Latest / bit of a Rambler / 086 Ramble On

Transcript

086 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: And today I'm going to ramble on a bit. I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: am Indonesia. I am in Indonesia, yog Yakata, Yogyakarta or
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: jag Jakarta. I keep hearing it with the j sound here,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and it's quite nice. I mean, the country itself is great,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the place I have is great. The host is pretty hostile,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, that's extremely rare, and I'm still
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: staying here and it's mostly nice. Okay, you know what,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: But the hot water in the shower smells like sulfur.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So there's a water heater on the wall. So I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: don't know if I thought it was maybe it's because
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the water's from a hot spring. And I asked the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: host and he just said, yeah, the water usually smells
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: like that. And I didn't ask why. I guess I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: could have, but I just asked, does it usually smell
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: like that? And he said, yeah, usually does all of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the water, yeah, all of it, But it doesn't the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: cold water doesn't smell like that. It's only the hot
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: water and hot springs smell like sulfur. But and there's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a bunch of volcanoes here. I don't know. It's a weird,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: stinky mystery. You don't smell like sulfur because the sulfur
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: smell in water is usually just like trapped gas, so
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: usually that goes away. So after you wash, you don't
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: smell like sulfur after but it's still, you know, stinky
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: while you're in the shower. I rinse with cold water afterward,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: just so I don't think about sulfur water. I actually
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: had a hot spring shower before in other countries, so
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I checked is sulfur water safe for your skin? And
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: it is safe. If you go to any natural hot spring,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it'll smell very strongly like sulfur, so I'm used to it,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but I prefer not to have it if I have
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a choice. But whatever, I'm only here for a month,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and there's so many great things about Indonesia that I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: can handle a stinky shower for a few weeks. Well.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I got new earphones because the Japanese airline ANA has
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: these really cheap but well enough constructed earphones that are
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: plug in, so I can just tap them into the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: computer and check the quality of the audio whenever I want,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: which I do occasionally for this podcast, and just to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: make sure it sounds correctly and singing, I tried singing
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a couple songs just for fun because I've never done
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that before, and it really helps if I can get
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a better quality sound than from my laptop speakers, which
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: are old. But you know it's crazy. I just installed
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the newest Linux Mint, and for the first time since
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I got this laptop, which is a long time six
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: years five years now, the speakers have started working. There's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: some problem with the speakers in these laptops, specifically because
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I looked it up and their speakers all fail pretty
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: quickly and pretty reliably, like in the same way. But
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: ever since I installed Linux Mint after having crappy outward
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: speakers after the first week for five years or something,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the speakers sound normal. They sound like normal laptop speakers again.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So apparently I'm assuming there was some kind of software
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: fix that no one has ever found because I looked
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: up each year I've had this laptop. How do I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: fix these speakers? Is there a better driver? And a
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: couple people are like, yeah, if you use this, the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: problem goes away, but it never did, and now with
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Linux Mint, it appears to have gone away, and I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: just have clear speakers again, which is great. Who's complaining,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: not this guy. But I was very surprised that there
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was a software solution. I've assumed after the first couple
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of years that it is a hardware thing because it Yeah,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: they were just very unclear, very quiet, and then with
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Linux Mint twenty two or zero point two, I think
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they started working perfectly. So that's great. That's just a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: great thing that happened. And now I have some new
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: earphones which are way smaller. Was a huge one. My
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: old white ones folded down, but they were still just
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: large and took up a lot of space. These ones
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: are over ear easy to plug in, but they compact
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: quite nicely. I can slip these in. They're going to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: take up much less room in my bag, which I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: want to mention because my bag is I have way
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: less stuff in there than I used to. I can
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: now fit, including the laptop and my Xlr microphone case.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: The Xlr microphone is the kind you see in movies
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: in a studio with the big cable coming out. So
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: even with the cable and that whole setup, a desktop
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: microphone stand inside its case. Everything fits inside my rucksack,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: which it didn't used to. I think I had extra
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: shirts or something. I definitely had extra crap I didn't need.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: But when I was just in Hawaii, I did a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: quick inventory and I had a little bit of extra stuff,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and I got rid of all of that, and I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: didn't think it would make as much of a difference
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: as it did. I'm pretty surprised, to be perfectly honest,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: how empty my bag felt. I kept worrying, like, did
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I leave something major? Have I forgotten the XLR Mic
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: or my laptop somewhere, because it's not super light, but
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it is one not full rucksack, and it has all
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of my clothes, a large gaming laptop, video game controller,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the XLR microphone setup, which is the microphone stand, the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: base plate, the holder for the actual microphone, a few
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: different cables, and I've reconfigured my XLR Mic like carrying
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: case so I can fit all the cables and everything
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in there, except for the microphone stand itself, which is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a long metal tube, so that won't fit in the case.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: But I've really efficient sized, effission tized my space. What
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: there has to be a word for that, anyway, I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: effiicientized my space in my rucksack, And that was really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: good to find out yesterday because I didn't even have
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to use my jacket luggage except for checking in for
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the Spirit flight. And I don't even know if I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: had to do it, then it says you're not allowed
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: any luggage at all on the Spirit flight, but there
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was a bunch of people with bags. I don't know.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Baggage policies are so weird, but usually you can bring
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: one bag onto the airplane. So I put all of
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: my clothes and baggage luggage into my jacket that I
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: sewed all the pockets into, and with all of that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: in the only thing my laptop is basically a laptop
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and this carrying case with the microphone, and that's light
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: enough and small enough that it could fit under my
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: seat if I took out the back brace for the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Decathlon rucksack and just rolled or folded the rucksack in half.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So that always works. So I did that to check
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: in for the first of three consecutive Spirit flights. But
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: it just seemed to me, and I'm not sure why,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: that I didn't need to keep the jacket luggage on
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the whole time. Once I got the bag tag so
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: when I got to security, I just took everything and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: packed up the rucksack again so that I wasn't wearing
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: this heavy jacket full of crap. And yeah, I had
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: no problems getting on the three following flights and it
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: was much more comfortable. Yeah, I'm really happy how efficient
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: my case has become. For the microphone. I couldn't fit
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the cables in before, the power cables in the XLR cable,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: but now everything fits in there except the metal tube
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that holds up the mic. But that's great. It's so
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: great to have everything in that one space, all my
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: recording equipment, including the portable mic, which I'm really excited
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to meet someone here in Indonesia that I can talk
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: to about their country because that thing I just plug
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: into my phone and the microphone's not bad the Lavalier
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: mic that comes with the kit that I heard anyway,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to try to find someone I can
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: interview about Indonesia, and I've found a few. I mean,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: there are people who can speak English. A lot of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the professionals seemed to speak fluent English, and then there
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: was a Malaysian flight attendant who spoke fluent Chinese, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: i know there's a huge Chinese population here. I don't know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it'll be cool. I want to meet some people anyway,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: maybe use the old dating apps and try to find
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: someone to spend time with, or someone to travel with
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: me permanently. I'm fine with that too. We'll just see
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: what happens. I made a great pizza. I wrote that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: down on my list here. I just bought a pizza
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: from the Safeway and then minced mushrooms and onions and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: something else and put it on top of the pizza.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think that all I did, but apparently I really
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: liked it because I wrote it down on the list
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to share with everybody. Okay, let's move on. Sea slugs.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Started finding a bunch of sea slugs still in Hawaii,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: but I had never found an octopus. And I didn't
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: practice looking at pictures on the seafloor because I was
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't want to focus on my
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: phone too much. I wasn't in Hawaii very long, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I was mostly just swimming and drinking beer hanging out,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: so I didn't worry about researching the octopi too much.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like it would be so hard to find one.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: But I found a bunch of sea slugs, and if
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I find eight of them, that's basically eight octopus legs
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: wireless Mike, Like I said, super cool, Very excited to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: try using it. Baby turtle. There's this one baby turtle
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: out of all the regular turtles I swim with, and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: it always comes so much closer. And it came too shore,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: basically like where the break ended and the sand began,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and its finn was maybe two feet away from the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: end of the water, so I could see it very clearly,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: just standing on the sand and it just whisked by me.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: In Hawaii. That was the last time, the last the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: day before the last day I saw the turtle like
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: two days before I left or something. But that baby
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: turtle was bold. It was crashing crazy waves and he
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was still just like looping around and zip zippiti zooping,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: having his good old time. There was a bunch of
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: other turtles, the big ones, but it was so crazy,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the crrents were so nuts that most of them were
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: hiding under the coral. I didn't even go in to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the water because it just seemed way stronger than normal.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm a pretty good swimmer, but it just seemed dangerous,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: so I didn't. I didn't swim out past where I
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: could stand it, just I waded in. But the water
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: was crazy, and I was worried about getting ripped away
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: because that's apparently a huge thing in Hawaii. Riptides take
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: you away and suck you under and you are a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dead person. After that, monk seals. Finally saw a bunch
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of monk seals. If I mentioned this before, my bad,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: but these are This was cool, so I'm gonna mention
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: it again. I don't think I did. I posted on
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it and posted about the seals in the Lemmy community
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and people really got into that. So you can check
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it out there if you feel like it. But it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was the first day. Things were kind of crazy, the waves,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and there was just a big blob, big gray blob
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: on the sand, and I was like, hey, I don't
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: think that rock was here before. And as I walked
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: toward it, I realized it was a monk seal, A big,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know how big, let's say eight feet pretty
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: big monk seal stretched out on the sand and I
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: had to walk past it. I kept like thirty forty
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: feet distance. The rule for complete safety is one hundred
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and fifty feet according to like the Hawaii Fissi and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Noah NOAA people. So if you want to be
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: completely safe, stay one hundred fifty feet away, you're gonna
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: be safe. They can be dangerous seals if you get
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: close to them. They have teeth, they're huge. There's no
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: reason to antagonize them. But locals told me, like, if
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you just walk around them and don't approach them at all,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: it's okay. You can walk past them. So I was
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: easily like thirty feet away from this guy, but I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: got a couple pretty good picks. I don't know. I
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: really like the camera on this G fifty four phone.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: They look clear, even though like if you zoom in
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: things aren't super clear. It takes really nice pictures that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: don't like highlight the edges. I don't know. Maybe it's
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: just more way more clear than the pixel phone, which
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: is the worst phone I've ever used. So I was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: really happy with how the pictures came out, and you
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: should check them out in the Lemon community Crazy People
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: dot Online, slash c slash travel. It's cool, cool set
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of pictures of those guys. So I looped around this
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: guy walking into the water to make sure I give
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: him plenty of space, and he didn't even wake up.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: He was just chilling, sleeping or she. I don't know.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell the morphological difference of seals yet at all,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: but she just kept napping. And I took a couple
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of pictures and then went on my way and went
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: out to the b each but it was kind of wild,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and then I looked out into the search. I was
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: gonna go out because it was kind of wild, but
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like dangerous wild the current or the wave,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: so I figured I could go out a little and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: swim not too far. And then I saw this thing
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I hadn't seen before, like a like a sea monster tail,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: like an old yeah, like an old sea monster tail
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: on the maps. It's like curvy back and then the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: tail's like flipping out, and I was like the flip
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and I kept watching and I saw more like frothing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: water and splashes, and it was crazy waves. So I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't sure at first if it was an animal doing
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that or if it was just crazy waves crashing on
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a piece of coral. But then I saw really clearly
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and a seal flipper was up in the air, like
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: straight up. And then I realized it was a seal
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: doing flips and thrashing about in the water, and I
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: don't think it was fighting anything. I watched it go
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: crazy for a bit, and then I realized there was
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: another one and the two of them were kind of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: going wild together, or one of them was and the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: other one was right next to it. I don't think
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: they were fighting either. I think they were mating because
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the mating season just started in December and now it
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: was the end of December and they have like an
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: eight month mating season December to August apparently. But it
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was pretty crazy to see because they were like really thrashing,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: like leaping half their bodies out of the water, and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: like I said, like one finn sometimes would stay out
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of the water and then slap back down into the water.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: It was weird. And I realized someone had told me
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: they had seen that at the beach like a few
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: days ago, and I had no idea what they were
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: talking about. And then yeah, when I was watching these seals,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this must be what they saw.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: They must have seen two seals either fighting or more
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: likely mating and just going wild. They were really thrashing,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, it looked super dangerous, and I decided not
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to go at all into the water because they weren't
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: far out either. I got pretty good pictures of them
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: going crazy. They were maybe fifty feet from where the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: water started in the beach, like right where I usually
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: swim at that beach, and they were just like flipping
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and throwing their tails and flippers up out of the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: water and spinning around like it was crazy to see.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And the two of them stayed together, just going in
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: this little area, yeah, fifty feet off the shore. And
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: then they moved on and kept going. But then I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: saw just a minute later, maybe it was the same
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: one that was swimming with the other one. Maybe there's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: one male going after all the females, but another one
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: shuffled out of the water. I was like, well, look,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the waves are crazy. I've been here like an hour.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I'll just go back and grab some food and come
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: back a day where the waves are not so crazy.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And the current was crazy too, like you could just
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: see it pulling the turtle straight across. The seals had
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: enough heft that they weren't completely dominated by the currents,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: but it looked strong enough to pull a human for sure,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So I was heading back, and I turned around after
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I saw those two seals in the water swim away.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And then when I turned back to go back to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: where I had entered, the seal that I had originally
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: passed by was still laying right where it was, so
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: there was plenty of room to go around it. But
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: when I got to it in I don't know, fifty
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: feet or something, another one scooed it up on the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: beach and they moved like a giant inchworm, just like
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: schlumping up the sand and up over the rocks and everything.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Their skin must be pretty tough, and he inch wormed
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: his way up to the other seal and started nosing
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: around what I assume is her because I'm still thinking
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: this is all mating behavior, And they started like chasing
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: each other around and sort of flirting with each other
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and playing with each other, and I was like, well,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I'm probably not going that way, because if there's one
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: thing I know, you don't interrupt mating animals, that's when
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: they're the most dangerous, except, you know, maybe in front
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: of their young. But then they both scooed it up
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: super far, like as high up as the sand was,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I'll get more than thirty
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: feet distance. So I went all the way like into
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the water and started walking around them. But as soon
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: as I got within like thirty feet, one of them
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: whipped their head around and lifted it up and started
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: shaking its head at me. And I was like, oh,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: maybe because I'm blocking his entrance into the water and
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they need to go into the water to mate or something,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: but it was very clear that he was like, don't
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: do it. I was like, okay, giant animal, I won't
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and I just turned around and looked for other trails.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I also didn't know how else to exit, because they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: where These two seals were completely blocking the exit to
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the beach that I usually use, and I only knew
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that one trail, and I tried a few other trails
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and none of them worked. So I just walked the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: opposite way on the beach and I tried every opening
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: into the trees that I could find, and finally one
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of them led to a road, and then I walked
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: along that road back to the parking lot. But it
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was pretty crazy, like to see first the resting monk
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: seal and then those two I'm pretty sure mating, and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: then this other seal climbs out onto the shore so
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it can try sniffing around another one and they're playing,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and then its head was like a cobridge is like
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: checking me out. He was just letting me know, I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: see you, and if you try and go past this route,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you're in trouble. And I didn't go any closer to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: them than I did to the original one on the shore,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but it's just I think it was that he was
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: trying to get it on and I was blocking their
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: route into the water. Still a super cool experience, obviously,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: seeing all these giant animals just chill and just be
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in their ding dong selves. As Sam Robertson would say, well,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: everything's always changing, as it always does. And I bought
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: my plane tickets and there's a new type of insurance
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: they offer that I might have seen before, but it's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: really prominent now Airline bankruptcy insurance, which is kind of crazy,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: but that means that if you book a flight and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the airline goes bankrupt between when you book your flight
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and like you taking your flight, you can you can
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: file a claim and receive insurance money for the airline
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: going bankrupt. And it's not super expensive, maybe one percent
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of the ticket price or something. But it's just crazy.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: They offer so many different insuranceurance, and okay, we I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: should talk about insurance scam insurance basically being a scam
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: almost all of the time. Health insurance wise, you can
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: fly to most countries and afford the five percent of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: US medical costs. So but you know, if you're living
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in a country where you need health insurance, what am
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I talking about. I'm a traveler. I don't know. Maybe
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you guys need health insurance. I don't use it because
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: if you need a filling filled, it's like ten dollars
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: in most countries. If you need a major surgery, it's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars to maybe ten thousand dollars for like
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the most expensive heart surgery across the world. But for
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: most common problems, you'll be able to afford it just
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: by traveling to the right country. Okay, but whatever health insurance,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that's a good idea. The airline insurance, I don't buy
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: any of those because they seem pretty ridiculous because what
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: they don't tell you, which is my problem with most insurances.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: The companies are legally liable, like they have to fix
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: these problems or no one nobody will use their services,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and two they'll be violating the law in most countries.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So they offer you something like transfer protection insurance. So
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: if you have three flights in a row and you
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: miss one leg of your flight because the first plane
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is late, so you missed the second plane, they'll offer
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you insurance for that when you're buying the ticket, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you can buy it, but they're legally obligated to cover
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that leg. Anyway, if you book the ticket with a company,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: they're going to cover that. They have transfer protection. I've
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: never heard of a company that doesn't have transfer protection
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: because the fault was of the airline that didn't get
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you to the next plane on time. It was no
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: fault of your own. So I have missed flights. I've
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: never gotten transfer protection insurance. But transfer are always protected,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: so you don't need that airline bankruptcy insurance. You could
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: get it, I guess if you're like a year in front.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: But if an airline's going bankrupt and you're booking your
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: flights two to four weeks before you leave, like I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: recommend one to four weeks, really one to three weeks.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Not you don't have to book your flights super in advance,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the cost doesn't change very much more than one or
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: two weeks before the flight. There's almost no difference in
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: cost and goes up and down all the time. So
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: in two weeks your airline is not going to go
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: bankrupt and cease all operations immediately. That usually takes a
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: little while. So that's something you just don't have to
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: worry about if you're and this is for filing a claim.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: If your airline goes bankrupt, you're probably gonna get your
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: ticket refunded. It's just not You don't have to worry
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: about it because if you are a traveler, you have money.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Like you, the money that you would maybe lose from
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: your ticket, you've saved how many more thousands than that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: from living outside of the US, So it would suck
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: if you did you lose it. But it's such a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it's such a small chance that one the airline will
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: will go bankrupt too, that they'll go bankrupt so fast
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: it'll affect your flight, as in all the operations will
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: wind down and cease before your flight occurs. That's also
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: very unlikely, and the very unlikely occurrence that you're not
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: going to be refunded your ticket after the airline goes bankrupt,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff, it's just another way for them
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to get another five bucks from you. It was just
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: a little bizarre because both airlines offered this airline bankruptcy
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: insurance protection. But anyway, so let's move on. The commonest
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: thing I hear from people who don't travel telling me
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that the only reason anyone can travel is because they
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: are lucky or rich. But the whole thing is, at
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: least for US Americans, if you're traveling, you're saving lots
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of money, and it's really for most people because I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: know people from everywhere, and most of them travel because
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it's not so much where you're from. Once you are traveling,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it's very apparent how much cheaper it is, how much
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: cheaper you can live in terms of housing and food
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: than in your home country. And you don't have as
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: many ties, so you don't have obligations to pay. You
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay for renters insurance, you don't have
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to pay for car insurance, and a whole bunch of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you're not paying any utilities. You just don't have to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: pay so many expenses that you do have to pay
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: as a sedentary person. Travelers just pay way less money. So,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: like I've said a hundred times, it's about five hundred
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: US a month to live in most countries in the world,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and then in the expensive ones or the ones that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: are experiencing housing crises, which are usually the same countries,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it's about one thousand US per month, And you can
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: live very comfortably in almost all of the world. But
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the mentality if you grow up as a sedentary person,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: which most people do, most people don't grow up traveling.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: There's no conception of how much money we put into
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: car insurance and health insurance and renters insurance and all
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the utilities we pay and Wi Fi just groceries. There's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: so much extra cost tacked on for a sedentary person
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to live in quote unquote the system. Like to participate
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: in the system, you have to have that car insurance
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that you don't need as a traveler obviously. Yeah, if
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you're renting a car from Hurts or something, you'll need it,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: but you usually don't need, especially ride shairs these days,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you just don't need to rent anything like the I mean,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Indonesia is a great example for that. I just took
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a forty minute ride share for two dollars and I
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: tipped that's including the tip. It was fifty thousand. Oh no,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: so that's three dollars. And then I tipped an extra
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: seventy five cents, So three seventy five for a forty
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: minute ride across the city. That's and I don't have
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to pay for gas, I don't have to pay for
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: maintenance for the vehicle. I don't have to pay for insurance.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: There's just so few costs as a traveler compared to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: as a sedentary person. And if you want a house,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: if you want to be sedentary, that's fine. This is
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: purely financial because a lot of people bring this up
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to me when I'm traveling and I talk to them,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and when I'm in the US, people bring it up
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: much more because I speak that language. You know, I'm
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: talking to more people when I'm visiting. So I was
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: just in Hawaii, you know, and I was talking to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: this one guy. Bring this up because when I was
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, I was talking to this one guy who
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: walked out of these huge apartment buildings that are clearly
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: in a nicer neighborhood. And there's no apartment under two
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: thousand on Oahu that I saw. So he's paying at
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: least two thousand per month, and probably more to live
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in these apartments, because when I was looking like normal
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: apartments like three thousand, four thousand, and these were these
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: looked like luxury condos more than regular apartments. But for
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the sake of the argument, we'll say he's paying at
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: least two thousand USD, not including utilities, not including Wi Fi,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: not including car maintenance, and all that stuff I mentioned.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And he walked out and saw me heading by and
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: asked me about the rucksack. And he was a Filipino,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I think so. He had a bit of an accent,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: but he could communicate fine. He'd clearly been living in
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the States for a while. But he asked me about traveling,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And he also must have come here from the Philippines,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: which is it's that's why I say sedentary person rather
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: than US person or like Western European. It really is,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: if you start living in one place, you just get
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: so used to the extra costs of living in that system.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Instead of not paying for all of those insurances and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: maintenance fees and HOA fees and whatever the heck, society
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: has tacked on to what should be just like walking
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: down the street or mowing your lawn or whatever. Everything
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: costs money if you're not traveling, but if you're traveling,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: then there's much fewer costs. So we started talking about traveling,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and this guy who just walked out of the condos
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: asked me how long I had been traveling and I
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: told him fifteen years, and he said, you're so lucky,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And I am lucky. I'm very aware that I'm super
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: lucky that I grew up in a native English speaking
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: country because it makes you an insane amount of money
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and you don't have to get certifications or work very
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: hard for twenty hours a week. You're making a luxury
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: wage in the entire world for working twenty hours a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: week teaching English, just speaking English forty five minutes at
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a time, not including breaks. It's yeah, I'm definitely lucky.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: But he was saying, you're lucky that you can travel
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: so much, and I'm like, well, I travel because it's
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: so much cheaper. It's just way easier to travel. And
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: he looked super skeptical and shook his head at me
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and then said, well, not everybody can afford it, and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: sort of huffed and went away. But which is a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: very common response, especially by someone who's sedentary. They just
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: don't believe how how few costs and fees you have
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to pay as a traveler. So that's why I repeat
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: this so much, that as a traveler you are paying
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: fewer costs overall. He said, not everybody can afford and
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: walked away. But we're standing outside of his luxury condo
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: apartment in Hawaii. So even if he's living with a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: bunch of people, he's which like a lot of Asian
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: families do. So let's say he was living with four
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: other adults, and I'm pretty sure I think he lived alone,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like from what we were talking about, and he had
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: two kids. But let's say they had four adults in
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: their house and they were all equally paying the rent.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: They're each paying five hundred US dollars a month to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: pay the very assume probably underestimated two thousand dollars per month.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: If it was five thousand dollars per month, that would
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: make total sense. I saw plenty of four thousand dollars
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: apartments to rent on Oahu that were nowhere near as
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: nice as these luxury condos. But even if there were
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: four adults living together in this tiny two bedroom condo,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: because even the luxury apartments in Hawaii are super tiny
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: like that, with the five hundred dollars each, they could
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: all be living in separate condos larger than the one
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: they're sharing now. In the rest of the world, definitely
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: in the Philippines. Certainly in the Philippines, less than two
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month will net you an apartment nicer
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: than the condos I've seen on Oahu than the apartments
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I've seen on Oahu. So it was very odd hearing that,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: again from somebody from one of those countries I personally
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: know because I lived in the Philippines are incredibly cheap.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Not everybody can afford it. But the person saying that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: can afford something that is literal and a housing. He
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: can afford housing that is literally ten times more expensive
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: than the housing he would afford back in his home country.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: It really is just about mindset, Like in this specific instance,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: it's not always about mindset. If you have a severe
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: physical disability, it's much harder to perform certain tasks. Undoubtedly,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, oh, you can use your mind to
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: get through anything, but financially, even people it doesn't matter,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: even if they're from one of the affordable countries if
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: they are sedentary people. It's so difficult, apparently, because I've
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: talked to many people about this to imagine living outside
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of the sedentary system where they're like, Okay, just sign
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: up here. It's only thirty dollars for the apartment association,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: and it's only forty dollars for your monthly property insurance.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And it's only sixty dollars for your monthly car insurance.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And it's only three hundred dollars a month for the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: gas for your car. And it's only one thousand dollars
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a month for the maintenance on your vehicle, and it's
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: only forty dollars a month for the lime. And you
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: just have these costs that stack up like crazy. Whereas
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: if money, if money is a problem, that is the
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: main you should be looking at traveling. You don't have
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to pay utilities. Your data is what was it here?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: In Indonesia, it's like two dollars for a month of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: six gigabytes of data. I think is the place I
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: got mine. It's just so in Oh, No, I didn't
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: get that. I got the airport one and that was
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I paid a premium of eight dollars for the entire month.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: But it's so so much less expensive to live abroad
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: and to live especially specifically as a traveler, because you
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay all those maintenance and gas and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: insurance fees. Those are covered by the things you are renting.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: You rent your apartment, Wi Fi utilities covered, you get
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a ride share, gas maintenance covered, you take the bus,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: gas maintenance covered. I wanted to bring it up again
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: because it was such an odd juxtaposition. This guy from
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: one of the most affordable countries I've ever visited, telling
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: me how lucky I am and not everybody can afford it,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: when he can clearly afford a condo that was ten
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I believe, probably closer to twenty times as expensive as
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: a similar sized housing in his home country. Not everybody
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: can afford it, okay, but really you can afford it,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: like you. He sounded personally affronted that I was letting
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: him know that traveling is less expensive than living in
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the US. But once you're in that system, just like
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: any anything, it's difficult to see outside of that system.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: That's a huge reason why I travel, so that I
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: can consistently remind myself that the systems outside of what
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I understand could be different, and I keep pushing myself
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: because they almost always are different. I am shocked at
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: how cheap Indonesia was. I thought after India, I would
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: not find another country that was as cheap as India,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: like China used to be the cheapest country, and that
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I was in Vietnam, I was like, well, that's pretty cheap.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Thailand's very cheap. But then I was in India and
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, this is seriously cheap. This is
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: like thirty dollars thirty cents thirty US cents for a
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: meal cheap. And now I am in Indonesia and they
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: basically have India prices like I am. Maybe the housing
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: is a little more expensive two one hundred dollars per
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: month for a very nice apartment like multi rooms, air
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: conditioning on all that, but for what you would expect,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: it would be about the same in India. And all
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the food's one dollar here. The all you can eat
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: pifhase are eight dollars, which is more expensive than Thailand.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: But the housing is like twice as expensive in Thailand
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: as it is here in Indonesia. The buses are all
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I don't even ten cents fifteen cents maybe, Yeah, fifteen
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: cents probably is closer. Things are so inexpensive here, So yeah,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I decided to try a new country. I haven't been
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: here before. I'm shocked again at how much money I'm
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: going to save by living here. I'm just so glad
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to be out of the US again. Honestly, it was
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: fun in Hawaii. I really like swimming with the turtles
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and seeing those seals and like all the fish. It
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: was really cool, well, seeing all of that stuff. But
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the desperation. Even in Hawaii, where everything's you know, paradise,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: everyone's living. There's a few people on the beach who
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: are clearly just living there and like they seem kind
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: of happy, but most of the people on the beach
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: look disheveled and desperate. And then when you go to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: all the houses, those people don't look super calm themselves.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Being back in the US just feels there's just this
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: sense of desperation from everyone. Like walking around in a supermarket,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: you'll see someone walk over to an apple and pick
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: it up and be like, oh, two fifty for an apple.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Two dollars and fifty cents for an apple. They are
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: wow much is that? That's like ten they're like ten cents,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: so there may be a dollar a kilogram here in
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Indonesia for apples, Like maybe I remember seeing a tag
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: that was like two twenty five hundred rupia four per
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: one hundred grams yesterday in the supermarket. But it's just
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: it's so rough seeing people in the US like look
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: at an apple and be like too much, can't afford
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: in apple, and they have to choose like the crappy
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the ones they know are not as good. The ones
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: they know are like two months old shipped from Indonesia
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: or someplace marked up by one hundred different regulatory agencies
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and countries that own the fruit market in the US.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Or people talking about rent you can see rental classified listings.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: It's rough. Okay, on my flight here, let's talk a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: bit about that because that's more fun and we can
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: end up on fun stuff. So I couldn't access the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Wi fi, and then in my head, my head was
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: just like just type in one nine two one six
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: eight dot one dot one because I couldn't access the
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Wi Fi at the airport, and I was like, wait,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: isn't that old? That's that like old internet router thing?
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And I typed it in and it worked. It took
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: me to the signing page, so that was cool. Random thing,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: thanks brain. Okay, got on the Japanese airline from Hawaii
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to Narita because that would take me to Manila or
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Singapore or whatever and then over to Yoga Karta finally.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: But I had a seven hour flight on Spirit Airlines,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a United States company, and they made everybody on the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: flight dump out water and then they didn't let you
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: refill it before you got on the plane. You were
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: not allowed to bring water on Spirit Airlines, which I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: thought was crazy, and all the waitresses and stewardesses were like,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: this is nuts. To empty everybody, to check every bag
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: before we got on the plane, empty everyone's water, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: then not even have tap water regularly, Like, not provide
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: water at all unless you wanted to buy a two
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: fifty can of Seltzer water on a seven hour flight
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: was crazy and seemed illegal and unbelievable. It was unbelievable
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: when I realized what they were saying. A waitress asked
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: me what I wanted and I said water, and she said, oh,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: we have Seltzer water and I was like, oh that's weird, No, okay,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: sure Seltzer water and then turns out the Seltzer water
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I had to pay for and I was like, well,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: where's water and they're like, yeah, we don't have water
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: on the flight what. So that was just insane to
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: find out. And then I get on Ana, the Japanese
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: flight from Honolulu to Tokyo. They had two full meal
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: services and three drink services, two of which included alcohol.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: So I had a glass avoid wine, a Sapporo beer
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know they had beer in the first
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: place or what I got beer, And then a bunch
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: of two full meals. One had udo noodles, fried chicken, rice,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: steamed vegetables, roll, butter, nory, oh, a small half pint
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of das ice cream or eighth of a pint whatever,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the tiny Hogindaws ice cream pactly you got hoggindaws also
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: and other stuff for the first meal. Oh, and a
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: green salad and fresh pineapple. And then the second meal
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: was a tuna fish sandwich, a bag of chips and
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: a cookie and another drink. And it's just so as
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: soon as you leave the US, all human courtesy and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: decency and customer service returns to the world that you've
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: always heard about or that you see in movies, and
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I was talking to someone in the States about this
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: just they couldn't believe that all those things still exist
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: as long as you're not in the US, and I
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: just had to explain, like I explained many times, if
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you're in the US, the education system is not for education,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: it's for extracting money from the students. If you're in
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the healthcare system in the US, it's not for providing
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: it's not designed to provide health. It's designed to extract
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: money from its patients. If you're flying on an airplane
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: in the US, it's not designed to transport you from
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: one place to another. It's designed to extract money from
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the passengers. There's no customer care in the US, and
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: they're really wasn't for a very long time. It's always
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: been catering to the wealthy and extracting from the less
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: fortunate for many of the systems in the US, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: abroad in Central America, in South America, in Asia, in Europe,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: transportation systems are meant to transport people. Healthcare systems are
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: meant to provide health. It's just a different world outside
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of the US, and it's very difficult for anyone growing
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: up in the US to understand that, or anyone who
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: has grown up, because that's the only system they know
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: where anytime they take part in any type of system
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: in the US, their money is being extracted from them.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Their finances are being actively extracted. So they think that's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: what the whole world is like, but it's not. In
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: most countries, the systems, whatever they are, healthcare, education, transport,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: are designed to achieve that end, not to simply extract
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: money like they are in the US. So it was
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: like this weight was lifted off my shoulders as soon
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: as I got onto A and A and they served
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the first drink service and had all this laden tray
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: with wine and sodas and water and you could just
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: choose what you wanted. I was like, yeah, that's what
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: it's like out here. Even just a few weeks in
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Hawaii was enough to make me forget that the rest
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: of the world is sane, and just like, yeah, of
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: course they offered normal drinks on an air on an
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: international airplane flight for nine hours or whatever. That's just
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: you have to give people water. There's plenty free water,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and I got some. And that's what it's like across
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the world. If you're living in the US and you're
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: very depressed and don't know what's happening on. Just talk
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to me. It's so nice out here. It's so much cheaper,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: it's so much more courteous and respectable of basic human decency. Okay,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and I am in Indonesia, so I'm gonna briefly talk
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: about this because it is the easiest country I've ever entered,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and some are pretty easy. India was pretty easy, not
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: super easy. What have I been in recently? Colombia pretty easy,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: but Indonesia took it to another level. I decided to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: get the visa on arrival, which are usually a pain
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: in the butt because you have to fill out a form,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: get your picture taken, wait in line, pay the fee,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and then you get your visa arrival. But the whole
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: process can easily take forty five minutes to an hour.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: It takes a while when everybody has to do it.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Not so in Indonesia. The visa on arrival is the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: easiest I have encountered in the entire world. I realized.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I went straight to the immigration counter and I said, sorry,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: do I need the visa first. He's like, ah, yes,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you have to get it first. Sorry, it'll take a
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: little while. And he pointed me back to a counter
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that was like forty feet behind the immigration desk, and
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I walked over there and someone in front of me
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: was finishing up their transaction and they left and she said, hi, well,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: visa on arrival okay, and how would you like to pay?
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Casher card a card. She was like great. She tapped
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a thing for maybe ten seconds. Oh, I gave her
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: my passport, she filled out the information. It really was
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: ten seconds. It was so fast, and then she said, okay,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: pay and I tapped my card and she ripped off
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: two tickets and handed them to me, and that was it.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: It said Visa on arrival on the purple ticket. That
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: was it. It took less than a minute. It was crazy,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and I didn't even leave the counter. I just stared
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: at the tickets and then looked up at her. It's like,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: was that it? And she like laughed and she was like, yep,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: it's really easy now. And I gave one of the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: purple tickets to the immigration guy and that was it.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: So he's like, oh, it's going to take three minutes,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: sorry for the wait or whatever. Also, nobody waited in Indonesia,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how empty the airport was. People probably
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: know something I don't and that's why they're not here.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: But we had a full flight, it was packed, and
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: there was nobody. I never waited in line for more
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: than a minute, Like through the customs, through immigration, and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: forgetting my visa, there's only one person. It was just
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: so efficient and fast, and the visa on arrival process
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: clearly demonstrated that that I was blown away. I was
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: really impressed. So usually I get my simcard in the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: city because it's always way cheaper, like less than half
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the price than at the airport, and that was true
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: here also. But because it was so easy to do everything,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to pay a few extra dollars if something's
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: if I know the process will be easier, or if
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I think it will. So I just got my SIM
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: card also, and like many countries, that took one minute.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: It was just the guy. It was two hundred thousand,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: which is whatever ten dollars, and he offered me one
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand, which is like nine dollars, and
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, eh, and he's like one hundred thirty thousand.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, sure, whatever, which I'm still paying
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: like seven dollars, but it's just there. Yeah, whatever, So
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: he took my phone, put in a SIM card, entered
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a thing on his phone after a minute, and boom,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I have data for a month and it's just that easy.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: It would cost a dollar extra. And when I got
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: into the city, I was like, okay, yeah, it was
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: twice as much, but I literally had to do nothing.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: He spoke perfect English and just explained to me exactly
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: how everything worked, gave me my phone number. It was
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: it was two easy, not to pay the extra three
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: dollars for or whatever it was. And then boom, like
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: not out of the oh. And then I went to
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the ATM. They have no fee transactions, no fee ATMs here.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I still have a stupid US debit card that I'm using,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: so I should probably switch already because I do. Even
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: if there's a no fee transaction, my bank is still like, well,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: you just keep paying a transaction fee from US anyway
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: for no reason, because it's just so like I said,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: in the US, it's designed to extract money. It doesn't
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: cost them anything to do it. They're already charging a
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: fee for trans for exchanging the money to the foreign currency.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: They're just taking money just because it's a US company
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and they can just do that. But I think I
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: have to switch to Revolute or Chime or something that
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't do that, because at this point it's just ridiculous,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm going to be traveling for the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: foreseeable so just makes sense to get a no fee
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: transaction card. And I hear Revolute is the way to go.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Someone told me about Chime, but they have a couple
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: restrictions compared to Revolute that Revolute just doesn't have. Of Course,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: the thing is, I'm only spending like a seventy five
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: dollars or something to take out from the bank, maybe
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty at a time. So even if
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I pay ten percent, I'm paying a fifteen dollars fee.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm paying that in a country where I'm saving
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: such an insane amount of money. It doesn't it doesn't
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: matter relative even if I'm paying a ten percent fee
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: from my idiot bank. But obviously, yeah, I want to
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: avoid that, so I'm probably going to go with Revolute next,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: and I'll let you know if I do. Okay, my
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Airbnb host, who has been weird and hostile since I booked.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: This place is still weird in hostile hostile hostile. Yeah,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: still weird and hostile. But the place is nice. It's
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: really nice, and the neighborhood's really nice, and honestly, there's
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: not much to worry about. The only thing in my
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: head is like, this guy seems so angry at me
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that I didn't agree to pay for electricity after I
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: booked a nonrefundable reservation that had no utilities listed in
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the listing description. I'm afraid he's going to leave me
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a bad review, which I never get on Airbnb, just
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: because I'm not paying for utilities he didn't ask me
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: to pay for until after booking the reservation. And again
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: on Airbnb, if they write in the description you have
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: to pay electricity, then you do, but that's extremely rare
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: on Airbnb. And if it's not listed, but they do
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: list something like why if any electrical appliance, then that
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: electrical appliance has to have the electricity supplied to the
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: duration of your stay, which was what this listing was.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm just worried i'll get a bad review,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: which I've never gotten before and I don't want. But
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: it's been a decade and a half, so I guess
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: eventually I had to risk getting one anyway. And so
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: when I checked in here, I was like, maybe he'll
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: be chill now that I checked in, and he just
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: was not chill. He was very upset that I asked
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: about the sulfur water, he was upset that I asked
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: about a towel for the shower. It's just it's been
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: very strange. I think I actually have to ask Airbnb
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: what I do about a hostile host. But he hasn't
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: like crossed any explicit lines. He's just kind of rude
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: and noncommunicative, like he didn't send check in information, which
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to do, and he didn't, so he's not Yeah,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: he's just not being a good host, but he's not again,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: explicitly crossing any lines. So I don't think there's much
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to report him. There's not much
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to report. It's just I don't know why this host
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: is so upset, other than he was hoping he could
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: charge extra fees, which like that's definitely against Airbnb policy.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: You definitely can't do that. You can't just decide on
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: extra fees after somebody books a reservation. So I don't
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: know if he's more upset with I don't know. It's
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: so weird, but life is so easy. That's all I
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: have to worry about now. I guess I'm hoping that
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: if he leaves a bad review, it's going to be
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: very personal, because that is against Airbnb policies. It should
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: be about what the guest did wrong. So if you're
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: just like this guest is so irritating and he keeps
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: telling me I'm a piece of crap or something like that,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: they have all the message history, and then if you
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: just don't like the guest, that's not something you can
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: leave a review about. So I'm hoping he actually does that,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: because I, yeah, I'm very I always stay well within
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: the Airbnb regulations because I don't want to ever be
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: in a situation where I've done something wrong and have
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: to give up the convenience of this Airbnb community. So whatever,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: things are fine, and I really do like this neighborhood
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: and the house, and all the people I've met in
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood have been super cool too, so it's going
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: to be a good stay regardless. Pretty convenient too. I've
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: already found several local food vendors that a dollar for
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a plate of food and very well made, handmade food
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: right in front of you, so yeah, there's good food.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: And then there's a hypermarket nearby, so I can get
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: any groceries I need. The only thing that's not nearby
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: is beer. I was going to have a bunch of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: beer yesterday for my first day in Indonesia, but I
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: didn't realize how restrictive the policies had become. I have
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: to go into the city, and I deliberately chose a
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: place outside of the city to live in so it'd
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: be quieter, and it is very quiet, and I do
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: not regret that decision at all. And they also have
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: like those giant ice lemon teas everywhere that I love.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: So maybe I'll just be healthy this month, or I'm
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: going to go to the zoo. I know that, so
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I will have to go into the city eventually, but
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of time, a lot of
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: time out here in the boonies, out of the Ring Road,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: where I will certainly be a bit more healthy. But
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: either today or like whenever I go to the zoo,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a bunch of the Indonesian beer because
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I always want to try the beer in the country.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: It always tastes better, and yeah, I have a little
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: party and then I'll settle down a bit. But it's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: funny because the beer's difficult to get, just like in
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Morocco and Malaysia other places where beer's kind of difficult
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: to get, I'm just like, I just won't drink it.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Then if it's sort of difficult to get to, then
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I forget about it. Then who needs it?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Which is really nice because I like drinking a lot.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: So whenever I am living in a country where it's
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: slightly inconvenient and I'm like, then I just won't drink it,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: that's always a good indication to me that I'm not
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: as addicted to the sauce as I sometimes worry about
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: when I'm having a party vacation like Hawaii. Anyway, I'll
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: talk more about Indonesia next next episode, I'm going to
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: talk about the cost of living, which has already shocked
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: me at how cheap everything is, and just how nice
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: people have already been even though it's only been a
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: couple days, and how beautiful everything is. Oh, I got
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: to talk about the train. So there's a bunch of
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: stuff talk about. But I've been talking for a long
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: time already. I hope you're having a great day. I'm
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: having a good day. Now that I'm back in a house,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: it's going to be easy to make a bunch of
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: episodes so I can get caught up on all my
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: audio stuff. If you want to talk to me, hit
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: me up a bit of a rambler at gmail dot com,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: or bit of a rambler on Blue Sky and Lemmy,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: especially Lemmy. The travel community is very active, so bit
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of a Rambler on Lemmy you'll see the travel community
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I moderate and it's travel information and then fun pictures
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: from now Indonesia. It's been great. I hope you're having
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: a great day. I will talk to you soon.