London Ninja

To close out Lisboa, let me just highlight how politically correct everything is there. Now I’m not one to be all that PC about anything. I call it as it is but am pretty open to everything, having lived in San Francisco for over 5 years.

WTF?!?! This makes both my ninjitsu sensei AND Shaka Zulu turn in their graves.

So on that note, how many Mexicans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Juan. (Yes, for a limited time you can get presale tickets to my Comedy Tour next summer.)

XOXO, LondonNinja / Michael Jordan / Karate Kid

For the first time in my life, I will not be in the US for the holidays. Even when I lived in North Carolina, my buddy ODJ and I made it a point to drive back in time for the holidays with the family. Yes, folks. 1 car, 8 states, 6 days. It was particularly interesting when you throw in these ingredients:
1. Steak every night (lasted 2 nights)
2. No shaving all week (wasn’t that bad)
3. Excessive flatulence
4. Excessive belching
5. An endlessly looping cassette tape of Smashing Pumpkins
6. Record snow storm levels
7. Altitude sickness while snowboarding in Colorado

So with that said, this year I will not be eating fried rice with the grandmum and folks. Doesn’t make sense when you’re in Europe and can experience things like Swedish meatballs. This year we will be embarking on the coldest holiday season of my life. Here’s where we will be going along with our 4 NYC friends: Workmonkey, Jilly_Billy, Kym and Chaz. I’ll show these Americans how we Brits take down bitters.

The Trip
12/24 = Stockholm, Sweden
12/25 = Tallinn, Estonia
12/27 = St Petersburg, Russia
12/31 = Helsinki, Finland
1/1 = Back to the Queen

Why these cities?
Because nobody has been to these places. I actually didn’t pick these cities, but have always wanted to go to St Petersburg…and let me be clear that this will be the last time I go to Russia on a tourist visa. I forget how much of a pain it is to get a visa. Russia makes it twice as hard.

Is it going to be cold?
No. It’s going to be bloody cold. And by cold I do mean hypothermic. I have a few items that may battle some of the cold, but we will see. I may lose feeling in parts of my body…namely in the scrotum area. C’est La vie.

Finally got the chance to write all this up. These blogs are hard work, maaaaang.

For the second big trip out of London, we took my folks, bro, and sistah-in-law to Lisboa. Americans call it Lisbon. I just call it in its short form: Lezbo. There are many reasons for going to Lisboa, one of which is that my sister in law does not have an American passport and the Shengan visa for Spain is a bitch to get. You have to actually go in for an interview at one of their locations. The Portugal one was all done in like less than a week through the mail. That visa gets you in to anywhere in the EU….which pretty much means that the whole painful vetting process Spain does is useless anyway. Oh well. I’ve never been a fan of the EU anyway. The EURO took away the thrill of all the different currencies and doubled prices for tourists. FDAT.

First impression of Portugal after arriving there at around 9pm:
1. Kinda ghetto. Streets weren’t that lively for a Saturday night.
2. Very impressive town square
3. Architecture was clearly inferior to London’s…and that of Las Vegas
4. There is graffiti on every wall. Literally.
5. People won’t hesitate to rip you off.
6. You’re not in London anymore, toto.

First experience in Lisboa:
After arriving, we needed to get into town via taxi, which the guidebook says is 10 EURO to get into town. The two taxi drivers exchanged some words before taking us. When we arrive in the two taxis, they quote double that. We said WTF. Both taxi drivers were trying to rip us off but gave different quotes since they had not sync’ed up on the . They were actually quite skilled at it, bringing over a piece of paper and claiming off-hour times, luggage charge, and how we were in a “premier taxi”. haha. We were tired so still got ripped off and paid something like $18. Welcome to Lezbo.

What we did:
1. Visited the Castle Sao Jorge…a big ass castle up on the top of the city. It’s a castle set on top of the city. Pretty cool castle with rad views and a bunch of historical relics like the cannon.

Don’t hate. Congratulate and procreate.

2. Ate lots of seafood at the restaurant row. Good stuff…people are a bit aggressive in pulling you in to their restaurants but overall the food was lovely.

When I sea food, I eat food. (I’m here all week, yall)

3. Drank port (you know, Port-ugal) at the Port Wine Institute. Pretty rad, you just sit there and taste different ports. Got my Dad wasted.

4. Hit the local bars in town. Small divey type of bars litter the city. Sort of a sketchy part of town but pretty rad. Apparently the city was built in a haphazard way so that invading armies would get confused on where to go because the streets would all look similar with no recognition of any sense in where streets are going. It succeeded.

5. Drank shots of Ginginha for 1 EURO. They have these little walk up bars that serve this stuff. It’s a sweet brandy type of liquor made from Ginja berries that packs a nice bunch. A bit too sweet but I took plenty of em down….I mean, 1 EUR. My folks did start to get worried about my “drinking problem”, though.

6. Checked out the Golden Gate Bridge part deux. This thing was apparently built by the same designer of San Francisco. WTF. I mean seriously…WTF. How can you take a landmark from a different city and just pop a duplicate in a different city like it was a cheap Chinese counterfeit LV bag?

The Faux Golden Gate bridge. SF is going to file infringement soon.

7. Visited Monastery of Jeronimos. A big cathedral with…you know…big cathedral like stuff…dead monks…

8. Ate little egg custard pastries at Pasteis de Belem.. These little things are pretty damn good. If you go to Lisboa, you have to try these.

Egg custard from Pastreis Belem

9. Visited the Belem Tower. Kind of a cool looking tower on the water good only for pictures. Speaking of pictures, I apologise for my folks ruining my picture below. How dare they get in my shot?

Ever wonder what a Michael Jordan / Karate Kid combo would look like? It’s called London Ninja.

10. Sipped Cristal the whole time. Did I mention to everyone that I’m a high roller? Those in the hip hop industry would call me a balla and a shotcalla. Word to yo mum.

You know how I roll, sippin Cris like its h2O.

Overall, Lisboa was just aight for me. If you need fast visa to get into the EU, it’s not a bad starting point to get into EU. The prices are pretty good, food is good and there are some sights that are impressive. It’s a less touristy place because it is out of the way for more casual travelers, so that helps it to maintain a more chill mood. I wouldn’t necesarily go out of my way to get there though.

Starting a new type of blog entry where I put up a different image up that I’ve taken to highlight my mad ninja photo skillz (used for secret espionage missions)

Prince Albert memorial monument in Kensington Gardens.

I had previously wrote about electronics in the UK, which I am sure many are familiar with. It’s pretty simple, you go to Walmart and purchase that travel voltage converter next to the section with the Foreman Grills and fat ladies with strollers. You then browse through the electronics section, muttering how dated some of the stuff is at these type of stores.

That was what I had been using for a while but there are some serious limits to how usable those damn converters are.

1. You are not supposed to leave those plugged in for extended periods of time.
2. You are not to exceed a certain watt. If you do, it will melt down and kill you.
3. You have to attach it to an adapter, which then makes your contraption quite unsightly for your imaginary friends.

This is what most people live with….but the Ninja-style does not rest. I present to you the Voltage Transformer:

Ex-pat Holy Grail

The voltage transformer is a constant voltage converter you can leave plugged in. You can also plug in an American power strip to allow you to plug in American devices without messing with adapters. I have one 6-outlet surge protector and another extension cord from that for my bedroom. I purchased a 500W model, which means you can’t surpass that number at any given time. Since I do not have my electric bull plugged in, I am well below the limit. I have my PS2 (yes, old skool), cordless phone, laser printer, computer speaker system, and everything else in there now. All the devices that would have blown the Walmart converter into smithereens(hadn’t used that phrase in some time, so had to look it up) now work just fine. Bloody brilliant…and it’s like $30 + tax/shipping in America. ZOMG.

In business terms, we like to say things like “reach out to X”, “mitigate the risks of..”, “core competencies”, “deliverables”, “big crocks”, “bloody dillweeds”, and “needle-movers”. Let me add a few more: “long cock tail”, “quick win”, and my favorite: “low-hanging fruit”…where was I?

Ah yes….so in business terms, I would call the voltage transformer an absolute “needle-moving big rock”. I would almost go as far as saying it has changed my vida loca. Lovely. Now time to go pick off some “low hanging fruit”.

Had a great trip the past 10 days, rounding out the travel with a stop to see the folks in San Diego. Let me break my trip down by the daily highlights:

Day 1: Cotijas Pollo Asado Chicken Burrito
Day 2: Karinas shrimp plate with tortillas, etc
Day 3: Las Olas Chile Verde platter with tortillas, etc
Day 4: Aibertos Carnitas Burrito

What I did not get the chance to hit was this tortilla factory that serves rad carnitas burritos for lunch only that ODJ and AK have been touting. Gotta save something for next time…something other than cleaning out my parents’ garage.

As a bona-fide jetsetter, I am in the middle of my London->New York-> San Francisco -> LA -> San Diego -> London trip…currently in the bay area. The biggest difference I’ve seen since I’ve left is how big of an impact the weak American dollar has been having on visitors. All of the folks I’ve talked to that are here from the UK or DE have been on shopping binges, buying handbags, iPods, electronic toilet bowl cleaners, you name it. I guess it’s good I’m a bloody Brit and everything here is cheap…but then again everything outside of the UK is cheap if you’re a bloody Brit.