Bali Bribin'

I went to Bali last weekend for a second time in as many months. As luck would have it I got to give my first SE Asian bribe out! Actually two in one trip!

The first one came when I tried to enter Indonesian passport control only to find out that they would not put their visa over top of faded passport stamps I had acquired over 7 years ago. They shuffled me to a shady backroom where a beaming Indonesian guard not so subtly asked me for 50USD for "extra pages that look like American passport pages."

This offer sounded more attractive than flying back to KL for the weekend, so I agreed to give him 50 Malaysian Ringgit which is about 40 USD. He said ok and disappeared for 10 minutes. What he came back with in no way resembles American passport pages. He handed me my passport with a piece of grade z wax paper stuck into the middle with an Indonesian visa on it. I should have a lot of explaining to do to the American consulate here when I actually go to get more pages put in...

The next bribe I had to give came also from a very pleasant Indonesian cop when he pulled me over for not wearing a helmet on my scooter. I tried to explain to him that I'm a pale face and did not know the law but he didn't speak English very well.

It turns out though, that his English language negotiating skillz kicked in perfectly when I told him I was from the USA. He was able to get 10 USD out of me. My Filipino buddy was pulled over 10 minutes later and only had to give 5 USD after saying that he was just a poor Feeleepeenoh. Reverse racism.

Bali is still awesome though. The rest of the weekend I spent surfing and drinking and chilling on the beach. I plan to go back for a third time next month.

I'm in KL

That's Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for you Asia NOOBS...Idiots.

Anyway, lots of things have transpired since I last posted a month and a half ago.

One of those "things" is that all of my friends were laid off from the job and I'm working alone in KL. Anyway, I'm not long for this job...at least with this company.

So far KL is pretty boring as far as SE Asia goes. Like I said in a post from a prior visit, there's not much to see. It is clean, green, and much richer than every other SE Asian country. If you think these things are cool then you must not be. SE Asia is supposed to be cheap, smelly, polluted and dodgy. The food is ok so far but still doesn't compare to Thailand. Neither do the girls...half of whom are wearing head scarves...if they can't show me their "hair up there" how am I supposed to get a peak down below? nawhadaimeen? Actually I think that's the last name of a girl I met the other day...heyooo. But enough with the unnecessary racism.

I did manage to get to Bali last weekend which is one of the "awesomer" places I've been in my life. Everything is cheap, people are friendly, and you can surf. I plan to go there and surf and drink as much as possible to maintain sanity.

Easter Trip

I'm going to Barcelona for the weekend with a coworker or two. I've been already but Spain is sweet and I want to go back and eat olives, enjoy the weather, get drunk, and exercise my Spanish hablando skillz.

I went to Paris a few weeks ago and I've been slacking on writing posts so I'll write about that when I get back, along with a recap of Barcelona. Remain on the edge of your seat until I get around to posting.

I'm Moving to the Philippines

I never thought I would actually be sent there given that there are so many filipinos working for my company...but I guess they want the token vanilla face there to show that we are "international."

Starting May 9 I'll be living in Manila which is a typical SE Asian city. Hot, smelly, and filled with lots of poor people and a few uber rich. I'll be hanging out with the uber rich and laughing at poor people as I step over them, trying not to smudge my puma in the process.

I'm working with a filipino guy who is a former model/actor there and knows all of the filipino aristocracy. Hopefully I'll be hooked up with a fat luxury apartment with rich mahogany and many leather bound books.

Either way I'm going back to Asia for 4 months and all of my coworkers will be there as well (Jakarta, KL, Australia). It should be a crazy time.

Token poverty pic to gawk at:

Manila Slum

Ze Austrian Alps

I am told these are the "baby mountains" by our Austrian hosts

I went to the Alps this past weekend. I still have no clue what the name of the resort was because it was really tiny and we had Austrian friends taking care of us the whole time. I know it was near the town of Ebensee which is between Linz and Salzburg.

Anyway, it was a really sick weekend. We stayed in a resort which was started and owned by this Austrian guys' Grandpa and now run by his cousin so it was more like staying in someone's home. It was on top of the mountain so you had to take a gondola to get to it and it stops running at 5pm so you're stuck up top all night. This originally sounded terrible to me but ended up being a blast.

To get to the place on Friday we knocked off work early and got a rental car. I had to drive since I'm the only American who knows how to drive stick...ever. We arrived at the gondola at 5:30pm and found our Austrian friend waiting for us. Apparently he held the last gondola for us and this was not a problem because we were 4 out of the 12 guests staying on the mountain that night.

We got to the top of the gondola and found that it was windy, snowy, and all around miserably cold. We had to hike up the mountain for about 5 minutes to get to the lodge and my filipina coworker, obviously experienced in snowy situations, wore her boots with heels. Anyway, she got to ride on the snowmobile that transported our luggage while the rest of us trudged up the mountain.

That night we ate bomb ass food called knödel (kanoodle) and schnitzel. Then we played drinking games for a few hours. Then we hit the bar in the basement of this old ass ski haus (with a nice wine cellar) where it was just us chilling and playing more drinking games including one called "noggin" where you try to hit a nail into a stump faster than everyone else using the wrong end of the hammer.

The next day we hit the slopes. Even though it was really windy and snowy it was tight because none of the locals wanted to ski. We basically had the whole mountain to ourselves and there was fresh powder (not the kind you find in Manila and Eastern Europe).

Late run on Sunday

That day a cool ass Austrian couple who works for Redbull showed up and skied with us. We then all had another big Austrian dinner that night complete with some baked pork that was really fucking tastey. Afterwards we had a private wine tasting in the hotel's wine cellar. Later we basically repeated the night before but drank even more and ended up having a huge dance party in the basement. Lots of Jaeger bombs (called a "flying hirsch" in Austria) were consumed and fun was had by all.

The next morning I woke up early and hit the expert slope that goes all the way down the mountain with our Austrian friend. We were the only ones good enough to do it (I'm awesome) and it was a nice start to the day which turned out to be sunny and gorgeous.

Picture riding up the slow lift in the morning

The rest of the day was awesome and after skiing we decided to go to Salzburg with the cool Austrian couple. They took us to see this hangar that is owned by Redbull that has all of their airplanes and F1 cars and a couple of really exclusive restaurants and cafes. That part is in the blog pipeline. For now check out the pics and be jealous.

View from close to our lodge

Morning run as the sun was coming up

Prague blague

Why hello there. I went to Prague a few weeks ago and I wanted to share some of my candid stories and adventures with you over the interweb. Sit back, relax and enjoy this visual and prosaic blague-venture through Prague.

Old Town Square

My Vienna coworkers and I arrived in Prague after a 4 hour train ride and took a private taxi to Old Town where we had a baller ass apartment setup for us. From there we met up with the artist formerly known as Gunmetal Gary (now known as black trenchcoat Barry) and hit the town.

First we went to get food. In my limited time in the country I found that Czech food consists of 3 options - pork shoulder, pork knee, and pork whatever other parts you can eat off of a pig. I had the pork shoulder and it was delicious.

That night we went out and got drunk in some area of the city that I don't remember...I think it might have been in old town or close by. At any rate, it was fun but we ended up at some divebar that looked like it could have been in Adams Morgan. It seemed like an expat bar and I was disappointed to find myself talking to British girls with bad breath and not hot Czech girls who I assume have pork breath. I slayed with the British birds that night. It was a very late night and I think we went to bed when the sun was coming up so it couldn't have been all that bad.

Krazy Klock in Old Town Square

On Saturday we got up and got food at a pub nearby. This time I ordered the pork knee. This turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life as I was treated to the largest hunk of roasted pork knee on a spit that I have ever seen. I guess that doesn't sound impressive since I've never seen anything like it...but it came with all sorts of sauces and was delicious.

After eating we decided to hit the local army surplus store and buy ridiculous soviet outfits. We walked around town all day in full soviet garb and it only dawned on me at the end of the day that maybe it was offensive to Czechs since they were sort of conquered by the soviets on and off for decades.

Soviet Stylin

Black trenchcoat barry aka soviet steve got extra special dirty looks from eurobags in orange sweatshirts.

Orange Poolius hating

On Saturday night we went out to a club not in the center of town and the name escapes me at this point. There were ridiculously hot girls dancing on podiums but it wasn't very crowded. Overall another disappointing night in a town I thought would be a crazy party type place. I guess we went to the wrong places. We still managed to stay up until 9am and end the night/morning at a really depressing betting/games place where some old Czech dude was asleep at the slot machine.

Overall I would give Prague a decent rating but some parts of it were disappointing. It was absolutely beautiful but cold with even colder people. I would like to go back in warmer weather and know someone who knows good places to meet hot Czech girls.

Insert joke about Czeching her out here

Random Funny Japanese Video

Japanese people are like cartoon characters.