todays bird
if i look back, i am lost
Janaina Medeiros
shark vs the universe
YOU ARE THE REASON
Product Placement
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Stranger Things
cherry valley forever
Love Begins
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I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
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Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Sweet Seals For You, Always
almost home
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tumblr dot com
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Monterey Bay Aquarium
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@hungry4danish
Happy Friday!! Bobby will be spending the weekend playing some #hornussen. What’ll you be up to? If nothing, I suggest listening to the #podcast where we talk about #sports and ask why this one uses protest placards during play. . . . #hello #itsme #adele #podcasting #photoshoot #sausage #whipitgood (at Hornussen, Aargau) https://www.instagram.com/p/B81QCyspg2g/?igshid=a23l0t9uheb6
https://www.buzzsprout.com/271267
New episode of the podcast is out now!
You’ll learn the BS that tax preparation companies pull to screw people over, you’ll also learn why Washington DC is called DC, how insane Mexican TV is, and hear about some of the weirdest, strangest sports on Earth! Bobby is shocked to hear Sarah has never eaten a Big Mac. Sarah’s body is falling apart, the culprit? Sleeping and coughing. Sarah doesn’t trust what the DC in Washington DC stands for.
In the game portion that starts at 24:03 we hear about some of the strangest sports on Earth and Sarah has to guess where they are played! Good luck!
Click the image to listen!
New podcast episode out now. Bobby discusses a plan for dog acquisition and then sings his jingle to help you remember the digits of pi! (ok, but why?) Sarah talks about going to AA and stalking the singer of her favorite band! In the game portion that begins at 22:21, Sarah throws out strange names for ridiculous kitchen utensils and Bobby has to try and guess what the heck they could be. All those seasons of bingeing GBBO can’t save him now!
Where’s the lie?
I love to see this when editing, a 5-second long hearty laugh by Sarah. Hopefully we entertain you with our BS as much as we entertain ourselves! -bobby . . . #podcast #podcasting #laugh #audio #soundwave #sarah #BirthThatInfo #editing #orange #garageband https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Fwy6-JDa6/?igshid=cfp7tmjfgf0d
I’m just sitting here laughing my ass off thinking about a cute little furry rodent sitting behind an executive desk made of grass, signing declarations and brokering peace deals.
This logic has been driving me crazy all season. Winden is seemingly the rainiest place on Earth yet nobody aside from the truckstop hooker has an umbrella or knows how to use a hood?! Still really good show though.
Netflix’s “Dark”
A pair of daggers with goat horn hilts, India, 19th century.
from Hermann Historica
Hey, how was your trip to Asia?
Clearly this is such a loaded question so my response of "oh it was great, nice and warm; took a lot of pictures" doesn't really suffice. So here is an extended more in-depth look into my travels to Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines.
This is a wordy accompaniment to all the pictures I've posted on FB.
And because it's so long, here are bullet points.
-2 weeks, 5 cities 12 flights
-The entire two weeks there was only two days of sun, both of those days were while we were in the big cities and not on the beach. :/
-Hong Kong: Futuristic mega-city combined with
-Phuket: Fancy resort. Christmas Eve in the beautiful Phi Phi Islands.
-Bangkok: Khao San Rd is nightlife madness. Temples were numerous and ornate.
-Boracay: was cloudy and rainy because of nearby Tropical Storm Seniang. Was a nice beach but not worth the hassle to travel to.
-Kalibo Aiport was the worst travel experience of my life.
-Manila: New Year's Eve. World class fireworks. Jeepney! The Pope is coming, the pope is coming! The most CROWDED market experience. I am a tall giant in this land of tiny Filipinos.
-It was funny to have been on a dozen or more flights in Asia where the flight attendants are all younger, pretty women who are very demure and subservient then my first flight back in the States it was 3 menopausal aged women who weren't gonna take shit from anyone.
When a 3.5 hour layover almost wasn't long enough:
Because of a multitude of factors our 3.5 hour layover in Beijing came down to less than 10 minutes. A 1 hour delay leaving LAX because of traffic, then landing in Beijing for my layover they parked the plane overnight the furthest they could from the terminal. The bus to the terminal took what had to be 10 minutes. THEN in the airport the line for international transfers was insanely long and there was only one immigration officer working. After immigration, security checkpoints again. My friend and I had to run through the airport Amazing Race style to get to our flight which OF COURSE was the furthest gate from security. Made it on our connecting flight to Hong Kong with less than 10 minutes before the doors shut.
HONG KONG
I'd always thought Hong Kong was expensive. And maybe it is if I needed to purchase real estate, however food and transportation costs are on par with the rest of SE Asia. I'm talking like 5 cents for ferries across the bay!
I stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui which is right in the thick of it all. Still on the mainland but close to subway or ferry ride south to Hong Kong island. Hong Kong was a mix: awesome futuristic Asian megacity and "gently used" fixer uppers, for every subway stop or road called Cheung Sha Wan or Tiu Keng Leng there'd be an Austin, North Point or Jordan.
We took a public bus up to Victoria Peak to get a view of the harbour and skyline of HK. The trip up there and back was insane! Full-sized double decker buses barreling up and down the incredibly curvy, winding road at speeds and passing distances I wouldn't feel comfortable doing myself in a tiny Fiat! It was impressive and like a roller coaster but without seat belts.
If you thought the ubiquity of Starbucks and McDonalds in the States was too much, well take both of those combined and that's how many "Chow Tai Fook" jewelry stores you'd see in HK. Every other block. Once I saw Chow Tai Fooks literally three doors down from each other.
I collect tabletop flags of all the countries I visit yet I couldn't find anywhere that sold ANY Hong Kong flags let alone the size I was looking for. Anytime I did see the HK flag on a flagpole it was below the Chinese flag and always a smaller dimension.
I'm much like Pawnee Councilman Jeremy Jamm in that I love Asian shit. Sadly, I couldn't load up on souvenirs of buddha statues, jade lions, Chinese coins with square holes in the middle as I wasn't going to lug it around for two weeks, also smartly I didn't give myself room in my bag.
PHUKET, THAILAND
Phuket in Thai looks like "nina" in the Latin alphabet:
My friend had racked up hotel rewards points because of her work, so while in Phuket we weren't gonna stay at some $15 hostel near Patong Beach. No, we stayed at a 5-star resort that had everything you could want and its own private beach. It was much more than anything we needed, I didn't even know what a turndown service was! But it was nice to be able to take a taxi to the touristy areas during the day or for dinner and then not have to deal with the party atmosphere late into the night. That being said, the exact moment I realized my friend was crazy loco was when she uttered, "You know, if you think about it $350/night isn't that bad for all this and your own private beach." (we DID NOT spend that)
Patong Beach is the nightlife party area of Phuket. It's a long beach full of bars and clubs and Russians (lots of Russian in Phuket) and places like Hooters and Hard Rock Cafe. (I steered clear of latter places. I am not flying across the world to Thailand to go eat at a Hooters or even a McDonald's for that matter.) While walking along the shops across from the beach a man shoved a slow loris in my face. I wanted to take a picture but didn't want the guy to benefit financially from the exotic animal trade where they have their teeth cut or pulled out. They're also endangered, man!
Christmas Eve we took a day trip out to the Phi Phi Islands. (Pronounced pee-pee) It was an hour long speedboat east of Phuket. I sat in the front of the boat and it was uber-choppy so we were bouncing up and down over the waves. Only once or twice were there some spine-compressing hard bumps but despite that the ride alone was tons of fun. We hit up Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi Leh, Pileh lagoon for swimming, Maya Bay where the movie "The Beach" was filmed and because of it, now filled with tourists. Did some snorkeling, enjoyed the insanely clear, aqua water and the sheer, daunting limestone cliffs. The only way the trip could have been better was if it wasn't overcast the entire time.
Found this beauty mid-impromptu photoshoot:
Our flight out of Phuket had to be only at 40% capacity. I took advantage of the extra space. Too bad it was only an hour flight to our next stop:
BANGKOK
I was really distraught when I saw 50+ people in line for taxis at the airport. Then I was extremely impressed at the efficiency and speed at which they sent all us tourists out into the Bangkok night.
Mid-flight I realized that the hotel printout didn't have the address in Thai. I asked a flight attendant to write it Thai so it'd be easier for our taxi driver. Well I have no idea what she wrote because our taxi driver just dropped us off at Khao San Road whereas our guesthouse ended up being a few blocks off the beaten path.
If I thought Patong Beach was touristy nightlife central, Khao San Road was that quintupled. I'm talking vendors selling scorpions on a stick, I'm talking bars advertising "we don't check ID" I'm talking 18,19yo Brits and Aussies getting plastered to laser shows and eardrum shattering techno music and open air clubs across the street from each other dueling for loudest music on the block. It was the biggest frat party you could imagine but with vendors selling shirts, postcards and Thai food right in the middle of everyone who are all already packed into one road like sardines. Quite the experience, yet I still got out of there as soon as I could.
I booked the guesthouse in Bangkok, it was near all of the temples and the Grand Palace. I think it was $22/night which if you've traveled in SE Asia, you know gets you a pretty nice room! Not roughing it, not a hostel, you have your own room, own bathroom, air con, tv etc. Well coming directly from a 5-star resort in Phuket my travel partner was pretty much horrified and probably disgusted at our accommodations. The next night she booked us in another 5-star hotel in the financial district. haha. There was a beer opener in the bathroom!
While in Bangkok I met up with a college friend I hadn't seen in 7 years. She was over there teaching English. There was just something surreal about being over on the other side of the world in a foreign country yet you're catching up with an old friend. Glad we got together, A. and D. let's do it again in Chile, eh?!
Our first day of sun!!! came in Bangkok. The weather was 90+ degrees, I loved it, it was unreal for me to be experiencing this in December. We hit up all the hot spots. The temples of Wat Pho which housed the massive golden reclining buddha:
and then across the river Wat Arun:
I took an Asian-tourist-level amount of pictures of the temples and their ornate details and the golden buddhas and the shrines pocketed everywhere throughout the grounds.
Also in Bangkok, we hit up Chatuchak Market, one of the largest markets in the world. It was a labyrinth of stalls. I don't know how the people that work there actually ever find their way to work everyday. Something like 8000 vendor stalls and most of the time is looks like this, crowded covered and wares for sales, everywhere!
If my friend A. hadn't mentined this earlier in the day I would've been horribly confused seeing it. It's the year 2558 in the Buddhist calendar.
The last picture I took in Thailand:
Sexy meandering.
So far on the trip we went from an urban environment to beachy one, and back to urban. So naturally it was time to hit up the beach again:
BORACAY, PHILIPPINES
To get to one of the "worlds best islands" would be no easy feat. From Bangkok it took two flights, an hour bus ride, a ferry and a tuk-tuk ride. Just throw in an animal and a train and that's almost every mode of transportation possible. It was 2AM before we got to our hotel, and then found out that Agoda messed up as they had let us book a room at a hotel was already completely booked. Not exactly what you want to hear at 2AM having just taken two flights, an hour bus ride, a ferry and a tuk-tuk. We raged at Agoda to get it sorted and ended up staying a nice little guesthouse owned by a German man. Thankfully he responded to the call at 2 in the morning. Nice views in the morning made up for all the previous night's frustrations.
Not much to do on Boracay other than relax and beach it up.
Fire dancers on the beach. They were so good we went back the next night to go see them again.
Unfortunately it rained the majority of the time in Boracay because of Tropical Storm Jangmi (Seniang).
Also unfortunately what will stick with me most about Boracay, and a large reason I'd advise people that it's not worth it to travel there, was the horrendous experience trying to fly out.
Kalibo Airport was the worst airport experience of my life. It took over an hour to get from the line outdoors just to the service counter to check in. Then we were stuck in a small, single terminal that would be crowded on a slow day. More people just kept coming in and coming in and coming in. There had to have been well more than double the capacity. Every seat was taken, every bit of free space on the floor was taken up. People, me included, were sitting on the floor out of the way of more people coming in trying to shuffle by on their way to nowhere. It got to the point where a hundred or more people went and sat right outside the terminal near the tarmac. Both for space and because it was so hot inside. Already in a tropical climate and then add hundreds of bodies in one room? Clearly their air con system couldn't handle 600+ people in a space for 250.
Every 15 minutes there was an announcement of every single flight for the day having been delayed. Most because the planes traveling to Kalibo hadn't yet even left Manila, another airport ripe with delays. When it did come time that our flight had arrived there was no announcement when boarding started. It was basically that I saw people getting on a plane so I walked out on the tarmac to see if it was my flight or not. Gotta stay aware or else we might've missed our flight. It was an insane mess. 12 hours later we saw via twitter that people were STILL waiting to get out of Kalibo. It was New Year's Eve, we were lucky to not have to spend it in an overcrowded, hot hellhole.
Take away: If you are traveling through Asia, never have a layover anywhere in the Philippines.
MANILA
When you hear news reports about how dozens of people died in a stampede it's hard to fathom. Well I had an experience that now makes me understand how it'd be possible. In an already very busy market heading down on road it started to get crowded, ok this is Asia it's to be expected, but then it got worse and worse until you were already in the thick of it and there was no escape. Shoulder to shoulder shuffling for literally a half hour trying to make our way to an exit. I'm not claustrophobic but it was still a little unnerving. People for as far as you can see either way. FOR A HALF HOUR!
I unknowingly took this couple's engagement photo.
The reason for the crowd of thousands of Filipinos was because it was the first Friday of the new year (a Catholic holiday?) and at the end of the market road there was a huge churchyard. Filipinos are devoutly Catholic which added to the mass of human beings. Huge bottleneck, horrible city planning.
Jeepneys are the most popular way to get around in Manila.
There are thousands of them throughout the city and a ride costs but a few cents. They are all uniquely decorated and I think you just hop on and off whenever you need to. We were in Manila for such a short time that riding one once, just for the experience sufficed. We didn't have time to figure out the routes so it was more advantageous for us to take taxis while in Manila.
A few weeks after I left Manila, the pope was scheduled to visit. Holy hell were Filipinos excited. It probably was one of biggest things to happen to the country since the last Pope visited. He was on banners and merchandise everywhere.
Lastly, screw the international terminal in the Beijing Airport. They have literally A DOZEN duty-free and high-end Hugo Boss or Chanel stores yet NOT ONE convenient store where I could've bought a simple pack of Oreos and some potato chips before my 12-hour journey back to the States. It was so infuriating to walk around the entire place only see shop after shop selling 15-lb bags of Skittles, footlong Toberlones, and gift sets of a dozen boxes of panda-shaped butter cookies.
My time in Asia was overcast, but at least it was warm! The day I got back home in the States it was -2F. I definitely did not plan my escape my winter too well.
This trip to Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines did not sate my wanderlust like I had expected, it only fed it. Now I'm just left with the question, where to next? Namibia, Oman, Belize? Guess we'll see! [Someone please pay me to travel the world and then write up stupid, snarky travel reviews.]
