The Garfields!

Dear Boyfriends . . .

In honor of Jen's cousin Todd's recent engagement to Julie (yay!), we thought we'd use some new/old media to introduce Jed's good friends from growing up, Matt and Alex, to the blog.  Don't worry, we'll give you all the dirt later, but this little comic strip will give you an idea of what it was like traveling throughout southwest China with the Fantastic Four.  

If you're receiving this blog posting in an email, and still haven't figured out how to click to the actual blog (Jen's family and Jen's mom's friends, pay attention!), click here to see our comic strip.  Only the dialogue is in the email below . . .

Oh, and due to technical difficulties/confusion with the paste and publish tabs, many of you may have missed our accidental olympics post, so you can read that on our blog, too.  

We're currently waiting with our noses pressed against the window for the Fed Ex Santa Claus to deliver Jed's visa, so as long as Korean TV doesn't play Batman Begins, we're pretty sure there might be multiple postings today -- lucky you.  

MALEX arrive at Kunming Airport. 

Jed: You made it!

Jen: Ni Lai Le (You've Arrived)!

MALEX:  Hey, man!  Have you seen the new Batman yet?!?

Jen: Anyone want to see pandas?

And so it begins.  One night in Lijiang . . .

MALEX: I love how Batman probes questions of vigilante-ism

Jed: Aren't almost ALL superheroes vigilantes?

MALEX: We disagree!  What about superman?

Jen: Have you guys read about the Naxi minority group in Western Yunnan?

The Next Night . . .

MALEX:  . . . but Superman has the tacit approval of the state . . .

Jed: That may be, but the state maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence . . .

MALEX: . . . BULLSHIT! You never see Superman at odds with the law

Jen: The Naxi are matrilineal and have "walking marriages". . . 

Nest Week in Shangri-La. The debate rages on . . . 

MALEX: . . . strict interpretation of the constitution . . . Wolverine . . . 

Jed: . . . voter's rights . . . X-Men . . . 

MALEX: . . . nation-states . . . Cyclops . . .

Jen . . . where men can spend the night and women chose who and if to marry

Panda:  Actually, a vigilante is any person who take the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime.

MALEX, Jed, Jen: GASP!

We interupt this program . . .

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this late-breaking news (sorry Matt and Alex, you'll have to wait till next time :) . . .

Jed and Jen Accidentally Go to the Olympics!

So, in order not to have to fork over our first born for a hotel room, we had been trying to avoid being in Beijing at all this trip. But, we were on our way to Inner Mongolia from Xi'an, and had to switch trains in the "Forbidden City." In typical Jed and Jen fashion, neither of us had the foresight to check if there was sufficient time to transfer trains. Wellllllll.... we did check the times, but apparently 20 minutes isn't enough if you walk as slow as Jen does.

So there we are, 7 am, stranded in Beijing with nothing to do and all the hotel rooms in town either having been booked since Athens or costing as much as a moon flight.

While foresight-full we are not, we ARE, however, quite crafty (or lucky). Three glorious hours (Jed) / The three most boring hours ever (Jen) at the train station internet cafe later, Jed managed to get a hold of an old friend from high school who, miracle-of-miracles, happened to have a couch we could crash on. We made our way over to the Dongzhimen area where he lives, dropped our stuff, and decided to wander the city / search desperately for a theater showing Batman - Dark Knight.

As we came out of a cafe near the Worker's Stadium, we assumed the night was over. Our Batman grail-quest had proved fruitless (what's up with China, by the way? They train all the best atheletes in the world, but can't get Batman into their theaters???) and we were ready to crash. Just then (!) we were approached by a friendly American dude flashing a pair of orange tickets our way.

"Olympic Boxing?" our new best friend said with a smile. "Front row spectator seats -- right behind the athletes -- for face value ($22)?"

Jed wasn't so sure we should bite, but after Jen threatened him with her killer right-cross, there was no turning back. We were going to the Olympics!

We stood on line, giggling and high-fiving, till we were stopped for security inspection. A young volunteer rifled through our bags and told us how nervous he was after mistaking a half-finished crossword puzzle, haphazardly printed on the back of a flyer, for anti-Chinese agitprop in Jed's bag.

And then we were in the stadium, buying beer that wasn't overpriced: $1 for a large beer (God bless these Chinese -- at least they haven't stolen all of our marketing techniques / take that Wrigley + Fenway!), finding our way to our front row seats, overhearing the kids sitting behind us asking for the American heavyweight contenders autograph (okay, clearly we had no idea who this extremely tall, ripped man sitting behind us was, but we asked the kids after he left), chearing for Ireland, then Cuba, then Great Britain, then India with the Chinese guys next to us, being at one with the masses.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. And not a minute too soon for Jen.

Satisfied Race Thing Store

Before leaving Vietnam for good, we spent a few days in the seriously beautiful mountain town of Sapa, which is surrounded by smaller minority villages on all sides. Upon stepping off the bus, we were instantly surrounded by Hmong girls in their traditional dress saying hello in perfect English and showing us their silver bracelets. But don't be fooled - although many of these young lasses live in traditional villages, many with mud floors and no electricity (as we would soon experience first hand), they all have facebook and cell phones, and are VERY adept at flirting with the foreign men!

The next day we hired a tour guide named Chi, a little firecracker, (and we mean little - at 26 years old she can't be more than 4'8, which made us feel like giants (whoohoo! finally!)) who took us on a trek to visit waterfalls, her grandmother's villiage, and other local areas of interest.

Chi was not only knowledgeable about the flora, fauna, and local culture, an excellent English speaker, and a genuine good spirit, but she was also quite candid with us about the state of the tourism industry in the Sapa area. After doing a bit of research among the companies offering tours in the Sapa surrounds ourselves, we were sad to discover that few returned to the villages they worked with anywhere near the % of profits that the average Laotian tour company did. That is to say, the Vietnamese companies were not very socially responsible.

Some advice for future travellers to the area:

Email Chi and arrange your own tour with her directly.

Afterwards, she'll probably invite you into her Sapa-city home and show you all her foreign friends plastered along the walls. If you're a woman, she'll probably want you to try on her traditional Hmong duds -- you might have to squeeze in -- and take a picture with her. Honestly, this was among the highlight of the trip and the best part of the day. She may even invite you out to dinner, too. And believe us, no tourist will get the prices she gets on their own!

You can contact Chi directly at:

hmonggirl_sapa@yahoo.com

She may not be able to read, but her cousin Vu can help her, and she'll be at the doorstep of your hotel the next day. And this way, Chi, her family and her village get all the money (it's also much cheaper for you too).

Take A Break, Have A Steak!

Regrets for our prolonged absence these past few weeks, but as everyone knows being virtually MIA while traveling means we're having too much fun (i.e we don't desperately NEED the computer/Jed's coping well with withdrawal). So we'll recap the last few weeks, which took us north through Vietnam and then into China, where we finally met up with Jed's good friends -- Alex and Matt.

Back to 'Nam . . . After the wonders of Ho Chi Minh City, we arrived in Hoi An, where rumors of perfectly tailored suits and dresses on the cheap lured us despite our best attempts to travel lightly and embrace minimalism. Here's how it all went down:

Jed and Jen walk into a tailor shop . . .

Saleswoman (eating tart green fruit dipped in chilli pepper): Can we help you?
Jed: Oh no, we don't need anything, we're just looking.
Jen: Well . . . maybe just one skirt.
Jed: I'll just sit in the corner and look through this GQ from 1987 while you design your skirt.
Jen: Okay, this will only take a minute.

10 minutes later . . .

Jed: Well . . . these fabrics are pretty soft.
Jen: And you can't even tell it's not real silk!
Jed: Maybe just one suit. A Fulbright scholar's gotta look sharp.

24 hours later . . .

Jen and Jed struggle to stuff their packs with:

1. one pair of silk pajamas (which the saleswoman couldn't help but giving Jed's butt a squeeze in)
2. TWO full three piece suits
3. two chinese/american fusion shirts (designed by Jen)
4. one skirt with cool front pockets (suggested by Jed)
5. one dress that unfortunately turned into a ball gown (blame it on the culture barrier, but for 20 bucks you can't complain -- anyone got a good ball to go to?)
6. one revolutionary jacket
7. one pair of pimp-tastic gold-plated "Nike" sneakers (designed by Jed)

A hop on a pair of motorbikes, a quick stop at the beach, and off to Hue -- "culinary capital" of Vietnam!

After six+ meals at six+ restaurants, we have only room for one line about Hue:

Worst. Food. Ever.

This was Jed's biggest letdown in Vietnam, having agreed to go with Jen only after ensuring a stop in this city. . . . Oh, and there was also an imperial palace in Hue. Jed took no longer than .12 seconds to point out that it wasn't nearly as impressive as the actual forbidden city in Beijing of which the one in Hue was a cheap Vietnamese knock off. Jen, by now used to this leitmotif, rolled her eyes repeatedly.

From Hue it was back on the overnight train and off to Hanoi / Sapa to round out our Vietnam tenure. We loved Hanoi, and not just because we spent our first day there apart (as Jen says, "to regain our independence.") C'mon people, one day apart doesn't mean we don't love each other. But 24 hours a day. With the same person. All the freaking time. Is a lot to ask. Especially when one of them is bossy.

Witness our difference in experiences:

Jen -- strolls around the city, buys a dress, buys tickets to the water puppetry theater, sits by the lake, writes and drinks tea.

Jed -- charges off to the north of the city to see West Lake and the pond where John McCain got shot down, sees the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, a great place for dinner, and gets sidetracked drinking Beer Hoa, eating peanuts, and declining opportunities to smoke opium with old men on the sidewalk for four hours.

Five beers and a pair of water puppetry tickets later, Jen and Jed reconnect at the designated meeting spot for lunch -- energized by their "individual" (gender neutral) experiences. Yes, the five beers were before lunch, Jen would like to point out.

After spending the day traipsing through the narrow, tree-lined streets and checking out the various boutiques and bars both Jen and Jed agreed that Hanoi was a beautiful place. A very "livable" city that they would love to come back to.

Jen Crushes Communism!

Coming up next!

Sapa and trekking with Chi!
The worst bus ride ever (from Vietnam with love!)
The dynamic duo of Matt and Alex arrive in Kunming (becoming two of the tallest people in China)!

Gu Chi Is So Hot Right Now

After Jed returned the baby otter to the National Laotion Otter Water and Skate Park Sanctuary (what a guy!), we made our way to the mythical, infamous Ho Chi Minh City. En route, we took the day bus from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang, where we rode elephants, trekked in knee-deep mud, chanted with the monklettes (our term for young monks, who we learned recieve a free education in the monastery if their families can't afford to pay for other schooling; also our term for monks who can't sit still during meditation!), yuppied it up at the wine bars and coffee houses, and generally left "roughing it" behind to the under 24 crowd.

Emerging from our encounter with the good life, we boarded an innocent looking, overnight bus to Vientienne, the Laotian capital, where we were to fly onto HCMC. Little did we know (isn't this becoming a convenient narrative device?) this was the longest, bumpiest, curviest, jostlingest most cramped bus ride in the history of bus rides. Add an AC unit dripping an unkown sticky substance onto our makeshift poncho shelter, no bathroom break for 6 hours and chairs that didn't recline to an already sleep-deprived bunch, and we were NOT happy campers. We got into Vientienne and crashed, though we did make it to the Scandinavian bakery for some delicious omelletes.

And finally! Ho Chi-Fuckin-Minh City. . .

Within an hour of touchdown in the most traffic-congested city in the hemisphere, and already suppressing the almost constant urge to scream "Gooood Morning Vietnam!"/"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"(Jen/Jed respectively), we were caught in the most vicious motocylce gridlock we'd ever seen, making Mexico City look like the Deerfield/Newton Free library parking lot. Racing to our comfortable guest house (which was hard when it took Jen 10 minutes to cross the street), where the owner kept a menagerie of rare songbirds to sell/eat, we narrowly escaped a deluge of biblical proportions (and we're talking water filling the streets up to your knees in a matter of minutes).

Things witnessed in the HCMC streets as Jen was too afraid to cross:

Motorbikes-cum-waterskis cruising past crowds of children through 2 feet of water

Our lives flashing before our eyes

And to top it all off -- motorcycles, mac trucks and semi's wizzing by -- a woman standing in the middle of traffic, leaning over her 2-year old, spoon-feeding him nonchalantly. In the middle of traffic!

Besides having a mindblowing/spiritually transcendent experience with a bowl of Pho and watching a German movie about two blind lovers make their way from Germany to Finland . . . we think . . . IN GERMAN(!) without subtitles, we took a tour of the Cu Chi tunnel system. Built by the Viet Cong, according to the brochure, "the tunnel system embodies the undaunted will, intelligence, and revolutionary heroism of the Cu Chi people liberating the fatherland from the American imperialists and their lackies." Yay!

While the tunnels themselves were pretty cool, both Jed and Jen actually managed to scuttle their way through 100 meters and 3 floors of underground corridors and declined to partake in the lunch-time gun firing opportunity, our favorite part was our historically accurate point-counter point between Gucci and Cu Chi. An excerpt (in high, squeaky Austrian voice):

Gucci is so hot right now vs. Cu Chi is so hot right now

Gucci: "By reinterpreting iconic elements from Gucci's past, such as the 'Flora' scarf patterns and equestrian imagery, Gucci has infused a rich heritage with new energy and modern sex appeal. This is why Gucci is so hot right now."

Cu Chi: "As the strong base of the Military Zone Party Committee, the Cu Chi tunnels sustained firefights in such 'hot' areas as the Liberated Area, the Disputed Area, No Mans Land, and Temporarily Occupied Area. Due to relentless napalm attacks and 30-ton bombing runs by American B-52s, the once lush town of Cu Chi has been effectively turned into a moonscape. This is why Cu Chi is so hot right now."

. . . that's it for now!

-See you in Hoi An.

Jed & jen

p.s. will SOMEONE comment on our blog???

Fried Weed + Sticky Rice + Bong Sauce

Hello again adoring public (i.e. moms and dads and our *true* friends:). Now the moment you've all been waiting for . . . Jed's fantastical 40 second motorcycle adventure!

Jed's version of events:
With fans lining both sides of Luang Nam Tha's main thoroughfare, I took off from the motorbike-rental place like an illegal speedboat down the Mekong. Pedal to the metal; I passed 20, 30, 40, 60, 90 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. Little did I know what was crouched behind the parked minivan down the road.

The cutest, most adorable baby otter darted into the middle of the street and peeped its little peep at me as I came thundering down the road. "Swerve!" I thought, "swerve, goddamn you! Save the baby otter." And swerve I did. I clambered up onto the bike seat, and prepared to spring off at the last second. I sent the bike hurtling into a construction site as I lept to safety.

In a last ditch effort to save the only reported Mekong otter in all of SE Asia, I went crashing ass over feet over head -- in a manly way, of course -- into the Luang Nam Tha curb. As I ducked my head and rolled, spontaneous applause erupted from all around. "OUR HERO!" they cried in Lao, I assume.



Jen's version of events:

After days of pleading and drooling over the European travelers cruising around on their motorbikes, I gave in and agreed to rent a motorbike to travel to the far northern village of Muang Sing (I'm adventuresome! I take risks!). As the rental dude showed Jed and I our 125 cc Korean-made bike, I thought that if the Lao people could drive with a family of 4, baby on the back, a dog, a basket of pineapples and an 18 foot pole, little ol' Jed and I could surely make it.

Rental dude gave Jed a .3 second lesson in shifting gears, and despite this being Jed's first time both on a motorcycle and driving stick-shift, I felt confident he could do it (as Julie Hilliard once exclaimed, "Is there anything Jed ISN'T good at the first time he tries it??). In a small cloud of dust, Jed slowly pushed off in first gear, lumbered along the main street for about 9 seconds at a liberal 4 miles per hour, wobbled out of his lane to the left and, in an apparent effort to turn around, gunned it into a nearby shrub where the bike tilted over and delivered Jed into a bed of tulips - thank goodness he was wearing his helmet!

Always the concerned girlfriend, I rushed to his aide and mended the scratch on his finger and small engine burn on his calf. Rental dude laughed, and then gleefully produced the contract requiring us to pay for damages (lucky us). 50,000 kip and a major loss of Jed's ego later, we chose to forgo the motorbike this time around after all.