Thursday, February 26, 2009
Pucon
Well your in for a treat this time, I have in deed attached a photo of Sudoku South American style, or what I call "Sudoporn" now why you disguise a perfectly respectable logic game inside a soft porn cover is beyond me, one wouldn't like fellow passengers on the bus to know your engaged in a semi-intellectual pursuit, no so much better that they think your a pervy type who is just upping your hormone level or something. Call it a culture chasm, and yes the girl I bought it off did look at me twice.
Other things I love about Sth America include that their is a section in the yellow pages entitled "Vigilantes" now I know it's just security guards but somehow being called a vigilante has got to increase your cool quotient.
There are stray dogs here, not so mangy and skinny as the Thai kind, more an unconnected tribe of hobos. So poopy does not get scoopied and the streets can be a little vile in the cities where there are no grass berms, but luckily Chile does have a lot of parks so things are not as bad as they could be. There is even a park in Valparaiso that has a bunch of dog statues around a very odd central statue which shows some midget men (possibly Mapuche men) nursing from a giant odd looking female dog.
The food here is rather repeatative, luckily I like avocadoes (a lot). But the "completoes" are more or less compulsory fare, they are basically a hotdog in a white bread roll with tomatoe, avocado and a wacking great dolop of mayo on top, I did take a rather bad photo of a promotion for one of these and a beer, it was (rather amusingly I thought) called a "gut promotion" (I know it's a german themed pub, but still funny).
When the light turns red you don't only have the junkies trying to wash your car windows for pesos, you also have acrobats and jugglers step out into the road and do their thing, which is much more fun in my book, I'm not sure of they make money out of it, but still, enterprising I think!
There is so much street art / grafitti here (it really is hard to tell which is which, I certainly prefer some of the "grafitti" to some of the "art") It makes me wonder about the personal reasons behind each work I've kind of concluded that some people do beautiful respectful work, while some people do thought provoking (sometimes) mass produced or political stencil art and others just do rude crude "tags" or the equivalent of territorial pissing. I guess it's kind of a window onto their personality, some people are rude and crude and others think about the context of their stuff before they start, maybe it reinforces the idea that every thing you do is an expression of your self, not only what you do but how and where you do it as well, obviously this form of public art if not exactly legal here is encouraged on some level (and many of the large works on public walk ways must be legal) and I'm sure more than one business and home owner have actually sought out someone to paint their house wall.
I have also had someone attempt to steal something out of my bag, I was amazed how quiet and efficient they were, I didn't even notice the attempt till well after the event, but I never carry anything valuable in the front pocket of my backpack for this very reason, luckily they didn't see any value in my glasses or contact lens fluid so they had wasted their time on that particular occassion.
I have left Santiago and gone South through Chillan and Villarica and am now hanging out in Pucon, it's beautiful here next to mount Villarica a still active volcano which I climbed (a 4 hour uphill trudge) my guide assured me he can do it in 2, argggh. Luckily we slid down the glacier at least half the way down, and got a numb bum despite wearing protective slidding clothes and a slidding "nappy" it was great fun if decidedly unglamorous.
Tomorrow I head for Valdivia while all remains relatively quiet on the work front, I've been offered a couple of language school gigs in Buenos Aires but I'm not sure they are what I want, we shall see.
Till next time, keep safe, besos,
Other things I love about Sth America include that their is a section in the yellow pages entitled "Vigilantes" now I know it's just security guards but somehow being called a vigilante has got to increase your cool quotient.
There are stray dogs here, not so mangy and skinny as the Thai kind, more an unconnected tribe of hobos. So poopy does not get scoopied and the streets can be a little vile in the cities where there are no grass berms, but luckily Chile does have a lot of parks so things are not as bad as they could be. There is even a park in Valparaiso that has a bunch of dog statues around a very odd central statue which shows some midget men (possibly Mapuche men) nursing from a giant odd looking female dog.
The food here is rather repeatative, luckily I like avocadoes (a lot). But the "completoes" are more or less compulsory fare, they are basically a hotdog in a white bread roll with tomatoe, avocado and a wacking great dolop of mayo on top, I did take a rather bad photo of a promotion for one of these and a beer, it was (rather amusingly I thought) called a "gut promotion" (I know it's a german themed pub, but still funny).
When the light turns red you don't only have the junkies trying to wash your car windows for pesos, you also have acrobats and jugglers step out into the road and do their thing, which is much more fun in my book, I'm not sure of they make money out of it, but still, enterprising I think!
There is so much street art / grafitti here (it really is hard to tell which is which, I certainly prefer some of the "grafitti" to some of the "art") It makes me wonder about the personal reasons behind each work I've kind of concluded that some people do beautiful respectful work, while some people do thought provoking (sometimes) mass produced or political stencil art and others just do rude crude "tags" or the equivalent of territorial pissing. I guess it's kind of a window onto their personality, some people are rude and crude and others think about the context of their stuff before they start, maybe it reinforces the idea that every thing you do is an expression of your self, not only what you do but how and where you do it as well, obviously this form of public art if not exactly legal here is encouraged on some level (and many of the large works on public walk ways must be legal) and I'm sure more than one business and home owner have actually sought out someone to paint their house wall.
I have also had someone attempt to steal something out of my bag, I was amazed how quiet and efficient they were, I didn't even notice the attempt till well after the event, but I never carry anything valuable in the front pocket of my backpack for this very reason, luckily they didn't see any value in my glasses or contact lens fluid so they had wasted their time on that particular occassion.
I have left Santiago and gone South through Chillan and Villarica and am now hanging out in Pucon, it's beautiful here next to mount Villarica a still active volcano which I climbed (a 4 hour uphill trudge) my guide assured me he can do it in 2, argggh. Luckily we slid down the glacier at least half the way down, and got a numb bum despite wearing protective slidding clothes and a slidding "nappy" it was great fun if decidedly unglamorous.
Tomorrow I head for Valdivia while all remains relatively quiet on the work front, I've been offered a couple of language school gigs in Buenos Aires but I'm not sure they are what I want, we shall see.
Till next time, keep safe, besos,
Monday, February 09, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
February 2009
Yes, I am the slackest blogger on the planet!
Believe it or not I have been very busy, no really.
For those of you who live under a rock (or aren't on facebook), I no longer live in Thailand.
So I left Thailand, there were parties and tears and I travelled overland to Malaysia, did some posting and stuff in K.l.went down to Bali and went diving on the Liberty wreck in Tulumben the highlight of which was definitely seeing my first real live baby seahorse, it was tiny and sooo cute.
Bali was interesting as the American elections had just been held (yay Obama riding his unicorn of change over the rainbow of hope and into American hearts), the guy who ran one of the guest houses I stayed in (and in defence of his character I will say I saw him reading a newspaper, which he assured me he did every day) told me that they were all surprised that Americans had "voted for the Muslim ". I was indeed momentarily speechless but then thought hey this could be the best thing for world peace ever if all the countries that are breeding ground for terrorists believe this.
Also the Mumbai bombings had just happened and the Bali bombers from 2005 (I think) had just been executed the week before so there were travel warnings about that part of the world, The place was empty (it was Blackpool in winter all over again). People were very interested in how safe I felt being in Bali and discussions about "What terrorists want" were rampant. I of course am of the opinion that if I cease living my life my way then the terrorists have indeed won, I'm not saying one should be fool hardy in regards to their own safety but at the same time allowing others to dictate your life style has never been a thing that sits well with me.
Anyways, I then Christmassed with all my old friends in Australia, I was spoiled rotten and generally speaking drank far too much, and ate too much. January was spent in much the same manner in New Zealand with the family and friends of my childhood, great fun and thanks to everyone who humoredme, feed and sheltered me, besos darlings.
And so I have embarked on a new continent and hope to have a job here shortly, I flew into Santiago at the start of the month arriving fortuitously during a magnificent sunset over the spectacular Andes, even seeing some geoglyphs in the ground here and there as well, it was all a bit too fabulous as an arrival really. I am now in the process of discovering Chile, For some reason I find the lack of Spanish more disorientating then I did the lack of Thai, I am starting to string the odd stumbling sentence together but it takes me so long to understand what has been said to me and formulate a response that most people have given up by then. My first day I went to Plaza de Brazil and found my first rabid dog (luckily he was dead) unluckily in the children's playground, which made for some odd juxtaposition photography. I then headed down to Plaza de Armas where I discovered Chilean police wearing not only guns but bullet proof vests (oh yeah I'm feeling secure now). The glimpses of the Andes through the shop fronts keeps reminding me of what Upper Hutt (nestelled in the Akatarua mountains) might look like on steroids.
There are a million churches in Santiago, they fall into threebroad categories, Posh, under renovation, and slowly rotting, the first one I went into "Saint Francis" church had the goriest Christ on the cross I've ever seen, seriously any kid going into that church is doomed to nightmares for the rest of their days. Next I went into the main Cathedral, it has many splendid iconographic paintings, the cielings had not been spared a generous splashing of the oils though my favourite had to be one of the holy lamb barbque, I have a picture I promise to post it next time I have my camera hooked up. There was also some great stained glass as well.
Day 2 found me at the "Mueseo Chileano de Arte" which did indeed (as promised by the satanic verses) have many stunning statues and items from Inca and other Central and South American native peoples, it was exceptionally cool and i would love to have been able to take some photos, to remind myself how cool a lot of the stuff was as they simply don't do postcards (or allow photography) go figure!
Today I caught the bus, past a surprisingly barren but for cactus and eucalyptus trees sceenery to Valparaiso and am now staying at my friend Karenn's house, she is a lovely girl whom I have met through a friend of my Mothers and we walked over Valparaiso and saw some very cool architecture, again very reminiscent of Wellington. It{s late, I will try to post again soon (I know, I know, such empty words are bound to come back to haunt me).
Believe it or not I have been very busy, no really.
For those of you who live under a rock (or aren't on facebook), I no longer live in Thailand.
So I left Thailand, there were parties and tears and I travelled overland to Malaysia, did some posting and stuff in K.l.went down to Bali and went diving on the Liberty wreck in Tulumben the highlight of which was definitely seeing my first real live baby seahorse, it was tiny and sooo cute.
Bali was interesting as the American elections had just been held (yay Obama riding his unicorn of change over the rainbow of hope and into American hearts), the guy who ran one of the guest houses I stayed in (and in defence of his character I will say I saw him reading a newspaper, which he assured me he did every day) told me that they were all surprised that Americans had "voted for the Muslim ". I was indeed momentarily speechless but then thought hey this could be the best thing for world peace ever if all the countries that are breeding ground for terrorists believe this.
Also the Mumbai bombings had just happened and the Bali bombers from 2005 (I think) had just been executed the week before so there were travel warnings about that part of the world, The place was empty (it was Blackpool in winter all over again). People were very interested in how safe I felt being in Bali and discussions about "What terrorists want" were rampant. I of course am of the opinion that if I cease living my life my way then the terrorists have indeed won, I'm not saying one should be fool hardy in regards to their own safety but at the same time allowing others to dictate your life style has never been a thing that sits well with me.
Anyways, I then Christmassed with all my old friends in Australia, I was spoiled rotten and generally speaking drank far too much, and ate too much. January was spent in much the same manner in New Zealand with the family and friends of my childhood, great fun and thanks to everyone who humoredme, feed and sheltered me, besos darlings.
And so I have embarked on a new continent and hope to have a job here shortly, I flew into Santiago at the start of the month arriving fortuitously during a magnificent sunset over the spectacular Andes, even seeing some geoglyphs in the ground here and there as well, it was all a bit too fabulous as an arrival really. I am now in the process of discovering Chile, For some reason I find the lack of Spanish more disorientating then I did the lack of Thai, I am starting to string the odd stumbling sentence together but it takes me so long to understand what has been said to me and formulate a response that most people have given up by then. My first day I went to Plaza de Brazil and found my first rabid dog (luckily he was dead) unluckily in the children's playground, which made for some odd juxtaposition photography. I then headed down to Plaza de Armas where I discovered Chilean police wearing not only guns but bullet proof vests (oh yeah I'm feeling secure now). The glimpses of the Andes through the shop fronts keeps reminding me of what Upper Hutt (nestelled in the Akatarua mountains) might look like on steroids.
There are a million churches in Santiago, they fall into threebroad categories, Posh, under renovation, and slowly rotting, the first one I went into "Saint Francis" church had the goriest Christ on the cross I've ever seen, seriously any kid going into that church is doomed to nightmares for the rest of their days. Next I went into the main Cathedral, it has many splendid iconographic paintings, the cielings had not been spared a generous splashing of the oils though my favourite had to be one of the holy lamb barbque, I have a picture I promise to post it next time I have my camera hooked up. There was also some great stained glass as well.
Day 2 found me at the "Mueseo Chileano de Arte" which did indeed (as promised by the satanic verses) have many stunning statues and items from Inca and other Central and South American native peoples, it was exceptionally cool and i would love to have been able to take some photos, to remind myself how cool a lot of the stuff was as they simply don't do postcards (or allow photography) go figure!
Today I caught the bus, past a surprisingly barren but for cactus and eucalyptus trees sceenery to Valparaiso and am now staying at my friend Karenn's house, she is a lovely girl whom I have met through a friend of my Mothers and we walked over Valparaiso and saw some very cool architecture, again very reminiscent of Wellington. It{s late, I will try to post again soon (I know, I know, such empty words are bound to come back to haunt me).
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