Yes, we’ve been pretty bad about updating the blog. But we can’t all be as attentive and awesome as Ed and Carrie, now can we?

But here we find ourselves in our last city in Germany with some catch-up to do in the virtual world. So here are some highlights and snippets for you:

MUNICH:

The streets are freakishly clean and this might be the safest city we’ve ever been to. Biggest. Pretzel. Ever. (and tastiest). They also specialize in amazing apple strudel in vanilla sauce, yummy hefeweizen and loads of green spaces.

Mike samples the Oktoberfest hefeweizen

It’s amazing that in the middle of a city this big you can stroll down tree-lined streets, complete with biking and walking paths, and there are recycling bins everywhere.

Naturally we visited the requisite gorgeous, Bavarian castles of “crazy” Ludwig 2. Herrenchiemsee is situated on an adorable green island, meant to outdo Versailles and express Ludwig’s obsession with Louis 14 and a lesser obsession with Louis 15. While there is an impressive but overwhelming amount of gold everywhere, it was things like the “magic table” and an intricate porcelain chandelier that charmed me. The table (below said chandelier, designed by Ludwig himself) would lower down to the floor below through a hatch (which would close so the king didn’t fall to his death waiting for dinner) and reappear completely set with dishes and food. This way, the king was never bothered by servants. Alas, although it was supposed to be larger than Versailles upon completion, it was left with 50 rooms unfinished.

Of course, we also had to visit Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired Disney’s castle (despite my irritation with all things Disney- with the exception of Alice). First we saw Hohenschwangau, the small castle on the small hill, which seems cozy and actually comfortably inhabitable. While most castles seem drafty and freakishly huge, I was ready to move in there if they’d let me.

Then we saw the big daddy, Neuschwanstein, on top of a pretty serious hill. It’s called Ludwig’s fairytale castle for good reason- it was built to look like it came from the 13th century, even though it was built in the late 1800s.

Neuschwanstein

It is here that we meet with Ludwig’s foremost obsession: Richard Wagner. Each main room or series of rooms is meant to reflect a specific Wagnerian opera, with amazing wood carvings, beautiful paintings and intricate tapestries- this includes a hallway/room made to be an artificial cave. I can see why Disney was inspired and how he really copied Ludwig. The real crown jewel however, is the singer’s hall, which has a stage at one end, some serious acoustics and countless gigantic candelabras, and was designed specifically for the king to watch Wagner’s operas. While Ludwig was gaga over dead French kings, he actually knew Wagner, who often would visit him, stay with him at the smaller castle (where Ludwig spent the majority of his life) and play music on a piano in Ludwig’s private chambers.

I like Ludwig. He loved music and art, and used his power and money to create beautiful living fairy tales. He was engaged to a woman for about 10 months, but they broke off the engagement… could that possibly be due to his obsession with a certain composer? I feel sorry that Ludwig seems to have spent a lot of time in fairy tales because his real life didn’t live up- a political coup robbed him of power, he was declared “insane” to make that transition happen, he was probably murdered at 40, and possibly suffered through intense, passionate, unrequited love for much of his life. I can only hope that when the guide showed us the small guest bed in the castle and said “this is where Wagner slept”, that he was mistaken.

Alas, Neuschwanstein was also never finished, as it bankrupted Ludwig, and no one took up the mantle after his death. There are a couple more tragedies associated with the castle- Ludwig never saw a Wagnerian opera performed there, as the performance room was not finished before his death, and Wagner died before he ever saw the castle. Neuschwanstein is a passionate love letter that was never read.

And we have no photos from inside, because they weren’t allowed. I guess that means you’ll just have to visit Bavaria yourself!

Tags: Bavaria Germany castles Munich

So far, Mike drank a beer as big as his head and we noticed that at night around here it seems like the whole town is drunk. People are definitely dressed up for Oktoberfest, and there is a lot of yelling, singing, chanting and drunken weaving taking place in U-Bahn stations and in the Marienplatz square (which is awesome by the way).

Strangely, it is nearly impossible to find food after 11pm. Luckily we finally found a pizza shop and some fast food since we were going on Fritos and tea for hours. There were also a surprising number of people making out in public. Since it’s the last Sat. night of Oktoberfest, I guess that makes sense. The drunkenness, I mean. And the making out, I suppose. The guidebook warns that drunken Germans sometimes start flights in crowded public places during Oktoberfest, but mostly we saw a lot of love.

We’re planning to get the full Bavarian experience tomorrow by joining the Oktoberfest festivities early, with the goal of being hammered by noon. We’re also on the lookout for Dirndl and Leiderhosen since we love us some costuming. We’ve only been here a few hours, but so far- good times.

Let me also take a moment to say that I heart both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways. Virgin offers a vegan meal as a choice, and even when the computer said the check-in guy couldn’t give us a window seat, he called down and got us one anyway. Our delayed flight from LA to London made us have to run all over Heathrow- which is stupidly large and in many ways very frustrating- but BA still got our bags on the plane just in the nick of time. Despite the annoyingly slow internet speed in our apartment, I think it’s been a pretty promising start to our adventures.

It’s 3:30am here, although my body tells me it’s just 6:30p. Must sleep to recharge for much fun tomorrow.

Tags: Germany Munich travel

After several months of travel changes and indecision, we finally have a plan.  We will be staying in Los Angeles for a while longer, probably a couple years.  Jenn’s health is being  too finicky for long trips at the moment (she has Crohn’s for those who don’t know), and the doctor wants her to hang around to try out new meds and such. Mike has cleverly worked out a deal with his boss enabling him to travel and work remotely 3 months out of the year, so we will still get to see plenty of the world while calling LA our home base.

This isn’t quite what we had envisioned when we put all our stuff in storage and bought our tickets to India back in October, but life changes, and our plans need to change along with it. We are now trying to hunt down an awesome house on the Westside with a backyard large enough for fire practice and vegetable gardening, a living room large enough for Mike & our DJ friends to rock it on a regular basis and a garage we can use to build Burning Man art projects. We just saw one today that looks promising, so hopefully we will be settled soon.

Unfortunately, we will not be heading to Spain in a few weeks.  We are pretty much parking it for now, with the hopes of grabbing a short little trip somewhere before Burning Man, if possible.

The good news is that we are all set to embrace what Los Angeles has offered us for so long- a wonderful community of friends and artists, amazing shows and some level of stability.  So Jenn will be getting some fire going and dancing even more with her lovely bellydance troupe and Mike can continue introducing you to the new beats that you require.   Best of all, we get to spend more time with our friends and family.  Our kitties are overjoyed… or they would be if they could grasp the concept of what is happening. They do not appreciate it when we leave.

We shall have a housewarming party to put our going-away party to shame.  Stay tuned.

Tags: travel Los Angeles

All hail the newborn King! Congratulations on his arrival at the King residence. Here is a commemorative video.

OK, I know that is technically misspelled, but I can’t figure out how to do an upside down exclamation point and an enyay (technical spelling, heh).  But here’s the lowdown:

On May 15 we fly to beautiful Barcelona.  We’ll stay there for at least a month and spend another month somewhere in Europe.  We’ll also take a few weekend trips here and there to nearby locales. Morocco is a definite and Lisbon, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam, Vienna, and various places in Germany are also options… not to mention other parts of Spain!

We’d like to park it somewhere for a little while, and while Mike works from home, we also want to squeeze in Spanish classes and finally achieve a level of fluency worthy of our previous many years of study.  t is absolutely ridiculous that Jenn studied Spanish for 7 years in school and can barely hold a reasonable conversation, let alone read a novel.

We’ve been to Barcelona before, so we already know that we love it, and we’ve also trotted around Seville, Granada and Cordoba, which were all delightful.  We’re excited to head out to such a wonderful country.

We’ll head home around July 11th, because we need to prep for Danna & Jarod’s wedding and Burning Man, and hopefully pop up to the old digs in NoCal for Leslie’s wedding.  After Burning Man, anything could happen!  Or should that be, AT Burning Man, anything could happen!

Tags: Spain travel

We’ve been back in Los Angeles for nearly two weeks now, and it’s taken time to readjust after the slower pace and beauty of Thailand. We’re back at Oakwood apartments in Marina Del Rey.  Life is moving a mile a minute on so many levels and I’m afraid the existential angst is setting in.  Mike is working like mad and I’m trying to sort things out.

I started bellydancing again and I’m performing at the Ojai Bellydance festival on 3/21 and at the Mythical Creatures afterparty in North Hollywood on 3/28 with The Nautch Project, a very cool tribal fusion project under the direction of April Rose from Unmata. Hopefully there will be a fire show squeezed in there as well. I’m chasing away the angst with exercise and art!

We aren’t sure what our next step is, but we’ve bandied about the ideas of living in Barcelona for a while or doing a whirlwind world tour in the next several months.  We’re likely to be out of the country for June & July, and possibly also May.  We’re back in August though for sure, for Burning Man and for Danna & Jarod’s wedding. It’s nearly too much excitement for two little Bs.

Tags: Los Angeles bellydance

So, i think the realities of maintaining a blog while traveling around foreign countries have finally permeated my consciousness.  When we’re in vacation mode, we are contantly busy, and updating the blog falls lower on the priority list.  When Mike is working, I usually have the time to update it, but then I grossly overestimated the speed and reliability of internet connections in hotel rooms of Southeast Asia, making the process take anywhere from twice to ten times as long as it normally would.  So don’t be surprised if suddenly a bunch of posts recounting our adventures show up after the fact. I’m afraid my dream of clever posts filled with artistic photographs and profound musings on existence will have to take a backseat to quick lists of experience and updates, for now.

After Phuket, we flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat and the other temples.   Cambodia was more relaxed than Thailand (particularly Phuket), since the tourist industry is smaller, even in Siem Reap.  The temple complexes were beyond amazing.  Angkor Wat is just one temple among hundreds spread out over around 200 km.  But many are within a short drive of each other, so it is possible to see several in one day.  You just hire a tuk tuk driver for around $15, and he’ll tke you wherever you want to go from morning to night.  Some of my favorites were the ones left more or less as they were found, with tree roots draping over the walls and sometimes holding the stones together, moss growing on carvings and nature intruding on the temples in a way that made them even more beautiful.  Then, of course, there is the fairly unrivalled splendor of Angkor Wat- the  largest and best preserved temple, which actually has monks that tend to it.  Another favorite was the Bayon at Bauphon, with the famous large faces smiling at you. The temple was a little more aged-looking than Angkor Wat, which somehow made it more magical.

Although Cambodia is a mainly Buddhist country, the temples are Hindu, and will often feature carvings of Shiva or Vishnu.  Yet they were created by the Khmers (Cambodians), not some other culture.  It would be interesting to investigate how the culture in Cambodia evolved from lrgely Hindu to largely Buddhist.

Another highlight was taking a tuk tuk out into the countryside to see carvings in a stream- the “Temple of 1000 Lingas”.  The carvings were made right in the rocks with water running over them, and someties next to the stream.  There was no building, just a temple carved into the stones of a stream in the middle of the forest.  But getting to ride through the country and see how the cambodian people really live was just as wonderful as seeing the temple.

Sadly, our time in Siem Reap was abbreviated by tragedy.  Our dear friend Lou Genise, finally decided to stop fighting his colon cancer, and leave this plane of existence.  I flew back to Los Angeles to attend the services and deal with his estate.  Mike flew to Bangkok and stayed there to meet up with our pals John & Ado, who were going to spend the last two weeks of this trip with us.

I spent a surreal and exhausting week in Los Angeles on Diana’s pull-out couch, mourning, visiting, meeting new folks, taking care of business and not sleeping.  Due to jetlag and stress, I rarely made it to sleep before 4am.  However, the way that all of Lou’s loved ones came together was truly a testament to the wonderful human being he was.  I can’t count the number of hugs from strangers and new friends, and the way that his mother and close friends worked together to deal with the situation was inspiring.  As terrible as the loss is, the experience of being there and dealing with it was wonderful in so many ways.

Mike, John and Ado spent their time in Bagkok and on Koh Samui doing everything one possibly could- visiting temples, shopping, drinking, seeing a ladyboy show, boogie-boarding, jetskiing, ziplining, scuba diving, swimming and generally living life as one should on vacation in Thailand.

We all met up on Koh Phangan, and have been taking it easy- swimming, puttering about the small town, eating by the pool and resting.  John became quite ill with food poisoning and everyone else just needed a little break.  Digestive issues of varying degrees are going around.

But last night we rallied and made it to the Black Moon party on a beach on the other side of the island. My low expectations for the music proved to be set a bit too high… I was expecting psychedelic trance I wasn’t really into but that didn’t hurt my ears.  Instead, I was transported to 1995 and the boring trance that was all the rage.  The party had a very old school rave feel to it, with black lights and lots of redundant dancing, but the people were friendly enough, and teh vibe was relaxed.  You buy your liquor in these buckets- they are literally small buckets that contain a flask-sized bottle of vodka, thai whiskey or rum, and two mixers like a can of coke or redbull, and ice.  On the full moon party beach (a different beach), these are known by the unsavory name of “fuck buckets”.  So you can see that even in hippie central, the frat boy mentality still rears its ugly head, or whatever the Australian and European version of frat culture is.

I finally did something I should have accomplished long ago- I spun fire in another country.  After hacking open a can of gasoline with a machete, these Thai guys spun these crazy staffs at blinding speed- they had wicks covering the whole 4 ft staff except maybe a foot in the middle to grab onto. I must admit that the staves intimidated me.  Luckily, a couple french girls showed up with poi- some long, thin-wicked “angel wing” poi and some regular poi.  They each let me spin once and we really friendly.  I have never spun angel wing poi before- they feel totally different and are longer, so you can’t do as many tricks.  But they look absolutely beautiful as they create a wall of fire.  We didn’t stay too late at the party but it was worth going, if only for the fire.

Today we head to Chiang Mai for some hiking, visiting temples, a cooking class and visiting an elephant sanctuary. SO our last several days should keep up busy!

Tags: Thailand Cambodia Koh Phangan fire Koh Samui Los Angeles

OK- I spent the early morning sorting through photos and prepping a nice gallery for you folks and planned to fill this post with photos.  But our internet connection is so slow that I keep timing out before the photos can upload. So… I’m posting the update without photos to appease those of you who complain we never update the blog.  Photos to be added hopefully when we reach a new hotel on Wed. or if I get lucky in the middle of the night tonight.

So we’ve been in Thailand a week now, almost entirely on the island of Phuket, just off the Andaman coast. Since Mike has to work on US time, which is 15 hours behind Thailand, we have spent most of this week living a surreal twilight existence. Target bedtime is somewhere around 5pm, although after some dinner, catching up online or the occasional showing of Dangerous Liaisons on Cinemax (really, you can’t tear yourself away from both John Malkovitch and Glenn Close being so brilliant), we often fall asleep a bit later. No problem for Jenn, but Mike has to be up by around 12:00a to start work. Then he usually has to contend with an excruciatingly slow and occasionally unreliable internet connection, sometimes making him want to poke out his own eyeballs in frustration. In other words, there has been an adjustment period.

Needless to say, we feel out of sync with the world when half our waking hours are spent in a hotel room at night, and we eat dinner about the time that most people are having lunch. After dinner, we always buy food for breakfast, since all the restaurants are closed for hours after we wake up and Jenn gets the rage if she has an empty tummy for very long. So we’ve eaten our share of Frosted Flakes and Rice Crispies with soymilk.

At least our hotel has a pretty swank little deck by our room, and a small pool (with a waterfall!) that we share with just two other rooms, so we nearly have it to ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s also at the top of a quite steep hill which has the dual purpose of making us so hot and sweaty that we need to jump in the pool immediately on arriving home and thankfully working off some of those French fry calories on the hike up. But it is a lovely spot to watch the sun rise and the town wake up, greeting the day with yoga or a little poi practice… and usually a few jet-lagged European or North American hotel-mates.

Since this is our official “practice living abroad while Mike has to work” period, we haven’t had the time to go tromping around as usual. I have had a hard time being in “real-life mode” instead of “vacation mode” and am trying to adjust my eating, spending and sight-seeing habits accordingly. Luckily, we are only a short walk from Kata beach, which has warm turquoise waters and the softest sand I’ve ever touched. Almost every day we’ve ventured down to the beach for a few hours to swim in the ocean and lay about reading. So what if we’re sometimes also drinking the best pina coladas we’ve ever tasted out of a beautifully decorated coconut, made by some lady at a little snack hut on the beach?

We are not on the most crowded and developed beach, Patong, or even the second-most developed, Karon. We actually spend the most time on Kata Noi, the least crowded beach over here. But white people seem to outnumber Thais and everything here is catering to tourists. For some reason, most restaurants are unable to commit to a nationality of food and end up serving Thai food, along with pizza, sandwiches and western-style meat dishes with sides… very little of it any good. It makes this area difficult to recommend, as we’ve been to other parts of Thailand that although developed and somewhat touristy, are somehow less obnoxious (and usually cheaper).

Due to the large population of vacationing Europeans, many women go topless on the beach. This is really the first beach I’ve been to where that is the case. Although I’ve never thought of myself as particularly modest, I had to work up a little courage to join the European ladies. Luckily I did, because it was really nice to swim in the ocean feeling just a little bit freer, and not have to worry about those pesky tan-lines or the way a bathing suit strap unattractively cuts a line straight across my back tattoo. No one on the beach seemed to pay any particular attention either- it was like Burning Man, but in the default world, and with more languages I don’t understand.

Yesterday, we courageously rented a scooter and drove nearly halfway around the island. More on that in the next post (with photos!), since this one is getting kinda ridiculously long as it is.

Oh yes- folks have been kindly asking after my health. For anyone who doesn’t know, I’ve been having some rather irritating stomach problems lately, like pain and projectile vomiting. It turns out I have Crohn’s disease, which is a lifelong condition and potentially a real drag. It has manifested most recently as gastritis and ulcers in my small intestine. Although it was becoming a bit concerning there for our first few days here, the large number of horse-pills my doctor prescribed now seem to be doing the trick. Last night I had my first completely “normal” meal that brought me the euphoria that can only be had from delicious food, a couple of well-made cocktails and some good conversation. We had Indian food, so I was really pushing it with spicy dishes that contained tomato and sometimes a bit much oil, topped off by a cocktail mixed with lime juice. But there I was, happily riding home, with nary a wave of nausea or stomach pain in sight. So I’ll continue to gulp down 6 pills a day and declare all’s quiet on the western front.

Tags: Phuket, Thailand

We’re here!  As we walked off the plane and the warm humidity hit me, my travel crankiness started to melt in the tropical climate.  The already long 14 hour flight to Taipei felt even longer due to the truly atrocious quality of the food.  I would say the meals qualified as the worst airplane food we’ve ever had.  The other pet peeve was the fact that they only like to give you water in small, gulp-size glasses and they don’t do it very often.  I can’t imagine how dehydrated you’d get if you drank alcohol or coffee too. But the plane was nice and had some clever touches like a little mirror in the seat back in front of you, as well as a little cup holder, so you can have your drink there without having the tray table down. Plus, they used paper cups instead of plastic, and would re-use them if you handed them over. Every little bit counts, people. It’s little things like this that make me happy.

Our culinary adventures have been very disappointing thus far. The Taiwan airport still smells as musty as I remember it and is still horribly short of vegetarian or vegan food. Having ulcers on top of being vegan makes locating sustenance a big adventure for me right now anyway, but they literally had nothing I could consume.  Luckily I packed a big bag of snacks for the trip. The new Bangkok airport is all beautifully futuristic and awesome, but for some reason every potato chip-like product they sell contains whey.  Even the plain old salted ones. Thank goodness for that vegan junk food standby that can be foudn in innumerable countries- the Oreo.  My most pleasant surprise came from the home team at LAX- at this ice cream place in the international terminal, they sell Organic To Go pre-packaged sandwiches and stuff- Vegan chicken nuggets, vegan chicken sandwiches, salads and noodles dishes.  They’re cold and could have more flavor, but I was just ecstatic to see something with a large sticker proudly announcing “Vegan” on it.  I  put ketchup and mustard on my bland sandwich and had a flashback to about 15 years ago when I last ate a McDonald’s hamburger.  They tasted similar.  I guess I never realized most of the flavor of those little things actually just came form the sauce.  McDonald’s- ew.  Anyway, sadly, my vegan sandwich was followed up by Mike ordering a horrifyingly undrinkable margarita at this Mexican place that was a waste of decent tequila. So here’s my official travel advice to vegans (and vegetarians)- pack at least a meal’s worth of food when you travel, especially if you’re headed to someplace unfamiliar.  It will save you so much grief. And to everyone- watch carefully when someone makes your margarita and tell them to stop pouring the sickly sweet mix in when you can tell there’s already plenty in there.

I meant to take photos for the blog, but my awesome yet massive new laptop bag backpack wouldn’t fit under the seat, so I had to jostle the nice lady sitting in the aisle every time I had to get something from it.  So the camera remained in the bag.  I know that you want photos, because that’s what I want when I look at your blogs.  I promise to be better about it- starting tomorrow.

Mike’s inability to sleep on the plane has adjusted him nicely to Thai time- it’s 3am here as I write this with him snoring next to me.  But my ability to instantly pass out on a plane has worked against me.  During a total of 18 or so hours flying, I slept for around 7 hours.  So I’m about ready to hit the town. Except that the town is asleep.

We can’t wait to hit beach after we fly to Phuket in about 8 hours! Let’s see how many mosqito bites we wake up with in the morning.

Tags: travel food vegan