I don’t think I wrote much on Greece so I’ll give you some of the highlights in case you ever want to go there. Athens has some of the coolest ancient ruins I’ve seen and it’s worth a day and a half of your time to see everything, after that it’s pretty boring. If you have anymore time go to the greek islands. I’ve heard there are quiet islands if you’re looking to relax and there are definitely party islands (this is where the bwbg needs to spend spring break). The ferry ride kinda sucks but as long as you don’t mind a 9 hour ride where you sleep on the floor (most people sleep on the outside deck) you’ve found a cheap way to the islands. Thanks to double-H’s tip we stayed on Ios and it was pretty crazy there. The typical Ios day consists of getting up around 11, (because you’re so tired from the partying the night before) going to the beaches till sundown (they actually were prettier than the Thailand beaches), going out to eat awesome greek food, crashing at your tiny hotel room till about midnight and then drinking till 6am. After a long asian invasion we needed the beach, the beer and it was also a nice change to brush your teeth without use of a water bottle.

Despite getting to the airport 35 minutes before our flight we managed to make it to Rome and in case you didn’t know Italians are crazy. They cheer when the plane lands, they wear Saved By the Bell t-shirts that say Zack loves Kelly on the back and they are still celebrating the world cup (yea gold flavored Gatorade). We’ve pretty much spent our days checking out all the sites (except poor Regina missed the Sisten Chapel..how is a chapel closed on sundays??) and our nights drinking wine and checking out the crazy things people are doing on the streets.

And yes it’s said but true, the lovely Regina did leave Rome today, but I still have some cards left so the invasion is going as strong as ever even if it’s down to one person. Now that I’m by myself more tourists than ever come up to me asking for directions and since I’m bored I started a new game where try to give them directions in Italian giberish. I don’t think they like the game as much as I do.

Well back to the invasion, there is good italian wine and a pub crawl that have Benny Biggg’s name written all over it…

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p.s. Did the lovely Johnny Dynamite really get ink on his arm???

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We were suppose to get up early the next day and make the 11 o’clock ferry to Koh Samui and to our credit we were ready to go by 10:30 but the staff was too hung over and hadn’t reported to work yet so we couldn’t check out. We ended up catching the 4pm ferry and eventually got to another bungalow. We did some more cheap shopping in Koh Samui that night and the next day we went elephant trekking. Elephant trekking is awesome. At first we rode the elephant (shout out to my girl Elle) on a mini couch thing but then the guy asked me to sit on the Elle’s neck and ride her that way. Sorry Johnny, I might have to trade in my bigwheel if someone ever starts a elephant riding gang. I was also pretty proud of Regina who rode on Elle even though she was bit nervous at first. If only she showed that kind of bravery while riding on the back of the motorbike with me. Riding a motorbike is the best way to get around on the islands and there aren’t very many traffic laws so it’s kinda a free-for-all. I also have to admit at first I wasn’t so great on the motorbike but once I figured out how to turn I was much better. My only advice is don’t try to learn how to ride a motorbike with a nervous backseat driver and in case you’re wondering while I’m slow as hell on the bigwheel, I’m a speed demon on the motorbike.

Anyways we were very sad to say goodbye to the Thailand Islands but at least we were headed for the Greek Islands and not Delaware (yea Widner). Our plane ride kinda sucked; after our crazy day we had to be at the airport by midnight for a 10 hour flight to Athens. Once we got to Athens at 7am Greek time we were going to figure out how to bus to the Pirease port and then get on the 7 hour ferry ride to Ios. Unfortunately the ferry was completely sold out when we got there and the next ferry we could get on wasn’t till 10:30pm the next day. Regina was not very happy with me that day. Luckily we were able to get a hostel in Athens that night (not an easy thing on a sat night) and talked the Ios hotel guy into letting us change the dates we were staying at the island even though it said the hotel was booked online. AND it turns out lots of backpackers make the ferry mistake because the girls we dormed with last night did the same thing (plus 2 other groups of people at the ferry ticket agency) so while Benny felt like a big idiot for not getting tickets in advance, at least he wasn’t alone. The only potential problem now is that the only ferry we could get coming back docks at 5pm and we have to make a 7:20pm flight to Rome that day, so hopefully we won’t get stuck in Greece (sorry mom I might not be coming home).

Well that’s all for now, I’ll write all about Athens and the islands the next chance I get. We’re now 3/4’s of the way around the world and while the Asian Invasion was a complete success, there is a lot of work left to be done on the Eurasian Invasion….

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Bangkok is a crazy city. The shoes and clothes are even cheaper here than they were in China. Things are generally very cheap here but that doesn’t stop the locals from trying to overcharge us every chance they get. It’s pretty hard to tell the difference between people trying to help you and people trying to scam you. On one hand we had cab drivers trying to charge us 250 bot for a cab ride home (probably a week’s worth salary for most people here) and on the other hand we found some guy that drove us all around town for 4 hours for 10 bot (about 25 cents). When I gave him a card I think he wanted a job with the bikergang because he asked me if I would take him back to the US with me. Any spots open for my boy Sum-Kit, Johnny??

Then there is the sex disctrict….Women literally walk around with numbers around their neck and you can order anyone you want. It was tough holding back the lovely Regina from ordering one but I did my best to preserve her modesty, however there was no stopping her from dragging us to a pingpong sex show. We met some guy on the street who promised us a good show for 200 bot so he led us down a few shady alleys and into this even shadier building. As soon as we sat down about 10 women came over and started massaging Regina and I (don’t worry I made sure they didn’t pick-pocket us). As soon as that was done some crazy old lady came over asking us for 600 bot for the 2 beers and massage we had “just bought”. Surprisingly enough the guy we met on the street lied to us about the price, so we paid for our beer and massage and watched some of the show and headed out. If you ever get a chance to go to a pingpong show don’t go on a full stomach because you might just lose your lunch. This is a family site so I won’t get into details but lets just say I’ll never look at a birthday cake the same way again.

I won’t even get into all the people that tried to scam us when we got to the island (lucky benny bigggs is an expert at scams) but once we got to our bungalow everyone has treated Benny Bigggs like the celebrity he is. The staff likes to drink with us and they are going to the half moon party with us and they’re even doing our laundry for us.

Well I think the rain is finally letting up…tomorrow we’re off to another island and if the weather is ok we’re going elephant treking…And don’t worry the Asian Invasion cards are going faster than Johnny on his bigwheel.

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Tomorrow Benny Bigggs will see if his bigwheel skills translate to a motor bike (hopefully not if you’ve seen the videos) and of course the half moon party is going to be craaaazy.

Oh and Jaime, I’d bring you back shoes but my backpack is pretty full….

The invasion continues to exceed expectations, we’ve gotten first class treatment since we’ve landed in China. Someone picked us up from the airport and although they had a sign with Regina’s name on it, I’m pretty sure it had something to do with traveling with a member of the bigwheel bikergang. Our hostel obviously know they have a celebrity in house because they set us up with tickets to any event we want and provide a free ride to and from wherever we are going (shout out to my girl Apple). They also give us a free breakfast in the morning and help us in anyway you can imagine all for a grand total of 10 bucks a night. Money goes very far in Beijing and since my TDY was cancelled I’m thinking about moving here. The only drawback to our hostel (and all of Beijing for that matter) is that the bathrooms suck. You aren’t allowed to throw toilet paper in the toilet (what was I thinking) because it will clog up the pipes. In fact virtually no bathroom in Beijing comes with toilet paper so Brownie would be screwed if he came here. You also have to use water from a water bottle to brush your teeth and the shower is not separated from the rest of the bathroom so you shower between the sink and the toilet.

Right now Beijing is under MAJOR construction for the 2008 Olympics so it seems like every road and monument is under construction or renovation. Our hostel is located up a very shady alley that is all dirt road. Every morning there are like 50 people working on digging it up and I suppose eventually they will actually put a road there.

The lovely Regina and I have done a lot here so far, we’ve visited the temple of heaven, the lama temple, Confusus’ temple, the forbidden city and tiananmen square. The forbidden city was by far the coolest thing we’ve seen so far and I’ll post pictures soon. When we got to the hostel there were notices that con artists lurk out at places like tiananmen square and try to strike up conversations in english so you’ll befriend them so they can later suggest you go out for drinks and stiff you with the tab. This is pretty much true. Everywhere we went random people came up to us trying to talk to us about how they went to school in China or some other over-friendly story. I would hand them my bikergang card and walkaway, so if you guys are reading this now..nice try. I also handed out my card to alot of  those annoying people who try to hand you flyers when you’re walking around…they didn’t know what to do.

As you may have figured out by now we stick out quite a bit over here. There are tons of people who come up to us and ask if they can take pictures with us. No word on whether that’s because I’m a member of the bikergang or because Regina and I maybe the first white people they’ve ever seen…you be the judge.

Well that’s all for now…we got the Great Wall coming up in the next couple days, if I had my bigwheel I’d could find out exactly how many Great Wall steps a bigwheel could go down before it got detroyed.

BB

We spent our first day in Korea hanging out at the Oson base and the town around the base. I have never seen so many bars in my entire life. We got into town the day before 15 straight days of hardcore training began so pretty much the entire base was on a mission to get shit faced that day and Benny Bigggs was going to help the troops any way he could.

The town surrounding the base was absolutely insane. Charles will be sad to know there was only one sighting of an asian prostitute (a pleasant creature named “the road warrior” who would grab you when you walked by and say, “wanna go??”) because the military cracks down on prostitution there. However there are the Juicy girls. Juicy girls are Phillapeano girls that sign 1 year contracts to “mama pimps” to work in their clubs. They work 7 days a week have strict curfews and only get one night a week off (and I thought Lockheed was bad). You can only buy conversation from a Juicy girl and it costs you 10 bucks which goes to a drink for the girl and she only stays as long as it takes for her to finish the drink. Some guys can buy a girl for the whole night but the girl is then free to go home or hang out with the guy if she wants (sucks for that loser).

Dewey thought it’d be a great way to support the invasion by buying me 1 drink worth of a Juicy girl. She tried to show me how to line dance to hip hop music and told me all about how one day she wanted to be an x-ray technition. Benny Bigggs was of course a perfect gentleman to her which maybe why she didn’t leave even a half hour after I told her I wasn’t going to by her another drink. She finally left when Dewey got her attention and told her it was time to go. Next came lots of beer, ammo shots, soju and about 8 kettle shots (whatever those are) and this boy from south phillywas learning how to 2 step. I don’t remember if I was any good but I don’t remember falling. All in all Benny Bigggs tried to show the men in uniform a good time.

For those still interested is the cultural piece of the invasion I should let you know that the Korean people in general are pretty rude and Seoul is not the friendliest place we’ve been. The older Koreans will push you out of the way if you are in front of the in the street or even if you are in the middle of paying in line. The younger Koreans are much friendlier and a little more westernized but they still respect the older Koreans and put up with their ways. As far as Seoul goes, it had it’s moments but I didn’t see a lot to that really separated it from any other big city I’ve seen with the exception of one bar district that beat anything I’ve seen in the US. My pictures should be posted soon.

Well thats all for now…we are back in a hostel that has easy internet access so hopefully I’ll be on soon to talk about China. I think China has officially sent Regina and I into culture shock so don’t forget to leave some love…

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