That is the ultimate question we keep asking ourselves being here in China – who can we trust. The simple answer is …absolutely nobody. It seems like so many people are out to scam us in some way. We’ve narrowly avoided the “tea” and “art exhibition” scams, where college kids come up to you being all friendly and interested since you’re from America, and ask if you want to join them for tea. Next thing you know you’ve just purchased a $100 cup of tea from their friends shop. Or take you to see their art school and, once there, by some of their art. The only problem is, it’s the same art knock offs sold on the street just for ten times as much. We of course had our friend Jennathan to thank for warning us against this one (after she fell victim to both). Jason’s method of pretending to be Swedish seems to keep the street hustlers at bay.

It doesn’t end there though. Even the concierges at the hotels want to sell you on certain tours, or restaurants b/c everyone gets a piece of the profit. The Sofitel Xi’an recommended a tour to the Terracotta Warriors that was one big tourist trap, stopping at various “craft sites” so that we could sample some of the local wares, aka buy some junky stuff. We were even led to believe at one point that we were at a special factory that was restoring the original Terracotta Warriors, since most of them were in ruins when discovered – however, we came to realize 20 minutes into the tour they were just trying to sell replicas of the figures (check out the video to see our moment of this realization!) and had absolutely nothing to do with the warriors.

By the time we actually got to the Terracotta Warriors, along with thousands of other people, it was hard to really enjoy them (not to mention I think that China has built them up into an over rated tourist phenomenon to make $$$$!) They’re interesting and it’s quite amazing how recently they were discovered, but there’s way too much hutz and futz to make the whole experience happen.

Some of the cheating and scamming we’ve experienced is actually more blatant and in our faces, since we have no recourse in many situations since very few people speak any English (Jason has mentioned several times not wanting to end up in a Chinese prison like Jack Bauer from his favorite show 24).

For example, people have skimmed out amounts of change that we were supposed to receive once we’ve paid for items or admissions into parks. The second night we were at the street market in Beijing the piece of pineapple I bought seemed strangely to be double the amount the local person before me paid, and was clearly a rip off – the smirky girl chuckling with her friend also gave evidenced to that! And if you do happen to find a restaurant with a menu in “English”, you can be sure that the “English” prices are about 10 times what the locals pay.

A major slap in the face was when we had paid a lot of money to get a private car to travel to the Great Wall (of course arranged by our hotel), only to come and realize when we arrived that another couple from our hotel had paid the same amount to also hire a private car – nice of the hotel to let us know we were both going to the same place, on the same day, and doing the exact same trek and maybe recommend we take a car together (considering we were both down at the concierge desk together unbeknownst to each other arranging this). On top of that, once we returned from our all day excursion our driver tried to get an extra 100 yuan from us (and we also heard that the other driver tried to get an extra 40 yuan from the other couple, Jake and Kath) by saying it was for “bridge tolls”.

The most frustrating situation was today at the local pharmacy while buying some necessities, the store literally doubled the price of an item by claiming the price was the one on the top shelf verses the logical one on the bottom shelf (we thought $10 for a TINY bottle of sunscreen was steep).

 

We’ve just felt much more on alert being here in China and it certainly has colored our experience of this country. I guess I have a sense of what being a full fledged paranoia is about, since this is how we approach our days – who’s going to try and get us next!?!?

 

That aside, there are some positive aspects of the country. The food is cheap and good most of the time. The taxi’s are really inexpensive, however it’s literally a gamble whether you’ll make it to your destination alive b/c the insanity of the driving here. The Great Wall is truly remarkable. At this point in our travels, I’m sad to say that’s all I have positive to say. Hopefully we get a different feeling by the end of our time here when we get to a more “western” city like Shanghai!

Most Westerners seem to think that Chinese and Japanese are basically the same thing. While there are some similarities between cultures, for the most part they couldn’t be more opposite. Here’s a few of the similarities and differences I’ve noticed:

Difference:

Japanese drive on the right side of the road.

Chinese drive on the left side of the road.

Difference:

Japanese love to eat things raw. You name it, they’ll eat it just as mother nature prepared it.

Chinese eat nothing raw. Since everything is covered in filth and disease it must first somehow be boiled or fried. Even vegetables.

Similarity:

Most Japanese people tend to look alike.

Most Chinese people tend to look alike.

(It’s ok – I can say this because I’m Jewish and most Jewish people tend to look alike).

Difference:

Japanese love top quality, brand name merchandise. They can be seen inspecting most purchases for fine workmanship and materials, otherwise they’ll think they’ve paid too much.

Chinese love cheap crap. They can be seen inspecting most purchases for shoddy workmanship and materials, otherwise they’ll think they’ve paid too much.

Difference:

Japanese people do not eat dogs.

Chinese people do eat dogs.

Similarity:

Japan"ese"

Chin"ese"

Difference:

Japanese people live for order and politeness. Everything can be solved by forming a line or apologizing for no reason.

Chinese people live for complete and utter chaos. The concept of a “line” is completely foreign, and all problems can be solved by just pushing the person in front of you harder. To my knowledge there is no word for “I’m Sorry” in Mandarin.

Difference:

Crossing the street in Japan is pretty easy.

You take your life in your hands any time you set foot in a street in China. Or on a sidewalk for that matter. Really, you’re only safe from being hit by a car or a bike or another person when you are in your hotel room. And even then only if you’ve remembered to hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door.

Similarity:

There is very little English spoken in Japan. Unfortunately that made communicating with the locals difficult.

There is very little English spoken in China. Fortunately, that made communicating with the locals difficult.

 

There are two great things about traveling in Vietnam:

1) I can now begin stories with “Back in ‘Nam”

2) The local currency is the Dong. And it’s 16,000 Dong to the dollar. So it’s not unreasonable to be walking around with a few million Dongs in your pocket.

I suppose there’s some other cool stuff too. Like the absolutely amazing, fresh, delicious food. The fact that people take such pride in everything they do. Locals smiling at you and actually being friendly. A culture with a sense of humor. Granted, not always with any sense of real urgency, like waiting half an hour for our luggage that was sitting just on the other “restricted” side of the baggage carousel.

Another bonus – things are incredibly cheap here. Like, really cheap. The 20 minute cab ride from the airport was $2 and our lunch came to $3. Granted, we got taken for a ride (pun intended) by our cyclo driver today. We’re pretty sure we paid about 5 times what we were supposed to – $30 to have two people pedal us around the city and take us anywhere we wanted to go for an entire day. It certainly seemed reasonable…

Let’s talk about “the cyclo” for a sec. A dying breed of public transportation (and for rather obvious reasons) it consists of a driver, three wheels, and a seat on the front. Very similar to a wheelbarrow. This may seem like a good idea except that they share the same congested, motorcycle filled "roads" that everyone else uses - and go at about 1/10th the speed, making them deadly icebergs in a chaotically flowing river of traffic.  I'll let the video speak for itself.

Speaking of cheap, we also had an amazing day of beauty on our first day here. I’ve never been a guy who needs to be talked into a day of back rubs and foot massages, and why not throw in a facial for good measure. L'apothequaire, recommended by the esteemed Jenathan, gave us a 4 hour day of spa goodness, including lunch, for $75 a person. And this would be considered really overpaying, since we went to a very high end place.

If you’re thinking about coming to Vietnam, come now. While you can already see signs of how the indigenous local culture is changing by the influx of tourist dollars and rapidly growing economy, it’s still quite wonderful. But in a few very short years this will clearly be wiped away and turned into another generic cultural Disneyland.

There's nothing like a night out drinking in Saigon.  Except for a night out drinking in Saigon that ends on the back of a stranger's motorcycle zipping around the city.

It all started innocently enough with an amazing dinner at Opera in the Park Hyatt.  Who whould have thought we'd have some of the best italain food of our lives while in Vietnam?  We wrapped things up and headed over to Q, a very cool bar/club just across the square.  Here we were entertained by what was, without a doubt, the drunkest girl we've ever seen in a public place.  She fell down at least ten times throughout the night.  The only reason she wasn't kicked out is because she knew the owner, which we found odd since she's from England.  Apparently she has been living here for 8 years.  Anyways, she was so over the top we added her to our There's Always One in the Group section.  Check her out.

Around 1am we decided to call it a night when I was struck with the drunken craving to actually get on one of these motorcycles we'd seen cheating death all day.  You can pay people to take you around similar to how you would take a taxi, so we found a couple of guys and sped off to the hotel.  But the hotel was pretty close, so we had them drive around randomly through the city for about half an hour.  Turns out it is every bit as fun as it looked, and was a definite highlight of the evening.

Doc Let wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle that you get all the way done with only to find out a couple pieces are missing. At first it seemed like all of the pieces were there, but then as you got farther into it you realized something wasn’t quite right.

A beach town about an hour’s drive from Nha Trang, Doc Let is supposed to be one of the most amazing beaches in Vietnam. While it certainly was spectacular to look at from afar, once walking on it you are able to see all of the trash that is everywhere. Particularly hundreds of blue plastic bags. There’s nothing worse than a romantic barefoot stroll down the beach that is interrupted by constantly bending down to peel gum wrappers off of your toes.

The second missing piece was the people. There weren't any.  There are two large resorts on this beach, and neither one of them had a single person in them. Not one. We would have thought they were closed except for the fact that they were completely staffed with open restaurants and bars. I think this is how it would feel to be a survivor after a nuclear holocaust. Minus the horrible radiation burns.

The day was salvaged by our little friend “Song” who ran onto the beach and begged us to come look at her fresh catch of seafood. Tough to say no since the goods come directly from the boats that are fishing these very waters 100 feet from shore. And it was around lunchtime. We ended up buying 2 pounds of sea prawns, and a couple of pounds of mussels and clams too. They were grilled up while we sat in beach chairs and then Song came over to present her handiwork, even going so far as to peel each of the shrimp for us as we ate them. We ended up horribly overpaying, but what the heck – all that for $10 is still a great deal.

With its huge Hollywood-like sign gleaming up in the mountain of the island across the way, I felt this strange compulsion to head over to Vinpearl Land and see what it was all about. I had seen a billboard coming in from the airport advertising happy families, huge roller coasters, video games - a slice of amusement park heaven. And since it was just a quick cable car trip across the bay to get there, why not check it out?

Strike One – the cable car. Completed just 3 months ago, the cable car line to Vinpearl is the longest in the world, stretching 10,000 feet over the ocean. The fact that it was so new made Joy extremely nervous . Check out the video of her mini panic attack. It’s 15 minutes of hanging precariously over the water way too high up to possibly survive a fall. My princess insisted on a private high speed jet boat for the return trip.

Strike Two – the place is empty. And I don’t mean empty in the “wow, there’s sure not very many people here” kind of way. I mean other than the hordes of staff it took to run the place we were the only humans there. Granted it was 174 degrees outside, but you’d think somebody would show up to check it all out.

Strike Three – There is supposed to be a very nice Sofitel on the island. We thought as long as we're there we would go take a look at it since we really like that brand.  When we asked the best way to get over to it we were told there was a twenty dollar per person "admission" charge to see it.  In Vietnam you can eat steak for a year for that kind of money. Why on earth there is any charge - let alone an absolutely exorbitant one - to walk into a hotel I have no idea, but that was the final nail in Vinpearl's coffin.  

It’s a mouthful, but that’s where we are at the moment. We had very few preconceived notions about Laos (pronounced like Matt “Lauer” without the “er”). Frankly, we didn’t really know that much about the place. I figured since it lies between Thailand and Vietnam it would just be some sort of combination of the two. As it turns out, this country has a completely unique culture – and it’s awesome.

First and foremost, the food. It’s all about fresh herbs and simple flavors. There’s a major French influence but no creams or sauces. Because the Lao people eat with their fingers, they prefer sticky rice which can kneaded between the thumb and forefinger and used to scoop up the meal. We’ve had some of the finest meals of the whole trip already, including our traditional lunch of sticky rice and dips today.

Another highlight has been a trek to the local waterfall which we hiked all the way up to the top of. It was pretty grueling, only to get to the top and not be able to get to the other side to go back down. Turns out it actually could be done, as luckily we ran into a guy on our way back down who had done it before and showed us the path over the top of the waterfall. 

Everything was going wonderful until a leech attached itself to Joy's foot. Pulling it off was pretty hard - that sucker (get it?) just didn't want to let go.  At the bottom we decided to take a dip in the pool under one of the falls and were soon joined by a troop of monks. It was honestly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen as they swung on the tree rope and jumped off the falls in their full orange robes.

With not too much left to do before leaving for the airport a little later today, we decided to take a morning hike up to the top of Phou Si mountain. It’s in the center of the town and provides a beautiful 360 degree view of everything around for miles. Shortly after starting the climb we came across an old lady selling birds in a small woven cage. Apparently the idea is to release them at the top to symbolize your love. Well, I’m just making the love part up since we don’t speak Laotian and don’t know what she was saying, but it obviously must symbolize something so why not make Joy happy. We released the birds and headed back down and were shocked to see IT WORKED! Right in our path back down were two lizards making hot and heavy whoopee.

I don't know why, but I've always had a fascination with tall buildings.  I'm in the right place for that since our hotel is connected to the 2nd and 3rd tallest buildings in the world.  We've spent most of the first two days in Kuala Lumpur exploring the ginormous mall that connects the two towers together.  It is perhaps the biggest and best mall I have ever seen, and coming off of nearly two months of traveling where malls do not exist it is quite refreshing. We’d almost forgotten what it’s like to pay at a cash register instead of arguing at a stall in a market over the price of a toothbrush.

Last night we had the best meal we have ever eaten. And since our tagline is “Eating and Drinking Our Way Around the World” I think that’s saying a lot. It was not just the best meal of our trip, but the best ever. Frangipani, a French nouveau concept, is located in an ultra hip area of KL (as we locals call Kuala Lumpur) and made a definite statement from the outside. Not overdone, but clearly defining itself. Which is the same thing that can be said for the two story open interior which boasts a tastefully done pool of still water in the center.

The meal started off with our waiter telling us about the two specials of the day, an asparagus dish and a sardine dish. We picked the asparagus. A moment later a panicked waiter comes out apologizing profusely that they just ran out of the asparagus. We say no problem and don’t give it another thought until Chris Bauer, the head chef, comes out to personally apologize and offer us the sardines on the house. Not huge fans of sardines we graciously accepted so as not to offend. Turns out the dish was one of the finest things I have ever tasted, with imported sardines rubbed with fresh sea salt and prosciutto.

I’m not going to bore with some overly wordy and pretentious description of the courses to follow, but let’s just say that each was brilliant. There was not one single ingredient or garnish that wasn’t the best I’ve ever had. As a Jew I’ve had my fair share of smoked salmon, but nothing has ever compared to the tea smoked salmon starter. When it was time for dessert Chris returned to our table (as he had a few other times throughout the evening to make sure everything was ok) to see what we wanted. To say everything on the menu looked tempting was an understatement, so we told him to pick something and surprise us. Next thing we know he’s marching out with half the wait staff to present us with the most beautiful sampler I have ever seen. Our very first 10/10 on the Wandering Walkers Restaurant Rating Scale (or WWRRS for short).

My Malaysian experience falls squarely between The Best Country I’ve Ever Been To and The Worst Country I’ve Ever Been To. A perfect five if you will. While there were certainly plenty of great things about this country and plenty of not-so-great, nothing really stands out one way or the other. It’s a schizophrenic culture of equal parts Malay, Chinese, and Indian that don’t really meld into any single identity.

As I mentioned previously though, if you like big buildings this is a good place for you. Even though there’s really only the two twin towers and one large communications tower to marvel at. The rest, again, fall right smack dab into thirty-story mediocrity. It was great to be reminded of what a mall is like, and it was nice to know we had the option of going to Chile’s if we wanted to. Not that we ever ever would of course.

Malacca (or Melaka or Malaka – there’s a zillion ways to spell it apparently) was a pleasant surprise. We didn’t have the bar set all that high, but the Dutch influence was neat-o and it was obvious they spent a good deal of effort maintaining the original facades. A very walkable town, although as you can see in the video I decided to try my hand at driving a Trishaw. Much to the amusement of Joy and the normal driver. There was a nice night market (although we’re starting to find these all too common) but what set this one apart was stumbling on a room of Malay Line Dancing. Yeah, you heard that right.

There is also an old Portuguese Settlement in the southern outskirts of the city. We decided to trishaw it over there, but our first guy was too old to make it the distance. So he pawned us off onto another guy who just barely made it. We nicknamed him El Gordo as at first we thought the locals were laughing at us for riding in one of these stupid things. Then we realized they were actually laughing at how fat our driver was. But it was all worth it because we had the best crab of our lives caught right off the shore we were eating on.

I spent a lot of time trying to think up ways to describe how unimaginably beautiful and perfect this place is. I still haven’t come up with anything. To say we are feeling really lucky and fortunate to even be here is an understatement. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime week for us. The Maldives are a tiny island nation located off the southern tip of India. It is, quite literally, the middle of nowhere. The very first tourist set foot here a mere 30 years ago. In that time this strictly Islamic nation of 88 islands has managed to transform itself into the premier resort destination on the planet. It can be pretty tough to get to, particularly from the States. We first went through Sri Lanka, to the Maldivian capital island city of Malé, and then by chartered sea plane to The W.

Thanks to a great person in our lives we are staying at The W Retreat for far, far less than the normally outrageous price. Known for its super trendy big city hotels, The W has somehow managed to capture that feeling in a resort environment. It inhabits its own island staffed by over 250 people to cater to the 30 guests that are here at the moment. The island is surrounded by what is considered to be the finest reef in The Maldives, which are considered the finest reefs on earth. Therefore by the transitive property the reef that is 10 feet from our back door is perhaps the finest in the entire world. Each morning we just throw on our snorkel gear that is sitting on the back porch of our beach bungalow next to our private splash pool and walk down the white powder sand into the crystal clear turquoise water and start snorkeling. Which at 88 degrees feels like stepping into a bath.

There’s plenty of other stuff to do besides snorkeling. We have already gone on two of the most amazing dives of our lives, including a 60ft deep “drift dive” in which the current took us about a mile along a solid wall of reef. We’ve seen baby sharks, turtles, and every kind of fish imaginable. Often in schools of thousands. Tonight we are going night fishing, where I am hoping to catch one of those beautiful fish and eat it for dinner. Tomorrow we go on an “eco adventure” with a marine biologist to teach us about the marine life around here. We’ll wrap up Friday with our first “night dive” as lots of creatures come out then that do not appear during the day. It’s probably going to be a little crazy being that far down under the water in the pitch black night but it should be amazing.

The restaurants are quite spectacular as well. More for ambiance than food, frankly, but how often can you eat at the end of a pier with a DJ spinning tunes to a night sky with more stars than I thought could possibly exist and not be happy? There’s a bar dug deep into the center of the island called 15 Below that has every imaginable kind of vodka, a restaurant where you can eat lunch in the pool (as we did today), an amazing gym which Joy used while I stayed in the room and played video games, and a nifty area called The Living Room with lots of different games. I’ve already been plotting ways to extend our time here, but unfortunately there is one major down side – a terrible internet connection. And since internet connections are like air to us, I’m afraid a week without a decent one is all we can take.  Check out the pictures!

Dubai redefines the term “melting pot”. Every race, shape, color, creed, and breed are represented by a trip to the mall. Which is primarily what there is to do here since it is 110 degrees. And since this entire city is brand new with no history or museums – not that I’d go to them anyways. Standing in the 45 minute long taxi line to get a cab back from the mall to the hotel on Saturday night, I couldn’t believe how many different nationalities were in one place. Only 30 percent of the population are “locals”, the rest are workers that come from all corners of the world to try to cash in on the development boom going on here. And what a boom it is – there are more cranes in Dubai than everywhere else in the world combined. Entire skylines are being erected all across the desert. It’s like Las Vegas meets Scottsdale with a bottle – no case - of steroids added to the mix.

As I said, there’s not a ton to do here. Besides shopping that rivals even Singapore. The Emirates has taken the concept of shopping mall to a whole new level. We went to the largest mall in the eastern hemisphere, which has an actual ski slope inside of it. And I don’t mean a bunny slope. This thing is the real deal, chairlift and all. It also had a Carrefour in it that makes Walmart – even a Super Walmart – look like a little boutique shop. It’s like a Walmart swallowed a Costco and then gave birth to a Sam’s Club all under one roof.

It’s a strange mix here of Islamic and Western values. Restaurants are separated into four sections: smoking and non-smoking, drinking and non-drinking. If you choose to down the booze, it is generally done on the other side of a black curtain. There are also lots of men walking around in the full white robe getup, complete with black clad harems of women in tow. This is an idea I would like to explore further, but I have been assured by Joy that will not be happening, even though I do look Arab.

Our hotel is also pretty interesting. It’s not your average Park Hyatt. It’s a sprawling compound straddling the “creek” that separates the two halves of the city. I don’t understand why it is called a creek since it’s larger than most rivers and has a yacht club that could harbor a cruise ship, but that’s what they call it. Check out the video of us walking to our hotel room. It’s officially the longest video clip we have ever uploaded.

If you’re like me, you probably have no idea where Bahrain even is. And the “h” is not silent. In fact, it is very aggressively pronounced. The Kingdom of Bahrain is a tiny island connected to Saudi Arabia by a 15 mile causeway which happens to be the world’s most expensive bridge. Let’s just hope Bush can keep it in his pants for a few more days about this region until we’re out of here. Really though, it’s completely safe. Not exactly Western, but not an Al Qaeda training camp either. It’s an interesting mix of traditional dress, values and culture with capitalism, growth, and massive construction.

There’s not much to do here. We’ve asked countless people to give us some ideas of ways to fill a few days, but they all just stare back blankly at us with that “why are you here in the first place” sort of look. I managed to let Joy talk me into going to the National Museum (since it’s air conditioned), although there were no exhibits about food so my attention span started to give out a few minutes in. We were going to go see the old Portuguese Fort on the way, but our driver insisted there was no such thing since he didn’t know quite how to get to it. There’s also an oil museum with the feature highlight of the region’s first oil well, but we decided to skip it since there was no gift shop.

Like Dubai, the primary means of entertainment is going to malls. It’s REALLY hot here – the kind of hot where walking even a few blocks is completely out of the question. Which is a real pain because taxis do not use meters here. Each ride is its own unique haggling situation, often heated, until a “reasonable” price is agreed upon around halfway through the ride. Threats from our side of “We will get out of this cab right now” and threats from their side of “I will turn this cab around right now” abound. Luckily English is spoken widely, making this delicate dance more tolerable.

The best part about being here though is that I look like I belong. Granted I’m not in the head to toe white sheet thingies that all the other guys are in, but if I were I’d completely blend in. I even went without shaving for two weeks to heighten the effect. It was nice finally being somewhere that I couldn’t immediately be pegged as a tourist. It kind of makes me wonder why I’m not stopped in airports more often.

Before arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa, we had heard many conflicting stories as far as what to expect. Some said the reputation for how dangerous this city is was overrated, others said don’t plan on leaving your hotel without bodyguards. In a nutshell, I think it falls somewhere in the middle, perhaps leaning a little more towards the dangerous side. It is not safe to walk around outside in the vast majority of the city – day or night – particularly the downtown area. However there are some places where it’s ok to go for a short stroll. Provided you are very aware of your surroundings and on guard at all times. I think the Wikipedia advice sums it up well (see bottom of entry under Stay Safe).

We decided the best way to see the city would be to hire a driver/guide for the day. Patrick turned out to be an amazing resource for showing us areas we otherwise could not go into, giving us his views on Apartheid since he has lived here his entire life, and giving us a real perspective on life in such a strange place to live. The tour started innocently enough with a trip through the wealthy northern suburbs, including where Nelson Mandela lives. It was then time to “roll ‘em up and lock ‘em” as we went into the center of downtown. We went through some of the pretty bad neighborhoods, riddled with gangs, drugs, and prostitution. And that’s just the stuff we could see. The CBD (central business districts, which is what “downtown” is called everywhere except America) is actually seeing a small revival. All hotels and business had been completely closed down due to excessive violence, however a few are now beginning to move back in and there is even a hotel scheduled to open in a few months.

Next stop was Soweto, which stands for South Western Townships - perhaps the most interesting part of all of Johannesburg. This is an area where many blacks were displaced to during the beginnings of Apartheid. It is now a mix of somewhat respectable homes and complete and absolute poverty. Patrick took us through areas where there is no running water or electricity. What few places have electricity are stealing it by running a precarious line through dry brush to their shack.

We drove into what looked to be the poorest and scariest part of all when the car was mobbed by children of all sizes and ages. I must admit, I was thinking to myself “Get us the hell out of here fast”. But Patrick had other ideas. He stopped the car, opened the semi-armored doors, and told us to get out. And so, I finally felt what it was like to be Oprah. We were literally swarmed by the most adorable and friendly children I have ever seen. We flowed down this river of children into Grandma Elizabeth’s shack, the old lady who makes bread to feed them all. There we got a chance to talk with her a bit (she was very shy) and spend some time with the kids. It was truly one of the most amazing and moving experiences of my life. They say once you go to Africa, a little piece of it will always stay in your heart.

We ended the very, very long day with trips to the house Nelson Mandela grew up in, the museum commemorating the Soweto uprising of 1976, and the Apartheid museum. If ever in Johannesburg – and that’s probably a big “if ever” - I highly recommend going to the Apartheid museum. And that’s saying a lot since I generally don’t like museums. It really is extremely well done.

One of the ways we entertain ourselves while away is to have little missions. Yesterday, one of our longest missions finally came to its triumphant conclusion. I have a bit of foot trouble and there’s only one shoe I’ve ever found that feels good and doesn’t cause it to act up. The Asics Gel Evolution II. I also was cursed with freakishly wide feet, and normal tennis shoes just don’t fit right. And no, it’s not true what they say.

The thing about Asics is outside of the US they can be relatively hard to find. I was able to pick up a new pair in Australia with relative ease, but hadn’t seen them since. Around Malaysia I started to get pretty desperate, since we’re not exactly traveling with a closet full of shoes. Any time we were out and about, we always had our eye out for sporting goods stores where maybe I would get lucky and find them. A few times we came oh-so-close, actually finding the exact shoe. But alas, the size US 11 eluded us each time. Foreigners apparently have much smaller feet. Eight countries and over a month later we finally found them at a Foot Locker in Cape Town, South Africa. The highlight of the experience was the shoe salesman saying “I don’t mean to toot our own horn, but we have the best Asics selection around”, and then beaming like a proud father for the rest of our time with him. I’ve since been in a post-coital mission success bliss and can’t stop looking across the room at them.