Trip 1 Before Australia: Hangzhou (hong-joe), the most popular tourist destination in China (I guess…if you’re Chinese…or read Wikipedia…which I did...how do you think I figured out which bus to get lost on later…)



Brent and I were like two kids on the first day of high school, anxious about showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time and then being lost in cold, heartless, China (kidding, but heartless sounds good). We didn’t know when the trains loaded, how early we had to be there blah blah.

We showed up 45 minutes early—mostly because we figured that’s how long it would take to push through the crowd and into the building. We made it to the depo, through the outside line, and through metal detector.

Now imagine…

The metal detector we walked through might not have worked--just a lucky guess. But Brent walked through with his 10lb collection of Chinese change he kept ready to spend on sodas, his metal belt, gold chain, and nipple rings….Come on, don’t be ridiculous...everyone knows his chain is silver.

Moments later, we were surrounded by…

People. And a lot of crap on the floor.


The Chinese are very fond of giving back to the earth, whether or not the earth happens to be covered by cement, carpet, or your luggage.
Of particular notice were the chicken bones and egg shells taking up residence in the flip flops of passengers.

That brings me to a question. Is there a 10 second rule in China?

Once on the train, we had the pleasure of sharing the two seats across from us with

Three other people, and a baby.

But luckily for all of us, no one spoke a lick of the other person’s language-- so we just did a lot of staring and awkward facial expressions. As a general rule, Brent and I like to make people feel uncomfortable, but I’m pretty sure they outdid us with their breath/farts (I’m not quite sure which one was worse).

Hangzhou—

Both of us forgot about grabbing a map in the more English/Mandarin friendly Shanghai--I think most of our adventure comes from our incredible lack of planning (I can't even make this stuff up). So we wandered around for a couple miles before trudging back to the train station and hightailing it in the other direction to get on a bus. We hoped we would pass by our hotel, which, according to Wikipedia, was right on this route.

Lesson Two: There is no such thing as current information in China, just the best guess. The two things that are constant here, like everywhere else, are death and taxes---and tourist rip off, but that pretty much goes with taxes…and death.

Turns out, the correct bus was not in operation that day, so after 2 hours of enjoying sites of interest in an odd Chinese dialect, we went to the mall to find a pay phone and call our hotel.

Have you ever tried to find a pay phone in a Chinese mall?

You’ll have better luck borrowing one from a stranger, which I had to do back in September when Brent disappeared on his way to meet me for the Shanghai Open….

But back to finding a pay phone…

I used my rotten excuse for Mandarin skills, which involved more body language than words, to get someone to show us a pay phone. They even went as far as trying to dial before reporting the phone didn’t work.

What to do…what to do…???

Lost, as usual, in a foreign city…late at night

of course…

We looked for help and found 2 girls at a desk in the mall

Although their job was to help us find purchases in the mall, and although they didn’t speak English…

Somehow, they called our hotel and got directions and wrote them in Chinese for us to get a taxi…

At last we got to the hotel, but,

We were so late they gave away our reservation.

What to do…what to do…???

We went to Pizza Hut.

After wandering for hours that day, my homing skills continued to be razor sharp. I was able to walk from our hotel, in the dark, to Pizza Hut, the only Western restaurant we had passed on the bus ride at mid-day, even though it was several blocks away, hidden in the middle of a nondescript mall.

Now tell me... Wouldn’t you rather have a chubby friend on a travel adventure?

We were warned that Pizza Hut in China was crap, but I have news for you…,

Crap pizza must mean crispy crust, real cheese, and tomato sauce not made with fish and innards because that was the first, and only decent pizza we had in China, and I’m sure we tasted enough places to be in contention for the most nights ordering in award—on any continent..

The Railway Station

A few weeks before Australia...

Since we were flying through Hong Kong first, Brent and I decided we should do some winter traveling in China (while I read that sentence back to myself I'm thinking, are you serious? Winter travel....)

We made plans to take a bullet train to the most popular tourist destination in China, and then bought flights to Hong Kong from Shanghai via Beijing to do more tourist crap in case we left China (and as it turns out, all my clothes) for good.

I’d never bought tickets from the large Shanghai Railway Station, which I imagined to be another excuse for the government hogs to squish people in a too-small space to see if 1000 people who don’t brush there teeth can make a room smell like a pig’s behind—a popular smell in China.

Lost in Translation

After several translations with the call center (the greatest invention since the telephone that offers language services free in 10 + dialects) I found the rail station and made myself hopelessly lost in the swarms of heads around my shoulders (I thought it was about time for a height joke).

I did what any foreigner would do.

I looked for the police.

I found the largest, loudest officer I could, with the coolest mustache might I add, and then handed him my phone. I'd called the call center and had them ask the police officer in Shanghainese how the heck to buy a ticket here.

The result?

The policeman walked me past one line and more than 200 people, including several English speakers, US citizens, and a white guy about my age who had a look on his face that said “what the?” and showed me to an small where he directed people to clear out just for me.

What do you know?

It was smack dab at the front of the line.

The surly policeman and the 200 people behind me waited patiently as I bought my tickets. When I finished, the officer escorted me away from the throngs of people, probably to keep all the foreigners I just cut in front of from giving me a good beating.

Though--the guy my age looked like he was impressed with the police officer routine and might be stealing it in the future.

Next up: Trip 1 Before Australia

How I Got To Australia In The First Place...And All Other Things Disasterous

The Beach near my house on an overcast morning....
















From: Wayyy South of the Spider’s Nest on the Way to Sydney

Dear friends and Family,

You are about to read 5 pages of information and experiences that can save you and/ or your friends from strange men attempting to grab your boobs, spending the night in wet, pole less tents, 5-mile bike rides with meat juice dripping down your leg, the horror of losing your spouse somewhere between Asia and Australia, and discovering that all your clothes are on the wrong continent.

Please pay careful attention. What you are about to read is deceptively avoidable, and rather embarrassing. In fact, I’m going to have to ask for a bit of patience from some of you. Especially those of you who are “old pros” at this living stuff.

You see, the first pages of this post are going to reveal some stuff that most of you already know. Please bear with me. Some of my readers don’t know this stuff and besides, it never hurts any of us to take a little “trip down memory lane” once in a while.

And anyway, it’s all a “setup” to pave the way for me to explain my latest debacle in the line of outrageous shenanigans.

Onward. No more messing around.

It all starts back a few months, around December of 2009. I booked a ticket from Hong Kong to Australia for a couple of clearly intelligent reasons.

One: I was completely sick of going to bed with my hat, jacket, scarf, mittens, long johns, leg warmers, double shirts, sweat pants, and two blankets. Call me ridiculous, but I couldn’t make sense of the face that it was colder inside my 17th storey apartment than outside.

In fact, to get the weather report each morning, I would check to see if I could see my breath, and if I wasn’t satisfied with that, I just stuck my finger through the hole in the bedroom window.


Two: I couldn’t get a direct flight from Shanghai to go finish the screen play I had worked on with Tara Goejen aka Fat head for 6 mths in Alaska, so I used 40k Alaska airlines flyer miles to get from Hong Kong to Sydney on Cathay Pacific…an unbelievable deal that makes me feel all warm inside every time I think about it.

Honest frequent flier programs are not dead.

Two weeks after getting my flight, Brent decided to come too…

Tickets on my flight were sold out by then, so Brent got a flight out 1 day later.

Which brings me to my first lesson. You have to make a move first to convince others you are serious. The best way to do this is to lie about what you are doing and then go through with it at the same time they do.


With both Brent and I heading to Australia for 5 weeks, we needed to get a place to stay. Fat head told us not to worry—we could stay with her and her friend for the trip.





Hindsite
Brent told me this was a horrible plan and to start looking for an apartment. How was I supposed to know this had disaster written all over it? Fat head and I get along…what’s the big deal?

And, how hard could it be to get an apartment there? Worse comes to worse, we could just rent some 1 room-sh#t hole for the time being. What’s the worst that could happen? Seriously…my imagination sucked on that one.

If I’ve learned anything, its you can’t dream the worst that can happen, so don’t even try—pay someone else to worry about it for you.

Fat head started looking for a place for us to stay in Wollongong (1 hr from Sydney), and I did a half-hearted Internet search, going as far as posting a work/rent trade on craiglist (this turned into one of the most hilarious things that has happened to me yet...stay tuned).


The Railway Station

Playing The Semi Pro Tennis Tour in Australia

There are few words to describe my first tournament here in Australia. I keep getting stuck on the same one: crap, crap, crap.


I entered a white tournament, the easy of the eases. Me and Tara Goedjen decided to take our chances against the local Syndey juniors.

Here were the rumors before we played the tourney:

All the juniors are snobs-
The level of play is really hit and miss (either its awesome or its crap)
People may cheat??

Well, I am here to put a stop to those rumors.

All the juniors were not snobs. I met at least two girls under the age of 17 who didn't throw their racquets, roll their eyes, or yell out the score while you were serving. Those ones relied on their parents to be snobs for them.

The level of play was never awesome. The tournament director did a great job of pairing all the best players with the crappies...and no one likes to see 14 year olds beating up on the college aged + (which was how it was over on my court...)

Last, I can't refute the cheating part. The most talented juniors did everything in their power to cheat their way to victory. . .

...which is actually pretty amazing since us newbies to the tour were working plenty hard to lose the game on our own.

All in all, the white tournaments in Australia are an easy way to pick up points to get on the pro tour. However, it is in your best interest to play at least two matches in the year prior to entering (note to self).