February 22nd, 2016

Read an article about the recent cold snap here in Taiwan and how the local 7-11's had a 'problem' with homeless people camping out in their food eating areas overnight.  To me, it is a sign of how great societies are able to take care of their less fortunate in ways that are unexpected and wonderful.  On the flip side, I am convinced that the majority of the population thinks little about their next move as they seem to freeze at an intersection (or doorways/escalators) while they decide what they are going to do next. 

The kids had to tell me how to do something basic on the computer the other day, and Carolyn dismissively told me that I am not as bad on them as Grandma (89 years young), but am close.  Youth is wasted on the young.

And as I write this, am watching the results from the Nevada caucus/South Carolina primary roll in.  Am working on a theory that equates being a Bernie Sanders supporter and enjoying reggae music.  Goes like this...Socialism/reggae music both seem like they are the answers to all the ills of society, but as one gets older, one realizes that they are both admirable visions of what society/music should be, but their limitations in practice are obvious.  Once again, youth is wasted...  As of February 21st, it seems clear that the only rational choice for our next Prez is HRC.  By far the most accomplished of all the candidates, she is the only one I can see that will bring a measured tone to the office.   She has made some questionable decisions, and who hasn't, but she owns up to them.  Can't stand those that say she is a crook or whatever, but really have no solid evidence other than they don't like her to back it up.  She sat in that hearing on Benghazi for 11 hours and those effers couldn't pin a single thing on her.  I am a bit leery of her being too militaristic, but her record shows that while she isn't afraid to use force, at least it is with the humanitarian intentions and she is decidedly not in the Neocon school of thought.  While I love Bernie, he skews too far to the left and his goals are simply not realistic in this political climate and the extent he wants to redistribute the wealth is too idealistic and human nature is rife with those that would manipulate it to their own gain.  Most importantly, the country cannot afford anyone from the GOP to select Supreme Court justices for the next 4/8 years.  I had him tagged last October as the Repub nominee, but Marquito is proving to be too immature to hold the office.  While I passionately disagree with 80% of what Trump has to say, that figure goes to a full 100% with the awful human Ted Cruz.  My skin crawls with the thought of him.  Seems like it is gonna be Clinton v Trump, and those debates are going to be legendary, but how could the country possibly vote Trump.  All in for Hillary, and please let me know if you aren't and we'll talk.

Went to Lombok for the Chinese New Year break.  Lombok is an island in Indonesia that is right next to Bali.  You can see that island and its volcano to the west, which makes for some nice sunset framing.  An interesting (to me anyway, couldn't find anyone else that knew about it or cared when I explained it) is that the sea between Lombok and Bali is a faunal boundary between Indomalaysia and Australasia called the Wallace Line.  The only reaction we got was a description of the Taru Manyan tree in Bali (which is not found on Lombok).  People do not bury or cremate their dead where this tree grows, but lay the bodies on this tree to decompose as the tree masks the smell of the decomposing bodies.  Freaky shit.

Don't have a ton to say about the trip as it was a beach vacation, so not a lot of deep dives into history and culture, but do have some takeaways.  The first thing is to implore you to buy stuff from local vendors.

Have always been uncomfortable with haggling with the poor folks selling their crafts, especially when you are trying to get the price down from low to lower.  A dollar means so much to these people.  Just buy some crap please?  I like temporary jewelry, like a bracelet or necklace that'll last a couple of months and disappear.  I bought a couple from a dude on the beach one day and it was slow, so we sat for an hour or so and he told me about life.  He can't get a job at the hotels cause he doesn't have a high school diploma and that he scrapes money selling whatever in order to pay for his daughter's school.  He doesn't want to have to turn to stealing like so many others do.  We talked about Islam and how most people in Indonesia are Muslims (85% and has the largest Muslim population in the world) and how he will never go back to Bali as his grandmother was killed in the 2005 bombings there.  What I found funniest though was how he came to marry his wife.  We were talking about kids after he saw Babydoll and asked why I am so white and she is so Chinese and told him she was adopted.  I explained that back in those days, the one child policy in China made girls less desirable as boys are many families 401K policies as they move into their parents houses with their new wives and take care of them in old age.  He said it's just the opposite in Indonesia as paying a dowry is common practice.  I asked if he paid one and he said yes.  Seems  the potential husband is to negotiate with the father-in-law and that his wanted 5 million rupiahs (about US$200).  He countered with an offer of 500,000 saying that the bride to be couldn't read or cook.  They settled on 2 million.  We heard several times that men "kidnap" their brides, which is really them just eloping without paying these dowrys.

We stayed at a hotel called Sudamala, which is in a town on the west coast called Senggigi.  Our room came with a decent sized private pool, which was awesome and the kids liked it so much, they barely left the room.  Think Carolyn came to the big pool once as we were ordering afternoon French fries.  Have to admire the hotel (and really, all the places we visited, with their choice of music.  Our hotel played a set of Django Reinhardt (search him out) by the pool in the mornings, and all of the music played about town was tasteful and appropriate for the settings.  Didn't hear the bullshit techno stuff at high volumes anywhere. 

 Beach was quiet and the waters calm.  It was the rainy season at this time, so sunsets got rained out most afternoons, although we did catch a couple of beauties.

 We had dinner at the place one night on that deck.  Food was OK and that night they had the staff talent show.  4 of the lady housekeeping staff did a couple of hip hop dance numbers (one with the line 'she can sit on my lap, but I'm not Santa'), and a couple of the dudes did a Stick Fighting demo.  Not as violent as this, but we got the gist.  Later, a quartet of fellas came table side to play music.  I freaking cannot stand table side music.  As they were working their way around the tables, kept telling the family to not make eye contact, but was unsuccessful as we got a trio of songs from them.  I feel so trapped, and hate faking appreciation and interest in anything, but especially music.  To be fair, these guys were good, but still.

 There was a disagreement one afternoon as to who got what seat in the outdoor patio.  The Boy felt I took Babydolls side in the dispute, which is possible, but only after he was irrational and uncooperative.  And his reaction below to me documenting the altercation is unacceptable. 

Our first morning there happened to coincide with Super Bowl Sunday.  Luckily, the places WiFi had enough power for us to watch without interruption.

Was quite happy with the outcome as I like Chicken Parm the food and had been hoping that someone took down the Human Selfie Stick.  Was hearing a lot of chatter about how people that didn't like Cam's "celebrating" were racist.  I hate that look at me, in your face showboating crap coming from anybody.  Fall solidly into the 'act like you've been there before' camp.  Soccer players are some of the worst and the worst of those are typically pasty white Europeans.  I have no problem with celebrating a momentous play...do it, then get with your teammates as I am sure they deserve some of the credit too.  I think Cam looks for a camera to celebrate every solid BM.  I do that too, but am not alerting the media about it (more on that later).   Where I see this manifest itself most negatively is watching kids sports and these dumb ass boys will replicate what they see the stars do.  So icky and bad sportsmanship.  Karma dictates you are gonna get it in the end and sure enough, that play when he might have saved the game by diving for the ball but jumped away will live in highlight reels of him forever.  The postgame sulkathon (from Superman to the Incredible Sulk) was just another example that proved me correct.

Really liked the Mexican Avocado commercial (great comedic use of the legendary Scott Baio) and Baby Puppy Monkey.  Bruno Mars is a great performer and Beyoncé was the halftime show...how could they possibly have promoted it as being Coldplay?  They are fine I suppose, but Brits at SB50?   Must have put them on the bill to keep women that have no interest in sports happy.

 

We did go on a couple of outings...chose the further away but less travelled Gili Nangu (Gili's are small islands)snorkeling day and were not disappointed.  Decent fish and few people.

 

They are ingenious here as they take a plastic water bottle, fill it with read and cut a small hole in the cap so you can slowly feed the fish.  They are wise to the game as they follow the bottles around like a fat kid follows a tray of cupcakes.

See lots of mosques driving around and this was the prettiest

And while the women are mostly Muslim, wearing of the headscarf felt optional.

Rice paddies everywhere.  As it was rainy season, they were lush and mesmerizing.

Reading about the place in advance, was concerned about the tip as many reviewers complained about there being piles of trash everywhere, and while there were some, didn't get the vibe that it was a massive issue.  Another thing we noticed driving around was that at all of the roadside shacks that sell snacks and drinks, there is a shelf that had water bottles refilled with this yellow liquid.  Was told that it was gasoline for the scooters.   And we saw some areas that looked dead and learned that a few years ago there was a rash of gold mining, but the miners would use mercury to extract the gold which poisons the land and that the government was rabidly putting an end to that.   

 

Another day we did a day trip to the south coast of the island.  Had high expectations as the info on it said there were sparsely populated beaches with excellent surf.  We were not disappointed. 

As Lombok (and Bali) are only 3.5 hours from Perth, the place is crawling with Aussies and we saw many young ones tooling around on scooters with sidecars for their surf boards. 

Our last stop was this gorgeous beach with no one on it.  Maybe it was due to the storm was moving in, but we floated around for a while before it did.  We felt lucky to have visited here as it cannot remain so desolate for long.  They opened a new international airport nearby a couple of years ago and saw a sign on this beach that Club Med was coming soon.

Wish I could say the food was great.  OK, a couple of good things and maybe we missed the sublime.  Always love a local knock-off brand however.

The best thing I had was the meatball soup from the dude on the scooter cart at the aforementioned deserted beach.  We argued later about the type of meat used and whether it had any at all.

The driver and I got ours spicy.  He started to sweat and said it made his tonsils hurt.  Not bragging, but I have a tolerance to spicy that is world class. 

Sadly, I chose the place for dinner the last night poorly and I ended up with a searing stomach pain and accompanying explosive diarrhea for the 12 hour trip home.   Was so happy three days later that I declared at the breakfast table that I finally had a solid BM.  The kids gave me the 'what are you talking about old man' face and had to explain what that was.

 

Good times in Lombok

And have a prosperous Baby Puppy Monkey New Year

February 4th, 2016

Actually...whenever someone uses it as a quantifier as in, "actually, it tastes pretty good", you can guarantee that it is edible at best.     

Am friends on FB with an old pre-school teacher of the Boy's, one that I may or may not have bought weed from, and she found this old snap and shared with me yesterday.  We laughed as that other kid in the photo was his partner in crime.  He was eating dinosaur chicken nuggets at our place once and he bit the head off of one, dipped it into some ketchup and said 'look at the bloody stump".  Had to have been no more than 4 at the time.  His dad sliced off a couple off fingers doing some home woodworking.  Betty seems to recall that he was infested with fleas at one point, but do not remember that.  Nice folks...wonder whatever happened to them?

Unusual week as we had three different Seattle guests in town.  All three were young adults and were friend's kids, or friend of friend's kids siblings, etc.  One is on a Fulbright scholarship teaching English on Kinmen island, another is doing a year long internship with Apple and was on a week long work trip, and the last is doing a high school year abroad and living in Yilan.  Admire any kid that is game for travel, and while you encouraging yours to do the same might weird you out, or they may not listen to a parent's sage advice, would hope that you listen if they express a desire to do so and that you let them go.  These kids are all smart and gaining a global perspective that will benefit humanity.   

 

Yesterday, met my first male baby xie-xie talker.  Xie-xie means 'thank you' in Mandarin and have detailed the phenomenon where young, presumably single, girls will talk in a baby voice.  The theory is that this is considered sex to local men and that it is a way to signal their availability.  Hearing a dude do the baby xie-xie was not expected and have to assume that it might be a gay thing.  One of the best things about Taiwan is that they are as cool towards that community as any society in Asia.  A couple of months ago, they had the annual gay pride parade and is said to be the largest in all of Asia.

 

I wanted to ask our Moroccan hosts what their feelings were towards the LBGT community, but it never felt right.

I did forget to mention in our car trip recap that during the trip, was reading a book and would share what I was learning with the captive car audience.  Had blown through a far too short mystery novel and borrowed a book the Boy was reading for school...Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  In talking about it since then, feels like half the world had already read it and that I am late to the game, but if you haven't, suggest you snap it up and add it to your reading queue.  The premise is to explain why certain ideas/trends snowball into the mainstream and why others don't.  Check it out.

Home stretch of the travelogue and last time, we were pulling into Fes late afternoon.  As discussed, we talk a lot about food and learned that the specialty of Fes was B'stilla du Pigeone,  known in English as Pigeon pastry.  We were a bit apprehensive about eating pigeon, but talked ourselves into it and made a bee line to a joint that was said to make it well.  Pigeon meat and onions cooked inside a flaky pastry and topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  We all enjoyed it but found it almost too rich for dinner.  As you'll see below, our opinion of pigeons was forever changed.

Other than b'stilla, Moroccan food begins and ends with the tajine

A clay/earthenware pot where you slow cook whatever over low heat for hours.  Was ashamed that I had no idea what this thing was or about Moroccan food in general as there are Moroccan resataurants everywhere, but cannot remember ever eating it before.  That will change going forward as our tajine meals ranged from good to sublime

Didn't see a grain of rice, but rather, they get their carbs from couscous.  By chance, a friend was teaching a Moroccan cooking class the week after we got home, so am working on making our own tajines (we bought two) at home.  One thing I will not be making from scratch is couscous as it is a time consuming and labor intensive endeavor.  Will be "instant" couscous for us, but have to say that eating the stuff cooked for hours tastes so much better.  We all ate Couscous Royale several times.

While the tajines are ubiquitous and you would think that eating it everyday would get boring, the variety of tastes from place to place kept us happy throughout.  Meals are typically three courses and it was the first course that amazed us at every turn.  Seven vegetable Moroccan salad.  While the vegetables varied slightly, each meal was served looking something like this. 

Carrots, beans, potatoes, beets, cucumber, zucchini and my favorite, eggplant (aubergine) were staples.  Served with bread and always so good.  The best thing was that not only were all the veggies fresh, but they were all grown locally.  With all the desert in the country, that there was so much fertile soil, Mediterranean weather and with the varied mountainous terrain with micro climates, was the biggest surprise of Morocco for us.

Desserts were the third course and they were very simple.  Many times it was simply a bowl of fruit (apples, oranges and bananas), but sometimes we'd get the sliced oranges and bananas dusted with cinnamon.

With the heavy French influence, we did see proper pastries while walking around.

 I don't have any snaps, but breakfast was usually bread, including delicious couscous pancakes with butter and jam.  We were served eggs a few times and the thing we found interesting is that while they have salt on the table, the other condiment offered was cumin.  Try a dash on your eggs tomorrow. 

And Nous Nous, which means half and half and is equal parts coffee and milk.

Nous nous was the first word I taught myself coming into town.  By the end of the trip, we were rattling off many an Arabic and Berber word.

Chokran - Thank you

Laa/naam -No/yes (Laa chokran was very useful with aggressive vendors

Souk - Market

Wadi - river

Insh'Allah - God willing

Salaam allicomb - greeting meaning God be with you and responded with Alicomb sallam (and also with you)

Maziem - Good

Bizef - too much (Saying maziem bizef after a meal made the waiters smile)

Khokran - Brother (Bro)

I also like that a common phrase they use in English when you ask for something is "As you wish".  With the Arabic accent, it sounded like they were genies from the lamp.

They love their soccer in Morocco...the jacket I wore on the trip was the team from Rome, AS Roma, and as I would walk around, a all the kids would yell "Roma" at me and launch into all the players on the team.  Barcelona is by far the most popular however.

Fes, like Marrakech, is centered around the medina and is about 1 1/2 times as large.  The walls were painted white instead of the clay red of Marrakech.  It's medina was also far less geared to the tourists with the shops selling things for locals rather than mostly tourist goods.  No cars and unlike Marrakech, very few scooters, which was good as we would be choking on two-stroke fumes.  We would have to avoid the donkey pie landmines of course.  They called these animals "honkeys", which is half horse/half donkey.

We would have been like rats in a maze in the Beta test group had it not been for our guide.

That is our guide for the day, named Hassan (same as our Marrakech guide and the second time the "Hassan Chop" earwig got stuck in my brain).  Here he is explaining the political adds that are written on the walls.

Fes is also know for their leathers.  They took us to the biggest factory and explained the processes.  Betty has been to a lot of leather factories for work, but she was surprised at their techniques.  To cure the leather, it is soaked for two weeks in a mixture that is primarily made from pigeon poop.  The ammonia in the poop, which is abundant as that bird is used similarly to chicken in Morocco, is excellent in making the hides soft.  Pigeon power...who knew? 
They were refurbishing the factory so the floor was quiet this day.

Same as Marrakech, we were not allowed into the mosques as non-Muslims are prohibited, but they are very cool looking from the outside.

We were able to enter some old madrassas (Islamic schools) and they all seem to be made in the same style which have ceramic floor, carved plaster walls and topped with cedar ornamentation.

At the end of the day, we took a taxi to the hillside to old Mermid tombs for a spectacular view of the medina and surrounding terrain. 

Fes is a UNESCO site and there are many buildings that are being refurbished by the Millenium Foundation.  Saw this in a pile of trash across the street from one such construction site.

Cable must not be a thing.

The next morning, which happened to be New year's Day, we had a 5AM flight to Casablanca.  In Morocco, you go through the metal detector but everyone gets that pat down.  We were watching the process and the Boy asks me the homophobic question if I enjoyed the pat down.  I said no, but felt better that everyone else got one.

After a week of sleeping in Riads and nomad tents, we booked our last day in Casablanca at the Grand Hyatt. Giant rooms with huge showers, big beds and a courtesy lounge where we could have a snack or cocktail whenever.  Our privileged Western attitudes came right out and we were so happy.  Plus, it had a killer view of town.

That is the Hassan II mosque in the distance and we walked there as our first stop of the day.  Completed in 1993, and having the tallest minaret in the world, it can host 25,000 worshippers inside and another 100,000 is the square outside.  We were allowed inside of this one and were told that the ban on non-Muslims entering a mosque was a law initiated by the French as they did not want to encourage non-Muslims from converting.  Very hard to show in pictures or describe the scale of it...

 Has a retractable roof (closed on our visit)...can't tell, but that has to be well over 50 yards long

Below deck are giant areas for the congregants to wash their hands and feet before going in to pray.

To me, the coolest part is that it is built over the Atlantic ocean...

Look at that weather.  Other than a couple of drips one day and overcast skies in Barcelona, we had this weather the entire time.  Temps in the high 60's/low 70's every day and delightfully chilly desert nights.  So lucky.

Our guide this day was named Saaid and he was different than our other guides.  While he was Moroccan, he married a British woman and lived there for years so had a British accent and leads tours in both Morocco and Bath, England.  He was telling us about his previous tour group, which was a group of 31 Chinese women from Singapore that just completed the same 3 day desert thing we had been on.    We had not seen a single pack of Chinese tourists our entire trip.  Was funny when he said that his biggest challenge was that at every stop, he had to arrange for them to drink only hot water.  The tourists we ran into were primarily European but we did see quite a few Japanese in pairs.  All of the people we met were lamenting that tourism has been off, but I cannot recommend Morocco as a destination enough.  History, diverse landscape, great food and truly happy and friendly people.  Completely safe and relatively inexpensive.  You could easily spend two weeks there.

After the mosque, we walked back to the center of town.  Casablanca's medina is there, but is not well maintained and is not a tourist attraction.  The town is the financial capital of Morocco and one of the biggest centers for commerce in the Arab world.  The tourist area is mainly centered on the old French area.  I mentioned the French Protectorate before and Casablanca was the nexus of their rule not only for Morocco, but all of North Africa.

Morocco had managed to avoid foreign colonialism, but a major split amongst political rivals, with one side leaning towards Germany, the French were invited into Morocco in 1912 to "protect" the monarchy.  Their run in Morocco lasted until 1956 and they base of operations for all of North Africa was centered in Casablanca, so there is a heavy Art Nouveau and Art Deco influence in town.  

It must have been something to see back in the day, but it doesn't look like most places have seen a new coat of paint since the French left and it felt kind of sad.

The boy had been giving me crap about not noticing the trams in Seville for well over a week and I got my revenge here.  He was making a big deal about the trams in Casablanca and Saaid asked him if he liked trains.  Told Saaid that the Boy liked Choo choo trains and he picked up on it, talking to him like a toddler whenever a tram went by.  Boy-o was not amused.

Our last stop of the day was at the food market, also from the 20's and in need of some TLC.

It was here that I noticed the Boy was wearing his pig parts t-shirt, which in a Muslim country was a bit ironic

We were gassed from the early flight and Casablanca didn't feel like it held much more for us to see, so we bid adieu early to Saaid so we could enjoy a nap at the luxury hotel...and I had a fantastic nap and woke up to the first scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Hadn't seen it in ages and forgot how great a movie it was, but they heavily edited out the blood a gore for the local tastes most egregiously losing the part where the Nazis faces melt when they open the Ark.

Of course, when in Casablanca, one thinks about Bogey and Bergman and Sam.  We all know that it was filmed in Hollywood, but found on-line that there was a restaurant called Rick's Cafe that was inspired by the film.  Reviews were mixed, but what the hell.  We had a great time...the decor did justice to the film, they had (tasteful) 40's music playing, and the food was "actually" very good.  Seriously, food was quite good and they didn't dumb it down by calling the items on the menu things like 'Play it again Samdwich', or 'Victor Lazangne'.  Good times and a great trip.

 

I hope I have been effusive enough in my praise of Morocco as a tourist destination.  Really had it all and was one of those places that I felt smarter after having visited.  

Might be a couple weeks before the next post as next week in Chinese New Year and we are heading out of town...again.  This time, for the island of Lombok in Indonesia...Lonely Planets' thumbnail sketch says,

 

"Long overshadowed by its superstar neighbour across the Lombok Strait there's a steady hum about Lombok that catches the ear of travellers looking for something different from Bali. Blessed with exquisite white-sand beaches, epic surf, a lush forested interior, and hiking trails through tobacco and rice fields, Lombok is fully loaded with equitorial allure. Oh, and you'll probably notice mighty Gunung Rinjani, Indonesia's second-highest volcano, its summit complete with hot springs and a dazzling crater lake.

And there's much more. Lombok's southern coastline is nature on a very grand scale: breathtaking turquoise bays, world-class surf breaks and massive headlands. They keep saying development on these splendid beaches is just around the corner, but until that moment comes, they are easy to explore over much-improved roads.

If you're going to the Gilis, a Lombok stopover is a must. Transport options are good and the mood could not be more laid back."

 To be continued...