you ever notice women with solid men do the least amount of talking online. no quotes, no stories, no nothing. Too busy taking care of them to even bother being on here swanning. and men themselves will tell the woman ‘you’re doing too much knock that shit off’. thats how i know which friends are in good marriages, the ones i hardly see posting on here. yall know who you are. good job you, im proud of you. me on the other hand. everybody getting smashed and 100 thots posting subliminals and soundtracks about my demise. smh. too old for this.
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I live in the Philippines
I never did update my website to inform that I live in Manila now. I have been here since June, so about 4 months and its been the best move I’ve made thus far. Things have been going good and I plan to buy a house in 2020, yes, I will be here long term. Warm weather, warm people whom speak english, cheap cost of living, and general courtesy that I have missed all these years. Random fact: Outside of North America, Philippines have the most american expats in the world.
Anyways I guess I should change my bio to ‘welcome to manila’. I have begun a new chapter in a new country, and I’m happy.
Never try a new burger in China
Every so often the chinese will present a new burger of some sort at one of their fast food chains (McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC), think McRib or some other new ‘limited time only’ specials in the U.S. Now, in the U.S, usually the new limited time only specials are something epic, I mean think about how popular the McRib is, they’ve made a damn Simpson episode about it. Well, that just isn’t the case in china, 10 out of 10 their new burgers or specials are something utterly terrible. I feel as though I’m being trolled or someone just sat in a meeting room thought long and hard about the most random and most disgusting burger they can come up with, because I think, to them, that is what we westerners eat, random combination of ingredients. I don’t think they realize there’s a science to it, actual flavors that have been proven to mesh via decades if not centuries of trial and error.
I see a new burger at Burger King, but every year I forget not to try any new burgers and to stick to the regular stuff like a chicken burger made with confetti lettuce (it probably is made out of paper for all I know), but you get sick of the stuff and sometimes you see something new and because back home you’re programmed to assume the ‘limited time only special’ will be good, you try it. The burger, with what looks like a thick chicken patty, thick cheddar cheese and some sauces looked quite good in the picture, couldn’t read it, just assumed that’s what it was and that it would taste great —WRONG—WRONG. The thick chicken patty was a very small thin layer of fish, the thick cheddar cheese were thick slices of mango, and the sauces were what appeared to be shredded shrimp and ketchup. ABSOLUTELY FOUL. Now at this point my taste buds are confused and my brain is sending a signal of anger. How? Why? Who? I ask my gf if mango and fish are a common combination in china…she says no. THEN WHY, WHY DOES THIS BURGER HAVE IT? I swear, they are just fucking around and trolling at this point. This doesn’t make sense. This is about as dumb as the time I went to the “Burrito” spot and the guy gave me tacos that had slices of almonds in it, and a burrito that had corn, egg plants and I think apricot (I’m not kidding), or the time I went to a fish and chips place and she used soy sauce instead of tartar. This is an abomination! No one taught them to do this, they are just making stuff up, mixing them in dishes for absolutely no reason.
This is why I can’t wait to go home in 2 months. It’s been a little over 2 years since I’ve been home. I am hungry, starving, losing weight, I just want something that taste normal. Is that so hard? Is a beef patty with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions that difficult? Is a burrito with carne asada, salsa and cilantro too much to ask? If these lazy ass foreigners aren’t going to open any new restaurants out here (excluding italians), I may just have too, seriously this makes no sense.
Just got back from India.
Not really in the mood to upload them to this site, but you can find photos @ instagram.com/travelingknox
It was quite an interesting experience. Exactly what I expected. The food was good, the roads were hectic and monuments were ancient. People were friendly but the customer service sucked (funny how they’ve outsourced our customer service there). I saw wild cows and dogs on the road, and found out new dehli was predominately hindu and muslim, not as many buddhists nor Gautama statues as I anticipated.
The tipping culture reminded me that of the U.S which threw me off since I haven’t been in a tipping culture in over 5 years and haven’t been back to the U.S in 2, so having to dig in my pocket to fork over 15% was a little annoying but luckily it was just rupees and the conversion rate is crazy. Speaking of conversion, you’ll of course go shopping and get haggled, have people following you around asking for money (they put extra effort into tourists of course) and you’ll find out that you can bargain prices of items down to damn near 60%, which makes you skeptical of every negotiation you have.
All in all, nothing I haven’t dealt with, and I recommend everyone at least visit once in their life.
Black American tries Chinese snack (duck tongue), Chinese girl tries American snack (flamin’ hot cheetos)
Goodbye China Podcast: Episode 1 – Talking UFC, Tim Kennedy and Yoel Romero w/ Josh O
Goodbye China Podcast: Episode 1 – Comedy Show Gone Wrong In Qingdao w/Josh O
Outskirts to Qingdao (vlog)
Three day weekend? Not in China.
There’s a lot of holidays in China, some traditional, some national. The traditional ones tend to be the most important, I would rank Chinese New Years the most important, it typically lasts about a week. Other holidays are much shorter such as Autumn Festival (think Thanksgiving) which is usually 3 days. The shorter holidays will start on Thursday, but unlike the U.S., you don’t come into work on Monday, but rather, you have to come into work on Sunday to make up the day you missed due to the holiday. OUCH. That sucks. Be thankful for your 3 day holiday this thanksgiving.
edit: National Holiday is 7 days, the same as Chinese New Years.
On a different note, this Autumn Festival Claire and I took a tour around Qingdao and some small villages on the outskirts of the city, Qingdao is really a beautiful city no wonder I’ve been living here so long. It was nice to see the villages with favela like mountain views of the ocean, it was very green and tranquil in those parts but I couldn’t help but notice that in between there was a lot of construction and big buildings being built in between. What once lied in that area? Will the villages clinging to the cliffs be next? Who knows. I got a chance to record and take some nice video of the tour, I’ll start editing them tomorrow and hopefully have a vlog up later this week it’s been a year since I’ve made a video, even made a couple of sound tracks for it. Let’s see how it goes.
I haven’t written a blog in months, lets talk about taking a taxi as a black person.
I was going through my timeline and realized my front page looked like a soundcloud. I should probably stop doing that or at least mix it up a bit more. This is, after all, a blog about china.
Today’s topic will be about taking a taxi as a black person. Now I really don’t like getting into china and ‘racism’ because I don’t like to call what they do here racism. Its ignorance. They just don’t know and are afraid of the unknown. They go by stereotypes they see on tv and make vast assumptions, its not their fault, its a country with 1.4 billion people and they’re all yellow, even the internet is chinese *cough cough*.
Uber has been god sent, I no longer have to deal with this but about a week ago I was reminded of what I had to go through when I first moved here. If you’re waiting for a taxi, especially during rush hour or near a chinese person, the odds are you will be passed up. I don’t know why this is, it’s not like they don’t pick you up at night (shouldn’t they be more afraid at night?), it’s not like if you’re alone during the day and on an empty small street they don’t pick you up, they do, in fact its much easier to catch a cab when it would be the most dangerous time to pick up a threat lol, but a busy street next to a chinese person, especially a girl, forget about it you will be passed up 8 out of 10 times. I’ve learned to adapt however, typically I tell the chinese person I’m next too I have next dibs, so when they inevitably drive past me and to said person 3 yards away, that person knows I have next and they just allow me to get in, some will even open the door for you :). Problem solved. Anyways, I no longer have to do this, uber to save the day, Murica coming in and regulating without even knowing it. 🙂