Out On The Weekend

Hoboin' Tip #17:

Overnight Jumbo Ferries are a great place to sleep while drifting. But watch out, they don't like stowaways.

America has Mickey Mouse and Japan has their beloved Totoro. Just like classic Disney, all of Hayao Miyazaki's films have become canonized in this country. I am not too big of a fan, but everyone else is bananas about them. Here is that cuddable feline (type thing) in bread form. With this dessert you could choose regular or cream filled. We went with the cream. It was fantastic!

Upon seeing the name of this restaurant and the three story fish statue next to it, Peter couldn't stop laughing hysterically. Maybe it was because we were only going off of three hours of sleep, but all of us cracked up at the lack of creativity in the name and the enigmatic asterisk next to the word "cafe". It makes it sound like this place didn't know whether or not it wanted to actually serve there fish (exclamation point) or provide a place for people to relax. We couldn't figure it out. You decide. Maybe they just thought the little star looking thing brought some needed pizazz to the otherwise boring name? In that case, we must agree. It certainly caught our attention.

Don't need money. Don't need fame. Don't need no credit card to ride this futuristic Japanese ship. After waiting around for Marty, "Doc" Brown, and the flux capacitor to emerge from this space machine, we were sad to find out that this watercraft wouldn't actually take us back to the future. Although, I must admit that the maritime museum had an excellent selection of nautical crafts that kept our attention for at least an hour. We really enjoyed walking around the sea port.

This picture is a perfect representation of how excited Peter gets when we eat really good food. On this particular occasion it was the world famous kobe beef. We ate at this place called "Steakland" that was poorly named, but actually provided us with a fantastic high-end dinning experience. We ate it for lunch, so we didn't have to pay the outrageous dinner prices. All around, it was an amazing meal.

Peter really thought this statue looked like a Japanese replica of Al McCoy (of Phoenix Suns fame), so he had to get a picture in front of it. And although you can't really tell, he was saying "Shazam" while I took the picture. In true Japanese fashion, there was a figurine you could buy, but we couldn't justify spending the five hundred yen they were asking for it. Peter really wanted to get one for all of his fellow Suns fans back home. You know who you are.

We spent most of the day walking in some wicked Japanese rain. Here is a picture of Peter trying to weather the storm. He is using my umbrella because the rain had quickly defeated his. It snapped like a twig. The reason he got the umbrella was because we foolishly brought our computer in his backpack in order to watch movies on the Jumbo Ferry. We later regretted the decision. By the way, directly after this photo was taken the rain made mincemeat out of my umbrella as well. It was seriously poring on us. But, although it was miserable at the time, it has made for an endearing memory.

Costco in Japan anyone? I know it sounds lame, but just being in this store made us all feel like we were home. It was just as big and just as awesome as we remembered.

Costco even came through with providing their fantastic food court. The hot dogs and pizza were all at their usual low low prices and we couldn't have been happier. Although, in this picture I've captured the look that Peter has on his face every time he is in a large crowd. He really hates them. Nobody bothered to tell us that Costco is a madhouse on holidays. No joke, there were at least 3,000 people in that store. It was driving us all bananas. But honestly, even if we would have known it was going to be crazy, we still would have gone. Peter and I scored some refried beans, good American cheese, Nature's Valley granola bars, and a big bag of chocolate covered pretzels for Peter's birthday present (their his favorite).

Even though it was raining really hard and he had just had a Costco hot dog and churro, Peter had to get a slice of pizza for the road. I know it sounds gross, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We were never going to be back at Costco in Japan again, so he had to go for all the marbles. Sure we all looked like absurdly strange foreigners running through the rain, Peter with his pizza and our friend Heath with a box of a dozen glazed donuts, but that is what you have to put up with in order to feel normal in this country every once in awhile.

At the end of the day, we all sat down to an all you can eat dessert buffet. This place was truly amazing. There had to have been at least thirty things you could choose from. Needless to say, it was a really nice way to finish our trip. We thought an idea like this would be great in the States, but then we realized that the US wrote the book on all you can eat buffets and probably already has something like this or better. If you ever find one, we would suggest jumping on the fan wagon.

PS - This is a Peter blog and was not actually written by Lacy. Peter likes to do that.

-Lacy

You Say It's Your Birthday

Top 5 reasons I love Peter to death:

1. His love of great country music.

2. He will always eat the food I make even if it tastes nothing like what it was supposed to. Tonight it was the zucchini bread. He also likes to bake with me.

3. He will offer to pluck my eyebrows when they get out of control. It's probably only because he is embarrassed of me, but I love it anyway.

4. He is amazing at everything he does. Sports, school, his work; I really admire him.

5. He can grow a very handsome beard.

Happy Birthday Peter, I love you so much!

PS - Peter got an acceptance letter today from the University of Denver, along with a $20,000 scholarship if he decides to go there.

PPS - This is a recent picture of him that was taken right after he took his first bite of genuine Kobe beef during our trip to Kobe, Japan last week. I love it!

Shangri-La

The Kingdom of Angkor.... here it is. We have so many pictures it was really hard to decide which ones to put on the blog. Unfortunately I was also really disappointed with how a lot of them actually looked after I posted them. For some reason they looked really washed out. This first photo is the famous Angkor Wat at sunrise. It was an early wake-up and a long wait, but well worth the effort.

It was by far one of the most amazing temples due to the size and detail of the place. We were blown away with the carvings on the walls of all the temples. Literally all the walls were engraved with pictures and stories of ancient history.

We explored Angkor Wat for about 2 hours it was so huge. It has many buildings and they let you climb all over it, which made things very interesting. Many countries from around the world have decided to help with the restoration of certain temples. So many of the temples were under construction while we were exploring them which was a little frustrating when trying to get pictures. I had to be careful to avoid scaffolding.

This is the entry way through a wall that surrounds a large section of the city. I always thought that that was the face of Buddha but it is actually the face of the King.

The king had his face all over this temple, the Bayon. I think we counted about 50.

So many elephants, this is called the parade of elephants.

Some of the steps got too tiny and steep (and were covered in a fine dust) I didn't dare go up this one after our tuktuk driver told us a man from Korea fell last week and had to be air lifted to the hospital. For those of you who remember the Mooney Falls episode I had, remember I do not do well with heights.

The Silk Wood trees were my favorite they really add to the mystique of the temples. We felt like Indiana Jones.

Isn't it amazing how large these trees have grown since the city has fallen?

I wish these pictures didn't get so small and washed out this picture is beautiful. My blog doesn't do it justice.

Another favorite spot.

Peter really wanted to try a coconut because everyone said that they were delicious. So we decided we need to try one and thats when we found out coconut juice is terrible. I had to throw it out of the tuktuk because neither one of us was willing to drink it and it was splashing everywhere, they hold a lot of juice.

This was a door way.

This sight was amazing. Although it was extremely far away, required a long hike and led to an interesting argument with our tuk tuk driver it was worth the effort. The river was engraved with religious symbols for ritual purposes.

"I ain't lyin' , it's the Bayon." Peter was really wanting that to post his new catch phrase. Don't tell him but I don't think its that funny. Cambodia was our favorite part of the trip we have so many stories and details about the temples that I was not willing to write out. I really just wanted everyone to see the pictures and get an idea of the adventures that we had. I am sure Peter will go back and edit my post and input information about all the temples.

Mekong Delta Mama Blues

Immediately after arriving in Vietnam at the Siagon airport Peter and I knew Vietnam was going to be a difficult leg of our adventure. While at the Visa station they gave us an incorrect currency exchange, from yen to dollars. So Peter was already in a bad mood, then we tried to pull cash out of our bank account containing most of our money to use on this trip, and it didn't work. Come to find out our bank card had expired 1 month before our trip (the one thing we forgot to check). This made for a very interesting trip. Finally, while trying to catch a taxi we found out that Vietnam is a very aggressive and sassy country. Nobody would cut us a break. They all wanted to overcharge us for their services. We had only been in the country for 2 hours but we were already exhausted.

Our first day out was spent exploring the Cu Chi tunnels. This is me getting into one of their entrances. As you can see, it was extremely small. I was the only one brave enough to do it.

Although, you can't really see how small these tunnels are they are super tiny, you had to squat to walk through. They have even been enlarged to allow us oversized westerners to crawl through them. Unfortunately, due to my fear of small spaces and some really strong B.O. coming from the couple in front of us Peter and I weren't able to make it all the way through the tunnel. These tunnels were used by the Vietcong to hide from the American soldiers. It was a very difficult place to visit being the only Americans on our tour and having a tour guide that openly hated Americans. But we love America and held our hands high when our tour guide asked, "Are there any Americans here today?"

After an extremely disturbing stop at the Vietnam War Museum (Seriously, I really don't even like talking about it. I thought that it was terrible and completely biased) we took a ride on a couple of cyclos. I was really enjoying being among the chaos of the streets of Siagon, but Peter was very suspicious about his driver (notice the furrowed brow). That guy ended up short changing Peter by giving him back 4000 dong instead of the 40,000 dong he owed him. It's really the difference of like 2 dollars, but that's not the point.

The streets of Siagon are out of control. They say there are 10 million people in Siagon and 8 million motorcycles. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the number of motorcycles was blowing our minds. Crossing the street would just about give anyone a heart attack. No one ever stops. You just have to throw caution to the wind and walk while the motorcycle swerve around you. You would see 5 or 6 people on one scooter (i.e. a dad driving, a mom behind him with an infant in her arms, a toddler in very front standing between the dads legs, a child pinched between the mom and dad and quite possibly another child behind the mom holding a dog.

Ever seen a cock fight? We have. Don't worry it wasn't to the death, but it sure was strange.

While on our tour of the Mekong Delta we stopped by a couple island villages. This one is big on raising snakes to eat and make into cute wallets or snake skin boots.

Peter is the cutest. Just look at that beard. Isn't it beautiful? This photo was taken while riding from island to island on long boats. I now understand why these hats are worn all throughout Asia. They are extremely functional.

Vietnam's love of Ho Chi Minh was out of control. Doesn't he kinda look like C3PO in this photo?

We were able to visit a floating market. The kids are extremely cute, but their parents use them as a marketing tool to lure foreigners in. And, of course, our sympathies made us all buy at least one bushel of bananas from them.

Better late than never on the vacation posts I will try and get the Cambodia section up soon.