I've been pretty good this year with my weather whines... but this was the news I woke up to this morning...
This could be the year we have the heaviest snowfall in 70 years. And we're not even half way through winter yet - I still have the worse month of Feb to look forward to. It was a great incentive to spring out of bed!
And whats with the 40 degree weather back at home?? Not sure if I envy you or not...
"You need to step outside... every time you open your mouth, the price goes up"
Gotta love mi-wei-sik-chu for her honesty. I can ask her anything at all, and she would give a straight answer. Never mind the fact that I considered leaving her in the Moroccan souk after a comment like that... she may have the art of bargaining, but she also needed my sense of direction to get her out of the maze of never ending stores and alleyways:
Good thing I didn't leave her behind. She was my toilet paper dispenser, my drug store, supply of pastries and my mother away from home... when we got back to London, she was my nurse, cooked me soup and bought congee at 2am so I can have it for breakfast. She was worth skipping out on sunny Mexico to go to bloody cold London and Morocco.
An added bonus to this trip was that reen-ee decided to join us before we left!
Morocco was every bit as colorful as I had imagined. A guesthouse Riad Jona was true to gorgeous pictures on it's website. We met some really great people, people who offered us mint tea, cookies on the street, students studying English who offered to take us around... but there was many others who tried to rip us off.. cab drivers, shop owners, and
even random people off the street. It was a shame, but we sported a defensive attitude, and was often rude, just to get them off our backs.
Moroccans are also fascinated with Asians, we couldn't walk anywhere without being hassled with "Konnichiwa"... "Japanese? Chinese?"...
It was extremely annoying, but I guess Moroccans are so rooted in their culture, regardless of how they were brought up. Their background is such an important part of their lives that naturally they are intrigued with our backgrounds.
I was asked who I would represent in the Olympics if I had to choose between China, my heritage and 'where I am truly from', or Australia which they described as simply 'where I live'. There is no doubt who I would choose the represent, yet to them, not fighting for your roots is a foreign a concept, as foreign as I am to them.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the Sahara desert. The places of interest on the way there was nothing compared to the destination itself. To be riding a camel and watching the sunrise in one of the greatest natural beauties of the world is awe striking. Sharing a tent with 12 others (including four snorers), sleeping under blankets used to cushion our butt on the camels back, and peeing under the stars was less inspiring, but worth the cause:
And the best of the rest? Being able to meet with sorely missed coffee and shopping buddies in an exotic country. I can't think of better travel buddies to pee under the stars in the Sahara desert with.
