My Blog Abroad

I happened upon your blog by clicking a link from a Korean events page. You have really given a vivid view of your travels. Thanks …..it was quite entertaining…an hour(at least) well spent.

Good luck with your current endeavors.

Moongazer 

Well - I’ve been meaning to close out this travel blog since I returned home this August.  But between the trip to Vegas, Maurer’s wedding and this new job…free time wasn’t really around like it was in Asia lol.  Reflecting back on my last year abroad, it was one hell of an experience.  Living in a completely foreign culture was about as cool as experiences come and i’m glad I recorded a lot of it on this thing.  By far the nicest country I lived in was Taiwan…i’m really going to miss Kaohsiung I think.   Korea had so many things I loved and hated about it haha.  There were times I despised that country and times where I was just loving it.  

Highlights were definitely playing in the Canadian Ball Hockey League there in Seoul.  Sadly, I will never play in a better run league probably ever again.

 Korean BBQ was stellar too….

I came across the craziest group of drinkers I have ever come across in my life.  Just when you think it can’t possibly be taken to another level:

Banff Party Life ->  

Uni PArty Life ->

Greek Party Life ->

SCOTTISH PARTY LIFE ->

SEOULLLLL PARTY LIFE->

 Talk about a natural progression lol (Honourable mentions to Barcelona, Australia, New Zealand, Vienna, London and Panama *spring break*).  It’s good to know that if things don’t pan out here in Canada i’ve got a healthy amount of places i’d go back to in a flash out there.  The good friends you make abroad is something you can’t trade for anything in terms of experiences.  You meet some absolute beauties out there and it’s been a pleasure fellas… it’s been emotional lol.  

Now i’m back in Ontario, my gf has come over from Scotland and on a one-year working visa here so we’re going to hitup the Southern Ontario lifestyle, which i’ve grown to miss quite a lot since I left way back when.  I took a job in Northern Toronto for a corporate marketing firm in Richmond Hill which is experiencing phenomenal growth and providing me with more opportunity I could have ever hoped for in an entry level position.  I’m definitely planning on making the most of it…just closed an amazing condo on Yonge St. and moving in on Oct. 1st.

For the time being i’m not complaining and have put the PhD plans on the back-burner until I see how this job pans out.  As I mentioned, it was just too good of an opportunity to turn down and would have left me wondering if I did otherwise.  To say that i’m going with the flow these days is probably an understatement, but it keeps life interesting for me personally.  If you’re one of those people too, I recommend always having one or two solid contingency plans in your back pocket in case things don’t work out…which you find can happen more often than not on any given year.   For now though, it’s going to be catching up with family, touring Ky around Canada a bit and getting back into the NHL and NFL (damn I missed those sports!).  

Until next time…..keep fit and have fun.   Good stuff!  

Today I woke up and realized that it’s Canada Day, the weekend where we all usually pack a few cars and head up to Burrows’ place in Ottawa and celebrate it with 100,000+ fellow Canadians.  What I DIDN’T know all these years was that we share this special day with COMMUNIST DAY as well.  You can imagine my embarrassment when I found out.  You mean to tell me all these years I could have been celebrating double as hard the formation of The Great Party?  Needless to say, we’re all going out here tonight in Shanghai and celebrating our first Communist Day like never before. 

The air will be rich with conversation of our social relations based on freely-associated individuals and the proletarian revolution. The beers… the beers will flow like wine…Shanghai baby.  It’s all going down tonight, one harmonious celebration draping the red across everything WOOoooooo!!! 

Good-bye Vietnam, its been good! Nothing but fond memories of touring up this amazing country.  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first arrived here, this was like no where I have traveled to in the past.  The standard of living was much lower compared to Taiwan and Korea; as Thai’s cousin put it, “the people here are not rich and not poor, everyone gets by on what they make and it’s enough to live”.  I’d like to thank Thai’s family for their gracious hospitality during my visit down South in Saigon.  They treated me like family and made my experience all the more memorable. 

I highly recommend coming to see Vietnam, don’t be scared by Malaria or any other of that b.s., it’s just something that gets blown way out of proportion by travel clinics.  Most people that I have met here told me they never got any vaccinations.  I am definitely planning on returning here, the time just flew by so quickly.  That’s traveling I suppose.  For now, Thai and I are coming into Shanghai hot and we’re staying with one of my best buddies from back in the rez days at Waterloo.  He’s out there on an engineering contract through his work and is putting us up in his apartment suite for a while.  We’re going to pick things back up where we left them when he came and visited Seoul.  Let the good times roll. 

China really puts the squeeze on social networking, so if it’s what i’m told, this will be my last and final blog post here in Asia.  I’ll add a bunch of posts about Shanghai once I get back.  I’ll be looking forward to returning back to Canada after 1 year, it’s been one hell of a journey and a life experience I will never forget!

p.s. my apology for the horrible grammar recently and sometimes incoherent sentences.  I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this blog like I did in Taiwan, so it usually is just a quick post without looking it over.  Hope no points I was making came across wrong to anyone!  Cheers x

As mentioned in my previous post, Thai’s cousin offered to take us on board his cargo ship after delivering a sand shipment down south and let us tour back up the Mekong Delta with him and his crew back to Saigon.  For those that don’t know, the Mekong Delta River spans roughly 39,000 km in Vietnam and has recently been dubbed as a ‘biological treasure trove’. Over 10,000 new species have been discovered in previously unexplored areas of Mekong Delta. 

They have floating markets on the river, where you just pull up your boat and board someone else to check out their goods.  Our journey back to Saigon took 2 days, Thai and I just hung with the crew.  They prepared meals for us everyday and were glad to have us aboard. 

At night we’d sleep on the roof of the ship (which was really cool) checking out the stars and the moon, with no city lights for hundreds of miles. The Video below is when we took a small boat through the Mekong canals and all the small villages along the river.  

One of the days I spent at Phu Quoc Island, my buddy Joel and I toured it up on the bikes and made our way to the southern-east coast to this apparently legendary seafood restaurant.  Now, i’ve tried good seafood from all over (Naxos Island, East Coast Maine, Australia, New Zealand etc etc.) but this crab and shrimp they served up to Joel and I blew us both away.  

I think we just laughed through the entire meal like, are you kidding me?!? UNREAL…  Joel works with the Navy and loves his seafood, he’s been all around the world as well and agreed with me, this was the best he’d ever had.  I’m telling you right now, if you’re looking to open a seafood restaurant back home POACH this chef, he will make you a small fortune.  I can’t even remember the last time I had a meal comparatively as good of anything.  

It’s official, the VIETNAMESE will eat absolutely anything.  Ho-ly CRAP…there is really no limit here.  This culture has adapted their culinary appetites to just about anything other than rodents.  Thai tries everything put in front of him…but given my recent bouts of food poisoning last year, i’m starting to learn that my stomach isn’t made of iron and I chill out on some of the more questionable dishes, including dog.  

(dog) 

Uhh…? 

I gave the turtle a try…Thai had to order it off the menu.  It shed a lot of light on why it’s not a staple in the North American diet.  

We ported at a town during the Mekong Delta tour and there was a bunch of guys playing some football in town.  They let us join in which was pretty cool, although playing on turf barefoot wasn’t the smartest idea ever haha.  It took a few days for the blisters to chill out ! 

…beat

Something sweet. . IF you travel to the Cu-Chi tunnels northwest of Saigon, you can shoot off an array of guns from WW2 and the Vietnam War.  After much deliberation with the frenchman, Thai and I settled on the AK47 and the Machine Gun…Why not eh? haha - SO much fun, take my word for it. 

This is about exactly as it sounds like.  Today was interesting to say the least people.  Things escalated pretty quickly when our cargo ship pulled into one of the ports along the delta and we tried to make our way into town.  Immigration pounced on us immediately and when they realized Thai and I didn’t have our passports on us, things got Communist pret-ty quickly.  It also didn’t help I had a canceled Korean visa and new Chinese visa locked and loaded….things are a little…….tense…..with the Chinese right now as the war games continue up north. 

Anyways, we were instantly detained and not allowed to go anywhere for a while Thai’s cousin once again had to step up his game and make a few calls.  5 hours later the family entourage rolled up in this giant SUV (coming all the way from Saigon mind you) and things started to roll and look good for poor Thai and I… the fact I had 2 passports as well, only made the situation more awesome as you can imagine.  In the end, after getting some quality time to myself pondering how long i’m going to last in a Vietnamese prison (given my western democratic ideologies and all) I actually was able to calculate carefully and hypothesize…not long.  So emotion wise, I was probably at an amber alert lol.  Finally Thai’s aunt came out of the office and informed us that she was able to bribe the bastards to letting us walk, which abruptly ended the ordeal and got us back on our boat.  GOD!!! Thank you JESUS!  …where the hell is Alec Baldwin and the Film Actors Guild when you need them though, really. 

If you come over here, try to avoid anyone in a uniform is what I learned today.  Good times, keep em’ coming.  I love it haha…gearing up for night 2 sleeping on the roof of this freighter again! The moon is full and the skies are clear once again… communist interrogation and encroachment to a minimum.  Peace again lol