My Thailand pics- a preview

Koh-Chang, Thailand

Last pic from Kathmandu

We only spent about 3 days here but overall it was a great place to begin our travels.

I think the Crown prince and princess of Japan visited the Monkey temple.

I got to meet some great Nepalese people and flex my photography skills again.  I learnt some interesting perspectives on Nepali culture and politics.

John fell in love at the Monkey temple. With a monkey named Bobo.

It was just the start.....

To be continued.....

More to come after a message from our sponsor.

While I cook lunch

I present to you another picture of the great and powerful Bravo.

Mr Shaver Michael John likes books, yes.

Reading a book in Thamel.

I like bread

A nice Sunday lunch

Soo good.

My Sunday arvo

Red wine, Soundgarden and chicken butter curry.

Life does not get any better than this.

Fucking delicious!

St Patrick's Day festivities in Seoul

White faces, green garb and beer flooded the stage in 신도림 yesterday for the St paddys day celebrations.

From 12-6 various Irish themed bands played some lively tunes while Foreigners and Koreans drank and made themselves merry.

D-Cube mall in Shin-dorim

The party moved on to Itaewon where I'm guessing more drinking occurred. 

I fell asleep at 10pm after a long day.

Two beers and I'm exhausted.

She's a keeper!

What a nice guy! 

Some beautiful Star Wars poster art.

Clever work.

What I'm looking for in my next true love

The Samsung Galaxy S II won the prize for the best smartphone last year.  It was powerful and fast and ended up selling a lot of units and getting Samsung sued by Crapple for patent infringement.

Korean phones cost more in Korean than they do in America. Fuck that!

But did it leap ahead like the iphone did?  Did it jump a year ahead to really outshine the other Android phone makers?

Nope.

In the end with all its power, performance and Apple hate love it only managed to buy a few months advantage from other phone makers before it was just another standard phone.  Yes, many tech reviewers who bought the phone still praise it (boner alert) against newer models but the trend is familiar.

You buy a phone and 6 seconds later it's out of date.

This phenomena has increased rapidly since smart-phones went mainstream.  My first and current smartphone; the HTC desire, was top of the line 18 months ago with its 512mb of memory and even less in ram power.  But it sold well.  I bought it.  But these days its struggling to boot up and even open gmail.

Since my initial smartphone purchase, phones have increased in speed every few months.  Which means the phone you buy today will be of equal or less power than the newest phone to come out in 3 months.  And at the current rate of smart phone releases that occur that margin is shrinking by the day.

So, what am I on about?

What's the next big leap?

Me thinks.....wait for it........wait.......stay on target.........

Battery life.

Bang! did I blow your mind?

All the current smart-phones out there are the same in power, software and imaging/multimedia crap.  What's holding them back is their short battery life.

Apple's working on a hydrogen fuel cell for phones.  If they succeed then the game is over for the rest.  A phone that can last for days or weeks would kill anything of lesser spec that tries to compete.

Apple are bad mmmm kay?

So the race is on.  The first company to produce a phone with ample, busy battery life may get my money.  I'm tired of buying smart-phones that last 5 minutes.

Even though I hate Apple I have to give them credit if they can pull it off.

Thus endith the lesson.

Puscifer - Drunk With Power

Patience is a Nepali state of mind.

Chicken curry

At most of the small restaurants I ate at they never stored the ingredients for whatever meal I wanted on hand.  So after I ordered my food I would have to wait between 30-50mins for my meal to arrive at my table.

This never bothered me because I enjoyed watching the kitchen staff run in and out to the local chicken shop or food mart and buy one serving of goods, then come back.  They would make just enough for one serving.  And still it only cost me $2-3.  The food was amazing and I enjoyed every single meal and never felt ill.

In in a country with roving power outages and irregular amounts of customers coming in their best bet is to just buy as they go.

It reminds me of how I cook at home.  Ok, I'm going make spaghetti.  Shit, I'm out of pasta.  Go out, buy some, come back. F**K I'm out of sauce. Repeat actions. 

Late night at the Thamel Brasserie

The most annoying sound in the world!

If I ever date a woman who does this, please kill me.

Street walking: Kathmandu, Nepal

Thamel is where most travelers stay so there are many shops selling everything.

The streets are a mixture of tailor, hiking, souvenir and restaurants. 

John enjoyed walking around the various bookstores in Thamel but most were filled with the exact same books and postcards as the last.

Living in Korea I take for granted instant movie downloads but in the rest of the world, people still buy pirated DVD's

Even in Nepal, mobile phones are big business.  So is getting your iphone or blackberry hacked.

There are dozens of shops selling North Face products for dirt cheap prices.  I wonder how many are legit?

Bikes and building line the streets.  Buildings appear taller than wider here.

You can see various foods being sold as you walk along the dirt road.  I Nepalese version of a fruit shop?

Kids are kids in any country and a broken brick net stands in for the real thing.

"You want rickshaw?" Asked at least 1,000,000 times.

Just outside the main traffic areas.  The city slowly devolves into dirt roads and scrub.

Kathmandu's garbage.

Butthole Surfers - Pepper

Momma Sed

A spiritual place to rest.

Sleeping dog at the Monkey Temple. Kathmandu, Nepal

At the Monkey Temple + wine thoughts.

Hidden at the back of the Monkey temple.

I drank two bottles of wine tonight and decided to thoroughly clean my kitchen.

I never really got crazy drunk during my travels.  I had a few beers. Got tipsy while Bravo looked on with disapproving eyes, but I never got legless.

Maybe its due to travel stamina.  Maybe an inside part of me stopped me from going overboard.

I remember being invited by a bunch of Kathmandu traveler 'smokers' to join them at an after party.  While apart of  me wanted to I also thought, I could do this shit back home and I I wanted to get up early and see shit.

I got the vibe those people were doing it more for the coolness factor than hanging out and meeting new people and chatting. Picture 3 week old dreadlocks and hipster pants) I felt it was plastic.  Was I to judgmental?

So I went back to my guest house and slipped into bed while Bravo read his book.  In the bed across from me.

JUST TO CLARIFY.

Nepal Portraits

The owner of a small restaurant who treated me as a friend. 

Downtown Kathmandu

A young man watching me shoot.  Downtown Kathmandu

The lonely traveler.  

I want this for dinner.

Nepali Chicken Curry

Bravo ate this for his brunch on our second day in Nepal.  He said it tasted as good as it looked.

I regretted just ordering a tea.

Can't wait to start work again

I've been watching way too much of this show.