about the photo above

sunrise, new mexico

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

have to be honest

line item 1817 on the menu made me a bit nervous

street cuisine

the best thing i ate in china. thanks to my colleague and friend bob schilling for hooking up the hot spot for street bbq. everything you could want on a stick and seasoned to perfection. 2 beers and a whole lot of food for less then $5.
stoking the coals, cooking up the goodness

chicken livers and beef parts

food porn

Friday, April 23, 2010

thailand

as an individual who enjoys being outdoors, china is not the best of places. don’t get me wrong i really do love china, but it is not exactly a great place to go out and get some “fresh air”. so being told i would stay in china for another week was a little bit of a set back. to remedy this i hopped a flight to phucket, thailand for the weekend in search of clean turquoise waters, sunshine and fresh air. by the way it is poo-cot not fuck it.
phucket was still a bit crowded for me, so i took the ferry to phi phi island, which is located apx 25 miles southeast of phucket in the andaman sea. from there I caught a water taxi and ended up at the tohko beach resort. let me be the first to admit that this is the kind of place that I hesitate talking about because the last thing I would ever want would be to head back there and find a sandals… but as most of the readership of this is based roughly 9000 miles away, I will go ahead and digress. The tohko beach resort was paradise, maybe not for everyone, but for me it was pretty damn close.

tohko was like a summer camp for its dozen or so guests. we all had our own little bungalos, ranging in size and amenities, but there was only one place to eat, and one beach so we pretty much coexisted, a little commune if you will.
sure you could go on a day trip to the town or phi phi lake(where the movie the beach was filmed…leo!), but for me and what seemed like a majority of the guests, the great part was sitting and reading in the sun or swimming and snorkeling in bath warm water. the kitchen was open from 6am till 10pm and no cash was necessary, on check out you would be given a bill that included your room, drinks, food and any activities. so everyone just relaxed, ate and drank. and oh, by the way, the food is amazing, thai food at its best. the most shocking part of all of this is that when i had to say goodbye and check out i was presented with a bill that was roughly $92.
let that sink in…
3 days 2 nights, lodging, drinks, food and activities for $92. i have had larger bar tabs in shitty cleveland bars.
now the reason i pause in recommending to anyone and everyone is that the tohko is a bit robinson cursoe, and that’s a good thing to me. however for someone else looking for a 15 story high rise with air conditioning, a mini bar and spa, the tohko probably is not for you. the tohko is what it should be, a place where you can enjoy the surroundings, enjoy the sea, enjoy not being at work. they have electricity but they only turn it on from 6pm-6am and why not? what the hell are you doing in your room? as far as i could tell, hot water is not really an option, but again it has a low of 85 in the evening, it really is not necessary, plus the cool shower after a day in the sun is amazing. it is everything i wanted and needed and nothing i did not. enjoy the pics
mosquito net and a hammock, not much else i could ask for

fresh mango and a smoothy, oh and a bit of a view... please don't hate, i am sure i did something really good in a past life.

my home

my roommate

obligatory food shots... banana and pineapple pancake with honey... one of the better things i have ever had the chance to indulge in.

dinner for one with a view

long boat colors

good morning thailand

thailand color

evening



local



water taxi back to the ferry

pretty sure andre 3000 from outkast was my taxi boat driver... you be the judge

such a perfect place, i hope to see it again sometime soon

somehow

everything, and by everything i mean all the good websites, is magically working in china today! that is fun stuff. figured that would be a great excuse for me to post some photos... so without further and before sites get shut back down...

wanted to get up some pics from shanghai where i started off the trip two and a half weeks ago. such a great city, and with something like 19.5 million residents, you are sure to find some friends. we did it fancy in shanghai, nice hotel, nice restaurants, etc. heaps of fun and a great city to start a visit to china with.
here the old guard of shanghai from back when the britts ruled the world.

"you want watch? you want dvd?" it is absolutely mind boggling to me the mutlilingual abilities of the common street hustler in china. what it also does is make me feel like an idiot for my four word chinese vocab.

evening along the bund

yea, he is big here too

it is amazing how well communism works with things like high end handbags

shanghai nightlights




they have these on every street corner over here too

from shanghai on to shenzhen and chang'an stay tuned for some more pics.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

a break

taking a break from posting for a bit, not by choice. headed back to china and thanks to a super controlling and a little over suspicious government, blogspot and pretty much everything else cool on the interweb(facebook, youtube, porn, etc) is not available over there. i have set up some movie clip monday posts, but no new content for two weeks, maybe three... keep an eye out for a superpost when i get back, i am sure i will have a story or two.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

macro

playing around with a macro lens yesterday, heaps of fun. here are a few

Monday, April 5, 2010