March 31, 2006
Levi's Photogallery
Levi, my travler partner from the last few hours in China, overland through Vietnam and Laos to Luang Prabang, has updated his online photo gallery. Under the Vietnam and Laos galleries you can find a few pictures of your truly! Check it out at www.neotes.de/
Posted by stu at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
Package from Thialand
Last week my final package from Thailand arrived here in Zürich. The most exciting item was my new pair of slippers from the Luang Pabang (Laos) night market. Second on the excitement list was my $3 refugee blanket that kept me warm during my first week in Laos. The rest of the parcel contained books I’ve read along the way, my malfunctioning iPod (confirmed dead), the unused underwater camera case for my stolen Sony DSC-T1 (grrrr), and the carry bag for my new Canon 350D with manuals. The week before, a tube with handmade paper from Laos and a painting arrived. Sadly, the tube was dented resulting in damage to the painting. The handmade paper is fine and I plan to use it for little projects and wrapping gifts.
Posted by stu at 08:21 PM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2006
Life back home
So, I have been back nearly three weeks now and my PADI Advanced Open Water card showed up today, which is very cool. It is not clear when my next diving opportunity will present itself, but I look forward to it. In hind sight, more of my times should have been dedicated to diving because it is so much fun and healthy.
I still have not managed to process all of the mail. Specifically, the financial paperwork is just sitting there waiting for me. This seems to have made up about two-thirds of all the mail...the rest being junk mail, subscriptions reminders and a few Christmas cards.
The job hunt has been in full swing since stepping off the plane, and we have had lots of snow. Yuck. Another reason to spend my days diving off Krabi.
Posted by stu at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2006
Blogging update
I’ve been trying to catch up on the photo gallery lately and putting less time into the blog. In the next few days we should see blog entries about my painful trip to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur itself, Macau, my trip from Macau to Hong Kong and my final exit. There is so much more to say and work on that I expect regular updates to the blog for weeks, if not months, after I return to Zurich in a few short days.
Hold on to your mouse kids, there is more to come.
Posted by stu at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2006
The Easter Bunny of South East Asia
I am the Easter Bunny of South East Asia. I’ve left behind:
- one of my pant legs from my Mammoth convertible trekking trouser/shorts in Mai Sot (Mae Sod), Thailand at the Green Guesthouse
- my Gillette Mach3 razor, shampoo and soap in a hotel Hoa Bihn, Vietnam
- a partially completed biography of Hunter S. Thompson on an Emirates Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok
- two Singha beer cans in at the Asia Airport Hotel near the Bangkok airport in the room fridge (so I wouldn’t have to pay their crazy prices)
- my pair of fake Teva flip flops at THC's roof top bar on New Year’s Eve, Chiang Mai, Thailand
- my UBS cash card somewhere around Tha Phae Gate, Chiang Mai, Thailand
- a roll of when-you-need-it-you-need it toilet paper at a roadside restroom on route 1 at a bus stop down on the way to Bangkok
- miscellaneous unread IHT newspapers all over the place
- (and most recently) my Nokia 7250 mobile phone with a Thai SIM in the back of a taxi in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Posted by stu at 10:12 AM | Comments (2)
January 24, 2006
Comments
OK, I’ve had some private feedback on my blog and would appreciate any readers opinions on the below topics.
- My mother thinks I use the word ‘fuck’ to often and it detracts from my communiqués. I response is that I write for myself and generally don’t stress on things like that. Should I self censor my language?
- Ken, an online travel friend, suggests having map links so that people can see what city or journey I’m talking about. It’s a lot of work, but seems like it would make sense.
- Does anybody actually care about the audio gallery? I’ve put a lot of effort into it but have no idea if people are using it.
Use the comment feature, let me know what you think.
Posted by stu at 10:05 AM | Comments (3)
January 12, 2006
Web server was down for two weeks
My web server was down for about two weeks from about the 23rd of December to January 8th. Three cheers to Dani and Nina in Zurich for sorting this out. Apparently, the power was interrupted to my flat in Zurich and my server did not come back up with the power. Murphy's law: nobody was around to do anything about it.
Over the next days I'll post what's been going on!
Keep checking below this post to find new posts
Posted by stu at 08:18 AM | Comments (4)
November 30, 2005
Bored silly...
So, I’m sitting here in a 3000 Dong/hour Internet cafe reading mail, getting up to date with www.bootsnall.com, and inspecting my web site statistics. There are lots of ‘kids’ about who probably should be at home doing homework but are now chatting on IM (some with video), playing silly games and otherwise wasting time much more innocently that I ever did as a teen.
The web site statistics are really interesting. You all can follow them if you like at http://www.dietpizza.ch/statistics/awstats.www.dietpizza.ch.html. The search engine query terms are very interesting. Lots of perverts on the prowl (probably at work) searching for ‘katoey’ or ‘sex love live bad girls islands vip photo’, random hits from people searching for travel information, and a few unexplained searches like ‘pam up tomato’ and ‘blg’.
By the way: who is rivera.hmdnsgroup.com?
Posted by stu at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2005
I'm famous now!
There is this travel community called Boots-n-all that I’m really fond of, and they have a sister site called www.whygo.com. Basically it changes once a day to include submissions by visitors and I sent them several of my favorites. Sunday they posted one from my April trip to Nha Trang, Vietnam! You can check it out at www.whygo.com It is a picture taken from my beach chair of a jewlry vendor listening to Roxy Music's Avalon on my iPod.
Posted by stu at 05:14 AM | Comments (1)
November 14, 2005
Freaks on the Internet
Every few days I check out the statistics on my web server. The www.dietpizza.ch search statistics page details the search queries that people have used to find my site with. Some of them are pretty interesting, such as ‘slinky dress photos’ and ‘katoey breasts’. Have a look for yourself!
Posted by stu at 03:14 AM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2005
New Book Review section
There is a new section the this site now, the Book Reviews. I’m definitely reading lots more on this trip than usual…this is great.
Got to do some packing: I’m off to catch my train in a few minutes. The train down to Bangkok is 562 Baht for an overnight sleeper car with no aircon. That's about US$13. Just like last time, some refreshments were in order.
75cl bottle of Khao Yai wine: 445 Baht
Goodwill Parmesan cheese: 261 Baht
Roussel D'Auvergne blue cheese: 255
Butter: 26 Baht
1L Aevian water: 59 Baht
Party cups: 22 Baht
Wine opener: 45 Baht
Bread: 15 Baht
2 Bluto red apples: 270 Baht (!)
All told, my food and drink cost 2.5 times the train ticket. Somehow this all made sense at the time but now seems silly.
Posted by stu at 08:43 AM | Comments (1)