Thoughts on Traveling 2: Culture Shock

To follow up on my last post about needing a home, it's interesting that I am reading Robinson Crusoe right now. It's a boring ass book, if you cared, but much of the book is about him just wanting to get his pad tight. He's got nothing, no people, no foreseeable chance of getting back home, but he spends years building his abode and such. I don't care much about "stuff" so to speak, but whatever crap I do amass, it'll be great to have one place to put it all. As it will take me at least a week to buy a computer and get hooked up on the net, I really look forward to having someone's jaw drop when I tell them I don't have one.

I think one of the coolest things about travel is that "Wow! I'm in _____" feeling you get when everyone around you is speaking whatever language, and seeing random meat, connected to the body parts, hanging in shop windows, etc. I am not really a spiritual traveler who goes to come to a better understanding of the world we live in, blah blah blah; I trip out on the little things, like how the buses in Bangkok don't come to a full stop and don't wait until you're necessarily fully on to go. Or the old men riding bicycles on the middle of the busy highway on my way from Saigon's airport.

In my experience, there was a renewed culture shock going from Europe and Japan, at first, to developing countries- which is a true eye-opener which everyone from the "West" should do if they can. But then after living in SE Asia for about 3 years, India didn't trip me out so much. I did have some random, unexplainable moments in Bangkok, when I was just thinking "Damn, I'm living in Thailand. That's fricking weird." I have one exception...Tokyo. Tokyo is no doubt unlike any place I have been to. I would be very wary of the most seasoned traveler going there and saying that they weren't a little shocked at it.

So my point? No clue really. I think that a big part of my just wanting to go home and settle down is due to the fact that I just don't know where I would go to get that culture shock rush again. My top three, in some order, where I believe I might be wow-ed, are 1) the Caribbean- for some kind of paradise/third world vibe. 2)West Africa- just because that's the root of most of the music I listen to (and probably you, too), and wildlife, and I just think it would just be dope there 3)Israel- to see my peops. I don't see how Israel couldn't be an eye-opener. You think security at Heathrow or JFK is a bitch, I can't imagine Tel Aviv.

Well, I'll be home Monday. And yes, I am ready for some football.