France and England 2000, Saved from the Rodents of Taiwan

From 1992 to 2002, basically the length of my first marriage, I took tons and tons of pictures. These weren't digital pictures. These were actual, physical pictures shot on actual film. Most of those were of my ex-wife and places we had gone together. When I left for Taiwan in 2004, I left all those pictures with my brother. Since I soon realized my brother would probably end up destroying those pictures, I took them back to Taiwan with me at the end of 2004.

So, when we moved back to America in 2008, I had no room to bring any of those pictures back with me. It wasn't a top priority at that time, anyway. It was another time, an ex-wife. Did I really want to spend a lot of time ruminating on my past life? Not really. But I did have a lot of pictures from places such as France, England, and New York City (pre 9/11) that I wanted to recover. I put everything into envelopes, and then into boxes, and hoped they'd be preserved in Taiwan until the day came when I could retrieve them.

Well, I did finally retrieve them when I returned this summer, but they weren't actually in the condition I was hoping for. It seemed Christy's mother got bored one day, opened all my pictures to look at them, and put them back into the box, uncovered. The box was placed into a rather dirty storage area, where all manner of animals and insects had a feast on them. With a pair of gloves, I went through what was salvageable, and discarded the rest. I probably saved about 15%. Some of my favorite photos (pictures of the Eiffel Tower, pictures of me crossing the famous "Abbey Road", pictures from the top of the World Trade Center.....all gone. Here's some of what remains. A few pictures from the summer of 2000, when life was more carefree, and I spent my summer in Paris and London. You'll see me in the some of pictures, as well as Amber (my ex-wife). I'll post the few pics I have from NYC later.

(The pictures were scanned, so they look pretty small. Just click on them to make it bigger.)

A Few Final Pictures from the Trip

(Pictures: 1. Our first night in Taiwan, at a hotel in Taoyuan. 2 & 3: Sara and Kyle pose at a temple. 4. A street in JuShan. 5. My mother in-law's backyard, which is basically the open jungle. 6. My mother in-law, who doesn't really like to have her picture taken. 7. Downtown Taoyuan. 8. Arriving at the airport in Japan. Unfortunately, that's the only part of Japan we saw. 9. Downtown JuShan. 10. David with his long-time girlfriend (and now, finally, wife), Pi Chi.)

More Pictures From Bangkok

Bangkok

I had a lot of apprehension going to Bangkok. For Christy and I, it wasn't just a trip for pleasure. There were personal reasons for us going there. The kids didn't go with us. Instead, they stayed back in Taiwan with their grandma. Under normal circumstances, the grandma would not want to be left with two kids to watch by herself. But these were not really normal circumstances.

We spent four nights in Bangkok, and I insisted that Christy and I travel as lightly as possible. Just one suitcase or backpack each, so we could always keep an eye on our belongings. Perhaps I had just seen too many movies, but the idea of someone sticking drugs into our suitcase was never far from my mind. If I ever were to leave my backpack unattended in the hotel room, or with the bellboy, I would always check it again when I came back. Ok, call me paranoid, but I've learned a little about Thailand prisons (more on that later), and it's somewhere I don't want to go.

For the most part, though, everything went pretty smoothly. Bangkok is a crazy, crowded, dirty, sleazy city. You can get pretty much anything you want for a very low price. I almost bought a Rolex watch for about US $30, but decided against it. Yeah, obviously it was a fake, although it looked quite real. I'm not a Rolex kind of person anyway. I'm quite content with my $80 Seiko Solar watch (although I did buy a $3 pair of Birkenstock sandals, probably also fake.)

We juggled most of our time between sightseeing and personal business (again, more on that story later.) We saw the famous "Reclining Buddha" (Wat Pho), the Grand Palace, and numerous temples along the Chao Phraya river. As Thailand is famous for its massage parlors, we had three different types of massages while we were there: the foot massage, the full body oil massage, and the traditional Thai massage (I recommend the first two.)

Our hotel was located in what is probably one of the most crowded streets in Bagkok, "Surawong." It was right across the street from the "Patpong Night Market", which Christy and I quickly dubbed the "Ping Pong Night Market." Every time we walked out of our hotel, numerous people would walk up to us and say "Ping Pong show?" I already knew what the Ping Pong show was, but Christy didn't. I think she felt I would be disappointed if we didn't see the famous Ping Pong show, so we saved it for our last night there.

A guy who seemed a bit mentally ill informed us that we could see the "Ping Pong Show" for 100 Baht a piece (a hundred baht is about US $3). His little flyer said "No Cover Charge", so we figured we check it out. We walked upstairs into a bar with loud music and naked girls dancing on a stage. The girls however, were hideous, which explained why the place was empty. There was only one other couple in the entire bar. We stayed for less than ten minutes, then decided to leave. Before we left, though, the waitress gives us a bill for 2,600 Baht. Christy and I naturally flipped out. As this was our last night, we didn't even have that much money left. I proceeded to give the waitress 200 Baht and then headed for the door. At this point, a bunch of burly Thai guys locked the door and blocked our exit, demanding that we pay for the show because we "looked."

"No fucking way." I told these dudes "The guy told us 200 Baht, and that was all. I'll tell the police."

These Thai dudes didn't seem to care about my warning. I'm sure the police are all in on the scam anyway. Then Christy started shouting at them as well. She got them to renegotiate their price, and we ended up paying them 420 Baht instead of 200. I guess we were lucky, as I would later find out that most of these places are owned by the Thai mafia.

So, for the most part it was a fairly nice trip, but for a place known for its "happy endings", our ending in Bangkok wasn't all that happy.

Back to Taiwan

I just got back from a two week trip to Taiwan and Thailand. It was pretty memorable, to say the least, particularly in Bangkok. I'll have more stories and pictures to post in the days ahead. These are just a few from Taiwan, where Kyle and Sara were finally able to meet their Taiwanese cousins.

A Few Pics from California

A couple of weeks ago, I took Sara to visit my mom in California. It wasn't a trip meant for fun or tourism, but simply some time for Sara to see her grandmother. Our family had recently received some pretty bad medical news about my mom, and we wanted to see her while we still had a chance.

After spending most of the day with my mom, I would take Sara to see some of the local beaches, which she loved. Living in Texas, the closest beach to us (I think) is the one in Galveston, which is about a 3 hour drive.

Sara was also able to see her cousin Karli for the first time since 2008, just before the big fallout with my brother.

(Pictures: 1. Sara and grandma. 2 & 3. Sara in Long Beach. 4. Sara & Grandma again. 5. Sara with her cousin, Karli)