As much as I enjoy spending my days traveling around the world, hanging out in coffee shops, enjoying leisurely lunches with friends who happen to have a day off, and lounging around the apartment in my underwear… 4+ months is probably enough of that kinda nonsense eh? And hey, the sooner I start working the sooner I’m saving for my next trip!
Walking through downtown San Francisco on my way to my second job interview 2 weeks ago, I peered in the first floor windows of a Market Street office at all the cubicle workers in front of their computers. I was filled with dread. I’m not ready to go back!
But the job hunting process went very well. Scary well. I guess the job market is good right now, and…
I have a new job. My first in many years. i start on Monday. crazy.
I was honestly a little worried about this because I was with IDG for so long. However, my trip gave me a buddha-like calm and patience with it all. sounds silly i know. probably also made me not look desperate in interviews.
I had my choice of 3 jobs: design/print company in a non-corporate environment, hot buzzy .com startup that seemed a little too chaotic, or video game software developer owned by a well known multinational. I chose the last one. I want a job that gives me a chance to learn some new things. After my travels, an opportunity in a multinational company is also very appealing. Not at all saying I’m going to bail on this job any time soon, but I know I don’t want to stay at the same company as long as my last one. And I’m also thinking about going back to school to somehow come up with a career change down the line. I don’t want to be an I.T. Manager forever, and i’m not at all interested in the corporate ladder.
Hanoi was super exciting on arrival, a city very unique in the world. Noise and clamor like you wouldn’t believe, I’m not sure even the pictures convey the craziness. I’m glad I went, and recommend it if you are interested. However, after some time there for me, the charm wears off and it can become annoying. The cold, cloudy, smog filled air gets to you after a while for sure.
I did love the other cities I visited in the middle of the country, Hue and Hoi An. Much more laid back and enjoyable cities, and a bit more of what you would expect of Vietnam.
Costs: everything is very very affordable.
Food: this was one of the sway factors in me picking VN over other destinations, and they did not disappoint. The food is incredible at all levels. I ate all kinds of crazy things: eel pho, a vietnamese hamburger, dried fish bbq’d right on the street, and try to get some rice “whiskey” if you can, it was the best of the 3 countries i got to sample.
Air quality: horrible in Hanoi, and amplified by the constant cloud cover. I don’t know how an asthmatic could survive here more than a few hours. Not too bad once you get an hour away from Hanoi.
Culture: to me, this sure looks like a country still divided. North and South, as it’s been for a long time.
Expensive, but underrated destination for a city. The weather was great at that time of year, just as I had planned. You can walk just about everywhere interesting. Transportation is great, cheap, and easy, although taxi drivers rarely speak English. You could see all the highlights in a few days if you wanted, but it was a perfect place for me to start my trip and get a taste of China.
Costs: Everyone else writes that it’s expensive and I guess that it is. I paid the same price for a room ($30) that I paid in Spain or Mumbai, but I guess in retrospect the room was a LOT smaller, hehe. And the real problem is there are no room options between that and around $99. Everything else can be done on low budget if you’re not there for the shopping.
Food: Good food and everything you could want, amazing food if you want to spend $.
Air quality: pretty bad, especially downtown on HK Island. Too many taxis, and all the boats don’t help either. If you look at the worst polluted places in the world, the Top 10 are all in China now. They need to clean up their act.
People: This is a tough one. First, Hong Kong is a very multicultural city, many races, even many races from all over China. In a metropolitan city like this, it’s hard to meet people as a tourist. I met a few nice locals, seemingly by chance, but everyone is busy going somewhere and you don’t stand out at all as a tourist or white person. In a country of over a billion people, a survival of the fittest mentality permeates. Chinese have a reputation for not being, well… nice, and I saw that too. But all of the Chinese I know in America, some from Hong Kong even, are very nice, so I think it’s a mainland thing, and maybe a Communist thing as the vibe in Hanoi is similar.
Culture: Hong Kong and Macau both previouly being independent regions creates a unique culture. Picture it like the Chinese version of New York City, many people mixed together, minus the Communist overtones… a culture unto itself. Also like NYC, extremely dense, and it almost never stops moving!
Highlight(s): the night market (not to miss); walking the entire city and subsequent $7 foot massage.
I’m very happy for my adopted hometown basketball team. They’re finally back in the playoffs after a 13 year losing drought, the longest in the NBA. Since I’ve been here 10 years, I started following them about 8 years ago. I got to experience the pain of cheering for a perennial loser, and it’s funny how cheering for a losing team, just makes a stronger bond as a fan.
But now the real drama… they play Dallas! my hometown and favorite team of my family and friends back home. What’s funny, is I was never really a fan of the Mavericks, they sucked so bad when I was growing up there, I just never got into them. They only got good after I left, and by then, my favorite team was the San Antonio Spurs. I don’t expect the Warriors to go far, but this should be a fun few weeks.
In other news – I’m suddenly juggling job offers. But I’m really enjoying just hanging out at coffee shops, and kickin it around the house, slacker style. guess going back to work is a good thing… i keep telling myself.
After 10 years of being a customer, I’m done with BofA. Customer service ceased to exist at this money grubbing institution many years ago. Just a little bit of googling will show you how many other people hate my former bank.
For those just tuning in, I suffered $110 in fees from their highest-in-industry $5 out-of-country ATM fees.
A trip to my original Bank branch, and explaining my situation, fell on deaf ears. they said can only repay fees when they’ve made a mistake. When I told them I was going to shut down my accounts, the guy literally said, “there’s the teller. They’ll be glad to give you your money.”
Unbelievable.
A friend then gave me the idea to get gussied up, and head over to the Castro branch and see if that got me anywhere.
While they were very friendly at the Castro branch (and I looked goooood too) they actually admitted that NO ONE at any brach of Bank of America can make ANY DECISION at all. They said that they have to call in to the SAME customer service line that I do!!! Of course, I asked him to do this again, and I got the same answer, even when telling them that I am shutting down my accounts. (more…)
(Here’s the first of my country wrap ups. I’ve jotted notes along the way but haven’t fully written them, and now that I’m home I’m just feeling lazy.)
If you’ve EVER wanted to visit India – DO NOT DELAY – THE TIME IS NOW my friends. (If you have no interest in visiting India, then I recommend you not go. hah. Don’t let me talk you into it, it’s not for everyone )
I’ve personally thought for a while, mostly just on gut instinct and a little reading, that India is on the verge of possibly returning to a world power. Television and articles I’ve read since then support my theory. They have certainly seen a huge middle class, and entire cities, emerge through technology jobs. Indian software engineers have been returning to India with money made in America to start new businesses. That’s not going to end soon.
If India can manage to stay in relative peace with themselves and their neighbors for the next 10 years, I think big changes will be coming. I think it’s archaic infrastructure will probably be modernized and a lot of what makes India the special, old, dilapidated, noisy, smelly place will be changed or gone.
The one thing that would conflict with my prediction is that I get the impression that they are just not in a hurry. India moves pretty slowly. They (even the rich Bollywood types) have all grown up with it the way it is and are ok with it. I don’t know how they will solve the poverty in the future, but it should be interesting to watch.
Costs: Accommodation is not cheap in Mumbai, but everything else – food, taxis, trains, sights – is. Plane rides used to be cheap but they have risen in the last few years.
Food: Incredible, and you don’t have to spend much to taste the incedible food. The only thing I’d recommend is learning food names. Often the menus were huge, not in English, and filled with so many names I’d never seen before, and I eat Indian food.
People: Totally nice, very accommodating, both in the tourist areas and not. About the only place I can remember them not being nice was the airports. I mentioned in this post how sometimes you get stared at, and it feels cold, but once you acknowledge the person with a smile or head nod, it is almost always returned. I neglected to mention the Indian man “head lilt,” when they talk they have this awesome bobblehead motion. I’d noticed before, but it’s much more noticeable when you are there! By the end of the trip I was starting to do it too.
Now a woman traveling alone would probably have an entirely different experience than I did. The differences and roles between the sexes is still very real here, which leads us to…
Culture: Indian culture is VERY complex, to say the least. I think it would take a lot of reading and talking with people to even begin to get a grasp. When I would ask the guys in Kochi about everything from walking in the street, to dating or lack thereof, they would just laugh and say “that’s the way it is, that’s the way we do it,” but would not elaborate on why. Oh well.
Hot Tip: if you go to Mumbai, don’t mess around leaving the airport, take the $6 pre-paid taxi like I did. Other cities you can find shuttles or buses, but it’s not worth being cheap there and getting a bad first impression (i’d heard horror stories.)
Highlight: Kochi, and everything about it, but the whole 11 days was all pretty amazing.
My stay was short and limited, only two cities/areas, but that was on par with what I thought most of my trip would be like. Mumbai exceeded my expectations on the whole. It was pretty intense, but not overwhelming at all after visiting Java, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Kerala, and the city of Kochi – wow! What can I say except I’d love to go back and spend more time in southern India. The cities are not built with a lot of aesthetic qualities in mind, but all of the charm of India there, surrounded by beautiful green countryside.
Later when I was the Costa del Sol, I was chatting with a hotel owner (seen here surrounded by women, haha what a character) who started telling me about his visits to India and SE Asia when he was a hippie in the early 1970’s. He’d been to India 3 or 4 times, and said the only place he would want to go back to in this day and age… and I guessed what he was going to say before the word came out of his mouth… Kerala.
Goals: India was one of my top priority destinations when I planned this trip. But I was mostly wondering if I could “handle” India, whether it was a destination to be endured more than enjoyed as it is for many. I learned that not only did I enjoy it, but I did not want to leave. Scary to think how I just scratched the surface of this enormous and dense country… I think I will be going back before my life is over.
I just edited and uploaded a video from a documentary called Street Musicians of Bombay, from the early 1980’s. In the middle it has a clip from the outdoor laundry I’m standing in front of in the picture up above. Check it out.
I took a little break from the blog to get my life back together and finally relax at home. Been pretty busy for being unemployed: drinks with friends (ok i do have a few still), doing my taxes, doing a lot of obsessive-compulsive-grocery-shopping and experimental cooking, had my first job interview today with another tomorrow…
But now I’ve got some free time, the “lost photo” gallery is up. I also found some missing pictures that should have been in previous galleries – so Portugal, Indonesia 2, and Spain 2 have been updated. The pics from my cell phone turned out pretty crappy, but previously overlooked photos include a few gems, like this one…
I took close to 2000 photos. I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ve taken in the last 10 years combined.
I’ve been working on technical blog stuff this week as well – wordpress updates, and I added a long overdue MAP of my trip in the sidebar! I was trying to get the map going before and during the trip but it just got frustrating finding the right software.
The coolest thing is to zoom in on Java, look in particular the volcanoes, on my map with Google’s satellite pictures. The Mt. Bromo area can be seen perfectly in incredible detail. I attached my pictures so you can see the pictures with the overhead views – pretty damn cool… If you have a lot of time on your hands, Ha Long Bay is also really interesting to see.
… I was driving across the country, with everything I owned in the back on my Jeep Cherokee, and a U-Haul trailer. I pulled into my new town on Easter Sunday. It was the early evening and I will forever remember the sunset and color of the sky on that day parking at my friend Mike Chamber’s house.
10 years of being a Californian.
This move came to fruition after my first trip to California on tour with Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks in ‘96. Fell in love with with San Francisco, was dissatisfied with life in Texas, and music school, so I picked up and moved.
Funny, reflecting on this now, after my amazing trip… feeling dissatisfied with my current state of affairs… maybe it’s time for another move
Homeless, jobless, and friendless… Last weekend I had a few days to kill before I could get back into my apartment. So I had to seek out the only place in California you can stay for Vietnam prices. Of course in Cali $10 gets you a plot of dirt and leaves, a picnic table, and a BBQ grill in a nice state park. Fortunately my camping gear was easily accessible on my storage pile.Amazing I’ve lived here so long and never been to Pinnacles. I did a nice 8+ mile hike up about 1500 feet. This is really a nice spot that gets you some views you don’t see much around the usual San Francisco area hiking trails.
to get gussied up, and head over to the Castro branch and see if that got me anywhere.
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I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ve taken in the last 10 years combined.
