Budapest

i'm alive!  i made it to budapest safely.  it's only been a few hours but it really is beautiful here.  i just went to the tower in st. stephen's basilica.  going to check the opera house next to see if there are any performances coming up.  also going to take a bath in the bath house.

my 6 hour layover in dublin flew by but i was able to visit the guinness factory and try a pint.  it tasted the same but i got to enjoy it while watching a 360 degree view of the city.   awesome!  i unfortunately was running out of the time so i had to rush the tour part of it.

okay the people in the apple store are giving me dirty looks so i gotta run.

Progressive but no internet

Ok. It is hard to imagine that a country that seems to be keeping everyone on their toes in terms of inventing new technologies (sp?) has hardly any (closer to none) internet cafes. And when I do find one, it took a while for me to figure out how to spot it from changing my English words to Japanese. Haha. Anyway, I love Japan. It`s so beautiful. The landscape of the mountains is breath taking. It is no wonder that every single Japanese person has a huge SLR hanging around their neck... sometimes two. These old men and ladies with round back are hobbling with cameras that have huge lenses on them. It`s pretty funny actually. We fit the steriotype very well.

The food is sooo good too. I have been OD`ing on bamboo, miso, soy products, mushrooms and fish. Surprisingly, I think there are more overweight young people now. Many girls are wearing micro shorts with thigh high socks and showing off their thick legs. I know it`s mean but it`s true. It is a really bizarre look. Not only are they wearing thigh high socks but they are in distracting patterns like multicolor stripes.

In every country I visit, boys are usually thin. I can`t figure that part out. Are the women taking the food away from the men? As usual, the boys in Japan have long hair and always fixing it in the reflection of a window if they are not carrying a mirror.

I went to Nara on my second day here and it was really beautiful. It is not very far from Osaka. Up until now, Kyoto was my favorite since there are tons of temples and history but Nara is just as beautiful with as many temples. They also have deer walking around the park which Kyoto does not have. Since they are protected animals, they walk around looking for deer biscuits you can purchase for 150 yen. I went early in the morning, so the deer I was feeding were pretty hungry. They stepped on my feet which quite a bit. I got some cool shots though.

Now I am in Akita. Yesterday I got to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. It was the reason why I can here so I was really happy to have a chance to see them. The trees looked like they were covered with snow and they were everywhere so it was truly an awesome sight.

Thailand in a blur

I feel like I'm living in a scene in The Terminal with Tom Hanks. My parents and I have been killing HOURS at the Bangkok airport waiting to head to Narita. I have very mixed feeling about this trip. We've been getting nothing but ripped off in Bangkok. AND not to mention it's New Years here so the Songran (sp?) Festival has been going on. This is when the Thais 'gently' throw water on people passing by and if you're lucky, you get that occasional person putting baby powder on your face. I liked Chiang Mai better. I usually don't like cities so this is no surprise. My ultimate quest was to check out the long neck people but it was a bit of a disappointment. I saw them but they were jsut selling hand crafted goods in a straw hut. There really was no 'village.' But I enjoyed talking to the locals and the food was really good. My favorite part of the trip was the cooking class we took. We had a 6 course meal that day. Crazy. Anyway, time is running out. Hopefully I can log on again soon.

Back in Cancun

I'm back in Cancun. We took an express bus to Chetumal which took about 3 hours. The ride was comfortable and I slept most of the way. We then took the 1.30pm bus to Cancun. We were scheduled to arrive at 6pm but didn't arrive until 1.5 hours later. It was grueling. My legs were numb once we arrived at the bus station. But for $34 US OW, it's not a bad deal.

Placencia

The day after Caracol, we decided to go to a beach town by the lagoon in Placencia. We headed out at 5am and drove for 3+ hours. We parked the car and took a 15 min ferry ride. Placencia has a lot of restaurants and some shops for shopping. It was extremely hot so we went to get something to eat first at the Purple Space Monkey. The food was surprisingly good. I had to get my egg fix so I ordered breakfast. The others had sandwiches which looked good also. Due to the heat, no one felt like moving. We just sat at the table under then fans and relaxed. We also discovered the bathroom had AC so we all changed in there. Haha.

After over an hour, we finally headed out to the beach where we found some shade. There were little black beetle like insects but they didn't bother us so it was fine. The water looked very inviting. It was a nice blue/green color. We took a dip and it felt warm and divine. We swam around, took photos, read a little and did normal beach activities. I noticed some of the trees looked like they were cut in half. Apparently it is due to the hurricane they had a few years ago. They haven't fully recovered yet. It wasn't a very strong hurricane but it lingered for several days doing a lot of damage.

After drying off, we proceeded to a friend's bar and hung out there for a few drinks and had some food before the long journey home.