Our New Office

Wanted to share a travel tip with all you fellow roamers. Actually, this tip might come in handy for all of you, even if you aren’t traveling.

When out and about and looking for a place to pee, you might want to refer to SitorSquat.com on your fancy phone. The site lists different public bathrooms including photos of the toilet and information about whether or not it is suitable for seating.

This is one handy tool. I mean, which one of us hasn’t struggled to find a place to wee that is clean and comfortable?

The reviews are all generated by bathroom users just like you. I searched for Panama and there are not bathroom reviews yet, but then I checked into New York City and wow. There are a quite a few reviews for NYC and some I’m certain to refer to once we’re there in June.

On the page I also saw a funny YouTube video of a bear trying out for a Charmin commercial. I know this seems random, but Charmin sponsors sitorsquat.com. You should watch it, it’s kind of funny. There’s also a nice shout out to my Des Moines peeps.

Travel to the Pacific side of Costa Rica from the US has proven to be a little difficult at times. And when I say difficult I mean expensive. The closest airport to Coco Beach is in Liberia. The facilities are really not much more than a hangar, but based on the cost of an airplane ticket and the cost of a cup of coffee from the airport’s only restaurant, you’d think you were flying to Club Med.

Despite all that, the Liberia airport is still pretty nice and easy to navigate — you can even sneak on to some Wi-Fi if you sit in the right spot.

Here’s Jason writing a blog post for OurNewOffice.com before we boarded our plane back to Denver.

Last week we flew to Denver to catch up on a few things and take care of some business. We were only gone for about a week so it wasn’t long before we were back on a plane headed to Costa Rica again.

On the return flight we decided to take the red eye from Denver to San Jose and then take a smaller flight on Sansa Airlines to Liberia. The Sansa route was less expensive and it was far more adventurous to sit on a 12-seater over a 747.

The biggest hassle wasn’t that our flight left at 12:10am. It wasn’t even that difficult to pack four months worth of supplies into two small suitcases.

The hardest part of our return trip was the fact that the two flight attendants on the Denver-San Jose leg would not stop talking. Not only were they talking a lot, but they were talking loudly and right next to us (of course we were in the back of the plane).

Having both took a Benedryl we were ready for sleep almost immediately and were not too happy about the constant interruption. Is it so hard? I mean, isn’t it obvious I don’t want to drink? I’m sleeping!

Jason resorted to a few deep sighs and at one point I even put my fingers in my ears trying to shut it all out.

So learn from us. Travel tip number 1,216: Bring earplugs on each and every flight. They might even be more valuable than some silly pillow that hardly helps anyway.

I feel like I came pretty prepared for our two-month Asia tour. At this point I’ve used everything I packed. However, there are a few things I wish I had brought with me.

Like a Tide stick, for instance. For those who don’t know, I make messes from time to time. In fact, just today I dropped a jar of marinara sauce in the parking lot of our hotel. It shattered (of course) and left quite a bit of a mess. It looked like someone might’ve died there so we had to go to our room and fill a pitcher with water to wash the marinara away.

If I had a Tide stick I could have easily cleaned up the marinara spots on my dress.

Next, if they would’ve fit, I would’ve packed some friends.

Jason is getting a little tired of me ravaging the mini-bar by myself every night. (These are our friends Alex and Matt).

And then there would be the vitamin C. I packed some, but I didn’t pack enough. Between all the airplanes we’ve been on and Jason’s persistent cough, some extra vitamins would’ve really come in handy to fight off all those germs.

Fourth on the list would be a watch. Back when I had a normal life, I became dependent on my cell phone for the time. Now that I’m without a cell phone I’m going crazy not knowing what time it is. Maybe if one of us had a watch we wouldn’t have arrived early at our tour bus and surprised our sleeping tour guide at The Great Wall.

Last, but not necessarily least, I would’ve invested in this little gadget that purifies water. It’s called the SteriPEN Adventurer Handheld Water Purifier and it reminds me a little bit of a Star Wars light saber, which makes it even cooler. Since arriving in Asia we haven’t been able to drink anything but boiled or bottled water, which is fine, but it gets expensive after awhile.

Are you getting ready for a trip and need some advice on what to pack? Browse the Our New Office Packing List to see what we recommend.

Being in a large city—any large city—there are a certain number of smells that are part of the experience. Whether its trash, the result of someone using an alley as a bathroom, exhaust, or just generally stinky people…bad smells are common, I understand.

But the day we accidentally walked through a fish market in Bangkok will forever be ingrained in my memory thanks to my nose. This kind of stink was not your typical city stink. This was fish stink in 90 degree heat.

You see on this particular day we toured a few temples in Bangkok.  Through the tour we endured much sunshine and heat. I don’t think our bodies were used to it because we were both pretty lethargic after only a couple of hours. We saw the Emerald Buddha and the Reclining Buddha, which were amazing, but after that we decided to skip the rest and head back to the hotel. We were just too tired.

This is the head of the Reclining Buddha. It’s huge!

Before we hopped in a cab Jason wanted to get a picture of the temple (Wat Arun) that we were going to skip. It was across the river (which was just on the other side of the street aways) so there was no easy view of it except from the shores of the river. We decided to take a short cut through what looked like a market so we could get a good picture.

Only a few feet deep into the market it was clear that this wasn’t a touristy market…this was a food market for locals. I saw a few fish heads, piles of fish skin, and several other piles of things that I didn’t recognize. A little queasy, I decided that I wasn’t going to look at any of the food anymore. Instead, I just stared at the back of Jason’s head and waited for it to be over.

But my nose wouldn’t let me forget my surroundings. Between the heat, the fish, the river, and the run down warehouse the market was housed in, the stench was overpowering. I tried breathing through my mouth but that didn’t really help either.

I wanted to turn around and leave but then I remembered Traveling Tip # 38, which is to always act like you know where you’re going. If you walk with authority then people are less likely to hassle you or come up to you to sell you things.

Finally, we had reached the end of the long aisle of fish guts and who knows what else when what does Jason do? He walks out behind the warehouse to the dock, which was no more than a few rotting boards shottily nailed together. There was laundry out drying and about five or six Thai people just staring at us waiting to see what we’d do.

I felt like we were intruding and was pretty uncomfortable.  I also wanted to plug my nose more than I ever had in my life. After about five or six shots of this….

…we got to go.  On the way out we walked down a different route, which was darker and a little more sketchy but certainly less stinky.

Once we finally got into a cab and were on our way back to our hotel Jason confessed that while we were in the market he saw a bucket full of boogers that made him want to puke.

I’m really glad I missed the bucket of boogers.

Jason and I have decided that from now on we are going to visit the city that hosted the Olympics a few months after the Olympics. This is because the whole city has been cleaned up, spruced up, built up, and just plain tourist friendly.

I have never been to China so of course I have nothing to compare this trip to, but it seems as though China made a very good effort to make Beijing accessible to everyone.

Almost every sign and menu includes pictures and some English.

Everywhere you turn there is someone cleaning. Every bathroom has an attendant. On almost every city block there is someone sweeping and scrubbing something. Our hotel rooms are immaculate. At the hotel we are in now the cleaning people come in the morning and in the afternoon!

On top of that there are beautiful fountains and gardens that have been built in honor of the Olympics. The logo for this year’s Olympics appears in the formation of a bush, flowers, water, and so on. Again, there might have been a lot of greenery before, but it’s my impression that these flowers and shrubs were planted just for the Olympics.

China is so proud of having hosted the Olympics that there are signs and shops everywhere promoting the slogan (One World One Dream) and selling all kinds of t-shirts, toys, and gifts. At the very top of the Great Wall there was even someone selling “Gold Medals” that said: “I climbed the Great Wall.” Clever, I say. But we still didn’t buy one.

They even came up with characters to represent each of the Olympic rings. They call them “Fuwa” and if you say the names of each character together it means “Welcome to Beijing.”

This is a picture of a, a...I’m not really sure what this is, but we came across it at Tianamen Square our second day in Beijing. I would compare it to a parade float that just sits there. At night its lit up all pretty and everyone gathers around to take pictures. They’re cute. They’re like cartoon characters.

P.S.

This is a picture of Jason at a park near our hotel in Beijing. It has nothing to do with the Olympics, but I thought it was a good one.

P.P.S. If you want to see more pictures from our trip visit the Gallery up at the top of the page. There are also a few videos up too. You can find those under the Videos link.

P.P.P.S. On the top right hand side of the page you can see where we are at the moment. We haven’t been able to update the blog as often as we like, so at least this way you can know where in the world we are.