Latest / bit of a Rambler / 024 Ramble On

Transcript

024 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
0:03
Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
0:08
Speaker 1: In this week, had a whole bunch going on Hello
0:11
Speaker 1: to ramble on number something I don't know. I don't
0:15
Speaker 1: keep track. I have to work that out afterward. Every
0:19
Speaker 1: single time I record something, I have to check back
0:22
Speaker 1: on what I already did. Otherwise I would there would
0:25
Speaker 1: be no numbers on this episode. I don't even know
0:29
Speaker 1: what day it is or the date I am. That's
0:34
Speaker 1: a casualty of traveling abroad and not having to go
0:38
Speaker 1: to work. Ever. Anyway, let's get down to millness, so
0:44
Speaker 1: let me ramble on. I never learned how to play
0:49
Speaker 1: any musical instruments, and the one time I tried to
0:52
Speaker 1: learn guitar, my best friend made me feel like crap.
0:59
Speaker 1: So I stopped learning the guitar, and I finally learned
1:05
Speaker 1: how to play the tin whistle, which is like a
1:08
Speaker 1: cool recorder. It's what fawns play in nineteen sixty Disney's cartoons.
1:16
Speaker 1: But when I was walking across Ireland, I didn't have
1:20
Speaker 1: a battery pack, and there's no outlets in Ireland, no
1:25
Speaker 1: public outlets, and so I was trying to think of
1:29
Speaker 1: a way to entertain myself without using my phone. And
1:34
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe you should learn a musical instrument, because
1:37
Speaker 1: you've always wanted to and you still don't know any
1:39
Speaker 1: and you're like an old person now. And I went
1:45
Speaker 1: to a music store. There was a tin whistle in
1:49
Speaker 1: Ireland in the window, and I bought it and I
1:53
Speaker 1: started playing and I played it for three months while
1:55
Speaker 1: I was walking north to south of Ireland and it
1:57
Speaker 1: was awesome. Why am I talking about that, Oh, because
2:01
Speaker 1: I want to be in a band. I've never been
2:04
Speaker 1: in a band. And I grew up and all of
2:07
Speaker 1: my friends were in a band, and I was literally
2:11
Speaker 1: the only person of my close knit group of friends.
2:16
Speaker 1: Actually I had two of all of my private school friends.
2:20
Speaker 1: They were all in bands and I wasn't in any.
2:24
Speaker 1: But I went to punk shows every week. So I'd
2:27
Speaker 1: like to be in a band. But you know what,
2:28
Speaker 1: I don't think I want to play an instrument. I
2:29
Speaker 1: think I want to sing. I think I want to
2:32
Speaker 1: scream incoherently, as is punk rock tradition, and just express
2:41
Speaker 1: myself by yelling into a microphone, which you may notice
2:46
Speaker 1: I'm kind of into. So yeah, I kind of just
2:50
Speaker 1: want to, like find a band who just wants someone
2:55
Speaker 1: to be the front man, just wants someone to stand
2:57
Speaker 1: on stage who will pretend to care enough to scream
3:03
Speaker 1: the lyrics. I can do that. I can't care about
3:07
Speaker 1: the lyrics because I know the world isn't real, like
3:13
Speaker 1: everything's temporary and changing all the time, but I can
3:16
Speaker 1: definitely perform fundally. So yeah, I've been thinking I just
3:23
Speaker 1: want to sing. I want to sing in a band,
3:27
Speaker 1: even though I know nothing about singing. I've never sang
3:30
Speaker 1: ever except you know, for fun by myself, and it
3:34
Speaker 1: doesn't sound good. But I think it would be fun
3:37
Speaker 1: to do that. And I know there are people who
3:41
Speaker 1: just want to get on stage and scream out some tunes,
3:44
Speaker 1: and they usually do that when they're seventeen, so you know,
3:48
Speaker 1: I got the desire a couple decades later. But I'd
3:51
Speaker 1: still like to do it. And there's a guy here
3:55
Speaker 1: who plays the guitar and it seems like he's jammed
4:01
Speaker 1: with people. It seems like he understands that world. So
4:03
Speaker 1: I kind of want to ask him, Hey, how do
4:06
Speaker 1: I just become a singer of a band with zero
4:10
Speaker 1: experience and even less talent. But he's kind of weird.
4:15
Speaker 1: I don't know. Everybody's weird to me though, which you
4:18
Speaker 1: know indicates I am the weird one. It also doesn't
4:22
Speaker 1: seem like he really has time to talk about that.
4:25
Speaker 1: But I should just ask, because every time I build
4:30
Speaker 1: up my nuts, as they say in the streets, I'm
4:32
Speaker 1: just kidding. I don't know. They should say that, that's
4:35
Speaker 1: probably what they mean. And ask someone a question about
4:39
Speaker 1: something I don't know. I learn a little bit and
4:41
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I ask the wrong question or if
4:44
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what I want to ask, because
4:47
Speaker 1: whatever I ask is getting me closer to the answer
4:51
Speaker 1: I want. So I'm going to ask him how I
4:55
Speaker 1: can become a singer if I have zero experience and
4:59
Speaker 1: less talent. Okay. Also, I want to talk about Panama
5:03
Speaker 1: because it's so green here. It's crazy, and it's green
5:11
Speaker 1: because it rains, or at least I'm in the rainy season,
5:14
Speaker 1: so I got rained on today. I love monsoon season
5:18
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia, and I had no idea it was
5:21
Speaker 1: rain here. Also, it's there's okay, so there's one thousand
5:29
Speaker 1: millimeters of rain in Seattle, and there's five hundred millimeters
5:35
Speaker 1: in one month in Ketsaltanango, and the whole week I
5:41
Speaker 1: was in Ketsaltanango, it didn't rain once. I mean not really.
5:46
Speaker 1: It rained for a bit, but like I didn't reach
5:49
Speaker 1: crazy monsoon levels of rain like I'm used to. And
5:53
Speaker 1: then I get to Panama and it has rained almost
5:55
Speaker 1: every day for hours, and I've walked in it. I've
5:59
Speaker 1: got soaked like three times. Today I got completely soaked
6:04
Speaker 1: and I was only out for five minutes. Literally, I
6:06
Speaker 1: was done with my shopping my food for today and
6:10
Speaker 1: I was walking back from the main street and that's
6:15
Speaker 1: like a five minute walk to my door, and that's
6:16
Speaker 1: when it started really raining and I was absolutely soaked.
6:20
Speaker 1: So like, the rainy season is for real starting up
6:23
Speaker 1: now in Central South America, and I am happy to participate.
6:30
Speaker 1: My friends, man, I love rain. I love the rainy season.
6:34
Speaker 1: It really super charges me, Like there's something about rain
6:39
Speaker 1: on my skin. It really like activates my caring for life,
6:47
Speaker 1: my eagerness to live, my visceral appreciation of the world
6:55
Speaker 1: around me. I fucking love walking in the rain and
7:01
Speaker 1: I love living in that moment. It's really interesting. Anyway,
7:07
Speaker 1: it's raining in Panamon. Everything is green and beautiful and
7:11
Speaker 1: oh the guitar guy he's the guy that told me
7:13
Speaker 1: about the saltwater crocodiles, and I have walked up and
7:17
Speaker 1: down the area. He sees them every day and I
7:20
Speaker 1: can't find one. And he's definitely telling the truth. You
7:23
Speaker 1: can just tell when people. I can just tell when
7:25
Speaker 1: people are telling the truth are lying, not every time,
7:28
Speaker 1: but a lot. And the way he's saying he saw
7:33
Speaker 1: the crocodiles, he's telling the truth. And I'm just being unlucky.
7:38
Speaker 1: I've gone out at different times every day, before high tide,
7:41
Speaker 1: after high tide, at low tide, before and after low tide,
7:45
Speaker 1: and I haven't seen one. And I think that maybe
7:49
Speaker 1: I have seen one and I'm just not recognizing them
7:53
Speaker 1: because my eye is just sliding over a similarly colored
7:58
Speaker 1: shale gray armored reptile. But man, it's I know they
8:05
Speaker 1: are there. And he saw one near the mapaches. The
8:09
Speaker 1: Panamanian raccoons, the crab eating raccoons, and I saw, I see,
8:13
Speaker 1: I saw a ton of those. I see them all over.
8:16
Speaker 1: So I just have to keep going and keep looking
8:19
Speaker 1: for the crocodiles. I'm gonna keep hunting, man. I walked
8:24
Speaker 1: for like four hours the other day. Oh. Speaking of which,
8:28
Speaker 1: this girl wants to go on a date where she
8:30
Speaker 1: just walks in that area, and I was like, yeah,
8:34
Speaker 1: we should totally meet up and go on a date.
8:36
Speaker 1: And then it rained for forty five minutes stay and
8:38
Speaker 1: she was like, NAT's raining, never mind, and I was like, Yo,
8:42
Speaker 1: if you don't like a rain, we're probably not gonna
8:44
Speaker 1: work out anyway, honey, I wrote down that I should
8:47
Speaker 1: talk about the Dozy Observatory, which I remember is making
8:50
Speaker 1: a three D map of the universe. And I don't
8:53
Speaker 1: remember why I wanted to talk about it. Maybe that
8:57
Speaker 1: was it. Maybe it was like, that's cool that they're
9:00
Speaker 1: making a three D map of the universe. That was it. Oh,
9:05
Speaker 1: you know, it was really interesting. This week I talked
9:07
Speaker 1: to the clerk at a convenience store, the closest convenience
9:11
Speaker 1: store next to my hotel except for AMPM, which is
9:16
Speaker 1: like a corporate chain convenience store, which I'm not as
9:20
Speaker 1: fond of, but they do have cheap booze and good
9:25
Speaker 1: plantain ships. Anyway, I talked to the convenience store trip.
9:29
Speaker 1: He works at Master Fruit, which is also the coolest
9:33
Speaker 1: name out of all the billions of convenience stores in
9:37
Speaker 1: Panama City. I do like that it's called master fruit.
9:41
Speaker 1: But I talked to that dude, and he speaks Hakka,
9:46
Speaker 1: which is a Southern China dialect because his parents are
9:49
Speaker 1: from Southern China. He's first no, he's second generation Panamanian,
9:54
Speaker 1: like he's a Panamanian citizen. He's ethnically Chinese, but he's
9:59
Speaker 1: a Panamanian citizen. And he speaks English, Cantonese, Hakka, and
10:06
Speaker 1: Panamanian Spanish. So it was really cool talking to him
10:10
Speaker 1: because at this point I'm just like another dumb American
10:15
Speaker 1: speaking English and terrible, terrible Spanish. But man, he told
10:20
Speaker 1: me about the corruption in Panama and that's why it's
10:24
Speaker 1: kind of empty in the cities, he says, I'm just
10:27
Speaker 1: going to tell you all of this about Panama from
10:29
Speaker 1: his perspective. I don't know if any of it's true,
10:30
Speaker 1: but it was a very interesting conversation. Comedian store clerk says,
10:35
Speaker 1: Panamanian is drowning in corruption basically, and that's why there
10:41
Speaker 1: are fewer tourists than there used to be. That's why
10:43
Speaker 1: the streets are kind of empty, that's why the economy
10:47
Speaker 1: is not great. Like all of the problems, according to him,
10:50
Speaker 1: are due to corruption, and we talked a little bit
10:54
Speaker 1: in Mandarin, but his Mandarin is terrible and my Cantonese
10:57
Speaker 1: is way worse than his Mandarin. But his English is
11:01
Speaker 1: like fluent, so we mostly spoke that after I failed
11:06
Speaker 1: in my Mandarin, and it was just cool to meet
11:09
Speaker 1: someone from China. He had visited China, mostly the southern China,
11:14
Speaker 1: but it's just China is the same size of the
11:17
Speaker 1: United States, and they use that scale. Also, Chinese people
11:22
Speaker 1: live in crowds. They hate living in rural areas, so
11:27
Speaker 1: like they live in cities, and they appreciate gathering together,
11:32
Speaker 1: so that leaves huge tracts of land even in the cities.
11:36
Speaker 1: Because they live in thirty story apartment buildings twenty across
11:43
Speaker 1: ten deep, you can have six thousand people living there,
11:48
Speaker 1: like really easily. So these cities are incredibly dense. But
11:52
Speaker 1: because they like living in hives, like in very tight
11:58
Speaker 1: knit community neighborhoods, you have huge areas left over for
12:03
Speaker 1: parks and shopping centers and malls. And so what the
12:08
Speaker 1: clerk said to me was when he visited China, he
12:11
Speaker 1: couldn't get over the size of community gathering points, Like
12:18
Speaker 1: they have a pretty big mall here called Aulbrook Mall,
12:22
Speaker 1: like it's a very very large mall, but it's the
12:25
Speaker 1: only one in the country, and in China that giant
12:30
Speaker 1: mall is in every town and city. It's they have huge,
12:36
Speaker 1: huge malls, and they if you're in some place like
12:39
Speaker 1: Beijing or chun Ching or any large city, they have
12:43
Speaker 1: multiple malls that take up blocks like giant structures, maybe
12:49
Speaker 1: half a block, but half a block is large for
12:53
Speaker 1: a multi story mall. So it was just cool talking
12:57
Speaker 1: about China with someone else again who had actually been
13:00
Speaker 1: there and could speak Chinese. So he had a unique
13:05
Speaker 1: generally but familiar perspective on visiting China that I could
13:11
Speaker 1: connect with. So it was pretty cool. All right. Now,
13:15
Speaker 1: there's a very Panamanium thing that I heard about a
13:19
Speaker 1: lot before I came here. I saw in all the menus.
13:22
Speaker 1: Every single blog post talks about it in a really
13:25
Speaker 1: irritating cultural blanching way. Patacones, and no one explains really
13:34
Speaker 1: what they are, which is also really irritating. And they're
13:37
Speaker 1: like they're French fries alternatives, which they are, and they're
13:40
Speaker 1: better than French fries. I agree, Okay. Patacones are sliced
13:45
Speaker 1: plantains fried or double fried that's it. The nice thing
13:51
Speaker 1: is they turn into like the like I just said
13:56
Speaker 1: is really irritating to describe as French fries. You have
13:58
Speaker 1: like French fried plantained chips when you make them actually fresh,
14:03
Speaker 1: which some people do, and you can buy the corporate
14:05
Speaker 1: ones that are more like potato chips. But there's a
14:08
Speaker 1: great place that I finally had like the local pothacones
14:13
Speaker 1: at and they're more like a couple few millimeters thick,
14:18
Speaker 1: so it's more like a chip of a French fry
14:23
Speaker 1: that has been double fried, so they're crunching on the outside.
14:26
Speaker 1: They got like a carby starchy soft inside like a
14:30
Speaker 1: French fry, but they don't taste as empty to me
14:36
Speaker 1: as French fries, like I feel like French fries. Potatoes
14:39
Speaker 1: in general need to take on a flavor, but plantains
14:43
Speaker 1: have a flavor themselves, and if they're green, then they
14:46
Speaker 1: have a not sour but a more bitter flavor, and
14:51
Speaker 1: if they're yellow then they have a sweeter flavor. But
14:55
Speaker 1: whatever it is, there's a flavor inside the plantain itself
15:02
Speaker 1: that makes eating this potaminium French fry the patacone a
15:06
Speaker 1: lot more satisfying to me than it is to eat
15:10
Speaker 1: French fries. Like, French fries are fine, but it's so
15:13
Speaker 1: much trouble to make them perfect that I eat. I
15:18
Speaker 1: eat a lot of French fry still, I like them
15:20
Speaker 1: a lot, but I have to eat like twenty of them,
15:22
Speaker 1: and one in twenty are actually the texture and cooked
15:28
Speaker 1: correctly in the flavor I like of French fries. I
15:31
Speaker 1: mostly have to make them myself if I want good
15:33
Speaker 1: French fries, and even then I screw them up half
15:36
Speaker 1: the time. But with these patacons, even if they're not great,
15:40
Speaker 1: they still have the savory, deeper flavor of a plantain
15:45
Speaker 1: behind the snack, so it's more enjoyable in general, no
15:50
Speaker 1: matter what kind I get or how well they're cooked.
15:53
Speaker 1: I've been cooking a lot of food, as people do
15:58
Speaker 1: when they cook. I've been cooking a lot lately, and
16:01
Speaker 1: I use the Chinese hot pot based that I love,
16:05
Speaker 1: And twice now I've got patacones and then dipped the
16:08
Speaker 1: patacones in the leftover hot pot based oil, and oh
16:14
Speaker 1: my gosh, it's so good. It's such a good snack.
16:18
Speaker 1: It's French fries and ketchup. Fine ketchup is kind of bullshit.
16:25
Speaker 1: Sugar byproduct, you know, too sweet. But dude, potacones fried
16:32
Speaker 1: or double fried plantains dipped in spicy Mala sixteen spiced
16:39
Speaker 1: hot pot based oil. Holy cow. I don't know if
16:46
Speaker 1: there's a better snack. I love hot pot based so
16:50
Speaker 1: especially Mala hot pot based. So maybe I'm biased. I mean,
16:53
Speaker 1: I'm definitely biased, But boy, boy, boy, is that a
16:57
Speaker 1: good snack. And the potacon is by themselves are already good.
17:01
Speaker 1: But when I have the oil left over from cooking
17:03
Speaker 1: shrimp or bee for noodles or whatever, it's transcendent. That's
17:09
Speaker 1: such a great snack. But I'm really glad that I
17:11
Speaker 1: finally got potacones that were local instead of just buying
17:16
Speaker 1: them in a sealed, air tight bag from a company,
17:19
Speaker 1: because those were usually like crispier you know, the oil
17:23
Speaker 1: wasn't I don't know, it felt stale or something. It
17:26
Speaker 1: just wasn't very enjoyable. But I found this one local
17:30
Speaker 1: place that makes local potacones and they're good. There's this
17:33
Speaker 1: one dude actually who sells them on the sidewalk who
17:36
Speaker 1: I really want to eat his potacones. But every morning
17:41
Speaker 1: I walked by the same place often when I walk
17:44
Speaker 1: down to the ocean to hunt for the crocs. And
17:47
Speaker 1: I saw this dude once and he was frying potacones,
17:51
Speaker 1: but I had just eaten like three dinners because pantamina
17:55
Speaker 1: food is so good, and I was like, oh, man, okay,
17:58
Speaker 1: I will get his potacona next time I see him.
18:01
Speaker 1: And I haven't seen him again, and I've walked there
18:04
Speaker 1: maybe six times, seven times something like that, and I
18:08
Speaker 1: have seen him once. But I think the one time
18:10
Speaker 1: I saw him, it was early in the day and
18:13
Speaker 1: I am just sleeping at such odd hours. I just
18:16
Speaker 1: wake up whenever I'm awake, like I sleep whenever I'm tired,
18:20
Speaker 1: and then I wake whenever I'm awake, and those hours
18:22
Speaker 1: are like right now, it's like two in the morning.
18:25
Speaker 1: They have no bearing on the timeline of the city
18:29
Speaker 1: around me or most people waking up and going to sleep.
18:32
Speaker 1: So he's probably there in the morning, and I'm just
18:34
Speaker 1: I haven't come by in the morning again. But I
18:36
Speaker 1: want to try his because his also look local and cool.
18:40
Speaker 1: So if you get to Panama, eat some patacones, you'll
18:44
Speaker 1: like them, especially in a restaurant or something where they
18:47
Speaker 1: make them for real from the fried plantains. Okay, I
18:51
Speaker 1: want to talk about Kilong, which is my Chinese name.
18:58
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone with a business card or
19:01
Speaker 1: someone who had been to China, I can't really remember,
19:04
Speaker 1: but we started talking about the names that Chinese people
19:09
Speaker 1: give themselves, and I was like, you know, it's funny. Actually,
19:13
Speaker 1: when I was working in an English school with all
19:16
Speaker 1: of these other owners, they insisted that all of the
19:20
Speaker 1: Americans adopt a Chinese name, just the same way that
19:23
Speaker 1: every Chinese person adopts an American name. They thought it
19:27
Speaker 1: would be good for the branding and it would connect
19:30
Speaker 1: us to the parents and all this blah blah. And
19:33
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, sure, Like I like my name
19:37
Speaker 1: Kai easy. Literally everyone in every country can say it.
19:41
Speaker 1: It's a great name if you're an indefinite traveler. So
19:45
Speaker 1: that kind of worked out. So I didn't I didn't
19:48
Speaker 1: initially want to make a Chinese name, but when I
19:51
Speaker 1: decided to do it, I was like, yeah, this is
19:53
Speaker 1: a good challenge. And I chose Kai because I looked
20:00
Speaker 1: up all the definitions of Kai and there's a cool
20:03
Speaker 1: looking character for Kai and it's the first tone robot
20:09
Speaker 1: robot kai, so kai and Kai means triumphant or victorious,
20:17
Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, that's pretty good. I can
20:19
Speaker 1: probably find a like a cool second name that works
20:23
Speaker 1: with Kai, and I looked for one that was like
20:27
Speaker 1: similar to my last name. I wasn't really worried about.
20:30
Speaker 1: It started with an L and I was like, oh, yeah,
20:33
Speaker 1: that's good. So I came and there's an N in it,
20:37
Speaker 1: and like the sound was similar, it was close, Like
20:43
Speaker 1: how do you say it? Like like badminton and tennis,
20:47
Speaker 1: you know their cousins, Like it makes sense if you
20:49
Speaker 1: were explaining badminton tennis, anyone would understand why they fit together.
20:54
Speaker 1: So I chose Long, which means dragon, and it sounds
20:58
Speaker 1: similar enough to my last name. It just makes sense.
21:01
Speaker 1: Every Chinese person when they heard my real last name
21:03
Speaker 1: and then my Chinese last name Long, they were like,
21:06
Speaker 1: oh yeah, okay, that makes that fits together very well.
21:10
Speaker 1: But every Chinese person who heard my Chinese name Ki
21:13
Speaker 1: Long triumphant Dragon, also said like, that name's so cool.
21:19
Speaker 1: You chose that name because that sounds like a storybook
21:23
Speaker 1: hero name, like I don't know if that should be
21:26
Speaker 1: your name because it's so cool, And they weren't saying
21:29
Speaker 1: like I wasn't cool enough to have a cool name
21:32
Speaker 1: or whatever. They were just saying like that literally sounds
21:35
Speaker 1: like if you named yourself King Arthur or something. And
21:39
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, that's exactly the name that I want.
21:43
Speaker 1: Then triumphant Dragon, like that's like Leshia along the Bruce
21:48
Speaker 1: Lee's Chinese name was little Dragon, like he got this
21:55
Speaker 1: cool name, and I took that name. And so when
21:58
Speaker 1: I gave out my business cards, Kilong Triumphant Dragon was
22:04
Speaker 1: printed on them, like that was my name on my
22:06
Speaker 1: Chinese business cards when I own my schools, which I loved,
22:11
Speaker 1: Like I don't like business cards in general, which is
22:16
Speaker 1: a problem in like Japan, because it's polite to give
22:19
Speaker 1: out business cards, but I'm just not comfortable with pretending
22:23
Speaker 1: that a human needs a piece of paper to display themselves.
22:29
Speaker 1: But in any case, I did agree to get them,
22:32
Speaker 1: and yeah, in Chinese, Kilong means triumphant dragon. I have
22:38
Speaker 1: my phone number on it, and I think people called
22:41
Speaker 1: like twice, and I was like, oh, you've talked to
22:43
Speaker 1: my assistant, and so nice to receive your call. Please
22:47
Speaker 1: never call me again and talk to my assistant instead.
22:51
Speaker 1: I liked making up that name. I liked having that name.
22:55
Speaker 1: It was a cool set of Chinese characters, and I
22:59
Speaker 1: was just reminded of it, and I haven't thought about
23:01
Speaker 1: that in years, because it was kind of like a
23:04
Speaker 1: fad idea, Like one of the owners was like, no,
23:08
Speaker 1: we have to do it, we should do it, and
23:09
Speaker 1: all the other Americans were like, you're right, we should
23:13
Speaker 1: get Chinese names. So it was like this brief, Oh
23:17
Speaker 1: my god, what a good idea, And then we all
23:19
Speaker 1: got them and it didn't matter at all because none
23:21
Speaker 1: of us are going to talk to the parents, like
23:23
Speaker 1: that's why we have a support staff to talk to
23:26
Speaker 1: the parents in the school. So it didn't really matter
23:29
Speaker 1: that we all made our names. But I'm I'm still
23:31
Speaker 1: glad I did because it was fun to come up
23:33
Speaker 1: with it, and it's a cool name, Kylong Triumphant Dragon.
23:39
Speaker 1: And I really liked receiving like it sounds like a
23:42
Speaker 1: knight who like fought dragons or like sounds like a
23:47
Speaker 1: historical legend from China's past. What else? What else went
23:52
Speaker 1: on this week? I did, Like I mentioned talk to
23:56
Speaker 1: John again, who sees crocs every day, and yeah, I've
24:01
Speaker 1: just been going out every day and I haven't found
24:03
Speaker 1: any yet. And the moral of that story is that
24:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep going out and looking for them,
24:10
Speaker 1: you know what. Okay, the next thing is I mentioned
24:12
Speaker 1: a master of None last week, and that was halfway
24:16
Speaker 1: through the first season, maybe on the second season, Like
24:19
Speaker 1: it was pretty early in the series. Still very well done,
24:24
Speaker 1: very funny. I liked the characters. It felt mostly normal.
24:29
Speaker 1: It felt better than most sitcoms or comedy dramas, but
24:35
Speaker 1: it felt like a comedy show. It felt like a
24:39
Speaker 1: pretty normal comedy show that had elevated moments. And then
24:42
Speaker 1: I watched the second season and I finished that this
24:46
Speaker 1: week and I was like, oh, Okay, they're definitely doing
24:50
Speaker 1: something different here. I really like they're diving into the
24:55
Speaker 1: cultural differences of first and second generation at the NIC
24:59
Speaker 1: minor in the United States immigrants, and the stories aren't
25:05
Speaker 1: revolving as much around the main characters from the first season.
25:12
Speaker 1: It was still mostly around the first characters, but there
25:15
Speaker 1: were episodes that weren't about them, and I kept expecting
25:21
Speaker 1: a couple characters from the first season to come back
25:24
Speaker 1: and they never did. And it didn't seem weird because
25:28
Speaker 1: the stories got so much bigger and so much more real.
25:33
Speaker 1: It was still a comedy drama, but the stories were
25:38
Speaker 1: unique because they were human because they were real stories
25:43
Speaker 1: about people. It the second season really surprised me. It
25:47
Speaker 1: really matured, like the writing, the atmosphere, the feel, the
25:53
Speaker 1: look of the show, everything matured in the second season
25:57
Speaker 1: and then the third season, and it knocked me on.
26:02
Speaker 1: Matoukis I with the third season, Master of None is
26:10
Speaker 1: maybe the best show I've seen this year, maybe in
26:14
Speaker 1: a few years. The third season is extremely powerful and
26:20
Speaker 1: has nothing to do really with the first or second
26:23
Speaker 1: season other than these characters also exist in that world.
26:29
Speaker 1: But that's a good thing. Like you're completely removed from
26:35
Speaker 1: the setup of the first and second season, from the atmosphere,
26:39
Speaker 1: from the show. You're taken out of the show and
26:43
Speaker 1: you're put into the world of two characters, primarily who
26:49
Speaker 1: were co stars I'll say, like they were parts of
26:54
Speaker 1: the show, but they weren't lead roles. And the third
26:58
Speaker 1: season is just it took these two characters and it's like,
27:01
Speaker 1: now you're the lead. And I don't know if that's
27:03
Speaker 1: because of Azis Sonsori's like he had the scandal that
27:07
Speaker 1: showed up that was really as far as I understand,
27:10
Speaker 1: it was one woman saying she felt uncomfortable during a date.
27:13
Speaker 1: He didn't do anything and nothing like weird happened. But
27:17
Speaker 1: someone felt uncomfortable once and that might have been bad,
27:21
Speaker 1: might have not nothing. Yeah, there's nothing definitive on that
27:24
Speaker 1: scandal as far as I know, But and I don't
27:27
Speaker 1: know if that's why he took himself out of the show.
27:31
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, a Zeese is no longer the
27:35
Speaker 1: main character of the show in the third season. The
27:38
Speaker 1: third season, I mean, it would be difficult to say
27:41
Speaker 1: that's not the best season of the show, even though
27:44
Speaker 1: the first two seasons are very good for very different reasons.
27:49
Speaker 1: The third season feels like my friends' lives are falling apart,
27:56
Speaker 1: Like it's such a powerful story. It's such a powerful
28:02
Speaker 1: season of television, extremely impressive. And it's interesting because I
28:07
Speaker 1: recommended the show to my mom and she bought the DVD,
28:11
Speaker 1: but she bought the first season, so she's going to
28:14
Speaker 1: see this totally different show than the intense evolution of
28:20
Speaker 1: dramatic maturity that I went through while I was watching
28:23
Speaker 1: these three seasons. If you haven't seen Master of Nun
28:26
Speaker 1: from twenty to fifteen, starring and created and written by
28:29
Speaker 1: Asisansori and his friend Alan Yang, I think it is
28:35
Speaker 1: you should watch it. Because it's great and it's very fun.
28:40
Speaker 1: If you just want fun comedy, check out the first season.
28:43
Speaker 1: You'll have fun. It's great if you're interested in the
28:46
Speaker 1: immigrant story in America. They introduce it so well without
28:51
Speaker 1: sounding like they're pedantically talking down to other Americans, like, yeah,
29:00
Speaker 1: that's right, my father was a first generation. Here I
29:02
Speaker 1: am and now I have to struggle like it's not
29:05
Speaker 1: an irritating lecture of a TV show, which certainly happens
29:12
Speaker 1: with less maybe talented writers, or or maybe writers that
29:18
Speaker 1: get too caught up in the lecture the educational aspect
29:23
Speaker 1: of the immigrant and they forget they have a show
29:25
Speaker 1: to make, Like, Americans know the country was founded on immigrants,
29:32
Speaker 1: but if you're going to explain that in a comedy drama,
29:35
Speaker 1: then you have to still make it an entertaining show,
29:38
Speaker 1: and this show Master of None does that extremely well.
29:42
Speaker 1: It's very emotional, but it's still very fun to watch
29:46
Speaker 1: the interactions between the first and second generation of immigrants
29:51
Speaker 1: who came to America. Also a season, Sorry has his
29:55
Speaker 1: own parents in the show as far as I understand,
29:58
Speaker 1: and his dad is so funny. His mom seems like
30:03
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to be on camera and that's also
30:06
Speaker 1: funny in its own way, but his dad is genuinely
30:09
Speaker 1: funny and is a great part of the show. So
30:14
Speaker 1: let's move on. I'm getting healthy again, started running, I'm
30:19
Speaker 1: still doing exercises. It's been a long time now. When
30:25
Speaker 1: did I start doing the push ups and sit ups Guatemala.
30:30
Speaker 1: I guess it's been like three or four months. I'll
30:34
Speaker 1: say three months because I don't know if it's been longer.
30:38
Speaker 1: But every day I've been doing thirty seven push ups
30:41
Speaker 1: and thirty seven sit ups for at least three months now,
30:46
Speaker 1: and man, man, do I feel better. I feel so
30:51
Speaker 1: much stronger than I have in so long, and just
30:55
Speaker 1: my body should be stronger, like I use my body
30:59
Speaker 1: as if it's strong, But because I'm so used to
31:02
Speaker 1: my body being strong, I've been lazy for years and
31:04
Speaker 1: I'm still using it without preparing it for the rigors
31:11
Speaker 1: of exercise that I'm going to use it for every day.
31:14
Speaker 1: So it feels good, it feels healthy that I've finally
31:18
Speaker 1: been exercising again regularly, and it's made a complete change
31:22
Speaker 1: in my physical appearance. I mean to me, I can
31:26
Speaker 1: see it. I don't know if it would look like
31:29
Speaker 1: from the outside, if you would notice. But I just
31:32
Speaker 1: feel and to me look so much healthier and robust
31:38
Speaker 1: and capable. Yeah, I feel much healthier, and I'm really
31:43
Speaker 1: glad I'm still exercising like it. Yeah, my body just
31:47
Speaker 1: feels better. It's really interesting too, because I got like
31:50
Speaker 1: these heat rashes, which is for me, if I don't
31:54
Speaker 1: drink enough water and I walk around the heat long enough,
31:57
Speaker 1: I get like blooms of red rash on my legs
32:03
Speaker 1: usually rather than my arms. But it feels like my
32:08
Speaker 1: body's actively responding to changes within itself much faster and
32:13
Speaker 1: much more proactively than it was before. And when I
32:17
Speaker 1: drank water and walked around for four hours, I didn't
32:20
Speaker 1: get those heat rashes. Maybe it's just that I'm paying
32:23
Speaker 1: more attention and I understand my body better since I
32:26
Speaker 1: started noticing things about it. But yeah, it's really interesting
32:33
Speaker 1: to just feel holistically like my whole body is healthier
32:41
Speaker 1: than it has been in a very long time. Talk
32:44
Speaker 1: about that garlic is only ten cents a bulb here,
32:50
Speaker 1: So I bought one sleeve of it that has like
32:53
Speaker 1: twelve bulbs inside for a buck twenty five or something
32:58
Speaker 1: like that. And every time I stirfry something or make
33:02
Speaker 1: my noodle dish, I also put in a whole bubble
33:05
Speaker 1: of garlic, because when you steam it, they're just soft, tasty,
33:09
Speaker 1: tasty garlic, you know, soft delicious. So I've been eating
33:14
Speaker 1: a lot of garlic, and I certainly think that doesn't
33:17
Speaker 1: hurt the healthy I've been feeling. Well. I have more
33:22
Speaker 1: to talk about, but I'm already stretching this out, so
33:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to you on the next
33:27
Speaker 1: one with some interesting things that happen regarding my stay here.
33:34
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening. I love that
33:37
Speaker 1: more people are listening to the podcast, and not a
33:42
Speaker 1: ton more, but it looks like a couple more people
33:45
Speaker 1: are listening every week. And you know, even if no
33:49
Speaker 1: one more is listening, I just love that some people
33:53
Speaker 1: get to follow along on this fun travel story that's
33:56
Speaker 1: completely open ended. I don't know what's going to happen
33:59
Speaker 1: next week, much less next year, but I love sharing
34:03
Speaker 1: these stories. And if you are listening, thank you so
34:06
Speaker 1: much for listening. I will talk to you very soon.
34:10
Speaker 1: You'll hear from me real soon. If you want to
34:13
Speaker 1: talk to me, you can hit me up a bit
34:15
Speaker 1: of a ramblert Gmail dot com or all the socials
34:18
Speaker 1: be bob boop. End of transmission,