Can I Milk Your Yak?

Denver, 7 days, there was some rocky mountainy stuff that looked nice like stuff of postcards. Super chilled week involving a lot of FIFA 12, road trips and tibetan food binging. Oh yeah we went and saw some Yaks...

Yak farm. We fed yaks. Was good. Took 4 hours drive to get to Yak Farm in cramped seat with my own knees in my chest. Took 4 hours to drive home, same seat. Had ass cramps that night. Was less good.

Below is awesome summer driving song. Denver sort of reminds me of Canberra and not in an exciting way... Boulder is much cooler

Dear Diary

As some of you may know I am currently very behind in the whole blogging thing. I feel like maybe blogging and I had some communication problems which led to us fighting and not talking to each other, so I have decided to bite the bullet and dedicate this next post to my beloved blog to show how much he/she/it means to me.

Dear Diary
Seattle has been a insane whirlwind experience. The amazing people I've met and things I've seen here has far outstripped the expectations that any Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie could have imprinted upon me. For the first few days I stayed with family in a city called Bellevue. Bellevue is a short trip on the I90 across Lake Washington from Seattle and is the setting for one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. Bellevue is full of leafy suburban areas with monster houses on large grassy hills overlooking Seattle and Bellevue centre. It was my luck that I was in this specific area for Independence Day, a day all about the red, white and blue. There were hot dog vendors everywhere, people dancing polka (that was a bit odd), I think I even saw some emo's smiling at one point. But the clear highlight has to be the fireworks. Sweet leaping Jehova do they know how to abuse fireworks. Across all of the Seattle and Bellevue night sky were bright flashing multi coloureds - snap, crackle and popping for like 4 hours to a point of causing epileptic fits.

After the excitement of Independence day I had a couple days left in Seattle which I figured to spend hostel hopping for some city centre love. Seattle has got to be one of my new favourite cities. The pike place market on the bay is a must do experience. Grab some rustic food and chill out on the grassed area overlooking the Seattle bay. I feel like Seattle has the perfect level of multiculturalism. I'm not sure where that comment came from or that it is necessary but I just really liked its cultural blend... random...

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Seattle was also setting for my first proper occurrences of alcohol fuelled random adventures. My first night started with intercontinental beer pong and a failed attempt by some canadians to play flip cup*. And it ended at some point in the blur of haze, but not before one newly acquired friend explained to me how he wasn't gay and he didn't want to "gay me"... yeah that was a bit of an awkward conversation, apparently my general happy flamboyance gives off a gay vibe. 

Getting past that the next day explored more of Seattle, found this amazing sandwich shop on a lost wander but hit a snag when I could barely manage 3 bites into the sandwich I was that hungover. Eventually got back to the hostel around dinner time chilling out trying to get through the rest of my sandwich and a girl from melbourne who I thought I'd never met before starts talking to me asking me about my night etc. Halfway down the conversation I admit I have no recollection of her and she proceeds to tell me how in my drunken haze with my new bromance we had walked back into the hostel at like 5am singing merrily and then stole her mushroom soup... I felt so bad :) 

After all the soup thievery reconciliation and a couple more sorrys it was back on the booze for a saturday night out in Seattle. We left the hostel with a group of about 15 but had no idea what was any good and somehow got steered by these two random girls to this bar cos they said it had good music and free entry if we said we were there for Jess' birthday. The bouncers were a bit sus about so many people being so late for Jess' party so we just explained we were another birthday party that just finished dinner and in we went. 

All was going well cheap drinks, cool cheesy 80s music, hanging out etc when suddenly these two girls come up to us dressed as Snow White and Pocahontas and we had the weirdest conversation which went something like this...

Pocahontas: Is this a gay bar?

Casper: Uhhh what? I have no idea, why do you ask?

Pocahontas: There are all these queens here?

Casper: *turning to closely inspect dancefloor* where are they? they all look ... oh god thats not a woman. 

Bro 1: neither is that one...

After it dawning on us that half the dance floor were alternatively dressed men in dresses we were a bit taken back (apparently the Queens of Seattle come the 80's music and stay for the cheap drinks), thought nothing of it and proceeded to have an amazing night. One question did come up though, why of everyone in the bar did Pocahotness ask me whether I knew it was a gay bar... it was happening again...

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*PS to all flip cup enthusiasts, I do not understand your game, it is silly and makes no sense. That is all that needs to be said about that

PPS Staying in hostels is awesome but they can sometimes be quite noisy when your trying to making last nights pain stay with last night so you can get some shut eye, so I've been aiding my sleep with a lot of nice gentle acoustic to lull me to sleep. Ben Howard has been my audio lover in Seattle. He hooked me with a cover of 'Call me maybe' but his awesomeness has to be realised for your own. Buy, steal, download his album Every Kingdom. The song below is my favourite off the album I hope you enjoy

PPPS This entry is poorly written and rushed so sorry if it doesn't read to well I couldn't be effed editing today :)

Jazz Jerky Sesh

There’s something quite relaxing about taking public transport when I’m overseas, something about the complete lack of time constraints I’ve felt so far on this trip means nothing is really late or on time. Everything is done at a gentle meandering pace similar to sloths on Prozac. My trip to downtown Vancouver was certainly no different, with a leisurely walk through the ‘ghetto’ to the local sky train station followed by a half hour long 30 ft tall moving view of the city.

My ‘goal’ for the day was to wander a bit and check out the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, oh and get Starbucks (Holy mother of god how have I missed the frappuccinos from starbucks).  Naturally in keeping with the general demeanour of the trip I had no idea where the jazz festival was being held so I decided I’d get off at any stop that sounded downtowny. I somehow ended up here…

Turns out it was Canada Day and in response to its national festivities a bunch of young activists decided to hold a pro marijuana rally/sesh. Our backpacked MC got everyone riled up with anti government rhetoric and then decided to mellow everyone out by acting as self appointed ‘Green Santa Claus’ with sack and all.

Dishing out the Kush like a charity worker with Tourette syndrome he slid his way through the crowd screaming wait for 4.20, and that they did. Slowly coming upon 4.19pm everyone grabbed their local fire provider and finally after the countdown everyone lit up. It took about 30 seconds for the people in the centre of this mass sit in to realise what 2000 people smoking up in close quarters would mean… A mad rush for fresh air ensued. Thank goodness they provided a safe spot to rest.

After escaping the haze I finally stumbled upon the Jazz Festival which happened to be set on the banks of Vancouver bay. With sunlight dwindling I was set upon by some of the most ridiculous Jazz I've ever heard. Now while I enjoyed the fast beat and killer lead saxophone, I feel the reason the "Shuffle Demons" have never been commercially successful is for the fact they can't write lyrics to save themselves. For about 50% of one song they sung about cheese on bread, while in the other 50% of the song they just sung the words 'cheese on bread'. So disappointed and hungry I left the music area and found this gem of a food truck. 

Now if you've never tried Jamaican food before your in for a surprise, their chicken 'jerky' looks deceptively like roast chicken, but tastes like an itching volcanic rash on your tongue. I was seriously crying for a good 2 minutes before the Jamaican truck lady started laughing at me and said "I'm sorry love I thought you knew it was medium"

For now I am forever scarred and apprehensive when I see jerky on the menu, I should of stuck with what I knew, I guess its back to the orange juice for me...

P.S. Just a quick video bonus for you all
My uncle is a little obsessed with Indian reality television, and while eating one night I bore witness to one of the more ridiculous sights of hindi tv. I hope you enjoy, its fairly adorable.

Linsanity and my addiction

At present I am staying with my Tibetan uncle and his family in New Westminster, Vancouver. The sightseeing has been fairly nonexistent so far. Though we did take a 45 minute ferry to Victoria Island yesterday, it's a beautiful place what with it being intoxicatingly forested and wild with nature. Steve Parish would orgasm at the number of trees here, let alone all the other flora and fauna. But, alas due to my aversion to nature and all things green I thought I was in the before scene of a Telfast commercial.

Much more to my liking has been the chillaxing with cousins. Our lazy days take place in an area my cousin described as the "Vancouver Ghetto". Now while I don't have a large experience in identifying 'ghetto' neighbourhoods I feel New Westminster lacks that dangerous edge you associate with your stereotypical ghetto. The area is full of 2nd generation immigrants all super polite and cheerful.
One highlight of my time here has to be the street basketball. Warm afternoons spent playing and watching 2nd generation, generally asian youth try to 'dominate' the half court. As you may know asians in general aren't the most vertically gifted people, so believe me when I tell you that watching basketball being played by teams averaging 5ft 6 with broken english smack talk is amazing, fucking amazing.

What I'm also really enjoying is family time, I've always enjoyed visiting family overseas. In Canberra I lack any form of family interaction outside my immediate family so to go overseas and be immersed in 'family time' is something I love. The best is the fact that my Aunt here in treats me to ridiculous amounts of Tibetan food. From momos (traditional Tibetan Dumplings) to just insanely large cuts of braised meat, I feel like going into a food coma after each meal. Every meal after I finish a large enough portion to satisfy a small rhino my aunt ninjas my plate away to get me more. I'm not really sure if she actually speaks english for every time I say "No, its ok I'm quite full" she just grins and plates me more food.

I do quite enjoy the excess food consumption but my one concern in all this gluttony is the levels of orange juice I'm consuming. From the first moments of opening my eyes  through to the amazing Canadian summer evenings with their 10pm sunset. Anytime I am home I am accompanied by a large (I'm guessing) 600ml blue glass cup. My aunt must be under some impression that I in danger of falling ill to scurvy, because anytime the cup resembles being half empty she rushes to get what must be at least a 3 litre vessel that the juice resides in and promptly fills the cup. It's been 4 days and I've been through at least 2 of these american sized juice bottles.

My name is Casper and i have a juice addiction. I fear it may be affecting my digestive system. Please help :)

Love Casper

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