Okinawa Beach

A belated post from last week’s trip to the beach in Okinawa, Japan, where Isa was a good sport about getting her feet buried by her sister.  

   

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California

Why does this guy have a star on the walk of fame, and other burning questions, coming up this week.

I’ve returned to California for the first time in a long time for the national Asian American Journalists Association convention. We Asians (and Stiles) will be convening here through Saturday, getting some quality training in and talking about the future of news, which is one of my all-time favorite topics besides chili cheese dogs, Mad Men and Harry Whittington. Come back for some #newsfuture posts and assorted photos. I’ve unintentionally engaged in a Twitter war to tweet the shizz out of this conference, so my blog will be an extension of the 140 character updates.

My fellow Texans also happen to be in California this week. Lawmakers are partying an hour south in San Diego, for a lawmaker convention (far fewer Asians, but rife with opportunity for drunk driving arrests!)

After Midnight

I had no idea what to do with this after I got it from our wedding videographer/friend, Jeff. He’s the younger brother of my longtime KVUE-TV colleague, Shelton Green, and he’s a filmmaker based in Berlin. He hopped over to Amsterdam for the Hu-Stiles extravaganza and shot for days; he ended up with the whole weekend wrapped  into an eight minute video but as a bonus, created a short “after midnight” mashup featuring the crazy time we had at Club Air.

We are  told Club Air’s THE new nightclub to be at in Amsterdam. It’s in Rembrandtplein, not far from the main wedding hotel, and we wound up partying in the VIP area next to some of Holland’s world cup players (little did we know that a month later, they would be, like, famous.) It was nuts. Transvestites, performance artists, glitter… a night to remember.

The Sexy Greek Weather Gal

A former general manager of mine at a TV station in South Carolina always said, “Weather is reasons one through 17 why people watch local news.” In Greece, local weather is sexed up a few notches. This was hands down my favorite diversion on Greek TV. Watch for yourself:

Home

Back from two weeks in what I’ll call an alternate reality – something like my real life, only way better. A four-day wedding extravaganza that was really more like being on vacation with thirty people we love the most, followed by basking in the sun and exploring the caves on Greece’s largest island. Aside from a rocky donkey ride and one of my bridesmaids accidentally getting her luggage sent home to Austin, NEVADA, everything went flawlessly. Travelogue is to come.

Close Call?

Our longtime friend Sudeep came to visit this weekend, and from the sound of it, he almost didn’t make it home:

I made it home alive despite the praying 70-year-old woman next to me who kept saying “I have an awful feeling about this flight. Something just doesn’t seem right.”  QUIET DOWN FREAKWOMAN is what I was thinking. “That attitude may not make this much easier on you” is what I said to her. During an hour of turbulence she gasped repeatedly, I laughed. We all survived.

The Dutch Dude Deejaying from Austin Mystery

This post is a little late cause I just found the video. Alas. We spent New Year’s Eve in Holland with my mom. Part of the experience was feeling like we were in a war zone, because as it turned out, there were no restrictions on setting off fireworks from your home. I was scared for the ducks.

On New Year’s Eve, it appeared there was a massive party on the beach in the port city of Rotterdam that we watched on TV. Seemed pretty standard fare – bad pop acts, drunken people dancing in a crowd, DJ deejaying via satellite from Austin, TX… WHY WAS A DUTCH DJ DEEJAYING NEW YEAR’S EVE FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS?

Tim Laan Party Planner

Oh hey! We’re back from the trip to Amsterdam to visit Mom. While there we spent one action-packed day checking out the wedding venues. I scraped together random bits of free time to put together a chronicle of our day with Tim Laan party planner, the Dutch professional who’s taking care of nuptial preparation and making sure no one gets arrested during wedding weekend.

Purgatory

The more I travel, the less I expect a smooth trip or a even a mildly pleasant one. It’s almost inevitable that your flight will be delayed (if not canceled), that you get to your destination but your bags will not, or you will be flying back from Amsterdam when a dude in the rear of the plane decides to light his balls on fire in a failed Al Qaeda plot (we think).

So here we are, in Dallas (when we were supposed to be connecting in DC), headed to London (though the destination is Amsterdam), hanging out in the “DFW Comfort Lounge” (I suppose they’re trying to be ironic). Our first attempt at leaving Austin failed. We were re-routed since our aircraft was stuck somewhere in the tundra. Drove home. Drove back to airport to take off on re-routed itinerary. Made it to Dallas. Found out flight to London was delayed a few hours. Consumed some subpar tacos. Considered the “three tequila flight”. Opted for a post-meal fro yo instead. Found out our flight was delayed again. Now sitting in this so-called “lounge”, watching a retrospective on the “We Are the World” concert from a few decades ago.

Chuck Klosterman said something last year at a book signing about how airports are purgatory — an in-between place where everyone’s waiting to go somewhere but at the mercy of higher powers. Couldn’t have said it better.

UPDATE 9:17pm: Just learned both airports in Europe we must stop at (Heathrow and Schipol) are going to be quagmires… heightened security after the pants-on-fire-security-threat. Time to take that tequila flight.

Back in the USA

With mom in Budapest.

We lost constant internet connectedness for the last week as we traveled Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary by cruising down the Danube River. While we managed to check our emails once a day, not being tethered to the iPhone and other communications devices was a welcome break. I instead relished human connectedness – the kind with my family, the kind all too rare now that my mom, dad and brother are spread out across the globe.

The flights proved exhausting and frustrating as usual (but at least I didn’t have to spend the night in a baggage claim like that one night on the way back from China in 2007). Loved the Hungarians. One of our guides explained that being on the losing side of every war since the 17th century makes the people quite authentic and realistic — something that made us want to go back to Budapest, or as the locals say, Budapescht, quite soon.

Travel log:
Passau, Germany
Wachau Valley, Austria (includes cities of Melk and Dunstein)
Vienna, Austria
Budapest, Hungary
Esztergom, Hungary
Sturovo, Slovak Republic (just across the border from Esztergom)
Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Grein, Austria
Linz, Austria

And without further delay… the PHOTOS!!!

Europe Sept 09