Cambodia.

Done dating.  Besides, when's the last time you saw a beauty queen with a humanitarian? I think it shows the undertones of real society. But my feelings right now are a whole different post.  Since I can't find my girl I'm going to do something else to make me happy.  Build orphanages. My buddies and I are starting in Pursat, Cambodia.  Accessible only by motorbike. Yee haw.

The scooter we loaded up at the market.

Where 40 children live.

Their "fresh" water supply.

Open Road Cambodia

Instead of haggling over prices to travel shoe-string style, I find it much more fun to just pay what they need, and then a little more, and then buy something else for a stranger. I think it's funny to see people haggling over what ends up being $0.25 .  An extra few dollars can bring a lot of smiles.

A van loaded to the brim with tied up chickens. 

This is where we got gas. ha ha.

Taking pictures of Jonny in the sunset light of Pursat.

They were having an ice fight. Check out how they saw it.

The girl in the white spoke to me in broken English. I was surprised.

The landscape took my breath away.

3 stooges.

We randomly came across this sweat shop in the middle of nowhere. The road was blocked by police to let them all out. We came just at the shift change. 1,000's of people.

The open road so far...

Aleppo, Syria.

As the snowflakes were falling I remember, I felt like I was home. The home you can find anywhere if only you open your heart to it. We step away from it often, but then suddenly, like déjà vu something will remind us, a faint smell in the air, a reflection off a wet street, a look in somone's eye. It is a home sometimes real, sometimes one we imagine to be, and possibly one that the powers above have left in us to remind us of something we can only faintly remember.  I had known the feeling before... even on the other side of the world away from all my close friends and family, I was home.

Only one month before I had been frolicking in the sand dunes of Siwa and then, there I was in Syria, 20 miles from the Turkish border in a city that looks like a Prague with Minarets. It was beautiful. It was cold. It was Christmas. It was not what the middle east was supposed to feel like. Outside the city of 4 million people was a desert. On the inside, a warm glow from the windows of shops and Christmas lights... There were Kebabs grilling, street venders hawking and bartering and women wearing Hijabs. They smiled as they walked by and I thought it funny I could see the breath coming out of the Muslim women's mouths.  I had spent so much time in the scorching 110 degree musky heat of Egypt watching donkey carts full of blindfolded chickens go by that I wasn't prepared for this sudden cold mixed with inner peace as I walked past beautifully polished cars on this Syrian street.  In the distance I could hear the familiar call to prayer which started from a loud speaker hanging from a Minaret, whose sound would echo through the streets until it hit each ear at different times. I closed my eyes and breathed in. The pinch of cold in my nose felt so good. I could have been on a ski lift about to race moguls, or riding a horse next to Grandpa elk hunting in the dark at 5am. But there I was in Syria, a place officially at war with Israel, a place where Al Qaida and Hezbollah train. From where I stood I could see a huge medieval crusaders castle. Aleppo had been a stronghold for Christians and soldiers during the crusades.  The fortress appeared impenetrable with motes and drawbridges and if I remember the tour guide correctly it was never taken by force.


Maybe the feeling within me came from the fact that Aleppo is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It has had a continuous population for over 4,000 years. It lies only a few hundred miles from Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.  When walking through the valley of the kings, you realize that these massive monuments were built so long ago... but they were abandoned to be half covered in sand with only millennia of goat herders and adventurers to glimpse upon them.  Aleppo's people were there all along.

I walked past a store that looked particularly warm and inviting, my sweet tooth probably swayed me quite a bit.  I could see the chocolate in the window and knew I had to go in and have a taste.
Egyptian Arabic, and even the standard 'Fosha' are quite different from Syrian. Having a conversation with people was a bit like my current adventure of speaking to people in Mandarin and they answer me back in Cantonese.  A bit funny, some full body acting and mutually intelligible words and you can get the meaning across.
The chocolate store was cozy and it smelled just the way I know my heaven will smell. The name of the store was Patchi. I had never heard of it before, but I have since become very fond of it and watched it grow throughout the world. I've been to Patchi in Dubai and even Hong Kong and Macau. This Aleppo store was though one of the very first.  The ladies inside were so kind and even excited as my friend and I talked to them about their beautiful city.  Who knew complimenting someone's city would end up in so much free chocolate.

This post is not finished.  晚安。

Going public with the blog.

Since I started writing on this some... 4 or so years ago?... I have only let a few of my friends read my blog. Now I'm going public. Yikes!  I had originally made it public, but my Aunt stumbled upon it and showed it to my mother.  I don't particularly have any secrets to withhold from my family. But then I found out my mother just about had a nervous breakdown having read just a few of the entries of the crazy things I experience galloping around the world. I had made it private for her "safety" and piece of mind. Hopefully I've warmed her up enough that if she does ever find this again she'll be able to handle it and maybe smile knowing life makes me happy, the good and the bad, and I learn from each of my experiences, successes and failures, relationships and friendships.

Strange, but sweet dream.

Last night I dreamt that I was on a date with Christy at some church event with lots of tables decorated wedding style. Lori's mom was there and she was so sweet and excited that I was around and that Christy and I were dating. Funny. All the girls I ever loved... married with kids. As they say in Chinese.... "aiyo"!!!

That one sexy picture...

I've seen our picture published at least 5 times. Here is the latest edition. ha ha, makes me laugh.

Here's the link.   http://www.askmen.com/dating/love_tip_200/219_love_tip.html

Quotes of August 2010

Here is the quote of the day.

It is said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

I like that.

Macau Fitness and Chinese numerology.

Macau China.

I'm currently working as a PA and advisor to Norika at Power Nutrition Macau. We will be opening a gym called "Macau Fitness" sometime in December.

The company just bought a new van with automatically opening doors. Now we are waiting to buy the license plates. Numbers in Chinese are extremely important. The government realizes this and prices the plates accordingly. The number 8 represents luck/prosperity, so it is highly coveted. The more number 8's in the plate, the higher the cost. The number 4 represents death. So plates with 4 are cheaper. People literally pay $50,000 to get the license plate that they want. Rolling up in a car that has a license plate of the sort 8888 shows that you really have money, and people know you paid a very high price for it. If you had a license plate that said 4444 people might not even get in your car.

Pavlo says in Ukraine the number 4 is the foundation of life. It has a great meaning and people want it.

www.new-numerology.ru


Chinese men do not want to be associated with green. Green has the connotation of naivety. There is a saying that a man wearing a green hat is a man whose wife/girlfriend is cheating on him.

I should do a complete post on the meanings of numbers and colors in different cultures.

Just sittin' in Singapore....

There I was, sitting on my friend's couch watching the History channel, when up pops THIS! My friend slyly looked over to me and he was like... hey wait a second....  I think I know that guy! :P  I found it on Youtube:  Iwearsin commercial.