First Class Friends, Sourdough, and Sea Lions

We find ourselves in a Hanoi airport hotel, where the bathroom is prominently on display.

In the airport, you can now consume bird's nest in a convenient sugary drink! 

We stopped in Hong Kong, where you can see Poad. We showed bad judgement by taking pictures of the pig sliver and tonic medlar menu, but not of our friends Sunita and Sam (shown here).

This is all thanks to a mistake fare provided by Cathay Airlines.

So, here we are on a impossibly priced first class trip. Look how far away Barry is!

 Each seat has a guest seat with a seatbelt, which Barry appreciated.

You can eat together.

Gotta appreciate the caviars, since they help make this ticket cost a smackillion bollars.

 Here's where we ended up.

 In the land of sourdough, which is an excellent midnight jetlagged snack.

 If you tilt your head back enough, you can tan under your chin.

 So there's lots to see in San Francisco, including the surprisingly shiny firetrucks!

 We have great friends to host us and makes sure we ate well.

 This is the best picture I got of (Krista and) Trent, who is rolling his glutes.

 Our friends Laura and David own the coolest of laundry businesses!

 With Jen, we worked on our stellar selfie skills!

 It's ok, there was a selfie-mirror, and we look better in reverse.

 This is what they do with bears, I'm not sure why.

This is Barry trying to demonstrate his inner angry Neanderthal.

 Once we got 1 good picture, it was time to leave.

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Dieties of the Sea and Chin-ups

The blood moon showed up recently, and I demonstrate how impossible it is to photograph. Luckily and randomly, the restaurant let us use their telescope, where you can see into the moon's pimples!

I noticed an unusual wall the other day.

It involved water-spewing fish, so I knew we had to get a closer look.

There were also giant feet.

This is the Ting Kong temple. Sadly no other information exists on the Internet, so all of the information below is my hypothesis. Don't buy into the fake news.

The sailors from the nearby port (used to?) come here to pray to the maritime deities aplenty.

This one is all about the gourds, helping sailors' prayers for tasty and plentiful rum, because that's the best sea-drink.

Here the god of wisdom and skateboarder answers sailors' prayers for strong sea-legs and smooth seas.

The most successful deities prominently display their bellies, to the envy of the other gods. And sometimes, also their vintage Nikes.

There seemed to be a series of leisure dieties, if you ask me. Here, Barry fails to nail the pose of the god of waterskiing.

The deity of golf (at first I thought it was hockey, naturally), for those simply taking the ferry to Bintan (our neighbourhod island with more golf).

Finally, the lesser-known deity of recorders, haunting children's dreams everywhere, and horrifying teachers with songless screechy noises.

Around the corner, we saw the more common Buddha, seen here in the erie night lady form.

But by then, Barry got distraced by the fitness equipment, so it was time to go home.

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Intrude: The Fifth Element

Ginza by night. This is where the former panda likes to drink Hoppy! It's a malt product that you add to shochu to make a tasty, healthier beer substitute, with vitamin B!

It goes well with Okonomiyaki, which we've gotten reasonably good at cooking!

In Japan, we've learnt to expect the unexpected.

Like the lesser-known, terrifying fifth element: Intrude!

I hear you, girlfriend.

You can hang your wishes at the temple. A surprising number of them featured wild boars.

In our hotel, the gym told Barry what he was allowed to eat for dinner.

Mission accomplished!

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Young Drivers and Parasites

We went to the Megaweb Toyota City Showcase to see the future.

We learnt why the Japanese are such good drivers - they learn really really young!

We only saw minor fender-benders, and all the children survived.

We also went to the Parasitological Museum.

I'm not going to lie, it was a bit freaky.

I hate it when this happens!

And afterwards, we totally worried that we were suffering the same fate as this fish.

We started seeing parasites everywhere!

I worried about these Bendy Ladies too.

There was an unrelated Mosquito Festival, somehow. Let's itch together?

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