In Training

Even though I finished the L.A. Rock n' Roll Half Marathon last Sunday, I'm still in training.

It's a different kind of training. Travel Training, if you will. I have three weeks until I depart for Tokyo, and then Hong Kong. Three weeks to get my body, soul and stomach ready for everything Japanese and Cantonese.

Here's what a Travel Training regimen looks like:

- Walk more, run less.
- Journal more, so by the time I'm abroad, reaching for the pen and paper become second nature.
- Practice the discipline of slowing. I am a huge fan of slow travel, where you not rushing from landmark to landmark, but rather you're immersed in place, capturing as much with your eyes and ears as possible.
- Practice conversation skills. Simple things like listening more, or asking more questions. So that when you're with the locals, interaction is less awkward.
- Refraining from sushi and dim sum, so that I can experience it in their native lands.
- Learning simple phrases in Japanese and Cantonese (Haven't really done this yet)

That's just a small list. Surely to keep me occupied until I leave.

How do you "train" for an upcoming trip? Do you train at all? Leave a comment to answer.

The Worst Flight of My Life

*On an infinitely more pleasant flight to Athens*

I don't write about airlines much. I have nothing to say about them. Some people have horror stories about their flights. I count it all as part of the territory. Or I have a high threshold for annoyance.

This is how I felt before boarding the worst flight of my life.

It was only two hours long, from PDX to LAX, on an airline that's named after a state and rhymes with "Dalaska". Karen and I sat toward the back of the cabin. Taking up the five rows in front of us were members of a girls soccer team. I sat down, like most passengers, not thinking much of anything. I just wanted to go home. Other passengers were on their mobile phones. Some were listening to their iPods. A flash bulb went off. Then another. And another. The girls, out of boredom or sheer excitement, decided that now was an excellent opportunity for photos.

As the plane took off, every girl raised their arms and shrieked to the heavens. After all, riding an airplane is like Space Mountain. More flash bulbs went off. More cackling from the girls. A Goldfish cracker from two rows up flew through the air and landed on my shoulder. Karen turned to me and said, "Where the hell are the chaperones?" I shrugged my shoulders, contemplated eating the cracker, then brushed it aside.

A candy bar fell at Karen's feet with a thud. And then it was on.

"You shouldn't throw things on the plane. It's DANGEROUS." K was ready to throw down. I wouldn't have put it past her to jump out of her seat, grab each girl by the collars of their soccer shirts and tell them how to freaking behave on an airplane. I touched Karen on the shoulder in an attempt to placate her, she flashed me a look that made me want to apologize for my bad behavior.

A lady woman with the girls stood up and walked to back of the cabin. She might have been a chaperone, or a big fan of the girls soccer team. We told her that the girls have a problem holding on to their food. She turned to them and said, "You should stop, you're making the other passengers mad." Whatever works, I guess. Good job, chaperone.

With one hour to go on the flight, the girls stopped chucking their crackers, but that didn't stop the girls from taking more pictures (with flash), yucking it up, throwing their hands in the air began its descent. My face grew whiter with each passing minute. Karen's face grew redder. We bolted out of the gate to our car, trying to drop the memories of this flight like the girls dropped their candy bars.

Karen wrote a formal complaint to Dalaska airlines. She received a $50 credit for her next flight, but really, do they think we'll fly them again?

A question: Where were the flight attendants? Shouldn't they have stepped in when the flash bulbs started popping, one after the other? At least a polite admonishment that there were other passengers on that flight that maaaaaybe wanted some peace and quiet.

More questions: Did the other passengers notice the shenanigans that Karen and I noticed? Did they have a HIGHER tolerance for annoyance than I did? Did they just not care?

It was only two hours long, but that flight from PDX to LAX was the worst flight of my life. It wasn't solely because the girls soccer team acted like self-centered brats. The lack of control of the chaperones, the apathy of the flight attendants, and the lack of concern from the other passengers all contributed.

Have you, Faithful Traveler, been on an equally horrific flight? Please share. I feel your pain.

The People Up

I wanted to share a quote I heard on NPR a while back.

David Simon, creator of The Wire and now Treme, said this about travel:

Well, you know, there's two ways of being a tourist. The first way is you get on the tour bus and the guide grabs the microphone and you drive down the streets that everyone has driven down before. And he tells you, you know, when this church was built and then you go in for 15 minutes and you come out again. And you go to the next country.

And then there's the other, which is when you go somewhere for a while and you dont have a tour guide, and you walk into the nearest bar or shebeen and you just be. And you start figuring out a place from the people up.

Mr. Simon hits it on the nose. How fulfilling is it when you can get your hands dirty and be one with the locals!

There was the time my friends and I were walking down the streets of Cairo to our hotel, when some guys asked us to join them for tea. Or the time I tried to get a pot-laden cake from a coffeehouse in Amsterdam. Or the time I was approached by a tuk-tuk driver in Chiang Mai, asking if I wanted a lady. All these times involved interacting, breaking out of the "tourist bubble" I'm used to putting up abroad.

As I get ready for Tokyo and Hong Kong, I ask myself how can I travel from the people up? And for you, Faithful Traveler, what would that look like for you?

Stories

I've become more interested in the narratives of travel. The stories that I take back home, put to paper (or screen), and share with all of you. Like the time I got a foot massage in KL. I love that story.

Stories are what I strive for. They're everywhere. They're in first time you set foot on the London Underground. The first bite into a Parisian crepe. The moment you reach the top of Dead Woman's Pass. In all these moments, the story lies in two questions: "How did you feel?" and "What did you think?" The stories fall from there.

I'm not a master storyteller by any means. I like a good story, and I know a good one when I see one. I like to devote some blog space to craft of storytelling. What makes a good story? What makes a good travel story? Perhaps that will be a post to come soon...

The Next Trip...

The flights have been booked! I'll be traveling to Japan and Hong Kong (by way of Korean Air) this November.

A lot of firsts this trip around; First Thanksgiving abroad, first Birthday abroad, first international trip with K. No mancations this time.

My feelings are mostly excitement, but I'm a little nervous. K and I have only traveled to Portland together, and while it was a blast, I found it hard to account for one other person. It used to be that if I could get away from people, have some alone time, it wasn't a problem.

I'm sure K would give me alone time if I made it known at the outset. But it's not like I can just walk away from her any time I want. I know this. It takes getting used to.

I'm nervous because there's the fear that we may not be travel compatible. Will that be a problem in our relationship? We'll soon find out...

Grounded

In the past four months, I've taken two flights. Both to Oakland. That barely qualifies as a flight. You take off, you order a ginger ale, you have thirty seconds to finish it, you land.

As my flight began its descent into LAX, the old feelings returned. The wanderlust, you can call it. The desire to get the heck out of wherever you may be. Man, I miss it.

I'm not complaining. You have to know what it feels like to be grounded, to fully appreciate what it means to fly. And I can't wait to fly.

Attack of the Habibis

I won't go into the Pyramids much. I saw them. I took pictures. I stared at them for what seemed like an hour, unable to fathom that after nearly 4,000 years(!), these tombs are still here. They are true wonders of the world. See them before you die.

What I really want to talk about are the habibis.

Habibi is an arabic term that means something like darling, or if you're so inclined, hottie. This was told to us by Osama, our tour bus driver. As Osama was taking our pictures in front of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, he turned and pointed to a fleet of jumbo tour buses. "Habibi!" He hollered.

On cue, they came forth. Dressed in halter tops, tube tops, short and tight tops. Cleavage out in full force. Hip-hugging hot pants and short shorts, some in denim, some in spandex, revealing legs of all shapes and colors. Habibis, no doubt Western, with their S.O.'s hiding behind behemoth DSLRs, streaming from luxury coaches. While their boyfriends and husbands clicking away, they posed in front of the Pyramids like Vogue models.


*J, center. Habibi, right.*

I was in shock. If anyone does some research before visiting Egypt, when reading about how to dress, they'll come across words such as "modest", "respectful" and "for the love of God, cover your skin". Either the habibis totally disregarded what their Lonely Planet guidebook told them, or they just didn't know.

I thought about the habibis as I rode my tour bus back to downtown Cairo. How would the locals view these women? Would they leer and catcall? Would they feel disrespected and think all Westerners as ignorant and disrespectful?

Or would they even see these habibis at all? Will these tourists go back in their buses, go straight to their five-star hotels or private resort, and not once step foot on the streets of Cairo?

It turns out, most of the habibis were head to the same place M, J and I were going; On a little cruise down the Nile River...