I ♥ Skort

(Some names have been changed to protect my coworkers.)

So there's this student we call Skort because that's what she wears; short skorts. Whether or not she realizes it, every man who looks at her immediately has an 'incident' involving his nether regions and thoughts of hers. She weighs about as much as my finger, has eyelashes that go forever and so far can barely pronounce "hello" correctly. (She's Unit 8 for those familiar with the Wall Street system). I should also mention that Wall Street is a private school for adults only; this story could have taken on a slightly disturbing tone without that little piece of info.

I guess I'll explain a little more about Wall Street to give the following story some context. All of the walls are made of glass. That's really all you need at this point.

The other day I was in the teachers room with Steve and Jesse. Our office is in direct sight of the Encounter rooms, an Encounter being a class of four or less students. We glance over to Jarrod's class and see our old pal Skort wearing what used to be a skort, but has magically morphed into a skirt. How did this transformation occur? Because she took the shortest pair of short shorts ever and cut out the crotch turning them into nothing but vagina. We could see straight up the ex-shorts and, for the life of us, could not look away. To make matters worse, her sweater said, in giant black lettering, "I ♥..." and the last word was blocked from view by the table.

Read: I ♥ Crotch

We were mesmerized. As more teachers joined us in the office (all male I might add) the atmosphere ranged from amazement to down right arousal.

Finally, the class ended and Jarrod came into the office with a look of utter helplessness on his face. He made a phew sound, shook his head and said, "That damn girl wouldn't stop speaking Chinese in class and it drove me nuts."

There were a few seconds of shameful silence in which the rest of us started to realize what pervs we were compared to Saint Jarrod when, under his breath, the good Saint muttered, "I thought I was going to have to spank her," and gone was any semblance of decency.

To top it all off, remember how we couldn't see what the last word on her shirt was? Guess what it said. No, you can't, it's too good...

I ♥ NAKED

No word of a lie.


Quote of the Day:

About Skort, obviously. Before the class had ended.

Seth: It's really just spelled out there, isn't it?
Steve: It's more like a diagram.
Angie: A flow chart, if you will.

Kentucky Fried Christ

Shao Kao.
The bane of my existence.



The rough translation of "shao kao" would be "barbeque". A more direct translation would be, "what you eat when you're so drunk that you can't actually stand anymore and are definitely not going to remember having eaten the things you are throwing up the next day."

Shao kao tends to occur around 3am after a raucous night of cheap beer, kedamine and hookers. Well, maybe not the kedamine or hookers, but I'm sure you have a vivid and fairly accurate image now. It always sounds like a great idea...but I'm pretty sure our toilet is a suicide risk by the end of the night.




The plus side of shao kao is how cheap it is. Even with eight people eating, I've never seen a bill that was more than 100 kuai (about $18 Canadian). You can eat such magical things as whole roasted eggplant, oysters on the half shell, crucified chicken (yup, Jesus in chicken form), peppers stuffed with veggie goodness, vegetarian fried dumplings, hot pot and hand made donuts. Oh, and there's beer. And baijou. But let's not talk about baijou. That's a bone-chilling story for another day.

You see, shao kao isn't so much the beginning or end of psychosis, it's more like the fertilizer that helps it grow. For 50 kuai, I got to watch Dallas teabag Lucas. For those of you who are so far (and probably happily) unaware of what teabagging is, allow me to educate you: "to teabag" someone is to place your balls (the hairy kind) on someone else' face. Why would anyone in their right mind want to see or do that? The only answer that comes to mind is: Shao Kao. And considering the public nature of shao kao, being that you're sitting on the side of the road and all, I'd say that my 50 kuai was well spent.




In closing, anyone who decides to come visit us in China will definitely experience the combination of glory and horror that is shao kao. I'm almost certain that they won't remember the teabag incident...



Quote of the Day

Two friends of ours, Dallas and Joe, were discussing the possibility of Joe touring around Europe doing spoken word. Joe was fairly skeptical, claiming that he didn't have enough material to do something like that. However, Dallas was pretty convincing, arguing that Joe only needed 15 minutes worth of material. Joe's response?

"15 minutes!? I can't manage that outta my dick let alone my mouth!"

Awesome.

(We're about 99% certain that the previous statement is untrue. Wanted to mention that so no one makes any unfair assumptions about Joe.)

I Has Learning English Since Three Years

Not quite.

The most important thing that you should know about the English language is this: just because you can speak it doesn't mean that you actually know anything about it.

For example, what is the difference between, "The movie is absolutely brilliant," and "The movie is absolute brilliance."

And why use "am going to" instead of just "will"? I am going to catch the train. I will catch the train. I am going to punch you in the face if you ask me that question again. I'll do it, I swear.

The obsession with grammar here is almost terrifying, mostly because we simply don't learn it in Canada. Without a doubt, Chinese students know more about English grammar than any Western student does. Prepositions anyone? I didn't actually know what those were until I'd been working here for about two months.

And when the hell did we get twelve different verb tenses in English?

I am an English teacher. (present simple)
I will be fired if I don't understand grammar better. (future simple)
I was an English teacher who didn't know anything. (past simple)

I am punching you in the face. (present continuous)
I will be punching you in the face if you don't shut up. (future continuous)
I was punching you in the face last night. (we shouldn't have drank so much a.k.a. past continuous)

I have decorated the Christmas tree. (present perfect)
I will have decorated the tree by the time I'm sober. (future perfect)
I had just decorated the tree when Santa started streaking. (past perfect)

I have been dancing all night. (present perfect continuous)
I will have been dancing on the table for three hours by midnight. (future perfect continuous)
I had been dancing for three hours before they finally kicked me out. (past perfect continuous)

All I want for Christmas is for Santa to take back the bloody verb tenses.

But it's not all bad. In fact, this is just me being a giant whiner. Most of the time my job is hilarious. For example, what do you call a person who takes pictures for a living? "A potato!"

Not quite.

Quote of the Day:

"She's self aware, she just doesn't realize."
(Angie)

Drive: Indonesia

Things That Are Not Required For Driving in Indonesia:

Mechanisms:
I mean, really, who needs an engine when you could just use a horse? No joke. From Yogya to Lombok, and I'm sure many places between and outside that geographic, horse and carts are a completely acceptable form of transportation. In the Gili Islands they're referred to as the Gili Lamborghini.

Money:
It costs about $10 for an hour and a half cab ride through the city. However, it will cost you much more if you fall asleep during your cab ride. You'll either get driven around to rack up the tab, or they'll simply rob you blind. They won't kill you though, so at least that's a plus.

Unleaded Gasoline:
I mean, you can certainly get unleaded gasoline, considering that it's all they sell at the petrol stations. But it's just so far to go to get to the station...you know? And there's a guy right there on the corner selling the leaded stuff in recycled water bottles. I mean...(insert long suffering sigh)...it's just so far to the petrol station. At least two extra blocks.

Lanes:
If they exist, I certainly can't tell. Cars will generally pay attention to which side of the road they should be driving on, but there are no lines on the tarmac to keep them there. And the keyword in that sentence was "generally". Even that's being kind. These guys will pass a bus at 100kph, going uphill, around a hairpin turn, honking their horn the whole way, while they smoke their cigarettes and try to convince you of the rightness to you marrying them and bearing them ten children. On the other hand, motorbikes don't even care about lanes. In fact, motorbikes don't even seem to care about the road. And really, why should they? They have sidewalks, two-by-four bridges, construction sites, markets and pedestrians to drive over. A road just seems like overkill.

Directions:
Because honestly, it doesn't matter how long you repeat the name of your hotel to yourself, trying to make your tongue remember words that are foreign to it. It doesn't matter how much preparation you put in to becoming one with that state of being known as "Where You Are Going". It doesn't matter because your cab driver has no idea where the hell he's going anyways. And he will never, ever admit to this, nor will he ask for directions until it is painstakingly obvious that he is out of options. "Out of options" could mean that you end up in another city when you meant to go down the street.

Example:
Dagan, James and I were in a cab one night, on our way to a fairly well known area of Jakarta known as Blok M. It's especially well known to cab drivers as it happens to be the prostitute district (no questions please...call it a sight seeing excursion). So, no problem getting there, right? Right. We ended up at a closed down shopping mall. Why did our driver take us to a mall at 3am? Why didn't he just tell us he didn't know where he was going? Since this is a Muslim country, I'll have to refer you to Allah on that one. Go with God...just don't take a taxi there.

Quote of the Day:

While in the back of the taxi on the afore mentioned night, I brought up the fact that in the old days, Chinese sailors use to take pigeons on board ships to have sex with them (I believe you can thank Marty for imparting that knowledge). Dagan was completely unconvinced of this, thinking it anatomically impossible. James was completely convinced of its plausibility, and what ensued was an extremely heated debate based on James saying yes, Dagan saying no, and me saying that I'd put money up for whoever wanted to prove it.

Finally, James slapped his hand down and announced loudly:

"FINE!!! Get me a pigeon, a condom and a lot of money! We'll settle this now!"

Our poor cab driver. It's probably good that he didn't speak English.

Jakarta, Indonesia - Day 1

Jakarta. Aptly described as the armpit of the world. Home to 16 million people and twice as many rats; dirty in a physical and bureaucratic kind of way. Jakarta. Home of the Muslim Butterfly. Cocooned in her head scarf by day, she morphs by night, reborn in a dress made out of slightly less material than the head scarf. Jakarta. Home of the limp-wristed force field of pedestrians and the surging beast of traffic that ignores it. Jakarta. The White Mans Graveyard. The Big Durian. Jakarta. The armpit of the world.

My first night in Jakarta went something like this:

I tried to take myself out for dinner at this little seafood warung (street side restaurant). It turns out that nothing in the restaurant was in English...not even the staff. After I unsuccessfully tried to order menu items by simply pointing at them, my waiter decided to make a stunning career move from the hospitality field into that industry fondly known as "Staring at the Stupid Foreigner with an Equally Stupid Expression on Your Face". I think he's going to go a long way with this employment choice. He had a real grasp for the finer nuances.

I should also bring to the table the fact that the rest of the staff, who were all girls under the age of twenty, were watching our entire exchange and probably giving themselves hemorrhoids because they were laughing so hard. Finally, a very nice Chinese man stood up from one of the other tables and came over to try and help me. And help me he certainly did. He helped me order about four million times more food than I could ever have possibly ingested. As a direct result of this, I didn't have enough money to pay for my meal. Nice Chinese man was already gone when I realized this, and I was back to dealing with my space cadet of a waiter. Basically I just held up my bank card and mimed myself walking to the ATM and then coming back. This was greeted with a blank stare, so I just gave up trying to explain and walked myself over to the ATM and came back. This was also greeted with a blank stare. Like I said, he has a solid handle on the nuances of his new career.

The kicker to the whole story is this:

When I met Dagan and his flatmate Luke after they were done work, I told them this whole story. Dagan kind of grinned, but Luke just lost his mind laughing. Now, I think that my story is kind of comical, but I have no delusions about just how humourous it is. And it wasn't funny enough for Luke to be laughing that way. So I asked him what the deal was. After he relearned how to breath, he just beamed at me and said:

"But they all speak English there!"

Yeah.


Quote of the Day:

There were about eight of us sitting around a table one night, playing poker and discussing quantum physics. You know, regular old card playing conversation. We were basically tossing around random theories that we'd heard from one place or another, mostly just to see who had heard the same things and whether or not we thought they were true. Then all of a sudden, James, who had previously been completely silent in the conversation, pipes up with:

"You know that theory, where if you half a distance, then half it again, then half it again, then half it again, and just keep going, that you'll never get there? Well I don't get it. I reckon, just aim for twice as far and you'll get there straight away."

Yogya, Indonesia

After spending ten hours in an airport in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), I finally got on my plane to Jakarta (Indonesia) with that blankety-blank airline, Air Asia. After a four hour delay. Actually, it wasn't even a delay. They just happened to change the flight time. For no reason. Air Asia sent me an updated email itinerary, informing me of this change. The day after.

Nevertheless, I made it to Indonesia, with Dagan being kind enough to wait all those hours for me and pick me up at the airport at 2am. We then decided on the spur of the moment to make a trip from Jakarta, where he lives, to Yogyakarta in the southeast of Java for his Easter vacation. Funnily enough, all flights, trains and buses appeared to be booked in this Islam nation for the Easter holiday. Go figure.

Our solution? Well, to be factual, Dagan's boss' solution? The black market.

Basically, we just stood around outside the train station "looking for a score" (the boss' words, not mine), which we found in the form of train tickets to Yogya for about $50 a piece, even though they should have cost $10. I wasn't too upset though. I'll spend the extra $40 just to say that one time in my life, I actually bought something on the black market. It felt good.

Yogya was definitely a happy city. Horse and carts, restaurants that were actually made of canvas tents, the largest Buddhist temple in the world, traditional dance shows and music music music. I've never seen a city so filled with music. Guitars, drums, violins, flutes, cellos, the works. People in cafes just having coffee and scratching out a tune on their fiddle. A hole in the wall guitar makers' shop with the creator creating right there on the side walk. I would live in Yogya based on that alone.

The highlight of the weekend, except for Dagan's company (obviously), was Borobudur, the ruins of the largest Buddhist temple in the world. The tiered structure stands 34.5 meters tall, covering an area of around 200 square meters. Each level represents a different stage on the path to nirvana. The first four levels depict man's earthly existence in stunning stone carvings and reliefs, as he begins on the path of enlightenment. The high gallery walls on the first four levels cut you off from the scenery around you, effectively representing the murky spiritual world inhabited by man. Suddenly, as you enter the fifth tier, reaching enlightenment, the walls and busy reliefs fall away; below is the chaos of the world, above is nirvana, represented by a huge empty stupa (a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics) almost ten meters in diameter. Surrounding this stupa are seventy two smaller ones, each occupied by a statue of Buddha, said to give good luck if a person can reach in and touch the statue. The stupa at the top, however, is empty. There was once a Buddha here too, but it seems somehow appropriate that this has disappeared, nirvana signifying, after all, a state of non-being. Buddhist pilgrims (along with tourists) should approach from the Eastern side, walking clockwise around the base before ascending to the next tier via the eastern stairway. This is repeated on every level so that as you make your way around the temple passages and slowly spiral to the summit, you are symbolically following the path to enlightenment.

Now before anyone gets overly excited about that last paragraph, I should state that the words aren't really mine. I basically just paraphrased (and in some cases blatantly plagiarized) The Rough Guide to Indonesia. There is no way that this little noggin of mine could have held on to that kind of info on its own accord. Oh, I had the basic idea of what the temple was about, but things like 'stupa'? There's no way I would have come up with that word on my own. So, to avoid being sued by The Rough Guide series, if they ever somehow manage to blunder their way onto my blog, I'm giving them full credit for the information. Even if I did reword it in some places to sound better than the original. No offense.

One of the truly interesting things about Borobudur was that the temple itself wasn't actually the main attraction. Dagan and I were. By the time I started keeping track, at least ten groups of people had come up to us and asked to have their pictures taken with us. Babies were thrust into our arms. Men with video cameras followed us around. Giggling groups of school girls called out their undying love for us. Apparently they get a kick out of foreigners. Now I know how the guy wearing the Mickey Mouse costume at Disneyland feels.

The main attraction for Dagan and I was discovering the scariest bloody spider I've ever seen in my life. I've never come across anything like it, even in a zoo. It was about the size of my hand with a web that could have caught small children. Birds had nothing on this spider. He ate them as a warm up. His body was yellow and speckled, with long ass legs in the front and creepy little short ones in the back. Dagan and I spent about fifteen minutes getting to know him and taking his pictures. We didn't name him because I'm sure he's already taken care of that. He seems like the kind of sketchy bastard who would legally change his name to something like "Executioner" or "Death". It's probably even scarier than that.

Quote of the Day:

It's actually an old one I found in my journal that Kaare had said months ago while we were in Poland. I was feeling a little nostalgic and home sick for the guy, so I thought I'd include it here.

"What came first? The alcohol, or the abusive father we call God...(tea drinking pause)...I almost spat my tea out on that one."

Thailand = Islands

And you know what? The title even rhymes. Dang if I ain't a smart one.

I know I keep making promises about writing more, but hey, if you were island hopping in tropical weather, would you be on the computer? That's what I thought.

So let me explain.

No, there is too much.

Let me sum up.

Phuket: The Island I would have never gone to if it wasn't for my Australian friend Amy.

You know, everyone hates this island because they think it's soooooo touristy, and guess what? It is. But so is the rest of Thailand, so I don't know what everyone is complaining about. Quite honestly, I understand it's popularity because it's the most beautiful beach I've ever seen in my life. Well, at least Karon Beach was, the one we were staying on. Patong Beach, the more famous one (slightly north of Karon), was pretty much Bangkok on a beach. And if you've ever been to Bangkok, you'll understand my horror. If you've never been to Bangkok, imagine the smell of sewage, at least 2.8 million 7-11's, and ladyboys trying to sell you a ping pong show. And just to quiet any fears, no, I have not yet attended a ping pong show. I thought I'd wait for the boys to get here to do that.

Ko Tao: The Diving Island.

It may be a diving island, but as Simon Billy Beard put it, "I had to quit diving because it was getting in the way of my drinking". I was smart enough to just not even bother diving in the first place. I did some snorkeling in Phuket, but as some of you may know, I hold a slight (SLIGHT) phobia towards undersea creatures. Some of the boys that I met on Ko Tao tried to convince me to go snorkeling with them. You know what their selling point was? All the sharks that we would get to see. Needless to say, I didn't do any snorkeling on Ko Tao. I did, however, get to listen to some amazing music played by some incredibly cute Australian boys. And no, there was no hanky panky on my part. Australian musicians working in a foreigner playpen in Thailand? That's just asking for an STD.

Ko Chang: Not to be confused with the larger Ko Chang on the other coast.

This is my secret island paradise, and most of the reason why no one heard from me for about two weeks. I can't say that it's the nicest beach I've ever been on, but it was certainly one of the most peaceful places I have ever been in my life. My cabin was made of wooden planks nailed together. My shower was a hose in the wall that intermittently spurt cold water...if you were lucky. There were trails all through the jungle which was filled with cashew trees, Hornbills, jack fruit trees, coconuts and Sea Eagles. There was even a bakery in the middle of the jungle run by an Aussie ex-pat and his Burmese wife. And for the first time in my life, I went swimming by moonlight with glow in the dark plankton. It was amazing.

Railay Beach: Not technically an island, even though it feels like it.

This would be where Miss Lisa Cham lived once upon a time! I traveled here from Ko Chang with some kids from Quebec that I'd met, Stephaie and Matthew. Some of the coolest people that I've met so far this trip, hands down! As for Railay itself, you can only get there by boat from Krabi and you can only get back to Krabi if you happen to have enough people to fill a boat. One side of the peninsula is filled with mangroves and mud, while the other side is filled with white sand and rock climbers. Tons and TONS of rock climbers. Stephanie and I had a fascinating time watching all the men rock climbing. Fascinating.

I think that there were two best parts of Railay Beach for me;

1) Drinking a triple Lisa lindy at YaYa's Bar where Miss Lisa use to hang out all those years ago and

2) Running through the jungle with Stephanie screaming our brains out and freaking out the local foresters because a swarm of bees were chasing us. Terrifying at the moment, but we couldn't breathe for laughing afterwards.

And now I'm off to Indonesia! Well, that's sort of a lie...I'm already in Indonesia, but as far as this blog is concerned, I haven't gotten there yet. That's a blog for another day.

Quote of the Day:

Stella turned to me while we're were on Koh Tao and said,

"Oh darling, you are just so cute that I want to put you in my pocket and feed you peanuts!"

I think she was calling me a squirrel.