We’re back from Antarctica! BEST TRIP EVER. We partied in tuxedos and threw a rave, danced with penguins on the ice with our DJ playing in the snow, explored abandoned whaling stations, ran through ice-cold Antarctic waters, saw tons of cute penguins and seals and seabirds and whales, and made some awesome new friends! Lots of pics to come, and  trip writeups.

I’d like to note that I may have the best Antarctica packing list of all time. It includes:
1 Penguin Snuggleroo (Japanese Pajamas that make you look like a penguin)
1 Red Sequined Flapper dress with lacy flowery tights
1 Super-creepy penguin mask
1 Looxcie wearable cyborg camera (borrowed from nym)
1 Pico Projector (super high quality and the size of an iphone, borrowed from Mark Zabala)
72 Redbull shots (from Redbull)
17 custom handmade chocolate cigars from the Kitchen Cobbler
Lots of kickass camera gear. hopefully the rest of it shows up before I leave.
20 Inflatible 2ft penguins
5 tubes of glow bracelets
1 stap-on kneepads like construction workers wear
a giant pile of art supplies
105 handdrawn penguin postcards
3 packets of stick-on jewels for our uber-fancy Titanic Night
1 wool penguin hat from David Moon (xmas present)
oh and a bunch of snow clothes and stuff (Half of it borrowed from Bonnie)

This is the most epic adventure ever. I *hope* penguins come and sit on my lap. Seriously wishing to any shooting stars I see.

I’m throwing a rave. We’re playing video games on the ceiling. I get to spend two weeks with XBS, one of the first people I met on the internet (1993 #comics, yo). I leave on Wednesday.

When I was a kid, I was jealous of my best friend whose parents would let them fly over the place. I went on my first plane when I was 13. It was a school trip to DC and I think we flew Continental. Being able to fly was an exciting experience. For years, I loved planes and loved to fly. My favorite part is watching the familiar world around me turn into miniature dollhouses.

It’s sad that going to the airport is now a traumatic experience for many. They’ll take your toys and touch you in bad places. Or they’ll look at you naked. Isn’t that stuff that nightmares are made of? Isn’t the worst thing supposed to be going to school without your clothes on, and your schoolmates all pointing and laughing? With the new bodyscanners, the TSA is essentially doing that. It’s not right.

One thing you can do is opt-out of the naked body scanners. Sure, they’ll grope you and be jerks, but it’s the only way that citizens can really stand up to the TSA and collectively tell them to fuck off. And maybe someone will notice, who can fix the brokenness of airport security and make flying fun for people again. And Nov 24, you can be part of a movement to get them to notice. If you’re flying on November 24, please opt-out.

Kyoto was the capital of Japan for a while, and is a fascinating city seeped in tradition. My favorite parts of the city are the red pagodas and temples. Our bus took us to Kiyomizu Temple first, which has a large Buddhist temple built into the side of a mountain. It also has the Otowa waterfall where you can drink from streams to increase your wisdom, health, and longevity. You can only choose two, because if you drink from all three, you’re greedy and will just have bad luck. There’s also the Jinsu shrine, where you walk with your eyes closed between two rocks. If you make it to the second rock, you’ll find true love.

For lunch we went to the Tofu Resteraunt, Okabeya, where we had hot tofu and a bunch of side dishes. It was nice trying new things, but a bunch of us dashed off to eat crepes right after. Me and Dave split one that had blueberry cheesecake in it. No ice cream in it though   On the way back to the bus, I found a Miyuzaki and Domokun store (seriously, that’s all it had), which made me super super giddy.

Walking around Kinkaku-ji to see the Golden Temple was pretty awesome. It’s a zen Buddhist temple built in 1397, whose top two stories are covered in gold leaf. There was a really nice garden walk on the temple grounds.

After that, we went to another Buddhist temple, Ryōan-ji, and checked out their rock garden.

Afterwards, me, Dave, Matt, and their parents went hunting for some curry. We eventually found a place that we thought had it, but it ended up being something else. It was tasty though. It was their first time ordering food from a vending machine, having the kitchen cook it, and bring it to them.

Then, Dave, Matthew and I went hunting for Cat’s Time, a famous cat cafe in Osaka. We walked and eventually found it, but it was 9:30p and they were closing soon. We got to pet a couple cats though, and the place was adorable. We stopped at a grocery store on the way back (no Tokyo-X, sorry Erin). By the time we got home, our feet were throbbing and exhausted.

Photos in this post by David Mertl and Pinguino.

At 9a we boarded a bus to Nara, which was the first capital of Japan. It later moved to Kyoto. Nara is known for having tons of tamed deer, because the deer there are thought to be the descendants of the Great White Deer spirit. For a while, it was illegal to kill a deer, and if you were found with a dead one, the authorities would have you executed. Eventually, someone left a deer on the doorstep of parliment, and that law was revoked.

The deer are SO absolutely adorable. They’re all over the place, and very friendly. There were tons of baby deer running around, though they were a bit more skittish. Some of the deer had huge sets of antlers, which were fuzzy when you touched them. For $1.50 they sell packs of deer biscuits that are made of rice. It’s like crack for deer. They’ll follow you and try to eat through your purse to get to the biscuits.

We walked through Nara Park, admiring the hundreds of stone lanterns that were shrines to shinto spirits. Our guide explained that Buddhism is so easily accepted in Japan because the first main religion, Shinto, has about 4 billion dieties, and adding one more to the list was no big deal.

The first shrine we came across was one dedicated to love and it’s where single people go for ceremonies, charms, and to pray. It looks very Valentine’s day.

We saw lots of great architecture. One interesting thing about Nara was that since it’s older than the other cities, it had chinese architecture, inspired by the Tang Dynasty. When the Buddhists gained power and moved the government to Kyoto, that’s where the Japanese style of architecture was developed.

We took a break and had a super traditional Japanese lunch. There was somen, miso soup, sekihan rice (rice with red beans), and an assortment of fairly intensely flavored dishes in a bento box. There was some tofu that was super inflated with some broth, tempura fishcakes, pickled stuff, a smoked scallop, and some other stuff. Most of the people in our group were not fans of the bento, but really enjoyed the somen and miso soup.

After lunch, Dave and I went into a gift shop cuz Dave wanted to show me a cute kitten he saw playing in the back. The shopkeeper talked to us a little, and he ended up giving us a giant bag of broken deer biscuits. I went out and soon had four deer surrounding me (three males, one female). The biggest one kept hogging all the food, and actually bodychecked another deer to push it away from my hand. This was the most fun thing I’ve done on the trip so far. Deer have velvety lips, and don’t seem to bite. I did end up with deer slobber all over my hand though (gross!)

We walked to another temple, and there was a loud thunderclap. Instantly, about fifty Japanese people ran towards an alcove. It was sunny. A minute later, the hardest rain I’ve ever been in happened. We all ran for cover, too. I wish I had video of that.

I forgot to pack for rain. Jack gave me his umbrella so I could protect my camera (and Matthew’s camera, and 4 iphones). By the time we all walked to Tōdai-ji to see the biggest bronze Buddha in the world, water was sloshing in my shoes, and I was drenched up to my knees. But it was all worth it, because the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) was mindblowingly gigantic. He is housed in the biggest wooden building in the world. It is 2/3 smaller than the one one it had, which had caught on fire and was rebuilt in 1709. The reason it was made smaller was because the samurai had chopped down too many trees for their forts and castles when they took over, so there wasn’t enough wood.

We got back to the hotel and immediately went out to a pharmacy that Matthew had seen. Jack had gotten attacked by some vampiric bloodsucking insect, which he pulled off his skin and splattered onto a wall. I got 6 mosquito bites yesterday at Osaka Castle, and had a severe allergic reaction. The same thing happened to me 6months ago in Hawaii, so I knew what it was, but it was still really really bad. The pharmacist didn’t speak english, but he handed me a box with a bunch of smiling insects on it.

When we got back, we went to one of the resteraunts in the hotel with Dave’s grandpa. Almost everyone got sushi, which was arranged beautifully. The fish was so fresh that the octopus wasn’t chewy and didn’t have that octopus taste I hate. And everyone (except Dave) was scared of their salmon roe sushi (big poofy orange fish eggs), and gave it all to me Win!

After a five hour nap, Dave, Matthew, and I went back out to Pop Masters to watch another World Cup match. This time, for the most part, we were the only customers there. They were prepared for us; they had the game on and had english menus for us. I got a really delicious lychee orange drink. Then, I drew some pictures and was able to order a couple redbull vodas off-menu. Yay! Spain won, and we came back. I’ve been awake since then, because this is the only time of day I have decently fast internet.

To see all of my Nara pictures, click here.

We’re staying at the City Plaza Osaka Hotel. That night, we ate at the fancy Japanese restaurant with sweeping views of the city. I had some soba egg soup. Today, we  had breakfast at the hotel buffet, which had some American food, but was largely Japanese. It was awesome.

Then we took a walk to the Osaka Castle, in the dripping humidity that none of us were used to.

We found a really interesting shrine there, and bought some fortunes.

Then, we got lost trying to find the giant crabs on Dotonbori, and couldn’t find the amazing ramen place I went to last time I was here. But we ended up at a place that had absolutely fantastic sushi.

For dessert, we had Beard Papa. We split a pie flavored cream puff, which is a zillion times better than any cream puff I’ve seen in LA.

After that, we walked back to the hotel. One of the weirdest things we saw was a 30min line for a newly opened Krispy Kreme.

We found a Kit Kat store, which had aloe yogurt kit-kats. Amazingly, it was really good.

We also saw a random shrine set between a few apartment buildings.

Dave’s dad got me a badge for the International Puzzle Party, and then we chilled in the room. A phone call scared us cuz Dave’s mom let us know the hotel had a 1a curfew. We sent Dave’s brother Matthew downstairs, and he found out that it just meant that the hotel closes, but you can get back in through a door that works with your key. We were worried, because we’re planning on going out at 3a to watch the World Cup.

Uploading this post on our super slow internets; hope it works! More to come.

Saturday:  20 people and 20 tubes, plus a raft full of booze, snacks, and sunscreen, a keg of PBR, and another raft with an ipod and speakers. we floated down the salt river, where the common ammunition of choice was the marshmallow. I’ve never really done anything like that before, and it was really really really really fun. I absolutely recommend this as a cheap fun weekend trip.

Then I got super sick, sore, and sunburnt. Me and dave ran across a parking lot barefoot in 115 degree weather and crisped our feet. He’s worse off than i am though, and i feel pretty terrible right now.

Qwiki, Dave, and I crashed at my friend Goober’s (Josh’s) house, which was near the wedding site, and the next morning ran to the mall to get last-minute clothing stuff. Our crappy cab was 30mins late, so we were late getting to the wedding, but it was also running late. This was only the second wedding I’d ever shot. I took wide-angle pics and Dave handled all the closeups. The ceremony was short and beautiful, and Bunny was incredibly elegant in her dress and veil. It was in Dan’s parent’s backyard, with a bubbling river fountain in the background. I’ll post pics soon.

We then all migrated to a reception in a loft space. Dan made all the food, which included an entire roast pig, including head. There also were three amazing salads and some dips. Sumbry and Qwiki DJed and it was super super fun.

The next morning we went to Dan’s parent’s house again for a brunch. We chilled at Mike Merrell’s house after that, watching Ponyo on his projector. Ponyo was cute but really weird- it’s the new Miyuzaki movie. Adriano picked us up and took us on an adventure that included “Burger of the Gods” at Lunchbox Laboratory, the Fremont Troll, gyros, and Gasworks Park at 2a.

Sunday was ZOO DAY. Me, Dave, Adriano, Rob, Savannah, and Claire all wandered around the zoo and got to see the new penguin exhibit. We learned a lot about how guano harvesting is bad for penguins, and what fishes you can safely eat without impacting the Anarctica ecosystem. After that a ton of people met up at SLUG, which was a resteraunt.

Yesterday me and Dave mostly worked a bunch, and migrated over to Carl’s house. Adriano took us to Molly Moon’s for insanely good ice cream. I had honey lavendar on a handmade cone. We saw a beautiful night cityscape from Queen Anne, and went cheese shopping. Then, Dave and I played Settlers of Catan with Carl and Xt.

Today we telecommuted from Cupcake Royale in Ballard, which so far, has been my favorite place to telecommute. Lemondrop and Raspeberry Lemonade cupcakes for lunch today! Seattle has been awesome, though I wish I had more energy this time around to explore.

After that, we went to Grey Gallery for a bit and then a really good Fish Fry place, with a bunch of friends. We crashed over at Rob’s after that.