The saga continues…

There are a lot of great moments that just do not fit in our weekly episodes and some of those are just too awesome or traumatic to let go off.  Bryan has compiled a series of shorts that outline the culinary highlights of our time in Vietnam and Bangkok.  It turns out that never turning down adventure or local experiences and occasionally lead to less than pleasant results.  Enjoy.

I’m having continued problems uploading large videos, so (as you can see) still no season 2.  In the meantime, the North East is getting hammered by snow and pretty much everything is canceled, so I’m going to use this day to get some other cool things done.

The following are a few of the sketches I did while I was in Tokyo with the cast/crew over January.  My background is in animation, so I do tend to carry a little sketchbook wherever I go and once in a while I actually remember to use it.  Click on the images to enlarge.

Mr. Brian Lio and a denizen of the Denentoshi line.

From the early morning at Tsukiji

I draw *exclusively* people in trains and bars.

Oh Matt, get some sleep.

Back in Brooklyn.

From the Edo falconry park.

Laters, Tokyo.

Hello audience; as you may have noticed, there is no Season 2: Episode 1 on the site today, as there is supposed to be.  We are experiencing some brief technical problems exacerbated by jet lag, so it’ll be a little late.  Early forecasting indicates a Monday night/Tuesday morning release.  Thanks for hanging in!

I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

We’ve got a look back at what life used to be like in Vietnam.  A short glimpse into what it was like to live in Ho Chi Minh, and our home there.  Housing in Vietnam had its own style, but one things for sure – it was cheaper than Tokyo.

The signs in Tokyo continue to amuse me.  Some have hilarious illustrations.  Some have adorable (but weird) creatures advertising products or giving helpful advice.  Some just have mistranslated English.  And some are just downright baffling.  Here’s another round of strange signs in Tokyo. 

Drunken Englishmen on the train

I’m not sure what this sign means, but it’s definitely eye-catching.  My suspicion is that it’s a warning against drunken revelry on the train, but why are all the carousers from an English medieval court?  Those drunken English…

Thank you Mr. Raccoon...I think

Aw, helpful raccoon warning me not to get my hand smashed in the subway doors…and they’re smiling so merrily to emphasize the message – wait, they’re not pointing at the message, they’re smiling and pointing at the hand being crushed!  Also, I like that there is a number to call in the case that your hand does get smashed in the subway doors…

Who would you club?

Someone should have told this Shibuya establishment that “club” is also a verb…I can imagine it could be quite a popular place – “Pop Paris Hilton: 1,000Y” or “Slap Shia LeBeouf: 1,500Y.”

No...taking seats...from fishermen...you lazy seals...

This is my personal favorite, by far.  One can quickly deduce that it has something to do with not stealing the “priority seating,” reserved for people like the gentleman with the cast.  What that has to do with seals holding fish, sitting on ice, watched over by a man with a pail and big scrub brush – I have absolutely no clue.  Please leave a comment with your own hypothesis (or end my ignorance and explain conclusively). 

The rest can be found on flickr here.

The other day we woke up early and headed out to Tsukiji fish market at around 5 AM.  As it was the first day that the market had reopened to foreigners (they were barred due to bad behavior a month ago) there were a number of Japanese film crews there.  In addition, one from CNN.  They explained that they were from Anderson Cooper 360 and were shooting Americans from around the world reading Martin Luther King’s famous speech.  We were happy to help them out in the shot that it would really make it, and sure enough – it did.

You can find footage of the speech here with our team starting at around 1:13 in.

I have a dream...

In many ways, Hieu was our first solid friend in Vietnam.  We met him on our English-club foray, and he treated us to some unforgettable chapters throughout our 3-month stay.

First, he was the first to suffer patiently through my absent-mindedess and general ineptitude: when he learned that we were still looking for cell phones, he gave me an old Nokia phone…which I left in the cab on my ride back, losing forever a phone that had been in my possession for a total of 10 minutes.

Second, our LAN party.  Warcraft III in a cooled, crowded but clearly ramshackle internet cafe in Vietnam with friends?  That’s certainly not an experience from the guidebooks.  One of our theses is that our “international counterparts” probably live similar lives to us, and bonding over video games helped corroborate this.

Third, Hieu helped plan our trip to Dai Nam and served as a cultural guide, bringing to life our wanderings through the temple, the mountain replicas and the history of Vietnam arrayed in miniatures, and the 15 stages of hell.

Third, he introduced Rob and I to beef knuckles, fermented shrimp sauce, and boiled beef skin soup.  Apparently, “I know this great beef restaurant” means something a little different in Vietnam than in the US…but it was a great time, and it certainly expanded our palettes. 

Finally, he  taught me how to play Chinese Chess or Xiangqi, which can be seen played on sidewalks at 6am throughout the city.  Some of the pieces are reminiscent of Western chess, with a couple twists e.g. the “knight” (horse) can be blocked and the “king” (general) can’t move outside a little 9-space box .  I found most exciting addition to be the cannon, which captures by leaping over an intermediary piece to strike the next piece in its direct line of fire.  I actually wish I had a playing partner here in Tokyo =(

I think we would have spent more time with him, were it not for his 6pm – 6am work schedule at a landfill just outside of Saigon.  He works for a waste-management company, which currently processes most of the city’s trash.  I actually found it a fascinating topic – managing all the trash from the city is no small feat.  In many ways, the past 20 years have seen activity in Saigon rapidly outgrow public infrastructure.  Motorbikes have flooded streets once used to bicycles.  No solid wiring bring reliable internet anywhere in the city.  The street is usually an acceptable resting place for trash.  The gutters flood during and after a bout of rain, and a huge lake-like reservoir holds most of the city’s sewage and liquid waste…unfortunately, this reservoir rings half of District 1, in the middle of the city, making most journeys outside the city center a gauntlet run through heavy stench.  Needless to say, safe trash disposal will be a huge issue in the coming decade for Saigon, especially as pressure to develop a more eco-friendly city comes internationally and domestically.  But first, the trash simply needs a destination, and at the moment, landfills serve adequately. 

Well, anyway, LAN parties, general orientation around the city, discussions about the future of waste in Saigon – he was an essential ingredient to Vietnam and the underpinnings of Season 1.

Thanks for watching us in Season 1: Saigon! Season 2 is on its way with new episodes starting next week.  With me moving back to America on Thursday we didn’t want to rush production, so you’ll have to hold out for a week to see our new adventures in Tokyo. In the meantime, enjoy these fun facts about season 1:

Number of tapes recorded: 94, or about 97 hours of footage (not all tapes in photo).

Number of all-nighters spent editing: 8 or 9.  I kind of forget. 

Number of new chemical addictions: 2 (coffee and whiskey)

Number of cans of Pabst consumed (while editing): 462, or about 15.5 cases

Number of miles traveled by the crew: 11,243 (that is a lot)

Number of gigabytes filled by Jet Set Zero: 730, across 4 drives

Number of ties purchased from the Salvation Army: 5

Number of bars I (should) have been ejected from: All of them.

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So that’s it.  Stay tuned for Season 2; with any luck we’ll have an even more ridiculous set of statistics for you.