strange but hilariously true

i've been collecting stories and strange but hilariously true happenings of life of late. some even come with pictures!

my favorite strange but true moment? i wore my flops today....feb. 12 and it was that warm.

so for those from home who read, you may know that alisha came for a visit before cny. she came to help kristen get settled in and hang out. the two of them checked out lots in shanghai and i helped them arrange a quick trip to beijing. i only joined them a couple times as i was swamped with work...and really what do the young chickys want with an old fogey like me anyway?!!

• on our first jaunt on the metro (i was taking the girls to the fabric market) we were chatting it up and laughing over some random stuff. i don't remember much of what we were laughing about but i know that we were talking about how crowded the metro can be at times and how sometimes you have to push to be sure you can get on and off. then i was cracking some jokes about having to box out. just after this, i heard the announcement for our stop so i nodded to the girls and said, "this is us." 2 seconds later this chinese dude looks at us takes a step back, motions with his hand, and in perfect, american english says, "do you guys need to get off?" uhhhhh.....yeah....we smiled and then spent the next 60 seconds replaying every word we'd just said trying to remember if we'd made any rude comments. we hadn't....but ummm...note to self....sometimes the people who understand english blend in surprisingly well!!!


• my next trip on the metro brought one of those priceless china moments that are so hard to describe to people. just those moments that pop up when you least expect it and all you can think is....dang i'm glad i have a camera on my phone. i'll let the pics do the talking:

alisha left for the states just a day before i left for my little cny adventure to thailand. poor kristen was left in shanghai all by her lonesome....she seems to have held up pretty well armed with my 200 movie dvd collection and working internet connection.

thailand was, of course, amazing. from private pool access hotel rooms, to snorkeling in crystal clear waters, and taking in the sun at the beach where lots of old european ladies thought it would be cool to go topless (old boobs should never be seen by the light of day!)!

i particularly enjoyed a sort of random superbowl experience as we watched the cardnials GIVE AWAY the game to the always hated steelers in heartbreaking fashion from some picnic tables and chairs set up on a sidewalk outside a street bar at 6am in bangkok. i never imagined watching the steelers win the superbowl from a sidewalk streetbar in thailand with 2 canadians would be a good time....but hey....it may be strange...but it's all true!

• but despite the apparent strangeness of the superbowl, it paled in comparison with the wildlife shenanigans that thailand offered! it was really just 1 fateful tour that joy (pictured above) and i signed up for. one of those touristy things that you never really do but every once in a while for lack of better planning or ideas it seems like it's worth it. we'd already be snorkeling at the hidden beach location where the leonardo dicaprio movie "the beach" had been filmed. we were taken in the by the charm of pukhet and i guess we figured our touring luck would persist. so we signed up for this tour that included some random sight seeing and an elephant trek and sea kayaking. i thought the elephant trek (according to the pics) would take us into some jungle type area and that we'd get some cool looking pics and what not. what we got was a 10-minute jaunt around a dirt track made for sad elephants who have to wonder in the heat of the day with 2 chubby tourists on its back. so i think our elephant decided to fight "the man" if you will. in the less than 10 minutes we were on his back he stopped to take a dump, which was ok, not entirely surprising. then like 10 seconds later i hear what sounds exactly like a fire hydrant that's been let loose in the summer time. joy points out it's the sweet sounds of an elephant peeing. so i think ok...we've taken care of that the old boy is ready to be on his way now. then about 30 seconds later, i hear a sound that i'm not sure i'll ever really be able to adequately describe. i'd say wind-tunnel-ish would be my best try but really that doesn't do it justice. all i know is i was looking around like...what the...and joy busts out laughing and says so sweetly in her canadian accent, "He's farting!" really....how many people get the farting elephant?


• after our disappointing elephant "trekking," i was a little less excited about the sea kayaking but i still held out hope that it would be as cool as one of the other trips down the thai canals i'd taken in bangkok. of course, before we hit the kayaking they had to make a stop at cashew nut factory so we could learn about the cashews and, of course, buy stuff. (side note: did you know that a cashew is a fruit and a nut? yup...a cashew fruit grows on a tree and a cashew nut is on the bottom of the fruit. you can actually make cashew juice out of the fruit...it doesn't taste half bad.) so anyway, we sample the nuts and snacks and make some small purchases and then head off to our sea kayaking adventure. as we are pulling up i point out to joy the swarms of monkeys that are all over the place running all through the trees and even hopping in and out of the water that's coming up to the land. we hop out of the van and head towards a long rickety, wooden bridge that leads to a floating restaurant and then beyond that the kayak docks. just as we are coming over to the bridge our guide stops and says, "be careful of the monkeys. they will bite." so i'm like...ummm ok....and i'm looking at all the monkeys frolicking around me and they start to seem less frolicky and more menacing by the second. then the guide stops again and says, "oh! you don't have any food in your bags do you?" no i'm thinking, "you're kidding right? you just took us to a damn cashew nut factory and told us to buy stuff. OF COURSE WE HAVE FOOD IN OUR BAGS." but all i calmly inform him is that yes we have food, but it's not open. he says it doesn't matter the monkeys can smell it and they will still try to get it from our bags so we should be careful. so i'm like...gee, thanks for the tip buddy. and, of course, as we head onto the bridge the eyes of the monkeys are going from menacing to downright rabid in my mind's eye. then after 2 steps onto the bridge, the guide stops and says hold on. he runs off the bridge and then quickly comes back with a whole hand full of rocks. so i'm thinking this is comforting...this guy wasn't just playing a little monkey game...let's scare the tourists...he's serious about these things. so we head out onto the bridge and he's trying to shoo them away by yelling at them, stomping, jumping, throwing rocks whatever. most are not all that afraid and our progress is slow. now, i should point out, i'm at the back of the pack with joy in front of me and the guide in front of her. so with each passing step i'm thinking, "sure, the monkeys will run away from the guide and then circle back around and all pounce on me." i'm gripping the straps of my bag tighter and tighter but i have dancing images in my mind of me whirling around in a circle with 25 monkeys clinging to my backpack and my face and like ripping me eyeballs out. so you know....i'm a little freaked out and we aren't really moving fast enough to make me think it's gonna be over quickly. so i sort of lean forward toward joy and make a groaning noise as i start to say that i'm gonna hold onto her cuz i'm freaked. apparently....joy only hears the freaked out groaning and not the warning that i'm gonna hold on. when i grab her bag, joy screams and swings around wildly and looks at me. of course, her crazy outburst sends me into a screaming fit. as the two of us stand there screaming and looking at each other the guide just starts laughing. meanwhile i'm saying to joy, "what are you doing?!!!" and she's yelling back, "you scared me. you grabbed my bag and i thought it was a monkey!!!!" and i reply, "well you're screaming like crazy and that scared me half to death so now i'm screaming." we both kinda nervously laugh and then proceed to make our way to the end of the monkey bridge of death as i like to fondly remember it. by this time everyone in the restaurant at the end of the bridge as witnessed the white people hysterics and is laughing right along with our ever helpful guide. as you can imagine, our trip back down the bridge after kayaking was not something we were looking foward to. but this time, we had braced ourselves and felt ready. joy reminded me NOT to touch her this time and i told her i definitely would not. our guide had a long stick this time and so we were ready to go. i was some how at the back of the line yet again and so visions of multiple monkey attacks were still dancing in my head but i was ready to push through the fear. now i should clarify that monkeys don't just sit nicely off to a side and stare at you while they think about mutilating your face so they can get to your food. their tricky little buggers who bounce around like rabid 3-year-olds on a suger overdose. they hop from branch to branch and run all around the sides of the bridge and you never really feel on balance. you sort of think that you can't keep your eye on any of them for long enough to ever really be sure that they aren't running a diversion tactic or setting a screen of some kind so they can just pound you with an aerial attack. so all this is happening as we creep back down the bridge. we get about 1/2 way down and the guide stops. there are 2 monkeys a couple feet in front of him and they won't move. they are just sitting there...and i promise, one is growling. seriously, teeth showing, low noise coming from its throat growling. i kid you not...monkeys growl...and it is truly sinister. the guide is waving the stick and yelling and banging the tree branches and trying all kinds of antics to scare the pesky fiends away but they just aren't having it. after several minutes one jumps down first. then, the other sort of slowly splashes down off the side of the bridge but he refuses to do more than take 1 step off the bridge. once he's in the marshy water he stays right next to the bridge watching our every move. so we begin our forward progress once more and i'm just ready to give up and die of heart failure right there. then, i make the fatal mistake. just as we are passing the evil monkey, i sort of slow and look to the side so i can get a look at him. who knows what would possess me to do that...maybe i just wanted to be sure i could look death in the eye before it came at me...i don't know. but whatever the case, i glanced over and i see this little dripping monkey, hair all spikey everywhere, water dripping from the ends of it's furry head, and then....well how can i write it without showing you? then....he just lifts his arms next to his head, bears his teeth, and makes a hissing growling sound as he stares right back at me! needless to say, i was off that bridge in 2 seconds flat! of course, the best part was for the rest of the weekend when paul said something we didn't like, joy and i could just look at him and make the scary monkey hissing growling face. and then i would say, "i'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey!"

i know it sounds strange...but i kid you not....it is all hilariously true.