I’ve got a lot going on and a few new and exciting things up my sleeve but I wanted to post a quick note that I just published a few new photos from my Thailand trip back in April to Flickr.

A lot more are on the way. Sorry about the delays. Thanks for your patience. The best part of working part time is the ability to get through your backlog of stuff you’ve always wanted to do.

Here is the link: Kanchanaburi – April ’10 on Flickr

After leaving Bangkok I landed in Kuala Lumpur for a 4 hour layover. Just long enough to get bored to tears in an airport but not long enough to leave said airport.

I wandered around they duty free shops for a bit and decided to get a bite to eat at the Malaysian noodle place called Nööödles. I got the “beef balls and herbs soup” and a coke for what equated to around $7, not half bad. After that I stumbled onto the airport Starbucks which had a free open WiFi connection… Sweet! Only problem though? No way to charge my devices.. Kuala Lumpur is the only stop on my trip that doesn’t use the standard US two prong wall socket and I didn’t bring my adaptor kit with me. Luckily enough there was an electronics store right below where I was able to pick up one of those little adaptor switch boxes for around $10.

I did have a momentary nerd out moment in there however. They had TONS of Japanese video games for sale and all sorts of bizarre bootleg devices. This was the kind of stuff that 10 year old me dreamed of. I got really really excited at the idea of buying something to bring home and play… Then I remembered that this isn’t the days of old where you could get a cartridge adaptor for your NES and just play Japanese games, the whole industry has switched to optical media which simply won’t play without modding your systems, which thanks to the DMCA is illegal in the USA and with companies like Microsoft blocks you from getting online. Damn. Stupid regions. Stupid DMCA. Stupid Microsoft.

After I got over my heartbreak on this I went back to Starbucks, plugged in and I was off and running! (Note: the iPad’s battery would have no doubt made it fine through my flight to Tokyo, but I knew I was going to use it heavily in the next day so I wanted to start off with a fresh full charge.

I arrived at the Narita airport and wandered around a bit, taking a moment to use the bathroom, clean myself up and change into jeans. It’s 84 degrees here, a huge break compared to the sweltering heat and humidity of Thailand, I’m excited to be wearing jeans again.

I took a bus to the downtown Tokyo Train station which took about an hour but I figured would be a good starting point. From there I began to wander some more, I immediately was able to figure out which direction I was walking from the placement of the sun and when I noticed that I laughed out loud. The boy scouts would be proud. I’m extremely grateful for my iPhone right now as none of the streets are obviously labeled, that said I think I’d be doing okay as there are a lot of maps placed throughout the city which denote where you are. Navigation is all based on neighborhoods and landmarks, and it’s surprisingly clear for someone who doesn’t read a word of Japanese.

First thing on my agenda: find the Apple store. I accomplished this very quickly. Now I know you probably laughed at that and might have even muttered “nerd” but there is a method to my madness. Apple is very selective in the placement of their stores, they are usually in upscale, popular/trendy areas so they can immediately give you an idea of a good place to check out, on top of that they offer free wifi, accessible power outlets, clean bathrooms and friendly multi-lingual staff.

That choice paid off big time immediately I was able to find a guy who had moved here from Estonia who was able to give me a brief run-through of Tokyo basics. First thing he told me, enjoy the free WiFi because I won’t find much of it elsewhere. Not even Starbucks offers it apparently and McDonald’s does but only to Nintendo DS users… great. I also found out the post office here doesn’t sell stamps… weird. I’ve yet to mail out my postcards so that is priority #2.

Christine’s father was able to get me a great hotel rate for tonight so I’ll be staying at the Sheraton, this goes against my usual traveling rules, but I could use a clean bed and shower. Unfortunately I can’t check in until 2 so it I’ve got some time to kill.

I’ve heard a few suggestions / requests of things to do for tonight which I’m excited to start tackling as soon as I’ve put my bags down. I’m still open for more though so hit me up in the comments or on Twitter. More later!

Yesterday we arrived in Ayutthaya and set up camp in a hostel called Tony’s Place. While there are some minor flaws (zero water pressure in the shower) this is hands down the coolest place I have ever stayed at while abroad. The whole front of the building is a giant deck / restaurant which is swarming with a mix of traveling folk and it’s directly across the street from Christine’s favorite bar, Chang House.

There is WiFi and decent food in the terrace as well as a tourist information desk, it very much blurs the line between hotel and hostel. Everyone here is super friendly and I’m typing this while eating a delicious BLT breakfast (I got a little tired of chicken and rice).

Our room has cable tv so we settled in and relaxed for a bit and flipped through stations before settling on MTV Africa (an odd thing to broadcast since Thailand is not in Africa). I haven’t watched MTV in years, in fact I’ve been pretty actively boycotting it since around 1997, so whenever I do catch it for a while I’m always blown away by what I see. 8 videos in a row and 7 of them (including Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus) clearly used and overused auto-tune. I’m sickened, is there any musical talent required anymore? Geez. Anyway this frightened me worse when I realized I was watching MTV Africa, not MTV US, these pop stars and the ads for Jersey Shore are representing America to a lot of people and they look up to it, that is really scary.

After that we went to Chang house and hung out with Christine’s friend Earth. Awesome guy, we split a bottle of “Blend” whiskey (Distilled by Red Bull, cheap and not half bad, considering) and attempted to overcome language barriers and had a good laugh doing so. From there we went to another bar where Earth’s band was playing and found some French guys and Christine’s coworker Dan from the UK. We had a really good time talking about cultural differences and I wound up telling the one gentleman from Paris my trick to getting a Parisian to speak English, he had a really good laugh and admitted he had no doubt it would work.

From there we went to a nightclub where there was a Thai rock band playing. I was exhausted but it was a lot of fun. It seems a lot of Thai rock is set on a reggae beat so it’s very, very similar to the ska punk I grew up with on Long Island which is very strange but very comforting. Eventually the band busted into a Thai Punk cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance which turned out to be surprisingly good.

Thai covers of American music are actually really huge over here in the touristy areas but they are quite amusing to those of us who natively speak English because most, not all, of the singers don’t understand the words to what they’re singing. The singers will butcher the lyrics but hit the notes, tones and timing near perfectly. It’s an amazing phenomenon and very entertaining nonetheless. From there it was time for bed, but as a whole the day turned out to be really enlightening and fun.

Today we’re catching a boat tour around the city and checking outcome old ruins, I can’t wait to take pictures and to share them with y’all. Cheers!

I recieved some emails of concern so I thought I’d address this head on:

Yesterday a state of emergency was declared in Bangkok due to the ongoing Red Shirt nonviolent political protests. The group is looking to dissolve the parliment and install their leader who had previously been deposed by the Yellow Shirts a few years back. That is pretty much all I know. While we were there Bangkok was hustling and bustling with people, among them were many of these “Red Shirts” who had set up tents with signs and loud blaring speakers. For the most part they kept to themselves at their worst they blocked up traffic on their motorbikes.

Either way we got out of there yesterday. Not because of this situation at all but because we wanted to do other things. I’ll be back in Bangkok on Tuesday briefly to fly out to Tokyo and neither Christine nor I are really worried. Rhey primarilly do this stuff on the weekend to disrupt tourism to hurt the economy and put pressure on te government. We don’t expect it to impact Monday as well.

Anyway, we’re having breakfast and then off to see the elephants. More later!

So I’m typing this on my brand new iPad while sitting on a Cathay Pacific flight to Vancouver, from there I’m off to Hong Kong, then straight on to Bangkok. In Bangkok I’ll be meeting up with a good friend Christine and the agenda is pretty much unwritten. I just need to be back in Bangkok on the 12th so I can fly to Tokyo for a grand total of 26 hours.

So you’re probably wondering, what is the reason for the trip? My answer of course is the trip is the reason for the trip. I’m planning on continuing the photography and social media adventures that I’ve grown to love so much.

I was hoping to be able to post my photos nightly throughout the trip but unfortunately the iPad camera adaptor wasn’t available in time and since we’ll be backpacking most of the time I decided to leave at home the 7 lbs of computing power that is my MacBook Pro. I did however pay for the international data plan on my iPhone so I’ll probably snap a few photos on there and post them to Flickr as I go as a preview of the final images to come when I arrive home.

For this trip I’ve packed extremely light, since my days on the government watch list (explanation to come…) I’ve learned how to pack lighter and lighter and only bring what I can carry.

On this trip for example I have one bag, my camera bag/backpack. Which contains:

– Canon 5D mk II with 24-105mm f4.0 kit lens
– 4 Canon 5D mk II batteries
– 4 Compact Flash cards. (1 32gb and 3 16gb)
– Canon 50mm f1.4
– Canon 28mm f2.8
– Apple iPad 64gb WiFi
– 6 pairs of socks
– 6 pairs of underwear
– 5 shirts
– 1 pair of jeans
– 1 bathing suit
– 2 field notes, 2 pens
– 1 deck of cards
– assorted wires and chargers

Aside from a few sparse things I’m bringing one way to Christine, the clothes on my back and my iPhone in my pocket, that’s it. As I mentioned before I’ve paid for 50mb of international data but I’ve also paid for 50 outgoing text messages (Incoming are apparently free) and I plan to buy a prepaid phone over there to be able to stay in touch with Christine.

I’ll be active on Twitter, FourSquare, Flickr and Facebook throughout the week as well as hopefully blogging every night assuming I can find WiFi to post from so please follow me.

Actually, I plan to take it one step further than that… As it stands right now, I have no agenda for Tokyo, only a few suggestions. Like my day in Paris before this I know no one in Japan and I don’t speak a word of Japanese. My plan is to crowdsource my day… I’ve got 26 hours there… Where should I go, what should I do? Reply to me on Twitter and let me know how you think. I should spend my day, I’ll go do it, photograph it and write about it right here!

Stay tuned dear readers!

2009 has been a heck of a year. While it’s really been a year of serious ups and downs for me, it’s also been a year of growth and learning. I’ve made some mistakes, but I’ve also made some awesome friends and I’ve grown as a person in ways I never would have imagined. This year I took some life changing trips to Berlin, Paris and St. Louis that taught me how to explore and be more independent. When I moved to Chicago three years ago it was precisely for this reason. I wanted to force myself to break out of my shell and stand completely on my own. It took me almost three years but I think I finally really accomplished that goal.

Last weekend I finished my Level 1 improv class at iO Chicago (formerly Improv Olympic) and I have to say it was one of the most liberating feelings I’ve experienced in a while. In the short amount of time it took to take the class I discovered sides of myself that I had never even imagined. Improv has forced me to change the way I think and has become something I look forward to every week. On top of that, I met some great people in class I’m happy to call friends. It’s no surprise that I’ve signed up for level 2 and I’m excited already. Improv has been an outlet for me during the most stressful time of year.

Now a few random notes:

My blog with ChicagoNow has been pushed back to Q1 of 2010. More info as I get it.

Long Pork has received it’s dates and times for San Francisco Sketchfest with two shows!

The first: January 29, 8pm at the Eureaka Theater and we’ll be opening for Theme Park Improv featuring Rachel Dratch, Edie McClurg, Danny Pudi, Jessica Makinson, Janet Varney and Cole Stratton.

Second: Jan 30th, 10:30pm at The Dark Room Theater with Marvin Berry and We Are Nudes.

Needless to say, we’re pretty excited.

That’s really all for now, but things are looking good. 2010 has a lot of good things coming, more traveling, SXSWi again and the restarting of TheChicagoGuys.com and more. The future may be unwritten, but the rough draft sounds pretty good.

An odd development occurred recently: My aunt got me a Kindle for my birthday… I’m unsure how I feel about it. While I am certainly excited to have a new gadget to play with I have some issues with this particular device, it’s unnecessary. Like even more unnecessary than the Chumby I also own.

To start with, I’m not much of a reader, however I really believe good design for function is about boiling something down to the essentials… Books are already as simple as can get, they are a beautiful example of functional perfection.  Amazon doesn’t look at it this way though, the Kindle is a replacement not for the book, which needs no replacement, but for one’s personal library. The Kindle is a replacement for our bookshelves… and in that regard it’s a beautiful example of simplification of an idea… except most people don’t have a problem with owning too many books. Those who do are often passionate readers who are happy to loan or give away their books, and some people buy books simply to put them on the shelves as part of a collection. The Kindle misses all of these functions.

So what appeals about the Kindle to me?

The free lifetime wireless internet access. The latest version of the Kindle is global… the web browser kinda sucks, but it could seriously come in handy the next time I go to Europe and want to Tweet or catch up with my RSS feeds. Assuming I can get a handle on my RSS feeds to begin with…

We’ll see what I think after a few months of owning the thing.

I woke up at 1:30 today and realized I was supposed to meet Meli and Andres at 2 at Scharni. The plan was to visit abandoned buildings and a punk collective trailer park community for my photographic interests. That plan didn’t work out, Meli and Andres had to cancel last minute.

Instead I decided to venture out alone. I hopped a train to Alexanderplatz and then wandered around from there. I decided to go take some pictures of the Berlin wall and just kinda explored my way around. I walked around a big portion of Berlin using mostly the setting sun to guide me in my direction. Eventually I found “Checkpoint Charlie” the gate area from East to West Berlin run by US military. From there I walked along the wall.

Some time after that I decided to head back. I started hopping on random U-Bahn trains (subways) until I found a direction towards the Alexanderplatz from where I knew how to get “home.” On the way I stumbled into the museum district and a number of small parks eventually finding a gorgous fountain surrounded by grass where I decided to sit and relax. This was probably the most ideal way to end my stay. It was a beautiful sunny day, almost no humidity and not too hot.

When I finally made my return to 78 Mouse and Aki insisted that I needed to go out with them for a little bit. Mouse prepared a delicious dinner at Fischladen and from there they took me to Køpi.

Køpi is arguably the largest, most famous “punk” house in Europe, if not the world. It’s technically a squat but evicting it’s residents would be impossible. The place is built like a fort and surrounded by several other, smaller communities of the same type. It literally houses an army of punks and German leftists (not all of which are anarchist btw.) To clear out Køpi would literally require a military assault and I’m not sure it would be successfull. However the place isn’t harming anyone so there is no rational to remove it either as doing so would attract international press attention.

The place is amazing, the community that has been created here is astonishing. There was a punk/hardcore show going on in one part of the house. They had at least 4 different bars, a movie theater and way more. Mouse tells me they have in house plumbers, carpenters, electricians and more. It’s not a collective like 78 but everyone there has a role in life outside of the place and they contribute their skills towards making their home a better place.

We only stayed at Køpi a little while but I’m glad I got to go, the next time I head to Berlin I’m going to work to develop relationships there to allow me to photograph it, as it truely is something amazing that needs to be documented, but due to it’s legal status most would not have been comfortable with me doing so.

Unfortunately when we returned I still had to pack, and I had no time remaining to sleep. After packing up I head to the Airport and made my way to Paris for the next 26 hours…

More soon. For now: here are the day 6 photographs.

Internet is down at 78 again. Although we can pick up an unsecured wireless in the big kitchen on the 2nd floor. Not sure when i’ll be able to post this.

Last night was interesting, we went to Fischladen and found the street to be swarming with Politzei. There were full riot vans filled with cops waiting for a reason to jump out. No one was quite sure as to why this was going on but as you can imagine it made things a bit tense. The cops came to the door of the bar on more than one occaision and then backed away. It’s like they were anticipating something that the community didn’t know was going to happen. Either way it ended peacefull with the cops eventually leaving as mysteriously as they had arrived.

Many members of the collective are hard at work here in the house. On Mouse’s floor alone they are installing a large kitchen and a bathroom. They both look to be the nicest in the house, I’m sad I won’t be here to see them. Downstairs they are building a bar into the front of the building. Mouse took us through it the other night, it looks to have a lot of potential as well. I’m not quite sure how or if this will compete with Fischladen which is just down the street. Mouse insists their community is large enough to sustain both.

Despite what I may have said in yesterday’s post regarding technology, this movement is strong and far from in danger of dying out anytime soon. They have built a place for themselves both figuratively and literally through hard work and dedication. There is definitely something there to be respected and admired.

Mouse is tending bar at Fischladen, we spent the afternoon lounging around there. He has mixed up Chocolate Martini’s for people with Hershey’s syrup that Aki brought back from the states for him. Apparently you can’t find that here at all.

Going to a cookout tonight at another house. Should be interesting. Tomorrow is my last day in Berlin and it looks like I have have picked up a last minute photo job as well. More details on that if it happens. That’s all for now.

oh yeah… pictures.