Koh Tao 1

Sorry about the drought in entries. I'll start off by telling you about my day in Bangkok. I started off by getting a train/boat ticket for Koh Tao at the enormous Hualumphong Train Station. After that, Somchai dropped me off at Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace, a huge temple/palaace complex near the Chao Praya river. In a nutshell, I wandered around that temple, walked around on the street, got some snacks, walked some more, got lunch, went back to Hualumphong to get some more tickets that I had forgotten about the first time, went to Wat Pho temple (home of a giant gold reclining Buddha and some hilarious spirit guaardian statues that look exactly like Biggie Smalls), got more food, crossed the river to Wat Arun (my favorite temple, essentially just a really big, ornate stone tower), ate a small meal, took a tuk-tuk (3-wheel motorcycle cab) to Khao San Road (the backpacker center), was disgusted by the excess, returned to near Wat Pho, caught a river taxi and skytrain to a shopping center where I met Somchai for dinner, was driven to Hualumphong to catch my train, and slept on the floor until my train actually was ready to leave. Phew! Bangkok was beautiful/squalid and smelly, and I took tons of great pictures that describe it much more thoroughly than I care to. After an overnight train ride and a bumpy catameran ride, I arrived at Koh Tao, a tiny, scuba-oriented island in the Gulf of Thailand. I'm staying at Big Blue dive resort, and am currently finishing off my Open Water certification. I've got an awesome, if really funky, bungalow by the beach, and am having a pretty great time. My instructor's name is Beccy; I'm in a group with a British couple, another British fellow, and a Chilean girl. I've met some great people outside of the group: highlights include two Portuguese women; another divemaster named, I believe, Med, who has a regular gig at a bar and is letting me play some songs; and an Ozzie dad-and-lad duo met last night in the bar. These last deserve some special mention: last night, the father, Martin, came and introduced himself to Ben, another Ozzie, and me, and started chatting with Ben, leaving me to talk with his son, Peter. He asked me what nationality I was; when I told him I was American, he shook his head disappointedly, and began to pontificate on how Americans talk to much. He went on to rail against the limitation of alcohol sales during the Thai local election (bear in mind that this kid is nine), stereotype the Thai and British, and, when we told him that talking like this when he was older would probably get his ass kicked, explained how nobody would be able to kick his ass because he would be taller than his dad. I just had to laugh. The diving's going pretty well, although today, probably due to some funky Pad Thai, I was violently ill upon surfacing from both of our dives. Ah well...hopefully everything will be better tomorrow. Love you all.

Thailand 1

I got a nice early start this morning, but apparently I wasn't early enough to catch the bullet train to the airport, and when I finally arrived, an hour before my flight, I got stuck at the back of an enormous line fatalistically imagining how, when I missed my flight, I would have a breakdown and return home in defeat and not go to college and work on Nash's for the rest of my life and take over Scott's (the main field boss) job and be bitter and never find love. Luckily, I made it on, and got to Bangkok! I availed myself of the SMUS alumni network, by getting Tony Goodman to arrange my staying with Jessada Sawatdipong, father of Jeti Sawatdipong '09. His driver, an amazingly jolly fellow named Somchai, met me at the airport, and must have been waiting for hours while I crawled through the slowest passport control line in the world, behind two cute French/Israeli chicks who I tried to get up the nerve to talk to but then started thinking about DRMRSVANDERTRAMP verbs and ended up staring resolutely at a screen showing the same tourism video on a loop for the entire eternal wait. Somchai took me to the Sawatdipong's house, where Jessada's stepmother made me a nice chicken snack, and then I met Jessada in one of Bangkok's business district for dinner with him and a nice Austrian expat lawyer named Stefan. They gave me lots of good info, and tomorrow should be a fun day of exploring Bangkok! Love you all.

Japan 2

So I wrote a very long, very thoughtful entry, and the f***ing computer deleted it. I really don't want to rewrite it, so basically here's how my day went down: woke up at 5, breakfast at 7, nap, false starts going to Shibuya, lunch, met Japanese dude named Ken who gave me helpful advice, went to Shibuya, saw Meiji shrine, was impressed, saw shops, was impressed, felt conspicuously Western, wore socks and sandals, bought umbrella, got wrong drink at world's largest Starbucks, wandered confusedly in womenswear mall, was conspicuously Western, saw Tower Records and was happy, got slightly lost, was overwhelmed, went to Shinjuku, looked for Tokyo Metropolitan Gov't building, didn't find it, was conspicuously Western, had squid and hot sake for dinner, found building, found Tokyo Hobo Repository, saw pleasant view, took Yurikamome Line and saw Tokyo Bay, was impressed at scale of city, returned to hostel, did not once mess up in transit, talked with guests, wrote blog entry, was peeved, took pictures, went to bed. Nicely warmed up, feel a little more ready for Bangkok tomorrow. Love you all, especially, right now, Jen Fraser. LYB more, dollface, LYB more.

Maui 7/Japan 1

Sorry about the preachy/angsty last post. The rest of the time in Maui was pretty chill-my surfing improved noticeably, and I got a lot of planning that needed to be done done. I also got to go surfing with Bruce Luxton again, and had a nice dinner with him and Pom, his wife. I left on the 23rd, and took a really weird red-eye, featuring a half-hour technical stop in the Marshall Islands and a three-hour layover in Guam, to Tokyo. I did manage to get quite a bit of sleep, as I had an entire row to myself from Honolulu to Guam. But apparently I wasn't nearly well-rested enough to deal with Tokyo. I started out by incurring the pity of a customs agent at the sight of my huge bag, and proceeded to take the wrong {not too wrong, thankfully}train; wander for a solid 20 minutes in search of my hostel, only finding it with the help of a receptionist at some sort of business college; struggle with the concept of exiting a subway station until a friendly clerk helped me out; wander around Asakusa for an hour before being able to muster the guts to go to a restaurant; take the wrong train back to Asakusabashi, bringing the total I spent on subway tickets today into the triple digits; and get lost trying to find my hostel again. You have every right to fear for me. Luckily, Tokyo's pretty easy, apart from the language barrier. I saw some pleasant temples and shopping areas in my afternoon excursion to the historic Edo district of Asakusa. I forgot my camera, but luckily for you every other tourist in the world brought theirs, so if you're curious about historic Asakusa you can definitely find some nice photos. The train ride was also pleasant; I got a good chance to observe all the little, superficial differences in detail, apart from the obvious language barrier, that distinguish Japan from the US, like the vaguely exotic trees, the stubbornly Asian dragonscale roofs, occasional rice paddies - all to the frenetic music of a Japanese experimental group called Boredoms, that pretty well sum up the weird splicing of East and West that now defines Japan. Anyhow, I should be able to get along a little better now that I'm settled in and the first stages of culture shock are wearing off. Love you all.

Birthday

So what did I do for my birthday?

The eighteenth birthday is supposed to signify an entrance into adulthood. To celebrate this, my dad bought me dinner at a ridiculously gourmet/expensive restaurant, which was as delicious as the ridiculous bill would suggest. Afterwords, I went out in quest of a smoke shop. I wanted to buy two things: a cigar and a Playboy. These two previously forbidden items would symbolize my transition into life as a privileged adult.
     Lahaina's downtown is a pretty bleak place, full of jewelry stores and discount, time-share-affiliated "tourist information centers". I was also hoping to find some people to celebrate with, but the town is geared pretty much exclusively towards middle-class couples and families, so there wasn't any sort of nightlife accessible to me. But I managed to find a nice cigar shop, and, although I didn't manage to find a Playboy, Dad bought me a six-pack to further celebrate my "coming of age". After wandering around for a while, I took my beer and cigar down to the beach. I lit up the cigar, and tried to open a beer with the lighter, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing, so I went off to try and find some alternate means of opening it. The edge of a bench, set back a ways from the beach, didn't work, but the pannier rack of a bike chained to the bench seemed like it would do well, so I started to pry the cap off against it. Suddenly, a Hawaiian guy, rummaging around in the shadows, told me to "stop fucking with his bike."
    Earlier, I'd scoffed silently at the tourists walking through downtown. They struck me as detached, materialistic voyeurs, concerned only with fulfilling their own perceptions of what a tropical vacation should be. I've been this way for most of my life, picturing myself as somehow superior to others, a more conscious, less offensive traveler. The owner of the bike shocked me out of my hypocrisy. I was appalled to recognize my own thoughtlessness and self-absorption, my own disregard for others in my quest for a "great" vacation. I apologized profusely to the man, and left my beer as a way of trying to make amends. When I looked back at the bench, after having smoked most of my cigar, the man had left, but the beer was still sitting there, unopened. Next to it was an empty pack of cigarettes.

I'm sorry if this is rambling and preachy, but the cigar left me pretty light-headed - I don't do well with nicotine. I love you all, and miss you more than I can say.

Maui 5

Before I write anything about my birthday or recent adventures, I'd like to devote a little space to remembering Bob Boardman, Port Angeles musician and all-around great guy, who was gored to death by a mountain goat on Saturday. Bob had been a family friend for my entire life, and was very supportive of me when I first began performing solo, backing me on guitar in several performances. His loss is a tragedy for the community, and he will be dearly missed.

Now that the sad stuff's over with...it's my birthday! In most of the world I'm legally an adult! I have to say, my birthday morning wasn't that great. Since my last post, I hiked from the summit of Haleakala to the ocean (about 18 miles and 10,000 feet of elevation) over the course of 22 hours (including an overnight at an awesome cabin in the middle of an amazing moonscape crater), in new boots that, it turns out, don't fit. By the time I got to the bottom, my legs were phenomenally sore; when I woke up this morning, after a fitful night's sleep, it felt like I had gone to bed 17 and woke up 75. I could barely walk, and I'm still recovering from the hike, which was pretty spectacular in all other respects. I'll have photos of Hawai'i up soon on Facebook, so y'all can check out the amazing crater and cloud forest and all. In other news, my dad abruptly decided that he wanted a vacation and asked if he could come stay with me for the next week. He's out here now, bearing a rental car and the money to stay in hotel rooms, instead of hostels and campgrounds, which is pretty rad. He's really happy to be here, and, considering how much my plans have been messed up by the bike accident, it's nice having him here, if only to expedite my getting around. We stayed out at the Seven Sacred pools, drove back through Hana this morning, and are in Lahaina, where hopefully I can start surfing again tomorrow. Don't have any plans for tonight yet, but hopefully I'll be able to find some sort of debauchery.

Love you all, and thanks for the birthday wishes - getting all the Facebook happy birthdays really made my day!

Maui 4

I've fully recovered from my bike stupor, and am actually starting to do things! Steve Baker, an old acquaintance of my dad's from the Marines, came to Lahaina and picked me up this morning. I didn't really have a travel plan in place, but he took me to get some supplies, and then drove me up Haleakala. I was hoping to camp up there; unfortunately, I was under-equipped, but I got some good info. The crater of Haleakala is amazing, like an iron-stained piece of Iceland that emerged from the ground at 10,000 feet. My camera was dead, but I plan to return, so expect photos soon. Hitchhiking to Hana tomorrow - should be interesting.

Love you all.

Maui 3/Musings

Sorry about the rant earlier; I was clearly not in a good mood, and I hope it didn't cause undue emotional duress to either of this blog's followers (sorry, Mom). I ended up pretty much laying around all day, but I'm starting to get things worked out (!) and hopefully will be hitting the east side tomorrow! Some positives, in case I've been coming across as a whiny little weasel: The dudes in the hostel dorm are really nice. A few Hawaiians, mainlanders, a Swede, and two Belgians, all of whom are super chill. I just had a cheap and amazing dinner at Maui Tacos, which also has a four-dollar breakfast. The view of the mountains is beautiful, when you can find it. There's a resident cat lurking around and mewing adorably. I just discovered that the big tree right outside the hostel is the roosting place for a flock of extremely noisy birds. The public transit system is very cheap. I'm in friggin' Hawai'i. Everything is going to be awesome!

Now for some musings. Why does the tourist industry make such heavy use of "unnecessary" quotation marks? They're "everywhere" - in "brochures", "on" signs, in notices "urging" tourists not to "throw away" their cigarette "butts". It gets "really" "aggravating" after "a" while, especially "for" an "English nerd" like "me". On a meta-note, I'm also starting to become aware of the addictive nature of blogging. The fact that I can post random thoughts like that for the general public to read is a terrible and wonderful thing, kind of like giant waves, or griffins. It's probably a good thing that I'm only going to have patchy access to the internet for the next nine months...

Love you all.

PS: Here's the link to "This Time Tomorrow", the song I mentioned a few posts ago.

Maui 2

...and I fell off my bike. Fuck. Got some nasty abrasions on my leg, making me completely unable to go in salt water. So now I'm in Lahaina, unable to do the one thing I came for (surfing), and stuck in a humid mixed dorm in a tourist trap town with the next week already paid for, thereby leaving me trapped unless I want to flush a few hundred dollars down the drain. %#@&%^*!!!!!!!!111
Sorry you had to be privy to my venting. I'm sure everything will work out fine-I called the surf school today, and they're being pretty awesome. Now if only I could find a way to still go there without having to be in Lahaina...

Maui 1

Got into Maui last night. I'm staying in a little hostel in Lahaina, called Lahaina's Last Resort. Lahaina is a massive tourist trap, but hopefully I'll be able to find some nicer areas (yay for good public transport). Went surfing this morning, had fun, got a rash on my knees. Not too much exciting is going on, just relaxing and trying to get familiar with the area. Hopefully some fun escapades will start happening soon...

...Continued

Made it to Honolulu! I'm staying w. Bruce and Pom Luxton (for those of you who know Steve, his uncle and aunt) and will be flying to Maui tomorrow. Still absorbing the fact that I'm literally not going to be back in the US, much less Sequim, in the next nine months...anyway, a few quick things. First of all, who knows how to upload photos on  a computer other than one's own? (Zac or Oli, I'm looking at you here. I could probably figure it out myself, but this way is easier.) Second, I'm considering changing the uber-cheese blog name that I instantly regretted as soon as I hit post to "Vicarious Vacations with Will", or something to that effect. Opinions? Finally, I posted the wrong Kinks song today, although it's still pretty fitting. The computer I'm using is ancient, so I can't post the video, but I'll put it up tomorrow or sometime soon. Just listen to "This Time Tomorrow" and think of me. Love you all.

No. 1

I'm taking off today! Last night was my last night in Sequim for the next nine months. In the time I'm gone, babies will be conceived and born, which is a crazy thought. Will my blog be competing with pregnancy blogs (assuming such things exist) for it's readership? It could. Oddly fitting, considering that this trip may be something of a rebirth itself. Not to sound like a complete cheesemeister, but my experience of the world is pretty limited. How will I change? How will I grow? Let's find out, together. For reference, here's a picture of me now:

 

I'll try to update the blog as frequently as possible. Enjoy living vicariously through Will! To close, here's a song I think fits the departure nicely, and has some sweet footage too:

Peaccccccccce!