Falling Off...

Hey, We Moved!

2009-08-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

http://nohurrycurry.wordpress.com

We have moved over to wordpress.com. For those of you subscribed to the blog, you'll probably want to change your subscription as we won't be posting here anymore. Sorry about that. The inaugural post (written by Kevin) is up right now.

We hope you like it! See you on the other side.

You're the U to My Q

2009-07-26T20:15:00.002-04:00

I wish I could say the words in the title were spoken about me, but they were not. If only... Although Kevin did do something sweet for me - he sent me my yellow immunization card in the mail so I could get it updated (got my last shot on Wednesday). Unfortunately, I forgot that I had asked him to mail something to me, so when I got that in the mail, I thought to myself, "How sweet! Kevin sent me a letter!" and then opened it and was confused by why Kevin sent me a sheet of scrap paper folded around a yellow piece of paper. When I told Kevin this later, he said, "Yeah, I meant to write something on the paper so you wouldn't get excited, like 'This is a piece of scrap paper,' but I was in a hurry." I don't know whether to feel touched that he didn't want to disappoint me or to feel upset that he couldn't take 10 seconds to write on the paper. It's a tough one.

Besides getting that last shot, there hasn't been much travel-related action these past few weeks. The only thing I can think of is that I bought some solid shampoo and conditioner from Lush. This means I can take a lot more tiny sunscreens and tiny toothpastes! I'm thinking of asking Kevin if he can sneak a big thing of sunscreen through the airport in his pocket. Maybe to make up for the whole mail disappointment.

Anyway, that's all the travel-related news for this week. Right now, as I am writing this, Kathleen and her roommate Kate are sitting on the couch next to me cross-stitching and watching "So You Think You Can Dance," on which KATIE HOLMES will be guest-starring. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Katie Holmes dances. For some bizarre reason, I'm more amazed by that than by the fact that she (supposedly) gave birth in complete silence. So if you were here right now, this is what you would see:

Ok fine, so they haven't been sitting like this smiling and showing off their cross-stitches all night, they just did that for the pictures. They were more concentrate-y before this.

[UPDATE: Katie Holmes did not really dance so much as strut. But she has great legs.]

Before this, the three of us had Thai food for dinner. Here is a picture of Kathleen and me repeating the heart theme of the sticky rice. (She wishes me to say that we walked six blocks in the rain before taking this picture and that we are better-looking in real life. I think we look pretty pukingly adorable.)

I never had black sticky rice in the shape of a heart before this. It tasted like regular sticky rice.

Lastly, just for good measure, here is a picture of Kate's cat, Lily.

I can hardly stand the cuteness.
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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Where Am I? (Name the city.)

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Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

Inundated, But Not Constipated

2009-07-19T20:15:00.007-04:00

The last few weeks my brain has been inundated with travel-related activity and wedding planning. (More recently though, my brain has been inundated with thoughts about whether or not I can use the word "inundated" in that first sentence. Did you know that word is not recognized by dictionary.com?) So although I know I've been a stickler for strictly sticking to the travel-themed blog posts here, this week will be more of a "I do what I want" post, like Zhou often likes to do.

First, I have to review the new Blackberry Storm, AKA "Lookie here, it's typing 'Reno Nevada' instead of 'Rhino Fertata' or 'Emo Pinata'." My mom recently got a company-issued one, and it works great! Oh wait, she doesn't have that one anymore. It broke. So did the next one, and the next. I think she's on her fourth one now within the past three months.

But what about its functionality? To sum up my frustration, my family and I recently drove aimlessly around Indy looking for a Men's Wearhouse while my brother sat in the back seat and tried to find the closest location on my mom's Storm. We found one long before he even got close. Despite Steve's skinny fingers, he was unable to type in the necessary commands to get to one website on the Storm in the 20 minutes that my family drove around. And Steve's not alone - earlier I got so frustrated using that thing that I gave up without ever being able to enter in the password to unlock it. I still don't understand why Blackberry would make such a shoddy piece of equipment three years after Apple put out its flawless iPhone.

...

I was able to keep my mind off of travel-related stuff for the last three minutes, but I give in. This is a travel blog, so I should discuss how the planning is going.

Zhou and I were about to book our hike on the "finest walk in the world" today, but backed out at the last second. Instead we have decided to do a nearby hike - the Routeburn, which supposedly stays a lot drier and, according to National Geographic, "the scenic payoffs far surpass those of the Milford." If anyone has done either of these two treks, please let us know what you think, as we have not locked into the Routeburn yet.

We have also decided it's time to fill our diarrhea prescription. Wait, anti-diarrhea prescription. I've recently talked to several people who've been off exploring the world, and some have said they haven't had any problems, but others said that was the hardest part of the trip. I'd rather not take the chance. After all, eating something as simple as an orange will probably play tricks on my stomach, having never really eaten non-apple fruits. (On a somewhat related note, don't talk about your airplane bathroom experiences if you want to win The Next Food Network Star.)

Does anyone have tips on what picture website to use when we're on the road? The three I can think of are Shutterfly, Picasa and Flickr, but unfortunately neither Zhou or I has used any of the three extensively. If anyone knows a particularly easy one to use that will let us post thousands of pictures, let us know!

The last travel-related topic of the week: I need to shamelessly promote two travel websites/blogs that I think are pretty cool. First, my cousin Brenda is one of our big world travel influences, and I've yet to give her the proper respect. She's been all around the world a million times, and her favorite spots include Vanuatu, Colombia and Croatia. These are three places not on our itinerary, but not for lack of trying. The worst part is, it took her linking our blog on her site for me to mention hers. Sorry Bren!

The second is a blog by Dave, a friend of mine from work. He did his world travel before becoming an investment banker, and then realized that world travel is so much cooler than banking, and he now lives abroad. Unfortunately this blog was to track a trip from two years ago so it is no longer maintained, but it has some cool pictures and videos. Zhou and I can only hope that we get to see some of the sights that Dave did.

...

I'll end the post with pictures taken from four different cities where I have recently been, with four different groups of people (because no one other than Zhou can put up with me for any length of time).

(1) Cleveland, OH: jamming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Matt and Hadley.

(2) Charlotte, NC: disc golfing at Renaissance Park with Charlie.

(3) West Orange, NJ: me and Zhou in Eagle Rock Park at a scenic outlook overlooking New York City.

(4) Fishers, IN: my brother (right) and I doing tricks while tubing on the lake with our parents.

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Puzzles for Postcards : We've been debating making some tweaks to our categories, and this week we've decided to make it official. Going forward, there will be no more VQs or Better Chargers, as it is much too difficult to think of good ones. Our puzzle rotation will now consist of Anagrams, Rhyme Time, Consonantless Words and Where Am I? (oooh, a new one!). Good luck, and as always, here is the list of winners.

Where Am I? First person to respond with the country where the below picture was taken wins! Once we get a little ways into our trip, we will use our own pictures for this game, but for now we're borrowing them from Flickr (source). Good luck!

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Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

Unraveling the Traveling

2009-07-12T20:10:00.004-04:00

Less than eight weeks to go 'til we'll be on the road
If by road I mean plane over water
Me and Zhou will then go where our load will be towed
Through a country that couldn't be hotter

We'll do a safari, maybe pet baby rhinos
And forage the forest for apes
The goal is to know each rhino by nose
Take lots of pictures and then escape!

I can't wait to check out Ngorongoro
And greet all the African villagers
One thing though me and Zhou will forgo:
Meeting the pirates and pillagers

From there we'll fly to Asia, our homeland
Making our way on Cathay
For me to call it "my homeland" Zhou banned
Since I'm born and raised U.S.A.

We'll have a ball for three weeks in Nepal
Hiking a trek near Mount Everest
It's quite long so let's not crawl or stall
A leg-breaking fall and we'll never rest

In Southeast Asia with the Gibbons we'll fly
And I'll have to learn to eat curry
"It's cannibalism!" I'll cry with a tear in my eye
But as they say: with beef curry, no worry

If I don't die we'll move North and then South
The Great Wall on down to New Zealand
On the skydive: bugs, stay out of my mouth
The pee in my pants I'll claim we planned

On the move again to that bunny guy's island
We'll hang with incredible Moai
We can't drive there by land, but let's hope for dry sand
Zhou, I'll wear sunscreen so no fry

I won't try to hide our Argentinian plans
Patagonian rafting, biking and hiking
In Peru we'll scan all the rainforest clans
The monkeys should be to Zhou's liking

Maybe we'll hop as we go to Galapagos
Sadly, not with Trebek
Saving the turtles, we'll be sure to stop a roast
At last a good deed on this trek

Finally in Europe the journey will end
My brain can't retain that far away
But you can depend that the trip will be penned
And logged on our blog each day

So what will I learn through this upcoming journey?
A whole new perspective on life
I'll be with my best friend just like Bert and Ernie
My best friend who's also my wife

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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Wacky Jack's Better Chargers:

Tie Day Lou Bake My Feet
She Lazy If By Lift
Yow Arm Now Clone
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Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

Ice Cream and Sangria - Charlottesville, VA

2009-07-08T23:04:00.015-04:00

July 3 - 5, 2009

We spent 4th of July weekend with the alliterative Jing and Jeff in Charlottesville. Guess what we did?

a) spent an afternoon at Monticello

b) went for a hike to see the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi

c) went vineyard hopping in wine country

d) relaxed poolside

e) all of the above

f) none of the above (this is the correct answer)

What's that phrase about good intentions? I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it probably applies here.

And even though we didn't visit Monticello, I can tell you that Thomas Jefferson is responsible for bringing french fries to the United States. Apparently, people had only eaten potatoes boiled before this because they thought they were poisonous otherwise. I can also tell you that John Adams thought Thomas Jefferson was being pretentious by serving those new-fangled french fries. I learned this from listening to public radio. I'm sure we would have heard all this on the Monticello tour as well.

Anyway. So what DID we do this weekend?

We drank.

Giant glass of homemade sangria

We ate.

Jing and I with our Friendly's ice cream - I got ALL of the cherries

We hid behind fire hydrants.

Yes, this is a normal-sized fire hydrant.
Yes, Jing and I are just that small.
No, I'm not sure why we did this either.

The four of us (Jing, Jeff, Kevin and I, in case you forgot) also played a LOT of games of spades. If you don't know what spades is, I like to think of it as bridge for dummies. The only reason this analogy doesn't work is because I know nothing about bridge except that Warren Buffet is good at it and it involves bidding and partners. Which is also true of spades.

We also played a bunch of Mario Kart on the Wii. I don't have much to say about that except DARN YOU DRY BONES!! HOW DOES YOUR KART GO SO FAST?

We also played a lot of Cranium and Taboo. I won't say who won the games, but I will say their team name rhymes with "the curls" and not "the toys." And that the team is pictured above hiding behind a normal-sized but giant-looking fire hydrant.

Speaking of rhymes, we're going to go ahead and give Steve the point for the last puzzle. He got the first one ("Farmer Charmer") and the last one ("Blazer Appraiser") right, and I was going for "Best Dressed" as the answer to "The Superlative Look" and "Mentor Center" for "A Place Where Advisers Gather." But his answers of "Supreme Beam" and "Board Ward" work, even though they weren't what I had thought of originally.

Aaaaand this is why I don't write the puzzles.
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Picture of the day: I believe that Kevin's gesture can most accurately be described as "okie dokie."

Getting Visas (Part 2) - Washington DC

2009-07-07T20:30:00.003-04:00

July 2, 2009

Like mad scientists undeterred from their first explosion in the basement, today we were back at it for more.

Yesterday's trip to the embassies did not go well, but I do have to say that today's went worse.

Vietnam

(Zhou eating her hot dog stand hot dog in the Vietnamese embassy)

8) Do not arrive later than 9:45. I mentioned this yesterday, but it bears repeating. Today we arrived at 11:30 for our noon pick-up, and the line was four deep. This may not seem like a lot, until you think of the visa office like the DMV, with the only worker speaking very choppy English and customers who want handwritten driver's licenses. We left by 12:30, at which point the line was seven deep.

9) Do not forget your identification slip in the car across town, unless you really want to tick off the embassy worker. Although we were told (or so we thought) that we did not need the piece of paper with chicken scratch written on it, apparently we did so the lady could locate our file. She was not happy, and in turn the customers around us burned holes in us with their eyes as the lady disappeared to find our file.

10) Do not be dishonest. Ok, this one is just me bragging about being the bigger man with the smaller wallet, but the lady yesterday did not write down if we paid the expedited fee (we didn't) and today she asked us what we had paid her the day before. I told her the truth and handed over the extra $40, but got a good night's sleep afterwards.

Kenya

(Kevin Doin' Work at the Kenyan embassy)

* If you guessed "(d) Kevin Doin' Work at the Kenyan embassy" to Sunday's quiz, then I'm incredibly impressed, since it wasn't a choice.

11) Do not forget your visa photos in the car across town, unless you luck out with really nice embassy workers. We showed up 15 minutes before Kenya's 1:00 closing, only to realize that we had left our visa photos in the car. We showed the workers that we had everything else, and had completed the application online, and they graciously told us that even though they were closing that we could knock on the window after retrieving our photos and they would help us out.

12) Do not assume every embassy takes cash. After hustling across town via foot and subway, we drove the car back and two hours later showed up at the window. We tried to hand over our $100 for the two visas, only to find out that they only take money orders. The lady told us where the nearest post office was, and we dashed off.

13) Do not be mean to the embassy workers. I think through all this, the only reason the Kenya people helped us out is because we were very friendly and seemed genuinely lost and confused (we were!). After coming back with the money order, I chatted with the lady for a while about the trip and our families and such. She gave me some good sites to see in Kenya, although we won't be able to follow her advice since the safari is planned out for us.

In the end, we now have our Vietnam visas, we have our Kenyan visas coming to us in the mail (if you're doing this option, bring a prepaid non-UPS envelope with you to the embassy), and we will be mailing our passports off to the Chinese embassy once we receive them back from Kenya. Although we don't have all three visas in our hands as expected, it looks like everything will have worked out.

Had this situation arisen in a non-English speaking foreign country (and I'm positive something similar will), Zhou and I will surely find out a good deal more about our problem solving and patience levels will each other. I'm looking forward to this.
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Pictures of the Day:

Petite lady Zhou ready to attack her mussels at Granville Moore's (home of executive chef, Teddy Folkman)

The mussels attacked back (see Zhou's shirt stains), but buff hungry Zhou's muscles eventually won

Getting Visas (Part 1) - Washington DC

2009-07-06T22:51:00.000-04:00

July 1, 2009

Zhou and I are in for a long trip...

Today we had our first out-of-town task to prepare for our upcoming year abroad: get three visas. Not all 11 that we will eventually need to get, but just three. Vietnam, Kenya and China. We were originally going to get them through the mail before we remembered that we would be in DC, so we thought we could get them in person. After all, we're in a country where everyone speaks English and we have access to running water, so how hard can this be?

I think it will be best to write the rest of this post in an educational format, so you can learn what not to do based on each of our three stops.

Vietnam

(Kevin looking for the subway to take us to Vietnam)

1) If you're very short on time, do not arrive at all. If you're somewhat short on time, do not arrive later than 9:45 (the embassy opens at 9:30). This was the one thing we did right. We showed up at 9:31 and walked right up to the window. A lot of good this would end up doing for us...

2) Do not expect your visa in less than a week. We ended up paying $20 per visa as an expedited charge in order for us to receive them the next day. That's a 30% increase over the list price of $65 per visa.

3) Do not arrive with just a credit card. It may seem obvious to some to bring cash or a check, but not us. I ended up running three blocks to a Wachovia ATM to withdrawal cash for our three visas. It actually seems a little ironic to me that you can't use your Visa to get your visa.

Kenya

(Spirits still high, despite paying the $20 fee at Vietnam)

4) Do not show up without having read all instructions online. For Kenya, if you don't fill out the online application ahead of time, they can't do anything for you. Fortunately for us, it turned out that we wouldn't be able to get our Kenyan visa anyway because even expedited here took two business days to process.

5) Do not expect to get your passport back. Vietnam was able to make a photocopy of ours for their overnight process, but Kenya said they would need to keep ours for their process. For countries like this, you can only get one visa at a time.

China

(Now just angry because nothing's working out)

6) Do not show up where you think the office should be - look it up first! After walking what felt like two miles from Kenya to China (the embassies, not the countries), we came to a sign that read something along these lines: "we have moved to a land far far away." Fortunately the sign was in English, so we could read it.

7) Do not assume the embassy is in the same location as the visa office. For China, this is not the case. We called my brother who found out that they are two separate places, and all reviews said not to even bother showing up to the visa office - it was way too much of a hassle. Just send your passport and application in the mail.

The worst part about today? We still have to finalize everything tomorrow. I'm sure there will be a laundry list of "do nots" that we'll need to cover tomorrow as well.

A funny side story: we were eating lunch at a local diner which I can't remember the name of when we overhead a nearby lady's directions to her friend: "Yeah, I'm sitting at a diner right next to the Starbucks and down the street from another Starbucks." If you ever need to give directions, find your address and never mention anything about Starbucks! There's 8 million of them! We ended up finishing our meal before the lady's friend ever found the place.

[Any suggestions about how we can improve our travel-posting format are welcome. Is there anything you'd like to read on a daily basis?]
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Picture of the Day: my dad is the headliner for Taj Mahal's karaoke night.

A Taste of Things to Come

2009-07-05T23:43:00.000-04:00

Since we're no longer working for an income (but we still have two paychecks left to come in!), Zhou and I have spent the last week on the road visiting friends and relatives. We've been up and down the East Coast soaking in new experiences and taking pictures of cool landmarks such as our doctor friend standing next to someone else's car.

(If you own this car, Jing is just fake touching it)

In honor of this mini faux world traveling we're doing, we've decided to try our post-a-day strategy for the next three days.

To set your level of anticipation: travel posts will be shorter than what we've been doing, but the ratio of pictures to words will be much higher. If you do the math (p = 1,000w), this means that the amount of content in each post will be similar to what you're used to, but your brain will have to process it differently. Hopefully you can handle this.

Also, our signoffs will start becoming a little different, as we won't have a new postcard puzzle every day, and as we travel we will not keep the Scrabble stats quite as detailed in the blog. We'll have to come up with something else to finish our posts so we can focus more of the time on the post itself.

As a sneak peak of things to come, below is a picture of something that happened on our road trip this week. Can you guess what is happening out of the three choices below?

(1) Zhou and I were driving down I-95 when a large bird pooped on our windshield, right in the driver's line of sight. After pulling off the road and trying the wipers for several minutes, we realized we needed to get to a car wash of some sort. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of nowhere, so at the next exit the only place we found was this house. After washing the windshield, I offered to clean their windows as a token of our appreciation.

(2) While walking around DC, Zhou heard a pitiful meow in a tree by the pictured house. We looked up, and a cat was dangling from one of the limbs with its back paw caught in the tree. As I climbed up to get the cat down, the owner of the house shouted from the window to find out what I was doing. I explained the situation and gave the lady her cat back. Surprisingly, she was not all that grateful...

(3) We were running low on cash, and ATM fees are too expensive to even think about withdrawing anything these days. Fortunately, I noticed this open window in a back alley in Charlottesville. Having not eaten for the entire day, I was desperate. I took a quick peek in the window and saw a couple dollars sitting on the desk inside. It looked like no one was around, so I stealthily reached inside for the cash. You should see the next picture Zhou took. (PS - we later were able to eat at McDonald's.)

Answer to come in one of this week's posts.
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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Rhyme Time (solve THREE of four):
(Note: Aaron got the first one correct, and the third one isn't a perfect rhyme, although according to rhymezone it is.)

One Who Enchants Corn Growers
The Superlative Look
A Place Where Groups of Advisors Gather
One Who Values Jackets for a Living
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Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

Loose Ends

2009-06-28T19:47:00.002-04:00

I have to admit that I don't really understand the phrase "to tie up loose ends." Why do they have to be tied? I also don't understand the expression "to have your cake and eat it too." Because of COURSE you have to have the cake before you can actually eat it. The phrase makes no sense. What it really should be is "to eat your cake and have it too."

Well, we definitely ate it. And yes, there is another "Joe" in the group. He is a man. Which is why there is the "Girl Jo" distinction. Everyone in my group at work has a cool nickname, but I somehow got "Girl Jo." It was either that or "Banjo," (you know, to distinguish me from "Man Joe") so I guess I have no right to complain. Anyway, my group got me a cake AND made me cupcakes for my last day of work. You can't see it in the picture very well, but the top of the cake is an icing picture of North and South America and around the sides are the names of some of the countries we're visiting.

...

These past few weeks have been full of lasts: last day of work, last trip to REI, last meal at Mac's, last disc golf outing with Charlie...

The hardest part about leaving Charlotte is definitely leaving Charlie. I know I'll be able to keep in touch with everyone else, but it's pretty difficult to get Charlie to talk on the phone. For some reason, she just doesn't get the concept of a conversation. But then again, Charlie's idea of fun is sniffing her own butt. Let's just be clear that I love her despite this habit, not because of it. And even though it'll be really difficult to leave Charlie - I mean Charlotte, it also means that we're just getting that much closer to leaving for our trip.

We're going to DC on Tuesday to get a couple of visas, and so we had to take visa pictures this past week. One of the absurd things about taking passport/visa photos is that you're not allowed to smile. Apparently, they want "a neutral expression." The thought of not smiling for the pictures was so hilarious to me (I don't know why) that I really struggled not to laugh while taking them. I guess Kevin didn't think it very funny, because he gave me a disapproving look and was quite stern about the whole thing. And then he ended up looking like a convicted felon in his visa pictures. The moral of this story is that you should not give disapproving glances to your fiancée or you'll end up looking like a convicted felon.

...

In other travel-related news, we've pretty much decided to shell out the extra (and unbudgeted) money for a netbook. We haven't decided on one yet, but battery life and hard drive size are going to be the most important factors, so the Samsung N120 and the Asus Eee PC 1000HE are both frontrunners. We're going to hold off on actually buying one until later this summer, so if you have any advice on buying a netbook, let us know.

...

In other non-travel-related news, I'm sure you all know about the currrent Jon and Kate situation. I can't talk about it. It's just too hard.

Also, I was listening to the radio on Friday, and the station I was listening to was doing a tribute to MJ by playing one of his songs at the top of every hour. So the voice guy comes on and says in that deep radio voice, "Michael Jackson expired June 25th, 2009. RIP." MICHAEL JACKSON DID NOT EXPIRE. HE WAS NOT A CARTON OF MILK.

...

We're going to do something different today with Puzzles for Postcards, but it's just a one-off thing and only because Kevin is busy driving back to Indianapolis this weekend. Kevin usually writes the puzzles, and I just don't have the same panache when it comes to VQs. Mine are always too easy.

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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Rhyme Time (solve all four):
(Example: the answer to "A Fruit Carving of a Serengeti Grazer" would be "antelope cantaloupe.")

One Who Enchants Corn Growers
The Superlative Look
A Place Where Groups of Teachers Gather
One Who Values Jackets for a Living
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Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

The Next Chapter (Chapter 11?)

2009-06-22T21:48:00.003-04:00

[SPOILER ALERT! This post will not be full of witty commentary and belly-aching humor, per usual. Instead, as Zhou and I begin our move out of Charlotte, this will be a reflection on my past two years here, for better and for worse.]

This week is it. Zhou and I each have four days left of work, and then it’s time to leave Charlotte and rest up before our world trip. If you amortize these four days over the next 14 months ("the life of the loan," as they say), that means we each only have to work less than one day every three months for the next year. That doesn’t seem so bad. (Oh wait, neither does working four days and then taking a year off.)

Up until about a week ago, I couldn’t have been more excited to be leaving and moving on to the next stage of my life. Then Zhou’s roommate moved out, and we started packing up stuff at both of our apartments, and I realized that no matter how exciting this next stage may be, it’s still hard to go through change. So I thought I’d take a minute and reflect on the past two years (bet you didn’t think you were getting yourself into this when you clicked on your favorite website).

Charlotte. Love the laid-back pace of the South, like the comparatively cheap housing and love the weather. There’s not a lot to do here (and golf is way too expensive compared to up North), but until recently I never really had time to do anything anyway. The best parts of the city are easily the disc golf courses and Mac’s Speed Shop. It’s just too bad that when my old roommate Matt moved out, I lost my disc golf and Mac’s buddy. If you’re reading this, Matt, you were good for other things too, but I can’t remember what.

Work. First and foremost, my advice is to not become an investment banker, unless money is the only thing that motivates you (or if the Boiler Room lifestyle intrigues you). That being said, I'm not going to dwell on the negative.

I am very grateful to be able to go on an 11-month round-the-world journey, and if Zhou and I didn’t work at Wachovia, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make these plans. Not only can we now afford this, but we also have a perfect opportunity - neither of us has a job, nor do we have any motivation to get another one.

In the past two years, I learned a lot about business and capital structures and how not to manage a company unless you enjoy bankruptcy (it sure seems like some people do). I learned about time management and how enjoyable free time really is. I remember getting off at 7PM one day last fall and not having a clue of what to do with myself until bedtime. After a few days like that in a row this spring, I quickly realized how many fun ways I could spend my time.

I learned how to prioritize - how to sift through what’s important and what’s not. I learned that even though I’m Asian, if I spend too many weeks under a fluorescent light, I will get sunburned when going outside again. And most importantly, I met a lot of people I will hopefully keep in contact with for a long time, which leads me to…

People. There are three big draws to investment banking. Two are the money. The third is the people, although this may only be true in Charlotte, as I’ve heard mixed reviews about New York. Sure, sometimes my priorities in life don’t always align with the priorities of those I work under, but (almost) all of the people who do this job are smart, driven and big sports fans. (During down times, a couple of guys in my group even organized a doubles tennis tournament and a two-on-two basketball tournament.) Plus, the floor is filled with recent college graduates who you can commiserate with when you're stuck in the office at midnight on a Friday.

The hardest part of moving is leaving behind what has grown comfortable. Yes, at one point I even got used to the weekend staffings and the repeatedly postponed summer vacation. It became somewhat easy to come home late at night, brush my teeth and go to sleep. It's nice not ever really having to look at a map, and it's nice knowing where the open places are to eat (this is much easier said than done in Charlotte, where the city's restaurants all seem to close down by 8PM). I'll miss the daily pod breaks with Katie and McGuire, morning basketball at the YMCA, Charlie, trips to the DH (our slang for the water machine) with the progressively jaded first years, and the city where we lived when Zhou and I got engaged.

...

As I write about what I'm leaving behind though, I then begin to think about what lies ahead*:

I guess I can get used to this change.

[* Images taken from: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)]

________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

When Gangster Johnny is Home Alone Anagram:

A fickle giant may help the hyena
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

The Dog Ate My Post

2009-06-21T23:52:00.003-04:00

We (Kevin) apologize(s) for the inconvenience, but today's regularly scheduled post will be postponed until tomorrow evening due to this man. The show started an hour late, and I was lazy all week up until that point. Don't worry, tomorrow's post will be extra good to make up for my shortcomings.

We're Famous!

2009-06-14T22:35:00.004-04:00

I'm not a writer. I majored in Computer Science and Math, so the only "writing" I did all through college was coding programs in C++. I am trying to garner your sympathy for churning out profound, insightful and hilarious material for you almost every week. Because I'd much rather be solving math equations.

Zhou and I happened to connect with a guy named Andy Hayes last week. (Yes, the Andy Hayes. If you Google his name, he's the one who comes up first.) He's a professional travel writer and photographer and the mastermind behind this site. Word of our site's immense popularity must have leaked across the pond to Scotland, where he is located, as he begged us to be featured in his weekly Thursday "interview with a celebrity." Ok, ok, you caught me - we submitted our blog to his carnival, and he reluctantly said he would do an interview with us.

Andy was a pleasure to work with this week, and we were very happy with the end result of the interview. Through the process I explored his site quite a bit, as it is full of helpful travel hints and great pictures taken throughout the world. A few of my favorite posts were:

The Best of Asia
A Photo Tour of New Zealand
Interview with Gary Arndt

I usually try not to shamelessly cross-promote, but usually is a very forgiving term. Also, the time that I would normally spend writing this post I spent doing the interview, so the links are a good way to lengthen this week's short post. And with that, we'll leave you with a link to our interview with Andy.

Oh, and a Cool Runnings video, just because.

________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Consonantless Ice Cream Flavors from Ben & Jerry's:

ee oe aeioe ea
eaoia aie
oee oee uuu
iaie ie eae
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 55 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 28; 367; 315; SENIlES
Kevin WPLB: 27; 368; 397; sETTINGS

Unique New York, New York

2009-06-07T23:39:00.002-04:00

"This is your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before and that no one will copy again throughout human existence, and if nothing else, you’ll be remembered as the one guy who ever did this, this one thing."

After Natalie Portman says this in Garden State, Zach Braff responds by making a weird noise and moving his index finger a couple times. When I think of doing something that no one has done before and no one will ever do again, I usually think a little bigger than this (although definitely not always - during high school lunches I used to make mashed potato sculptures that I'm sure no one will ever duplicate). I've finally figured out what Zhou and I can do that no one else can: travel the world for 11 months.

Oh wait, lots of people have done this. And lots of people will probably do this in the future. This is easily going to be the most life-changing year of both my and Zhou's life, yet in order for Zhou and me to do something new or make an impact, we'll have to do more. I feel like this is a great opportunity for us to do something meaningful, if only we could figure out what that would be. I'll start figuring the only way I know how: by writing a blog post about it.

Here's the plan: To get the blood flowing, I'll first write about a few things I've done in the past that have been completely unique, and that will segue into some great - make that spectacular - ideas for Zhou and me to make our trip memorable for more than just ourselves.

Let me think...

My family recently took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate both my brother's 21st birthday and my mom's birthday (I won't say which one, but I will say that the background idea for the present was things in multiples of 50).

As part of my mom's present, I gave her $20 and a card. (For you younger readers, I would advise not to give cash presents to your parents unless there's a good reason for it. Like this.) In my mom's card, I wrote a poem outlining how exactly she had to spend the $20. Along the way, she had to answer a couple random questions that would eventually decide whether or not she would wind up with any money. At the end of the card, everything was explained to her: she would get four chances to turn $5 into $500 at the roulette table. In each of the four, she would bet in the exact same pattern: red, 2nd 12, red (this was what her responses determined earlier), then on her birthday numbers: 10 and 18. If she happened to hit this exact order, she would be $500 richer. If not, she would have hopefully had some fun. After all, everyone loves roulette!

On her first try, we were in one of the smaller, dirtier casinos, and clearly she lost. We decided to up our game and head to New York, New York. We found an open table, and she slapped down the $5. The roulette guy looked incredulously at her, as if to say "do you not realize where you are? I wipe my butt with $5 bills, and I'm just the roulette guy." We all decided to ignore his steely glare. Two spins went by, and my mom had quickly turned the $5 into $30. She shoved it all on red, Steely quickly shoved back $60. As the card dictated, my mom couldn't leave now - she then had to put $13 on both 10 and 18. As she nervously pushed the chips back onto the table, the dealer began to put on his friendly face, no doubtedly thinking he should begin gunning for that big tip.

The wheel spun in what seemed like slow motion. My mom was ready to walk out with just the $34 she had won. What a present that would be! The ball rattled around the numbers, bouncing in and out, never settling. Pretty soon a large crowd had gathered. I think I even saw Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley in the background, their eyes growing wide in anticipation. The ball finally stopped, to a huge gasp from the crowd. 10! It had fallen in the 10! Pete Rose gave Art Schlichter a mighty bear hug. Steely, his jaw agape, pushed my mom's winnings to her. She tossed him a couple chips before high-fiving Phil Ivey and cashing in her winnings.

Wow, that got out of hand quickly. The point was that this card and present are an example of one of the unique things that I have done in my life. I don't think that anyone has ever done that before (including winning the money), and I doubt anyone will ever do it again. Even if someone else comes up with the game, there's only a 1.75% chance that their mom will win.

[As a side note, I got Steve an iPod Shuffle, which he broke within six months. However, he has recently made up for it by tying Paul for the blog competition lead.]

I was going to write another story about something original that I have done in the past, but not only are you probably not paying attention to this post anymore (if you are, thank you for letting me indulge myself over the last several paragraphs), but also I don't think I have any other unique stories, unlike this guy:

So how will Zhou and I make a lasting mark on our trip? Not many people get a chance to do something like this, so we'd better make the most of it.

Several of our friends have spent time overseas doing volunteer work, mainly in Africa. While this wouldn't be all that unique, I definitely would feel like I made a difference. One of the things I'm most looking forward to on our safari is our day or two meeting with children at an African school. I hope that the short time that we'll have there will be enough to make an impact. It's unfortunate that we won't have enough time to actually volunteer while in Africa, and, for that matter, at any of our stops. The way Zhou currently has the trip planned, there isn't a minute of free time anywhere.

In researching different details of the trip, we have come across people who have found unique ways to leave a mark. For example, in Cuzco, Peru, a lady founded Nino's Hotel, where all profits go to children's aid projects also started by the hotel's founder. Also, here in the States, for every pair of shoes that Tom sells, he donates one to a child in need. Although the shoes don't look all that comfortable, the idea is definitely unique and is a good way for Tom to leave a mark. (Ok, I saw this while watching the Super Bowl, not researching for the trip, but I really like the idea.)

Perhaps we can follow in Angelina Jolie's footsteps to make an impression. No, not by stealing Brad from Jennifer (I still don't know how Angelina did this) and having a million babies. Instead, by using the celebrity we have found since starting this blog to do good in the world. The only problem with this idea is that I use the term celebrity very loosely. And not in Angelina's case, but in ours.

(If only...)

The more I write, the more I realize that we won't be able to plan out how we will differentiate our trip from those who have done the same thing before us, or who will do so after. When we first decided that we would take a year off to travel, I secretly hoped that I would find my calling while on the road. I never once hoped that I would find it while blogging about what we would end up doing on our journey. Hopefully a year from now we will have done something meaningful.

And if not, I can always pee on a yak.

________________________________________________

[Editor's note: the below anagram has now been corrected, even though Steve already solved it without all the letters]

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

A Lyrical Anagram From Every Party Since 1981:

Roaming vast land
Will wilts... ill
Long Journey
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 50 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 25; 368; 355; REPOsED
Kevin WPLB: 25; 368; 339; BRAiSED

Llama Drama

2009-05-31T21:32:00.008-04:00

There’s been a lot of drama in my life recently, the central issue being To Watch or Not to Watch: Jon & Kate Plus Eight. On one hand, eight adorable (half or quarter-Asian) kids! On the other hand, shouldn’t I let Jon & Kate try and figure out their problems and deal with their issues with some semblance of privacy? Is it ok if I watch reruns as long as I don’t watch any of the new season? Does it even matter what I do if they keep doing the show anyway? What kind of cake did they have at the sextuplets’ birthday party? WAS THERE A PINATA??

This has ~~nothing~~ little to do with the subject of today’s post (re: GOALS), but if you peruse the archives of this blog, you’ll notice that Kevin is more of the “everything should flow seamlessly from one paragraph to another” kind of writer, while I’m more of a “you are stuck reading whatever I happen to feel like writing, and I feel like writing about reality TV, so too bad” kind of writer. I’m sorry, but I just won’t hide my true feelings about television.

And with that, we will abruptly segue to the meat of this post, which is entitled “THE GOALS OF ZHOU AND KEVIN ON THEIR TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.”

[I imagine the experience of reading this post so far is like getting on a train, thinking you’re headed to Paris, and then realizing you got on the wrong train and you’re going to Moscow instead – not that you have anything against Moscow, but you really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and you don’t speak Russian. I’m sorry if that’s the case, but I hear Moscow is very nice in June.]

Now, let us remember that I have not actually asked Kevin about his goals, but just assumed they are in line with the goals I have in mind for him, which are the following:

1. To try and eat the food that is available to him, including, but not limited to, the following: watermelon, mangoes, pineapple, beets, strawberries, curry, avocado, any kind of nuts besides peanuts, tofu or any other kind of soy-based food, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, pad thai and pho.

2. To save the sea kittens.
3. To meet new people.
4. To stand with one foot on the Northern Hemisphere and one foot on the Southern Hemisphere. And then jump up and down.

5. To set a personal record for days gone without showering.
6. To meet, and make a good impression on, my relatives that live in Beijing. (Bet you didn’t know about this one, did you, Kev?)
7. To JUMP FROM A PLANE. Crazy person.

I’m sure these goals are completely and without a doubt 100% in line with what Kevin would have written, especially number one. There is no need to ask Kevin for any amendments and/or corrections. So we’ll just go ahead and move on to my list.

1. To gain a better understanding of world geography. I know all of the states and their capitals (although New Hampshire does trip me up), but I have no idea where Kazakhstan is. Or how to spell it. It took me three tries. I probably still won’t know where it is after this trip, but at least I’ll know where Botswana is.
2. To meet new people.
3. To do some things that will scare the living daylights out of me. [This does not include jumping out of a plane. I only want to be slightly more brave, not a whole lot more brave.]
4. To avoid the real world for just one more year.
5. To be more aware.
6. To pet a llama at Machu Picchu. Speaking of llamas, there is a very underrated movie about a llama that you should watch.
7. To swim with pink dolphins.

This is the point where, if Kevin were writing this post, he would seamlessly transition from pink dolphins to a concluding paragraph filled with little jokes and a tidy summation of the main goal, which is: to have an amazing, awesome, challenging, unforgettable 11 months. But I’m not Kevin. (Also, I did not put those adjectives in alphabetical order on purpose. They just came out of my head that way. I swear.)

[So this train is going to Paris after all! Too bad you already bought that ushanka. Sorry about that.]

Instead, I’d like to talk a little bit about the surreal-ness of all of this. It feels like some Zhou alter ego is going on the trip, not me. (My alter ego looks exactly like me, except she is the kind of person who would never sweep the floor twice in one day. And she wears a cool cape, even though Edna advises against it.) It’s almost unimaginable to me that in a little over a year, Kevin and I will have visited five continents and over 30 countries. We’ll have trekked the Himalayas and stood in the sweltering heat in front of the Sphinx. We’ll have met a lot of cool new people whose names I don’t know yet (I’m hoping one will be named Sawyer, because I think that’s an awesome name). And we’ll probably have grown and changed in ways that I can’t even imagine right now. It just completely blows my mind.

I can’t wait.

________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

WNDRFL Song Lyric VQs:

SSKSFBL
TSLTNTHVNNG
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 47 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 24; 367; 390; FILLIES, ENTAILS
Kevin WPLB: 23; 368; 417; UNsWEET*

Untitled

2009-05-24T21:26:00.009-04:00

[Editor's note: I once wrote a post inappropriately titled, “There is Nothing to Fear but Gear Itself.” It was meant to be a pun on the famous FDR quote – wait, this reminds of a horrible story from my childhood, I’ll finish that thought at the end of this post – where was I? Oh, my point was that gear is not the only thing to fear, and in fact it does not need to be feared at all, unless you’re on the opposing team to these guys. So really the title made no sense, but unfortunately it stuck. Then all by myself alone without any help from a comment to this post, I single-handedly got the brilliant idea to write a post about fear, but lo and behold, the good post title was already taken. So in case you read this blog for the post titles, hopefully the content will hold your interest this week.]

Today we wanted to let you in on our deepest and darkest fears about our upcoming travels. The information we share in this post we will have never before told anyone, so if you are the first to read it (and not just skip to the Puzzles for Postcards), then consider yourself among Zhou’s and my closest friends.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the four major obstacles to overcome to enjoy a round-the-world journey: motivation, time, perception and money. However, just as Junior was afraid to tell his dad that he was competing in the Olympics, we were afraid to tell you about the fifth and most important obstacle: FEAR.

Most of you probably don’t know this, but FEAR is actually an acronym, just like SCUBA or BL. Back in the dinosaur age, cavemen made up the word to describe how they felt about Food, Exploration, Absence and Revenue. ( I think this was before the wheel but after fire, but don't quote me on this.) Let me explain.

Fear of food: despite anything that Zhou may tell you, I did not invent picky eating. I come from a long line of picky Currys, most of whom were probably pickier than me. The difference between me and them though, is that I’m about to blog about my eating habits on a trip around the world. And roughly 137 million people will end up reading about it. (Anything more than that is just gravy, another food I don't really care for.)

To be perfectly honest, this is one of my two biggest fears on the trip. I can think of two different strategies for overcoming this fear: the Omnivore strategy and the Survivor strategy. The Omnivore strategy would definitely make me a better person in the long run, as it involves learning to like foods that you absolutely hate. When I was just 11 years old, Jeffrey Steingarten wrote that if you force horrendous foods down your throat over and over again (eight to ten times) that you will eventually like them. I liken this to if you're punched in the face nine times, the tenth won't hurt all that much. Regardless, I'm glad that my parents didn't read this article when it came out.

The Survivor strategy, which I am currently executing to perfection, involves not changing eating habits whatsoever until you're thrown into the fire (figuratively - remember this phrase though when you read the end of the post). I've decided that I'm going to enjoy every meal from here until September 9th, because who knows if I'll get to enjoy another one for 11 more months. And I figure if I'm hungry enough, I'll eat what I need to on the trip.

Fear of exploration: I once watched an interview with Christopher Columbus, and the one thing he reiterated throughout was how afraid he was that the Indians would wind up being monstrous aliens from outer space. After all, he was crossing vast oceans into uncharted territory, so who knew what he'd run into?

Ok, so this didn't actually happen, but I'm sure even Columbus had to have doubts as he pushed off across the Atlantic. And since I'm originally from Columbus, I'm allowed to be afraid of the unknown as well. Of the 30 countries we currently have scheduled on our itinerary, I have never been to 30 of them. In layman's terms, that's every single one. In horror movies, often times the protagonist will be scared out of his mind as he walks slowly through his house, knowing that a killer could be around any corner. But that's his house! He's been there for many years, and knows it like the back of his hand. Yet here I am about to boldly go where I've never gone before! Of course I'll have a little fear in the back of my mind.

Fear of absence: in addition to fear of food, this is my other biggest fear. The things that make me happiest in life are my family and friends (and chili dogs), so it will be hard being away for so long. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I don't really see how that applies here because I'd rather spend time with my family and friends than grow fonder of them. Just like I would rather have millions of dollars than grow fonder of it from a distance. Fortunately though, without getting too mushy, I am very lucky to be spending the next year with Zhou, so that works as an excellent antidote to this fear.

Fear of revenue, or lack thereof: I have spent the last two years of my life seeing how much trouble companies can get into with steep drop-offs in their top-lines, yet this clearly hasn't deterred Zhou and me. A little insider information: don't buy stock in us now, as our income is about to drop faster than Ashley Simpson's after her appearance on SNL.

I think what will be even more daunting than losing our income for the next year will be trying to get it back once we return. And to top it off, Zhou will be heading to grad school, leaving me to fend for the both of us. I'm just going to have to buy a lot of lottery tickets and hope we get lucky.

...

Back to the story that I referenced earlier. After winning the Super Bowl one year, my family and I went to Disney World to celebrate. This was back in the day that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was big, and they had a replica version set up for all park-goers. It worked like this: 200 or so people would be let into the replica studio every hour, and from this group, people would win their way on stage to sit in the hot seat, with a chance to win real prizes. (I believe instead of a million dollars, if you made it all the way you'd get a Caribbean cruise for two, although you'll soon find out that winning this would never even cross my mind.)

I don't remember how the first contestant was picked, but I'm sure it was through one of those old fastest finger questions. Anyway, once the first person made it to the hot seat, the next contestant would be picked by answering the hot seat questions faster than anyone else in the crowd. Basically, as the first person would get the question, the audience would all be clicking really fast on their thingamajigs when they knew the answer.

As skill would have it, I, at 13 years old, was the fastest in the audience to get all the questions correct, so as the current contestant took the walk of shame back down the losers' tunnel, I gleefully pranced down the stairs to the hot seat, ready to win that top prize. (Looking back on it, I wish I would have tripped down the stairs and broken my arm to avoid any humiliation.)

I sat down and explained to the host a little about myself, and then we were off. Question #1: "Finish the following quote: 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the ____.' (a) kitchen, (b) country, (c) fire or (d) wool underwear." I had no idea! I had never heard that saying before! Fortunately though, they wanted the contestants to get the first five questions right so they could selfishly promote Disney World by giving you a shirt. If I didn't know, the host would help me out.

Thirty seconds passed, and it became clear to the host that I didn't know. He started to say someth- "cfirefinalanswer." I blurted it all out without taking a breath. The host looked at me with great shame, as if to say "I would punch you in the face if you weren't a child." The audience moaned, and I saw my family quickly sneak out the back door so as not to be seen with me. I quickly realized that this was not the correct answer, so as quickly as I had sat down, I was booted out of the chair and down the losers' tunnel. They wanted me to sign some form saying I would not compete again for at least two years, or something like that. Actually, they might have given me the special form that said never to come back... I can't really remember. All I know was that I would forever be linked with this guy.

PS - Yes, I know it was not FDR, but Truman who said that quote. I figured that out while I wallowed in my own self-pity.
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Some Kind of... Song VQs:

SSKSFBL
TSLTNTHVNNG
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 44 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 24; 367; 313; WALKERS
Kevin WPLB: 20; 365; 454; REEDITS, UPsTAGE, INTERAcT

Haiku(s) For You(s)

2009-05-17T21:08:00.000-04:00

Since Kevin insists that we keep the entries on this blog somewhat travel-related (Hi Kevin, I listen to you! I am a good fiancée! Can we have a photo booth at the wedding?), I will start off this post with a list of things we have done lately in terms of the trip.

We calculated the frequent flyer miles we would earn on the AAdvantage (American Airlines) and Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific) programs to figure out which one we should sign up for. Cathay wins. We should be able to buy our one-way tickets back from London at the end of the trip using the miles we earn on our trip. Isn’t that awesome? We bought our RTW tickets for under $3,000 apiece, and while we are gallivanting around the world we’re also going to EARN miles that will pay for a plane ticket home from London. To me this seems dirty somehow. Like cheating.

We bought tickets on Jetstar to fly from Hong Kong to Singapore, and from Singapore to Taiwan (where we will be visiting Tina – hi Tina!) and back. Just remember: next time you try to book airline tickets in a foreign currency, call your credit card company first!

We registered our trip with the embassies of the countries which we will be visiting. I just want to say that the U.S. government makes it much more difficult than it really should be to do this. I signed up to receive alerts on all the countries we’re visiting, and they sent me a SEPARATE EMAIL for EACH country asking me to click on a link to confirm my subscription. After I clicked on the links, they then emailed me a CONFIRMATION OF MY CONFIRMATION for each separate country, and THEN they emailed me a “Welcome to the ____ list!” email as well! The result is over 120 emails in my trash from the U.S. consular website. Please, Barack Obama, I know you have a lot on your plate, what with being pictured topless on the cover of The Washingtonian, and universal health care, and managing a couple of different wars and all, but could you please get a few programmers to take a look at your travel.gov site? Please!

We called American Airlines (three times!) to change the dates for a bunch of our flights. Now that we have added an extra week to Southeast Asia (which I am very very happy about) and gotten rid of Bolivia (which I am very sad about), we had to rearrange all of our flights to make the schedule work. This was also tricky because a couple of our segments had already been booked up on the dates that we wanted, which meant we had to be flexible and rearrange. And guess what? I was totally ok with that. No, really, I was!

We went to REI this past weekend. And every trip to REI ends up with us buying stuff that we “need,” like rainproof covers for our pack, which, ok, I admit those are kind of necessary. But not as necessary as sporks!

It’s the “Perfectly Designed Outdoor Eating Utensil”! It comes in 19 civilized colors! Unfortunately for me, Kevin is not as susceptible to the allure of multifunctional eating utensils as I am. He also isn’t interested in the foldable dinner set, which I think would go great with the sporks. It seems like keeping all of our stuff dry is more important to Kevin than having cool things to eat off of that don’t take up a lot of space. Go figure.

We’ve also been mulling over how connected we want to stay during the trip and have been revisiting the idea of taking a netbook with us. Especially with Verizon and Sprint coming out with plans for Novatel’s MiFi – we’re now thinking about buying one of these bad boys to take with us. Two problems: (1) we’re not sure this will work outside of the U.S., and if it does, we probably have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for the data plan and (2) how can we afford to buy the netbook, the MiFi, AND the data plan when there are so many sporks that still need to be bought?!

…

So now that the travel stuff is out of the way, we can get to the good part of this post, which is subtitled “Haikus on the Things in Zhou’s Life,” or, alternatively, “Why Kevin Should Let Zhou Write Non-Travel-Related Posts Because She is Better at Those Anyway”

“Charlie”
pitter-patter feet
soft, quiet paws on the floor
she leaps into bed!

“Too Many Games on TV That Kevin Must Watch”
oh Houston Rockets
Yao Ming was your worst player
who’d have thought? not me

“No Jalapeno Cream Cheese for My Bagel This Morning”
so I used butter
frozen bagels aren’t as good
fresh ones are better

"Being Better at Limbo Is Little Consolation"
Ultimate Frisbee
a game that favors the tall
unfortunately

“Going to the Dentist to Get a Chipped Tooth Fixed”
this tooth should be fixed
it only hurt a little
seventy dollars!

“My Dream Scrabble Play”
the triple triple
laying down “quixotic” – ha!
will this ever be?

“Working Out at the Gym in My New Gym Pants”
they are soft and black
but I get sweatier than
with the shorts I wear

“Justification for a Shorter Post than Normal”
I am quite busy
taking naps (and watching stuff)
sorry about that

________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Dan's Belt Better Chargers:

Hog Fat Dug Would
Don Pays On Hummer
Ill Bank End So Bile
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 42 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 24; 368; 364; LOITERS, NAtIONS
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 339; LASTInG

1,000 Visitor Extravaganza Post!

2009-05-10T22:44:00.006-04:00

I've noticed that Sportscenter doesn't tend to show Cincinnati Reds highlights, probably because either (a) they haven't made the playoffs since 1995 or (b) they share a name with Communists. However, a few mornings ago I noticed that they were in the Sportscenter lineup, so I had to stick around and watch.

When Stan Verrett came on the air to read the highlight, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Following a lengthy alliterative introduction using more words that begin with 'v' than I ever knew existed, I then learned that in the history of major league baseball, no two pitchers whose last names begin with the letters v-o-l had ever faced one another (as Edinson Volquez and Chris Volstad did). In fact, not since the early 1900's has a Major League Baseball pitcher's last name begun with v-o-l. But that's not all. Joey Votto of the Reds is the only big league player to ever have a last name beginning with v-o-t, therefore making the Volstad-Votto matchup the first ever v-o-l vs. v-o-t pitcher-batter matchup ever.

Why am I telling you all this? One reason: to show that no matter how crazy I am bound to get in keeping statistics on the trip, it can get worse. So with that, welcome to our special...

1,000 Visitor Extravaganza Post!

Zhou and I (minus Zhou) thought long and hard about how to give back to you, our loyal readers for accidentally clicking on our blog every now and then. We considered having Zhou write the blog (your prize would be avoiding my nonsensical rambling for a week), but we thought that was giving back a little too much. We've already posted pictures of Evangeline Lilly and Jennifer Aniston, so that wasn't an option. So we decided to do what we do best: make a contest!

Since Puzzles for Postcards has been going so well, we've decided to make a whole new contest, with bigger stakes, and a longer wait for the winner. This contest will consist of five questions, each with a numerical answer. Each question will be graded individually, from first place to last place. For example, if 1,324 people answer question one, and you are 176th closest, then you get 176 points. Then we add your rankings on each of the five questions, and the person with the lowest total score wins! Also, as an added bonus, if you get a question exactly right you get a five point deduction from your total score. So if only two people respond, then that almost guarantees you the victory!

Make sense?

Please note that in all questions, you're not trying to guess the combined total for me and Zhou, but rather the total for just one of us.

(1) How many miles will Kevin and Zhou fly? You could definitely look this up given our itinerary, but (a) you'd be wrong since there are hidden flights and layovers, and (b) I would hope y'all have better things to do with your time than calculate our plane mileage. However, I do know that there are bigger wastes of time.

(2) How many hours will Kevin and Zhou spend on buses, trains and the Eurail combined? Here's an initial guess to help out: we'll be gone for 324 days, or 7,776 hours. I have built it up in my head that we'll be spending 80% of our trip on buses, which equates to 6,221 hours.

(3) How many pictures will Kevin and Zhou take? We stole this statistic from thirteenmonths, which is, as previously mentioned, a big inspiration for us on this trip. One caveat when guessing: yes, this will include the copious amounts of pictures Zhou takes of baby animals and Kevin takes of all the McDonald's he plans on eating.

(4) How many games of Scrabble will Kevin and Zhou play? As you know, our plan is to play near every landmark, big and small, and take a picture of us doing so. In addition, we will be spending up to 6,221 hours on buses, so there's plenty of time for more games.

(5) How many new foods will Kevin eat? As much as I want to count French McDonald's french fries, Zhou won't let me. So new foods means actual new foods - not variations on an old favorite (like the "Chile" dog). Since this is a little subjective, Zhou will be the official "food-keeper."

We haven't decided what a good prize would be for the winner yet, so for now consider this something that's extremely fun and a way to make our trip more competitive than it is (and before you start complaining, I promise we'll actually think of a real prize). If you respond with answers, even our boring posts from the road will be fun, as you'll be anxious to see if we've played another game of Scrabble, or spent another few hours on a bus. And ever since I've become addicted to centsports, I've learned that even someone else's dime on the line makes everything in life much more interesting.

As you respond with your guesses, we'll be keeping track of the statistics here. Just for future reference, we will not accept any responses after we take off for London on September 10.

Good luck!

...

In other news this week, we learned another lesson about attention to detail in planning our trip. One would think that for something of this magnitude we'd be extra careful in booking flights and setting dates. We've already mentioned our first screw-up, when we booked our flight from London to Nairobi a couple days after our safari is supposed to begin. Fortunately, we lucked out there, because we lost less on the $125 per person change fee than we gained on the exchange rate in re-booking the flight. This time though, we have lost the Bolivia and Salar de Uyuni part of the trip. Why, you ask?

When setting up the round-the-world ticket, you can do "surface sector" legs, or segments where you don't take a flight (they still count against your 16 segments though). If you declare that you're taking a flight, you must take the flight. If you declare a surface sector, you cannot take a flight. For instance, we are doing a surface sector from Nairobi to Johannesburg. We will be flying into Nairobi and out of Johannesburg, but we're using trucks to get from one place to the other.

As our stupidity would have it, we accidentally booked Santiago to Lima as a flight, and not a surface sector. Therefore, we will not be taking a bus up through Bolivia to Peru from the southern tip of South America, but rather we will be taking that bus to Santiago and flying into Peru. I guess in the end that's a lot less bus-riding, which is a good thing, unless your contest guess ends up falling a ways short.

[Zhou: I still maintain that this may have been the agent's fault when we initially booked it. Plus, this makes no sense to me! Why would they charge us $250 to NOT fly a segment? Can't they make money selling those two seats to someone else? I just don't get it. Sigh. At least this means we get to spend more time in Southeast Asia, land of mango sticky rice.]
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Gettin' Jiggy Wit' A Statistical Sample Anagram:

N prefers Ali before Hitch
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 41 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 23; 368; 383; DOPIEST, DoTTIER
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 351; bLOUSES

Getting to Know Zhou (Part 2)

2009-05-05T23:05:00.003-04:00

…continued from Sunday.

(8) Secret celebrity crush:

Zhou’s on-again off-again celebrity crush (who is currently on-again with this renewed love of Home Improvement) is JTT. She’s also gone through Adam Brody, Orlando Bloom, Natalie Portman and probably Zach Braff, although the last one is more just because she loves Scrubs.

Correction
I would just like to say that I have always loved Natalie Portman – she was never a phase.

(9) Most idiotic moment:

I’ve alluded to this in an earlier post, but I think Zhou’s dumbest moment since I’ve met her would have to involve her ability to tell time. A couple years ago we were sitting around eating buttered scones and watching equestrian when, in a moment of brilliance, Zhou shouted out, “Oh I get it now!” I looked at her, then around the room – nothing. “That’s why they call the third hand the second hand! Because it tells you the seconds!”

98.6% of the time Zhou is smarter than me, but just so you know, I knew why it was called the second hand back in the first grade. However, at least her “most idiotic moment” ends in laughter, whereas mine ends in a fight.

Correction
What actually happened: I said to Kevin, “Why do they call it the second hand when it’s actually the third hand on the watch?” He just looked at me. “Oooooh,” I said. To his credit, I think this happened early on in our relationship, and he still didn’t write me off. Thanks, Kev!

(10) Weirdest habit:

Of the plethora of choices that I could answer this question with (one of the reasons I like Zhou so much is because of her crazy habits), I think Zhou’s weirdest habit has to be organizing the sugar packets on the table when we go out to eat. The way she gets right to organizing them, you would think that the scum of the earth had just sat at our table and strewn packets haphazardly all throughout the holder. And after she’s done, I’ve tried to hide a pink packet in with the whites or a blue with the pinks, but she always catches it and puts it back in its proper place.

Correction
This is, obviously, 100% true. But I don’t think it’s that weird. Monk does it.

(11) Best sports moment:

It was the semi-finals. These two teams had squared off in the regular season, and the villains had won in a blow-out. They were the one seed and overwhelming favorites (Vegas had them by over two touchdowns). However, it was now late in the second half, and we were driving down the field only behind by a point. Tim took the snap and faked to his left. I sprinted downfield for the deep bomb. A lineman – probably 245 pounds of pure muscle – had sprung viciously from his 3-point stance and was charging hard at Tim. Unfortunately for him, there was one thing in his way: Zhou.

With her hands behind her back, Zhou slid her feet over and bam! The behemoth fell to the ground. Tim took this opening to reverse field and begin his mad scramble. 25 – 20 – 15 – 10 – 5 – touchdown! We had taken a six point lead with under two minutes to play! While the defender slowly picked himself off the ground, the referee came running up to Zhou. “Wow… in all my years… that was hands down the best block I’ve ever seen… not just in flag football… ever!”

[Side note: two plays later, the villains broke free for a 60 yard touchdown run, and we lost the game.]

Correction
As I remember it, the block wasn’t for Tim, but Greg, who actually said “thank you” as he whizzed by (Greg is very polite). And what the ref actually said was, “Man! That’s the best block I’ve ever seen!” After I thanked him nonchalantly (because one of my hobbies is running into people that are twice my size – no seriously, it is), he said, “No REALLY, I’m not kidding, it’s the best block I’ve ever seen! And not just in flag football either!” By that I assumed he meant the best one he’s ever seen, including in the NFL. That’s right, I’m better than Jeff Saturday. A flag football ref said so.

(12) Previous international travel experience:

Zhou has been to China many times – probably about every other year since she moved to the United States. She has also been to Europe twice – once with her family and more recently with her friend Kathleen.

We’ve also done a Caribbean cruise together with a bunch of friends. I think that’s about it. Regardless of how you cut it though, she’s way more well-traveled than me, and therefore will need to protect me on our journey.

Correction
I’ve been to Europe three times, thank you very much. The picture above is the only photographic proof that Kathleen and I were in Europe together. Ok fine, we took that picture in my backyard. I have a castle, I just don't like to brag about it. Also, I had a very bad run-in with some salmon that time I went with my family, and I can’t eat it anymore.

(13) Thing Zhou is most proud of:

Besides landing a catch like myself, and besides her awesome flag football block, Zhou is most proud of this:

We were visiting our friend Jing in Charlottesville one weekend last fall, and of course I thought this meant hanging out with Jing and being social and all. I think that Zhou thought this too, until she spotted the above wooden puzzle on Jing’s coffee table shortly after we arrived. From that point on, Zhou spent every waking minute focused on putting that puzzle together. I told her that it wasn’t worth it, but Jing had already mentioned that one of her friends had solved it, so there was no turning back.

We were about to eat brunch shortly before our departure on Sunday, and all of a sudden, there was Zhou, and there was the puzzle – solved. I’d never seen her so happy. And then we ate pancakes, and I was really happy.

Correction
Man, solving that thing was sooooo satisfying. Sorry for the ruined weekend, guys! But on a more serious note, I have to say that the thing I’m most proud of is how I’m learning to let things go and be less bothered by little things that don’t really matter. Also, that picture above is not the best picture of me. I am much more beautifuller in person.

(14) Favorite personality trait of Kevin:

It’s clear that Zhou likes me for my great taste in movies / music and my unusually small ears. But those aren’t personality traits. Personality-wise, I think she likes the fact that I don’t really let anything get to me and I’m almost always optimistic. She also once mentioned that she likes how I don’t keep score – if I do the dishes one day, I don’t let that affect who does them the next. (However, when playing Scrabble I demand we keep score.)

Correction
In addition to the unusually small ears, Kevin also has an unusually large head. That’s just an FYI. (Also, the three things Kevin mentioned are in my top five favorite things about Kevin.)

I think that the thing that I like best about Kevin is that he knows what he wants, and he has high standards that he won’t compromise. For example, Kevin would never continue working at a job that he hates just because he would make a lot of money. As for me, I would definitely consider staying at a job I didn’t enjoy if they paid me enough. It’s hard to describe, but it’s just that he has all his priorities in order, and he knows what he needs to do to be happy. And then he goes and does it! I think there are a lot of people who know how they could be happier and more satisfied with their lives but don’t do anything about it.
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Consonantless U.S. Cities (solve three of four; and as a reminder, these are all one word):

iia
iai
aaa
iaa
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 40 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 368; 427; DOWnTIME, ASININE
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 461; MEANEST, PAgODAS, BROODING

Getting to Know Zhou (Part 1)

2009-05-03T23:17:00.003-04:00

Last week we learned that Zhou knows Kevin pretty well (she was officially given a grade of 82.1%). However, the true test comes this week as we discover how well Kevin knows Zhou. Kevin's been bragging for years that the reason he's never seen Mel Gibson's biggest hit is because he already knows what women want, so it's time to put his money where his mouth is. So with no further ado...

(1) Favorites:

Favorite college class: As much as Zhou loved the Econ / Finance department and the professors there, they all took second place to her photography class senior year. This is because they took a lot of pictures and at one point, the teacher called Zhou her “star student.”

Favorite movie: Easy one. Princess Bride. Have you seen the deluxe edition DVD where the cover says “Princess Bride” regardless of whether you read it right side up or upside down?

Now you have.

Favorite food: Zhou goes through phases of just about everything in life. (This sometimes makes me worried about my status, but I have luckily made it almost five years and am still around.) She’ll get mysteriously hooked on random TV shows (currently Home Improvement), she goes through different shampoos and haircuts, and she’ll crave a food for about two weeks at a time. At the moment though, I’d say it’s a tie between pepperoni, her homemade yogurt and Casserole Queens’ chicken pot pie.

Favorite animal: Charlie! But I’m not going to put a picture of her here.

Favorite book: Count of Monte Cristo and Pride & Prejudice

Correction
I don’t remember Libby ever calling me her “star student,” but I’m sure it must be true! And yes, I was that kid. I’m sorry, it’s just how I am.

(2) Most prized material possession (that Zhou is taking on the trip):

Zhou loves her Zhou-sized Yaris with the duct-taped side-view mirror. She also really likes her Rubik’s cubes (all [five] of them) and her new iPod Touch, but I think if it came down to it, the one thing she couldn’t do without would be her face cream. She hates having dry skin almost more than anything else in the world, so I can’t imagine how crazy she would act without her lotion.

Correction
I really do hate having dry skin, and my one beauty splurge on the trip is taking a 2 oz. bottle of Hope in a Jar. I’m impressed that Kevin picked up on that.

(3) Biggest pet peeve:

She hates it when people waste things and pollute the environment, but I’d say Zhou’s biggest pet peeve would be when people wear one sock but not the other. She doesn’t mind if the two socks don’t match, but if you ever really want to bug her walk around with just one sock on. Better yet, make sure that one sock has big holes in the toe – she wouldn’t know what to do.

Correction
It’s true, I don’t even want to talk about one-sock wearing people (Matt!) – and you know what my other biggest pet peeve is right now? Coach on Survivor. I’m not watching the show again until he gets voted off. I also hate it when people stand two by two on the escalator (unless everyone in front of them is doing it also, then it’s ok) so you can’t pass.

(4) What will annoy Zhou most on the road: There will definitely be a lot of tough times for Zhou, including not being able to clean (herself or her surroundings) and having to deal with things not going according to plan. She will also be annoyed when she keeps telling me “just try some – it’s really good!” and I refuse to try it.

Correction
I really don’t like being dirty. Maybe I should practice before we leave. But I agree that the hardest thing will be the lack of control I will have on the trip – but I think it’ll be really good for me too.

(5) First memory:
This is a tough one, but I would have to say it’s of these ducks she used to have back in China. (It’s funny because some of my fondest early memories are of watching Mighty Ducks over and over.) The story as I recall is that her Grandma brought home four baby ducks one day because they were lost in the street. They named each duck after its color, but the only one I remember was little Butter. Butter and his siblings stayed in a laundry basket in the garage and were fed well and treated like royalty, until one day the three siblings escaped. Butter was so heartbroken that a few days later he died of depression, and the young Zhou discovered him dead in the garage. At first she didn’t believe her eyes – Butter was like a brother to her, but eventually reality set in and she got a real brother named Alex, who is really good at his doubles and Chinese Checkers.

Correction
Ok, first of all, this story is a bit discombobulated – it was in Little Rock, and the ducklings (not ducks) lived in the backyard (yes, in a laundry basket). I don’t know where my Grandma got them from, but it certainly wasn’t off the street – probably from the local Asian grocery store. And Kevin’s “escaped” is a euphemism for “got eaten.” We did put Butter in the garage after the situation with his siblings – we were afraid he would get eaten too. I think he died of loneliness. And it weighs really heavily on my conscience that when I discovered poor dead Butter, I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just admitted this fact to my sister in the last year. She thought it was funny.

Secondly, that happened when I was about 12, so it’s not my first memory. My first memory is of being accidentally left in a parking lot. When I was five. In Las Vegas. In the dark. My parents drove off, my mom thinking I was in the front seat of the car, my dad thinking I was in the back with my mom and baby Amy. Luckily, their friend (with whom we were staying) saw me in the headlights of his car and recognized my outfit – a green corduroy jumper with a pocket shaped like an apple – and took me to his house, where I was tearfully reunited with my parents. I remember my parents’ friend telling me it would be a really funny joke if I hid in the bathroom. At the time, I was too hysterical to even consider that idea, but in retrospect, that would have been hilarious. When I mentioned this story to my parents a few years back, my dad looked at me and said, “I didn’t think you remembered that.” They haven’t been back to Vegas since then. Coincidence? I think not.

(6) Thing Zhou can’t do without in life:

The obvious answer: Charlie. The less obvious answer: TV marathons. Zhou will watch anything and everything as long as you put it into marathon form so she doesn’t have to wait a week between shows.

Correction
True. Mostly America’s Next Top Model or Law & Order. But really, I’ll watch anything. I think the reason for this is I am the absolute worst at waiting. I just always need to know what’s going to happen.

(7) Story from before we met that Zhou likes to tell most:

I hear many stories from Zhou twice, and I hear some stories three times. However, there’s one story that I’ve heard more often than I’ve heard Allen Iverson say the word “practice.”

Zhou used to live in a small town in Arkansas, before moving to a small town in New Jersey in the middle of eighth grade. In Arkansas, Sam Champion was the local weatherman, and each day the Zhangs would huddle closely around the TV as Sam came on to point his magic wand at the green screen behind him. His performance would bring tears of joy to the Zhang family’s eyes, and the time he was not on the TV was the worst 23 hours and 57 minutes of their day.

As you can imagine, moving away from Arkansas was not too difficult, because it’s Arkansas. However, moving away from Sam Champion was harder than learning that the Jamaican bobsled team would be disqualified from the Olympics. But the move had to be made, and the Zhangs would eventually have to watch some no-name Joe slog through updates on the New Jersey smog.

A few months after the move, Zhou was watching the news by herself when for a brief moment, a glorious face caught her eye. “Mom! Dad! Amy! Alex! Come here!” The family rushed downstairs to see what the fuss was about. A commercial had come on, so Zhou let the suspense build for a few minutes. But when the news came back, there he was – Sam Champion! The Zhangs jumped for joy and popped open a bottle of champagne. Five enormous smiles met in a big group hug.

Yes, Sam Champion had followed the family from Arkansas to New Jersey.

Correction
My version of the story goes something like this: “Did you know Sam Champion used to be our weatherman in Little Rock? And now he’s our weatherman here! Isn’t that funny?” But Kevin’s rendition is pretty good.

To be continued Tuesday…
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):
We have been told that the anagrams sometimes are too long, and therefore solving them becomes less about solving an anagram and more about solving context clues. However, we have already made a few more long anagrams, and will be using them up before making shorter ones.

No Dark Clouds By The Cliff Anagram:
Color in an Eye Signals Nice Weather
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 40 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 368; 427; DOWnTIME, ASININE
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 461; MEANEST, PAgODAS, BROODING

Getting to Know Kevin (Part 2)

2009-04-28T22:20:00.000-04:00

...continued from Sunday.

(8) Secret celebrity crush:

He tries to hide it, but I know he has a thing for Kate on “Lost.” And I guess I can’t really blame him.

Correction
I don’t try to hide this at all! And she left off Jennifer Aniston, but that’s probably because if you don’t have a crush on Jennifer Aniston, you must not be breathing.

(9) Most idiotic moment:

Senior year of college, Kevin and I were watching a comedy show by Henry Cho that AASA had sponsored. We were sitting next to each other. (Please note that at this point, Kevin and I had been dating for two years, and the crowd was filled with people we knew.) Henry has just gotten to his “get to know the audience” bit and asked Kevin what he was going to do after graduating, and then he asked me what I was going to do after graduating. After we both told him we were going to work for Wachovia, he then turned to Kevin and said, “So are you two dating?” (Remember: at this point, we had been together for over two years and all of my loyal and loving roommates were sitting on the other side of me in the same row). We all turned to look at Kevin. He looked at me. Then he looked at Henry. “No.”

Later, when asked why he said this, he told me he thought that Henry was going to make a joke out of it. I ask you, HOW would that have been funny?

Correction
Sadly, none.

(10) Weirdest habit:

Kevin doesn’t have any very weird habits, but he has a few that are a little weird. He always has to plug in his iPod in the car even if we’re just going to be in the car for five minutes. If Charlie is sitting on his lap, he won’t get up unless she does first. He takes 15 minutes to brush his teeth (this is why he has receding gums). He wears his sunglasses even when it’s dark enough that he’s turned on the car lights.

Correction
It’s weird – I know I have a lot of weird habits, but just can’t think of any on the spot. I think brushing my teeth while watching an entire Friends rerun is right up there, and some people say that dipping Wendy’s fries in Frosty is weird.

(11) Best sports moment:

Since I’ve only been told this story and didn’t see it actually happen, the details will be ~~all wrong~~ a little fuzzy. Kevin was playing in the ~~last~~ fourth position (I have been informed that there are no “positions” in golf, but it is my story, so there are) for his golf team in high school. They were at the regional finals. He had not been having a very good day, and was frustrated from having hit several bad shots. He came up on the 18th hole in a foul mood, not knowing that he would have to ~~par~~ birdie this last hole to take the lead and win it for his team. … [some stuff happens that I don’t really remember] … He then has a ~~10-foot~~ ~~15-foot~~ 25-foot putt to win it for his team. The crowd is silent with anticipation. His head is still cloudy from all those missed shots, and he hasn’t made a putt all day, but somehow this one rolls towards the flagstick and goes in! The crowd goes wild!! He then realizes that he has single-handedly saved The Columbus Academy golf team from losing to their hated rivals. ~~He is carried off the field by all of his fans.~~ They later go on to the state tournament, which they lose.

Correction
Most of this story is pretty well described by Zhou. The only major edit that I have is that we got fourth in States. I suppose this technically is a loss since we didn’t win, but it’s not like we got 16th out of 16. Oh, and I would like to say there was a bigger crowd at Regionals than Zhou depicted, but I suppose to keep this factual, you could hardly call it a crowd. It was just my teammates and some other random golfers and parents.

(12) Previous international travel experience:

Well, let’s see. Kevin has never been to Europe. Or even Canada. But we’ve been to the Bahamas and Jamaica. And Kevin at least knows the names of all the countries, (thanks to Yakko’s World), which is more than I can say for myself.

Correction
Eh? I have been to Canada, thank you very much.

(13) Thing Kevin is most proud of:

Hmm – this is a toughie. It’s probably knowing all the lyrics to every Animaniacs song ever. That or knowing the plotline of every single episode of Home Improvement.

Correction
Although I am very proud of knowing the lyrics to many Animaniacs songs (most notably Yakko’s World, as mentioned in question 12), the proudest moment in my life had to be the following:

They were having a sale on abacus stones at Toys R Us, and since mine were getting worn from all the use, I couldn’t pass it up. The problem was, this caused me to miss Jeopardy! (this was back in the old days, before DVR). Fortunately my brother was able to catch it, and he liked the Final Jeopardy question so much that he let me have a crack at it in the car later that night.

Steve: “The U.S. company now with the largest revenue is located in this state, which has the lowest per capita income.”
Me: “Hmmm… I’ll go with Washington”
Steve: “Wrong, but one of the contestants did guess that. Guess again.”
Me: “Ok, how about Georgia?”
Steve: “Wrong again, but another contestant guessed that. One more try.”
Me: “I have no idea then… Arkansas?”
Steve: “Yep, that’s it! The third contestant got it. The company is Wal-Mart.”

Based on this sample, I am as smart as every person to ever appear on Jeopardy! (therefore by transitivity, I am as smart as everyone in the world). Not only that, but I am so smart that I didn’t get this right on the first or second try, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to match all three answers. However, I didn’t expect Zhou to pinpoint this as my proudest moment, so both her answers were very good.

As a side note – this episode of Jeopardy aired on November 1, 2002. I looked it up.

(14) Favorite personality trait of Zhou:

Hmm – this is by far the hardest one to answer. I think it’s that I push him to do and try things that would normally be out of his comfort zone (please see: dancing the hula, dancing in general, emcee-ing ANYF 2007, eating granola bars, eating yellowfin tuna, wearing jeans, etc).

Correction
While I do like that about her, when I’m trying the nasty foods she imposes on me, I don’t like it as much. I think my favorite part about Zhou is her drive and work ethic, and the fact that once she decides what she’s going to do, she does it. For this round-the-world trip we’ll embarking on in a few months (we may have mentioned it before), I am not worried about anything because she has done such a good job researching and planning. When she goes to grad school following the trip, I have no doubt that she will rise to the top of her class. And once she graduates, I am planning on retiring early because she’ll make millions of dollars, because who wouldn’t want Zhou working for them?
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Familiar Better Charger Sayings:
Old Tan Nut
I Bind It Tie Land
Sang But No Day
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 40 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 368; 427; DOWnTIME, ASININE
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 461; MEANEST, PAgODAS, BROODING

Getting to Know Kevin (Part 1)

2009-04-26T20:32:00.001-04:00

We have noticed that this blog is slowly becoming more popular than William Hung, officially making us the most famous Asians in America. In honor of us taking over this coveted title, we have decided to treat you, our loyal readers, to a special two-week series of posts about getting to know Kevin and Zhou. Over the next nine days, we will post four separate times for your viewing pleasure. Yes, this means four nights of light reading, four chances to get on our Puzzles for Postcards list of winners, four Scrabble log updates. I can barely contain my excitement in writing this paragraph, so I can’t even imagine how you feel reading it. To make this even more exhilarating, this week Zhou will be answering the questions about Kevin, and next week Kevin will be answering the exact same questions about Zhou. Finally, although it may look like we ripped these questions from a junk chain mail, we actually created them ourselves.

[Zhou: Please note that Kevin wrote this introduction. I had nothing to do with it.]

So with no further ado, it’s time to see how well Zhou knows Kevin.

(1) Favorites (an easy one to get the blood flowing):

Favorite college class: that art class he took freshman year before we knew each other – I think it may have been drawing?
Favorite movie: please, anyone who has read even one post on this blog knows
Favorite food: the one and only… chili dog (or chilly dog)
Favorite animal: the wolf
Favorite book: um…Kevin is more of a listener, not a reader

Correction
My favorite college class was actually a Computer Science algorithm class I took senior year with Dr. Johnson. As an example of how much I liked it: I remember falling asleep one day in that class (I was one of six students, and I sat next to the professor), and I actually felt really bad.

My favorite animal is more specifically the gray wolf (canis lupis). I wish I could post the picture of me dressed up as one for Halloween in third grade, but it’s at my parent’s house.

I have so many favorite books, I can’t believe Zhou couldn’t think of any! If I had to pick one though, it would have to be Rascal, by Sterling North. We were required to read it back in elementary school, and boy am I glad we were.

(2) Most prized material possession (that Kevin is taking on the trip):

In general, I think it’s his car, his golf clubs or his guitar. I remember him telling someone once that the two things he doesn’t like people borrowing are his car and his clubs. (But I’ve borrowed both – shhh, don’t tell.) As for the trip, it’s definitely his iPod.

Correction
I assume that I’m not allowed to answer the travel Scrabble board as my most prized possession I’m taking, since that belongs to both of us. (No wait, that’s mine – Zhou got it for me as a present!) If so, I would say my iPod is tied with my blue Matt Wertz shirt. I know we’re not supposed to bring cotton clothing, but that shirt is so comfortable!

(3) Biggest pet peeve:

Pets wearing clothes – which means this is a perfect place for a picture of a clothed Charlie (complete with Devil eyes)!

Also, I think Charlie looks adorable.

Correction
This is 110% accurate. This makes me just like Monica from Friends.

(4) What will annoy Kevin most on the road:

Rude people. His second biggest pet peeve is when people in cars don’t wave after you let them turn or go in front of you. Also, he doesn’t know this yet, but hearing me say “Just try some – it’s really good!” will probably be a close second.

Correction
None.

(5) First memory:

This one involves clowns and being strapped in a double stroller. Then there is frantic trying to get away from the scary clowns. Then there is lots of blood.

Correction
Wow, Zhou’s good. I couldn’t remember my first memory until she mentioned it. My family and I were in Cincinnati for a Reds game, and one day my parents thought it would be fun to see their older son squirm, so they decided to take us to a parade with… CLOWNS! They knew I hated clowns! And to make it funnier, they decided to tell us while they were pushing the stroller with Steve and me in it up the brick stairs at the hotel. I would have none of it – at the mere mention of the word “clowns” I crawled out of the stroller. Only I hadn’t thought out my full escape route, and hadn’t thought to get out feet first, so I cracked my head on the corner of one of the steps. This is where the blood came in (I guess technically it came out). Also, this is where I realized that my parents weren’t out to get me, because my dad picked me and my bloody face up and began running frantically around in circles. (Maybe the high rate of speed at which he was running would stop the bleeding?) Fortunately there happened to be a doctor eating breakfast nearby, and I don’t remember the rest.

(6) Thing Kevin can’t do without in life:

This is a close tie between college football, March Madness, fantasy football, the Masters, baseball season until the Reds are out of playoff contention and NBA playoffs. But I think ~~college~~ Buckeye football is probably number one by a hair.

Correction
Probably could have included Cavs basketball, Browns football and the Olympics, but Buckeye football is #1.

(7) Story from before we met that Kevin likes to tell most:

This isn’t necessarily the story Kevin likes to tell most, but it’s the one that I like to hear the best. Plus, the story ends with “and then we went to McDonald’s,” which is almost as good any story that ends with “and then I found $20 in my pocket.” So Kevin and Steve were in this (really cool and awesome) math tournament, and they ended up having to face each other in the final round (after beating out millions of other super smart kids). They then tied in the final round (dun dun dun!), so they had to go to a tiebreaker question. BUT! They both solved the problem and raised their hands at the EXACT same time (the judges deliberated for quite awhile). So they were given another tiebreaker (DUN DUN DUN!). This question involved factoring (or maybe limits? No wait, that was Mean Girls), which Kevin knew Steve had yet to learn, being a grade below. So Kevin coolly took his time and nonchalantly solved the problem and won the round. And then their parents took them to McDonald’s. The other funny thing about this story is that when Kevin tells it, he always stresses the fact that the answer was Steve’s favorite number, so if Steve had just guessed, he probably would have gotten it right.

Correction
The way the really cool and awesome math tournament worked was that the 16 top scores in the region squared off in a bracket arranged in alphabetical order (so as not to give away who won the region, which was the highlight later on in the day). Despite my coach’s argument that it was unfair that Steve and I had to face each other, the order stuck, and there we were in a first round battle for the ages. We split the two questions of the best of three, and the tie took place on the third question. Then the answer to the tiebreaker was 8, Steve’s lucky number.

Do you remember when Ohio State beat Miami in a double overtime thriller in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl National Championship game? Yeah, it was like that.

To be continued Tuesday…
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Movie VQs:
Hint: the quotes below are from three different (and famous) movies that are from the same genre.

HKNMTT
MMLTNG
TPHNHM*

*I stole this one from Mental Floss. Thanks Mental Floss!
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 40 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 368; 427; DOWnTIME, ASININE
Kevin WPLB: 18; 363; 461; MEANEST, PAgODAS, BROODING

All Work And No Play Make Homer Something Something

2009-04-19T23:17:00.004-04:00

The most common reaction that Zhou and I get when we tell someone of our upcoming plans is "Really? That sounds amazing!" Then we tell the person that we're going to travel the world for a year after we learn all the seven-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary (taenias: some sort of tapeworm; banties: small hens), and the person gets even more excited. This inevitably leads into a conversation that starts with the details of the trip and ends with somebody chanting Sanka's Jamaican bobsled song. It's the middle part of the conversation that always makes an impression on me though.

At some point, the person always says something like “I wish I would have done this at your age,” and then goes into a rant about his or her spouse and/or kids. (Yes, Zhou and I are too boring to hang out with people our age.) This makes me realize how fortunate Zhou and I are to have not only the time to travel, but also the money, motivation and moxie to make it happen. (I specifically am fortunate to have a Zhou who is very good at planning and very forgiving when I don’t put in nearly as much time as she does.)

To me, the problem is that it does take a very fortunate set of circumstances to be able to do what we’re about to. And the further we’ve gotten into the planning of our journey, the more I realize that it’s the right thing to do at this stage in our lives. So while it’s nice to be idolized by everyone now, when future Kevins and Zhous announce their plans to travel, I dream that the more common reaction will be, “cool, I just did that myself!” The more I think about it, the more I think that this actually could become more popular among motivated recent college graduates who don’t yet have kids.

There are four major obstacles to overcome to enjoy a trip like ours: motivation, time, perception and money. Fortunately though, I believe there are also four good solutions, and as it turns out, one solution remedies each obstacle.

Motivation: This is less of an obstacle to be overcome, and more of a strainer to separate the chunky slackers from the fluid world travelers. If you aren’t motivated, no need to travel. However, it doesn’t take a lot to be motivated for an adventure of a lifetime. Zhou once wrote that she wasn’t sure what motivated us to turn our dream of traveling into a reality. I imagine though that the conversation went something like this:

Zhou: I just swept the floor [twice], can you eat that chili dog over the sink?
Kevin: You know, we could travel the world for a year and it won’t matter where I eat.
Zhou: In the meantime… sink!
Kevin: I’ll book the tickets. [Zhou then booked the tickets.]

So you see, it doesn’t take much. However you end up deciding having fun is something you’d like to try, feel free to read this earlier post to help jump-start the planning process.

Perception: I get the sense that some people would frown upon young travelers who don’t contribute anything to society. (“When I was your age, I used to walk four miles to work, uphill both ways!”) It’s bad enough that I didn’t contribute anything to society for 18 years, unless you count my summer job of eating Graeter’s, the best ice cream in the country. (The job itself wasn’t to eat the ice cream, but one of the perks was free food while on the job. I think that we actually ate more in ice cream than we made in hourly wages, but that’s really not saying much.)

However, when I talk to my backup friends in London and Sydney, I find that time for world exploration is practically encouraged in those countries. It’s called a “gap” year, most likely short for global awareness period. (Ok, maybe not – I just like making acronyms of everyday words.) I’ve heard that Zhou and I will probably bump into a lot of Europeans and Australians while on the trip, and not just while we’re in Europe and Australia. If the people across both oceans promote young travelers, why can't we?

Time: College usually ends in May, and for most jobs the work year starts in January (sure people start working in June, but then there’s that stub year which is hardly a year at all). That leaves around 6 - 7 months of free time for one either to try to mooch off the parents again, play a marathon game of Settlers of Catan, or go out and see the world. As much as I like Settlers, seven months would be a really long game…

Maybe there could be a program run through colleges – a “ninth semester” program of world travel. I know that my seventh semester was pretty tough, and the eighth was 10x easier, so it makes logical sense to do a ninth that involves nothing more than playing with real Swiss Army knives and hanging out with real Brazilian models. And of course eating as much foreign McDonald's as possible.

This program could be set up like a semester abroad, only without classes (maybe do some volunteer work at some of the stops, like Vanderbilt’s Alternative Spring Break). I have no idea how liability and that type of stuff would work, but I do know that liability is bad and drinkability is good.

Money: At first glance, this appears to be the biggest obstacle. However, with a well-planned out budget and an acceptance that you won’t be staying in four-star hotels everywhere, world travel is actually much cheaper than you may think. One extreme example is that Zhou and I should be able to do our trek in Nepal for approximately $10 per person per day. This is an all-in cost that includes everything from lodging to buying lots of cheap DVDs. The DVDs in other countries aren't quite this cheap, but our average daily budget for the entire trip is around $35 per person.

Despite it being less expensive than it may appear, traveling isn’t exactly like eating peanuts, or whatever the phrase is. The biggest cost is the fact that we won’t be getting paid during our time away. (Not everyone is as lucky as these people.) And if sleeping through Econ 101 taught me anything, it was opportunity cost.

There are a few solutions for the money problem. (1) Inherit a lot of family money, or win the lottery. (2) Become an investment banker, date another investment banker and both of you bust your butt at work for a couple years after college. This solution though is no longer recommended, as there’s this whole recession thing that may or may not have stemmed from me piling too much debt on big companies. (3) Save. This one deserves its own paragraph, so let’s do that.

I really don't want to preach on how to save money, but Zhou feels that it is necessary. Maybe a simple algebra problem will make this seem informative. Let's use the $35/day number that I mentioned earlier, and say that you travel for six months (180 days). Your total daily budget would then be $6,300. After throwing in the cost of transportation, immunizations, visas, insurance and gear, the total cost of a six-month getaway could be approximately $12,500. In order to save this much money through your four years of college, you would need to save a little under $8.60 per day. That's just one hour of work, or two less drinks at Starbucks, or eight less rolls of toilet paper (switch to leaves - it's probably better for the environment) per day. And if you need 118 more ways to save, click here.

Once the Kevins and Zhous of the future are able to become motivated, spare some time after college and save money, I envision that the gap year for world travel will become increasingly popular here in America. Tune back in as we actual start traveling to get our advice on where to go.
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Puzzles for Postcards: Today's we'll try a new type of puzzle, fresh out of the Jeopardy! oven. Below are four words (single words, not hyphenated) from a common category, only they all have their consonants removed (the opposite of VQs). You're job is to be the first to solve three of the four, and we will then be obligated to add you to the list of winners.

Consonantless Colors:
(1) aea
(2) aee
(3) ioe
(4) oie
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 39 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 367; 365; VITTLES, ASExUAL
Kevin WPLB: 17; 361; 364; PARTIERs

Tour of the Technology for the Trip

2009-04-12T21:08:00.003-04:00

Zhou told me earlier this week that I should create an iPhone application, much like this guy. Since I know what's best for me, I simply said, "Sure, no problem," and nodded my head. (She has also "suggested" that I do the hula in front of 500 people...)

Apparently writing code for iPhone applications is not too difficult, and seeing that I am a computer science major (I think), I should have a leg up on the competition. So I have now added this to my life's to do list, right in between completing the Wendy's 99 Cent Menu Challenge (inflation is going to make this one a slam dunk) and coaching a Jamaican bobsled team (if John Candy can do it, who can't?).

The idea of writing an iPhone app got me thinking: there's got to be a better way to design peanut butter containers to limit the amount of peanut butter that goes to waste. It also got me thinking about applications that would help us on our trip around the world. After all, the apps currently on Zhou's iPod Touch - Tangrams, a level - will probably not be of any value to us on our journey, unless of course we encounter a crooked shelf. However, before we get into creating and marketing an extraneous piece of software, there are many other technological problems that we will need to sort out.

To start, should we bring a laptop? In today's world of machines becoming more "Zhou-sized," packing a laptop is becoming more feasible. Our current stance is if we have room under our gear budget and in our backpacks, then we'll look into it in more depth. I see the following benefits of carrying a laptop:

- Blog posts coming at ya anytime we get wireless
- Quick access to Excel spreadsheets for data entry
- Collateral anytime someone takes our Scrabble board

On the flip side, here would be a few disadvantages:

- A wallet that's been mysteriously reduced by $300+
- Bait for muggers and thieves
- No swimming with our packs on
- The hassle laptops create at airports

The last consideration is reason alone not to carry a laptop. We'll already be bogged down with 3-ounce liquids and nail clippers, and I really hate being that person who uses the last three gray bins with no regard for the people next in line. Anyway, if we were to take a laptop, it would probably be the Dell Inspiron Mini 9. If anyone has ever used one, please let us know what you think.

Our next technological decision relates to our choice of phones / long-distance calling cards. There are many different viewpoints on how best to keep in touch, but we have narrowed our choices down to four.

Our choice du jour is to take the Blackberry that I currently use for work (if I can separate it from the negative connotations of midnight emails and weekend staffings). It's an 8830 World Edition, which can be "unlocked" for less than $30 and then would be compatible with foreign SIM cards that we can purchase in countries around the world. I think that would give us the freedom to talk as much as we want in some countries, while keeping to ourselves in others and blaming it on either high-priced SIM cards or no access to SIM cards at all.

Our other choices include buying prepaid calling cards throughout the world, using Skype whenever we get wireless, or taking a cup and a really really long string. We could also do some combination of the aforementioned choices (but no, not a really long string and a calling card).

Of all the technological decisions we will face, the one thing most important to us is keeping up with the blog so Paul, Hadley, Matt and our soon-to-be billions of followers can keep tabs on what we're up to. So tell all your friends - here are the future plans for http://kevinandzhou.blogspot.com/ (yes, I just included a link to the very site you're reading).

Zhou and I are taking a couple months off before taking our year off to travel, and in those two months, my one and only project will be to design a website that we will pay for out of our own pockets (don't worry - we're counting it against our travel budget, so it's like we're not spending any real money at all). When this thing of beauty is complete, we are debating whether to transfer the blog to the website, or keep it here and link the two together. I can't tell you what is the current front-runner for our website's name, because someone is sure to grab it and hold it for ransom. However, if you have any good ideas of your own, please do let us know - we're not married to the site name yet.

Once we leave the United States, our goal will be to have a post written for every day of our journey. This does not mean we will post every day, but we will hand write our posts daily (you know, like the pilgrims used to do) and put them all up at once when we get to an internet cafe (maybe not exactly like the pilgrims). So imagine the incredible excitement you get every Sunday night and multiply that by seven, if you can. It'll be that good.
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

The #1 Reason To Get Up In The Morning Anagram:
"A thirsty group wants coffee in bulk, or guppies"
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 39 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 22; 367; 365; VITTLES, ASExUAL
Kevin WPLB: 17; 361; 364; PARTIERs

Quick and Accurate Q&A (Part 2)

2009-04-07T21:00:00.006-04:00

On Sunday we answered our favorite ten reader questions, and today we will continue with our responses to the next tier of questions. Consider this post like the awards they give out to elementary school kids who don't really deserve recognition based on merit, but look like they need someone's sympathy.
(Zhou: Please note that Kevin wrote this paragraph. I loved all the questions equally. Just like I love Charlie and Kevin equally.)

11) If all of a sudden your passports were revoked because "someone" said you should be on a no-fly list, what would you do instead? Big US road trip? Appalachian Trail? Hike across New Jersey?

Zhou: Is this "someone" you? Because if it is, I would watch out! There is an unbearable amount of cuteness coming out to get you, in Charlie form. The adorableness will render you unable to move.

After these pictures were taken, Charlie tore one of monkey's legs off. And both of its eyes. And its shirt. Somewhere in this apartment is a three-limbed, NAKED, BLIND blue monkey. Sometimes she carries its leg around in her mouth. It's sort of endearing in a gruesome, Tim Burton-esque way.

Anyway. Back to the original question. I would cry a lot. Then I would go to New Orleans. Then I would go to Hawaii. By paddle boat. And then Alaska.

Kevin: They say that Chinese are sneaky, so I'm sure we would find a way to still make the trip work. Besides, we've already considered hiding Zhou in my carry-on luggage to save money; if this scenario were to occur we'd have to make that a reality.

If we had to come up with an alternative though, I would probably spend the next year in Vegas winning lots of money at roulette. Since I never do well there in the short term, I've decided that in the long run it's inevitable that I make good money that way - it's science.

12) Have you already planned having any strange daily or local rituals?

Kevin: Since I won't be able to follow my unique movie-viewing ritual mentioned Sunday, there are several things I'm planning on doing every day on our trip. Although not really that strange, I'm going to keep statistics on everything we do, and I'm going to take an inordinate amount of pictures of nothing in particular. I also plan on keeping my daily exercise routine (one push-up per day!) and I would like to use the restroom on a daily basis (or any spot with soft leaves). One thing that I suggested to Zhou was that we make a feature length film of our journey, but she quickly nixed that idea. If you wanted me to say I'll dress like Optimus Prime and dance in circles, then sorry to disappoint.

Zhou: No, but this question has been weighing heavily on my mind (i.e. has fleetingly crossed my mind at random moments) for the last week. I think a daily photo from wherever we are each morning would be good. Perhaps these photos would also include Mr. Turtle. Mr. Turtle is a little hematite turtle figure who lives on a platform on my bedside lamp. He recently told me he loves to travel the world. Who knew?

13) So the practice wake-up actually works?

Zhou: Neither of us can answer that question, since Kevin is a liar.

Kevin: Yes, I am a fraud. All I did was read the article, and then decide that I'm wasting my life away hitting the snooze button. So the night I read the article I went to sleep concentrating really hard on waking up without snoozing. Sure enough I did! I woke up at 4:00, 4:30 and 5:00, and every time got out of bed thinking I was on top of my game. Then I realized I was wasting my life away not sleeping through the night. So from then on, I've gotten right up with the alarm.

14) Does Kevin ever get to be little spoon during the journey?

Kevin: We have separate sleeping bags.

Zhou: Do you even realize how ridiculous that would look?

15) So you really are flying to 16 different cities on five continents for less than 3,000 bucks? Do you even realize how ridiculous that is?!

Zhou: Uh, heck yeah!

Kevin: Now that you mention it, that is a good price. If you're curious about booking a round-the-world adventure yourself, please read Zhou's previous post or email us with any questions you may have.

16) Are you nervous about not knowing any of the languages of the countries you're visiting?

Kevin: I wouldn't say nervous is the right word, but I am quite excited for countries like England and Australia, and I'm banking on Zhou's Chinese, Spanish and French skills to get us through many other countries. I definitely now wish that my high school would have made Spanish necessary and Latin optional when I went there. Other than amongst pigs, I hear Latin is a dead language now (??).

I wish I would have thought of this in question 2, but one thing I would like to take away from this trip is the knowledge of basic words in as many languages as possible. Despite my incredible diverse cultural background (I recently found out that I am a quarter German!), I consider myself pretty uncultured and would like to at least be aware of non-American lifestyles.

Zhou: We are going to deal with the way we deal with all travel quandaries - consult Steve Jobs. We will download some translator apps for the iPod Touch and learn some useful phrases. The Spanish one I have right now tells you how to say "you have lovely eyes" and "what's your star sign?" In Spanish, no less! Those are two phrases I will be using with alarming frequency.

17) Where are you most worried about survival?

Zhou: I think my worst fear is that Kevin and I will be walking along in some crowded place, when I get distracted by something (baby chickens? colorful headscarves? a Burger King? the possibilities are endless), and when I look in front of me, he's no longer there. And because I am shorter than everyone else, there's no way for me to find him. I think about this quite often. I suppose it could happen anywhere, but I mostly picture it happening in crowded marketplaces with lots of shiny and colorful distractions. You might think this is a silly thing to be worried about, but Kevin has a disconcerting habit of not noticing when I've fallen behind him to tie a shoe, or you know, get knocked out by a lamppost. He is not, how do you say... perceptive?

Kevin: I'm most worried about surviving New Jersey, in the four days after the wedding. Once we leave the States though, we have learned that our lives will be in danger everywhere we go, as mentioned in a previous post. Fortunately, we used to know a guy who was a high security prison guard, and he taught us all he knew about self-defense and self-offense. If you ask nicely, I'm sure Zhou will show you some of her moves someday.
(Zhou: This is actually all true. For real.)

18) Are you going to send trinkets home in the mail or carry them? Any souvenirs you have picked out or planned already?

Kevin: I think we'll carry as many souvenirs with us as we can, but at certain points along the trip I'm sure we will mail a few packages back home. The model we used in planning our trip, thirteenmonths.com, had a stopover back home in the middle of their adventure to drop off things and relax. While we originally wanted to do this as well, we don't have a full 13 months, and therefore had to do without a layover in America.

One thing that we want to do is come up with a common souvenir to buy in every country. I collect spinny keychains, and Zhou collects little turtles, but if you have any better ideas, please let us know.

Zhou: I think it will be really hard to collect things from everywhere we're going because we'll build up a collection of stuff pretty quickly. But this won't stop me from buying giant turtle sculptures and lugging them around. On second thought, I didn't really think that one through. I read on someone's travel blog that you can tell how long a backpacker has been on the road by how many bracelets (s)he wears. I will collect bracelets. Kevin, I don't think they will have spinny keychains everywhere. But what do I know?

19) Will you save me a bit of currency from Nepal?

Zhou: No.

Kevin: Yes, at whatever exchange we deem appropriate... thanks for asking. This gets at a good point though. Just because we are traveling the world doesn't mean we want to wall ourselves off from everyone we know. I think we mention this in just about every post, but we would love to meet up with anyone who can join us at any point along the trip. We'll also be diligently sending out postcards to the puzzle solvers (and occasionally to others we like), so let us know if you ever change addresses! In addition, Zhou loves getting emails (they make her feel special), so send us updates as well.

Zhou: It is true, I love me some emails. Also, I was just kidding about my "No" answer above.

20) What is the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow (European swallow)?

Kevin: Since I still have my informative hat on... Although not definitive, the average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow is roughly 24 miles an hour. (Thanks)

Zhou: What on earth could a swallow possibly be laden with? I just don't get why you would have to specify unladen. Do swallows carry tiny swallow backpacks with tiny colored pencils in them to go to their tiny swallow schools? Because if so, I want one!
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Musical Body Parts Better Charger:
Sold by band

No sour bars sang cow

________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 36 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 20; 363; 401; SOLVInG
Kevin WPLB: 16; 364; 390; DEnIZEN, DONATER

Quirky and Awesome Q&A (Part 1)

2009-04-05T20:30:00.003-04:00

Thanks to you all for the hundreds of questions that poured in via email, phone and Pony Express. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to answer all of the questions, but we have selected the best and will each put on our "informative hat" (as opposed to our "humorous hat" or "chocolate milk hat") and do our best to provide you with the information that you so desperately desire.

Due to the unforeseen plethora of questions we received, we have decided to divide our responses into two posts. Luckily for you though, you will not have to wait until next Sunday to read the second half of our responses. Yes, that's right - we will be writing a very special Tuesday post this week as well. And yes, that means two puzzles for postcards.

1) What happens if you lose a Scrabble tile?

Kevin: We've decided to answer this question first because this is clearly the most important thing, and, honestly, we've yet to think this through. I'm guessing Zhou is a bit offended that this question was asked; after all, we don't ask you "what happens if you lose your baby?" or "what happens if you go bald and gain 200 pounds?" I think that if this ever were to happen, we would probably have to call off the rest of the trip and go home. Fortunately, thanks to this question we will keep this on the top of our minds and will definitely not be losing any tiles.

Zhou: At Thai Kitchen III today (my favorite place in the world), I told Kathleen and Katie that I would eat mango sticky rice EVERY DAY when we go to Thailand. Kathleen then asked, "What if mango sticky rice isn't actually Thai?" Silence followed. This thought had never occurred to me - what if mango sticky rice isn't actually Thai? So I ignored her. Do you see the connection here? Two totally inconceivable ideas! I will ignore them.

Bahamas / Charleston

2) Have you even SEEN "Twins"?

Kevin: No, I have only ever seen one movie, but I watch it every day.

Zhou: Is that the one where Arnold is pregnant and has a baby?

3) Are there any personal goals to be met along the trip (like Kevin eating a certain number of new foods or Zhou growing an inch)?

Zhou: I could not have said it better myself. Just TWO fruits, that's all I'm asking for. And really, it's not asking much, especially in relation to the number of fruits Kevin has NEVER eaten (approximately a bajillion). I mean, the man only eats red delicious apples (not granny smith, not yellow, not just plain red, but red DELICIOUS) and canned pears, which are not a true fruit, as they have been CANNED. IN SYRUP. Is it really too much to ask for the occasional orange or strawberry? Kevin, STRAWBERRIES ARE DELICIOUS!

Anyway. The question asked about personal goals, and although Kevin is my own personal project, he's not my person. One of my own personal goals is to learn to be less anxious and not worry about things that are out of my control, like flat tires or how long it takes for Kevin to write a blog post or getting eaten by a rhinoceros. I think if I can go through the entire trip without hyperventilating once, it'll be a success. I also want to take some amazing pictures with my cool new camera so when we (eventually) come back, we can decorate an apartment with them. And I would like to score 600 points by myself in a game of Scrabble.

Kevin: Who needs fruit when Skyline perfected a little piece of heaven called the chili dog? My #1 goal would be to open a Skyline franchise everywhere we'll be going, that way I will never go hungry. This seems a bit impractical, so in all honesty, one of my main goals is to become less picky about the foods I'll eat. I'm sure this won't be easy, so Zhou, don't get your hopes up just because I said I'll try. (Zhou: Awww - he wants to try! I am marrying the right guy!)

Another goal of mine is to meet as many people as possible. I've heard that you can make lasting friendships from trips like this (we will be spending 46 days in a bus on the African Serengeti with a group of random strangers), and it can never hurt to have a good set of backup long-distance friends in case your strange quirks get on your short-distance friends' nerves.

I would also like to get a bridge in Hungary named after me and have it stick. I would like to help a less fortunate stranger along the way. I would like to remember as many experiences as possible and use this knowledge to win on Jeopardy! Less ambitiously than Zhou, I would like to score 500 in Scrabble, but I would like to do it in front of the Pyramids. And most of all, I would like to find one thing that I'm better at than anyone else in the world and then do it for a living.

4) What animal are you most excited to see on the safari?

Kevin: Besides the turkey in my lunch sandwiches (fingers crossed that we eat somewhat normal food), I'm definitely looking forward to roaring with the lions, racing the cheetahs, laughing with the hyenas and tickling the giraffes. Wow, now that I think this through, I'm pretty much excited to see everything. I've never been out of North America, so anything more exotic than a white-tailed deer or a pigeon seems really awesome. However, if I had to pick just one animal, I'd go with a lion with a really long mane.

Zhou: Definitely giraffes. Giraffes are so cool with their long long necks and really long tongues. And also lions - I always had a crush on JTT. And anything baby. Baby animals are adorable and make me go "awwww!" in that high-pitched squeal-y voice that is so embarrassing (to Kevin). Except baby rhinos (see above), as they can eat you. Or gore you with their sharp sharp baby horns.

5) Without rambling on forever, what were you thinking of doing in Johannesburg?

Zhou: Whatever the good people at Acacia African Adventures have planned out for us. I'm not certain, but it probably involves eating watermelon.

Kevin: From what I've heard, we're just going to do our best to survive the one night that we will be in the city. If we had a little more time, I'd like to visit the Dave Matthews museum or the Ernie Els "What Happened to My Career?" Pit. Sorry though, we won't have much time to explore.

6) Approximately how long are you staying at each place?

Kevin: It varies from place to place, but I'd say the length of stay at each location is a direct function of two factors: price and how cool we think the place is. For example, Japan costs a crap-load (presumably because of the butt washers on the toilets) and will be downright frigid, so we'll stay there less than a week. On the other hand, Chile and Argentina are relatively inexpensive and seem pretty darn awesome, so we'll spend about a month traveling back and forth between the two.

When we originally planned the trip, we had heard to save costs it would be easiest to stay at each location for at least a couple of weeks. This way we could rent a place and do more of our own cooking. However, we decided that the world is too big a place to settle down in just ten locations, so we decided our #1 priority would be seeing as many places as we can.

Zhou: Also, we are trying NOT to do two travel days in a row. The longest we're staying in one country is probably Nepal (almost four weeks), and the shortest is Singapore (three days). We've given ourselves a couple of breaks to regroup and be lazy and catch up on the blog - like China (two weeks) and Sydney (two and a half weeks).

7) Where are you most worried about not wanting to leave?

Zhou: For me, it's Southeast Asia. I've heard so many wonderful things about Thailand and Vietnam. I'm just not sure if I'll be able to leave the clear water and sandy beaches and mounds and mounds of mango sticky rice. I am a bit worried that we're trying to squeeze in too much by doing Southeast Asia in just a month.

Kevin: I don't think it will be the safari because 46 days is already a really long time. And I've heard it won't be Easter Island, because apparently there's only about two days worth of stuff to do there. My guess is that I will want to spend more time in New Zealand - price was definitely the limiting factor there, otherwise we would have probably set aside another week. As we currently have it scheduled, we will spend a week doing things such as skydiving, paragliding and rafting, and a week walking the Milford Track, supposedly home of the most scenic views in the world. By the time we're done with these activities, we'll probably be broke and will spend most of our time on Easter Island begging for money.

8) Are you (Zhou) going to be okay with not showering every day? (Just accept it if you haven't already.) Is Kevin going to be okay with Zhou not showering every day? Is Kevin going to be okay with Zhou not shaving her legs as often?

Zhou: (1) Yes, as long as my fingernails are clean. I can't stand the feeling of dirt under my fingernails. (2) I don't shower every day already, and he still loves me, right Kev? RIGHT? (3) Kevin would love me even if I turned into a hairy beast. RIGHT KEV?

Kevin: My only criteria for choosing a round-the-world travel partner is that she showers weekly in the States, so Zhou is more than qualified. As far as the leg hair thing, a similar question was brought up in a game of "Would You Rather?" that we played one afternoon at work. "If your wife had to wear shorts and a tank top for the rest of her life, would you rather her have uncontrollable armpit hair or leg hair?" I was in the majority who thought you could blend the armpit hair in with the hair on her head, so that wouldn't be nearly as bad as the forest of leg hair. However, Zhou's leg hair grows about as fast as my facial hair (read: it doesn't grow), so I will love her regardless.

I know this wasn't part of the question, but as far as my own cleanliness, I hope to brush and floss at least every day, since the dentist said I have receding gums (and receding gums are the leading cause of death among people my age). On the shower front, I'm actually looking forward to our trip being an excuse for me not to shower.

9) What about adding New Orleans to your itinerary?

Zhou: If only!

Kevin: Not a chance. This is a round-the-world trip, and "world" clearly only refers to anywhere but North America.

10) Why are you so cute?

Zhou: My momma made me that way. Thanks mom!

Kevin: Well, my grandfather was Swedish and my grandmother was a bunny rabbit. (Anyone? Bueller?)
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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

Popular Song VQs From the Year 2000:
TSGRTDYTBLV
PSDDTGN
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Scrabble Games: 36 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 20; 363; 401; SOLVInG
Kevin WPLB: 16; 364; 390; DEnIZEN, DONATER

Recipe for a Round-the-World Trip

2009-03-29T20:15:00.001-04:00

[Editor's note: Next week, we will be doing a special joint Q&A post. Please email us or respond in the comments below with any burning questions you'd like to ask (about the trip, or about whatever you want). If you don't, Zhou will be very sad and Kevin will have to make up the questions himself, which would make Zhou apprehensive AND sad.]

The short version:
1. Save money
2. Figure out where you want to go
3. Research tickets
4. Buy tickets
5. Research and buy gear
6. Quit job
7. Get shots
8. Get visas
9. Get married (optional)
10. Pack and leave

The long version:
1. Save money
There's an analyst in my group who keeps a spreadsheet, which he updates every day, of how much money he's spent and how many calories he's eaten. He called me over earlier this year and showed me the (unholy!) amount of money he spent in 2008 that made up his "going out" pie piece. Let's just say it wasn't more than I had paid in rent all year, but it was definitely in the same zip code. Luckily for us, Kevin and I are ~~giant nerds~~ ~~boring people~~ pretty happy people who are easily amused by a sub-par movie or a rousing game of Scrabble (I can't believe I just used the word "rousing" to describe a board game). Anyway, we're fortunate to have been able to save enough money to be able to go on this trip. Granted, we have been eating a lot of ramen lately. Just kidding, Mom! We have eaten a vegetable or two. Below is a nice graph (complete in Wachovia standard colors) that Kevin made of our budget. The reason the South America piece is so big is because we're planning on doing the Galapagos Islands (not cheap) and a stay in the Amazon rainforest (also not cheap). Also, here's a nifty calculator that I used to help come up with our budgets per country.

2. Figure out where you want to go
This one was a bit tricky. With the help of this book, Kevin and I made a list of countries we wanted to visit and put them into four tiers: must go, would like to go, would go if on the way, and wouldn't go to even if you paid us (Kevin: like the forest with the big rats in "The Princess Bride" or Pittsburgh). We then made places we might never get a chance to go to again (like Easter Island) a higher priority than more accessible places (like Europe), and in that I think we succeeded. The main exception: Antarctica is still a maybe. (Kevin says if his ESPN bracket wins the country, we can go! Unfortunately, this does not look likely.) We also tried to avoid rainy seasons and really cold or hot weather. Alas, even with me at the helm of the planning boat, things can't be perfect. We're skipping at least one of our "must go" places, and we're going to Japan in January and Egypt in July.

3. Research tickets
There are lots and lots of other people who advocate buying your plane tickets as you go - and I can understand that. Sort of. But as we aren't going that route, I'll go ahead and let them talk about the merits of "spontaneity" and "flexibility" (not that there's anything wrong with being spontaneous, it's just that the closest I can manage to come to that is "planned spontaneity"). We chose to buy round-the-world (RTW) tickets instead of buying as we go. There are a few different airline alliances you can buy a RTW ticket from. We chose OneWorld (Star Alliance is the biggest; you can read about them and others here), mainly because they offer a ticket based on continents visited, rather than miles traveled, and they have a fairly expansive network. All other RTW tickets (that I know of) price their tickets by miles traveled, which can make it difficult to zigzag between the northern and southern hemispheres and stay within your mileage restriction. With the routes Kevin and I were thinking of, it made a lot more sense to buy a 5-continent ticket from OneWorld instead, skipping North America (they don't fly to Antarctica).

The way the ticket works is this: you plan a route, using the cities that your particular airline alliance flies to (this means we'll be on a LOT of buses in South America. And Southeast Asia. And Africa). You are limited to 16 stops, four stops max per continent. You must cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans exactly once each. I don't see what other way there is to go around the world, but for whatever reason that's listed as one of the rules. There are lots of other rules, but you get the idea. The good thing about the RTW ticket is that you can leave all your flight dates (except the first) open-ended (see, planned spontaneity in action!), so if you decide to stay somewhere a bit longer than you first intended, you just call up American Airlines and ask them to put you on a flight later that week or later that month, no charge. But you can't make changes to the cities you're flying to or change your first date without paying a fee.

4. Buy tickets.
We decided to buy our RTW tickets starting in London (in conjunction with a one-way ticket to London) because it cut out a continent, which saved us money - and, for whatever reason, the tickets are cheaper if you buy your ticket in the UK ($2,500ish, depending on the exchange rate, from the UK v. $4,590 from the US for the 5-continent ticket). I don't know why the price discrepancy exists, but I'm sure I'll figure it out after grad school. I believe it has something to do with elasticity of demand. On second thought, maybe not. Anyway. The actual process of buying the tickets turned out to be a lot more difficult than I originally thought, until I figured out one important thing: not all of the ticketing agents know all of the rules. So if one disagrees with you and tries to tell you that you "have to fly American on one of these flights, or you can't book it with us" or that you "have to call British Airways, since they're the carrier of your first leg " or that you "have to pay the higher fare of the UK and US fares," don't listen. Just thank them politely, hang up, wait two minutes and call back. Trust me on this one. I finally figured this out after a few hours on hold and some, shall we say, "spirited debate" with various ticketing agents. Our RTW tickets ended up costing a little less than $3,000 each, including taxes and fees, which I think is pretty stellar (book your own tickets here).

There's an embarrassing story to be told here about one of us carelessly booking the tickets with the incorrect first date, and having to call and get the first date changed, which was a $250 fee per ticket... Luckily, the exchange rate had fluctuated so that when they re-priced our tickets, we ended up getting a refund. So everything ended up being ok. I won't tell you who stupidly didn't triple check the date before booking the tickets, but I will tell you the other person was extremely gracious about it and didn't even blame or make fun of her. I mean them.

5. Research and buy gear
Kevin has already mentioned some of the gear that we've bought for our trip, so I won't get in to much detail here. Our goal is to be able to carry everything on the plane with us. This self-imposed restriction means we will be wearing the exact same outfits in every single picture. I know this will seem sketchy and Photoshop-y, but I promise we really are going! We are modeling our packing list based on these two lists. Our most recent purchase was two headlamps, one of which I tried on yesterday - very stylish and practical, all in one headpiece. I'm really not clear as to how I lived without one before. It makes me want to go spelunking.

6. Quit job
This clearly doesn't apply to you if your job is to travel around the world and dance awkwardly. Or if this is your job. As for the rest of you, I don't have any specific advice as to how to go about quitting your job (Kevin and I are both on 2-year contracts), but these girls do.

7. Get shots.
[Kevin wants me to specify here that the shots we are referring to are the kind where they stick a needle in your arm. What other kind of shots are there?] We went to a travel clinic for ours, and they were really helpful. All you have to do is tell them where you're going, and they tell you what you need (we took their word for it). We ended up with seven shots in three sore arms. We also got malaria pills and pills for what some people euphemistically refer to as Delhi belly or Montezuma's revenge. I've read that some community health clinics offer immunizations at cost, so if you know what you need, that would also be a good place to go.

8. Get visas
[Kevin wanted to insert a joke here about American Express not being everywhere you want to be, but I nixed that idea.] Getting visas is another one of those little things you have to do that ends up being more complicated than you think. Different countries have different requirements, which seem to be constantly changing. Because our trip is so long and visas usually have a shelf life of a half year or less, we will be getting a few beforehand and a few along the way. Funnily enough, I still don't know what a visa actually looks like. I used to think it was a stamp in your passport, but after reading more about them, I think they're actually pieces of paper. I imagine them as those certificates they give you in elementary school for completing D.A.R.E. Remember, just say no!

9. Get married (optional)
Getting married gives you the perfect excuse to take a RTW trip (it's our honeymoon!), but that's not the reason we're doing it, right Kev?

10. Pack and leave
Five months and 12 days until we leave!!!

[Don't forget to submit questions for next week's post!]
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Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):
Today we have a new kind of puzzle. It is called "Better Chargers" (or "Letter Changers"). To solve the puzzle, change one letter in each word to come up with a well-known phrase. [Remember, we are not sending out postcards anymore until the trip starts, but the person who gets the most puzzles correct by September will get to write a guest post on whatever they want! Is that enough encouragement?]

Today's Yummy Better Charger:
Get they bat cage!
East is pig.
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Scrabble Games: 36 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 20; 363; 401; SOLVInG
Kevin WPLB: 16; 364; 390; DEnIZEN, DONATER

It Depends on Your Definition of Memorable

2009-03-22T20:32:00.002-04:00

I remember one day back in elementary school where I was standing in line next to this tall guy in the grade above me. He was talking to his friends in front of him, and I was most likely doing simple multiplication on my abacus, since that's what I do. Anyway, I remember he turned around and asked me to look at my fingernails. "Why should I do that?" I wondered. Apparently it was some experiment he was doing, and since it didn't seem like that big of a deal, I turned my hand over and took a look. As soon as I did so, he bellowed (I've always wanted to use the word bellow in a blog post), "That's how girls do it!" He then explained to me that guys curl their fingers into their palms to look at their nails, whereas girls turn their entire hand over. Now that I'm engaged, I realize that this is so girls can easily slide a ring onto their finger, while guys need to be prepared at all times to throw a punch, even when looking at their fingernails.

The moral of this story is that we all go through experiences in life that drastically change who we are. The experiences come in all shapes and sizes - from unforgettable occurrences like what happened to me in line that day, to situations that may be easily overlooked if you're not careful, like traveling the world for a year. In order to prevent this next year from going by unnoticed, today we will write about one activity in each continent that will leave a lasting impact on our lives.

Africa: One of the very first adventures that we will embark on is a gorilla trek. (This is much different than a Gorillaz Track, although I'll hopefully always remember both.) Early two Ugandan mornings we will wake up and follow two guys with guns and knives to hunt endangered African gorillas. We will swiftly forage through the forest in search of the gorillas, and once we find them, we will get as close as possible and shoot... pictures of them with our cameras.

At first glance, looking at gorillas up close doesn't seem all that life-changing, since it combines sitting and being quiet with going to the zoo. However, apparently it is. (Side note: the previous link takes you to a blog post from www.thirteenmonths.com, which is pretty much our inspiration for a lot of this trip. The only difference is that they were a traveling inter-racial couple, and I'm an inter-racial couple all by myself.) After all, not everyone's lucky enough to hang out with 400-pound behemoths all day like Inigo Montoya.

Asia: Our next life-changing moment comes in Nepal, on the Annapurna Circuit Trek. This is a 180-mile jaunt through the Himalayan Mountains, spread out over 20 days. The main reason that this will be life-changing is that unless we find a car 10 miles into the trip, we might be dead afterwards. I probably don't walk 180 miles in a year, let alone three weeks. However, the views are supposed to be amazing, and we hear that the huts we will stay in each night are dirt cheap (we pay with dirt we find on the trail). If you're interested in doing this trip before we can give you advice, we recommend this site for tips. Otherwise, feel free to come join us (Matt) and you too might be able to see a dog with dreds.

(courtesy of Lucas & Jacqui)

Australia: Soon after Nepal we'll make our way south to 13,000 feet above New Zealand for our next memorable experience. And I use the term "we" loosely. Zhou may or may not join in on our New Zealand skydive, so if you've ever been and have a strong recommendation for her, please let us know. From what I've seen of skydiving though, this experience will be memorable because it's the only time our mouths will ever look like Julia Roberts'.

Honestly though, I think that getting pushed out of that plane will be one of the two times on this trip where I may wet my pants (washing them at the halfway point of the trip being the other). This is the one thing I feel least prepared for, as the closest thing I've ever done to skydiving would probably have to be thigh driving (when you've ordered chinese food to go and need both your hands to eat, all you can do is jam your thighs against the wheel and hope they take you to your destination). The good thing is, now that I've blogged about it, I can't back out.

South America: Our next arbitrarily chosen experience is touring the salt flats (Salar de Uyuni) in Bolivia. This is where Salvador Dali is said to have gotten his inspiration, so Zhou and I both expect to see melting clocks and monsters with eyelashes.

"The Persistence of Memory"

I think what intrigues me most about this location is the thought of 4,000 square miles of vast expanse (not to mention all the salt you could ever eat). Zhou and I come from jobs where the only times you'd ever use the number 4,000 are when counting laid off bankers or wasted tons of paper per day. So the thought of that much space - just wide open space - boggles the mind. And to top it all off, we might even be able to break the land speed record for a person who's never seen Top Gun carrying a person who's not sure why the third hand on a watch is called the "second" hand.

Europe: Here we will see the famous European pyramids, as according to our round-the-world travel tickets, Egypt is a part of Europe. The most memorable part of this experience will be that we will actually get to see the pyramids, rather than cutting and pasting ourselves into a picture of them, like me and my brother have done:

The pyramids are the only wonder of the world where I actually know the location (unless you count my poster of Michael Jordan, the "eighth wonder of the world"). Of the seemingly infinite number of places there are in the world, to be visiting one of the top seven seems pretty special.

[Editor's Note: If you'd like to join us for any or all of our trip, please do! We will be keeping an up-to-date itinerary here, also accessible from the "Itinerary" link on the right. If you have any questions about timing or life in general (answer: a hen weighs about six or seven pounds), feel free to email at k.curry4[at]gmail[dot]com.]
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Puzzles for Postcards:
For the first time, we have an unsolved anagram, so Zhou and I decided it's best to repost the same puzzle with a more helpful clue. However, as threatened earlier, if the anagram goes unsolved we will angrily burn the postcard and try a new puzzle. Please don't let this happen, because we don't want to add the trash can to our list of winners.

Don't Get Spaghetti Strings and Solve this Carlin Anagram:

"Why did the ninth spy get tan pots? He wanted to test ten tags!"
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Scrabble Games: 34 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 19; 364; 403; WINTERER, DErMISES, ABETtING
Kevin WPLB: 15; 364; 382; STRIPPED, BEASTIAL*
(Zhou: I'd just like to say that I actually know bestial is spelled bestial, not beastial, but Kevin distracted me with his come-hither look.)

Bear Grylls Split an Atom with His Bare Hands

2009-03-15T20:52:00.001-04:00

[Editor's note: this day is a sad day for us, as it is the last Selection Sunday that we will get to enjoy for the next two years. This got me thinking - the five days that we collectively will miss most next year are, in no particular order: Selection Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, Pi Day, April Fools' Day and Christmas.]

When I was little, I thought someday my life would be like that of Ken Griffey Jr. or Chris Sabo. My brother and I even used to dress up as them for Halloween, and most days in the summer. (I'm guessing Zhou did the same thing, although I have yet to see the pictures.) I think we did this so we could understand exactly how they felt as they wore their jerseys from door to door asking for candy. (As an aside, below is what Zhou and I now look like, with our friend Jing / Dot.)

But years passed, dreams died and reality set in. And over the past couple of months, I have finally figured out whose path I will follow. Zhou, if you're reading this, sorry to break the news to you this way, but it looks like we're heading down the path of Bear Grylls and Les Stroud.

For those of you who know nothing more than that Bear has a ridiculously awesome name and Les could be the punch line to the joke "What was the man after he dropped his shorts?" then please go turn on Discovery Channel right now. Fast forward through Dirty Jobs and Wreckreation Nation (you can do that these days, right?) and head straight for Man vs. Wild and Survivorman.

Man vs. Wild is a show about a man (Bear Grylls) and the wild (desolate locations around the world). Bear lives up to his name - he climbs down waterfalls, through bat-infested caverns, under massive glaciers... wherever his carefully planned out show takes him. He also eats everything imaginable, from live frogs and scorpions to bear poop and animal carcasses (I guess Zhou will have to be Bear). The only downfall to his show is that a camera crew follows him everywhere he goes, making one wonder how cool a show about his camera crew would be.

Survivorman is a show about a man (Les Stroud) and the wild (desolate locations around the world). Les lives up to his name - he does everything a little less dramatically than Bear. However, in a way he is more impressive, as he is stranded alone for a week with with pretty much nothing more than his camera gear, and he is an accomplished harmonica player (harmonican?).

Thoroughly hooked on these shows now, I feel that I have seen every location on earth, and they all have one thing in common: they are bleak and isolated, and without the right survival techniques, you'll be lucky to make it out alive. With this new knowledge, Zhou and I have two choices: cancel our trip or get the right survival techniques. And since we have already spent a quarter of our budget for next year, we're not canceling our trip. So the DVR is stocked full of our two new favorite shows (no, not Tool Academy and For the Love of Ray J), and we're taking notes.

One thing I've noticed is that it doesn't take a trip around the world to conform to the ways of Bear and Les. For instance, I cooked spaghetti the other day. When the noodles looked about ready, I pulled one of the more wriggly ones out of the pot and attempted to bite off the end as if it were a live snake. With an awful grimace, I forced the snake / noodle down, pausing as I finished to tell no one in particular, "Yech, that was horrible, but full of the protein I need to survive in these rugged conditions."

Lack of food isn't the only danger we will face as we fly Cathay Pacific from one foreboding location to the next. We will also encounter many bears. One of the most important things we've learned is that not all bears should be treated the same way. Grizzly bears will ignore you and let you be as long as you are quiet. However, they will most certainly eat you and your loved ones if you make any sudden movements or noises. Black bears, on the other hand, are scared of noise. Make as big of a ruckus as you can and they will run away, but act stealthy and they will rip you to shreds. Wait, maybe I have the two reversed... but that's beside the point. The point is, bear safety is key and you need the right survival techniques to avoid disaster.

While we're not fighting bears, we'll be sending postcards (and making smooth transitions into the next paragraph), so with that...
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Puzzles for Postcards:
Although a bit easy, the VQ seemed to go over well and we will begin working it into the rotation. However, we are running out of Charlotte postcards, and we are sure you're running out of eagerness to receive Charlotte postcards. So after this week, we have decided to vary up the game a little until we leave. From our next post until September, the person who solves the most puzzles will get to write a guest blog entry if he/she so chooses. (Please remember that this blog will be one of the hottest things on the internet by September, and you will therefore be famous.) In addition, we will continue adding your name to the list of winners. In the meantime, our final postcard for the time being will be sent to whomever solves the following:

It's Safe to Say "Seven Dirty Words" is Funnier Than This Anagram:

"Why did the ninth spy get tan pots? He wanted to test ten tags!"
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Scrabble Games: 28 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 15; 359; 401; STUNTEd, WEDGIES
Kevin WPLB: 13; 366; 359; RETINAL

Charlie the Wonder Hamster

2009-03-08T21:05:00.000-04:00

In his last post, Kevin made it sound like I am a crazy person. And while it's true that I sometimes make up songs about Charlie (the latest sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle," the lyrics too embarrassing to disclose here), Kevin failed to mention that he often picks Charlie up by her front legs and forces her to do something he has dubbed "the Charlie Dance." He walks her around like a little puppet while singing, "Charlie, Charlie, Charlie the wonder hamster..." to the tune of "Harvey the Wonder Hamster." He insists that she likes doing the Charlie Dance, but I think the expression on her little face indicates a feeling more along the lines of pained resignation. I mean, there's not much a 6.1 pound dog can do under those circumstances.

[Random aside: twice in the last month, I have come home to a sheepish-looking Charlie and a lollipop wrapper and lollipop stick on the ground. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the lollipop itself went, especially when Charlie's breath smelled like cappuccino. We have since moved the lollipops from the coffee table to the kitchen counter.]

Also in his last post, Kevin portrayed me as a rigid, exacting person who has to plan out every single minute of our trip and will throw a tantrum when anything doesn't go exactly according to plan. I don't appreciate that description of me as it is completely untrue. In fact, I have included several periods of "unstructured fun" in the daily schedules. And when we're not having lots of structured (and sometimes unstructured, depending on the time of day) fun, I hope that we will be eating lots and lots of yummy food. Especially mango sticky rice. I will be sorely disappointed if I can't add at least two fruits to Kevin's repertoire over the next year and a half. Hopefully one of them is watermelon. I mean, really, how can anyone not like watermelon? It's delicious! What is there not to like?! The taste of watermelon is totally inoffensive!

But I digress. This post was supposed to be my list of things that I'll miss while on the road. But I had to qualify all those things Kevin said about me. And you can see how me having to qualify Kevin's statements about the crazy things I do could lead to me talking about how I wish Kevin would eat watermelon...can't you? ...

Things I will miss while on the road:
1. Reading the Modern Love column from the New York Times on Mondays.
2. Walking home from work indoors.
3. The way Charlie drags all of the toys out of her bin one by one.
4. My paycheck being deposited into my checking account automatically.
5. Getting a paycheck.
6. Ribs from Mac's.
7. Sweet potato fries from Big Daddy's.
8. Simon Cowell. And Randy. But probably not Paula, and definitely not Kara.
9. Lying on the couch while watching tv on the weekends. And resting my eyes. And if I end up falling asleep, then so be it!
10. Checking out books from the library (and occasionally reading them).
11. Taking showers every day. (When Kevin first read this, he protested, "But you don't take showers every day!" True. I don't. But he misses the point - I could if I wanted to!)
12. Ordering things online.
13. Extreme Plyo class on Tuesday mornings.
14. Cooking.
15. Trader Joe's chocolate covered pretzels. Mmmm.
16. My homemade yogurt/blueberry/granola breakfast parfaits. Note: these are three things that Kevin does not eat. Yet.
17. Watching Charlie army crawl around the other dogs at the dog park because she's too wimpy to play with them.

Things I will not miss while on the road:
1. Working.
2. Listening to the people on CNBC say "the Dow hasn't been this low since [dinosaurs roamed the earth/"Barbie Girl" was a hit song/those shiny pogs came out and everyone had them except for people whose moms wouldn't buy them because it was a waste of money - but I'm not bitter]."
3. Doing the dishes.
4. Watching Bernanke testify in Congress every day, and saying to no one in particular, "Hey, Bernanke used to be on my high school's board!" and no one caring. I'm still shocked that no one is impressed by that. I just don't get it. I'm still impressed by that, and I found out months ago.
5. Exreme Plyo class on Tuesday mornings.

There you have it.

So I had been thinking of a way to end this post for a few days now, but I couldn't think of one, so I went back to Kevin's list-of-things-he'll-miss post for inspiration, and lo and behold! (You know, I wish people would say "lo and behold!" in real life.) I noticed that Kevin also ended with "There you have it." Obviously, this could mean a few different things:
1. I subconsciously copied him.
2. We have been together so long that we are starting to become the same person.
3. He looked into the future and stole the way I am ending my post but didn't tell me so that I wouldn't accuse him of being a copycat.
4. I secretly enjoyed making these lists so much that I wanted an excuse to make another one.

The only possibility I can rule out with any certainty is number two, as I have definitely not grown at all since Kevin and I started dating. In fact, I may be a teensy bit shorter. Anyway, as I have obviously still not thought of a good way to end this post, I'll leave you with this - a list of things that we (Kevin, Naz and I) call Charlie, in no particular order:
1. Chuck
2. You little..!
3. Punkin
4. Honey
5. Cutie (Patootie/Pie)
6. Harvey
7. Charlie
8. Murphy
9. Charlie Barley
10. Sweetie (Pie)
11. Charles

Ok, so I do like making lists. Is that so wrong?
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards:
We'll try something new with today's puzzle and see if we can work it into the rotation. We'll give you two famous related quotes with all the vowels and punctuation removed (VQs), and your goal is to respond with the quote. In addition, as further incentive we are now going to keep a list of past winners - hopefully we'll see your name here soon!

Build Me Up! VQs From a 1987 Movie Classic:
1) MYNMSNGMNTY
2) NCNCVBL
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 20 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 11; 362; 486; InVOlVES, MANGOES
Kevin WPLB: 9; 359; 306; COASTER

Note: Zhou played InVOlVES on the triple triple for 158 points!

Pocket Protectors and Minesweeper

2009-03-01T22:17:00.008-05:00

People sometimes ask how one adjusts to life out of a suitcase and then back to the real world again. They don't ask me, clearly, but I'm sure that this question has been asked. If this inquiry was directed in my vicinity though, I would take it and turn it into a blog post. Kind of like this one.

I think that Zhou and I fit two different molds as it relates to world travel: (1) people who enjoy the experiences rather than possessions and (2) people who are way too structured / organized to even think about taking a year off and fly by the seat of their pants:

(that's my uncle)

My typical weekday morning goes something like this:
6:23 - wake up (no snoozes, thanks to this guy)
6:25 - brush teeth and take vitamin (Target brand, to save money)
6:34 - head to gym (crazy, I just recently became a morning person)
6:44 - pushups / crunches / stretch (I can now touch my toes!)
6:55 - basketball (show off my reverse jams)
8:00 - make and eat breakfast (either oatmeal or bagel / eggs, always with applesauce and milk)
8:31 - shower
8:42 - change (while watching DVRed Sportscenter top plays)
9:08 - work

I'd like to think there's some variation to the schedule, but other than choosing whether to eat oatmeal or not, there really isn't. And that's the way I like it.

And then there's Zhou. To sum up, I once caught her sweeping the floor, then washing it, then sweeping it again. And the next day for good measure, she swept it one more time. (Don't tell her I told you this - I'll get in big trouble.)

In light of this, I honestly sometimes wonder if we'll be able to fend for ourselves out in the world. And as much as I love my dad, I just can't picture him Liam Neesoning people the way Liam Neeson does when his kid is in trouble overseas. But then I see that terrible Denny's Nanerpus commercial one more time and I realize that I need to get out of this country and not return until that commercial has run its course.

So in order to keep sane while leading a completely unstructured, almost chaotic, lifestyle from September 2009 to July 2010, we will need to KevinandZhou-atize it as much as possible. Harkening back to an earlier post, we started by making a daily schedule of every last day that we'll be traveling. An example:

12/15/09: Thailand. Bangkok (Grand Palace - Emerald Buddha), overnight bus to Chiang Mai
12/16/09: Thailand. Chiang Mai (Flight of the Gibbons), overnight bus to Bangkok
...
6/24/10: Switzerland. Zurich (electric train to Uetliberg, tour at Felsenegg)
6/25/10: Switzerland. Zurich (bike from Seebach station through the forest to Katzenruti, picnic, then to Katzensee, then back to Affoltern)

Might seem a little over-the-top to a lot of people, but planning our days out over 15 months from now is just another thing everyone loves about Kevin and Zhou. (Right? Anyone? Bueller?)

Another thing that we've decided to do is create statistics from the trip. Everytime we board a bus, we'll start a timer, and every time we get off, we'll stop the timer. And if we get a better stopwatch than John Candy in Cool Runnings, we'll document the results in Excel. Since we're timing our bus rides, we might as well time our train rides too. Oh, and planes. And probably taxis. The good part is, everyone will be interested in these statistics, and I'm sure will be waiting anxiously for the results to come in. (Right? Anyone? Bueller?)

Not everything we do will be able to be quantified or organized or planned out though. I think a big reason for this trip though is to get Zhou and me out of our comfort zones (Survivor and canned pears for me, naps and making up songs about Charlie for her) and into new and exciting situations. I will try to stop worrying about getting my new jacket wet or new shoes muddy. Zhou will have to learn that no matter how many times you sweep the Serengeti, it will remain dusty.

Of course, when we return to the States, we'll fall back into our anal ways. We're not trying to change the world...

This post was a little bit nerdy, and I apologize for that. I realized halfway through that I was heading down a path that was going to get my suspenders snapped and my head dunked in a toilet. So to make up for that, I think it's best that we finish with a mind-bending puzzle and the usual Scrabble summary. Since there was a winner from last post's puzzle (Hadley, your postcard's not quite in the mail yet but it should be shortly), here comes a completely new anagram.

The 43rd President's Response to a Millionaire Anagram:

"W: Treasury has inflation"
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 15 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 9; 367; 364; DOSsIER
Kevin WPLB: 6; 360; 341; LEAVENeR

And the Nominees Are...

2009-02-26T22:11:00.006-05:00

[Editor's note: after two months of very inconsistent posting, we will now make our best effort to post every weekend, whether or not we have something to say.]

Sorry, I'm back. And to further disappoint those fans who called demanding that Zhou take over the blog: by "I'm back," I'm referring to Kevin.

Today our goal is to disprove a common misconception about world travel. No, not the misconception that I'm bringing a full year's worth of chili dogs and applesauce to avoid having to try foreign food. (In fact, I have taken my first baby step toward preparing myself for vegetable curry and grasshopper legs: I tried a chewy chocolate chunk granola bar. And to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed it.) Instead we want to assure everyone that even though we will be traveling the world, you'll be having fun too.

When you think of hiking on glaciers in the southernmost city in the world, what comes to mind? Scenic views? Ice? Whatever it may be, I'm guessing it's not March Madness. However, if Zhou allows it, that will be in the back of my mind as we tour Patagonia. And more generally, if Zhou allows it, I/we will miss things back here in the States.

So with no further ado, I bring you my post about less-than-obvious things I will miss while traveling the world. Well, I guess there's a little further ado, because in honor of Oscar week (between me and Slumdog Millionaire, we now have eight combined Oscars) our presentation will be a la nominations at the Academy Awards.

And the nominees, in no particular order, are:

(1) That Lebron State Farm commercial. I'll be honest, I didn't know that it was a State Farm commercial until I looked it up just now, but that's not the point. There are so many things right with that commercial that I don't know where to begin. Lebron. The Browns. The fact that it's his first name on his jersey. The fact that it only comes on when I'm doing my favorite activity: watching TV. Not having this commercial in my life is a microcosm of other things I'll be missing.

(2) The glare-resistant setting on the rearview mirror. Do you ever feel like things are going well in life - great girlfriend, caring family and friends, living in the South, horrible job near a new Five Guys - but there's just something that's not quite right? I figured out what the something was one day two summers ago. The glare-resistant setting on the rearview mirror. And it's not because car headlights mysteriously and magically become dimmer when you flip it up. It's because that's how I knew that Zhou and I would be together forever. Her glare-resistant setting is the exact same as my normal setting and vice versa, so we never have to adjust the rearview. And every time I flip the mirror setting, it reminds me of that moment in my life that everything began to make sense.

(3) Settlers of Catan. It combines the awesomeness of Tom on Survivor with the strategery of Electronic Battleship and the ferocity of a lion on the prowl. Enough said. If only they figure out a way to have the settlers play Scrabble within the game...

(4) My Donato's coupon. I don't know how long I've had it and I don't remember where I got it, but it's worth $3 off my next pizza purchase at the best pizza chain I know. It reminds me of all things American - pizza, money and cheapness. Every time I think about getting a pizza, I think about using this coupon. And then I think about the budget Zhou and I are on, and I realize that chicken dumplings from Trader Joe's would be even cheaper. So while I eat my people's food, the coupon continues to sit on my desk reminding me of my home country.

(5) Tying my shoes on the escalator. My fingers shake, my palms sweat, my knees begin to wobble. What had seemed like a good idea (the escalator was so long!) just 30 seconds ago has now become a race against time. I swear I can tie a shoelace in less than 7 seconds, yet somehow I am now at the bottom of the escalator and my shoelace is even more untied than when I started. It all comes down to two choices: ditching the shoe as the lace inevitably gets caught under the escalator landing or manning up and getting my tie on. I think it's the thrill of the competition that I'll miss most...

There you have it. And again in the spirit of the Oscars, I'll give you, the Kevin and Zhou Academy, the chance to vote on the winner. If you have an opinion, please feel free to express it in the poll to your right.

One other thing Zhou and I have been considering adding to the blog is a new section called "Puzzles for Postcards." The idea is simple: we create a puzzle, and if you are the first to comment with the correct answer, you get a personalized, autographed (don't downplay the autographs - you'll want to hang onto those) postcard from wherever we are at that time. Don't expect the puzzles to be easy though, as most will be crazy anagrams that will take time to solve. If no one solves the puzzle, we will burn the postcard. You have been warned.

As a teaser of what is to come as we travel the world, here's the first puzzle. First one to respond with the anagrammed famous quote gets a postcard from... Charlotte!

1988 Olympics in Hollywood Anagram:

"Empty light
Trees hide limbs
The thief over my hut
Feeble"
________________________________________________

Games: 11 (full log)
Zhou wins; points per game; points last game; bingos last game (WPLB): 6; 365; 410; iNSTEAD, PRUNIER*
Kevin WPLB: 5; 365; 398; STAINER, StRAINER

Thai House Special: Zhou Zhang Curry

2009-02-15T21:38:00.005-05:00

The reason that I have yet to write a post for this blog has already been detailed in post #1 by Kevin. I know what's funny, even though I'm not funny myself, and Kevin knows what's pretty, even though he's not pretty himself.

However, we are both pretty competitive, which sometimes leads to a lot of sighs (me) and some tears (also me) when engaged in a particularly intense game of Scrabble. But that's another post altogether. So anyhow, that's why he has main blogging duties while I get to sit in front of the TV and watch "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" marathons (Colin had a puffy eye, but don't worry, it wasn't anything serious. Leah does not need glasses).

Anyway, this won't be quite as coherent as the last posts; instead, it's just going to be a list of some things that have been going on in our lives lately, some of it travel-related, some of it not.

(Note: when I told Kevin I was going to write an only-sort-of-travel-related post for the blog, he said, and I quoth, "this is scary, so vague.")

1. For those of you wondering how we decided to take a year off and travel, the answer is: I'm not sure. We had talked about it for awhile, but I can't remember how that started, and the next thing you know, I was calling my credit card company to ask for an increase in my credit line so I could afford to buy the plane tickets.

2. When I got out of the shower this morning, I was greeted by Charlie calmly chewing on a clean pair of underwear (mine, not hers, though she does have a couple of sweaters and a Santa hat) that she had tugged out of the bin from my closet.

3. After I told my dad that Kevin and I would get married before we went traveling around the world, he replied, "Good. In some countries, you should probably be married." Cryptic, no?

4. Last week, Kevin and I made some delicious green bean casserole a la Alton Brown. You should make some too. I would recommend substituting a stick of butter and half a cup of milk for the half and half. It's much fattier that way.

5. I've been thinking a lot lately about whether or not to change my name after Kevin and I get married. As my maid of honor so considerately said to me, "It sounds like a Thai special! Zhou Zhang Curry!" This was followed by unbridled laughter (her) and cringing (me). My roommate (who is also a bridesmaid, mind you) has a new favorite joke, which is, "Is that my curry? No, that Zhou curry!" This statement is also followed by uncontrolled laughter (her) and ridiculous grinning (Charlie). You can see I have some very supportive friends. Anyway, all joking aside, I am still on the fence on the whole name-changing issue, and I'd appreciate any thoughts on the subject. I thought I had pretty much decided to just stick with my own name, but I know I'd be sad to sign my name on my kids' permission slips when it wouldn't be the same as theirs.

6. Speaking of kids, Naz (roommate of "No, that's Zhou curry" fame) refers to me as "Mamma Zhou" when talking to Charlie. Kev, don't you think that sounds nice?

7. I'm a bit nervous about the prospect of the two of us indoorsy folks doing the Annapurna Circuit Trek in Nepal, which is a gazillion-mile trek (slight exaggeration). But I figure if things get really tough, we can just turn around and play Scrabble instead! (So I got my little butt kicked pretty badly in the last game we played, but don't worry, I'll be back...)
________________________________________________

Games: 8 (full log)
Zhou wins; points per game; points last game (WPL): 5; 359; 345
Kevin WPL: 3; 354; 479
Zhou Bingos last game: MENdERS (74)
Kevin Bingos last game: PrEHEAT (78)

There is Nothing to Fear But Gear Itself

2009-02-08T22:02:00.021-05:00

Michael Jordan. George Foreman. Doug E. Doug. All three have revolutionized their respective professions. Are they more talented than you or I? Not a chance. They have done what they've done because of one thing: gear.

Think about it. Where would MJ be without his trusty Air Jordan sneakers? What about GF without his infamous "lean, mean grilling machine?" And DED would never have been "Sanka Coffee, pushcart champion" without those three kids and the Rasta Rockett.

Obviously then, traveling around the world with poor gear could be the difference between, well, a fun trip around the world with good gear and a fun trip around the world with not-so-good gear. So gear up and enjoy our post.

Zhou and I are what some would probably call indoorsy. I couldn't tell you the last time I went camping. Oh wait, yes I could. It was before freshman year of college at Squirrel Camp. (Vanderbilt had a lot of squirrels running around campus, so they named a freshman orientation after them. But they didn't name anything after the plethora of girls wearing way too much make up.) The camping was miserable. I think I might have vowed never to do it again.

Zhou, on the other hand, didn't go to Squirrel Camp. I did catch her looking out a window once though. So she knows the outdoors exist.

So here we are, two non-traveling, non-camping troglodytes (yes, I knew that was a word myself, and then I looked it up and realized it sort of fits this sentence). Choosing what to pack seemed like quite a task. Let's start with the basics.

Microsoft Excel.

We made an Excel spreadsheet of our entire trip - the budget, the daily agendas, what visas we'd need, what immunizations we'd need, the Eurail schedule, what to pack, etc. Zhou spent countless hours researching different online sites (a favorite) on trips such as our own, and I spent countful hours cheering Zhou on. Once we'd come up with a complete list of what to pack, we started buying.

Clothes. We budgeted enough money to buy all new wardrobes for the year - we each get approximately four shirts, two pairs of pants, a jacket and some socks and underwear. From here, we began to live at REI, and constantly check steepandcheap for new deals. We each bought a jacket on the site (a Marmot and an Arcteryx), and we've now gone to REI on four consecutive weekends. I think the REI cashiers know us almost as well as Julian at Jason's Deli.

Packs. We'd each need one backpack for the trip. Thankfully, my parents got us started by researching (and buying) a great Osprey Porter 46 (46 liters of space) pack for me. (Tip: if you're sticking to a budget, don't hesitate to make an extra long Christmas list.) From there we figured the easiest way to size Zhou's pack would be a ratio: my weight to my pack size vs. her weight to her pack size. Since I hear it's not polite to go telling everyone a woman's weight, I'll just say this: we found that she would need a 4 liter pack. Since they don't make them that small, we got this.

Sleeping bags. This seemed so simple, yet when we actually dug in and did some research, we learned that there are actually more types of sleeping bags than there are people in the world. And if you're used to sleeping on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies, then the difference between 40 degree down and 20 degree synthetic seems insignificant. To narrow things down, we ended up prioritizing our needs in the following way:

1) Stuff size - how small the bag is when rolled up. Since we'll be living for a whole year out of about 5,000 cubic centimeters of pack space, we'll need small sleeping bags
2) Price - our budget did not originally account for sleeping bags, so we'd need to keep these somewhat cheap
3) Recommended temperature - honestly, we're not really sure what weather we'll encounter, but we decided if it's cold, we'll put more clothes on when we sleep

After a couple weeks of searching in between episodes of The Office, we settled on the Lafuma Warm'n Light 600. And take it from me (who's yet to actually sleep in the bag outdoors, or indoors for that matter), this is one quality bag. It just looks so nice.

Ok, now it's time for me to step off my gear soapbox and onto my, er, game shampoobox.

S=1, H=4, A=1, M=3, P=3, O=1, O=1, B=3, O=1, X=8. And when played on the triple word, you get... drumroll... 0 points. Shampoobox is not a word, but nice try.

Scrabble - everyone's favorite game. On Survivor, contestants usually get one personal item. If Zhou or I were on the show, it would be our travel Scrabble board. And that's why despite our space limitations and rather large size of the travel Scrabble case, we are not only bringing it with us, but also creating a section at the end of each blog post for a summary of our recent games. Our goal is to play Scrabble in all 32 countries we visit, including in front of sites such as Mount Everest, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu and the Great Pyramids.

Before I continue, there's a few things you need to know about Zhou and me (I was tempted to say Zhou and I, but realized that if I dropped the "Zhou and" that "I" made no sense). Our idea of fun is watching Jeopardy while solving calculus problems and eating buttered scones. So rather than think, "wow, I don't want to hear about their Scrabble games," just remember how much more boring we get.

And with that, I bring you Scrabble signoff number 1 (no, WPL is not an insider Scrabble acronym, but yes it does also stand for Westerville Public Library):
________________________________________________

Games: 1 (full log)
Zhou wins; points per game; points last game (WPL): 1; 369; 369
Kevin WPL: 0; 278; 278
Zhou Bingos last game: SWATHEd (85), READINGS (64)
Kevin Bingos last game: none

Hugs for a Dollar

2009-01-15T22:12:00.023-05:00

What could be better than taking a year off and traveling around the world?

The taste of Wendy's fries dipped in Frosty?
The smell of new shoes and bicycle tires?
The applause you get after finishing your 400 lb bench press?

While all of the above may be correct, the answer we were looking for is "taking a year off and traveling around the world for free." So that's what we plan to do. How, you might ask?

What if we give people hugs for a dollar? I assume you've seen the best movie of all time (if you haven't, stop reading NOW and go watch it). During one of the many - who am I kidding - all great scenes, Derice and Sanka set up a kissing booth to raise money to get to the Olympics. I'm somewhere from 10% - 100% sure that this is where Zhou got her inspired idea.

Since we are both math majors, we did a quick calculation. Wow, that would take a lot of hugs. What about five dollars per hug? The math was a little tougher, but we eventually calculated this would take 1/5 as many hugs. Still too many. There has to be another way.

Sponsorship!

Who wouldn't want to sponsor two young, well-spoken, intelligent, buff, adventurous, charming, Asian, well-dressed, courageous, outgoing, charismatic individuals as they enjoy life and don't really contribute anything to society? I sure would. So here's a few ideas:

(1) Like boxers, we tattoo our sponsor's logo to our foreheads and take our pictures all around the world.
(2) We create a reality series, "The Amazing Medium-Pace World Travelers Who Have No Competition," that follows our every move.
(3) Similar to, but not exactly like "Where the Hell is Matt?" (pardon the language), we do the Irish Jig everywhere we go (no, this is not a picture of me):

We'll keep you updated on how our unscrupulous, shameless search for a sponsor goes.

In other news, we have updated and added more details to our itinerary, and we thought as we narrow it down, we would keep everyone updated.

Newark, New Jersey to
London, where we'll have a 3 hour layover before flying into
Nairobi, Kenya. From there, we'll do a 46 day safari through:
Kenya
Uganda or Rwanda
Tanzania
Malawi
Zambia
Botswana and ending in
Johannesburg, South Africa. From there:
Hong Kong (less than a week)
Nepal (21 day, 180 mile trek), then a month-long journey through SE Asia, thanks to Brenda:
Singapore
Malaysia
Thailand
Cambodia
Vietnam. From there, we meet our people in:
China (2 -3 weeks), then:
Tokyo (less than a week)
Australia (3 weeks)
New Zealand (2 weeks), then off to South America:
Easter Island (almost a week)
Chile (a week or two)
Argentina, a bus journey through the country down to Ushuaia, the Southernmost city in the world. From there, depending on time and money, we may or may not do:
Antarctica! Unfortunately, cruises there are very expensive.
Argentina, again by bus, up to:
Bolivia (a week or two, check out Salar de Unuyi)
Peru (three weeks, including Machu Picchu and the Amazon rainforest)
Ecuador (two weeks to relax)
Galapagos Islands (only if we don't do Antarctica), then back to Peru to fly to:
Spain, where we start a month-long Eurail journey through:
Italy
Austria
Switzerland
France
Spain, then fly to:
Egypt (two weeks)
London (a week or two), then back home.

The following is what the world would look like if it had chicken pox in all the places that we plan to visit:

Once again, we'll leave you with a somewhat famous quote from a famous movie:

"Show me the money in exchange for something that won't really help a business but would be cool to those who want it."
- Jerry McGuire

She's Pretty and I'm Funny

2009-01-04T22:10:00.016-05:00

She's Zhou. I'm Kevin. This is our blog. She's the pretty one and I'm the funny one; that's why I get to write and she gets to look good. In fact right now she's doing Pilates working on that figure, and I'm eating a chili dog and petting a chilly dog. See what I did there?

Normally a blog about our lives would not hold anyone's interest, probably not even our own. That's why for the next eight months we'll try not to subject you to it very often. But on September 10th, that will change. We're going to do something that no one has ever done before: dress up as Lebron James and Joshua Cribbs and travel around the world. Zhou doesn't know about the first part yet - I'm planning on surprising her on September 9th. What better way to start the trip?

This is where you come in. In order to make our travels as interesting and fun as possible, we need help. Because even though I'm technically from China (depending on your definition of "technically"), I've actually been there less than Hadley:

So here's our planned journey:

Newark, New Jersey (don't worry, it gets better from here)
London, England
Nairobi, Kenya
Johannesburg, South Africa
Hong Kong, China
Kathmandu, Nepal
Beijing, China
Tokyo, Japan
Sydney, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Santiago, Chile
Ushuaia, Argentina
Easter Island, Chile
Lima, Peru
Madrid, Spain
Cairo, Egypt
London, England
Newark, New Jersey

This list is going to serve three purposes: (1) It is a teaser about how cool we're going to be soon, (2) It provides a chance for you to help us become cooler (we'll get back to this one) and (3) If you play your cards right, part of it could serve as your next vacation too!

Back to part (2). Below this post, you'll have a chance to impart little bits of wisdom from your previous travels to the cities mentioned above. However, we should probably clear something up now. DO NOT leave comments about the places we're leaving out. We've tried to include all the cool locations in the entire world, but ran out of (a) money, (b) time and (c) round-the-world travel segments. So DON'T DO IT. This may sound harsh, and if you like me less for it, please direct your bits of wisdom at Zhou. Thank you.

[EDIT: Please do feel free to comment or send us an email about the places on the above list, or places within 114.5 miles from the geographical centers of aforementioned cities.]

While we have your attention, please feel free to take a gander at our site (and also offer ways to improve it). In order to keep track of where we are in the world, we've put up a handy dandy world map for your reference. Although it may appear that we are currently fat enough to occupy the entire Southeast America (you may think it odd that we had to clarify "America," but that will be necessary before you know it), we are actually just in Charlotte right now.

Also note our fun little interactive poll. If all goes well, we will change the question every now and then, but only if people vote and show interest. We've already submitted one vote to get the ball rolling (think: the Wendy's tip jar that for some reason is full but you know couldn't have come from customers because the service was horrible, even though the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger was beyond delicious).

It may seem odd that there's a steepandcheap.com advertisement at the bottom of our blog. Don't worry, we wouldn't dare pay for a free blog that insisted on advertisements that clutter our page. We put that there ourselves. No, we didn't sell our souls to Mr. Steep and Mrs. Cheap. If you must know, we put that there because we read our own blog all the time, and we love the deals they have (although we've never bought anything). Hopefully you'll decide to lighten your wallet there too.

There you have it. An introduction to our journey, and more. We hope this tidbit whets (not wets) your appetite for us to keep posting. Because as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito said in that movie about twins, "We'll be back."

1,000 Visitor Extravaganza Contest

2009-01-01T22:03:00.006-05:00

As initially explained in our 1,000 Visitor Extravaganza Post!, this is our 1,000 Visitor Extravaganza Contest.

Rules:
This contest will consist of five questions, each with a numerical answer. Each question will be graded individually, from first place to last place. For example, if 1,324 people answer question one, and you are 176th closest, then you get 176 points.

We add your rankings on each of the five questions, and the person with the lowest total score wins! Also, as an added bonus, if you get a question exactly right you get a five point deduction from your total score. So if only two people respond, then that almost guarantees you the victory!

Questions:
(1) How many miles will Kevin and Zhou fly?
(2) How many hours will Kevin and Zhou spend on buses, trains and the Eurail combined?
(3) How many pictures will Kevin and Zhou take?
(4) How many games of Scrabble will Kevin and Zhou play?
(5) How many new foods will Kevin eat?

Responses:

Name	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5
Matt B.	36,422	563	2,374	102	8
Kevin's Mom	16,013	3,615	5,650	213	5

Itinerary

2009-01-01T22:02:00.013-05:00

Transportation	Location	Arrive	Depart
Flight	England	Sept	Sept
Flight	Kenya	Sept	Oct
Safari	South Africa	Oct	Oct
Flight	Hong Kong	Oct	Oct
Flight	Nepal	Nov	Nov
Flight	Taiwan	Dec	Dec
Flight	Singapore	Dec	Dec
Bus	Malaysia	Dec	Dec
Bus	Thailand	Dec	Dec
Bus	Cambodia	Dec	Jan
Bus	Vietnam	Jan	Jan
Flight	China	Jan	Jan
Flight	Japan	Jan	Jan
Flight	Australia	Jan	Feb
Flight	New Zealand	Feb	Mar
Flight	Easter Island	Mar	Mar
Flight	Chile	Mar	Mar
Bus	Patagonia	Mar	Apr
Flight	Peru	Apr	May
Flight	Ecuador	May	May
Flight	Galapagos	May	May
Flight	Peru	May	June
Flight	Spain	June	June
Eurail	Italy	June	June
Eurail	Austria	June	June
Eurail	Switzerland	June	June
Eurail	France	July	July
Flight	Egypt	July	July
Flight	United Kingdom	July	July

Puzzles for Postcards Winners

2009-01-01T22:01:00.026-05:00

Blog Competition Leaderboard:
Paul O. - 7

Steve C. - 6
Aaron H. - 4
Matt B. - 1

Results:
Where Am I? Cambodia (7/19/09): Paul O.

Wacky Jack's Better Chargers (7/12/09): Paul O.
Rhyme Time (6/28/09 & 7/5/09): Steve C.
When Gangster Johnny is Home Alone Anagram (6/22/09): Aaron H.
Consonantless Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavors (6/14/09): Paul O.
A Lyrical Anagram From Every Party Since 1981 (6/7/09): Steve C.
Some Kind of... Song VQs (5/24/09 & 5/31/09): Steve C.
Dan's Belt Better Chargers (5/17/09): Steve C.
Gettin' Jiggy Wit' A Statistical Sample Anagram (5/10/09): Aaron H.
Consonantless U.S. Cities (5/5/09): Paul O.
No Dark Clouds By The Cliff Anagram (5/3/09): Matt B.
Familiar Better Charger Sayings (4/28/09): Steve C.
Movie VQs (4/26/09): Paul O.
Consonantless Colors (4/19/09): Aaron H.
The #1 Reason To Get Up In The Morning Anagram (4/12/09): Steve C.
Musical Body Parts Better Charger (4/7/09): Paul O.
Popular Song VQs From the Year 2000 (4/5/09): Aaron H.
Today's Yummy Better Charger (3/29/09): Paul O.

First Postcard Winners:
It's Safe to Say "Seven Dirty Words" is Funnier Than This Anagram (3/15/09 & 3/22/09): Aaron H.
Build Me Up! VQs From a 1987 Movie Classic (3/8/09): Paul O.
The 43rd President's Response to a Millionaire Anagram (3/1/09): Matt B.
1988 Olympics in Hollywood Anagram (2/26/09): Aaron H.

Scrabble Log

2009-01-01T22:00:00.027-05:00

1: Zhou 369 (SWATHEd, READINGS); Kevin 278 (none)
2: Zhou 365 (RESOLvER); Kevin 328 (ENTReATS)
3: Zhou 340 (RETILES); Kevin 351 (ShOVELeD)
4: Zhou 332 (SIfTING); Kevin 437 (BRIDGeS, POINTERS)
5: Zhou 363 (SOGGIER); Kevin 332 (NASTIER)
6: Zhou 333 (SLOTtED); Kevin 328 (SALIVaTE)
7: Zhou 423 (CANCERs, STrANGLE); Kevin 301 (STEWARD)
8: Zhou 345 (MENdERS); Kevin 479 (PrEHEAT)
9: Zhou 379 (QUARTERs); Kevin 401 (SILVERs, HEATING)
10: Zhou 356 (RoSINING); Kevin 386 (REUNIOnS, ERECTING)
11: Zhou 410 (iNSTEAD, PRUNIER*), Kevin 398 (STAINER, StRAINER)
12: Zhou 363 (OMiTTER, OVaRIES), Kevin 381 (REMINED*, STATURE)
13: Zhou 394 (DARNERS, NEATEns), Kevin 376 (STAMPER)
14: Zhou 365 (AVATaRS, CLIQUEs), Kevin 279 (none)
15: Zhou 364 (DOSsIER), Kevin 341 (LEAVENeR)
16: Zhou 293 (REVErSE), Kevin 344 (ARTiSAN)
17: Zhou 360 (DIETErS, VICIOUs), Kevin 311 (none)
18: Zhou 273 (THIRSTED), Kevin 419 (DANGERs, STAPLeD)
19: Zhou 331 (TARRIES), Kevin 402 (DETaILS, INSERTED)
20: Zhou 486 (InVOlVES, MANGOES), Kevin 306 (COASTER)
21: Zhou 387 (SCANNeR, TOOTsIE), Kevin 436 (TALLIERS, BATONED*)
22: Zhou 384 (DIETERs, CASHERS*, SAPIENT), Kevin 334 (OUTSIdER)
23: Zhou 386 (TEETHES, NIbBLES), Kevin 363 (READInG)
24: Zhou 360 (sAINTED, REASONS), Kevin 438 (fLITTING)
25: Zhou 275 (DIALERS), Kevin 421 (sHAWLED, RATIONs)
26: Zhou 328 (ENTASiS), Kevin 319 (UNTRACED)
27: Zhou 283 (HANDBAGs), Kevin 398 (none)
28: Zhou 401 (STUNTEd, WEDGIES), Kevin 359 (RETINAL)
29: Zhou 434 (SULLIER*, ELATIoN), Kevin 433 (TEARIER, SHINIER, EDITORs)
30: Zhou 361 (rEMINDS), Kevin 380 (RETILES, CLeANSER)
31: Zhou 327 (PrAISING), Kevin 313 (REINDEER)
32: Zhou 467 (NARCIST, METHAnE), Kevin 274 (INVErTER)
33: Zhou 335 (UNSTrAPS), Kevin 338 (DENOTiNG)
34: Zhou 403 (WINTERER, DErMISES, ABETtING), Kevin 382 (STRIPPED, BEASTIAL*)
35: Zhou 292 (SASSIER), Kevin 342 (PEnCHANT)
36: Zhou 401 (SOLVInG), Kevin 390 (DEnIZEN, DONATER)
37: Zhou 367 (TATTERS, YEARnING), Kevin 386 (TAStABLE)
38: Zhou 494 (STYLERS, ANIMATe, wITTIER), Kevin 218 (none)
39: Zhou 365 (VITTLES, ASExUAL), Kevin 364 (PARTIERs)
40: Zhou 427 (DOWnTIME, ASININE), Kevin 461 (MEANEST, PAgODAS, BROODING)
41: Zhou 383 (DOPIEST, DoTTIER), Kevin 351 (bLOUSES)
42: Zhou 372 (WEIGHeD, SLANTED), Kevin 389 (PRiSONER)
43: Zhou 369 (LOITERS, NAtIONS), Kevin 334 (LASTInG)
44: Zhou 313 (WALKERS), Kevin 454 (REEDITS, UPsTAGE, INTERAcT)
45: Zhou 369 (QuIETLY), Kevin 419 (NOTIcERS)
46: Zhou 356 (INSIDES), Kevin 398 (MATERIAL)
47: Zhou 390 (FILLIES, ENTAILS), Kevin 417 (UNsWEET*)
48: Zhou 398 (PORTENTS), Kevin 409 (RATIONs, CRINGES)
49: Zhou 364 (CAUSING, RAiNIER), Kevin 382 (RINSING)
50: Zhou 355 (REPOsED), Kevin 334 (BRAiSED)
51: Zhou 348 (RAtIONS, ASTERIK*), Kevin 330 (STEALEr)
52: Zhou 336 (SOLDiER), Kevin 372 (sTINGIER)
53: Zhou 403 (fIXATION, ORATIONS), Kevin 383 (TEARERS)
54: Zhou 384 (SMARTED, PULLEYs), Kevin 360 (INSPIrED)
55: Zhou 315 (SENIlES), Kevin 397 (sETTINGS)

Record: Zhou 28, Kevin 27