December 2011
3 posts
Dame cinco if you are Latino
A little Vermentino from Sardinia, a little Flying Lotus playlist via Spotify: my Friday night alone in Costa Rica. I can’t imagine going out tonight totalmente sola. If I have some women to go out with, and watch my back, I’ll be more confident. Even on the sailboat today, a tour guide guy fixes me a drink and my spidey senses go off when I take it. I make the rest of my drinks...
Shorty Got Low
Today I take a surf lesson from a slew of Argentines at 9AM. One wears a shirt, “All we do is surf and fish.” His shirt forgot to mention they also have a lot of sex and smoke a lot of weed. Everyone looks half awake, like their eyes could close and they could fall asleep at any time.
My surf lesson is shared with a Korean senior in college, from Pennsylvania. We ride pretty big...
Con los Ticos En Costa Rica
It’s only an hour behind NY here but it feels a million miles away. A direct 5 hr flight was so easy breezy, made me think I should do this more often. I’m internetting right outside my hotel room on my stone patio, which has 3 beds. Maybe I’ll switch off every night to mix it up a little.
The owner just came over and chatted with a saw in hand. Nice guy with a nice life. I...
April 2011
5 posts
Foods of Brazil
Trying to think of all the traditional Brazilian foods upon which I chowed down. I know I must be forgetting some things. I can’t remember the name of that grits-like goop, heavy on the garlic, that is served with Mocqueca.
Mocqueca I make this at home in Brooklyn! Had it in Cabo Frio with shrimp and dorada, it was delicious. Coxinha Greasy, deep fried, chicken croquettes. Not my favorite -...
April 11: I know the end before the story's been...
Am I really that nostalgic that I am listening to, and quoting, Sade? Every time I return from a trip overseas, I think of that headline from The Onion - and I’m paraphrasing here - “Tourist on Vacation Thinks, ‘Hey, Maybe I Could Live Here!’” The trip, like any, was eye opening, beautiful, inspiring, very reflective and alone at times, and jarring.
While driving...
April 08. Last day in Rio.
So, today my plan is to hit the Botanic Gardens, the record store Tracks with my fingers firmly crossed for Bossa Nova treasures to fill my empty record-sized duffle bag, Sugar Loaf, and perhaps the Copacabana boardwalk.
Yesterday afternoon I spend on Ipanema beach, thong-clad like a real Carioca. In the shop “Secret Woman” - love that name, I crack up at the teeny bikini. The...
April 07. Santa Teresa Tram.
Glad I left my watch at the apartment. In addition to being afraid that it will be pickpocketed (although it’s a counterfeit purchased at the Ben Thanh market in Saigon), no one is in a rush here. Even the way Cariocans speak. Fast sometimes, but certain tones are drawn out and slow, as if they will finish the phrase after a good long thought and breath.
Currently I’m smack at the...
April 06, GIG Airport. We land.
I press my face against the small, dirty airplane window, and check out the city in the valley, green jungle surrounding, mountains in the background with clouds dotting the tops. I take a deep breath, feeling weirdly hopeful. Filled with that feeling you get from a solo adventure. Also inhaling a slight smell of sulfur from 9 plus hours of non stop farting from my seat neighbors. Planes are...
March 2011
1 post
February 2011
1 post
January 2011
3 posts
I wake up with the chilly Hong Kong fog creeping in from the open window. Our bed, a pull out couch, overlooks the South China Sea.
We get into the HK airport yesterday at 9am, which means we leave HCMC at 6am. Preferring partying to sleeping, I bust out my most awesome moves at the most popular gaysian and ladyboy club in Saigon, Q, in the basement of the Opera House, with my bestie who moved...
Hanoi Hanoi big city of dreams
In the Phu Quoc airport I grab some disappointingly weak kim chee flavored crisps to fuel us on our Hanoian expedition. Once we arrive, we do the requisite bathroom stop and Brian notes a guy in line donning a beret, undoing his belt and trouser zipper, dangerously close to the guy unloading at the urinal. Brother was ready to roll. Welcome to Hanoi.
Arriving in Hanoi at night feels so different...
All sarong, all day rong
Finally, a full quiet beach day, where I can sit silently and listen to the waves of the bay… And the Russians, Swedes, Aussies and Brits around me. Some tourists are definitely kinder on the land and the workers here than others. Need to learn how to say “inside voices” in Russian. And if there’s broken glass and cigarette butts strewn in the otherwise pristine white sand,...
December 2010
8 posts
Oh Saigon, you're my heart, you're my soul
Today’s taxi driver to Tan Sun Nhat Airport busted out one of my favorite jams: Modern Talking, You’re my heart, You’re my Soul, with double decker synth keys and electric drum pad. It might have been his “American Tourist CD collection,” thinking he also has Japanese, Korean and Aussie cd mixes for each tourist group. (Even though MT is German, i think.)
Looking...
Into the steamy Saigon air
We reluctantly leave Vung Tau after the fishing boats come putting back from their morning catch at 10AM, via an old Soviet vessel used as a ferry. Tons of mopeds are parked at the dock. It’s a popular commuter route and rich peeps come on the weekends from the city.
She’s a creaky old thing, with curtains and furniture that are relics of the 1960s, and her hull has never been...
Vung Tau in the Hau(s)
I write this from a communist-run hotel overlooking the bay, in a super comfortable Burmese sarong Brian’s sister nabbed for my Christmas present. We are wondering how much Humberto at Opening Ceremony would sell these sarongs for. Gotta beat him to it. I’ll get them manufactured by single mothers, take a picture of behind the scenes and attach to the tag, bring these babies back and...
Photos are up, finally
I spend Christmas Day miserable, drifting in and out of sleep, sick as a dog. I’m alternating between a truly nasty Chinese cold cure Nim Jiom - which contains wolf and snake balls, Beechman’s Hot Lemon, and Advil. I will kick this damn travel cold, and the sauna that is Vietnam should help me sweat it out.
Nim Jiom claims to “expunge external evils.” But what about my...
One night in Macau
Writing this from a plush, white sheeted hotel bed on the Special Autonomous Region of delicious Portuguese food and wine: Macau. After dinner at O Manuel, owned by Manuel, bien sûr, who has been on the island for 60+ years, we head to The Wynn. Manuel wears an I LOVE LEVIS t shirt and slams our food down on the table. Chorizo! Lemon Clams! Baccaláo! When he runs out of food, he closes shop. We...
MSG withdrawal - in the worst place to have it
In Nueva York I rarely go a day without MSG. My office digs are steps from Koreatown where everything is slathered in red bean paste, and my route home to Brooklyn runs a few times a week through Chinatown for groceries, Vietnamese food at An Choi or a dumpling & noodle fix.
Finally tonight, after two long days in Hong Kong with nary a Pretz, dried cuttlefish or Shrimp Chip to tide me over, I...
I want to open a bar that looks like the original...
The roads in Hong Kong are windy, steep, and bring on vertigo if I look over the giant cliffs, past the 6.5 million dollar homes to the sea. I never experienced sea sickness from riding in a car, until today. Despite my latent fear of heights, I brave The Peak, the old tram car line that carries families with cameras up the steepest hill I’ve ever seen in a city. SF has nothing on HK.
At...
The only thing standing between you and an upgrade
…are your clothes. Or so I’m told by those more travelled. I don’t have a problem with this fact. Juicy Couture sweatsuits with “Dance ATTITUDES” embroidered on the back & paired with crusty Uggs are not worthy of first class, upper class, better than you class, or whatever Richard Branson is calling it these days.
Well-chosen travel togs are crucial. 14 hours...
November 2010
6 posts
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October 2010
47 posts
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