Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia

In every place there are people who live their environment. There are urban cyclists in NYC, mountaineers in Switzerland, and barflies in Boston. I’m always excited to meet and make friends with these people where ever I go. People who have a deep connection with the land and an intimate knowledge of its workings. In Australia 85 percent of the population lives within 50 kilometers of the coastline. The ocean is their environment.
Growing up in the woods of the deep south I know virtually nothing of the ocean. I can tell you the names of common birds and which plants are which in my native Georgian forest, but standing here on the edge of choppy waters with this snorkel strapped to my head, I can’t tell you shit. Not about the potential dangers that lurk beneath or how to spot rip currents by looking at the water’s surface. Of these things I am an ignorant child, luckily though, this is my buddy Dickson’s playground, and he’s agreed to show me the water’s way.
Dickson, or Dicko as he’s affectionately referred to by friends, is a tall lanky character, an internet dating phenomenon, and at times (particularly when I’m not in the room) the hardest drinker around. On New Years, Dicko, two his best friends (a couple of lifelong surfers), and I sat on their front porch drinking beers, and waiting for the rumored stampede of hot chicks to come drunkenly sloshing by. We had been discussing exercise when Dicko decided to mention his daily snorkeling routine.

“Snorkeling isn’t exercise. You don’t even use fins Dicko,” chimed one of the surfers. Seems to me like it might be more work without fins than with them, but what do I know? I’m from Stone Mountain, Georgia.

“Do you know how to snorkel? Have you ever done this before?” Dicko asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “My old man took me snorkeling when I was a kid………..once.”

Off into the drink we went. Dicko takes to the water as if born to it. While I, at least for the first 10 minutes am a complete catastrophe. The water’s getting in my goggles. When I try to adjust them my snorkel fills with water. Forgetting that I can just blow the water out, I’m thrashing about swallowing mouthful after mouthful of saltwater. At some point I look up and Dicko is so far away that I can’t even see him. Then I realize that I’m really alone out here and how deep the water is. Panic begins to set in not only because I don’t want to die out here, but because safe footing really isn’t that far away. As the only black guy in probably all of Australia(at least it feels like it sometimes), I hoped that people weren’t looking at me saying to themselves, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
Eventually, I too grew gills and the psychological threat of dying was placed at bay. Turns out the water really wasn’t that deep at all. *cough* When you look at the surface of the water all you see is water, but underneath lies a whole new world. Strange, thinking of this as wilderness. To me trees and forest and spiders and snakes is the wilderness, and the ocean is really just another word for the beach. Well, that’s I thought before anyway.

It’s wild down there.

They say that the ocean is the last unexplored frontier on Earth and now I understand why. Beneath the glistening oscillations of the water’s smooth surface is an environment in which we are foreigners. Perhaps it was that I had expected there to be only sand, that I was surprised to find such dramaticism and diversity of terrain. Ginormous boulders jutted from the sea floor proudly overlooking the vast expansiveness which conceals two-thirds of our amazing planet. Aquatic plants cling to anything they can get a hold of like wind swept trees on the side of a mountain. Vegetation is everywhere, and if this was above sea level, this would definitely be the back country.

Potentially awkward on land, you could tell that Dicko was champion of this environment. He dove amazingly deep, propelling himself further from the surface by hurling himself from big boulders. Seriously, the guy was like Johnny Fucking Quest out there, tapping rocks together to call large swarms of fish, flipping over flat rocks to feed this 5 feet iridecent blue one. It’s just cool when you get a chance to see people excercise massive stores of knowledge of something you know nothing about. Hopefully I get to learn a thing or two about the ocean while I’m here.

On my culinary tour I was not the only one to enjoy fine, elegant and delicious meals.  Here you can see a GIANT PILE OF HUGE BUNNIES EATING THINGS.

I think you’ll enjoy it.

P.S.

nom nom nom nomnomNOMnomNomnom

One journey ends, and new stories begin in the long awaited conclusion to Season 6, Quito.

This has been a fantastic season for us and a story we feel incredible lucky to have gotten to tell.

We wish the best of luck to Freddie, Jenna, Laurene and Ryan on all their new journeys and adventures, wherever they may lead.

My office.

Back when we were doing the show, we spent every day worrying about money. We all got those stinking ESL jobs and someone (almost always Matt) had more hours, worked harder and kept something like a travel budget for us. We would decide on some round number that was more or less arbitrary and promise never to spend more than that in a day (luckily, rollovers were allowed and we had a separate allowance for special events and trips and stuff).

It sucks.

YOU’RE ALWAYS HUNGRY because that extra plate of noodles is just too expensive and you need money for dinner.

YOU CHEAT ON THINGS. Like girls or beer. Meaning that at about the middle of the week, you (I) run out of money and have to eat half as much and bum money off of people.

YOU (I) SUCK AT BUDGETING. I can’t seem to do it.

YOU SPEND ENTIRE DAYS WATCHING PEOPLE DO AWESOME THINGS THAT YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO DO. I call this the Shibuya Rule. In Japan, on a good day we had cash to go to Shibuya, buy Chu-His (tall cans, kinda) and stand and watch people buying things.

If anything is a Jet Set Zero secret, this is it. Living like that is so hard that you often don’t find any value in it at the time. Really. In retrospect, it’s awesome. At the time, it’s mostly painful and hungry. We’ve had so many people come through this experience who just couldn’t do it, or refused to try. I think it’s a good character test.

Chu-His bring you happiness (actual results will vary)

I LOVE LIVING THIS WAY cause I love the fight. I love the hunger and the pain and the thinking on your feet and not knowing whether you’ll make it or you’ll need to write that email begging for money to come home because you can’t feed yourself or you may end up in jail tomorrow for something you knew you shouldn’t have done.

But I wanted to try this kind of experience without having to struggle every day. I wanted to see what this life would be like if you actually could order that extra plate of noodles, or stay in a hotel, or – hell, why not – get a dive certification or rent a dirt bike for a weekend.

So that’s more or less what I’m doing.

I make about $36k/yr after taxes, which is more than I’ve ever had in my life. I really enjoy my work and I’m extremely lucky to have the coworkers and boss that I do, and in my lack of professional experience, it almost seems like a miracle that I earn a paycheck every two weeks. The money goes out, but it also comes back, amen.

It's so fun changing large sums of cash.

Gaya

My first night back in Korea saw me heading without delay straight to one of my favorite places to drink on earth – Hof Gaya.

A great start.

In Korea the custom is to drink from evening until morning in traditional beer houses called Hofs (호프).  Hof comes from the German hoffbrau and basically just means a hybrid restaurant/bar where you can drink copious amount of beer and soju while eating a lot of tasty Korean style bar food.  In our time in Korea we spent a few (probably more) nights exploring district by district in search of the best of the best, but at the end of the day most Hofs are more or less the same.  The exception to this rule was Shinchon’s Gaya.

Classy (ish), Dark, Awesome, Tasty, Social.

This Hof can be found in Shinchon just off the main street a few stories below ground.  The whole place is covered by slightly raised platforms with cutouts for each table which is lit by its own spotlight.  The effect is a classy, social, and overall just fun place to drink.  The food is good, the prices as with most hofs, are quite reasonable.  And we certainly had no problem spending hours here.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just visiting Seoul or a resident, you owe it to yourself to spend a solid night drinking and eating here.

Shinhye rocks the soju crown.

We have had ourselves no shortage of  good nights out while we were there and have actually written about this place before (worth a look).  But I think this image sums it up pretty well.  And while our friend Shinhye is not the offical spokesgirl of Gaya, I for one think that she should be.