In fact, I’m definitely looking for a distraction. I’ve checked Facebook probably 50 times today. Yup.

I’m a touch lonely these days. After a fantastic two weeks in New York with some of my best friends, Seattle feels a little less like home. I can’t cut loose the same way I can with my Australian friends. I can’t open up. The one person I did open up to got sick of listening to me whine. The one person I want to open up to now is pretty unreliable. The people that are close to me in Seattle are a little too close for the more sensitive matters I wish I could talk about. Perhaps I’ve fallen into bad habits, throwing up barriers again.

So I turn to you, old blog-o-blog.

New York was amazing. Just everything I needed and not for a second did I feel out of place amongst this group. In Japan, I felt like a bit of a third wheel and frustrations bubbled constantly. New York was like being in a big, loud, stinky resort. I forgot all about Seattle.

Vegas was a rollercoaster. Fun in a lot of ways but also brought out a lot of anxiety in trying to get things organized. There was a lot of time feeling awkward at night clubs¹, leading to a lot of frustration at being single and lonely. There was also a bit of jealousy. Overall, it was insane and a necessary weekend experience but not one I’m keen to repeat.

Now that I’m back in Seattle, I’m running through the list of things I could do to get myself out of this rut. To actually play the field and be single rather than stay up late watching Family Guy. I’m fighting an uphill battle in the self-confidence department. I know I’ve got to fake it until I make it but I’m not internalizing the confidence, it’s a thin mask of bravado that starts to fall apart after wearing it for a few hours.

Virgin Blue’s check-in counter at Melbourne Airport is ridiculously understaffed today. Two open counters for a line of maybe 30 people for bag drop-off. Three open counters for a line of 100 for full check-in. Full service check in is reserved for two types of travelers: those that are too stupid to use the self check-in kiosks and those that booked connecting international flights are are not allowed to use the kiosks.

As an aside, it’s this frustration that leads me to think they should invent a new class of ticket: Help Me. First, Business, Economy and Help Me. These special tickets demand that you arrive at the airport 5 hours before departure and you wait in a long line but at the end, there is a human being that walks you through everything. They print out your boarding pass and give you a special wallet filled with instructions that you wear around your neck. They walk you to a special security line that is filled with other Help Me members and instead of passing through one metal detector, they pass through a gauntlet of three, each time given the opportunity to further empty their pockets. Because it is very hard to understand that shit like $15 in pocket change, oversize belt buckles and gaudy necklaces are all metal. Then there is a human at the other end that walks them to their gate and sits their ass down.

Anyway, I finally make it to a check-in counter and we dance the dance that is expected of us. Passport, itinerary, here is your pass, here is your luggage tag, your luggage is going here, you will need papers here, have a nice day. Alas, our dance is interrupted by a petite Vietnamese girl that bubbles up to me with an adorably thick Australian accent. You see, her father speaks very little English and he’s going to have a hard time transferring to his international flight. I’m on the same flight so it would be great if I could help out. Despite all the paranoid ramblings from my mother about the dangers of doing favours for anyone at an airport and the fact that she is standing right beside me sizing up this girl, I just nod. “Not a problem!” I bubble back at her. God damn it.

I see them again at the gate. She thanks me again and her father gives me that mixed look of gratitude and apology; a look that I’ve worn on more than one occasion. Only now am I realizing that a) we don’t have much time to transfer b) he’s got a foreign passport and c) he probably isn’t able to answer any questions about immigration or customs. Too late, we’re up in the air and on our way to Brisbane.

Off the plane and the first step is getting to the Transfer Desk to get boarding passes for the Brisbane to Los Angeles flight. It’s quite a long walk and this guy is overweight and overdressed for the hot Brisbane summer. He’s wearing a jacket and an old backpack and he’s dragging around a large shopping bag and a suit bag. The corollary to old people being slow at airports is that they carry far too much stuff with them.

After a long hike to the transfer desk, I get my new boarding pass and an Express Card that lets me take the faster lines. The lady said it was because there’s only 90 minutes before scheduled arrival but I get the feeling it’s because I’m good looking. The old man gets to the counter and I hang back. I’m ok with leading him around but I’m not comfortable with speaking on his behalf. He fumbles through the exchange and then the lady tells him to stand aside and wait for assistance. Turns out, they can’t read his passport and somebody needs to walk him to the better-equipped International Terminal. So, off we go.

Leave the secure area, exit the domestic check-in area, walk outside, climb up the escalator, board the train, wait for 10 minutes, exit the train, give the Virgin Blue transfer ticket to the train guy, go up another escalator and here we are at the international check-in desk. I send him into line and I wait nervously; there’s 20 minutes until boarding begins.

Eliza and Kelly, the girls at the V-Australia Transfer Desk and my personal guardian angels, appear out of nowhere and swoop into the line. They pull the confused old man to the front and walk him to the next available counter. They walk past me and give me a few gentle reassurances. I am once again thankful for my good looks and also grateful for the old man’s charming ability to act like an adorable pet that’s lost its owner.

Thankfully, we were now out of the weeds. Passport control was a breeze; they just let him through after realizing he spoke no English. There was an extremely long walk to Gate 75 and a long line for a final series of carry-on inspections and humiliating pat-downs and shoe inspections. Finally we were at our gate and boarding was delayed anyway due to a late connecting flight from Auckland. I pointed at the gate and told him this is it and he told me he never would have made it on his own.

I was happy that I stuck to it and helped out but I was drained from all this. I didn’t see him after we parted ways at the gate. I hope he made it to whatever crazy connecting flights he had from LA.

Despite several nitpicks about the lifestyle there—driving at least 10 miles for anything, the amount of resources needed to turn desert into suburbia, sleeping at night under the constant threat of El Cupacabra—I think it’s a great part of the world (and her parent’s house is so huge that I can raise my pulse just by walking to my bedroom).

I did not ride the teacups because I did not feel like a beautiful princess that day.

I spent the Friday at Disneyland being shown around by my Disneyland veteran of a girlfriend. I expected a shitty theme park. When I was in Tokyo and someone suggested Disneyland, I rolled my eyes and laughed in the face of their childish hope and naiveté. But it turns out there’s a reason why Disney makes the big bucks: their theme parks are actually good. Plenty of chances to get cool, actual restaurants with table service, food that hasn’t been deep fried, rides that are sufficiently scary without being vomit-inducing, the exact right amount of kitsch… I could go on but, suffice to say, they run a pretty tight operation over there.

The crowning glory is, of course, the FastPass system. You walk over to a more popular ride and print out a receipt. This tells you that you can come back in a few hours and have virtually zero wait to get on a ride. This guarantees that you’ll get on at least one of the popular rides during your visit and you’ll spend a few hours milling around and spending money on other things. This is good if you, like me, hate queuing for hours with noisy children.

At this point in my blog post, I realize I’m a 24-year-old man extolling the virtues of a theme park owned and operated by the Walt Disney Corporation but the hell with it. This place specializes in making sure that adults and older kids can have fun whilst the children indulge their cartoon fantasies. They’ve struck a great balance to ensure that everyone can have a good day out. (Also, they make the perfect chili dog: it captures that coke-in-glass-bottles, 50′s diner, food-in-a-basket kind of nostalgia and tastes great.)

While I’d love to say this sums up our entire vacation, time on the sun and beach accounted for roughly 5% of our time in Australia. The rest of the time was grey with suburbs and cities.

I found out recently, though, that air travel can indeed be more humiliating thanks to those talented folks at Qantas.

First our flight was delayed by two hours and instead of giving a worthwhile explanation, they just waved two food vouchers in my face. Instead of $30, I would have preferred if someone just told me why it was delayed, could it be delayed further, what still needs to be done and how I need to adjust my travel plans. My first reaction to flight delays is not “Damn! I am outraged and hungry!”

Second is when I tried to ask a Qantas gate staffer about what to do with our connecting flight. Our gate was a weird one where you board on a lower level but you cannot access that lower level until boarding begins. Hence, there is a knowledgeable employee at the boarding gate but they are on a level you cannot reach. Upstairs, there is a rudimentary table with some phones where a customer service person could theoretically make themselves available but I felt incredibly stupid after two minutes of standing at an empty desk waiting for someone to acknowledge me.

When someone did walk by, she was terse and told me that all this could be handled once we were allowed downstairs. Then boarding began and we were all rushed on to the plane because the flight was delayed 2.5 hours now and Qantas was probably dreading the kinds of customer bribes they’d need to pay if further delays occurred.

So I crawled to my tiny seat and started to sleep some of the worst sleep in my life; waking occasionally to poke at my sudoku puzzle or eat a hearty meal of badly cooked beef (they were all out of the chicken, this is what happens when one meal choice is in everyway superior to the other). This was all standard air travel crap that everyone endures but then at some point, the entertainment system started shutting down and hot chocolate was spilled on to my arm whilst I was asleep.

The hot liquid hit my arm and I awoke startled but dazed. I wasn’t immediately aware of my situation and thought some idiot had just bumped my seat while waddling down the narrow aisles. It wasn’t until I fully awoke minutes later that I realized there were several brown liquid stains on my arm that smelt like chocolate. I sat there humiliated that I had been attacked by some stranger’s clumsiness and I had no recourse. Also, there were no movies to watch so there was nothing to do but reflect on how much everything sucked.

What felt like fifteen minutes later, a flight attendant approached me and apologized for the stains on my hoodie, supposedly caused by a crew member that decided it’s ok to run along the aisles of a 747 with hot liquid in hand. Before I could say anything, she was telling me that she’d bargained with her manager for $50 worth of duty free merchandise. Despite more bribery, I did feel a little better that the crew did finally own up to a mistake, though it was not the person that actually caused the mistake.

I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the duty-free shopping onboard a plane but as I flipped through the products, I realized that $50 is a goddamn insult. It’s really only luxury products that attract duty so giving me $50 to spend is like giving someone 50¢ to go shop at the dollar store.

I begrudgingly picked out some stupid $50 shower radio thing that I knew would suck. I pressed the Call button and… nothing happened. Evidently, the button to call an attendant is part of the entertainment system. After more reflection on how stupid this all was, I got out of my seat, walked over to the galley and asked the lady there to ring up my duty free. She was about to tell me to sit down and wait to receive my voucher first (the voucher system is also part of the entertainment system) when the manager stopped by and confirmed that yes, they did pour hot shit on my arm and I deserve a goddamn shower radio for my troubles. As I left the galley with the lame-ass prize in my hand and the most hollow feeling I’ve felt since being bullied in the first grade, the manager patted me on the shoulder and said, “Enjoy that, buddy!”

No.

Suitable phrases would have been, “Again, we’re sorry”, “Enjoy the rest of the flight” or “I use that shower radio and it is awesome!” However, I am not your “buddy” and you don’t get to talk to me like some child that stopped crying when you handed him an ice cream cone. I don’t know what kind of fucked-up situations you’ve encountered in your lives that have so strongly blurred the lines between bribery and apology but there were some genuine mistakes that you could have turned into positive experiences.

At the end of the day, I bear no grudge. This kind of shit happens and I don’t really care to hold on to these feelings for the rest of my life; I don’t want to be that cranky old coot that refuses to fly with Qantas because twenty years ago, he got bad service. I just want staff to appreciate that customers will find air travel terrifying, threatening, exhausting, frustrating and just plain bureaucratic. It wouldn’t kill you to actually have a dialog with passengers sometimes.

P.S. The shower radio is fucking awful. Do not ever buy it.

I drove us to Leavenworth on Saturday; a two hour drive east through the mountains. We cruised through misting fields and tree-lined mountain roads, glowing with the swell of orange and crimson foliage. Everyone in the car was asleep but me and I had a sense of feeling very grown up. I had finally matured into an adult and here we were doing very adult things.

Then the fuel light came on.

It had been about fifteen minutes since we passed the last gas station and it was unknown how far away the next gas station was. I knew we had about 50 miles to our destination and there were some small towns that preceded it. A voice from deep in my gut told me to keep driving forward. You’ve got this.

I was worried but I remember the lessons taught to me by my friend Studds. He and his older sister use to share a Toyota Corolla and each would try to avoid paying for fuel and stretch the car to the limits of its fuel tank. If there’s one thing I learned, it is that car manufacturers are very conservative with the fuel light and where they put the ‘E’ on the gauge. But as we headed higher into the mountains towards the Stevens Pass Resort, I grew more anxious.

Let’s just say eventually everyone woke up and we all panicked. But we rallied and my girlfriend asked some of the locals and we continued on. Easily making it with enough gas to the next Shell station that was charging 10c more per gallon than anyone else.

Important things I’ve learned as a result:

• Fuel light turns on when I have 1.8 gallons remaining in my Jetta
• There is a significant downhill section after you pass the Stevens Pass Resort on State Highway 2
• AT&T gets no reception in this part of the Cascade Range but Verizon does
• My girlfriend is awesome

We were hella tired. Second day of our vacation and we had stupidly believed we could make it into Mama’s for brunch if we woke up early enough. We woke up late, we ate elsewhere and now we were full of breakfast eggs and in a walking food coma.

On our way from Chrissy Field to Haight-Ashbury, we drove down Divisidero and I immediately noticed the iconic San Francisco homes. In particular, I couldn’t help but remember Ingrid Michaelson searching for the Full House house and Wikipedia soon told me that we were only about a mile away from the house they feature on the intro credits.

The photo on the right is Full House by creanium.

Mind you, I checked on YouTube after I got back and they show the front of the house for less than a second.

From what little I saw of San Francisco, it was a great city. There was something very grounding about walking around Chinatown on a Saturday morning and seeing all the old people shuffle about the markets, clutching their pink shopping bags. It wouldn’t be a bad way to live out my golden years.

We also saw quite a bit of Berkeley but there’s not too much to say about it except that it’s obviously a very youthful place and I was pleasantly surprised by the good food. Not a tourist destination, but really just a stroll down memory lane for her.

Off the top of my head, here are some that I love:

• Nouvelle Vague – Blue Monday (originally New Order)¹
• Amy Millan (of Stars) – I Will Follow You Into The Dark (originally Death Cab For Cutie)
• The Vines – Ms. Jackson (originally Outkast)
• Obadiah Parker – Hey Ya (originally Outkast)
• Ben Folds – Tiny Dancer (originally Elton John)
• Damien Rice – Creep (originally Radiohead)
• Iron and Wine – Such Great Heights (originally The Postal Service)
• Julia Nunes – Alive With The Glory of Love (originally Say Anything)²
• Ted Leo – Since U Been Gone (originally Kelly Clarkson)

I’m sure there are more out there. Don’t be afraid to throw some of your favorites in the comments section.

Bay Area

I am going to be down in San Francisco and Berkeley for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Since I’ve never been there, I’m relying on you guys to give me last minute places to visit. Sightseeing is the big one but restaurants and bars would also be very much appreciated.

First night: Huge Japanese dinner

Diana’s father took us out to Fuji-san, a Japanese restaurant he likes to haunt. For about US$35 per person, they give you three or four courses of Japanese food. I can’t remember it all but I recall that the salmon was out of this world. There was like a fried fish that was very tasty and the tempura was fluffy and perfect. Eating whole fish always makes me wonder why Americans are so afraid of anything that isn’t a fillet. There are so many other tasty parts of the fish if you’re willing to deal with some bones. It’s like only eating chicken breast, blech.

Spicy pot of seafood in Insadong

This soup was just on the edge of spiciness. Drinking the soup would cause a little bit of discomfort but the seafood and vegetables inside were flavored beautifully. Diana had to double check if I could deal with the spice but I think she got sick of it before I did. You know you are eating well when you break out a sweat, I imagine runner’s high must feel like this.

You can also see some of the little side dishes that Koreans enjoy with their meal. It sure beats a basket of breadsticks. You’ll also note the metal chopsticks that Koreans prefer. It makes a lot of sense in terms of hygiene and heat resistance but they are harder to hold as they are slimmer and heavier.

Street food outside Yonsei University, Shinchon

Street vendors in Shinchon have it pretty cushy. They set up these tables and tents and invite people to sit down similar to a lot of noodle/ramen shops. A lot of the street food I saw centered around fish cake. Or maybe I should call it fish paste. Whatever, it’s fish meat mixed with filler and herbs and stuff. There’s also like a spicy broth with chewy hunks of rice cake in it, it’s almost like pasta. I wish I knew the names to these things.

Marinated beef short rib, cooked at the table

South Korea is currently undergoing a big thing about beef right now. A lot of people are upset about allowing US beef imports and it’s more about politics than it is about public health so I think I’ll just leave it at that.

This is neither here nor there because most beef you will find is Australian or Korean. Tastes fantastic to eat it straight off the grill, not to mention being utterly immersed in the smell. They provided lettuce and sesame leaves so we could make little wraps. Not pictured was our second course of buckwheat noodles submerged in an icy broth. We poured some mustard and soy sauce over the top and slurped it up.

A Twosome Place, Shinchon

A Twosome Place is a Starbucks-style chain in Korea. Starbucks and many other clones can be found all over Asia. What stood out for me was that coffee is a little pricey here. Where most food can be found for cheaper than what it is in America, Starbucks-style drinks will cost you a little more. Perhaps there is some sort of tax involved in pretending you are a Westerner. Much like how Westerners are asked to pay exorbitant prices for anything that feels remotely foreign.

Korean-style shabu shabu

More cooking at the table and communal food-sharing. This meal was a delicacy to me. Basically we cook all our beef in the spicy broth. Once the beef was all gone, we add more broth and cook some udon and more vegetables. In the third and final stage, we pour out the excess broth and cook fried rice in the pot, scraping off anything that’s stuck to the bottom of the pot. This was just too much fun for me and I could barely contain myself. Also, there was beer.

A French cafe in Itaewon

If you get tired of Korean food or just get homesick, there are plenty of McDonald’s and Pizza Huts around. Failing that, you can head to Itaewon where all the foreigners are. I’m doubtful as to exactly how French this cafe was but the menu was in French and Korean so I was very happy to remember some of the French I learned. I saw a lot of other cuisines represented in this part of town: Italian, Japanese, Iranian, British, American, etc.

Business Class on Asiana Airlines

Thanks to the miracle of overbooking and the unattractive pricing of airplane seats, we got upgraded on our Seoul to Hong Kong leg. Three courses of ok-ish food, decent wine and my favorite photo of Diana double-fisting two full-bodied dessert wines. This was followed by lots of jokes about pretty flight attendants and double-fisting. We put the “class” in “business class”.

Seafood dinner in Hong Kong

I forgot the name of this district but there’s a big seafood market where you order your live seafood and then sit down in the restaurant next door to have it prepared. The smell of old fish everywhere did wear on my appetite but I can’t blame them because it was a stinking hot day.

I loved the pissing shrimp, scallops, crayfish and clams but I question the crab cooked in egg and the too-chewy sea snail thingies. Crab and egg is not a combination I would encourage and the texture of the snails was a bit too real for me to deal with. I’m not saying there’s a Right Way to cook these things but it did not appeal to my personal tastes.

Our last meal in Hong Kong

Amy took us to one of her favorite Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong’s Times Square. While the interior was very lovely, the food didn’t quite compare to the Japanese dinner we ate in Seoul. I ate it all though and I loved their skewers and shrimp salad.

Our final meal in Seoul :(

A simple and hearty way to bid farewell to Korea. Chicken, vegetables, rice cake thingies and the omni-present red pepper paste all cooked at the table. Sides of a cold seaweed soup, kimchi and pasta salad.

In conclusion, while I learned none of the Korean language (except the ubiquitous -sseyo and -hamnida endings to sentences), I feel like my taste buds learned a lot. While there’s certainly many more volumes to study, it’s opened my eyes to another distinct style of Asian flavors. Korean cuisine is something I’ve been completely ignorant to for the longest time and it’s a very, very good way of being introduced to the country. Now that I’ve left, I feel a new nostalgia in the pit of my stomach. A yearning for those happy days of cooking at the table, eating to excess and working up a good sweat.

Basic run down of the days:

1. Arrived, ate huge Japanese dinner and fell asleep
2. Big palace, market, Jackie Chan, Seoul Tower
3. DMZ Tour
4. Temple, shopping, soju, karaoke
5. 63 Building, Aquarium, walk in the park, shabu shabu
6. On my own in Itaewon, Seoul Tower again, buffet at the Grand Hilton
7. Shopping, upgraded to business class, fly to Hong Kong
8. Ocean Park, panda exhibit, more aquariums, seafood dinner
9. Dim sum, Big Buddha, “Times Square”, midnight flight to Seoul
10. Tired as hell, cute cafe with fortune teller, say goodbye, fly back to Seattle

I want to write a big blog post about the food alone. Diana and her father were so amazing and took me to the most splendid restaurants imaginable. It is for this reason that I will feel very sad every time I see a Korean restaurant in America.