Go Travel, You Dingus!

This is Macau, so I'm technically not travelling in this pic...

I like to travel. It's fun. You might like to travel too. It's fun. If you want to travel, read this. If you don't, you're not fun and you can go kick rocks. I won't give you advice on how to do it, but I will give you advice on how NOT to do it, since I've done that already. So here goes. 


Before You Pack
If you're not sure where you want to go, there are lots of travel blogs (like one written by a charming and charismatic Canadian based in Macau) to help you ignite your imagination. When people ask me where to go (since I'm such a wise and trusted source of information), I'd say to let your interests guide you. You'll likely be pleasantly surprised by the things you discover in an unfamiliar place. But I'll probably say to come visit me and I'll take care of the rest.  

I won't smile for pictures tho

Having a passport helps

Unless you've got a large stash of drug/oil/international school salary money readily at your disposal for such an expedition, it might help to save up for your trip. Asking your parents for their credit card information is made more embarrassing when you admit to needing a bailout for things such as bus passes and concert tickets. I put a little money away every so often. This also means it doesn't auto go into my belly via pizza, beer or large amounts of chicken wings. It works better than you'd think, and you can trust me because I teach 4th grade math.  Your local bank will probably do the best job of giving you the currency you want, although they can also give you currencies you don't want. 

Now it's time to... 

Book your Shit

Google Flights has a couple neat features that make brainstorming and booking pretty easy. SkyScanner is another website that has a handy 'flight rating' system that helps to balance the cost, duration and convenience of a trip into a quantifiable score (in case you didn't realize a 14 hour layover & change of airport would be an inconvenience), but your choices are many. You can also stowaway on a container ship and see where it takes you, that could be fun. 

This place came with a nice cat

If you've never looked into AirBnB, it's a pretty darn neat program. It's an online program that allows travelers (or homeowners) to rent a bed, room or entire place in the city of your choice. It's often cheaper than a hotel, more comfortable & private than a hostel, and can cater to your preferences & taste. Heck, I even use it to look at people's apartments because I'm a snoop and need guidance on how to make my own place look respectable. It also means you can rent trendy places and pretend you're a sophisticated adult.

Or, if you're an employed adult who likes the sophistication and service of a hotel, there are ways to pair flight deals with. Travel websites like Expedia & the other ones have all kinds of handy promotions to entice you into using their services.  

One last thing, it's helpful to learn a few key phrases because it's polite & convenient for those place that aren't so English friendly. A few important ones I stick with are:
- "Thank You", because your mother taught you to use your goddamn manners
- "That one, please", because food is tasty and it's important to keep putting it in your face
- "Where is the Toilet", because that food is sometimes disagreeable and you need the facilities to deal with this new and urgent situation. 

Go Have Fun
The rest is up to you really. You're an adult, do what you want. 

Go by yourself and be majestic

Go with friends and share an experience

Touch the bugs

Taste coffee from a weasel's digestive system

Make friends with funny animals

Get sunburned at the beach

Put too many chilis in your pho

Appreciate architecture

Smell the spices 

Get nostalgic 

Eat things that look like rocks

Look at city lights and say 'neat'

Look at old things and say 'neat'

Drive cars to neat places

Don't crash cars in neat places

Stay hydrated 

Write to your friends

Look at things you don't understand

Go on a hike

Stay very hydrated

Collect funny money

Do impractical things

In the end, maybe you have a good time, maybe you get food poisoning and stay in the musty hostel for the entire trip. Doesn't matter, you'll have some good instagram material and a few more stamps in your passport. It may even make you appreciate home a little more. 

Christmas & Stuff

Yes, that is in fact a Buick. 

Christmas is nice. I like Christmas. You can unreliably depend on a moderate number of people being back in your neck of the woods and somewhat available to have a bit of free time to raise their caloric intake & blood-alcohol level. It's a real nice break from the regular grind. With a booked ticket on the cheapest Chinese airline that would get me from Hong Kong to Toronto, I got myself to the mother country. 

I think that staying at your parent's place is a sort of mixed bag of feelings. I certainly get to eat a plentiful amount of good (& endless) food, and the free accommodation & laundry services are certainly convenient. 

Cats are nice too. But a few years of regular employment gives you a bit of perspective on what your high school self was like (or in my case, even homebody college self). Apparently I enjoyed sleeping in a narrower-than-twin, 70+ year old bed in an attic with no ventilation or heating, using a computer on a desk that is propped up on shoddily-cut old lumber and an office chair with a missing wheel. Apparently I was fine with that. But given the pro's & cons I do enjoy giving my family a hard time when given the chance. Mom sent me out to run some errands and "help out with Christmas or I won't be making any goddamn roast", so I obliged her and picked up the Christmas tree. So you're welcome. 

The homestead

This was the only shot out of 20+ where
he was looking remotely at the camera

Caesars

They trusted me enough to let us make
our own S'mores

I don't know how anyone stays reasonably thin in Canada, there is far too much magnificent food & drink. Craft beer, rye whiskey, Hamiltonian mustard, havarti cheese, Angus burgers, sourdough bread, maple apple sausage, egg nog, president's choice chocolate chip cookies, jerk chicken wings, jalapeno-topped poutine, smoked brisket, oh baby the list could go on and on. I'm not sure how much weight I gained this break (that's not true), but I do know that I'm glad I was able to taste most everything I could get my hands on. I got some funny looks from my parents for coming home with a trunk full of beer cans, whiskey bottles, and various food stains on my clothes.

And the Buick. Should I talk about the Buick? Do you know I own a Buick? You'd think I'd have motor oil running through my veins with the amount of shout-outs I do for this thing. Besides a dead battery needing a jump, the Buick was a comfortable, warm & reliable machine that still makes me proud as punch. Here, see for yourself. 

Apparently, Most of these people
wouldn't like to have my help
during a zombie apocalypse

Toronto's most charming couple

I didn't take many pictures during the break, so I'll use that as my excuse as to why there so few only a pair of photos here. But I would like to say a big thank you to everybody and anybody who was able to take some time to see me in what turned out to be a very overbooked and frantic dash around the Golden Horseshoe to try and meet all my scheduled engagements. I promised myself that this Christmas wouldn't be like all the other holidays that I've done in the past, where I get so excited to see everyone & do everything that I end up planning every minute of every day, having multiple obligations in multiple cities that require a hasty hustle across the province to meet all of my arrangements.

Relaxing with pals is important

While it was a blast to see everyone and do all the things that there were to be done, I think I should be spending more of my off time relaxing and resting instead of bustling around town trying to see everyone on my Christmas list. Perhaps I've made myself too busy and bogged down by pedantic stuff to take my time with people who are important. Or maybe my brain just needs to cool its jets and stop running at top lesson-planning-on-the-go speed. Maybe that's something that you feel around the holidays.

The more civilized half of the
Kal's Pals Adventure Club

At least you can look forward to the summertime, when we have our 3rd annual Backyard Taco party. Show up, eat tacos, sit on the grass, and listen to my Mom tell embarrassing stories about me. More than anything, I can take a little bit more time to enjoy your company and not worry about my next obligation.

Something I realized this winter break, coming back for the 3rd time since leaving for this job. I was initially very worried (When I left for opportunity in Asia) that I'd be neglecting friendships, moments & ceremonies taking place at home, ones that would slip away from me and be irrecoverable. Worst of all, people I know would be doing fun things, without me. Maybe a silly fear, but the blight of the extrovert is one that has many perils and anxious moments. I also miss Canada more as time goes on, especially the awesome things that go on there on a regular basis.
I think I  came to the realization that people are going to do their own thing no matter what you do or don't do, and that's okay. Best thing to do is be your best self, keep a level head and get behind the wheel of something ridiculous to keep the blood pumping at maximum pressure.
 Mind you, this comes from someone who would do most anything in his power to bring people together for one reason or another (I suppose in some ways, I still will). It's nice to do what you like to do and then still come back every 6 months to see how things are shaking.

On a side note. I'm really flattered that people beyond my mother are interested in reading this 'ol blog. That's a nice feeling. Real nice. Makes it worth sharing the blunders and epiphanies. 

Good night. Sleep tight. You better work in July alright. 

A Taste of Hanoi

Vietnam's unwitting menace

I hope that I don't sound like the kind of instagram-savvy, social-networking oriented kind of person. I know I travel to and share decent amount about various locations that are out of the ordinary, but please know that I don't really do it properly. I am not smart. I don't do things right the first time, nor do I do them close-to-well the second. Fortunately, this is the third time I've been given the chance to visit one of the few remaining Communist countries left in the world (and not to celebrate the glorious achievements of the proletariat). Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and it's northernmost major city. 


In case you've seen the episode, Top Gear's Vietnam special sparked my interest with their penultimate scenes in Ha Long Bay, home to a particulary unique collection of tall mountainous islands that make for some great photos. 

Vietnam is especially magnetic to me because of the simple opportunities to enjoy myself. I've been lucky to be able to travel to a plethora of places and get a little taste of what each has to offer. Once you find what's best for you, there's not much that can deter you from returning, but that's something that I'll touch more on later. For now, let me show you a bit of food. 

The best 'Chicken Noodle' soup there is

Eating is something we all do (I hope). We eat to relax, to savor, or maybe just to keep living. Moving from one place to another, and seeing what and how different countries grow, harvest, combine, prepare and serve their food is a telling tale to the culture of the people. For Vietnam, it's a bare-bones simplicity that combines a few fresh ingredients to make fragrant soups, noodle dishes and fried meats. 

Vietnam is also a coffee bean powerhouse, second only to Brazil in coffee exports. Their stuff is a little different though, and is certainly worth a try if you're ever out in that neck of the woods. My favourite find was an 'egg coffee', a cappuccino made with condensed milk & an egg yolk. For someone who only started drinking the stuff a year ago, I think I'm justified in buying 3 kgs of the stuff to bring back to Macau (at about $21/kg, I think that's a fair price to pay for some special stuff)

Macau doesn't exactly have locally grown food, and most of the Asian cuisine offered in restaurants is more or less similar in terms of ingredients and preparation (a lot of boiled, steamed or fried things served with rice). On a completely different side of the spectrum, nearly every meal offered is made from ingredients within the country (another reason why it's so cheap), which makes the freshness of each dish unparalleled. Combine that with the beautiful simplicity of the recipes made everything unbelievably satisfying. 

This is not Italian food

WARNING - HISTORY LESSONS AHEAD
I like to use geography as a reference point for how contrasting foods are shared, interpreted, mixed and born. Some basic ideas are shared throughout cuisine worldwide (such as using rice & grains as a simple base for a meal), others are unique and endemic to the area (like sushi/kimbop in North East Asia). Whether you travel to New Orleans, Stockholm or Chiang Mai, you'll find the same basic ingredients, but the availability and cultural influences have produced some tasty products. Chinese food ideas made their way to Italy centuries ago, pasta was an adaptation of Chinese noodles, using wheat instead of rice as the base (pizza was born from the introduction of a type of flat bread brought from China). Foods from the new world were introduced to the old and quickly adapted into the local fare. In Italy, the favourite treats of coffee, cocoa, tomatoes, and bell peppers couldn't be found in Europe prior to international trade. Nowadays, we enjoy pretty much everything that's. I used Chilean avacados, Indian Cumin, Chinese cilantro, Mexican peppers and Australian beef to make Tuesday night's tacos. Not a bad time to be alive eh?

South-east Asia has a myriad of types of food, each cuisine effecting the other (noodles, curries, stir fries, buns, fresh & fried rolls, soups & sauces). The Vietnamese share a lot of soup-based & noodle dishes with their Cantonese neighbours, while using the chilies, lemongrass and other potent herbs & spices that the Thai cultures to the west also enjoy. 

A typical Banh Mi goes for
about $1-2

There are plenty of toppings
 to choose from

History has also been a big factor in the flavours to that comprise Vietnam's iconic foods. Take Banh Mi for example; This is a delicious, unique and incredibly popular Vietnamese food. It's a sandwich comprised of a fresh, crispy baguette, filled with several different kinds of meat, fresh vegetables & herbs, a few peppers and a fantastic sauce that gives the crunchy sandwich a fantastic, juicy center with a myriad of complimentary flavours. Since Vietnam (and Cambodia & Laos) were French overseas territories (colonies), they inherited some of the edible components of the European country. Coffee is served with condensed milk, both imported from the French (the same reason Hong Kong has delicious milk tea).

Beef in a red-wine curry
served with french bread

Fried spicy pork meat and broth,
served with rice noodles & green stuff

My last day in Hanoi was dominated by a self-guided feast foodie tour. Our AirBnb even had a map detailing all the local specialties in all their various forms, a rented motorbike making the journey between stops easier (and far more entertaining). Even with portion sizes relatively small, it takes considerable inner strength to push through after your first few rounds of lunch. Not the 'master your mind' kind of resilience, more the 'goddamn it I won't be in Vietnam until the spring, I've got to get my money's worth' kind of stubborn stupidity. It was a stomach-stressfully satisfying day, but at least I had a good 9 hours to semi-digest my meals to make room for the others, and plenty of good coffee. 

Hue-style noodles with a big
knuckle-looking thing

Coconut ice cream for 40 cents

And that makes it for the last vacation of 2016, aside from the upcoming Christmas break in December. While I don't have the travel bug as badly as I used to, to me Vietnam has been a fantastically inviting and satisfying place to spend one's time in, come and see for yourself some time! 

(and don't forget to drop me a line on your way over)