Some pics from our visit with Dr Toothy that I didn’t put up last time…

Me, Blondie, and Dr T blazing up a couple of Cohiba Robustos at Muse in Roppongi

Dr T and the wife chanelling Axl Rose at the Honch

Karaoke at 3am.. the baby in the back was more than a little freaky

Shore Patrol is def in the house

Drinks at Ice Bar

Dr T and my headbanging drunk wife

Well, it has been about a month now that I have been looking for a new job… oy… the one time in my life I assumed I would be able to find a new job in two weeks like every other time I looked for a new job.. it takes forever… and have only been on two interviews so far… going a little stir crazy at home.. esp now that the wife has gone back to work.. it is really no fun playing hooky by yourself… the only good thing so far this week.. new kicks….

I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to deal with headhunters all day… and I guess being on the road for a year is not as common as I thought it would be in NY and has def not opened any doors for me.. so much so that I am even thinking about going back to the old job.. but that is def not something I am ready to commit to yet…

Must come clean.. these are all ordered from a factory in China and they are all knock offs… did it once.. will never do it again..

These may be the coolest sneakers I have ever seen… from Staple Design… Dunk SB’s with a NYC pigeon embroidered into the heel…

super sweet.. I got two pairs of these.. one to wear and one for the shelf

Bape Sta with cool cow on the heel, patent leather sneakers..yikes

Gray on gray with the Bathing Ape logo embroidered on the heel

My lone pair of AF1′s… little bright for me usually.. but I really liked the orange

OK gotta get ready to trek down to Park Ave in the freezing cold to meet with yet another headhunter..

One last thing.. a belated congrats to Desmondo and his girl on their recent engagement…!!!

Now that we are back and traveling is over, and I am knee deep in my job search.. I need something to distract me from the terror of going back to work.. and somehow that thing is.. sneakers… I have always loved sneakers but lately it is all I think about… very odd.. once baseball season starts…hopefully I will be less obsessed with sneakers.. but for now.. I have turned into a sneakerhead….and I feel the need to post some pics of my current sneakers…

Adidas ZXZ ADV’s…circa 2002….This was the first pair of sneakers I bought that I didn’t wear… I saw an episode of Cribs with Missy Elliot and she wore a pair of sneakers sorta like these and I have lusted after them since…. this is the pair that started it all.. I bought them… and then just could never bring myself to wear them and just put them on my dresser… this was about 5 years ago

These I picked up in Shanghai… Adidas and Toy2R.. toys and sneakers… super sweet, these will never get worn.. but the shop in Shanghai did rip me off.. they didn’t give me the figure that comes with it.. but I did get the three extra pairs of laces

Blue and orange Adidas Marathoner…..also never worn… the soles are little Adidas logos…

Adidas Superstars…picked up in Japan at a Navy base exchange.. cool Halloween print on the soles.. great buy at $40

Adidas Comptowns…picked up these sweet ones here in NY on Prince St.. brown is the new black…. or so the wife says as she watches the Oscars

Another colorway of the Missy inspired ZXZ ADV shoes that I do wear, I think I actually have grown out of these…

My only pair of Pumas, TX-3′s… cirrca 2004.. the wife actually has the same pair and refuses to wear them when I wear them

I got these in Taiwan.. people either love these or hate these

My only pair of NB mids

Air Paracuso.. wore these on my honeymoon

Nike Air Vandal Black Fives edition, also picked up at the Navy Exchange in Yokosuka, the velcro is sweet.

Yesterday I dragged the wife down to the LES to check out a store called Reed Space. Very cool shop, the owner is a guy named Jeff Ng, aka Jeff Staple and his designs are too cool for school. He is also the guy that caused a small riot a few years back when he released a sneaker with a pigeon on the heel (I got the knock offs). Those sneakers now sell for over 2 grand. Sheeesh.

I guess most guys at some point in their lives were obsessed with sneakers, I remember dragging my parents to Roosevelt Field Raceway flea markets on Saturdays looking for that pair of Nike Delta Force high tops and cleaning them every day after school with a tooth brush and filling in the white NIKE on the back with white out.  I guess I never really stopped, whenever we go to the outlet malls up in Woodbury, the only places I ever go to are the Nike store and the Adidas store. I wonder if I ever will grow up.

I realized that I left out way too many pics of the amazing food we had in Shanghai… here are a few more pics of the grub we noshed on out East.

Another Shanghai classic, mini peeled shrimp. Unlike in the States, the smaller the better since it is thought to have less flavor the bigger they get.

Clay pot of sweet soy sauce baked fatty pork and cuttlefish. May sound funny, but this dish with two bowls of rice is about my perfect meal.

Cold dishes at the start of a meal, crisp fatty pork cubes and salted duck, a small plate of dried sweet and sour plums, tofu slices with various toppings in soy sauce.

Chinky version of honey glazed ham, with little buns to turn them into the most amazing ham sandwich on earth

Dates stuffed with gluttinous rice

Chicken cubes fried with garlic and lots of red peppers

Egg white custard tarts with super flaky crusts, Macau style

Pork chop sandwhich. This thing costs less than a buck. The bread is firm,warm,crispy and chewy and the pork chop is flash fried and just a little spicy. I’ll take one of these over Quiznos any ole day of the week

Made by hand on the street, a box of chewy sweet peanutty goodness. This box cost about $0.80

sniff sniff.. it is a sad sad day indeed… today the first of many copies of my resume were sent out… somewhere now in the internet ether the seeds of my end are being planted… it’s going to be a rude rude awakening the first time I hear my alarm clock go off… but all good things must come to an end and this year has been one hell of a good thing… I am more than a little sad to see it end.. but I would have been a hell of a lot more sad if I had never done it… anyone out there thinking about being totally irresponsible and fiscally unsound for a long period of time.. stop thinking about it and just do it.. you don’t need much money and  the experience will be worth a thousand times what it costs… the wife just got the expansion pack to World of Warcraft.. so I haven’t talked to her in a while.. she just sits there and quests all night…but eventually even she will have to go back to work… oyyy

and CONGRATS!!! to maid4life and Vin Diesel… your wedding was awesome and I hope you have a blast on your honeymoon….

After a week and a half with my parents in Shanghai.. we needed a break… luckily we had planned to go to Japan to visit my college buddy who is stationed in Japan on board the USS Kitty Hawk… we landed in Narita and hopped on the slow train out to Yokosuka.. it was nice to get back to Japan again.. we were there in July and loved our time in Kyoto and were looking forward to spending some time in Tokyo this time…Japanese people truly are some of the friendliest on the planet and the service industry there is by far the best in the world.. from the cab drivers to people in KFC… they do their jobs better than anyone in the world… but first a couple of days lounging with Dr Toothy and his Navy buddies….right off the bat we figured we were going to be hitting the bottle harder than we had been all year… we wound up packing in a year’s worth of boozing into five days.. and for some reason.. they decided that they like tequilla again..nasty.. I haven’t touched the stuff since freshman year… and I can attest.. Navy folks can get down with the best of them….

Some random pics:

$210.00 USD for a freaking melon, granted it was a really pricey sweets shop in Ginza

Yep.. a Godzilla monument in Tokyo

The freshest sushi you will ever eat, we lucked out and got seated by the oldest chef behind the bar.. this guy was clearly the sensei because this sushi was unreal… forget Nobu and Sugiyama.. this place would wipe the floor with them

We bucked this line for sushi at 10am at the Tsjuki Fish market, we waited for a little over an hour and it was worth every minute of the wait.. the sushi at this place melted in your mouth

Dr T trying to ice skate in Yokohama                    Hot corn soup from a vending machine

The wife at the Ferrarri Bar in Yokosuka… we got messed up in that place…twice

Dr T and Yooks upstairs at Ferrari bar apres skating.. a bartender who parties like no one I have ever seen.. she called Dr T at 9am.. still out and tried to make plans for 11:30am!!!!.. Lunchtime for most people is still a night out for her…she is also 10 ft tall

On the deck of the CV-63 USS Kitty Hawk, unfortunately the flight wing was gone so there were no jets on board… but it was still fascinating to see the inside of this floating city… it is cramped in that thing

Me and Lt SG Toothy, watching him get saluted everywhere was giggling fuel for the Mrs

Crazy crosswalk in Shibuya, Tokyo

Ice Bar Tokyo, those parkas are really warm.. but they made Lars look like the Abominable Snowman.. the man is a giant, how he shares that tiny room with Dr T is a mystery

Dinner at the restaurant that inspired the finale of Kill Bill Vol 1

Dr T and us at Muse, crazy meat market filled with Gaijin trying to “connect” with the locals

Me and Fish Face at the fish market

Dr T and the wife getting ready to get their skate on, the ice skating rink is suprisingly not called Ringu Park. We searched for the rink for a while and I was convinced that the sign that read Ringu Park was the skating place.. I was wrong, Dr T is the most violent ice skater ever

Me and the Mrs by the Kitty Hawk insignia

Dr T, Me, the Mrs, Blondie, Slimey Steve, the Mexican’t (my tiny wife had to take a shot of tequilla for him one night.. and he is Mexican!!) and Lars in Yokosuka

I dared Dr T to order a drink on the rocks at the Ice Bar and he did… idiot… for some reason your lips and tongue won’t stick to these ice glasses… we all tried….

The wife and Dr T lounging on the ice sofa

It was great to see Dr T since I haven’t seen his dumb ass since before he left for Japan… it was good to see how much he grown since moving out there.. he has gone to more places this year than his previous 30+ years and he has also surrounded himself with very cool people. He also parties like we never did in college, come home at 6am sleep till 7am and then go to work.. only one night we all passed out when our power nap turned into a full on sleep of the dead.. other than that.. every night was soaked with tequilla and made me realize that I can’t hang with true party people anymore… Tokyo and Yokosuka were awesome, Coco Curry, peeing outside the apt, 3rd Deck Warriors, Shore Patrol serenading, babies up at 3am, giggling karaoke and giggling puking, fare adjustments , Kiddy Land, Hugs from Blondie, tabulating score on the rail, Yokohama Starbucks, Dirty Director, no passports at New Sanno, Mountain Song, “I like snake.. I like rat”,  the latest and greatest in mink and hobo technology, ”…. i’ll tell you the story later”, more cigarettes than I care to count and of course finally taking a shitty on the kitty will be thought of whenever I think about Japan.

Thanks to Dr T for showing us a great time in the land of the rising sun. See you in Philly!!

Left for Shanghai on Dec 29th on the 1:30am flight from JFK direct to Pudong Int’l Airport… luckily my Dad told us that we had to arrive crazy early in order to get good seats since they don’t take advanced seating.. nice.. so we arrived at JFK at 9pm for a 1:30 am flight.. but lucked out and got two of the bulkhead seats.. making the 15 hour flight a little less torturous….but China Eastern is horrible horrible airline…service is just nowhere near the standards of Singapore or Cathay Pacific….not even in the same ballpark, they asked us to move in order to let a mother use a crib, a two hour flight.. no prob.. 15 hours no uh.. and we got to the airport 4 hours early to get these seats.. too bad.. and besides.. the two other bulkhead seats were empty and there were single seats in the row of four still empty.. why would they want to move a couple?…either way I told the stewardess hell no….anyways.. I finally got my ass to mainland China for the first time ever for me… and Shanghai was as I expected …super frenetic with construction.. ridiculously polluted air… most days you could not even see any blue in the sky even on a sunny day… but one thing I didn’t expect.. it was freakin freezing….but most importantly.. the food was all I hoped for and then some…

The folks and Yang’s Fry Dumpling hard at work… they are easy to spot.. the only joint along this street market with a line out the door any time of day

Fresh batch of shen jian bao coming out.. this dude does not have oven mitts… just folded pieces of cardboard.. they let him pour the grease from the old batch into the new one… mmm…dumpling grease

These guys are the most perfect dumplings in the world… thicker skin on the bottom flash fried crisp… thinner softer skin on the top holding in all the broth and topped with sesame seeds and scallions… inside minced pork with garlic and ginger…. so fresh and hot and 4 of these bad boys for about $0.40

View of the Bund from a rooftop hotel bar

View over the Huang Pu river towards Pudong, the new digs are way to the right of this photo.. about a 5 minute cab ride to the landmark TV tower

Some of IM Pei’s sweet architecture at the Suzhou Museum, modern take on classical lines

My dad getting his candle prayer on at a temple

The wife peeking out of a window at the Suzhou Museum

Mopeds getting ready to roll off the ferry, we ran for the ferry after going buck wild at the custom clothes center since there were no cabs to be found… my Dad threw 10 RMB (little over a buck)  at the clerk for four ferry tickets… and got 4 RMB back…( fifty cents)…after we crossed decided to ride the bus back to the apt complex… then we stopped at the bakery where my wife decided to eat garbage…as we picked out baked goods from the display.. my wife passes a tray near the register with two wax paper bags and some big pieces of puff pastry on the tray..and decides to eat it… then as a woman walks by her and gives her the stink eye she puts down the other piece of … well garbage… we never went back to that bakery

My Dad sporting a pair of sweet Oakleys during a bubble tea break

Yummy yummy duck and buns, crazy tasty little sandwiches of smoked duck

Me and the Mrs at the Humble Administrator’s Garden

The wife with cotton candy after our night of street food for dinner

It was this cold in “our” room in my parent’s new apartment… the wife burrito.. electric heat is not the same as gas heat

One of the streets full of little shops in the old French Concession… sorta like the Village before the $50,000 rents took over

The Shanghai staple.. Xiao Long Bao (Little Basket Dumplings) at Ding Tai Fong Restaurant.. the broth in these little things is delicious.. we saw much bigger versions of these with straws stuck in them…mmm broth thru a straw

Another Shanghai culinary highlight.. hairy crab… these mothers are pricey… almost $20 USD per… like usual not enough meat to work payoff for me.. but I guess tasty

Engrish signs

The wife smirking as she dragged us to the location of the first meeting place of the communist party in China

The two of us digging on street food, my sweet orange “North Face” jacket cost me less than $20 USD.. and it did squat in keeping me warm… fake winter coats are a bad idea

As you might gather food was a big part of the trip for us.. so was getting foot massages.. but they make pretty boring pictures… although the little one did get a kick out of hearing my Dad squeal when getting put into a full nelson by tiny PRC girls… Shanghai is like most other major Asian cities… drivers are insane.. there are LV, Gucci and Chanel stores every few miles.. but the number of hi rise buildings can make even a native NYer look up every once in a while.. but I am used to a city of 8 million… Shanghai is busitng at the seams with 20 million and in Shanghai.. manpower is cheap… I got a suit made for $80 USD and shirts made for $10 USD…. overall the trip was pretty cool.. we got to see and do some cool stuff along with the usual feather ruffling when you put people together for long periods of time on end.. but nothing like Greece and Turkey with both Moms…but let’s just say next time a week or so will be long enough… Shanghai is a very cool city and I am looking forward to discovering more of it the next time I go back… by then my parents should have gotten their car and we won’t be slaves to taxis and jammed into a tiny VW Santana… there were more than a few occassions I found myself muttering how much I hate Chinese people, spitting everywhere and no sense of personal space.. and they are not bashful about throwing a few elbows if you are in their way… must be some deep seeded self hate issues with me

cost of getting into a cab in Shanghai = 11 RMB… little over a buck…

cost of getting into a cab in Tokyo = 660 Yen… almost 7 bucks… yikes….

This was my first trip to Shanghai but will def not be my last since I plan to go back and see my folks at least once a year… so expect to see plenty of more pics from Shanghai

A BLUEPRINT FOR U.S. ENERGY SECURITY

Introduction

multinational effort rooted in the following principles, the United States can immediately begin to

introduce a global economy based on next-generation fuels and vehicles that can utilize them:

· Fuel diversification: Today, consumers can choose among various octanes of gasoline, which

accounts for 45% of U.S. oil consumption, or diesel, which accounts for almost another fifth. To

these choices can and should promptly be added other fuels that are domestically produced,

where possible from waste products, and that are clean and affordable.

· Real world solutions: We have no time to wait for commercialization of immature technologies.

The United States should implement technologies that exist today and are ready for widespread use.

· Using existing infrastructure: The focus should be on utilizing competitive technologies that

do not require prohibitive or, if possible, even significant investment in changing our

transportation sector’s infrastructure. Instead, “fuel choice” should permit the maximum

possible use of the existing refueling and automotive infrastructure.

· Domestic resource utilization: The United States is no longer rich in oil or natural gas. It has,

however, a wealth of other energy sources from which transportation fuel can be safely,

affordably and cleanly generated. Among them: hundreds of years worth of coal reserves, 25%

of the world’s total (especially promising with Integrated Gasification and Combined Cycle

technologies); billions of tons a year of biomass, and further billions of tons of agricultural and

municipal waste. Vehicles that meet consumer needs (e.g., “plug-in” hybrids), can also tap

America’s electrical grid to supply energy for transportation, making more efficient use of such

clean sources of electricity as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear power.

· Environmentally sensible choices: The technologies adopted should improve public safety and

respond to the public’s environmental and health concerns.

 Vehicles:

· Hybrid electric vehicles: There are already thousands of vehicles on America’s roads that

combine hybrid engines powered in an integrated fashion by liquid fuel-powered motors and

battery-powered ones. Such vehicles increase gas-consumption efficiency by 30-40%.

· Ultralight materials: At least two-thirds of fuel use by a typical consumer vehicle is caused by

its weight. Thanks to advances in both metals and plastics, ultralight vehicles can be affordably

manufactured with today’s technologies and can roughly halve fuel consumption without

compromising safety, performance or cost effectiveness.

· “Plug-in” hybrid electric vehicles: Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are also powered by a

combination of electricity and liquid fuel. Unlike standard hybrids, however, plug-ins draw

charge not only from the engine and captured braking energy, but also directly from the electrical

grid by being plugged into standard electric outlets when not in use. Plug-in hybrids have liquid

fuel tanks and internal combustion engines, so they do not face the range limitation posed by

electric-only cars. Since fifty-percent of cars on the road in the United States are driven 20 miles

a day or less, a plug-in with a 20-mile range battery would reduce fuel consumption by, on

average, 85%. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can reach fuel economy levels of 100 miles

per gallon of gasoline consumed.

· Flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs): FFVs are designed to burn on alcohol, gasoline, or any mixture

of the two. About four million FFV’s have been manufactured since 1996. The only difference

between a conventional car and a flexible fuel vehicle is that the latter is equipped with a

different control chip and some different fittings in the fuel line to accommodate the

characteristics of alcohol. The marginal additional cost associated with such FFV-associated

changes is currently under $100 per vehicle. That cost would be reduced further as volume of

FFVs increases, particularly if flexible fuel designs were to become the industry standard.

· Flexible fuel/plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: If the two technologies are combined, such

vehicles can be powered by blends of alcohol fuels, gasoline, and electricity. If a plug-in vehicle

is also a FFV fueled with 80% alcohol and 20% gasoline, fuel economy could reach 500 miles

per gallon of gasoline.

flexible fuel vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by as much as 12 mbd.

 Fuels:

· Fuel additives: Fuel additives can enhance combustion efficiency by up to 25%. They can be

blended into gasoline, diesel and bunker fuel.

· Electricity as a fuel: Less than 2% of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, so using electricity

as a transportation fuel would greatly reduce dependence on imported petroleum. Plug-in hybrid

vehicles would be charged at night in home garages — a time-interval during which electric

utilities have significant excess capacity. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that

up to 30% of market penetration for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with 20-mile electric

range can be achieved without a need to install additional electricity-generating capacity.

· Alcohol fuels: ethanol, methanol and other blends:

Ethanol (also known as grain alcohol) is currently produced in the U.S. from corn. The industry

currently has a capacity of 3.3 billion gallons a year and has increased on the average of 25% per

year over the past three years. Upping production would be achieved by continuing to advance

the corn-based ethanol industry and by commercializing the production of ethanol from biomass

waste and dedicated energy crops. P-Series fuel (approved by the Department of Energy in

1999) is a more energy-efficient blend of ethanol, natural gas liquids and ether made from biomass waste.

Methanol (also known as wood alcohol) is today for the most part produced from natural gas.

Expanding domestic production can be achieved by producing methanol from coal, a resource

with which the U.S. is abundantly endowed. The commercial feasibility of coal-to-methanol

technology was demonstrated as part of the DOE’s “clean coal” technology effort. Currently,

methanol is being cleanly produced from coal for under 50 cents a gallon.

It only costs about $60,000 to add a fuel pump that serves one of the above fuels to an existing refueling station.

· Non-oil based diesel: Biodiesel is commercially produced from soybean and other vegetable

oils. Diesel can also be made from waste products such as tires and animal byproducts, and is

currently commercially produced from turkey offal. Diesel is also commercially produced from coal.

 Policy Recommendations:

· Provide incentives to auto manufacturers to produce and consumers to purchase, hybrid vehicles,

plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and FFVs across all vehicle models.

· Provide incentives for auto manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency of existing, non-FFV auto models.

· Conduct extensive testing of next-generation fuels across the vehicle spectrum to meet auto

warranty and EPA emission standards.

· Mandate substantial incorporation of plug-ins and FFVs into federal, state, municipal and covered fleets.

· Provide investment tax incentives for corporate fleets and taxi fleets to switch to plug-ins, hybrids and FFVs.

· Encourage gasoline distributors to blend combustion enhancers into the fuel.

· Provide incentives for existing fueling stations to install pumps that serve all liquid fuels that can

be used in the existing transportation infrastructure, and mandate that all new gas stations be so equipped.

· Provide incentives to enable new players, such as utilities, to enter the transportation fuel market,

and for the development of environmentally sound exploitation of non-traditional petroleum

deposits from stable areas (such as Canadian tar sands).

· Provide incentives for the construction of plants that generate liquid transportation fuels from

domestic energy resources, particularly from waste, that can be used in the existing infrastructure.

· Allocate funds for commercial scale demonstration plants that produce next-generation

transportation fuels, particularly from waste products.

· Implement federal, state, and local policies to encourage mass transit and reduce vehicle-miles traveled.

· Work with other oil-consuming countries towards distribution of the above-mentioned

technologies and overall reduction of reliance on petroleum, particularly from hostile and

potentially unstable regions of the world.

The estimated cost of the ‘Set America Free’ plan over the next 4 years is $12 billion. This would

be applied in the following way: $2 billion for automotive manufacturers to cover one-half the costs of

building FFV-capability into their new production cars (i.e., roughly 40 million cars at $50 per unit); $1

billion to pay for at least one out of every four existing gas stations to add at least one pump to supply

alcohol fuels (an estimated incentive of $20,000 per pump, new pumps costing approximately $60,000

per unit); $2 billion in consumer tax incentives to procure hybrid cars; $2 billion for automotive

manufacturers to commercialize plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; $3 billion to construct commercialscale

demonstration plants to produce non-petroleum based liquid fuels (utilizing public-private costsharing

partnerships to build roughly 25 plants in order to demonstrate the feasibility of various

approaches to perform efficiently at full-scale production); and $2 billion to continue work on

commercializing fuel cell technology.

Since no major, new scientific advances are necessary to launch this program, such funds can be applied

towards increasing the efficiencies of the involved processes. The resulting return-on-investment – in

terms of enhanced energy and national security, economic growth, quality of life and environmental

protection – should more than pay for the seed money required.

You can read more at:

www.setamericafree.org

I read recently that the US is about to commit roughly another $99,000,000,000.00 to the war this year. That would bring the grand total to about $170 Billion Dollars…. that is just for this year. (This is of course totally ignoring the human cost of the war, thousands of men and women in the service who have already perished and countless numbers of families whose lives have been turned upside down.) For each gallon of gas we buy at the pump, a few cents wind up buying the explosives being used in the IED’s that are killing our men and women. The plans listed above can be implemented … tomorrow… for just over 10% of the extra hundred billion dollars we are spending in Iraq this year. The thought just does not make any sense to me.

We just got back from spending the week up in Vermont. Managed to get in three days of skiiing up at Okemo with conditions that were far from ideal. Since this winter has been so warm, the ski resorts up there have been totally reliant on snow making, which makes for OK skiing and boarding. We had no lift lines to deal with, but we did have to deal with slush, patches of ice, rocks, and patches of bare dirt along the trails.  Needless to say the people up in VT who depend on the ski season to carry them for the year are going to be tightening their belts this year. This article seems especially relevant.

And the Color of the Year Is …

After our week long dive trip to the Galapagos, we hit Belize for 10 days for some rainforest trekking, cave exploring, kayaking, animal refuge hiking and some more diving. Belize is a small country nestled between Mexico and Guatemala. With a population of only some 70,000 people, most people can’t find it on a map. This might also be due to the fact that the country is only 25 years old. Most of the population speaks English, or Creole which spoken slowly enough is more or less English.  What really suprised me is how many Chinese people there are in the country. During our ride from the airport to our hotel in Belize City, we passed by a dozen Chinese restaurants and supermarkets. Our driver confirmed there are indeed tons of Chinese people in this tiny country.  Since we were a little dived out from the previous week, we spent 5 mostly dry and on land.  We did get a couple of days in the water, but after the Galapagos a nice little reef just isn’t quite as mind blowing. People were really excited to spot one nurse shark sleeping on the bottom and all I could think about was hundreds of hammerheads passing by.

The view from our hike up to the waterfall….it was a nice refreshing cool down after an hour and change of serious hiking, during this hike I ate a termite, very minty, I dookied on the side of the trail after some nasty stomach cramps and tried to kick it over the ledge (nasty), and puked up some orange juice from the overexertion. At some points if you didn’t hold tight to the lines that were laid down.. you could take a pretty serious tumble down the trail ass over elbows…. Overall a very sweet, hot and sweaty hike.

The pool at our resort, Hamanasi. We got eaten alive by sand fleas aka chiggers and no see ums. My legs and arms were more bite marks than skin by the end of the week… I have not scratched at myself this much since I had chicken pox … I scratched so hard that I woke up the wife from a sound sleep

Our tiny ass plane from Belize City to Dangriga

Mayan ruins known as Xunantunich… the steps aren’t as steep as Angkor Wat.. but still pretty steep

Me and the Mrs on top of the pyramid

The inland Blue Hole, this is connected to the underground water system in the cave we hiked in.

The better half posing inside the cave during our trek. We spent an hour and half scrambling over boulders with just out headlamps to illuminate the way. It was really hot in there and I wished that I had worn long pants since I was climbing on my hands and knees at some points. The ropes that were laid down in this cave were life savers.. there would be no way to get over some of the boulders without ropes… Suprisingly only me and the Navy dude brought back up torches….

Leaf cutter ants going about their business in the rain forest. The place is covered with them

A section of the cave where ropes are laid in order to get people into the next chamber. You don’t want to take a bad step on this thing

The mouth of the cave.