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Rynschp
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Name: Ryan
Location: Illinois
Interests: I have a variety of interests, but mainly I like hanging out with friends, watching sports, playing chess, and especially traveling. Without those things life wouldn't be nearly as cool.
Expertise: Losing anything that is incredibly important for myself & also finding my way into and out of very interesting situations, usually abroad...
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
4/20/2005
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| At this moment the clock has just struck 2:38 in the morning and my first thoughts as I look out the window are to mention how much snow we are getting at the moment, but then my next thought turns to how bright it is outside…but its almost 3 in the morning… light pollution is ridiculous I think. I’ve now been back in the u.s. of a for a total of 3 days and the jet lag is keeping me on Japan time for the time being, so nocturnal I will be. In two more days I will be heading back to Japan for my second stint in living there. After coming back in December to America…And then going back to Japan in January…And then coming back to America in February I have had an awesome (albeit expensive) way of comparing the two countries side-by-side. After weeks of thought I made the hard choice to go back….even though in many ways I really do wanna stay here in the states. So why don’t I? …well, first, I wouldn’t go back to Japan if it was going to be the same as the last time. When I went for two years starting in 2005, I went because I wanted to see something new, learn how to teach, and travel a bit while I had just gotten out of college… My second stint is going to be much, much different. I’ll be in the exact same area as before, but instead of working FOR a company, I will BE the company. After the collapse of our company due to corporate scandals, lots of the market was wide open for opportunity. After all, that company owned over 50% of the market of students studying English in Japan, which is over 500,000. Now back in November, two of my friends and myself began working on the idea of a school called “Jabble”. Both of the other guys are extremely competent, hard-working, smart, great teachers, and natural salesmen… The 3 of us could be an awesome force. …But I backed out of the plans in December and decided to comeback cause I knew that it would be a tough and hard commitment that I wasn’t yet prepared to take. But after going back and seeing Jabble, their vison and words put into action, I realized how awesome our creation could be. By the way, check out the site at Jabble.jp ;) There’s a lot of other factors too that play into my decision to go back, cause as long as Ive been around I never wanted a job to dictate my life. Family and friends are more important. But this is the first time I’ve been faced with an opportunity that I believe is bigger than me in ways…It’ll challenge me to do things higher than my ability…to keep a business going, working insane hours, selling our product, etc…everything there is to a business with an intention of expanding the business quickly. It’s my one opportunity in my life to create a place that people can benefit from. To point that out more clearly, when I came back to the states I didn’t have a vision for anything I wanted to do. I was just planning on getting a 9-5 job that paid well and I’d be something like a manager or a finance guy or whatever in a company that would have minimal affect in the world…like maybe producing a small ball bearing for gear in a car or something… OR, I could give my shot at creating a company that grows and grows, because we have a vision for it and because we are an ethical and fresh company full of grand ideas in an industry that isn’t fresh… If we put our all into it and the company expands, lives are changed through our company, and I become wealthy in the meanwhile. Heck, the company (which since its start on Feb. 1 and has at last check, 24 students already) could fail and I could come back to Illinois with nothing but the clothes on my back, yet I would still feel like a success for trying to do something like this… In the end, the comfort is that I don’t think my personality can let something like this slip by… As a person who does his best to serve the Lord and yet often fails, I see this as a thing where I can contribute more. In Japan I have a fantastically positive church that helps me grow in a country where most people have no understanding of our faith. In being in Japan for two years I have learned a lot about being in a culture that celebrates hedonism and forsakes ideas of purity, yet holds a high degree of morality and are so friendly. I have often fallen in the past, but the past is what you learn from and I think I’ve gained a clearer picture on what to do. In the past I’ve brought a few people to church, hopefully I can do more… by the way, anyone looking to witness to people who are new to the faith, Veggie Tales are a great source for teaching bible stories…the best one is “Dave and the Giant Pickle” in my opinion… So that’s that.. Now, how long will I be there? I don’t know. If the business fails, of course I’m back. And especially since I don’t have much backup money, I can’t really try to save it by pumping more into in. At the start of the business to keep costs low I’ll be sleeping on the couch of the others owners for at least a few months. The most important is that expansion is what we are looking for…so it’ll either rise fall or fall fast. I’ll continue to post updates on this site as a way of letting people know how its doing… Peace out & And let the next journey begin! Ryan | | |
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Its time. …Im comin home!
Its been a long while that I’ve been here, a whole two and a
half years. I haven’t updated on here in the longest of times and heres the
reason why: …my computer is a Japanese product. Ironic aint it. The thing keeps
givin ‘ up on me, so now I resort to friends computers and the café round the
corner.
A lot has changed here in Japan. A lot. In the past two
months my company went bankrupt and well…in the process lost over three months of
pay. Ive eaten through all of my savings through the year just trying to scrape
by. I was supposed to come home with $8,000 to my name, but instead am going to
return in with only a few bucks in my pocket and some hope of someday
collecting my money back…. Not the way you want things to go, but hopefully in
due time Ill
be reimbursed by the Japanese government.
So, Ive decided to come back for a bit and see how things
are…visit with the family over Christmas that I haven’t celebrated in 3 years,
share some pictures and experiences with everyone and then after that see how
things go. I don’t really have too much of an idea of what to expect. After the
Christmas season I’ll be looking for a job in the Chicagoland area, probably in
the sales area. Like I said, I dunno what to expect. From all the news online
that I read, it seems as if the economy is slipping and the Dollar is sure
taking a dive. If I don’t manage to get a job that really suits me then I may
look elsewhere again… Again, outside the country. I always’ll love Japan, and Im
established here, so that’s an option. Who knows…but Im open to anything.
Meanwhile, being unemployed was quite a learning experience
in itself. Its interesting in the different ways that people react to it. Life
handed us lemons, so I took my lemons and made some acceptable lemonade if you
ask me. I took the time to get better at my newfound hobby, kickboxing, and I
also studied a bit for the Japanese proficiency test I took on Dec. 2, and also
a whole host of other things that I wanted to do on a limited budget. My friends
here in Japan
have also been huge in helping me out.
See you all soon.
Ryan
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| At the moment I'm relaxing in my house, listening to a rotation of Jim Croce melodies, my favorite music with which to write by. Lately I've been making the most of life our here, keeping ridiculously busy. Last week I made a nice little visit to the hospital after a kickboxing accident in which I kicked a guys elbow with the weak side of my foot. Just a deep bone bruise, but no break. I also played an all-night poker game in a closed down bar and ended up netting my self a sweet amount a money... And yeah, signed up for the Japanese fluency test that I;ll be taking in December. I'm not worried about that one at all though now. I just wanna get the certification that I have a level of fluency in Japanese. Also! The big news for this month is that I'm an Uncle! My sister Al popped one out making me the proudest uncle this side of Asia... Unfortunately I ain't around to begin my shaping of little Levi, to turn him into a littler version of myself of course ;) But I'm sure Nick & Al will do just fine on their own...I'm just hoping sometime down the road in the next 10-15 years I'll get a kid of my own. But don't hold your breath, I ain't working on one anytime soon. I love the kids I teach that are anywhere from 4-10 years in age, but before or after that...well, can you rent kids out to anyone for a small fee? hehe....There was a screaming infant in the train a few days ago and by the smell of things I'm sure he was layin' some mean tracks as well...I could hardly stand 20 minutes with that...In my ever-calculating Venn Diagram in my head the cons of having a kid are definitely outweighing the pros. ....BUT, I'm sure glad i'm a uncle now :) So here I come to the story I have for this month. Prior to this journey, I had it marked as a travel of mundane training and getting into shape. This story was to be completed in two paragraphs, not much of a feat, not much of anything, just a roadbump on the way to our future conquering of Hiroshima by bike. In the end, it turned into scary ascent of a mountain that surpassed the physical trials that I endured in reaching my goal on Everest. Ever the optimist, I was forced to make realizations that I was beaten...that we were beaten. ...and so, here is the story of our failure. The story all begins back months ago, back in the prime of spring when a friend/co-worker of mine convinced me to buy myself a mountain bike. This was a great idea. I made my purchase of the montrous "Gary Fisher" mountain bike for only about $400 and have since then added a total of probably $200 in adjustments to make it every nerd/adventurers wet dream...its got a sweet little computer on top that gives me all my details....the odometer, AVG speed, max speed, time on bike...I think you get the point. One night, while relaxing in a Japanese bath house with the friend, Kelly (don't get any ideas, once again, Kelly is a guy :) we were inspired to do something truly grand with our bikes. Both of us being men of adventure and nature it seems almost ridiculous that we hadn't thought of it sooner... And it was there that it came about, the formations of the plan to take a 1000 km bike ride to Hiroshima sometime in the fall. I was pleased...I'm always looking for new things to do. Come summertime we realized that if we were planning a 2 week bicycling trip to Hiroshima, well, we'd better prepare by doing some smaller trips. After work would end at 9 p.m. Kelly and I would dash home, throw off our suit and tie, get the biking equipment on and ride for around 30-40 km while many of our cohorts were busy laughing it up and drinking at a bar...sometimes thats the hardest part of the trip itself, to tell yourself theres a reason for what your doing. But those little sprints after work weren't enough. We wanted something more, something to tell us what we were really up against in doing a long haul over a multiple day trek. And thats when we came with the idea to take a 3 day trek to Nikko, Japan, a famous nature site NW of Toyko up in the mountains loaded with beautiful views of nature and a place packed with natural "onsens" (hot springs) where we would be able to sooth the aches and pains from our trek...Sounded perfect. It was also 192 km off. 192 was longer than either I or Kelly had ever done before, in fact, far out of our previous range of a little over 100km. But we were up to the task. What we forgot to heed, was that, Nikko was in the ....MOUNTAINS! So, on August 8, Kelly and I woke up long before the crack of dawn. At 5 a.m. we had our backpacks packed and were off to Nikko. We were planning on it being a little over a 10 hour ride on bike given that we could keep an average speed of about 20kmh and take a 5 min. break for every hour we rode. For the first 4 hours we rode everything was a gem...our ride was, for most of the way, along the Edogawa river, a relaxing scene that reminded me of how far I was from work. Also, the weather was being good to us, the wind was slightly with us, the sun hadn't come out strong yet, and the humidity was, well...not as dreadful as it usually was. The first few hours of riding held nothing special for us...It was just riding, riding, and more riding. The interesting thing about riding out into the countryside is how much different it really is than the city. In Japan, there are different types of countryside... Some are really just lifeless suburban areas and others are the real deal. Sometimes I venture out into the suburbans ones and get the feeling than I'm in the real countryside, but Im not. The real countryside...the one in which we were traveling through was quite desolate...no vending machines (usually SOO the norm for Japan), no twenty somethings girls...no convenience stores... without those, what is Japan? I swear, I had never been through a stretch of Japan for that long without seeing one of those things. So after about 6 hours of riding bike, feeling like were halfway done with the excursion we stop off at a local village in the peak of the day where the roastin' temps had us feeling like an unlucky bird in a kfc rotisserie... we visited the local grocery store which had probably never had the likes of a white man, let alone two walk through the doors. And at that we were the filthiest white fellers this side of the Pacific. I mean, think about the kind of sweat you produce after intense bike riding in the heat for that long...and then walking through the raw fish section. It was an amazing combination of scents, I'll tell u that ;) After eating some lunch we got back out into the heat, coating on yet another layer of SPF and drinking another few liters of aqua. At this point though we were feelin' quite good about our progress...we had gone a little bit over 100 km which was over half the distance and we both had lots of energy left...we were in the zone. The 2nd leg of the trip was where things started to take their toll on us. From around 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. the sun was out in full force and there was no hiding from it...we were out in the open country. To make matters turn a bit worse, literally, Kelly and I had been drinking gallon after gallon of that sports drink stuff in an effort to stay hydrated...but there's only so much you can drink of that stuff. They're loaded with so many sugars that both of our stomachs were in rough shape and making movements...around 2ish we rode up to a town after having been on a bike for about 8 or 9 hours, in the beat down sun, keeping pace at about an average of 25kph... We we're looking for a place to take an extended rest and found ourselves a nice place to sleep under a bridge...At that time laying on concrete didn't feel much different than bed, I was exhausted. After almost an hour of sleeping in the middle of the town, our bodies sprawled across the concrete as though we were destitute, our cellphone alarms went off and back on the bikes we were. For two more hours we were back at it, invigorated by the nap and cool breeze that pushed us along. After meandering through several small towns, making a few wrong turns, then correcting ourselves, we found ourselves within reach of Nikko. A seemingly meaningless 52 kilometers to go with 140 kilometers behind us...and it was only about 4 oclock at this point. This is when we hit the mountain range.... At first the gentle slopes were at most mildly irritating, having to continually pump at a faster than normal pace. On flat land we could get about 25 to 26 kilometers per hour whereas now were were slowed down to about 15 or 16 kmh. Not cool, but we still weren't thinking that anything was wrong and we would be able to make it at around 8ish to Nikko. But it was after about an hour after those gentle slopes that we hit the real mountain range...by no means gentle at all... Extreme ups and downs that wound right around and through the mountains. Since it wound around the mountain we were faced with alot of curves. The one thing that I realized about mountain biking that I hadn't even thought of before is the mental aspect of it...its just as much the mental as the physical. For example, the mountain has tons of slopes, up and down....its never a continuous, steady grade upwards. So, when you approach a slop your mind sort of subconsciously realizes the whole of the slope, realizes the energy you have and sort of calculates what it will take to get to the top of that slope. Ideally you don't wanna burn yourself out, so you take the slope at a pace that best allows you to conserve energy and time and then when you get to the top you should be at some sort of point where momentarily your body has lost most of that short term energy...leaving you huffing and puffing for a bit. This is expected.... But with turns, you can't realize the whole of the slope. Your mind can't possibly figure out if just around that corner is a gentle or cruisy slope downwards, or a terrifying hill to climb. Oftentimes, I'd get to the corner huffing like it was fashionable only to look around the corner and find another hill. At one point there were 5 consecutive corners that had an ascent on the other side of it..its brutal, its demoralizing... yet even more demoralizing is when you go downhill. Nice for the moment, but a pain in the ass when you realize that you gotta climb that again somewhere else...afterall, our destination was mountain top. So at the worst stretch our average speed wasn't 15 or 16 kph, it was down to about 9 kph, a true turtle pace, but what could we do? We had been on bikes for over 12 hours at this point and we were in the mountains. Now, the effects of long term biking were beginning to show. While I expected that my ass would be raw from hours of it being on a biking seat, it wasn't...that I could be thankful for...but my heart rate was an interesting one. Don't know how to explain it other than it felt "big" like it had swelled from all the blood circulating at that pace for so long. Another thing to deal with was the sweat, it was everywhere, which was expected but it was getting into my eyes constantly which was more than annoying when cars are passing you on a mountain with a shoulder of a meters width. Its just plain dangerous. I kept wiping my eyes with my gloves, but by now those gloves and anything else I had on me to wipe was completely saturated with sweat. I must've smelled to high heavens as well ;) But anyways, we had 35 kilometers to go, it was 6 p.m. and we were at an average of 9 kph on the mountain with no lodges, hotels, nothing in site...just road. Do the math. 35 divided by 9, consider in the 5 minute breaks that we were now having to take for every 15 minutes of riding and you got: .....around 5 hours of biking left which put us on a estimate of arriving in Nikko at around 11ish... Now in Japan, in the countryside, even a famous place like Nikko, everything closes down round 9ish. We realized we were in trouble, not to mention the impending rain that was heading straight for us. I was imagining us sleeping in the woods, with nothing, in the rain. We were determined though...how can a man ride for 160 km on a mission of a lifetime and give up a mere 10% short of his goal? Thats not something I'll do unless I think it just insanely stupid. And thats what I want you to realize, those of you that read this story. This was at that point insanely stupid. My mind was fried from the sun, sweat was in my eyes, and my heart was twice the size it normally is... Kelly, who was a bit behind me, was having body shakes of some sorts and was surely having alot of the same long term biking effects that I was having...but we didn't do much talking, just doing. It wasn't worth it to talk about it, we both knew what was up. 20 km from our mountain top destination we ran into an unlikely fork in the road that led to local train station. Feeling a bit defeated, but having a sense of pride from doing and attempting something that most people in the world wouldn't even think of doing, we pulled out the proverbial white flag and headed to the station. Game over we thought. Now it was time to just get to Nikko by train, find a hotel, and nurse the wounds. Not even close. Our battle to get to the top was still on. This was the real scare. We came up to this almost abandoned looking train station that looked as if it was put together by a first time carpenter...just the shoddiest looking thing you'd ever seen. Stepping inside the station, a small bedroom sided station at that, we found two old ladies inside doing some weaving or what not n' just gabbing away with each other. Kelly asked the ladies how we could get to Nikko and they gave us, with a smile: "dekimasen" the polite Japanese form of "impossible" ...not the words we were looking for. Especially in a town that had a population of possibly 100 people. There was not lodge of any in this place, nor a restuarant, convenient store...nothing....BUT the ladies did tell us that we could sleep on the floors of the train station if we wanted to....a real possibility at this point. We just stood there for a while, having no idea what to do, sort of staring of into space or watching these women busily do whatever they were doing. Just as I was readying my mind for a night of creaky wooden floors one of the old ladies got up, motioned to Kelly and I, and ran off towards the train tracks. A train was coming! Hallelujah! But, a train to Nikko it was not... This train would get a a few stops closer to the top, but still, no train would go to Nikko til the morning. So not even thinking we got on the train with our bikes in tow and got to the next stop. We weren't really any closer to the top after this train ride, but it did put us in another small town with hopefully some other opportunities. But once again, this town seemed nothing better than the other except it had a small convenient store. We went there, stood around, while the people almost laughed in the shop at our plight. That seems to kind of be that way that Japanese people handle problems...definitely doesn't suit me well, but I've grown accustom to it in the 2 plus years I've been here now. Finally one of the old men in the store said he had a moving truck and would take us up the mountain with our bikes. Fantastic! 10 minutes later the truck came round the corner and we were on our way up to Nikko, just in time as the rain came pouring down. As we pulled up to Nikko I had a strange feeling of accomplishment and defeat swirling around me. We were at the place we wanted to be and had rode our bikes til our bodies gave up, not our minds. The defeat though, no matter the circumstances, still left a bad taste in my mouth...a taste I hope to rid myself of on the Hiroshima trip coming up. The next day Kelly and I dismantled our bikes, fit them in bags, and rode a train back to Chiba. No sightseeing, no hot springs....doing none of the things that make Nikko so famous in Japan. But then again, Nikko to us never was about the place....it was the journey. | | |
| Last week's adventures had me pent up inside my little house in Chiba, Japan. No bike rides into Tokyo, no basketball, no kickboxing, no nothing... I tell you, I hate colds. Especially that one. I mean, its a hot summer outside and I had a cold that made me have to spend time indoors....how messed up is that? Aside from that things are going really well. I have my next small trip lined up in a few weeks to take a 3 day mountain biking trip to Nikko, Japan, a famous buddhist/nature site about 170km from here through winding hills and dirt roads. The first day Kelly and I (he's a co-worker) will wake up at the crack of dawn, strap our luggage to our backs, and hit the roads for what we estimate to be about a 9-10 hour ride. When we get there do some sightseeing, relax in the hot springs, and drink a few beers. Then, on the third day, get back on the bikes and ride back to Chiba... This is all part of the warm-up for the bigger ride come September to Hiroshima. I think after this small trip I'll learn alot about what its really going to take to do that. I've done over a 100km in a day with no problems....but 3 days in a row...7 days in a row.... I'm expecting to once again be in over my head, but I'm prepared. Now, while my life has been relatively uneventful, nature has been wreaking havoc on Japan lately. In this past month, which is rainy season, we have had a typhoon roll in through Tokyo and a 6.8 earthquake rock Niigata, which is 2 hours away. The Typhoon didn't hit us that bad, but it rained for like 3 days straight. The earthquake, though it happened 2 hours from here could be felt pretty good. In Niigata it stalled the trains, killed 10 people, and hit the world's largest nuclear plant ....So if someday I gain the ability to do supernatural things...well, more than I can now that is...u can trace it back to that ;) So, back to my trip to Thailand and Cambodia....where was I again... So we were in Phnom Pehn, the capitol of Cambodia. In Cambodia, we heard that if you got in contact with the "right" people, you could go to an illegal shooting range and fire off old military weapons like rocket/grenade launchers/ AK-47's/Tommy Guns and the like...u could even pay to blow up a cow or chicken for the right price if you'd like. So of course, we went there, checked out the "Arm's menu" as if it was some sort of restaurant, and fired off rounds with the AK, the mother of all automatic weapons. I burnt my hand at the end by grabbing the wrong part of the gun which had an awesome effect on the men running this backwoods illegal operation. They were awesomely quick in helping me clean up my wound. Two other cool things we did in Phnom Pehn were to go to The Killing Fields and the marketplace. The Killing Fields was quite impressionable. Not only do you see hundreds upon hundreds of skulls from the genocide, but since it only happened 30 years ago you see lots of the people around town who were victims of it...people missing eyes, arms, feet....the world I imagine they live in daily is something I could never. It's so cliche to say, but it definitely does put your own life in perspective. As for the marketplace...well, compared to the Killing Fields is like comparing apples and oranges, but none-the-less an awesome experience of hundreds of vendors under a patchwork of a roof made of tarps. Plus, the purchase were my kind of shoppin'! I got 40 premium DVD's for $30, a sweet knock-off wallet, shirts, belts...anything I wanted for dirt cheap prices. Heck, I even had kids fanning me cool with hand fans for a small price...AND I wasn't exploiting them either...its like the homeless washing your car windows...they don't take no for an answer. So after Phnom Pehn, we took a cool 6 hour bus ride (a ride where all of us guys ended up munching on roasted crickets, a Cambodian delicacy & snack...I must say though that I wasn't won over...) to ancient ruins in Siem Riep, home of Angkor Wat...a vast complex of century old temples and ruins that are hard to compare to anything I've ever seen. If you've happened to waste any of your life watching the Tomb Raider movies, you've seen one of the ruins thats featured in that movie. It's a place thats not too well known to most westerners, and I think thats mainly cause it doesn't get much promotion coming out of a 3rd world country like Cambodia, a place most people couldn't pick out on a map...but it is truly a grand place. When you were a kid, remember how you would always rate a place by how cool of a "hide n' go seek" place it would be? Well, I've never been to a place that would have been this cool. I got lost in one of the "Wats", the Cambodian name for "temple" and I was walking around for what must have been an hour looking for people who were looking for me...and we weren't in that large of an area, just a bunch of different walkways... Another interesting thing about Cambodia is that it isn't a too entirely good idea to walk off the beaten path due to the excessive amount of mines that still exist in the country all over the place. They warn not to take a piss in the woods....you might just well get your own "wood" blown off ;) After staying in Siem Riep for about 2 days we took to air and caught ourselves a small commuter flight back to Bangkok, avoiding in the meanwhile the long time it would take to get back to Thailand by road, and doing it for a meer $150. When we got back to Bangkok we didn't waste much time getting down to what we really wanted to do. At the airport we bargained with the drivers and got them to take us to a port a few hours away where we would catch a ferry, taking us to an island called Koh Samet where we would stay for 3 or 4 days and do as close to nothing as anyone wants to do. It was quite an experience, about an equal mix of Thai people and foreigners. The beaches were serene and the food once again fantastic. I could go through all the temples, exotic places, and whatever....but just chillin out for 4 days on an island with friends and with no cares in the world is well, worth more than anything. I have gotta do that more often... So after playing loads of card games, laying on the beach, and riding rented mopeds around...we headed back to the mainland to hangout in Bangkok for a few more days and close out the trip. Up until this point it was an awesome trip, but almost immediately when we got back to Bangkok, Ryan and I started feeling pretty sick....fearing that maybe we had contracted malaria when we were in the heart of what is known as the "malaria belt" that runs through Cambodia. After reading about it though a bit, we felt a little more comfortable that we didn't get that, but more likely just ate some bad food while on the island. So that was basically the end of our trip...$1,500 well spent. I saw two sweet countries, met with the old college buddies, lazed on a beach, and even came back with two tailor made suits and 40 DVD's... Next writing topic: My journey to Nikko, August 8-10...It should be good. Ryno | | |
| So before I get into the remaining story of my Southeast Asia excursion I thought I'd write a little bit about my newest foray... by entrenching myself in the world of kick boxing. ....yeah, thats right, kick boxing. Sounds cooler than it probably is, but it certainly sounds sweet to say you ARE a member of a Japanese Dojo...Now this has nothing to do with going to Thailand where kick boxing is the hottest sport. This has all to do with myself wanting to switch things up again in my life, keep improving on my health, and to just plain get myself knocked senseless. For those of you who have seen the movie Fight Club, I'm hoping in a way that that will be what happens to me. I'd love to teach a lesson with a nice new shiny black eye...there ain't too many things cooler to see in life than a man that educates by day and kicks ass by night. However, I will probably not be near as cool since I'll be the guy who educates by day and gets his ass kicked by night...:) So...think I've gone mad yet at this point? Quite possibly yes, but sanity should never be the judge of a man, in some senses everyone is a few cards short of a full deck, life wouldn't be fun with everyone being completely functional. Remember back to when you were a kid and you were just plain wreckless with your body, doing whatever could give you the coolest story to tell your classmates or give you the most enjoyment? Those same sorts of things that left your kness scabbed up? Well, I haven't had a scab in ages to pick, not too many bloody wounds to clean, nor sprained ankles to attempt to be mobile with. It's time to start something new and yet at the same time its quite a throwback to the days of old...the kid that everyone should have inside of us even if we have hidden it. I'm just trying to recover it now. So anyways, back to the SE Asia story and we'll enter the story where we left off...on the road to Phnom Pehn... So on to capitol of Cambodia we were, Phnom Pehn, the five of us feeling well relaxed after spending about a day and a half in the beaching village of Sihanoukville. We left Sihanoukville at around 2 oclock on a fairly crowded public bus that was to arrive in Phnom Pehn at around 7ish, which concerned me a bit because anytime you are coming into a big city of a third world country after dark, well, you feel like you're taking some chances. Luckily, our nice guy taxi driver in Sihanoukville had a friend up in Phnom Pehn who would meet us at the bus station so we could avoid any real problems... a solution well worth its weight in gold. Coming into Phnom Pehn was more than I could have imagined. I've never in my days seen more people crowded everywhere and into everything than I have in those moments rolling into town. Every car, truck, parking bench, and store was so crowded with people that I couldn't even remotely imagine how things could operate. There were people even hanging on to the tops of the cars and trucks just trying to get a ride like it was a common thing...and I imagine it was...but then again, it is these things that might be a good part of the reason Cambodia is mired in third world status...a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of nothing. While on our bus, the locals outside were already starting to take notice of our white skin and realizing that there were tourists on hand. While the others of or group were happily snapping photos of the town as if it were some sort of zoo, I gave a small prayer. I'm not one to usually to do such a thing but I felt quite compelled to do so at that time. In this third world country with limited or corrupt law enforcement I could only pray that these people had adopted some form of widespread morality. If not, we were dead. Not a joke there. It didn't take too much imagination to realize the many different outcomes that could have played out and my mind was running through them all thinking of things to do. So the bus stops and as I had assumed, loads of Cambodias were jockeying for position to be the first to offer us rides or whatever else. Luckily, and by the grace of God our driver connection was spotted amidst the group of Cambodian guys. As quickly as possible we grabbed our luggage and headed to our drivers car where we whisked us away to one of the finer hotels in the region, a $20 a night hotel with marble floors, high ceilings, and white majestic pillars....AND lacking a fully functional toilet, stable railing, and coffee that didn't taste like fresh armpit sweat. This would be our home for the next few days. Of the entire trip Phnom Pehn was probably the most stimulating of them all. Huge disparities of lifestyles, loads of history concerning the not entirely too distant past of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, the sometimes excellent foods and the sometimes not too excellent foods, and of course, my favorite story of the trip..." The Murder of a Baby Finch"... Now, first I must note that during the span of my lifetime one thing that I haven't been know as having is compassion towards animals. I've done my fair share of bird n' rodent killing during my years spent in Iowa and definite fair share of turtle, snake, and anything else that likes to move killing while in Kansas. But occassionally I will have a fleeting moment of compassion towards the animal kingdom. My dog Barney after all lasted a good and hearty 15 years of life...this was supposed to be one of those moments of compassion for sure...However in life, not all things go as planned and this is my story... So please, try to imagine this situation, because words just don't seem to do it justice...So KG and are are resting on our beds, half watching tv, half dozing off. The other Ryan is cleaning up in the bathroom, trying to become to first to figure out how to operate our less than standard shower. All of us sudden "whoosh!" some small black object comes flyin' through the window and into the bathroom with Ryan since the wall doesn't exactly meet the ceiling, there is about a foot gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling... KG and I both take a second to try and comprehend what we believed our tired eyes had glimpsed. Our thoughts were confirmed when Ryan let out what was half shriek and half laughter... So KG and I went into the bathroom where Ryan had already startled the tiny little bird into the corner behind the toilet making it nearly impossible to quickly grab it. Now, KG isn't fond of most animals, especially from what I gathered in this situation...So the other Ryan decides that hes gunna flush the bird out of the corner with detachable shower hose, hopefully getting it to fly away. He sprayed the thing pretty good, but no...nothing, it just pushed the bird around on the ceremic tiles. We thought it might be sick so I decided to give it a grab with a towel. I wasn't a huge fan of this either but it seemed like unless we wanted to be going to the bathroom with this bird for the next few days we'd have to get something done soon. So after a bit of slow, stealthly movements (to which dear old Mr. Miyagi can eat his heart out to...:)I had the bird firmly in my hand wrapped by the towel. Now...hm...what to do with the bird? Of course, return it from where it came...so we went to the window of our third story hotel room and I put my hands out of the window ready to open them up and have the bird gently fly away, but the bird wasn't doing much struggling within my hand. Would it fly away??? So KG gives me a confident "Yeah, its a bird, of course it'll fly away" mini speech. I considered for a split second, then thought valid and let the bird go...but instead of flying away majestically it just seemed to roll over and out of my hand falling all three stories to the ground like I had dropped a small rock. ...Yeah, we realized afterwards that the water we sprayed onto it might have wet its wings too much to fly... hmm....BIRD KILLERS! OK, done writing for now. bye. | | |
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