Reason # 4 we should go to Thailand: We love us some quirky!

We admit we're kind of geeky. We like weird things that appeal to our academic and odd sensibilities. Amber likes her singer-songwriters crooning of lost loves and broken dreams. Theo devours comic books and has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of movie quotes. But one thing our self-effacing nerd-dom really enjoys, is the quirky while traveling. Amber mentioned in the previous blog my fascination with the old and new dichotomy found in much of the Old World. A convenience store 10 meters from an ancient Shinto shrine? Priceless. A high speed train in China with peasant farmers transporting chickens? Golden. But I love noticing the innocuous cultural mash-up, like the Korean fascination with claw vending machines, and ... hunger.

A lobster claw vending machine? While a few of these games have appeared in American seafood parlors since, back in 2001, I had never seen such a device. And was this magic contraption in just such an establishment? No, it was on the street across from the train station in Anyang-dong, a neighborhood in Seoul. At the time, just 500₩ (a little less than $.50 then) gave you a chance to ready your claw to capture a crustacean. It wasn't just that it was completely foreign too me, but I was intrigued by the culture surrounding it. It was like a video hunting game where after baggin' whatever critter you just shot, sloomp!, out it came from the console as a reward.

I lived in Germany studying at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf for a semester back in 2002. My friend Joel, an impeccable Swede, and I went barhopping in the Altstadt, colloquially known as "the longest bar in the world," because in only half a km², it contains more than 300Altbier, we caught a karaoke booth where a delightful group of inebriated teen girls were butchering an American bubblegum pop song. Although the lyrics were in displayed in English, I in German is read as /ee/. The result was a spectacular rendition of Britney Spears “Oops, Ee Deed Eet Ageen.”
Or when Amber and I traveled to Kyoto for the weekend with her sister. I'd been living in Japan for a while, and I wanted to show them what an awesome place Kyoto was (for much the same reasons as we chose Chiang Mai). Surrounded by history and the beautiful traditions of obon, we discovered a traditional Irish pub, The Hill of Tara, in the middle of Kyoto's Kawaramachi district. As we drank our traditional Irish ales, we couldn't help but laugh at the oddity of our position. Three Americans drinking Irish beer in Japan. Absolutely fascinating!

But it's these kind of experiences that Amber and I will seek out. We'll help our readers and viewers of our blog, vlog, and newsfeeds enjoy these kinds of experiences. It's like a "Hey, cool, look at this !" moment that we can share with the world. You want us to go to Chiang Mai because we'll bring these quirky moments and experiences to you with the wide-eyed wonderment and rascally humor they deserve. We look forward to making you smile.