Wanderlust Wednesday [4]

For this Wanderlust Wednesday, I am very excited to introduce Krys Simon, one of the most beautiful people you will ever meet. Beauty that doesn't just run skin deep but one that emanates from the depths of her soul, manifesting itself in everything she touches with her talented hands. I cannot praise her enough for all of the amazing things she has done and continue to do. I hope you enjoy her stories as much as I do!

Name - Krys Simon

Site - www.kryssimon.com, www.superlaughter.yelp.com, www.kryssimonsays.blogspot.com

Occupation - Professor Associate at California State University (East Bay), while selectively freelancing in web design and iPhone/iPad app development.

Birthplace - Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. 100% Filipina, 100% Sucka Free.

Current Location - California girl, still in love with the bay…

(Golden Gate Bridge, California)

Trips Made - US (Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, DC, Virginia, Florida, Hawaii), Canada (Montreal and Quebec City), Mexico (Ensenada, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, Guadalajara), Philippines Islands (Pampanga, Baguio, San Fernando, Luzon, Angeles, Quezon City, Manila, Boracay), Brazil (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and some area in the Amazon), Peru (LIma and Callao), Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne), Italy (Florence and San Gimignano), China (Hong Kong and Macau)

(Puerto Vallarta, Mexico)

Trips on the List - Heading out to Berlin soon and will probably venture out around Europe during my stay. Shortly afterwards, I plan on visiting a good friend in Beijing and will probably venture out as well (hopefully I'll get to rendezvous with my long lost cousin along the way). I'm also currently applying to several humanities grants for our research thesis project on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which will fund our backpacking trip around India.

I'd like to visit the family in Australia sometime next year and hit up New Zealand along the way. I hear the surf and the wildlife there are phenomenal! I've also been wanting to visit Alaska too and then continue island hopping around the Philippines. Next stop, Cebu!

(Freshly "enhanced" Brazilian national monument, Sao Paulo)

Featured trip - This was in 2007 during our stay in Brazil, my then-boyfriend and I had just spent a day traipsing around the favelas, sippin' on Guarana. After hitting up a dope ass Chemical Brothers show in Sao Paulo, on the drive back home, we were stopped by what looked like guerrilla terrorists with their rifles and all. Forced out of the car, they raided the shit out of us. I totally thought I was gonna get raped and was ready to die in attempts to judo kick their ass. But Dolfo seduced them in portuguese somehow, mentioning that we were coming back from a Chemical Brothers concert. Apparently, they were also CB fans and started choppin' it up like we were all homies. Pat on the back and an escort back home, we made it back to Dolfo's place safe and sound. The following morning, we take a plane ride to the Amazons to spend a few days at their private resort (his parents were head physicists at GE Brazil so they had hookups). That trip was pretty intense.

(Masantol Elementary School, Pampanga)

Teach, learn, share - "My culture gives me fire. My people give me strength. My words are a declaration of will. My work and my actions are a shout out to the world that no one is going to tell me what to do." Growing up female, first generation Filipino, and American, I've always understood how truly privileged I am of all this opportunity my family has worked so hard for, so that I don't have to live in a state of revolution they went through for me. Traveling alone is a simple reminder of that.

Despite the poverty I've encountered during my travels, I've found the most kindness and generosity from the very people living in it, and I try to carry that with me back in the States. When I feel that I've lost touch with that humility and gratitude, drowning in my hipster pretentiousness and self-entitlement, it means that it's time to take another trip back home. I'll island hop and get those highs again, where everything shines with boundless potential, and i'll remember again never to take my life for granted.

So I guess my tip to you all is… just fucking travel! I can only hope that it will broaden your mind and open the doors to self-awareness. As it should.

(Fishball vendor, San Fernando)

Worst food - I'm always down with street food. ALWAYS. Even if it means sitting on a toilet for a day. Don't be surprised to find me in some random street stall, hovering over a vat of hot oil, poking at all that fried deliciousness. But there was this one dish I had in Hong Kong that every local recommended, chou doufu or deep-fried stinky tofu. This fermented tofu dish was served with some kind of thick hoisin sauce that smelled like heaven. But after one bite, I thought something died in my mouth. It tasted so putrid!

Pig blood? No problem. Under-developed duck eggs? Delicious. But stinky tofu? Hells no.

(Financial District, Hong Kong)

Do you have any tattoos? - My mother and father's first name are written above my wrist and their last names below my triceps (mother on right side and father on left side, respectively). "Hope" in hebrew is located on my right forearm, "Fear" in hebrew on my left forearm, and a large phonograph below it. Rodolfo's name is on my left wrist. "What nurtures you destroys you" in Latin is written along my left rib cage. An octopus (my sister/power animal) hovers along the bottom right side of my back and thigh. A couple of her tentacles are wrapped around a branch of cherry blossoms, which covers the left side of my back and shoulder. I have a yin yang behind my neck, 510 inside my lip, my birthdate behind my left thigh and a crying minotaur from Radiohead's Amnesiac album above it.

Yeah, I've got a lot of tattoos but I've already made the decision to have my body covered eventually. There's no rush though, I've got my whole life to do so and I would love to tattoo and get tattooed during my travels soon.

Wanderlust Wednesday [1]

I am very excited to present the very first installment of Wanderlust Wednesdays! Cue trumpet overture.

Kendall is one of the best friends anyone could ask for and we have traveled extensively together. We were roommates for just the first semester our freshman year in university and we have stayed buds ever since. I remember walking into the dorm at around 3AM (architecture students tend to keep strange schedules) nearly tripping on Kendall as he was sitting cross-legged on the floor fashioning a flag out of beer bottle caps. Like I said, one of the best friends anyone could ask for.

Name - Kendall Eskew

Site - In middle school I made a website with stick figures having sex but that’s long gone.

Occupation - I write software for investment banks and I promise I had nothing to do with the recession. It’s written in APL and uses lots of weird symbols like in this random bit of (useless) code: ⍳⌊1↓⌈/¨V

Birthplace - Born and raised in New Jersey and if you have a problem with Jersey then we’ve got a problem. My mother’s side of the family is all from Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina, so I love biscuits with gravy at Waffle House. My father is from Las Salinas, Nicaragua. I’ve visited a couple times and they recently got a paved road!

Current Location - Beautiful, sunny Jersey City, NJ.

Trips Made - Across the US, Montreal, Nicaragua, England/Scotland, Italy, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia.

Trips on the List - I’m going back to Turkey soon, and I’d like to visit India, or Peru, or Ukraine. There are so many choices.

Featured trip - On my recent trip to New Zealand and Australia there was plenty to be excited about, like dirtbiking along cliffs, hiking to waterfalls, and buying Jack Daniels & Coke in a can (you can get anything in a can there), but I also had a bit of a freakout. After an unsuccessful day of fishing in New Brighton Beach in Christchurch, I hadn’t caught anything, though a friendly Maori guy gave me some crabs he’d caught, as well as a rum & coke (in a can).

The next day I tried my luck in Akaroa, a small town in a volcanic harbor originally settled by the French. I got pretty damn excited when I caught a dogfish, so I put my backpack over the bait to keep it safe from seagulls and ran into a shop to grab a plastic bag for the fish. When I got back out of the shop I immediately freaked out, ran to the bench my bag was on, ran back to the shop and frantically said “Oh god oh god did I leave my bag in here? Did you see anybody walk past the shop while I was in here?”

The answer was “No, maybe the wind blew it somewhere?” And that happened to be the correct answer. In that short time, a strong gust of wind had rolled my backpack right off the dock and into the harbor – my bag with 2 big bottles of water and soda, some cans of vodka & cran, a book, my housekeys, and uhhh my passport. Bad enough as it is, but I also had a plane to Australia the next day.

After stumbling around in disbelief and fishing a bit more (I was in shock), I stopped by the police station and filed a report. Akaroa has only one police officer, by the way, and he is not in on Fridays so I had to leave a message with a volunteer.

I spent the next 24 hours scheduling appointments with the consulate, re-routing my flights, getting drunk, and watching strippers. With company, of course. I’m not that depressing.

This story has gone on long enough so I’ll finish it up now. On the bus ride back from returning the rented fishing pole the next day, I got the most wonderful call from Akaroa’s lone policeman. My bag had washed up on shore! It managed a 1.5 mile swim across the harbor and washed up, full of sand and water, with my beat-up but intact passport. Phew! To celebrate I did some more drinking and stripper-watching.

It is hard to believe my misfortune that after hours of fishing, the one minute I leave my bag unattended is the minute it rolls away, but I am in similar disbelief that my passport swam to shore after only one day, or that it came to shore at all. Thanks to this I got to Australia only one day late, but minus lots of money that I’d already spent on rebooking flights.

Teach, learn, share - I’ve found that if you’re going to an urban area, it’s easier to just go to ATMs than deal with exchanges, especially if you have a worldwide bank like HSBC. The rates you get at the ATM are good compared to the exchanges, and it’s a lot safer than walking around with a bunch of money stuck in your shoe.

Also make sure you tie stuff down if you’re in windy New Zealand.

The worst bathroom - It was autumn in Ankara, Turkey. We were young and naive, and didn't know there were nicer places for cheaper. The whole place stank of mothballs, since there were mothballs EVERYWHERE. In the closet, in the trash cans, in the urinal, in the freaking sink. The sweet smell of mothballs was like perfume to the proprietors.

It was also my first encounter with a squat toilet, instead of a pedestal toilet. Squats aren't always nasty, I found out, but my first encounter was not a good one. It was dirty, smelly, and couldn't get enough water pressure to flush properly, so shit and toilet paper would just be floating up at the top.

URrghghgh

Do you have any tattoos? - No but I once considered a tattoo of Erick’s face.