southern thai islands

i visited koh phangan for a night during a huge beach party. every phase of the moon initiates these giant gatherings, and this was a full moon. so, thousands of people on the beach, enourmous speakers pumping techno and r&b, oversized flaming jump ropes...it was nuts, but it was worth seeing. i rented a motorbike and toured the island in the morning. it's small, but there are amazing beaches and mountains.

koh tao is a small island with a pair of 7-11's and a few dozen dive shops. it's a popular scuba diving destination, so we spent a lot of time underwater. we found a bungalo on sairee beach with a handful of foreign dive instructors: a couple of irish, a canadian, and an australian. the water was clear as glass for a few days, and then it got a bit milky. during a night dive the water was full of bioluminescent plankton. so when we turned off the flashlights and shook our hands around; everything looked like it was covered in tiny glowsticks.

the most surreal experience was swimming with a whale shark. i was so close, it could have eaten me. but they're mild creatures, and they don't crave humans. they're as big as they sound; like a cadillac with fins. as i was jumping out of the boat to put on my diving gear, it swam right at me. i got a good look as it floated slowly by with a school of following fish. breathing compressed air underwater is such a strange feeling. i thought about not dying, and i thought about how we live above water, more or less unaware of the vast majority of the earth; which is covered in water. and i realized how little i know about the town i grew up in, aside from this foreign sea kingdom.

a massage a day keeps the chiropractor away

everything is in bangkok. we flew in at midnight from tokyo and headed to our hotel. the night was just starting, as we passed street vendors food carts: mobile kitchens. it's a cart with a gas powered frying pan, and a table full of spices and raw foods. we went out for a snack and ordered som tam (green papaya salad) and some barbecued meats. the food is unbelievably good, everywhere. i've never eaten so much and paid so little (about $2 for a meal). since we don't look local, we would have to specify that we liked the food spicy. and this still wouldn't do the trick, so we would have to tell them how many peppers we wanted: 3, 4, 5... depending on how much we wanted to sweat.

you can shop for almost anything in the city at a great price. they have a lot of gorgeous fabric, but they also sell cheap electronics. and anything you want in knock-off brands, clothing and accessories. i went to a huge weekend market and got lost in the aisles. it felt like walking through a small city with no street signs, and it just kept repeating itself.

my lower back has been in pain for the past few years, but especially the past few months. and for about $7 you can get a traditional thai massage for an hour. they stretch your arms, legs, and crack your back, aside from hitting all the pressure points in your entire body. every massage was a little different, and they all make you feel like you're floating for the next several hours.

communicating with most people was difficult, since my thai vocabulary is limited to the names of only a few entrees. but we met some locals that speak good english, and they were extremely helpful in showing us around.

japanese railways

japan was such a sweet place. the first few days we were at yokota air base. we stayed with our sister cindy and her kids, who have been living there about three years. they're extremely entertaining. and it was a nice break from traveling the past couple months. i felt like i was at home; washer and dryer, hot water, american groceries, taco bell...and everyone takes dollars instead of some foreign currency that i can never remember what the exchange rate is.

the bullet trains in japan are just as fast as they sound. there's a few types, and they all travel over 200 miles/hour. it feels like riding a smooth airplane, over land. it's the best way to get around. the whole system is very non-american; efficient, punctual and proper. we bought a 7-day rail pass in hong kong before arrivng in tokyo. after visiting sendai, kyoto, hiroshima, fukuoka, nara, and some smaller towns, i found that nagoya was one of my favorite cities. i stayed with a local friend that i had met in hawaii. he cooked authentic food, like egg rice (hot rice, raw egg) and udon (fat noodles), and introduced me to a lot of other locals as we cruised around on his moped.

it seems like every person i spoke to was so sincere. when i would ask for diections, they would often stop what they were doing and show me where to go, and they may even walk part of the way with me just to make sure. it was unbelievable how nice they were.

our dad and his wife, rose met up with us in japan. we all stayed at the new sanno military hotel with cindy's family. there's a lot to see in tokyo, and we hardly scratched the surface. my favorite, the fish market at 5 am. our nephew, mason joined us, and i think he liked it the best. nearly all of the tuna in the world is routed through here. they hold an auction, and there's endless stalls of exotic fresh fish. it was like walking through a raw, edible aquarium.

kamakura is a town with a huge buddha. he's bigger than a tank. and you can crawl inside of him, and look at his organs. there's not really organs, but you can go inside through a staircase and see how they built the huge statue.

there's a trick art museum south of tokyo with all sorts of displays and interactive wacko things that make your mind bend. the kids love it there, but it's pretty cool for adults too. like a room with a sloped floor and ceiling, so it looks like the people on opposite sides are giants and midgits (pc: little people). before we went to the museum we took a tram up this mountain nearby, and there's a monkey park on top. the monkey keeper comes out and makes the animals do tricks for the tourists. then he gives them some bananas, and they make a mess everywhere. it smelled terrible, like monkeys or something. the walk down the mountain was herendously strenuous. but we survived, and wished we would have just taken the tram again. good thing we didnt' hike up.