Prubangboy

Agreed. The diet in Japan is a lot of noodle soups and deep-fried food. Very veg.-lite. A ton of sugar too. Those tofu meals in a temple were few and far between. And very much a mono-culture where Kobe is not too different from Nara. They're much less into Whitie than SEA. 'Lived in Kyoto for six months. Gorgeous, but essentially a small town. For other-worldly foreign-ness, hard to beat. But also hard to live in long-term.

I was booked on a tour for a big tribal festival this September, but it just got cancelled due to internecine tribal warfare. Again. Go to Sabeh instead. More touristy, but we're talking about places that get less tourists than Roi Et. Brunei is worth 3 days too. A day's worth of sights, dementedly friendly locals; you better like Indian food. Their bit of very manicured rain forest was the best rain forest experience I've had to date. About $200 for a private 2 night tour.

I give it to Laos for maximum strange for minimum $$$$ with zero hassle. Anyone there is interesting. 'Can't say that about Chiang Mai. Myanmar = orthodox buddhist vibe, def min $$$$, but it's hard to get to, visa required, terrible food, and you will def get sick. Cambodia: diminishing returns outside of Angkor Wat, but prob best for the eco-tourist jungle experience. Vietnam: Went only twice. Too much traffic, too little sanuk, boring food. I can why people love the commie French Indochine vibe. Malaysia: Cheerful, boring, Penang would be the obv. pick. Kuching, Borneo is the like Rain Forest Chiang Mai. Singapore: Do you love Indian food? Because that and nice parks in glass domes are the big attraction. Japan: Requires about 4 trips to see it all. If you have to pick, do the South. Abusing a 7 day rail pass was a top 5 vacation. Korea: Duller Japan, tremendous nature-Buddhism (Won-style). Pusan to Hokkaido Japan is a great two weeks. Taiwan: Cheerier China. Under-rated, partic the food. Hong Kong: Still a bit neon-atmospheric, but go to Tapie instead. Bhutan: A little boring for the money. But the green Himalaya's stayed with me for a long time. A week would be on the long side.

This is emotionally unhealthy for you. And you aint right in your retard-head. You follow me around, sniffing my old man butt, pretending we're going to have some kind physical altercation (over and over agin), trying out 6th grade debating club techniques to "challenge" me and then getting all fawning in the next post. You're just too nuts to deal with. As an act of kindness. I gotta just ghost you; like the way I stopped participating in TrumpTrash threads. This parrot is dead, dead, dead.

You aren't supposed to talk about Pm's. They are PERSONAL messages. The retard label sticks again. I answered YOUR pm. You infer I initiated. Once again, you are a dopey liar. Could you be any more emotionally incontinent? No, no you could not be.

It's great that I hung "you sound very frustrated" around his passive aggressive, cowardly neck and it seems to be sticking, BUT: Don't let this blithering retard ruin decent threads. Leave this dim-witted miscreant standing on street corners, waiting for imaginary fist fights -like I do. Jesus, talk about sounding "very frustrated". Bob's OP is a reasonable topic: How might our taste evolve as we get older, what's left in the taste barrel to scrape? Having absorbed so much, I now look to entertainment with a sense of longing. Will a film ever jolt me the way Means Streets did? Probably not, but I saw Twisters and they did find a way to retell a disaster movie a different way. It's not just that Mean Streets was such a shock, but that I was young, so was the world, and shock was possible. Today, I am happy that I wasn't waiting for Twisters to be over a half hour before it was. Like I usually am. Even a decent new film like Oppenheimer had me wishing I bought a book to it.

The prob with other people's bucket lists is that in an attempt to seem well-rounded, they will have a lot of stuff on it that will hold no interest to you. I respect hip hop, I guess. I never want to hear it again. EDM, the same. New Latin music, ditto. No point in forcing myself to endure it. I love reggae. The 2-3 reggae records on such a list will be too mainstream for me. Jazz is an ocean. They will just tell you to listen to Kinda Blue. If that's as far you're going to go into jazz, that's a good one. But if you're not a jazzer or a brit popper, or Metal-head, why bother? When I was young, music critics served a purpose. They might occasionally survey something like African music or minimalism, give you a context, and let you know where you might want to dip in to the genre. These books do the same thing, but much less well. It's shifted from you probably will like it, to you certainly should like it. I read a book called The Long Tail, about how now that every last bit of music is available, that people would have incredibly diverse tastes. But that didn't happen. 95% of all reggae searches are still for Bob Marley. When I look on YouTube for reggae minor great, Sylford Walker, he's only up to about 600 views, world-wide. Taste is a funneling process, and by definition, funnels narrow things. Taste is also a distilling process, and when you distill something, you get less of it. As your taste evolves you like less stuff, not more stuff.

You already comically threatened to meet me on some street corner an assault me. Twice. I will someday leave you swinging impotently at the air while I laughingly ghost you. What gets into you? Is this just more pretending to be nuts? Or are you truly nuts for real?

Although he's a passive-aggressive crybaby liar, he def should be allowed to troll whenever he wants. It amuses me.

But you're here too. Isn't this like yelling "pervert" at the guy next to you in a porno theatre?

More frustration. It's everywhere. I personally am sorry about it.

Don't make fun of him because he's poor. He can't help it. How rich to you really need to be to have a HiSo dentist GF? Apparently, not hardly rich at all. Any JoeBlow can entice them with a little bogan banter. He likes to "make them laugh". Like a clown. Back to the market topic: I used to collect Thai Nang Kwak Statues and old Buddhist graphics. I no longer do. The indoor flea market near the Chatachuk was a goldmine. Even as a non-collector, I still graze it like its a museum. I'll pop down from Chiang Mai, stay in Ari for fusion-ish meals, and stay at the Craftsman for $100 a night. That's a $200 room for $100 and no need to get on a train or deal with traffic. If only there was someone who would OCD-toss up a picture of a The Craftsman Hotel to remind us of his futile existence.

I am sorry you're frustrated. I hope you have a good day.

It's a good place to get essential oils, incense etc. Prob 20% off of Chinatown, which is also good. It's also the only place in Thailand where I found Lao Coffee, and at a reasonable price. But you do eventually get marketed out. You've seen one hanging duck, you've seen them all. You age out of tee shirts with pictures on them. When I was in Oman and Borneo this year, the visit to the market was a tour highlight for most people. But I live near the Chiang Mai Uni Market and I never bother to go anymore.

Another gloriously ugly Ubon hotel, this time in the brutalist-revival style