AND NOW I AM LEAVING VIETNAM IN THE MORNING!
TERRIBLE.
I am sorry about NOT blogging about the last 2 weeks (but it was hard, too many people, too much fun).
Right now I am going to meet a girl from yale who is teaching english just south of me in guangzhou china.
Then for drinks with Yaluc and Wil from holland.
AND I PROMISE to write up PROPER PROPER blog post about each and every person and place mentioned about. I will start it tomorrow night and hopefully have it all done by the end of the weekend.
Hope you all enjoyed living vicariously through me.
OH and also, wehn i get home i am posting all my 1-2-3 minute videos from anything from crazy motorbike rides, to singing joan jet with a vietnamese guy, to god kniows what else.
Get excited.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Cliff Jump (15 M waterfall)
First Jump
and...
Second Jump
good fun.
Check out the pictures for the actual waterfall abseiling!
best day i've had yet.
and...
Second Jump
good fun.
Check out the pictures for the actual waterfall abseiling!
best day i've had yet.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Blog Photos up...
Hey all - left nha trang... traveling with a chinese girl, an auzzy girl in my room and trekking wiht 3 israeli girls.
Left john, agatha, stephano, and eugenia at the beach - but they are meet me up in siagon for TET on the 13th (same with david and felix my roommates from shanghai).
Sorry i know you guys all dont ahve ANY clue who all these people are cause i havent written anything in a while, but tomorrow night ill have time...
in the mean time, guess and try to pick them all out from the 1000s of pictures i just posted:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shearman.michael
enjoy. Also, movies and blog updates coming tomorrow night haha.
Left john, agatha, stephano, and eugenia at the beach - but they are meet me up in siagon for TET on the 13th (same with david and felix my roommates from shanghai).
Sorry i know you guys all dont ahve ANY clue who all these people are cause i havent written anything in a while, but tomorrow night ill have time...
in the mean time, guess and try to pick them all out from the 1000s of pictures i just posted:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shearman.michael
enjoy. Also, movies and blog updates coming tomorrow night haha.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Hanoi
When I got to Hanoi we literally settled into our hostel and ran out the door to meet Mei Li's friends at a vietnamese place. When we get there I met Hoa, Mai, and Thum and Mai had a vietnamese SIM card for my phone that cost $1 and she said would last my whole trip --- amazing! I love locals. We partied on with a kareoke night, saw all the museums and Ho Chi Minh stuff the next day, and then that night we went to see the waterpuppet show (which was AWESOME).
The next day was more museums, cafes, and shopping - but it ended more atypically. Thum, the babe 29 yr old vietnamese girl, had kind of taken a liking to me and I asked her out to drinks, problem was she needed to head back to her hometown that night. The good part was she ASKED ME TO COME. You know what I was thinking... and it turned out to be completely WRONG!!!!!!!! hahaha.
I rode out of Hanoi all packed up and on the back of her brother's motorbike. We rode 1 hour north to a small village where her and her brother are actually from. Met her mother, brother, grandmother - the whole 9 yards. We had a traditional Vietnamese dinner and then went out on the town for coffee and drinks. Problem is at the end of the night - thum told me I was staying with her brother! hahaha. awkward. Her brother spoke no english at all and we literally slept together in his queen size bed with a mosquito net all around us and watched a few movies together. It was alright... but a little gay.
Thum gave me a ride back to Hanoi, I was too late for the bus to Halong bay so I decided to just go around town for the next few hours looking for trouble... and, of course, I found it on a street corner in the form of 2 americans 1 brit and a Bai Hoi place.
More on this later -- I gotta go back to the room to wake up Yang Yang (yea, sorry you guys don't know about her yet), rent a motorbike with Stephano and Christinae (yea you don't know them either), and try to ride 2 hours outside of Hoi An to see some ancient ruins -- wish us luck!
Last Day in Nanning - Getting to Hanoi
The last day in Nanning was surprising to say the least. I woke up later than I wanted and rushed on a motortaxi to the other side of town to get to the Visa office before 10AM (for all you shanghaiers... this ride was like 35 minutes and cost 20 Kuai... we are getting ripped off up north!)
Signed up for my same-day visa and headed out onto the town... alone (Shiloh was grading papers and JoJo went back to her family home outside Nanning). Literally spent about 2 hours roaming around and hitting up different cafes. Around 4 PM I was in the center of town ABOUT to head back to the Visa office when I heard loud speakers coming from around the corner. When i came around, I saw a huge stage set up, bright lights, and some fake looking chinese people on stage dancing with microphones. Turns out its one of the most popular game shows in Southern China and I happen to be the ONLY white person in the crowd... 3 Guesses who they picked to be on the show?! So I go up there, try to speak as much chinese as possible (I am Michael, I live in Shanghai, I like shanghai but love nanning, I am not gay, I am handsome right?) pretty much everything I know and I had those little people rolling (another note -- chinese outside of shanghai are more the size I EXPECTED THEM TO BE!). So I had to pull some table cloths out from under glasses and failed horribly as you can see from my pictures. Well at least I was on TV in all of Guanxi Province right?
Actually had to rush to the Visa office after my 5 minutes of fame and barely got there in time to get my Visa. While I was waiting saw a BF sit down and his Vietnamese GF was standing next to he and I. Naturally, as momma taught me, I insisted on giving up my seat - turned out being one of the best seat give-ups ever. These two were Phillipe and Mei li and they were also leaving in the morning for Hanoi -- but since she's a local she knew a lesser traveled path that involved 2 small buses and less red tape. They helped me get a ticket and I actually have spent every moment in vietnam with them since - and met all of her local friends ; )
That night I FINALLY got to hang out with Shiloh - and it was awesome. We had some beer and some eats and in his typically chill mode he said, "So you gotta get up early, trying to go out or you wanna just lay low?" I said lets do it. So, we tooled around on his motor bike, hit a few local bars early on, challenged the Fuyen (waitors) to foosball and absolutely rapped them and then got down to business. And in Nanning when you get down to business you go to SOHO (Shanghaiers... probably closest to a mix of Mint and 88).
At SOHO we played the typical "Loa-Why" game of seeing if you can be at a chinese club all night without paying for a drink -- and honestly, with my dance moves and shiloh's long golden locks it wasn't even fair. We were being pulled from table to table by wasted chinese business men trying to show off their "Guanxi" and build their rep by having the ONLY 2 white people in the bar at their tables. It was hilarious, fun, and best of all FREE. Shiloh spotted two ladies literally ACROSS the bar grilling us and he informed me it was time to make a move... we started our celebraty-esk waltz across the club when we were literally GRABBED by a Fuyen who looked like he was either ridiculously scared or really constipated. He said, in decent english, "Sirs - you join big table in back please. Boss really want." Shiloh and I don't even really have a choice as we are being pushed into that direction and we decide the babes will have to wait. We get back there behind a glass window looking out on the club and there are literally like 10 guys around a table with loads and loads of top end wiskey, a few scantily clad womenz running around here and there, and a big ass dude with a scar in the middle of the table. This little guy named ben starts talking a mile a minute about how his boss wants us to drink with him and enjoy his company etc, etc, etc. Sooner or later a few drinks in we notice a Dice mug (shanghaiers know what im talking about) going around with straws in it. Everyone is snorty torty out of this thing and when Shiloh sees it he tells me that he knew it! These are Triads and thats the boss in Nanning (the guy with scar that didn't say one word). I asked him how he knew... "Cause only the gangs are powerful enough to do drugs in public" I said what drugs and he explained that the stuff in the Dice mug was Party Dust and it is a huge Triad drug in the clubs and only the gangsters do it. He said he was forced to try it last year and he will never do it again -- said it was literally the craziest he's felt in his entire life. Well... Shiloh went to the bathroom and I was being pressured -- BUT OF COURSE I DIDN'T DO IT! RIGHT?!
Anyway, Point is the rest of that night went hazy for all kinds of reasons, I danced with a Chinese pop star, and barely made it home in time to sleep for 2 hours before the bus.
Phillipe and Mei Li - Met them at the bus station and we started our trek to the boarder. 1 bus to XingPing, 1 taxi to the border, 1 bus to the northern vietnamese town of Lu Cao, 1 hired car to hanoi, and 8 hours later - we landed in Hanoi.
Signed up for my same-day visa and headed out onto the town... alone (Shiloh was grading papers and JoJo went back to her family home outside Nanning). Literally spent about 2 hours roaming around and hitting up different cafes. Around 4 PM I was in the center of town ABOUT to head back to the Visa office when I heard loud speakers coming from around the corner. When i came around, I saw a huge stage set up, bright lights, and some fake looking chinese people on stage dancing with microphones. Turns out its one of the most popular game shows in Southern China and I happen to be the ONLY white person in the crowd... 3 Guesses who they picked to be on the show?! So I go up there, try to speak as much chinese as possible (I am Michael, I live in Shanghai, I like shanghai but love nanning, I am not gay, I am handsome right?) pretty much everything I know and I had those little people rolling (another note -- chinese outside of shanghai are more the size I EXPECTED THEM TO BE!). So I had to pull some table cloths out from under glasses and failed horribly as you can see from my pictures. Well at least I was on TV in all of Guanxi Province right?
Actually had to rush to the Visa office after my 5 minutes of fame and barely got there in time to get my Visa. While I was waiting saw a BF sit down and his Vietnamese GF was standing next to he and I. Naturally, as momma taught me, I insisted on giving up my seat - turned out being one of the best seat give-ups ever. These two were Phillipe and Mei li and they were also leaving in the morning for Hanoi -- but since she's a local she knew a lesser traveled path that involved 2 small buses and less red tape. They helped me get a ticket and I actually have spent every moment in vietnam with them since - and met all of her local friends ; )
That night I FINALLY got to hang out with Shiloh - and it was awesome. We had some beer and some eats and in his typically chill mode he said, "So you gotta get up early, trying to go out or you wanna just lay low?" I said lets do it. So, we tooled around on his motor bike, hit a few local bars early on, challenged the Fuyen (waitors) to foosball and absolutely rapped them and then got down to business. And in Nanning when you get down to business you go to SOHO (Shanghaiers... probably closest to a mix of Mint and 88).
At SOHO we played the typical "Loa-Why" game of seeing if you can be at a chinese club all night without paying for a drink -- and honestly, with my dance moves and shiloh's long golden locks it wasn't even fair. We were being pulled from table to table by wasted chinese business men trying to show off their "Guanxi" and build their rep by having the ONLY 2 white people in the bar at their tables. It was hilarious, fun, and best of all FREE. Shiloh spotted two ladies literally ACROSS the bar grilling us and he informed me it was time to make a move... we started our celebraty-esk waltz across the club when we were literally GRABBED by a Fuyen who looked like he was either ridiculously scared or really constipated. He said, in decent english, "Sirs - you join big table in back please. Boss really want." Shiloh and I don't even really have a choice as we are being pushed into that direction and we decide the babes will have to wait. We get back there behind a glass window looking out on the club and there are literally like 10 guys around a table with loads and loads of top end wiskey, a few scantily clad womenz running around here and there, and a big ass dude with a scar in the middle of the table. This little guy named ben starts talking a mile a minute about how his boss wants us to drink with him and enjoy his company etc, etc, etc. Sooner or later a few drinks in we notice a Dice mug (shanghaiers know what im talking about) going around with straws in it. Everyone is snorty torty out of this thing and when Shiloh sees it he tells me that he knew it! These are Triads and thats the boss in Nanning (the guy with scar that didn't say one word). I asked him how he knew... "Cause only the gangs are powerful enough to do drugs in public" I said what drugs and he explained that the stuff in the Dice mug was Party Dust and it is a huge Triad drug in the clubs and only the gangsters do it. He said he was forced to try it last year and he will never do it again -- said it was literally the craziest he's felt in his entire life. Well... Shiloh went to the bathroom and I was being pressured -- BUT OF COURSE I DIDN'T DO IT! RIGHT?!
Anyway, Point is the rest of that night went hazy for all kinds of reasons, I danced with a Chinese pop star, and barely made it home in time to sleep for 2 hours before the bus.
Phillipe and Mei Li - Met them at the bus station and we started our trek to the boarder. 1 bus to XingPing, 1 taxi to the border, 1 bus to the northern vietnamese town of Lu Cao, 1 hired car to hanoi, and 8 hours later - we landed in Hanoi.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Nanning - Day 2/3
Day 2
JoJo & Co. - JoJo called me the next day and we met up at Wan Dan Guang Chang (Center Plaza in Nanning). I met her and her friend and we tooled around all day -- shopping, traditional Guanxi Province wufan (lunch), cafe on the streets of nanning, etc. Then we met with her other friends and they all had tickets to go see a chinese film that just came out. JoJo said I won't understand it - she said she'll figure something out - tells me to wait at the cafe. 20 mins later she comes back with 2 tickets to avatar and we are going to see that while her friends see the other movie. Amazing. After the movie - midnight sushi and back to Shiloh's EXTRA apartment that he gave to me for free for 2 nights! Great day.
Day 3
Visa Problems, Met a couple at the counselate that has so far made my trip, I was randomly a contestent on a Chinese TV game show broadcasted all over Guanxi province, went to a club, chilled with chinese triad gangsters, AND woke up at 8 AM the next day. More on this later
JoJo & Co. - JoJo called me the next day and we met up at Wan Dan Guang Chang (Center Plaza in Nanning). I met her and her friend and we tooled around all day -- shopping, traditional Guanxi Province wufan (lunch), cafe on the streets of nanning, etc. Then we met with her other friends and they all had tickets to go see a chinese film that just came out. JoJo said I won't understand it - she said she'll figure something out - tells me to wait at the cafe. 20 mins later she comes back with 2 tickets to avatar and we are going to see that while her friends see the other movie. Amazing. After the movie - midnight sushi and back to Shiloh's EXTRA apartment that he gave to me for free for 2 nights! Great day.
Day 3
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Shanghai to Nanning - Days 1
Shanghai
Night before - The day before I left I drank into the wee hours of the morning, saying my goodbyes and thinking about how much I have to do the next day -- but actually doing none of it!
Morning Of - I had to go to work from 8 AM - 1 PM for teacher evaluations and peer reviews. Needless to say I was the center of the peer review session's collective attention (both good and bad). Then we decided to hit up Pho Sizzling downtown at Nanjing Xi to get a taste a Vietnam for lunch (Why did I decide to eat commercial Pho about 72 hours before I could be eating the REAL THING in Hanoi, I do not know). Then as I sit there talking out my trip with Amanda I realized, because of the 24 hour system I didn't really know when my flight was... was it at 19 or 9 PM (7PM or 9PM)? I remembered a 9 in there somewhere but couldn't remember between the two. At this point it is about 2:30 and Amanda says, "Well it doesn't matter - as long as your packed you have plenty of time, right?" ---- "I'm not packed at all... but I did buy a bag yesterday to pack in." So we write up a packing list on a napkin at the fandian and realize I don't have about 1/2 of what I need... including: Camera, bug spray, sun tan lotion, and a sleeping bag among other things. I rush home and pack my ass off.
Night - I left my apartment at around 6 PM for a 7:50 PM flight... but I still needed a camera. I explained to the cabbie (in pretty sick mandarin) "I fly from Hongqiao at 730PM But I want camera first. Go to electricity market first, after go to airport. Hurry Up". In, Out, Bang-a-langa-dingdong - I have a Camera and I am at the airport at 7:00. Perfectly executed if I do say so myself.
The Flight - You know how everytime before you board a flight... and everytime you are sitting in that awkward ass terminal area... you are checking out who is going to be flying with you?
Man that girl is hot..... That guy is def. a terrorist... That couple grosses me out and I want them to choke on eachothers' PBA mutha-Fing tongues! (you get the point). Well on this flight there were two total babes hanging out in the terminal area and naturally, as every man does, I hoped they were on my flight AND sitting on either side of me. For the first time in my life, the Fly Gods smiled down upon me! (Well they both sat to my left but close enough right?)
JoJo and Penny - Trade glances, smile, and TALK. Status quo. What wasn't status quo was the amazing English that was fired back at me. Turns out they are sisters... both live and work in Shanghai... and are returning to Nanning for Chinese New Year. These two girls are LITERALLY the female dopple gangers of me and my brother Robbbab.
JoJo: 25 (born 1 month after robb), serious, shy/quiet, semi-boring, and relatively logical borderline cold
Penny: 24 (born 1 month before me), loud, outgoing, semi-funny, and relatively weird borderline crazy
Obviously anyone reading this that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY which girl I'd go for, regardless of looks, but turns out she is taken and the other girl is single. And, moreover, anyone that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY what I'd do, regardless of looks, if one is taken and the other is not (naturally). So we talk, bullshit, laugh, and trade awkward silences for about 3 hours. Play rocks paper sissors and its chinese counterpart with the punishment essentially being a version of truth or dare with the dare. All in all a successful ground laying operation.
Nanning - Get into Nanning around 11 PM. Jojo ask me where I'm going and where I am staying. I tell her Guanxi Daxue (Guangxi University) and she tells me her friend will take me there with her... Amazing. I get into the university, JoJo gives me her number and tells me to call her tomorrow to get a taste of the local side of Nanning. Then I call SHILOH - the guy I am couch surfing with and in retrospect arguably the most baller man in South China. He text me, says can't hear right now but go outside the unversity to the bar called Babel across the street. I walk over there and into a throng of chinese girls bouncing up and down to this white band jamming out on stage -- I walk in the door, backpack on hand and tired as shit to the sound of, "And here is MICHAEEEELL from SHANGHAIIIII! GIVE IT UP!" Needless to say I woke up pretty quickly, was put on the band's free bar tab, and was singing anything from nirvana to neil young at the top of my lungs to a bar packed with Chinese college students for... about the next 3 hours. Good first night... Gets even better the next two --
Here is preview: JoJo taking me around EVERYWHERE, Meeting a columbian and his vietnamese gf who show me a secret easier way across the border, and the Chinese Triad mob table at a club demanding Shiloh and I "Join them" for the night.
Nanning was sick -- I'll expound on that preview when I get some time. Pictures coming later.
Night before - The day before I left I drank into the wee hours of the morning, saying my goodbyes and thinking about how much I have to do the next day -- but actually doing none of it!
Morning Of - I had to go to work from 8 AM - 1 PM for teacher evaluations and peer reviews. Needless to say I was the center of the peer review session's collective attention (both good and bad). Then we decided to hit up Pho Sizzling downtown at Nanjing Xi to get a taste a Vietnam for lunch (Why did I decide to eat commercial Pho about 72 hours before I could be eating the REAL THING in Hanoi, I do not know). Then as I sit there talking out my trip with Amanda I realized, because of the 24 hour system I didn't really know when my flight was... was it at 19 or 9 PM (7PM or 9PM)? I remembered a 9 in there somewhere but couldn't remember between the two. At this point it is about 2:30 and Amanda says, "Well it doesn't matter - as long as your packed you have plenty of time, right?" ---- "I'm not packed at all... but I did buy a bag yesterday to pack in." So we write up a packing list on a napkin at the fandian and realize I don't have about 1/2 of what I need... including: Camera, bug spray, sun tan lotion, and a sleeping bag among other things. I rush home and pack my ass off.
Night - I left my apartment at around 6 PM for a 7:50 PM flight... but I still needed a camera. I explained to the cabbie (in pretty sick mandarin) "I fly from Hongqiao at 730PM But I want camera first. Go to electricity market first, after go to airport. Hurry Up". In, Out, Bang-a-langa-dingdong - I have a Camera and I am at the airport at 7:00. Perfectly executed if I do say so myself.
The Flight - You know how everytime before you board a flight... and everytime you are sitting in that awkward ass terminal area... you are checking out who is going to be flying with you?
Man that girl is hot..... That guy is def. a terrorist... That couple grosses me out and I want them to choke on eachothers' PBA mutha-Fing tongues! (you get the point). Well on this flight there were two total babes hanging out in the terminal area and naturally, as every man does, I hoped they were on my flight AND sitting on either side of me. For the first time in my life, the Fly Gods smiled down upon me! (Well they both sat to my left but close enough right?)
JoJo and Penny - Trade glances, smile, and TALK. Status quo. What wasn't status quo was the amazing English that was fired back at me. Turns out they are sisters... both live and work in Shanghai... and are returning to Nanning for Chinese New Year. These two girls are LITERALLY the female dopple gangers of me and my brother Robbbab.
JoJo: 25 (born 1 month after robb), serious, shy/quiet, semi-boring, and relatively logical borderline cold
Penny: 24 (born 1 month before me), loud, outgoing, semi-funny, and relatively weird borderline crazy
Obviously anyone reading this that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY which girl I'd go for, regardless of looks, but turns out she is taken and the other girl is single. And, moreover, anyone that knows me KNOWS EXACTLY what I'd do, regardless of looks, if one is taken and the other is not (naturally). So we talk, bullshit, laugh, and trade awkward silences for about 3 hours. Play rocks paper sissors and its chinese counterpart with the punishment essentially being a version of truth or dare with the dare. All in all a successful ground laying operation.
Nanning - Get into Nanning around 11 PM. Jojo ask me where I'm going and where I am staying. I tell her Guanxi Daxue (Guangxi University) and she tells me her friend will take me there with her... Amazing. I get into the university, JoJo gives me her number and tells me to call her tomorrow to get a taste of the local side of Nanning. Then I call SHILOH - the guy I am couch surfing with and in retrospect arguably the most baller man in South China. He text me, says can't hear right now but go outside the unversity to the bar called Babel across the street. I walk over there and into a throng of chinese girls bouncing up and down to this white band jamming out on stage -- I walk in the door, backpack on hand and tired as shit to the sound of, "And here is MICHAEEEELL from SHANGHAIIIII! GIVE IT UP!" Needless to say I woke up pretty quickly, was put on the band's free bar tab, and was singing anything from nirvana to neil young at the top of my lungs to a bar packed with Chinese college students for... about the next 3 hours. Good first night... Gets even better the next two --
Here is preview: JoJo taking me around EVERYWHERE, Meeting a columbian and his vietnamese gf who show me a secret easier way across the border, and the Chinese Triad mob table at a club demanding Shiloh and I "Join them" for the night.
Nanning was sick -- I'll expound on that preview when I get some time. Pictures coming later.
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