PACE

The city itself was pretty cool. Didnt really seem very busy there at all. Lost of old arhitecture, alot of character overall. The Belgian beer is pretty good, and also the Belgian waffles. Then theres the Belgian chocolate. I guess Belguim is well known for alot of things..

The weather was perfect, got to check out a place called the Instrument Museum. 4 stories of instruments from all over the world and all time periods. When you go in they give you headsets, and you just walk up to the display and the music of the instrument starts playing through your headphones.

A pretty nice art museum, they had the original Dali painting, the one with the skinny guy holding up a cross to those huge elephants with really skinny legs…Ok Dali seems to really like elephants.. its called ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony‘ thank u google.

Theres also a comic strip museum that is pretty cool. Alot of old originals from the 30s onward. Plus the city itself has a comic strip walk, where whole sides of buildings are done up comic style all around the perimiter of the town.

What else.. pretty nice parcs where people are wasting their time playing soccer and am using my time efficiently lying in the grass.

Also, watched a movie of music of this guy Jaques Brel done to ballet. “Ne me quitte pas” is one of his most popular songs if u want to check him out.

There also seems to be some sort of network of bums/drunks/drug addicts who the local people dont seem to mind really. They all look the same and they’re all drinking beers 24/7. At times they are obviously off in some land of drug induced stupor and attempt to ramble some of their crazy talk to you. Being a fan of crazy talk and of bums/drunks/drug addicts who appeat to be in a drug induced stupor I made my best effort to extract a bit of meaning from their garbled French. Unfortunatly I don’t quite understand garbled French, or really well spoken French for that matter, and my companion in Brussels seemed not to understand the fact that upon conversation with these poor souls I could straight-away sort them out, or at least provide them a bit of their own medicine. So, I had to abandon my philanthropic endevours and continue on.

Anyway, there are also these guys about my age who actually kneel in the middle of the street with an overly dramatic pouty look in their face with thier hands cups. Filthy beggars, they are. Perfectly capable of work, yet kneeling in the sidewalk acting sad at like 2:30 on a Tuesday when the shop next door is hiring. One of them came up to me and gave me a bit of paper that said something about his kids being sick, so give him money. Bloody liar, he was. The other side was in another language and it was brought to my attention that the other side was a completly different story from the english version, no doubt some sinister plot to extort money from unsuspecting tourists. Not very well thought out either. Not even a joke, song, or dance, or some form of entertainment or amusement, just some crap story badly written on a scrap of waste paper.

Anyway, not to focus on the negative as these filthy beggars were but a small finger smear on the cold frothy beer mug of Brussels.

I was walking down the street and saw what looked like some kind of rock club, but maybe for hardcore or metal or something, so I ventured inside and said hi to the first people I saw, who happened to be leaving.

The guy was ‘Mat-chew’ who was an MC from some smaller city in Belguim. He was pretty cool, young, about 21, and with some other chick that looked pretty nice. They took us to an underground hip hop / jazz / funk place that turned out to be really sweet.

It was in the basement portion of an apartement building but totally hooked up. A full bar, tables, chairs, red candles, a seperate room with a piano, speakers, sound equiptment, drum set, and a huge stand up bass.

It was an open jam session and anyone could get up and play or sing or do whatever they did. Mat-chew was going to spit some lines, and we got into a conversation on the way over about the fundamentalz of rap. of course i was on point with the old school 36 Chambers and what not, “nahm-sayin”. And his girl was more punk, so I just talked to her about Taking Back Sunday, who she had just seen for the first time the week before.

Anyway, the club was really sweet, met some cool people and found out that people have mad respect for Philly. So big up 2 philly and the Roots for representing globally.

Castles built by the Muslims when the controlled Spain a long time ago. Slits in the lookouts for archers and the whole deal. I , of course, proceeded to re-enact scenes of battle to the best of my knowledge and to the dismay of passersby.

The Rock of Gibraltar. Fortress of colonial Britain. And they’re still holding on. The rock of Gibraltar has huge history over the previous centuries. The Rock is a small piece of the southernmost coast of Spain, you can see North Africa from there. The British took it over back in the day, and stil hold it from the Spanish. They dont trust the Spanish if it were to come down to the wire, the Brits want control. Plus they’ll let us land planes there. Plus under the Rock is an entire garrison, complete with hospitals, cafeterias, kilometers of roads, living quarters, water, feul, etc. Plus the rock is nuke-proof, being buried under a huge mountain containing alot of limestone. (takes care of the fallout). So if there is nuclear meltdown someday, you’ll probaby find the remnant of the race on Gibraltar. Funny accent they have there. Sounds like some kind of mix between right proper Queens English, Italian, and Spanish. Strange indeed.

The Rock itself is beautiful. Huge white birds cirlce the top, which is some kind of military comm. post. There is a casino there (closed when i was there, or I would have to had to go in and comandeer some poor souls loot), also a botanical garden. The towns got alot of character. Narrow streets lines with olde english restaurants and pubs.

The museum was cool, and contained some 14th century baths, put in by the Muslims who has control over the area way back in the day.

Hola me amigos. I just flew from Kuwait over Iraqi airspace. Kuwait airport sux, but they gave me a free buffet lunch cause my flight was delayed 4 hrs, which I straightforthly plundered in a must abundant manner.

Bus ride 7 pm to 5 am. Show up in Bangkok, drink some coffee, eat some food, get on a plane at 3 am to Kuwait. get to England about 5:30 am the following day. Easy.

Right now I’m in London, but more importantly is the following:

Sometimes I like to say ‘nosferatu’ for absolutly no reason. ‘Nosferatu,’ I’ll say, knowing the ancient word hath no power over me. Mocking its power of old – ‘Nosferatu, ohhh , yes, nooosferatu, you are under my shoe, you creton.’ Inevitably this draws stares from the people at the busstop, train, dance, or gala event. Of course, if they step, I merely say ‘Draw you sword, knave!’ and if they fail to produce a sword, I consider them sorely beaten – my generosity alone prevailing them their life -a life of tremendous dishonour, no less. Put on a hat, Jack! next paragraph.

Little Birdy, little birdy, sitting on a ledge
you build your home of twigs and branches
nestled in a hedge
When will you learn to clear your throat
before you sing your tune
and fly for winter ‘ere the frost
seals you to your tomb.

I contend heartily that I am of sound mind and body. I can without delay tell you that Amman is the capital of Jordan, and that The Tempest is usually considered Shakespeare’s last play, although Henry VIII was completed later. (it is thought ot have been in collaoration with Fletcher and Beaumont). That crazy Shakespeare! That crazy shaky, speary soul! Oh how I long to propel one of his shaky spears into some foul watery menace, forever casting it back to the shadowy depths from whence it came.

Right then, onto Southern Spain. Viva Espange. Cheerio and all that.

Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain in South East Asia. At 4100 meters, its half the size of Mt. Everest. In actuality, you trek up about 9000 meters to get to the summit (and 9000 meters back down).

I came to Sabah, on the Borneo side of Malaysia to climb the mountain, when I tried to call it was busy and I was hearing rumors that the park was all booked up. I asked Lucy, the lady who rus the hostel I’m staying at how to make arrangements. She gave me a number to call and I was able to sign up to go the next day.

I had no idea how cold the summit was, and was only going to take a long sleeve shirt and a fleece pullover. That would have been disasterous. Lucy hooked me up with a proper hat and some gloves as well as another fleece pullover. I would have been really, really cold at the top without the gear. Oh, and a rain poncho, that came in handy on the way back down.

So, we get to the mountain around 9:00 am and I am with a group of 4 Germans, all my age. They were pretty cool. Mark: ex skate punk, Christian: just finished an internship in Kuala Lumpur, Michael: quite but real nice, and Olga ( or something like that, couldn’t make out the pronunciation) who was also a decent guy.

From the bottom, it was a 5 hour trek uphill. We passed a waterfall on the way and some pretty sweet scenery. This was straight uphill, like 70 degree vertical inclines. Picture if you took a handful of rocks and spilled them out of you hand onto a hill – this is basically what we were hiking up. On some occasions there were ‘stairs’.

As you go up you really feel the altitude kick in and start sucking wind. You have to stop alot and get your breath both from the fact that you are increasing altitude, and also that you’re hiking up piles of rocks at a 70 degree vert.

After about 5 hard hours we get to the camp area, called Laban Rata. We all rip into some food and pass out at about 6 pm in dorm style beds. I only slept for about an hour at which point I woke up and couldnt fall back asleep. Probably because it was like 8 pm. Also I was having some weird problem breathing, I think because of the altitude. And something like a headache, also probably the altitude.

So we get up and meet at 2 am. Still half asleep, no food, we’re thrown into the darkness and start trekking uphill again, but this time its nothing like the lower half. This is no joke. We’re scaling up sheer rock faces for kilometers at a time. Just sheer rock extending up and up. There were ropes bolted into the rocks that you used for balance and to pull yourself along. Of course the altitude is worse so you feel totally exhausted and your heart is pounding in your chest.

I kept saying how easy it was and telling people that each step got easier and easier. Think positive I say. No use grumbling. Some french speaking Swiss chick lost it near the summit and broke down and started crying. She was pretty cold, it was dark, and she was out of breath continuously, so I can understand. Near the summit people started losing hope. I heard alot of ‘why are we doing this’ and things like that. Hahaha. I think its cause the uphill battle seems neverending. Its about 3 or 4 Km straight up the sheer rock to the summit. Its dark, its about 4 in the morning, and its freezing cold.

When you get to the top of the summit, the view is absolutly amazing. You’re so high up and the mountains surrounding look so vast. It reminded me of that part in Lord of the Rings when they are passing through the mountains. The wind was ripping through though and people were huddled into the rock crevices. We took a few pictures with the German guys and some more of the surrounding landscape then headed back down to Laban Rata.

— Me, Michael, and Christain at the summit looking half asleep and exhausted —

First time in an Islamic country. Interesting. During the day you hear the call to prayer over loudspeakers. Last night I heard some strange noises, like people wailing into the night…

The atmostphere is very different here than to Thailand. You can feel it in the air in some places. Luckily we are grouped up with some really nice local people and they are taking great care of us.