LeahAndMark.com

Last night was a Yelp Elite party - sadly, Leah couldn’t make it. Too much school work and reading that she needed to catch up on for class. I however made the time sacrifice and decided to go get some… terrible free drinks and then a glass of wine provided by our friend Lauren. Oh. I also won two free tickets to a German Bierfest! that’s being held in Woodruff Park in Downtown Atlanta this year. Score? What’s funny is that to us (LeahAndMark) Woodruff Park is nothing but the hangout spot for all of our homeless/soon to be homeless youth that we see at StandUp for Kids. I mean, obviously they’re going to block off the area since they’re selling tickets but still… that’s our perspective of the place. Whatever. It’s beer I suppose.

So a few weeks ago I signed up to receive the brochure from this guided travel tour group - Intrepid Travels - and wow. If you need any motivation, or ideas on where you’d like to go… you should go sign up and get a brochure. If you read our blog, you probably want to travel abroad at this point after seeing so many photos (or you have the other reaction and never want to go to China.) But wow, we started looking at the brochure and saw all of these planned trips across several countries and it really got us thinking. Now, obviously we’re all for not going on guided tours because of the schedule and the whole rigid nature of the thing… but there are benefits to it.

And before you think that we’re plugging something (god we totally would if we could get free stuff… but the only people that give us free stuff is Deanna from Yelp! - and she gives everyone free stuff) - the reason I started even looking at Intrepid Travels was for ideas. And then I realized that for people like us, who wouldn’t really mind being dropped in the middle of a country without reservations - these travel tours are as close to a relaxing all inclusive resort as we ever really want to be. Obviously the price is slightly more in some cases than what we would end up spending on our own (and in others less) but when you take a trip like the 40 days across all of India - the hassle and trouble is easily paid for - and with this group the max number of people is 15 - but trips are guaranteed once at least one person pays in full - and apparently there are instances where it’s only a handful of people in your group. It’s just… would be fine for a first tour of such a vast and overwhelming country such as India. Or one of the month-long southeast Asia trips that covers 8 countries - it’s a very good overview and introduction to eventually doing your own travels.

But… since the bank of LeahAndMark is currently running on a limited cashflow supply - these trips will have to wait - besides, we’re saving up for a honeymoon in Belize!

Great things on the horizon and although there is that saying ‘when it rains it pours’ - it’s happening in a good way for me. This week? The potential goodness is overwhelming and it’s as if everything was being held back for the last 3 months and now it’s all happening at once. I cannot wait to be able to let you in on the the breakthrough. Oh. And hello to our friends Rick D. & Liz A. whom I met (again) last night at the Yelp Elite party - y’all are nice and awesome and thank you.

*Note!: …and now that I read that line about the breakthrough - it sounds like I’m a Scientologist and I’ve finally reached a higher Thetan level or something (Tom Cruise here I come!) - or that I’ve delved into the world of The Secret and I’m finally law of attracting things into my life… ummm… it’s not like that. It’s just normal not really crazy good stuff.

So. Next time we’ll just reach out to our extended friends of friends and ride one of their horses. Even if we have to make new friends to accomplish this. Sunny Farms North? Generally disappointing. Sure we were probably a bit naive to think it would be anything more than the trail rides offered by… stables of this sort… but damn, their website does specifically say:

“We have fast horses for people who like to ride fast. We have slow horses for people who like to ride slow. We have big horses for big folks & we have little horses for little folks. For those who have never ridden before, we have horses that have never been ridden”.

So I like to think that we had at least some reason for thinking that Leah could at least take off for a short run and not do the usual horse follow horse follow horse routine. Generally disappointing all around. Mind you, I’m probably just bitter about the whole thing - compounded by the fact that we were grouped with other people (and while the people were fine and awesome and no problem at all - it’s a F*cken annoyance when you don’t think that you’re signing up for a group activity. If we wanted a group adventure, we probably would have gone looking for something else instead.)

Basically, if you’ve never ever ever ever ridden a horse, or have kids and want them to ride the type of sad stable horses you feel sorry for - take them here. I could say more, but I have to stop because it’d just all come out really, really mean and completely biased - biased by nothing more than my actual experience with Sunny Farms North in Dahlonega, Ga., just past the end of 400. Oh yes. In order for you to truly get the picture - as Leah was getting onto her horse Max, the owner was holding the reigns - and then Max tried to bite him. Okay, I’m not so naive that I’m surprised by any ‘animal’ trying to bite a human - but this guy, grabs the horses head and loud enough for Leah to hear clearly, in effect says, “If she wasn’t already sitting on you I’d beat your f*cken brains out of your skull” - and you kind of get the feeling that he’s not one to kid about such things. Now, I’m probably out of line and this is how everyone in the um, horse-world treats their animals, but I don’t know. 

After our awesome trail ride we decided to drive into downtown Dahlonega and on our way there we saw this guy selling boiled peanuts on the side of the road! These were exactly how boiled peanuts should be. Their greatness was compounded by the fact (or due to?) that they were prepared on the side of the road, in a huge pot, and with a propane heat source. We’ve been fortunate enough to find one of these both times we’ve gone to Dahlonega - it makes the drive back to Atlanta so much better.

The other ‘event’ we went to last Saturday was the Festival of India - held by the… Indian group of Atlanta… well, that’s not their official name but whatever. Seriously. Like me, you probably understand the depth and general cultural richness of India - so you would expect that a ‘Festival of India’ run by the Indian American Cultural Association - to be better than a sad collection of booths selling cell phone cards, insurance, & vacations. If anything - you would probably think that they’d have some interesting food - and not just 3 sub-par indian restaurants and 1 decent indian restaurant selling up the common goods that the Indian branch of Panda Express will undoubtedly sell at the mall food court in the near future.

Granted - there were a lot of Indians that attended the Festival of India… I’m hoping that they were as disappointed in it as I was. I don’t see how they could find any real value in the whole thing since Anime conventions are more representative of Japan than this was of India. Of course, I could be wrong.

With high hopes for this event, Leah did wear her salwar kameez that she got in Nepal. See? We were totally hoping this would at least be better than the dealer’s room at a SciFi con. Next.

What did make the day better was that our friends Anna & Chris called us and invited us out to dinner with them. First we tried the Vortex down the street in L5P - that was a no go with the 45 minute wait (we don’t wait 45 minutes - not with SO MANY other places in Atlanta to go to). So then we drove over to Los Loros and had some good mexican food. That was our Saturday and Sunday was quite easy and sleepy and like I say every weekend - here comes Monday.

1. Nepal
2. Tibet
3. India
4. Japan
5. Peru
6. Thailand
7. Laos
8. Turkey
9. Phillipines
10. Italy
11. France
12. New Zealand
13. Australia
14. South Korea
15. Cambodia
16. Malaysia
17. Indonesia
18. Singapore
19. Vietnam
20. Switzerland
21. Fiji
22. Greece
23. Morocco
24. Tunisia
25. Mongolia
26. Spain
27. Iceland
28. Argentina
29. Cuba
30. Denmark
31. Belize
32. Ireland

This is the immediate list of countries that we want are going to visit. Although not in the exact order, I think we’d mostly be okay with this order (of course we haven’t plotted out a logistical plan so you could probably group most of South East Asia all on the same trip, or at least two trips.

Still. We both figured that we needed to at least ‘put it out there’ so that just in case ya know, if someone all powerful (well, with money) sees our list and is like wow these two really enjoy their travels and they don’t just eat at the local equivalent of f*cken AppleBees. I think I should fund one of their trips. Now we just need a paypal button and ummm.. ha. Still. You don’t get what you don’t ask for right? Not that we’re asking. However, the intention must be put out there or else it will never ever ever ever have a chance at becoming reality. This photo set up above is literally One Photo from Each Day we were in China and in order - 24 in all.

Tonight’s episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain!) covered Japan (well, Tokyo and Kyoto.) I enjoyed this episode a bit. While it’s easy for me to say that his best shows are anything in Asia (true) that’s not always the case. He has some really awesome shows that aren’t in Asia at all. Off the top of my head, San Paolo, Peru, Sicily, Puerto Rico, Mexico/US Border, India, Uzbekistan, French Polynesia, South Carolina, Tuscany, and Loas. That’s my general list of good episodes that take place outside of China/Southeast Asia.

Most of western Europe was pretty boring (London/Edinburgh, Berlin, Iceland, Ireland) - and I generally feel that it’s only a 50/50 chance that any episode in America will be anything more than some contrived setup full of skits that only work by the thinnest of margins - check episodes Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and the latest U.S. Southwest as examples of shows you can skip and not really miss out on anything.

I should write an episode guide. I should. I will. Just watch.

Have any places to add to the list? Tell us!

LeahAndMark.com - Feels Like Home from LeahAndMark.com

No video today - and even less photos. But clearly I’m not done. Up above is an Animoto slideshow video of… well, obviously more photos - since we upload them to flickr.com but it’s sometimes too cumbersome to go thru everything - even I rarely go through other people’s flickr’s (except for those rare few.)

I got some good news today. Hopefully I can tell you all about it on Friday. And that would mean that FRIDAY IS POSSIBLY GOING TO ROCK! Even Still. I’ve been thinking and churning some thoughts in my head about how the next few years are going to be and exactly how we’re going to do whatever it takes to make it some form of reality. Mostly - eventually moving over to Asia, but then also - visiting again at least once if not twice before we move. Nepal/Northern India are next on the list, followed with… well, there’s so much that to make a concrete list would be… almost pointless since so many factors can change everything. We must still make it up to Tibet though. That’ll be awesome.

Pulled together these kind of feel like the Death Cab for Cutie Video: I will possess your heart. Oh look - here it is posted below. The weekend is coming fast and I look forward to all of it. I’ve had a bit of a break from studying/other things since Leah’s been in Phoenix - but mostly because I’ve come back down and decided to relax a little. I was pushing things and while there’s that margin between letting things happen and then what’s beyond a healthy measure of force - I was getting run down. So. I let go a little this week and wouldn’t you know - halfway good news today. We’ll see what Friday brings. Watch the slideshow up above, and watch this video below if you haven’t seen it - this is the long intro version though.

I think you’ll see where I stole some of my ideas on how I edited our music videos on the VideoLife page.

I seem to have gone a bit off the reservation here. I’ll get back to ‘normal’ photo sizes sometime. It’s just that the recent review of everything China + general upheaval at work = me wanting to escape. Except it’s more different (or just different) than it has ever been. I blame Leah.

Whereas just a few years ago (pre-Leah) I was more than content to never leave the U.S. - I didn’t even have a passport enabling me to leave. But now? Now the world has opened up. And while there is always that urge to just run off and go - to leave unprepared is… there’s just more that we have to do before we can really leave, finishing our next steps in school being the primary factor. More than wanting to be ex-pats wherever we go, we want to immerse in that society and help. So our goal isn’t to simply escape. It’s to go somewhere else and help things there. While it may come off as a bit messianic… it’s closer to following a deep interest - which I am still only beginning to internalize - Leah’s been at this game far longer than I have.

This was lunch at the edge of Tiger Leaping Gorge - after we had hiked 2 hours thru the 24 bends (a steep series of switchbacks) and eventually arrived at the next main guesthouse on the mountain side. I feel like… I feel like I have been reminded that people (bosses/work) are always going to be there and jobs are primarily not for us. While some of us are fortunate enough to be in a position where we live to work - the rest of us are stuck working to live. The switch many don’t make (or are unable to) is to get to that live to work point where they are doing what they truly want/purpose in life and all that. Not merely receiving a paycheck large enough that it enables us to… buy things that distract us with the illusion of satisfaction.

Lately I’ve been dwelling on things as they are (work) and when you have no other focus - inconsequential things and people start to weigh heavily - and I let this happen to me in the last month, as shown by my recent string of vague/emo/moody posts. My situation isn’t even that bad - not nearly worth mentioning when I put it in perspective. But without a clear view of the situation, and only being focused on the now - I really allowed everything not important to sideline me and push me back to those far too internal thoughts of panic, worry, and woe.

Today is Friday, August 1st, 2008.

I’ve started pulling all of the video that we took in China off of our camcorder. And now watching it all - we didn’t really film too much. Well, relatively speaking. At least not enough for what I want! I would’ve recorded the whole month that we were there if I could. But I guess I’ll have to settle for 8 hours of video. (It’s really only around 4 hours.)

As I may have mentioned earlier - this week is China week on the Travel Channel (obviously since the Beijing Olympics are just around the corner) - and tonight they showed Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations episode which begins in Shanghai, then moves east and north thru Lijiang and up to Shangri-La.

At the beginning of this episode Anthony makes a statement along the lines of ’saying you’ve been to China is like saying you’ve been to the planet Earth - it’s that big’. Looking back at our trip - it’s hard not to think that we missed a lot, that there was so much more to see. I wish that I hadn’t been so tired on some of those days and that we would’ve continued to keep moving instead of getting what I’m sure was much needed rest. Even with the 4,000 photos and hours of video - it feels like there was so much more to see, more to eat, and more people to befriend.

We’ve been so busy since we got back that only every now and then do we remember how great our trip was.

But let’s get to today’s show! I love Leah and I honestly would never have gone on this trip if I hadn’t ever met her. This is arguably my first real ‘video’ that I’ve put together, so I hope you like it - oh. It just finished processing on YouTube and wow - the quality is really low compared to how it plays on my computer… but still. It plays like you’re watching a montage real from what could be Leah’s Travel Show. The video starts in Shangri-La and some of the temples there, then goes a little thru TIger Leaping Gorge, then down to Guilin/Yangshuo area where you can see the farms and Karst peaks, Leah hawking wares at the Beijing Dirt market, and then finishes up with us at the Great Wall of China. Oh, and that’s actual Yak Butter Tea that the gentleman is preparing for us in the Zhongdian market.

*Edit - I originally had this uploaded to YouTube but the quality was worse than… worse. So Now it’s uploaded from Fliggo.com - MUCH better + I added some color adjustment.

So we were watching Samantha Brown’s travel show - and this episode was China. We used to watch her shows and would be relatively entertained. This one? Painful. Maybe it’s from watching too many episodes with Anthony Bourdain and his cynicism, or mock excitement or just… maybe it was the fact that Samantha Brown seemed to think that everything was amazing, or ancient/centuries old. Or just… wrong. While I have generally always appreciated most of her shows in the past, this one was almost unbearable.

Sure we did our share of touristy things that you just have to get out of the way - but come on - when Samantha Brown is asking for the price of a rickshaw ride thru the hutongs and is told it’s approximately $25 - AND she says, “I think that’s a good deal” - it’s just embarassing. Anyone who pays that much is clearly the epitome of an American tourist that’s just looking to get ripped off.

When she shows up at one of the most touristy spots of the Great Wall of China - and laments on how if she just sits still and takes it all in that maybe she can feel the centuries of history and blah blah blah - does she realize that she’s sitting on a completely reconstructed portion - which is about as real as any of the replicas built in Las Vegas?

Ok. I know that the same people who watch Samantha Brown are probably the same people who prefer Rachel Ray over Anthony Bourdain. So okay. I’ll just leave it alone. At least watching this poor show did cause me to go through our China photos/video again and start working on them and uploading them to Flickr in a more complete manner.

We visited before the Olympics on purpose - because the country is changing rapidly and Beijing in particular is going to be very different after the Olympics in a few weeks. But that won’t stop us from going back and enjoying everything we can. China is a BIG place and there’s no stopping it. We had a great time and I’m sure we’ll revisit all of this again, a little at a time.

Finally tonight. Here are some clips I threw together of our trip.

Ahhhh… the glorious grainy and artifact filled quality of my Point & Shoot camera on high ISO setting in the dark…

We went to the Yelp Event at Table 1280 last night - good times - although I didn’t get to see some of you people that read our blog AND live in Atlanta… Gabrielle! But still, Leah and I had a good time. Different from other events, we didn’t really meet too many new people - but definitely hung out with the ones we already know. It’s just been too long since the last event for us so it was nice to hangout and catch up. Or, like me, talk and get to know the people I had already met.

Did I mention that we’re on Twitter?

So. A small group of us from Yelp are connected on Twitter and it’s quite awesome. Earlier attempts at using Twitter actually sucked - since it was all far removed strangers that I was ‘following’ - but now that it’s good acquaintances/friends - it’s like an on/off chatroom all day long. With other random people dropping in. Why use twitter? How do you use it? I don’t know. But it’s not… it’s not really a “People are interested in hearing what I say!” sort of endeavor - more like… you say all of those side comments of random/evil/funny thoughts that you would say to your co-workers/cubicle-mates during the day - to your Twitter friends.

And THAT’s what makes it worthwhile - at least for us in our group. I mean, sure there are tons of people who have figured out how to effectively use twitter as a marketing medium - but I haven’t, aside from the every so often post of “blah blah blah [insert something witty] and then Link to a Blog post at LeahAndMark.com”

Up above? One of the foods handed out last night - fried risotto balls and blurry in the background, three of our Twelp friends. DavidAtlanta! Laurens33! & JPCorpus! (He came up with the name Twelp)

KatieW and I ganged up on Lauren.

Naoya and Shelli were there too! Yes. He is totally as cool as he looks in this picture. I believe we’re having brunch with them this weekend, or lunch, or some other excuse for drinks and a meal. Awesome.

A short Rant on UoP again (University of Phoenix.) So this week, I haven’t really ‘logged into’ the class forums and posted for either participation points, or to communicate with my team. I did tonight. But at some point, one of my team members posted:

I emailed Leo and Mark last night. I see that Mark has responded. Thank God. Still haven’t heard from Leo. Hopefully he’s ok and still part of the team. If he doesn’t check in one of us is going to have to do his part.

Now I admit, this may have just hit me wrong and I’m just being jerkish about the whole thing. (While staying at a hostel in Pt. Loma/San Diego, I met a Turkish guy born in Germany… well, those two things mixed together somehow - so me and my friend Amy started calling him Gerkish! (Jerkish)) But still. Really? Did she really have to say ‘Thank God’ - because it’s only Friday - in fact, it wasn’t even Friday night when she posted that. The team assignment (all of them) always consist of a 700-1,000 word paper. Broken in pieces + editing that’s like 300-400 words per person. I can write that without trying. I can write that in my sleep. I can write that in my sleep, underwater and still get all points for the freaking paper. (Trust me - I’ve gone on and on in my LJ quite often on the subject of way too dumb classmates and their embarassing writing skills - and even worse - we STILL get A’s on all of our team papers - and on my own individual assignments.)

Forget it. I’ll stop myself right here and just be passive aggressive and from this point on I’ll make sure that I NEVER post to the team forum UNTIL Friday night - just annoy them. Radio Silence from Tuesday to Friday night.

The Insides and more Fire

We have the weekend to conquer.