Heyyu
Sep 16th, 2007, 08:16 PM
I'm fortunate that I've been able to travel to many different countries (yet ironically I HATE taking planes). In Asia, I've been to Japan, Taiwan, and China. For the other English-speaking countries, I've been to Canada (cousin lives in Toronto and once lived there myself for a short while), New Zealand (Auckland), and Australia (Sydney & Alice Springs). Now, Toronto & Sydney have a lot of Asians, but I was surprised by the number of Asians I saw in Auckland (I mean, who the hell would move all the way to New Zealand?). But if there's one thing Asians do well is spread their numbers around... most of them FOB's too. There's definitely a major FOB culture in Auckland and Sydney and some parts of Toronto.
But the most shocking thing was seeing the Australian Aborigine tribes in Alice Springs (which is smack dab in the middle of the Outback). I always assumed the Aborigines looked like the Native Indians in the America's but in fact they resemble black Africans... and yes, I could sense the hostile racism from the white Australians directed at them.
And during the summer of 99', I visited most of the Western European countries doing the whole independent traveling thing: UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Liechtenstein. Needless to say, that was long before the movie "Hostel" came out & scared the shit out of American backpackers.
What was my impression of Western Europe? MEH. A big fat giant MEH. And with the exception of a few, the landmarks are pretty boring and not as nice as it seems on the postcards... seriously, everywhere I went it seemed that 90% of the historical landmarks were churches after churches (with the exception of this penis fountain that I saw in Brussels).
I don't know about the European girls liking Asian guys more myth since at that time my "macking" skills were quite low (still hadn't come out of my virgin shell yet). All I know is I got these cold & weird looks everywhere I went, except the big cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris (and the Eiffel Tower is filthy dirty upclose). Although it's true Amsterdam had a lot of hookers and marijuana cafes and I did get "approached" by blonde Euro trash hooka's (pretty sure they were Polish or some other Eastern European ethnicity).
Overall, I didn't come away with a good feeling of Europe, except London was ok since everyone spoke English and I didn't have to thumb through a pocket dictionary all the damn time. And there's a nice Sega World in downtown London near the Piccadilly... don't know why that's the most exciting thing I remember from my time in London. Oh yeah, and there's this dessert in London called the "spotted dick." Just had to mention that.
But the most shocking thing was seeing the Australian Aborigine tribes in Alice Springs (which is smack dab in the middle of the Outback). I always assumed the Aborigines looked like the Native Indians in the America's but in fact they resemble black Africans... and yes, I could sense the hostile racism from the white Australians directed at them.
And during the summer of 99', I visited most of the Western European countries doing the whole independent traveling thing: UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Liechtenstein. Needless to say, that was long before the movie "Hostel" came out & scared the shit out of American backpackers.
What was my impression of Western Europe? MEH. A big fat giant MEH. And with the exception of a few, the landmarks are pretty boring and not as nice as it seems on the postcards... seriously, everywhere I went it seemed that 90% of the historical landmarks were churches after churches (with the exception of this penis fountain that I saw in Brussels).
I don't know about the European girls liking Asian guys more myth since at that time my "macking" skills were quite low (still hadn't come out of my virgin shell yet). All I know is I got these cold & weird looks everywhere I went, except the big cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris (and the Eiffel Tower is filthy dirty upclose). Although it's true Amsterdam had a lot of hookers and marijuana cafes and I did get "approached" by blonde Euro trash hooka's (pretty sure they were Polish or some other Eastern European ethnicity).
Overall, I didn't come away with a good feeling of Europe, except London was ok since everyone spoke English and I didn't have to thumb through a pocket dictionary all the damn time. And there's a nice Sega World in downtown London near the Piccadilly... don't know why that's the most exciting thing I remember from my time in London. Oh yeah, and there's this dessert in London called the "spotted dick." Just had to mention that.