as we have not locked into the Routeburn yet.

We have also decided it’s time to fill our diarrhea prescription. Wait, anti-diarrhea prescription. I’ve recently talked to several people who’ve been off exploring the world, and some have said they haven’t had any problems, but others said that was the hardest part of the trip. I’d rather not take the chance. After all, eating something as simple as an orange will probably play tricks on my stomach, having never really eaten non-apple fruits. (On a somewhat related note, don’t talk about your airplane bathroom experiences if you want to win The Next Food Network Star.)

Does anyone have tips on what picture website to use when we’re on the road? The three I can think of are Shutterfly, Picasa and Flickr, but unfortunately neither Zhou or I has used any of the three extensively. If anyone knows a particularly easy one to use that will let us post thousands of pictures, let us know!

The last travel-related topic of the week: I need to shamelessly promote two travel websites/blogs that I think are pretty cool. First, my cousin Brenda is one of our big world travel influences, and I’ve yet to give her the proper respect. She’s been all around the world a million times, and her favorite spots include Vanuatu, Colombia and Croatia. These are three places not on our itinerary, but not for lack of trying. The worst part is, it took her linking our blog on her site for me to mention hers. Sorry Bren!

The second is a blog by Dave, a friend of mine from work. He did his world travel before becoming an investment banker, and then realized that world travel is so much cooler than banking, and he now lives abroad. Unfortunately this blog was to track a trip from two years ago so it is no longer maintained, but it has some cool pictures and videos. Zhou and I can only hope that we get to see some of the sights that Dave did.

…

I’ll end the post with pictures taken from four different cities where I have recently been, with four different groups of people (because no one other than Zhou can put up with me for any length of time).

(1) Cleveland, OH: jamming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Matt and Hadley.

(2) Charlotte, NC: disc golfing at Renaissance Park with Charlie.

(3) West Orange, NJ: me and Zhou in Eagle Rock Park at a scenic outlook overlooking New York City.

(4) Fishers, IN: my brother (right) and I doing tricks while tubing on the lake with our parents.

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Puzzles for Postcards: We’ve been debating making some tweaks to our categories, and this week we’ve decided to make it official. Going forward, there will be no more VQs or Better Chargers, as it is much too difficult to think of good ones. Our puzzle rotation will now consist of Anagrams, Rhyme Time, Consonantless Words and Where Am I? (oooh, a new one!). Good luck!

Where Am I? First person to respond with the country where the below picture was taken wins! Once we get a little ways into our trip, we will use our own pictures for this game, but for now we’re borrowing them from Flickr (will cite the source after we have a winner). Good luck!

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Scrabble Log

Games: 55
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

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Unraveling the Traveling

Less than eight weeks to go ’til we’ll be on the road
If by road I mean plane over water
Me and Zhou will then go where our load will be towed
Through a country that couldn’t be hotter

We’ll do a safari, maybe pet baby rhinos
And forage the forest for apes
The goal is to know each rhino by nose
Take lots of pictures and then escape!

I can’t wait to check out Ngorongoro
And greet all the African villagers
One thing though me and Zhou will forgo:
Meeting the pirates and pillagers

From there we’ll fly to Asia, our homeland
Making our way on Cathay
For me to call it “my homeland” Zhou banned
Since I’m born and raised U.S.A.

We’ll have a ball for three weeks in Nepal
Hiking a trek near Mount Everest
It’s quite long so let’s not crawl or stall
A leg-breaking fall and we’ll never rest

In Southeast Asia with the Gibbons we’ll fly
And I’ll have to learn to eat curry
“It’s cannibalism!” I’ll cry with a tear in my eye
But as they say: with beef curry, no worry

If I don’t die we’ll move North and then South
The Great Wall on down to New Zealand
On the skydive: bugs, stay out of my mouth
The pee in my pants I’ll claim we planned

On the move again to that bunny guy’s island
We’ll hang with incredible Moai
We can’t drive there by land, but let’s hope for dry sand
Zhou, I’ll wear sunscreen so no fry

I won’t try to hide our Argentinian plans
Patagonian rafting, biking and hiking
In Peru we’ll scan all the rainforest clans
The monkeys should be to Zhou’s liking

Maybe we’ll hop as we go to Galapagos
Sadly, not with Trebek
Saving the turtles, we’ll be sure to stop a roast
At last a good deed on this trek

Finally in Europe the journey will end
My brain can’t retain that far away
But you can depend that the trip will be penned
And logged on our blog each day

So what will I learn through this upcoming journey?
A whole new perspective on life
I’ll be with my best friend just like Bert and Ernie
My best friend who’s also my wife

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Puzzles for Postcards

Wacky Jack’s Better Chargers:

Tie Day Lou Bake My Feet
She Lazy If By Lift
Yow Arm Now Clone

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Scrabble Log

Games: 55
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

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Ice Cream and Sangria

Charlottesville, VA  - July 3-5, 2009

We spent 4th of July weekend with the alliterative Jing and Jeff in Charlottesville. Guess what we did?

a) spent an afternoon at Monticello
b) went for a hike to see the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi
c) went vineyard hopping in wine country
d) relaxed poolside
e) all of the above
f) none of the above (this is the correct answer)

What’s that phrase about good intentions?  I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it probably applies here.

And even though we didn’t visit Monticello, I can tell you that Thomas Jefferson is responsible for bringing french fries to the United States. Apparently, people had only eaten potatoes boiled before this because they thought they were poisonous otherwise. I can also tell you that John Adams thought Thomas Jefferson was being pretentious by serving those new-fangled french fries. I learned this from listening to public radio. I’m sure we would have heard all this on the Monticello tour as well.

Anyway. So what DID we do this weekend?

We drank.

Giant glass of homemade sangria

We ate.

Jing and I with our Friendly’s ice cream – I got ALL of the cherries

We hid behind fire hydrants.

Yes, this is a normal-sized fire hydrant.
Yes, Jing and I are just that small.
No, I’m not sure why we did this either.

The four of us (Jing, Jeff, Kevin and I, in case you forgot) also played a LOT of games of spades. If you don’t know what spades is, I like to think of it as bridge for dummies. The only reason this analogy doesn’t work is because I know nothing about bridge except that Warren Buffet is good at it and it involves bidding and partners. Which is also true of spades.

We also played a bunch of Mario Kart on the Wii. I don’t have much to say about that except DARN YOU DRY BONES!! HOW DOES YOUR KART GO SO FAST?

We also played a lot of Cranium and Taboo. I won’t say who won the games, but I will say their team name rhymes with “the curls” and not “the toys.” And that the team is pictured above hiding behind a normal-sized but giant-looking fire hydrant.

Speaking of rhymes, we’re going to go ahead and give Steve the point for the last puzzle. He got the first one (“Farmer Charmer”) and the last one (“Blazer Appraiser”) right, and I was going for “Best Dressed” as the answer to “The Superlative Look” and “Mentor Center” for “A Place Where Advisers Gather.” But his answers of “Supreme Beam” and “Board Ward” work, even though they weren’t what I had thought of originally.

Aaaaand this is why I don’t write the puzzles.
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Picture of the day: I believe that Kevin’s gesture can most accurately be described as “okie dokie.”

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Getting Visas (Part 2)

Washington DC – July 2, 2009

Like mad scientists undeterred from their first explosion in the basement, today we were back at it for more.

Yesterday’s trip to the embassies did not go well, but I do have to say that today’s went worse.

Vietnam

(Zhou eating her hot dog stand hot dog in the Vietnamese embassy)

8) Do not arrive later than 9:45. I mentioned this yesterday, but it bears repeating. Today we arrived at 11:30 for our noon pick-up, and the line was four deep. This may not seem like a lot, until you think of the visa office like the DMV, with the only worker speaking very choppy English and customers who want handwritten driver’s licenses. We left by 12:30, at which point the line was seven deep.

9) Do not forget your identification slip in the car across town, unless you really want to tick off the embassy worker. Although we were told (or so we thought) that we did not need the piece of paper with chicken scratch written on it, apparently we did so the lady could locate our file. She was not happy, and in turn the customers around us burned holes in us with their eyes as the lady disappeared to find our file.

10) Do not be dishonest. Ok, this one is just me bragging about being the bigger man with the smaller wallet, but the lady yesterday did not write down if we paid the expedited fee (we didn’t) and today she asked us what we had paid her the day before. I told her the truth and handed over the extra $40, but got a good night’s sleep afterwards.

Kenya

(Kevin Doin’ Work at the Kenyan embassy)

* If you guessed “(d) Kevin Doin’ Work at the Kenyan embassy” to Sunday’s quiz, then I’m incredibly impressed, since it wasn’t a choice.

11) Do not forget your visa photos in the car across town, unless you luck out with really nice embassy workers. We showed up 15 minutes before Kenya’s 1:00 closing, only to realize that we had left our visa photos in the car. We showed the workers that we had everything else, and had completed the application online, and they graciously told us that even though they were closing that we could knock on the window after retrieving our photos and they would help us out.

12) Do not assume every embassy takes cash. After hustling across town via foot and subway, we drove the car back and two hours later showed up at the window. We tried to hand over our $100 for the two visas, only to find out that they only take money orders. The lady told us where the nearest post office was, and we dashed off.

13) Do not be mean to the embassy workers. I think through all this, the only reason the Kenya people helped us out is because we were very friendly and seemed genuinely lost and confused (we were!). After coming back with the money order, I chatted with the lady for a while about the trip and our families and such. She gave me some good sites to see in Kenya, although we won’t be able to follow her advice since the safari is planned out for us.

In the end, we now have our Vietnam visas, we have our Kenyan visas coming to us in the mail (if you’re doing this option, bring a prepaid non-UPS envelope with you to the embassy), and we will be mailing our passports off to the Chinese embassy once we receive them back from Kenya. Although we don’t have all three visas in our hands as expected, it looks like everything will have worked out.

Had this situation arisen in a non-English speaking foreign country (and I’m positive something similar will), Zhou and I will surely find out a good deal more about our problem solving and patience levels will each other. I’m looking forward to this.
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Pictures of the Day

Petite lady Zhou ready to attack her mussels at Granville Moore’s (home of executive chef, Teddy Folkman)

The mussels attacked back (see Zhou’s shirt stains), but buff hungry Zhou’s muscles eventually won

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