Janet Jackson!

I still need to post the rest of my photos from my trip, but in the meantime I wanted to mention last weekend's events.

On Friday I got to see Janet Jackson during her one-night-only concert in Taipei. I had 12th row seats--I could see the sweat flying from the dancers!

Janet was amazing; she's 44 years old and still as talented and sexy as ever! I took some photos and videos, but unfortunately my mobile phone camera doesn't do very well at dark, loud concerts.





This is the view of the stage from my seat in the "VIP" section.

And this is the view behind me. They're all jealous!

See? I was there!

Unfortunately, that photo of me is much clearer than this one of Janet :-(

Fortunately, here's a shot from the Taipei Times. I don't know how she managed to sing, dance, and continue to breathe in that outfit. Hawt!

I have a (lame, Lame, LAME) video that I shot here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XoSsmUyt1c

There's a better video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTgxAczM9c--check out Janet's interaction with the guitar player during "Black Cat" at the 1:30 mark (!)

Embryos, Insects, and Arachnids

Note: Vegans and members of PETA will probably want to skip this post.

So, it's my first night in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and my buddy Ryan takes me to Pub Street to try some local cuisine. While I'm eating my declicious pineapple-tomato-chicken soup dish, Ryan says something to the server in Cambodian. A few minutes later, the server comes back with two eggs, and I know what's in store: Balut.

Without further ado, here's a video of my first time eating what I previously vowed would never touch my lips.

After surviving a military attack I figured I could handle eating anything else that Ryan would suggest. So, a couple of nights later, I was introduced to fried insects. If anyone reading this can identify this bug, I'd really like to know what kind it was.

The next day we went to Phnom Penh. When our bus pulled over at a rest stop, we finally found what we had been craving for the past few days: Big, black spiders!

Hey, when in Rome...

A frightening day in Cambodia

I arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia on Thursday, Feb. 3rd. I'll write more when I get the chance, but I wanted to write this bit for those of you who aren't my Facebook friends.

Today (Friday) my friend and I went to visit the Preah Vihear temple on the Cambodia-Thai border, a 4 hour drive from Siem Reap. We had just arrived at the base of the mountain with another family, and were about to arrange for a ride up the mountain to visit the temple, when shooting and bombing began between Thai and Cambodian forces there. Immediately the soldiers led us into a hole at the base of the mountain. There were continual gunshots and grenade launcher shots. A couple of times the whine of the missile sounded a lot closer so we all had to lie flat on the ground.

I shot a video which is below. We had been hiding in the hole for about 20 minutes when the soldiers told us to leave quickly. The video starts as we were exiting the hole, but then the shooting and bombing started again, and we had to go back into the hole for safety. We stayed for about another 20 minutes, then the soldiers told us to escape quickly.




Although I'm smiling an laughing in some parts of the video, I believe that must be a reaction from nervousness, because believe me, at the time all I remember was being scared to death.

Our driver, who had been accompanied by his wife and teenage daughter, was instructed to take a different route by dirt roads to escape. On the way out we could see the flash of missiles in the air and the smoke from fires started on the hill. When we got to the nearby town the local villagers were packing up and the road got a bit crowded with trucks full of people leaving.



We're absolutely safe now, back in Siem Reap, but it was quite a frightening experience.

Vietnam Days 3 & 4

Had a FANTASTC time on the Halong Bay cruise. I will write more later.

It's my last night in Vietnam and I'm getting ready to go to the lake to watch the Tet fireworks.

Ciao for now.