Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

"Since the regular room is booked out, we will move you into a two-bedroom suite for your stay," the receptionist casually mentioned upon the author's check-in.  The author, for his business trip this time in the Philippines, was placed into a gigantic service residence unit.  Wowed by the sheet size of the bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom...the author was just giving himself a tour of the place when he noticed a little dark alley on the side of the kitchen, away from the bedrooms and the main door.

On the road, the biggest enjoyment a traveler can possibly have is food.  Going to new places and indulging on the delicacies that raised a whole new unknown civilization cannot be underestimated in its value in communicating with the locals.  It is like the Chinese says, "民以食為天" (people see food sky/heaven).  The centrality of gastronomy in not only the cultural expression of a place, but also the economic realities of the common people residing there  provides possibly the most concentrated and succinct method to get know the good and bad of a foreign location.

A couple of years ago, there was a South Park episode that made fun of the late Steve Irwin,  Australia's famed "crocodile hunter."  The episode characterized the nature of Irwin's TV documentaries as mere attempts to gain viewership by intentionally pissing off wild animals while fully knowing that the animals will be pissed off by the human intrusions.  By skirting serious physical danger in his pretty much unnecessarily violent interactions with the pissed off animals, Irwin somehow gains a status of folk hero in the process.