Spring Break 2004

We have already heard how I went home to Orlando in mid-March, frantically wrote a term paper, then came back to Stanford for dead week (a semantically uninteresting term referring to the week before finals week), along with my family. The night before I left for Thailand, I stayed for the first time in our family’s awesome new San Francisco apartment we are renting for my dad.

View from the apartment window; that’s the Bay Bridge.

The next morning my brother, sister, and dad flew back to Orlando while my mom and I got on a plane to Tokyo–the first leg of our trip to Thailand. Because American Airlines loves us so much, we flew business class for the almost 11 hours. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the free drinks or personal movie device, since I was planning and outlining for the second of my three term papers; this one was for my theories of truth class.

We had a short layover in Tokyo, then got on a Cathay Pacific plane to Hong Kong. I decided that flying coach in a 747 is to flying business in a 777 as “sucky” is to “awesome”. After 5 hours of wondering why Asian people are generally smaller, more compact, and more courteous than Americans, and being glad that I am not what you’d consider a large person, we landed in Hong Kong, and checked into the airport hotel to await our flight to Bangkok. We had crossed the International Date Line, always a fun thing to do, so it was now something like 36 hours after we left (only about 19 or so of which were real).

In Hong Kong we met up with my friend Samuel Chan, with whom my mom and I were in Honduras, back in 2001, and who had, through various trips, become friends with our family. His parents and he had been kind enough to suggest that we use the few hours we had in Hong Kong to our advantage, and take a midnight tour of the city. Needless to say, I was excited about the opportunity, not only because I’d never been to China (admittedly, Hong Kong is very different than many parts of the country that come to mind when someone says “China”), but because a night tour of a city is always cool.

Hong Kong is a huge place, and it took us a while to get from the new airport to something like the city center. The first thing we did was to have an authentic Chinese dinner at about midnight, at a small shop on some street somewhere, surprisingly busy for being so late. Maybe due to the fact that none of the dishes we shared corresponded very closely to the Chinese food we have in the States, I thought it was much better.

From there we checked out some shopping centers and what have you, then drove up to the summit of a range of hills between which and the sea Hong Kong is nestled. We got some good views of the city proper, amazing with its lights in the night.

Yes, that is a national monument. Yes, I am climbing it.

Awesome view of Hong Kong

Since at that point we’d spent a few hours driving around and checking stuff out, I thought the Chans would deposit us back at our hotel, but they were hyped up about giving us a good tour, so we caught a few more main sights.

The water front

Picture of me and Sam

In regards to that last picture, apparently the graffiti on the column there was written by a very famous crazy person, who claimed to be King or Emperor of China or something. The writing details the evidence for his claim to the throne. Supposedly, this is a major tourist attraction, and the Chans were very adamant about me taking a picture with it. I am now thinking that this was all a ploy: the writing no doubt says something like, “I’m a stupid American, look at me taking pictures by this dumb pole as if it were a major tourist attraction.”

Well, time wore on, and about 3 or 4am, the Chans dropped us off at the airport for a few hours’ sleep before our flight. Actually getting on that flight proved to be a bit difficult, since the customs officer at Hong Kong did not believe that I was actually me. The pictures on both my passport and driver’s license are both from when I was 16 (and neither close to expiring, actually), and I don’t really look like I did when I was 16. So after holding up the line for 15 minutes, grilling me about where I lived and so on, he finally asked me for my signature. Of course, I’ve changed my signature since I was 16 too, so he wasn’t really convinced. Ultimately he got some second opinions from other personnel and let me through, to our relief.

Another short Cathay Pacific flight later, we were in Thailand, waiting for our domestic flight to Chiang Mai. I was still depressed about my lack of progress on term papers, so we waited in a bar where I could drink Heineken while working. Anyway, we were on board the commuter 747 (!) soon enough and landed an hour later, to be picked up by our hosts, the Fains. The Fains are friends of my parents from Orlando who had moved to Thailand in January to pursue missionary work there, and, importantly, they had offered us lodging!

Chiang Mai turned out to be hot and dusty, clogged with the smoke of burning brush and slash-and-burn farming techniques–just the kind of international place I like! The Fains lived not far from the airport (window-rattlingly close, in fact), in a great little house which was to be our base for the next few days. The first order of business for me was to contact Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures, whom I was hoping to hire to show me some good rock climbing in the area. I got them on the phone and finalized plans for the next day, then settled in to work on my truth paper before bed.

The next day the climbing guide folks picked me up early, got me all signed up, and sent me with my guide Son (amongst some other folks) to the local crag, about 30 minutes away. What followed was an amazing and intense day, where I led two single-pitch climbs (probably mid-5.9) and followed two double-pitch climbs (5.10 or higher, maybe). The climbs themselves were really interesting, all overhanging and gymnastic with bomber holds and pumpy sequences. At points I stopped to think and realized I was basically campusing almost 300 feet up in the air. Anyway, enough with climbing jargon. Here’s some pictures.

Far-off view of the crag, Crazy Horse Buttress. Probably at or just below 300 ft of vert.

Looking up at the first pitch of an awesome climb that went up through a cave, then around and out a face.

Close-up view of the top of the crag, from the summit of a single-pitch climb.

Needless to say, after 6 pitches of climbing in a hundred-degree swelter, I was tired. But after parting ways with the climbing guides (they gave me a free t-shirt!), it was dinner time, so I got ready to go out with everyone. Now, food was one of the best things about Thailand. First of all, it is cheap. I don’t recall if we ever paid more than the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar for an entire meal. Secondly, it tastes great. And I had Chinese and Indian food there as well that made all the stuff I’ve had in the States pale in comparison. Anyways, after dinner at a local shopping mall thing, and picking up a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in Thai (who knows, I’d like to learn Thai someday), we were on our way to another of the best things we experienced in Thailand: a two-hour Thai massage.

I’ve never had a professional massage in my life, of any kind, but after a day of climbing it sounded like a really good idea. And let me tell you, it was. All 8 or so of us (our group had expanded to include various other Americans) were herded into one room, where we each had a pallet and a masseuse. They worked on us, talking between themselves as if they were folding clothes when they were really contorting our limbs into various oddly possible positions. At the end of the full-body massage, my muscles literally felt to my hands all gooey and buttery, and I think I fell asleep a few times on my way to the door. All for under $10, if you can believe that!

Our next and last full day in Chiang Mai, we took a guided tour of the city and the surrounding areas, which included, inter alia, elephant rides! As I said before, elephants are large beasts. Indeed, I sat on one’s head, and it was not only large, but prickly and smelly too. Very endearing, though. Our elephant driver allowed me to take over for about half the ride through the forest, teaching me the commands to tell the elephant to go left or right. I must not have been doing very well, though, since our beast liked to take lots of snack breaks and eat plants, even when I told it to keep going, or it would let all the other elephant rides win the fastest and least scatter-brained elephant award!

Scenery from the back of an elephant

More scenery

My mom and I on the elephant. I’m sitting on its head.

Other perks of the tour were an ox-cart ride and a bamboo raft ride, all through some pretty sweet Thailandscapes.

Rice fields (?) from the ox-cart

They also let me pole the raft for a while. Cool sombrero!

After some hours of these expeditions, we were tired, but the guide company would have none of it. We went to a paper-making facility where they were making paper out of elephant dung. During the how-to session, someone was explaining how the dung is purified during one step, and then in the next steps people can handle it safely. To me, it just looked like they were playing with the dung of elephants, but I couldn’t deny that eventually it turned into paper. I even bought an elephant-dung journal, mostly because I feel there has to be something very ironically symbolic about that. Lastly, we visited an orchid-and-butterfly farm. The orchids were pretty surreal, growing as they were free of any soil, roots hanging happily in the air.

One of my favorite orchids from the farm

Eventually we made it back home, and turned right around for our last adventure: the Chiang Mai Night Market. Or, Night Bazaar, or many other names. Place Where You Get Fake Stuff for Cheap is what I like to call it. It looked like many other third-world-ish markets I’ve been to, and it was fun to brush up on my haggling skills. Still, I often overestimated the value of various products, coming, perhaps, as I did from the States. For instance, I got a shirt I wanted down to the price of $2.50, only to see it advertised at another vendor for about $1. I was incensed until I realized I was talking about a difference of $1.50. The best buy of the evening was a technical climbing backpack, made by “North Face”, for $15. It will probably fall apart soon but looks great!

And that was about it for Chiang Mai! I did, thankfully, finish my term paper on truth that last night before we left, but unfortunately had an entire one left to do, and the trip almost done. Anyhow, the next day the Fains drove us to the airport and we got back without incident to Bangkok. Since our flight out of Bangkok (straight to Tokyo this time) didn’t leave till the next day, we had opted to stay at the Peninsula Hotel in Bangkok, a world-class 5-star hotel which we could only afford to stay in at Thailand, given the extremely low cost of living and all. No need to mention prices, but I’ve stayed in Best Westerns for as much. Needless to say, it was an interesting treat, but I probably shouldn’t get used to being picked up at the airport with bottles of Evian and a Rolls-Royce.

The last highlight of the trip with my mom is that we were able to get a tailor to come to our hotel room and make us some high-quality suits, at prices far below US rates. For myself, I came out of the deal with two tailor-made suits, five shirts, and a tie.

That part of our trip was over all too soon, and the next morning early we boarded our Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo, where we would catch our 777 back to San Jose. Since said 777 was operated by American, we again flew business class, and I worked on my last final paper, on possibility and necessity, for the entire duration of the 10-hour flight. I actually finished just as we began our descent, and felt at last free from Winter Quarter 2004. It’s a shame that I couldn’t enjoy the trip to Thailand a little bit more, however, and I have decided that I need to go back and live there for a while to make up for it.

Anyhow, my mom and I parted ways at the airport since she connected on to Orlando, and so I went back to Stanford for a day and a half. That Saturday, I got in a car with Dan, Jon Parr, Tyson, and Justin (roommates from Stanford) and we drove to Park City, Utah. Well, before that I stayed up all night packing and discovering that my campus bike had been stolen (damn!), and that I had an overdue DVD out from the library. Oh well. Adventure behind and adventure ahead, I couldn’t balk at a little adversity, even if it was my own stupid fault for not leaving the machine locked. So we drove the 10 hours to Utah without incident, stopping at Willemucca or some God-forsaken place for lunch, where I found the Saddest Round Table Pizza in the World. Seriously, this run-down hole was not only in bad structural and hygienic condition, the people who were eating there were the saddest I have ever seen. There was even a kid having his 12th birthday party there, with like one friend. It was the saddest birthday party I have ever seen. I ate a slice or two from the saddest buffet I have ever seen (it consisted, honestly, of two personal-pan pizzas, half-gone by the time I got there), and left feeling altogether better about my life.

The rest of the drive was spent playing video games while my companions listened to Stanford losing in the NCAAs on the radio. Enjoyable for me, but then again I didn’t care about basketball. Everyone else seemed to be depressed, so I made fun of them for being depressed about sports. They got mad at me for some reason.

Eventually we pulled into Dan’s condo at Park City, where we were to stay until Wednesday. But not till after we shopped for food at the local Albertsons, where we discovered that, in Utah, all liquor/cigar stores are State-run and closed on Sundays, holidays, evenings, lunch breaks, during snow storms, during rain, and during sunshine. Moreover, all the beer in grocery stores have an alcohol content of no more than 3.2%. Now, I don’t really care so much about alcohol content, but this seemed to me ludicrous. Or perhaps sensible. I don’t know. Anyway, I had been planning on making my signature dish–chicken con broccoli over angel hair pasta in a garlic wine-butter sauce–but we couldn’t find any wine.

The next day, Sunday, I slept in, and kept sleeping, while the rest went to Salt Lake City to check out the Mormon temple or what have you. To me, sitting in the cabin and reading and playing video games sounded funner, so I did that. Then, we got pumped up for skiing by watching Bowling for Columbine, a very excellent movie.

And at last we get to the mountain (skipping some sleeping and minor details…). The conditions were relatively good early on, but since it was about 60 degrees on the slopes, things got slushy quick. Still, I had a great day and felt really comfortable on the board, keeping up solidly with the rest of the guys (who were all skiers).

The intrepid adventurers at the base

Since it was cloudy but not raining or snowing, a business day, and between the hours of 4 and 4:30, we found an open liquor store and bought some wine so I could make my dinner, which was very tasty. Then we all got ourselves some glasses of fine spirits and watched The Ladies Man, a movie that never ceases to shock me. Awesome nonetheless.

This is getting long, so let me cut to the chase: the next day we drove down to BYU for some reason and played mini-golf, which I lost. Last place lost. Then some more movies followed, some sleep and so on, and eventually a drive to Las Vegas, where we checked in to the Mirage hotel. Vegas is a town I would never want to live in. We played that night at the Bellaggio. I set myself a limit of $40 and proceeded to immediately win $15 at video poker. Believing myself invincible, I decided to throw away $20 at roulette. Then, to the slots, for about 20 minutes of the most depressing shit I have ever experienced. To my left and right, fat people with buckets of quarters, the machines reading “425 credits”, spinning and spinning, not even looking at whether they were winning, mindlessly pulling the lever and draining their lives into nothingness. And I joined them, as if in a trance, until I realized I had $5 left. Even then it was hard to pick up and walk away.

Finally I tried my hand at blackjack, and got back up to $55, when I decided, mostly as a result of the lesson slots taught me, that up was up and up was good and up meant time to leave. The 5 of us walked around Vegas some more until we all agreed that it was depressing and burdensome just to be out on the streets. I had heard that it was commonplace to receive pornographic advertisements from people passing out flyers on streets, so I made sure to keep my hands in my pockets and tried to keep my eyes from wandering over the “business” cards strewn over the ground. But I wasn’t prepared to see smut being passed out by small Mexican women wearing red t-shirts that said, “For Immediate Service, call …” I couldn’t decide whether to be angry or sad or guilty or innocent. But I did know that someone somewhere was being wronged somehow in a particularly egregious way. Whatever.

We couldn’t wait to get out of the place, despite the fact that we all ended up winning money from the Bellaggio, and so the next morning we got out of town and headed for Orange County, where we had planned to while away the remaining days of Spring Break 2004 at Dan’s house in Mission Viejo. Notice the pattern of using Dan for his homes! And that’s exactly what we did–we went to the beach, played a few tournaments of whiffleball, walked the dog, watched Waiting for Guffman, ate Dan’s mom’s delicious cooking, sailed around Newport Harbor in a Duffy boat drinking box wine, and had what could only be called a rather fat and indolent time. In other words, a wonderful time.

To top things off, three of us lucky contestants got to fly home to Palo Alto in Dan’s dad’s airplane. Since I sat co-pilot, he even let me fly the thing for about 45 minutes. No joke. I followed waypoints, changed elevations, and even descended into Palo Alto. And now I am addicted to it. Sadly, the only thing I’ll ever be a pilot of will be a flight sim, unless I somehow become spontaneously rich.

Our bird. I mean, Dan’s dad’s bird.

With that, the vacation was over, and it was back to Stanford for my last and final quarter. That’s last and final. Lord willing. And so, there is a rather long-winded account of the last break from school I’m ever likely to have (unless I go on for a PhD or something).