My very own Ocarina of Time - Nech and Jesse do Quito

With a week to spare before our jungle expedition was set to depart, Jesse and I had time to explore Quito and its surroundings. Our visit to parts of Quito´s old town was blocked, however, by hundreds of police surrounding the Grand Plaza. Though we were able to catch a glimpse of "El Presidente," we never spotted the real reason for the police - a fellow American by the name of Hillary (such a copycat following us to Ecuador).

But that wasn´t the only run-in we had with the diplomatic corps. After a Friday night bat mitzvah of the daughter of the local DEA agent (with the the US and Israeli ambassadors in attendance), we had dinner with two local families including the former Finance Minister. Thanks Danny for that hookup.
I got pretty excited during dinner when they mentioned we might see gorillas in Lago Agria, our jumping off point to the rainforest. A little confused, they then clarified, "No no no, not the kind of gorillas with fur - the kind of guerrillas with machine guns." Oh.

Following a visit to Mitad del Mundo - the zero latitude center of the world - Jesse and I followed a wizened tour guide on a hike up to the rim of Pululahua Crater, an active volcano with a small farming community living inside. After describing the ancient ceremonies he partakes in (at the equinoxes and solstices of course) complete with pschychedlic berries and spirits of the dead, he pulled out his ocarina to whistle his thanks to the gods.



Barely able to contain my excitement over this unexpected real-life enactment of the classic Zelda game, I told Jesse, "I have to get one of those." Unfortunately for Jesse, I actually got two several days later in Ecuador´s famous Otavalo market. I have faith that someday I will figure out how to play them properly. Until then, they´re my revenge for his snoring.

Check back soon for How fast can piranhas eat a chicken - Nech and Jesse do the rainforest

Taking on the Che - Nech does South America

Done with college, I have now set off on an adventure that will hopefully take me all over the world to majestic peaks and pristine beaches, vibrant cities and tranquil villages. My only plans before leaving consisted of a one-way ticket to Ecuador´s capital city of Quito, one of the highest cities in the world. With a stunning coastline in the west, the mountain villages and volcanoes of the Andes cutting through the center, and the Amazon rainforest pulsating life in the east, Ecuador promises to start my expedition off on the right foot. Joining me for my first two months is fellow Fun House alumnus Jesse Wenger.

With limited computer time at all stops, I won´t be overwhelming you with dozens of posts every month. I will, however, try to share a couple of fun stories and particularly exciting adventures each week. The first post is above. Also feel free to check out my old posts from Asia or to subscribe with the link on the left side of the page to be notified of future posts.

I´d love for you to comment on the posts or e-mail me, or just to travel with me in spirit.

As they say here, "Hasta la victoria siempre."

Miss you all,
Nech

Mountains, monkeys, and magnificent temples - Nech does Springs, Sichuan, Saigon, and Siem Riep

Hey all. I've had quite a few adventures on my last few trips to 1: Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton, southern China's largest city) and nearby natural hot springs; 2: Chengdu (in China's Sichuan province), home of many of the world's remaining giant pandas and several of China's most picturesque mountains; 3: Vietnam, specifically Saigon and nearby island Phu Quoc in the Gulf of Thailand; and on the same trip 4: Siem Riep (in Cambodia), the site of Angkor Wat and the rest of Cambodia's magnificent ancient temple comlexes.

After returning from Vietnam and Cambodia, I took all my finals and for the past few days been enjoying the company of my fellow exchange students before we all part ways next week. I will be heading to Delhi and surrounding areas in northern India before heading in Nepal on my biggest adventure yet. There's a chance I'll write more on the blog about Guangzhou, Chengdu, Vietnam, or Cambodia during my first few nights in India, but don't count on it. More likely, I'll get to tell you in person when I get home (Jan 7).

Thanks all for reading; I've had a lot of fun and hope you have too,
godspeed,
nech

Bananas, babies, and beasting the Wall - Nech does Beijing

Hi all. Sorry for the long delay. As I’ve told some of you, I’ve been quite busy with a little homework, a lot of trip planning, and an inordinate amount of time spent organizing housing for next semester (living with my buddy Ayal Robkin on 41st and Spruce) and next year (with Mordechai, Danny, Brian, Ben, Ross, Jon, Jesse, and Ariel in 318 S 42nd). During my last Astrophysics lecture, we finally got together in an eight-person group gchat to iron out some final details.

Enjoy the many (slightly out of order) pictures (warning: doesn't work perfectly on google chrome.  also, any of the captions are greg's work, not mine).

Upon touching down in Beijing, Brian and I briefly parted from our group in order to celebrate Sebastian’s birthday with him and Johann at a club called something Banana. Or Banana something. We didn’t really know. So we found ourselves after much confusion at Coco Banana. “This is probably it; right, Brian?” “There can’t be that many Banana clubs in Beijing.” After a fruitless search in the dark, we approached an older white guy to ask for info. Noticing Brian’s sweatshirt, he shouted, “Wharton? USC!” and held out his fist for props. Amused, Brian asked if he knew of another Banana club. “Club Banana? That’s a gay club!”

He was clearly very drunk, so we decided to try to find it anyway.

Luckily, there was a giant sign for a GT Club Banana right outside, and we eventually persuaded a taxi driver to take us there. After again failing to find our boys, we gave up and danced away.

The next morning I found Sebastian. “So which club were you in?” “GT Club Banana.”

We were soon marching through Tianammen Square wearing our Wharton and U Wisconsin sweatshirts proudly before heading into the Forbidden City.

Though we enjoyed the beautiful architecture and journeys back into ancient emperors’ lives, we enjoyed even more the austere buildings’ names. Behind the Palace of Supreme Harmony stood the Palace of Medium Harmony and then the Hall of Preserving Harmony. The three-year-old emperors had fun in the Hall of Arts and Crafts and Hall of Toys while the older ones went left to the Hall of Martial Victory or right to Hall of Literary Glory; Bob refused to enter the Hall of Abstinence. Later on in the trip we encountered the Temple of Excessive Moisture.

We spent the night riding bikes through quiet alleys and walking alongside a
picturesque lake, chilling in dive bars and crashing a local Halloween party.

We escaped the city smoke the next day with a trip to the stunning Summer Palace, a historic royal retreat that puts Camp David to shame. We then hopped over to the glorious Olympic stadiums where we found ourselves to be nearly as big an attraction as the Bird’s Nest – Chinese tourists literally lined up to take pictures with us.

Particularly cute were a little boy who would hide behind people whenever we looked at him (he was trying to take pictures of us from a distance) and a super-cute baby dressed in a tiger suit who is probably now scarred for life after his mom tried to make him pose with us for a picture. Way too many vanilla faces for that little man.

At night we bargained down polo shirts and communist hats at the city’s historic Silk Market and got a taste of Beijing’s signature Peking Duck.

Our final task now remained – camping illegally on the Great Wall at Simatai. Armed with sleeping bags, tents, bagels, and furry communist hats, we got to the wall just before sundown, upset that the cable car had closed and that we would have to walk all the way up the mountain before even starting our wall hike. Our driver told us later that our timing was perfect; “The guards would have stopped you when they saw your gear; they just happened to be on a break

when you entered.” We raced up and pushed ourselves as far away from the entrance as we could climb in order to best escape the police. The night provided a beautiful sunset and a starry sky before we settled in the tents we had erected earlier in hope of some rest.

We had brought a two-person tent, one-person tent, and five sleeping bags for me, Brian, Greg, Vivian, and Mark. Then Bob decided to sleep on the wall too, and joined me and Brian in the one-person tent. One of us slept very well, stretching out and snoring loudly. I was in the middle and didn’t even have enough room to put my feet down next to each other or lie on my back. Midway through the night I heard Bob, “Hey Nech, you sleep at all?” “Nope.” “Think it’ll help if we switch positions?”

It didn’t.

We got out of the tent at 5 AM in order to see sunrise over the wall. Frozen, we retreated. An hour later we ventured out again, packed up, and hiked to the end of our wall section with time to spare.

Sixteen hours later I put my very own Great Wall stone on my bookshelf at UST.

If I have time, check back next week or this week for Nech does Qingyuan or Nech does Sichuan (or both).

Nech does Beijing

I'm working on the post and waiting for my groupmates pics to be uploaded. I've been delayed by some work and slight illness, but we'll get there soon.

Obama!

20,000 people on ecstasy and alcohol - Nech does Thailand (part II)

We returned from the trek with just enough time to shower and eat before Brian headed off to Yom Kippur services at Chabad. He got lost en route and arrived there well after sundown feeling flustered, sweaty, and not happy at all. Expecting white robes and long prayers, he was shocked to find instead a bunch of Israelis eating shawarma. When I got back to the room after (by chance) meeting up with other HKUST exchange students, I found this note:I still can’t look at that without cracking up.

For our next Chiang Mai adventure, we motor-biked up a mountain to the forest temple of Doi Suthep. It was incredible fun and we didn’t even crash once weaving through cars in the city or banking down sharp turns along the mountain road. Though we took some time finding a rhythm – Brian didn’t like the speed I chose when I was ahead but I didn’t like Brian not checking his rear-view mirror for me when he was ahead (not his fault, the mirror just didn’t go far out enough for him to see around his stomach) – we rode like pros by the end.

While we were sitting taking pictures of the temple’s largest Buddha, a Thai family approached a monk sitting on a stool nearby. He started mumbling something and sprinkling them with water and, noticing my interest, included me on the third or fourth round. As the family members approached one by one for a blessing, I felt intrusive and slowly inched away. Then the dad pointed at me. “You sure?” He responded with more motioning to me and the monk. Always up for a blessing from any peaceful man of the cloth, I shuffled over and put my hands together in a show of respect. After some more mumbling with his hand on my head, he took my hand and made me my very own white string bracelet. I’ve been lucky ever since.

In the following days, I took Thai cooking and Thai massage classes (a fellow New Yorker in the cooking class joked, “What girl are you trying to impress?”), saw some Muay Thai no-holds-barred boxing, tried to chat with student monks at the local temples, got a Thai haircut and shave, and turned down many advances from overeager ladyboys. But backtracking a bit – Brian has been gracious enough to not only let me write (undeserved) fat jokes about him, but also to share the following story:

Our first night in Chiang Mai, we found a little shop still offering massages at 11:30 PM. Many such parlors are known to offer “special” massages, so when I heard some discussion going on midway through over on Brian’s side of the curtain, I had a hunch what it was about. Though trying to mind my own business, I still couldn’t help but hear Brian repeat one word over and over – “non-negotiable.” Shockingly, the girl didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t just her price that Brian objected to. [Editor’s note – Brian wants me to make it abundantly clear that there was no “happy ending.”]

We arrived back in Bangkok on Thursday night with the single goal of seeing a ping pong show (we both love ping pong) before another flight the next morning. Sadly, we got lost looking for hostels that were closed anyway and missed the last shows, at which point we gave up and went into McDonalds for a drink. With no room booked and too tired to continue searching, we decided to camp out there and crash on couches in the relative safety and comfort of the golden arches. “You’ll laugh about it later, Brian.” “No I will not.” “C,mon, take a step back; think of the irony.” “There is nothing funny about this.”

Unrested, we spent most of the next day journeying to a backpacker-friendly island called Koh Phangan in southern Thailand. The island is most famous for its Full Moon parties on Haad Rin Beach that Brian’s friend described as “20,000+ people on ecstasy and alcohol dancing on a tiny beach.” Wanting to spend Shabbat in peace, we went instead to a more remote part of the island and enjoyed the private cabin, ocean-side restaurant, clean sand, and blue water that our isolated guesthouse afforded. After being together for so long, we ran out of normal things to talk about and conversation became increasingly desperate. "Hey Nech, would you date a decapitated head?" "If it had a nice smile." Saturday night we hopped over to Haad Rin to celebrate Brian’s birthday along with the hundreds (thousands?) of Israelis on vacation who had gathered there to celebrate the full moon that was to rise the night after we left. Creating the antidote before the poison, God arranged that the ocean was a mere thirty feet away from the flaming jump rope (even when sober, jumping rope on the beach is not easy). I wisely elected to pass.

After another day relaxing on the beach and a comfy night bus up to Bangkok, I hit up the 7 AM meditation class at Wat Mahatat and then enjoyed a final massage back on Khao San Road. Check back next week for Nech does Beijing.