I’ve been bouncing around a lot the past couple of weeks, so here are thoughts that are even more random than usual.

And, my standard disclaimer: While I’m traveling, lots of random thoughts pop into my head. Each week I like to share a few of them. Please don’t judge me, I know I’m a bit crazy.

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Three whole days in Manila and I still haven’t found any organized tours that take you to the factory where they make their envelopes.

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In Manila, restaurants don’t use heat lamps. Food is kept scorching hot through a process they call “room temperature.”

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The Singapore Merlion is an ancient mythological creature dating back to a time when the “Trinket Makers Guild” decided the city needed an ancient mythological creature.

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Singapore is the only place on the planet that gets hotter after a light rain. The water hits the sidewalk, turns to steam and treats you like a stalk of broccoli.

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Which is worse: having a vague sense of fear about all the creatures in Australia that can kill you or doing research and knowing in explicit detail about all the creatures that can kill you?

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um…yeah. If he’s not a fertility doctor, fate is quite cruel.

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Seeing the scrub U.S. basketball players on the Asian league teams made me wonder if there’s a job opportunity for second rate actors to play the “evil American general” in North Korean and Iranian films.

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Fashion tip for working girls: if you’ve taken the trouble to spend $2000 on fake boobs, you should really spend $10 to wax the unibrow.

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A stand in Kuala Lumpur sells belts studded with bullet casings. I tried to think of the top 3 airports I’d like to try to wear that through. Heathrow wins for providing sheer entertainment value without the whole “ending up dead” thing.

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The following things are not allowed on the ferry: cows, dogs, birds and cartoon kittens.

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It’s no wonder Malaysia has such a mixture of different religious beliefs. Zooming around blind curves in a mini-bus, you will pray to Buddha, Allah, Jesus, Vishnu – anyone who’ll listen.

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I was in a Thai restaurant listening to what I THOUGHT was traditional Thai music with traditional Thai instruments, but when I listened more closely it was actually a Thai version of Bryan Adams. At Asian airports, they scan your body temperature to make sure you’re not bringing in some new flu. Shouldn’t they have the same concern about the onslaught of Canadian music?

There are a couple of spots in Beijing that specialize in food on a stick. Sure, they have chicken and beef, but those are the ones that are least interesting (aka “edible”). Here are a few things you can also buy on a stick at the Dong Hua Men night market:

Octopus: we’ll start out easy. Lots of people eat octopus and I admit, I’ve even tried it (covered in vinegar and after a long night on the town).

Crickets: No good pictures, but I’m told if you don’t want them on a stick, you can buy fried crickets in a snack bag like popcorn.

Scorpions: Two flavors – big and little. The challenge with the little scorpions is that when you see them on the stick, they’re still alive and squirming. While that would certainly stop once they’re on the open flame, it’s still not easy to look at. Also some silkworms – maybe eating these is how magicians pull an endless chain of scarves out of their mouths?

The little scorpions, with some seahorses and starfish thrown in if you prefer seafood.

Snakes: No pictures, but there were two ways to present the snake. First was by straightening the snake out and just pushing the stick all the way down the gullet. The second was my favorite, though. The snake was twirled around the stick like the AMA symbol.

Tarantula: I get creeped out just knowing I’m in the same country with these things.

Sharks: This one’s my favorite because it’s not shark MEAT on a stick, it’s a shark. A whole shark that’s been impaled. Unless it’s made of the same stuff a gummy bear is, I’m not going there. (with some sea anemone)

A British meat sampler plate. Not sure if blood sausage qualifies as "meat."

“Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.”
Mark Kurlansky

At home, I generally ate 5 things: cereal, pizza, hamburgers, tacos and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. There were other meals, of course, but in the course of a week each of those was guaranteed at least once.

Trying to turn me into a foodie is a challenge on par with getting Lindsay Lohan’s rehab to stick.

One of the common requests I’ve gotten since I started traveling is to take photos and write about the food along the way. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. The words aren’t there because I just don’t care.

“That’s why people travel,” was what one friend told me.

Is it? Not for me. I hate food. I eat as a maintenance activity like showering, brushing my teeth or watching porn.

Travel and food are inextricably linked for many people. On any given day, you could tune in to The Travel Channel and be hard pressed to tell if you were actually watching the Food Network, except the latter includes infomercials for The Tater Mitt and Onion Blossom Maker.

I love exploring other cultures – the history, the artwork, the lifestyle. But when it comes to the food, I’m just not that interested.

Paella for a busload of Tomatina-survivors.

Its importance to travelers is understandable. Food is a cornerstone of a culture and to appreciate a destination, you should be exposing yourself to new things that are important to the people you’re around. That’s why one of the first goals I set out for myself in traveling the world was to dive in and try the local food. (Read: Confessions of a Cultural Idiot Part 1)

For two months I’ve been trying. Blood sausage in England, paella in Spain with types of fish I’d never even heard of, Roquefort cheese (aka mold) in my crepe in France. I’ve eaten a number of things that were never on my radar in the U.S. and I haven’t even gotten to the countries with food that’s really outside of my comfort zone.

For some reason, though, my food experiences are almost always “meh” inducing. It’s not that I hate the foods I’ve eaten, it just doesn’t make any kind of impact on me whatsoever.

To be honest, at times I’m ashamed of myself – so many cultures consider the meal a primary component of their lives and I feel like I’m missing out, but I’m not sure how to change it.

What do you think? Am I doing something wrong? Does anyone else travel with no regard to eating their way around the world?

Anyone spending a significant amount of time in Paris is going to have to brave a supermarket. You can only eat so many ham & cheese crepes in ten days. In case you’re curious, that number is 7.

Supermarkets in France, and especially Paris, are not the same as those you may be used to, so I figured I’d give you a little background.

History

Most shopping in France is done at the corner market, so large supermarkets are few and far between. That is changing as chains like Carrefour attempt the domination of France in a manner similar to Wal-Mart in the United States. Fortunately for the corner market owners, though, French people aren’t driven by price at the expense of their souls.

But large grocery stores DO exist. Mostly for use by tourists, of course, because the average French person knows better than to try to make their way through a supermarket in Paris.

The Stuff You’ll Find

Your selection will be limited to bread, cookies, fruits & vegetables, lawn chairs, chocolate, yogurt, chocolate yogurt, cheese, wine and milk. Oh yes, the milk. Let me jump right into an explanation of milk in France for you.

You can find milk in the “milk aisle” because there are 430 varieties of milk, and they’re all unrefrigerated. Oh, they’ll try to fool you by also having cold milk in the “yogurt” aisle, but don’t fall for it. You are going to get used to buying warm milk because if you buy cold milk, the clock’s a-tickin. In precisely 38 hours, it will be  pouring out of the jug like cottage cheese. Give in, suck it up and drink the warm stuff.

Operating Hours

Most Parisian grocery stores are open from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM, so that you cannot do any shopping after work. This is ideal, as it completely eliminates any possibility of a husband being asked to “stop and pick up some bread on your way home from the office.” Yet another example of Parisian genius. Stores are also generally closed from noon to 2 so that the entire staff can go off and have a smoke break. So, grocery shopping is left to those without jobs – like housewives, students and blog writers.

If you really must find a store with longer operating hours, check out Huit a 8, which is open from about 9 to 7.

And if you’re interested in eating on a Sunday, practice your dumpster diving skills, as no stores are open on Sundays. Oh, they might have hours posted that SAY that they’re open, but what that sign doesn’t include are the disclaimers – *except during times when some of staff is sick, on vacation or on holidays, throughout summer and any days there are strikes going on.

How the Check-out Works

Once you’ve selected your food, you are ready to brave the “caisse” or cash register. This is by far the most complex aspect of shopping in a Parisian supermarket.

Regardless of the time of day, there will be a line. It will be long. Anyone who thinks that Parisians aren’t friendly has never stood in a long check-out line, because at the register, the cashier is a best friend to EVERY person in line. They talk about the weather, their cats, the test score their son got in 2006, whatever comes to mind.

Here’s what you do:

Wait.

For the love of God, don’t whisper to yourself that you wish someone would open another line. That is such a rookie mistake!

Geez, now look what you’ve done.

When people talk about France being Socialist, I think they’re actually talking about their proclivity to socialize at whatever time is most inconvenient to those around them, like when they’re standing in front of the Metro exit turnstile.

Here’s where you went wrong: Once a new cashier approaches the registers, the greetings begin. It’s nearly identical to a wedding reception line. Each cashier must greet, kiss and chat up the new cashier, welcoming and congratulating her on joining them before she takes her place at the counter.

Buying the Groceries

As the line winds down and you near the conveyor, you must wait until there is a bar separator between the groceries in front of you and your own. It does not matter if you have 4 feet of open space, Parisians take tremendous offense if you set down groceries prior to the separator being in place. This is because they can see that you’ve mysteriously purchased cold milk and they don’t want to risk taking that home with them.

One other interesting aspect of shopping in Paris is that customers bag their own groceries, traditionally in a sack that says “Property of IKEA.” This isn’t unusual, in and of itself, however the trick here is that you are not to pay or make any attempt to prepare to pay until you have completely bagged your groceries. After all, until they’re bagged, you don’t own them so making a move to give the cashier money PRIOR to that is idiocy.

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Et voila! Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of Prince Cookies, a nectarine and a 4 foot long loaf of bread.

Hmmm… I wonder if I can eat an eighth ham and cheese crepe?

With apologies to Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant at Stuff You Should Know (Twitter: @SYSKpodcast). If you don’t listen to their podcasts, I highly suggest you do. Informative AND entertaining.

With just seven weeks to go until I leave on my round the world trip, it’s about time I follow through on one of the commitments I made several months ago. I promised Jeremy at www.livingthedreamrtw.com that I would steal his sidebar tally idea for my own site. At long last, I’m keeping my word.

As I travel, here are some of the metrics I’ll be tracking. Regular updates will be available at “My World In Numbers” on my Route page and I’ll post a monthly update as a blog post.

Days of travel: 0
Days of rain: 0
Sick days: 0

Dollars spent (before departure): $1415.98
Dollars spent (on the road): $0
Dollars earned (on the road): $0

Countries visited: 0

Miles traveled:

by bike: 0
by train: Trips: 0; Kilometers: 0
by plane: Trips: 0; Kilometers: 0
by bus: Trips: 0; Kilometers: 0

Calories burned on the bike: 0

Pictures taken: 0
People interviewed: 0
Blog posts (before departure):
Blog posts (on the road):

Places stayed: 0
Nights without a bed: 0

New foods tried: 0
Times it made me gag: 0 puke: 0
Times eating ice cream: 0
Regional events attended: 0
Weddings crashed: 0

Times I’ve thrown my iphone against a wall: 0
Items I originally packed but threw out: 0

For those interested, my pre-departure spending includes a netbook, refurb of my bike (including new wheels built to withstand anti-aircraft missiles), spare parts and travel gear (the most costly being the panniers). I also included the pre-pay for my blog host & online services like Flickr and Carbonite.

Thanks to a stockpile of airline miles, my flight was free.

Anything else you’re interested in that you’d like me to add? Jeremy has a few fun metrics like “squat toilets used” but my brain really doesn’t want to go there quite yet.

I am the anti-Bourdain. When I watch him, I see someone who turned Fear Factor into a full time career.

Where's the expiration date printed?

I confess. Foreign food terrifies me. So much of it is slimy and chewy and squishy.

Seriously, have you SEEN a 100 year old egg? It’s an unnatural translucent green that you suspect incubates something that would stalk Sigourney Weaver. If I had eaten it, there would have been a translucent green coating on everything within 30 feet.

The most lavish feast I’ve ever seen was when I attended a traditional Chinese wedding (it was in Chinatown in Los Angeles, but that’s besides the point). All the main courses came out with heads still attached, so I had to survive entirely on fried rice and a slice of the marital cake.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not some ugly American who looks down on other cultures. I LOVE other cultures. I love watching the people, how they work, how they live, how they eat. But I love them from a distance. Fear has prevented me from really diving into them.

Photo - Thomas Scoch, wikimedia creative commons license

A primary goal for my round the world trip is to fix that by fully immersing myself and adopting the lifestyle in my temporary homes. The most challenging part of that goal is going to be indulging in the food. I’ve tried nibbles of things when I’ve traveled, but I’ve never really opened myself to them. Whether it’s quail eggs or kimchi, I’ve managed to dance around it.

There’s no trick to fixing this. I just have to force myself to do it. These are things that have been eaten by millions (or billions) of people, so there’s nothing in there that’s going to kill me. And for god’s sake, I’ve had the food at Arby’s, which should be infinitely more frightening than sampling fried crickets.

In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt – “eat one thing each day that makes you want to yak.”