Julie and Julia and the Anatomy of Deboning a Duck

Nov 1, 2009
Bogota, Colombia
Elevation 2574m

I went to the movies yesterday as I was a bit tender from part taking in the festivities of Halloween. It was a surreal experience and I felt sligthly displaced as I walk about in a mall, sitting down at a movie theater, watching a movie in English with Spanish sub-titles.

The mall is just like any mall that you would find in the states, in any first world nation. You are also being charged international prices for the movie and popcorn. After a month of backpacking, living on backpacker budgets, going the extremes from big cities to small towns, all of sudden being in a mall in Bogota and feeling like I could be stateside was disorienting. I ended up seeing "Julie and Julia," it was that or "Saw V."

The movie itself was entertaining enough but I was slightly disappointed that it did not actually show me how to debone a duck as now I am very curious to know and wanting to practice on a duck myself. This morning I startd to wonder about the difference between raising ducks verus raising chickens. What is the difference in return on investement and how did chicken become the IT poultry? At what point in human evolution did we decide that chicken will be the bird of choice, both in egg form and fully grown? If Michael Pollan´s "Ominivour's Dilemma" has taught me anything, is that the industry is driven by the math of return on investment and market demand. Did we demand to have chicken be the everyday poultry first or did we calacuate out the cost benefit first?

4 weeks in Colombia and I have travel by bus from the Carribean coast down to near Ecuador and then back up again to the capital. I have seen a lot of poilice presence in every town and have ventured into market places and neighborhoods that some would deem sketchy. When I was preping for the trip, friends caustioned me the danger of Colombia and that maybe I should rethink my plans. Colombia is still a place of guns and cocain, FARC adn kidnappings in the mind of many. My disorienting experience at the movies last nigth only serve to remind me a conversation I had with a fellow traveling friend Nick. Nick has just come up through Syria when I meet him in Tureky a few years back and I asked him about safty in Syria. He said "Civiliation carries on, no matter where you are, just be smart and not venture into conflict zones and you will find that life carries on. The people find a way to continue theie lives and liviehood." I have seen the tenacity of humanity in many places and irrespective to whether the mental image we have of Colombia is correct or misinformed, life certainly carries on here. The beauty of this nation and the warmth of its people have impressed me deeply. Colombia is unlike anything I had imagined it to be.

Food Costs in Japan

Dec 4, 2008
Kyoto, Japan

The impression of Japan is that it is an expensive country to live and travel in. I certainly am feeling like I am burning through money a bit here. Although I do think that a trip through Europe or US would be just as expensive, if not more so.

As I have traveled, I have always found ways to cut down on costs and be some what thrifty, but I am having a rather hard time here practicing some tried and true money saving methods. For one thing, none of the budget places, hostels or ryokans actually have a kitchen for the guests to use that includes a stove. Which means that not much cooking is really possible. When a bowl of ramen costs 650Yen and up (current exchange is 95.4Yen = 1USD and with banks fees factored in, its more like 93Yen = 1USD), which means that the simplest meal you can have will cost you nearly $8. If some amount of cooking was possible, it sure would help with the budget travel.

Here are some of the sample food costs here in Japan:
A single apple = 88 Yen - 180 Yen (88Yen was on the smaller side, the larger ones are the size of an infant's head)
Bread = 188 Yen ( there was a special at the market that day where the price for 3 slices, 4 slices, 5 slices or 6 slices are bread all costs the same)
6 eggs = 298 Yen
Cream Cheese, 6 small single serving = 460 Yen
Pork Cutlet Sandwich = 360 Yen
Lunch Bowl sold at Train Stations = 840 Yen
7 piece of sushi outside of Tsujiki Market = 3500 Yen
Coffee = 200 Yen - 529 Yen (all simple drip coffee, nothing fancy, the cost of coffee is certainly killing me a bit here)
Pastry = 180 Yen and up
Water = FREE! The tap water is of such great quality there that you at least don't have to buy water, and it tastes great!

So, thank god for free and clean water, but maybe I should think about cutting back on the need for fresh fruit and coffee.