LeahAndMark.com

So, Grad School has started and we’ve hit the ground running. I love it. I’m so happy to be back in school, you don’t even know! But I’m also VERY BUSY! Mark went out last night to see friends at the Yelp Elite Event, and guess what I did? I stayed home and read. And read. And… read. That is going to be a big part of my life for the next two years.

We’ve been talking/dreaming a lot of travel/moving abroad, too. As excited as I am about moving to China… I also really, really want to live in Nepal at some point, too. After China. Mark hasn’t been there yet, but do you see that picture up there? How could you not want to live there? Huh? It’s gorgeous.

Anyhow, since I’m so busy and really should be doing some more reading right now, I’m just going to jot off a few other things on my mind real quicklike…

• I really can’t stand that “I kissed a girl” song. Arrrrgh. Who’s with me?
• I think my pregnant and mom friends are super awesome. Seriously.
• I can see how protesting the Olympics in China can make a statement about their human rights issues. However, I think most countries/governments are guilty of violating human rights and I think the Olympics is a not the most appropriate venue to voice concern/anger over those issues.
• I also think that boycotting China as a whole- everything made there, traveling to China, basically everything that supports their economy- is not only an ineffective, but also a misguided form of protest. Travel especially is such a great way to truly learn about another country and culture. And to give the people you meet a taste of you and where you come from, too. The Chinese people are not their government, just as we Americans are not ours. Not all of us support the practices, policies, and mistakes the government makes. Not all Chinese people are human rights violators. Most aren’t. At all. Not even a little bit. In actuality, everyone we met was full of warmth, genuine hospitality, better educated than most Americans I know about political issues, and excited to get to know two crazy American travelers. They are so proud of their country’s history and culture, and so excited to have the opportunity to host the Olympics. I don’t agree with everything the Chinese government does. I don’t agree with everything the American government does. But unless we get out there in the world and MEET people, and talk about issues, and try to understand each other, how can any meaningful, long-lasting change occur? What good does boycotting an entire country really do, especially if you’ve never taken the time to go there and find out for yourself what China is like? A lot of issues need to be addressed. But making China out to be a “bad guy” and pointing fingers without taking a good, long look in the mirror doesn’t seem like the best approach to me. There are other ways, other venues to speak out and get some attention, start some dialogue, etc.

Okay, that was a little longer than I anticipated. Oh well. Time to hit the books again. Toodles!

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!

Yangshuo, China and The Giggling Tree Hostel

Up above is a collection of video clips taken with my Canon Point & Shoot camera. I think it gives a good impression of part of that leg of our trip.

We stayed at the Giggling Tree Hostel in Aishanmen - one of the small villages that surround Yangshuo proper. It was… picturesque and a much better choice than staying at any of the hostels that were in the actual city part of Yangshuo. There wasn’t even a paved road for the last 3/4 of a mile leading up to the building. Now, even though it’s a small town in the south of China - things are actually more expensive in Yangshuo than they are in Beijing. This is basically a highway town and their main business is tourism. So. Getting a taxi to go the 1.5 miles from the Giggling Tree Hostel back into town? 30 Yuan. (For comparison, it’s something like 7 yuan for the 1st ten kilometers by taxi in Beijing.)

And be careful while you’re in town because you’ll definitely get ripped off here if you’re careless. (We didn’t have any problems in ANY of the other areas of China - maybe it was just our turn.)

For those reasons and the general atmosphere we felt in town - we were very happy to be staying outside and surrounded by the fields and karst peaks. Oh. The food prices at the Giggling Tree are slightly more expensive than what we were paying in Beijing also - but whatever. Still. You arrive, check in, and then start doing stuff. Rent a bicycle, ride around and go all over - all of your expenses are tallied and then totalled at the end of your stay so you aren’t paying every time you order food or do something. There wasn’t air conditioning when we stayed there but they were installing the units that week so the rooms probably have a/c now.

The owners are a dutch couple who were tour operators/guides in China for several years before they decided to open up the Giggling Tree. Very nice and accommodating - but their tour guide/sight seeing arrangements aren’t as good as you’ve probably experienced at other hostels. Their staff handle most of the services and arrangements - and they can get you a taxi into town - but that’s the majority of their ability. If you need anything arranged beyond that, they’ll get you a taxi so you can go to one of the ‘travel/tour’ operators in Yangshuo proper.

This became an issue when we were trying to book our trip up to Longshen to see the rice terraces and when we tried to purchase some airplane tickets. Our first couple of experiences trying to book the next portion of our trip - basically sealed our impression of Yangshuo proper and we both wanted to leave town AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. - Here’s one of our entries we posted while we were there. Clearly we were ready to leave town.

After desperately failing at booking any travel arrangements, we stumbled upon Robert at Travel World. It’s a booth just across from The KFC (yes, KFC) in the ‘old town’ - below is the scanned image of his card as it is glued in my journal. He basically saved our trip at that point. He arranged a good tour up to Longshen (good as in, we rode in a nice bus and not just a crowed van) and then also got us plane tickets with no hassle - we had an earlier experience that ate up 2.5 hours of our time.

Still. If we were to go back, we definitely wouldn’t stay in town and would probably check out the Giggling Tree again.

I would post their information but their website is pretty complete and you can definitely reach them both by phone and by email. I was emailing back and forth with my blackberry while we were on the 24 hour train ride from Beijing to Guilin… and that’s our review/resource guide to Yangshuo and the Giggling Tree Hostel.

Oh one more thing. Look for me near the bottom left corner of this photo - I’m on the bike.

We finally built our bed yesterday. Sure, it sounds easy - but it wasn’t one of those unfold-snap-together metal bed frames that just hold up the box spring and mattress. This Ikea bed had the bazillion screws/bolts/pegs and the awesome instructions with Swedish drawings of clunky builder men. After putting several sections together backwards and then disassembling and flipping them over - we eventually finished! Still. It’s a much nicer bed frame than we could have gotten most other places for the same price.

Break:

We missed the first episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain) this season, but we saw Columbia and Laos. The episodes so far this season more than make up for nearly all of last season. For some reason, we just weren’t as interested in the places he went to last year. The episodes weren’t as good as they were during the previous years. Whereas last year I thought the show ‘jumped the shark’ - this year, it’s right on track and back to going to places unfamiliar and with less of the contrived and set up shows that they produced last year. But that may just be us - because we like it when he goes to far off locations and meets up with villagers and eats with them on their bare floors - embodying a sort of ‘traveler’ lifestyle where you are invited into people’s homes - and not just showing us the places that tourists will inevitably flock to after seeing it on the show.

We went to China with the intention of getting reasonably lost enough to find things that we wouldn’t have found otherwise - this show was a big inspiration and motivation. Heck, we even decided to take a road trip down to Charleston after seeing it on No Reservations - and although we did eat at two of the restaurants shown on the show - there was no shame since they really were as good as advertised. (Jestine’s & Hominy Grill)

20 minutes after we arrived into town, we found ourselves at the farmer’s market, eating shrimp & grits. Seriously, what other type of first meal would you ask for after a 4 hour drive to Charleston?

And while this entry has gone wildly off track - what I realize now - and as Leah has mentioned to me lately - we need to go on another road trip. Someplace just beyond reach, and someplace different. When we lived in Arizona, we would drive to one corner and keep on going. At one point, we even came across some wild horses. THAT was pretty awesome. Hidden lakes, rarely driven roads, and wide open spaces and sky.

And now I have the hint of an idea.

Have a great night. Here comes the week.

I signed up for a Ymail account (Yahoo’s new email system that’s supposed to be cool? awesome?) - I don’t really know what I’ll use it for since ummmm… since I have like 10 email addresses, all signed-up for various things that I no longer care for. But still. The chance to have another ‘MarkRoX@domain.com’ email address is always too much for me to ignore.

For dinner we walked ourselves down the street to El Myr. Good stuff. And again - much better than The Albert. (I am still really annoyed by that place…) We’re definitely going to get our bikes all ready to go - just for these trips down the road because it always starts out as ‘not hot’ and then we end up dying from the humidity by the time we get there. And then the walk back? After we’re full of food and beer? Yeah. It’s even worse. So. Bikes!

In case you haven’t noticed - we have a donation counter over there at the top of the sidebar. Actually, the reason it’s there is because I’m using it as an example of an online donation meter that we can use for this fundraiser we’re doing with StandUp for Kids. But - I thought it would be kind of funny to have a fund raiser for our lunch. So we’ll see right? Eh.

For some reason, I can’t take good pictures of beer. Bottles? Nope. No matter how cool a label they have, I just haven’t figured it out yet. This one? Blurry. I’ll have to practice more. (which obviously entails more beer drinking!)

Burritos are trouble for me too - I think mainly because I can’t hold still. In one had I’m holding the thing and in the other I’m pressing the camera button. 99% of the time it’s blurrrrrry. Still. This one was good. Probably the best grilled fish burrito I’ve ever had… but I haven’t really had too many if any. Still. Good. Awesome. Filling. Worth the $7. That’s another thing - El Myr isn’t over priced at all. AND, you can get a $6 pitcher of PBR. Sure it’s not super great beer… but there are times when PBR is the right choice.

This week… was pretty consistent and it didn’t fly by, but it didn’t exactly drag on either. I’m not worn out, I just see a lot of work ahead. I am happy that I’m learning quite a bit and it’s all going to payoff soon. Mostly computer junk and software that I should already know but for some reason don’t yet. Still. I’m brilliant and I can do anything because I wear glasses - and they help to maximize my knowledge intake.

If you aren’t on Yelp.com - you should get on there - and then you should stop by the Yelp event on the 17th so you can hangout with us for a while this Thursday. That’d be awesome.

It thunder’d/lightning’d/rain’d hard here in Decatur for about a second - long enough to knock out the power in our house and the entire block around us - so after attempting to wait things out and sweating thru the humidity - we abandoned that idea, grabbed our laptops and headed over to Breukelen Mojo cafe down in Kirkwood.

However, these shots are from dinner last night at Carpe Diem down the street, in Decatur. We seem to always go there for an early dinner (early by mostly everyone else’s standards) and the place is usually pretty empty - compounded by the fact that it’s quite spacious. Whatever, we like the food most of the time. Of course, I’ve only ever ordered one thing from their menu - over and over again. The Salmon Ciabatta sandwich.

Sure this shot isn’t a stellar presentation - but the better sandwiches out there aren’t pretty sandwiches. At least not once you start biting into them. You want the ingredients to go together, to mix, to be cohesive and not slide apart, not fall away, but to coordinate their flavors so that they hit you with an overriding force that causes the fastest eater, the one who barely manages to taste his food - to slow down, take smaller bites and pay attention to every moment of that sandwichs’ existence.

Or, like the Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich, I could just say that I like this sandwich so much that I’m afraid I’d regret ordering anything else off the menu when this is a sure bet.

Oh yeah. So while the power is out - that also means that the packing is on hold - which kind of sucks. Even though everyone’s probably tired of hearing us procrastinate on the packing. We also went to IKEA today, dropped 1k (picked up 1k in debt) and got a new sofa, and a new bed. They’ll be delivered on Tuesday afternoon at the new place. Awesome.

Up above? Calamari. Good stuff too. Not the usual ‘fried calamari’ appetizer - these were great ’cause they weren’t greasy at all + the sauces were awesome, a teriyaki dip and a yogurt curry type thing. Awesome.

I keep holding onto the idea that it’ll be fun to stay up late, packing and getting things done when things cool down. It’s Saturday night - the only night other than Friday when you can stay up as late as you want, and not really have to worry about work as a consequence the next morning - unless of course, you go to church and if you do, well, you probably have many other things to worry about that we don’t. Still. Whenever Friday or Saturday night come around, I feel possibility opening up - because it does. Hours that are normally off limits, are all of a sudden freed and available for use.

Back in March when we began this blog, I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to survive after our trip to China. That was the primary reason for its creation - even if we said otherwise - but fortunately, we’ve lived enough life on a daily basis that we can fuel a daily entry. And while some posts/activities are contrived and planned (saying stuff like ‘we can take photos and post them!’) - even that excuse has helped greatly because it gets us out of the house. It gets us to do things we may not otherwise do.

But in conjuction to doing more due to the thin excuse of ‘for our blog’ - everything has served as a great reminder that our lives can easily pass us by without us paying attention. And different from our personal/individual/private journals, this one doesn’t even house our random thoughts and ‘deep thinking’ essays - we can barely fit in the actual things we do, let alone all of the things we’re thinking about. Although I’m sure I squeeze it in on the slow nights.

Mi Barrio Mexican Cantina in Grant Park, on Memorial Ave., across from Oakland Cemetery and down the street from Six Feet Under - truly has some of the best, home-made/authentic SouthWest Mexican food in Atlanta. The GOOD stuff that you would have at any family gathering if you have any hispanic heritage in ya, and live in Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. Well - actually what you have here is a better version of the good junk you can get at any of the ‘-Bertos’* Mexican food shacks back in Arizona.

And the rambling begins.

If you have only one cat, I kind of understand letting it go out and about outdoors. Especially if you’re not home all day, or just too busy to hang out with your cat all day. It kind of comes back to having only one pet (cat or dog) that you leave at home all day alone. It’s just kind of sad. Especially when you could get two and then they could at least entertain each other when they wanted to, as opposed to one pet just zoning out on nothing - unless they actually like to be completely alone. I just think about if we only had one cat and not two - but I’m just going on about nothing really because some pets, just like people, want to live alone.

But for the sociable ones, like our cats - being alone all the time would suck. Especially since our cats actually like each other (most of the time) and play and fight and sleep next to/on top of each other/with us. But what am I going on about? I don’t know, I’m just waiting for the laundry to finish.

Warm, golden chips + good salsa are a requirement for a good Mexican restaurant right? - even if we try to not eat them - when you get a bad set of chips or salsa before you meal, it just starts everything off on the wrong foot.

I know we mention some blog(gers) quite regularly, so I figure today I’ll mention our friend YogaGirl! She used to work hardkore in a lab and then she started teaching yoga/fitness part time and then she quit her lab job and became a master instructor of all things fitness-class. I ‘met’ her while she still lived in Houston and then she moved to Oregon a few years ago with her husband where they do A LOT of house remodeling - so much so that her blog is about half fitness and then half HGTV. Still. I’ve known her since back when I had a blog @ blog-city.com, and then through all of my different incarnations of MarkRoX. Fortunately, she’s relatively slow to update her links and she kept me listed during the months(years) where I would stop blogging and just kind of do nothing online or off. (Is there life offline?)

So. I’ve been in school for a while now (this round) and I’ve been thinking about the whole idea of pulling an ‘all-nighter’ and how, I haven’t done one of those this time around. I mean, sure I’ll stay up late to finish a paper, or the ‘participation posts’ (it’s online school - and um, well, it’s at least a degree) but I haven’t had to pull an all-nighter. I suppose that’s because I also don’t have real tests. They’re all take home. So there’s no need to really ’study’ in the same manner. And even then, everything else? It’s just measuring the hit I’ll take (10 points off for each day late)  and how much I’d rather be sleeping - mostly when it gets past midnight, sleeping is worth more since I still have to go to work the next morning.

My Chimichanga (and I know, they don’t really have these things in Mexico - but thank god they do in the border states - because damn, a fried burrito? Genius.

I LOVE the fact that I finally bought a replacement laptop battery for my larger HP laptop - now it functions as a laptop again and I can take it places since the battery holds a charge now. Now if I could only get the USB ports repaired and actually connect things to it…

*-Bertos’ mexican food shacks are these things we have in Arizona where basically, you take some sort of small rundown food spot (often times in a strip mall) - add a window for people to walk up or drive up to and order - and just keep it open 24 hours day, serving the largest burritos possible and other magical mexican foods back in the hole of a kitchen that barely passes the health inspections - and the food is probably better for it. Of course, you don’t have to listen to us, remember we LOVE street food and everything that that entails (the mystery, the dirty, and the fact that many people won’t touch the stuff.) Oh, and they all have a naming convention of where, you can choose anything you want in front of the ‘Bertos part, but you MUST have the Bertos in the name. Some examples are FiliBertos, RigoBertos, JuanoBertos, MarkRoXBertos…

We have boxes, and now we’re fighting the urge to just let a Sunday afternoon slowly ease away like it should - without too much trouble or work… but we all know that’s not what we should  do. So. Like the list has been saying to us for the past week - Laundry, Packing, Cleaning, Packing, Homework, Packing.

So - due to our inability to save money, the other night we(I) decided to have dinner at Watershed in Decatur - which apparently is …”the collaborative creation of Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers with three women partners and award winning chef Scott Peacock.”

Which means the prices are more than our average night at Mellow Mushroom. But still. Good stuff - at least the stuff we ordered - in fact, Leah even ate some fish (she’s generally vegetarian except sushi - but this wasn’t sushi!)

I had this:

and Leah had:

That’s catfish, with fries and hush puppies - which reminds me that that is another thing that Phoenix doesn’t have at all - they don’t have biscuits, they don’t have grits, and they definitely have never heard of hush puppies… it’s too bad really - this stuff is good. Seriously. Even someplace as generally generic as the Flying Biscuit is now would totally clean up if someone open up shop in Phoenix.

It’s a nice space @ Watershed and it started getting pretty busy soon after we arrived at dinner time - but our food was really enjoyable and that garlic braised lamb shank with sweet potato puree and sauteed spinach? Probably in my top 3 lamb meals ever - but most lamb I get really isn’t that impressive to begin with ya know?

Busy day today - Leah’s mother goes in for knee replacement surgery so there’s that to worry about and although we know everything will be fine, it’s Leah’s mom and it’s never a fun thing to see your mother in the hospital and in the general pain you feel after surgery - so good thoughts and energies all around in that direction on that matter.

It’s Monday and the week’s just beginning - this one won’t let up and there really isn’t any other choice but to go along with it and its busy-ness - my current class ends today and starts tomorrow - the pace is pretty fast but somehow I’ve managed to keep up pretty well. Leah’s getting ready for school to start and we need to begin packing for the move down the street to Inman Park! We need boxes! We need trash bags! (but not the racket that is the Decatur trash bag service - they make you pay a premium to use their ’special’ trash bags or else they won’t pick up your trash if you use a regular bag - the higher price is supposed to make you choose products with less packaging so that you’re throwing away less materials… but really, it just ends up costing you much more because you have to buy these special bags that are only sold at like 2 stores in all of Decatur!)

Ha. Actually… that’s one of the things we’re happiest about leaving - Decatur’s trash bag rip off plan.

Anyways! Let’s go.