Canned Christmas

Christmas, as we understand it in the west, isn't celebrated in Russia on December 25. They reserve that for New Years, thanks in large part to the Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist regime Russians lived under for three-quarters of a century.

The Orthodox Church never changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, meaning that they remained about 13 days ahead of Europe (who changed to the modern Gregorian calendar a few centuries ago). So while, technically, Christmas is celebrated on December 25 in Russia, it is in actual fact January 7.

The Communists, on the other hand, in their war on religion, set out to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church (which was a HUGE part of Russia's national make-up) and in addition to demolishing historic churches and arresting clergy, they also banished Christmas. They recognized that the people needed something to celebrate, so they moved Russia to the Gregorian calendar and made New Years the big celebration in Russia. As a result, after three generations of forced celebration on December 31st, New Years is today the big holiday in Russia.

New Years has all the trappings of Christmas, including "New Years" trees, "New Years" gifts and cards, Grandfather Frost who brings gifts to children on "New Years Eve" and everything else one would expect on Christmas, with the added tradition of drinking until one nearly dies.

Because I am from the west and December 25 is still the biggest day of the year in my mind (and soul), I decided to celebrate Christmas as best as I could. Katya and I travelled to the historic town of Suzdal, about 280 km south-west of Moscow.

We both took Friday (Christmas Eve) off work and boarded a train bound for Lake Baikal, in Siberia, for the three-hour journey. There were only second-class seats left but we felt like splurging so we forked over 500 RUB each and found our car. Two army men were sitting in our compartment (2nd class on Russian trains consists of a private compartment with 4 bunks for 4 people).

At first Katya and ignored the two soldiers, who had a dignified air about them, and we chatted away in English. On Russian trains one cannot use the toilet until the train has left city limits, so after thirty minutes, when the train had departed from Moscow and the jungle of apartment blocks and rusting factories had changed to snow-covered birch and pine forests, Katya left the compartment to find the little girls room. I sat in silence with the two soldiers.

Suddenly, one of the soldiers, a young man with a soft face and two silver stars on his shoulder boards, turned to me and in perfect English asked "Where are you from?" I was surprised and answered "Canada. And you?" He looked at me in a strange way for a moment and then began to laugh. "Russia, of course!" he answered. "I'm Anton, and this is Sergey" He motioned to the incredibly large young man sitting across from him with piercing blue eyes. Sergey must have been at least six-foot-four and was bulging with muscle, even in his baggy camouflaged army uniform.

By the time Katya returned to our compartment the three of us were swapping jokes and laughing and acting like old friends. Katya looked a little confused but sat down anyways (she later admitted she thought she had entered the wrong compartment). Anton was a lieutenant and he was taking Sergey, a private who had just finished boot camp, to his first posting in Siberia. They had a 3-day journey and then once Lt. Anton had safely delivered his young charge, he had a 3-day journey back to Moscow. Anton was a true slavophile, who told me numerous time that he "loves Russia" and held his hand on his heart every time.

When I asked about the black panther patch on their uniforms, he told me that they were internal military security forces. "In Stalin's time we were called NKVD" he informed me, and then pulled out a bottle of vodka and a sausauge and some bread, and we all began to drink. "I like Canada" Anton explained to me. "I thought you were American at first, and didn't want to talk to you." As he drank more vodka, he began to repeat "I love my country. I like Canada. I don't like America."

When the train reached the city of Vladimir, mine and Katya's point of debarkation, we gathered our things and said our goodbyes. "Wait!" Anton exclaimed, and he pulled out of his duffle bag a big box of Russian army rations. "Merry Christmas!" he said and thrust the box at me. "Umm" I stammered, not sure what to do. He was drunk and would probably miss them later, and I also had no room to carry 2kg of canned food around with me. His gift was thoughtful and he was genuinely being kind, however. "Thanks!" I replied. "Merry Christmas to you! And S Novom Godom (Happy New Year)!"

Anton smiled proudly. "Nobody will believe that I was drinking with a Canadian!" he declared.
"Nobody will believe I was drinking with NKVD!" I replied, and we both laughed. Then the kind and drunk security lieutenant gave me a big Russian bear hug, and Katya and I left the train.

With our own bags and a bulky 2kg box of powdered and canned army rations under my arm, we struggled through the snow of Vladimir until we found the bus station. There is no train station in Suzdal itself. so we had to take the train to Vladimir (another historic city and once the capital of Russia in the 15th Century) and then a 1-hour bus ride to Suzdal.

Suzdal is a Russian showpiece. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it is completely devoid of factories and highrises and highways. All the houses are little and ornately decorated in rich carvings and colours, in the traditional Russian way. More brilliantly still, there are nearly 150 bright Orthodox churches in the town and surrounding country side, so hundreds of multi-coloured, multi-shaped steeples poke up into the air from Suzdal's skyline. The roads were small and tree-lined and with a rich blanket of thick white snow, the town had a fairy-tale quality to it. Best of all, the rude and aggressive crowds of assholes that is Moscow were far behind us. The entire town was silent.


Katya and I spent two nights in Suzdal, exploring the churches and museums. On Christmas morning I awoke to find a small, luggage-sized Christmas tree with one sock under it. Katya, knowing Christmas is my favourite time of year (she calls me Clark Griswald), had packed a little tree and begun knitting me socks, but didn't have time to finish the second one. Across the small street from us was a huge convent surrounded by a big white wall. This convent is where the Tsars sent unwanted wives.



We spent Christmas Day walking through the town, and visited the Suzdal Kremlin and the Museum of Wooden Architecture (a big, open-spaced museum where wooden buildings have been reconstructed and period-actors roam about).

One problem with Suzdal is that it is pretentiously over-priced. The service is no better than in Moscow, nor is the quality of the food at restaurants, yet the prices were 20% higher. One restaurant was decent, however. Sokol, on the main street, has a nice little bar tucked into a corner of the second floor and they serve food from the restaurant upstairs. The barman is friendly and courteous, although the prices still suck.

Our hotel was wooden and the room was made of big wood logs, in the Russian tradition. We were the only guests in the hotel and the staff even went home at night, so on Christmas night, after a day walking through the town, we got drunk at the bar and sat in the lounge listening to music and playing chess, eating kalbasa and cheese on crackers.


On Boxing Day, December 26, we took the bus back to Vladimir and caught an elektrishka back to Moscow. I was hoping for another train, with it's comfortable bunks and drunk soldiers, but there were none that day, so we were stuck with a Moscow commuter train, complete with asshole babushkas and panhandlers who crowded and annoyed us for 3 1/2 hours.

On the elektrishka my stomach began to growl. We hadn't had time to eat that day, and we had just barely made the train so didn't have time to pick up food. With no prospect of sustenance for five or six hours (after arriving in Moscow we had to take another elektrishka to Shyelkova, and then a bus to Katya's home), and beginning to feel positively famished, I did the only thing I could think of. I opened the box of army rations the friendly NKVD officer had given me.

Inside were cans of preserved meat, packs of preserve jams, vacuum-sealed high-energy crackers, packets of vitamins, powdered juice and tea, and four little burners to cook food with. There was also a can of buckwheat porridge, which I immediately resolved to NEVER open.

One of the cans had a picture of a cow on it, so I picked that one out of the box and opened some sealed crackers. There was a little thumb-sized metal blad with a tiny notch in the handle which I assumed (correctly...I think) was a can-opener and so, surrounded by idiots and assholes on an uncomfortable wooden elektrishka seat, I began to saw away at the can of preserved beef.

I was surprisingly succesful, as I slowly but surely pried the lid off the can. A putrid sweet odour from the can spread throughout the elektrishka car, and people began looking over at us (especially the fat old woman sitting next to me) as I hacked and sawed. Fatty, oily juice sloshed over the sides of the can onto the floor and seat. Finally I opened the can and peeled back the tin lid.

Inside were big, disgusting chunks of brown and grey beef, with a thick layer of waxy white fat on the top. Katya looked at me in a strange way, knowing how picky I am about food. I was starving (and a little hung-over) and I had just gone through so much to open the can, so I was committed at that point to eating it. I grabbed a cracker and jammed it into the disgusting cesspool of meat and fat and oil I held in my hand, and scooped up a big, dripping piece of what I assumed was beef. And I ate it.

I ate the whole can of it, in fact. It was absolutely putrid. It ranks high on my list as one of the most disgusting things I've ever eaten, next to steamed silkworm larvae (Korea) and baked bat (Thailand). It was filling, however, and after I had eaten the can, fat and all, I threw it in a plastic bag and resolved to never eat that stuff again. Later that night my stomach revolted and I spent spent several hours running to the toilet, which begs the question "How do soldiers eat this and perform their duties"?

On Monday I returned to work, and so ended my second Christmas in Russia.

Back To The Rodina Matre

Visa: Check.
Train ticket to Toronto: Check.
Flight to Moscow: Check.
Suitcase full of gifts: Check.
Last $10 To My Name: Check

It appears I am ready to head back to the motherland (well, not my motherland but it's catchy) for who-knows-how-long this time.

It's a little bitter-sweet leaving family and home behind, again, but at least this time I know what I'm getting myself into. The rather intense reverse-culture shock that I experienced when I returned to Canada has long since worn off and I have enjoyed the past month or so, particularly hanging out with my siblings.

Last night one of my sisters and I joined my brother and 8 of his guy friends for a night of drinking at a trashy dive of a bar in Ottawa's Little Italy district. Following several shots of Moscovskaya Vodka (even here I can't escape it!!!) we proceeded to down pitcher after pitcher of beer. There were three hockey games on and the Phillies-Giants baseball game, and after 4 or 5 hours of steady drinking we were all sufficiently inebriated to not notice the $350 bar tab we had run up. Oh well. Good times never came cheap.

I'm off to Russia again where, despite my strong love of Moscow and the Russian people, I will miss being surrounded by English and, surprisingly, I'll miss TV here. I don't watch a lot of TV, but when I do I love some of the programming, particularly the culture that revolves around CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. It reminds me of evenings cuddled warmly in my house sipping on drinks while the snow falls past street lights outside. Workplace conversations revolve around "the game". Complete strangers at Tim Horton's will begin discussing it when waiting in line. Won't see any of that in Russia.

So, once again, adieux, Canada. One day I will return to your snug, comfortable, hockey-crazed beer-loving free-health-care embrace. For the time being I'm off to drink vodka, stammer away in a language I can barely pronounce, lose hair to the polluted rainfall and dodge insane drivers and furious old ladies.

Masochistic Love of Russia: Check

End of Act I

Returning to Canada after a year in Russia and a week in England was, to say the least, anti-climatic. The past year that I spent in Russia was one of the most eventful and interesting years I've ever had and Canada just feels, well, boring. It's like I never left.

This fact could be attributed to being in Ottawa, the city that fun forgot. If I had returned to the west coast things would have been much different but, as it stands, my family lives in Ottawa thus I am in Ottawa.

My week touring around England may have helped to buffer some of the reverse-culture shock, as everyone there speaks English, has the same culture as my home and living standards are high, although driving on the left remains confusing. Also, customer service in England is only a few shades brighter than customer service in Russia, and I have yet to experience exceptional Canadian customer service (to be fair, the best customer service in the world is south of the Mason-Dixie Line in states such as South Carolina and Georgia).

One interesting thing about my visit to London stands out in my mind: meeting up with Quagmire!

A few days before I set out for the UK Quagmire emailed me and said he was passing through London on his way to a new destination. I told I was also passing through London at the same time! We arranged to meet at the stone lions at Trafalgar Square at 1 pm and on the specified day we met up.

The last I had seen of Quagmire was after he was canned in Mytischi for missing classes. Wonderpants, Mr. Irish and I had chipped in some cash to give Quagmire as he didn't have enough for a flight home and Language Link was cancelling his visa. He took a train to Kiev, Ukraine, and for a week or so stayed in touch but then vanished. That was in March. Now, in September, in London, England, Quagmire and I were sitting at a British pub eating steak and ale pies and drinking British Imperial pints of bitter.

Quagmire had been arrested in Ukraine for teaching illegally at a language school in L'viv and had spent some time in a Ukrainian prison, and then an immigration detention centre and then was finally booted out of the country. Naturally the police kept his laptop, cell phone and cash for themselves. He's now found a new job in Sri Lanka and while he was stopping in London on his way east I was stopping in London on my way west.

London is filled with tour companies; it is the fourth most-touristed city in the world, so Quagmire and I bought tickets for a hop-on/hop-off bus tour called "The Big Bus Company". They have open-top double-decker buses and follow a bus route which snakes through Westminster and London, stopping at every interesting site. The ticket is good for 24 hours so anybody can hop and off and catch another bus. They come by every 10 minutes.


In January Quagmire and I had conducted a beer tour of Moscow. It started when we got stinking drunk at a cafe in GUM (possibly the only idiots on the planet to get drunk in GUM) and in 12 hours saw us visit over 10 different bars and cafes and clubs. For old-times' sake, armed with our Big Bus tickets, we did it again in London. Piccadilly Circus! Drink! Soho! Drink! Whitehall! Drink! Big Ben! Drink! The Tower of London! Drink! Buckingham Palace! Drink!




At 9:30 the following morning I made my way to Heathrow and caught a flight back to Toronto and then a connecting flight to Ottawa, where it has been nice to see my family but completely lacking in anything resembling excitement, and thus the anti-climax of an epic year.

The good news, for me at least, is that I decided to return to Moscow but this time as a student of Russian. Katya and I paid for the first semester of courses and my Letter of Invitation is being processed in Moscow right now. In four weeks I'll fly back and Katya and I will rent a flat on the (cheaper) outskirts of the city, so the wonderful year I just experienced has, after all, a sequel!

Quagmire enjoys a pint of British ale

Russia to Sweden to England

I flew out of Moscow on Saturday afternoon and touched down in Stockholm two hours later in what turned out to be an anti-climactic departure. With all my business with Language Link tied up including receiving my final pay-out and flight reimbursement (which all went rather smoothly), I said my goodbyes to dear friends and colleagues and boarded a Scandinavian Airlines Airbus at Sheremyetova International.

Stockholm was not as exciting as I was expecting. This centre of Scandinavian culture and history, as well as the capital of one of Europe's most prosperous and advanced countries, was surprisingly small. I never was able to get an exact population figure but it couldn't have been larger than 200,000 people. I'm too lazy to look it up.

I only had 18 hours in Sweden before my connecting to flight to London so I took the fast airport express train from Arlanda International to the city centre and walked around. By following a couple of the canals that snake through the city I was able to see a few interesting sights, such as the pictures below, but unfortunately I couldn't find my way to the Royal Palace where the King of Sweden lives.



From Stockholm I continued on my journey to London, England where I landed around 10 pm local time and my cousin and her husband, The Roberts', were waiting for me.

There was an interesting moment at the British Immigration desk at Heathrow when I was nearly denied entry to the United Kingdom. All non-EU passport holders have to fill out an immigration card and one of the questions on this card is "The address, including postal code and telephone number, of where you will be staying during your visit." I had no address and no telephone number for The Roberts', so I simply jotted down "Daventry". The woman at passport control didn't like this.
"Why don't you know where you're staying?" She asked me in a very accusing tone.
I shrugged.
"Let me see proof of a flight out of England." She demanded.
I handed over my e-ticket voucher for my flight to Canada.
"I need an actual ticket!" She barked.
"This is all I have." I replied and, for some reason "Look, I have a Union Jack and a crown on my passport, and it is issued in the Queen's name!"
She looked at me for a long time in uncomfortable silence while I stood there with an idiotic smile, and then she sighed and stamped my passport.
"Ok. Don't do it again." She advised me as I walked through the turnstile. I was in England!

I've been relaxing for a few days at my cousin's house in the rural English town of Daventry and spent yesterday picking blackberries in the rain, driving on the left side of the road (driving standard with the gear shift on my left was a strange experience but I quickly mastered it; the most difficult part I found was negotiating the ridiculously narrow British roads) and drinking true Imperial pints of bitter ale at true British pubs.

This is a ROAD, not a footpath!

I'm here for a few days and then I'm off to tour around London on my own and then flying home to Canada.

And then in October I'm returning to Moscow for more adventures.

The Really Big Shawn Burger

I love burgers. The more cheese and bacon and other tasty garnishes that are added to a burger, the better it is in my opinion. Rarely can a burger claim to defend itself against my predatory need to consume beef patties smothered in cheese, but in my life I have found one that can kick my ass: The Really Big Shawn Burger.

The Really Big Shawn Burger is the showcase piece of the Moscow "Starlight Diner" chain of restaurants. These classic American-style diners are dotted around Moscow with my favourite one at Mayakovskaya Metro station. They have an extensive menu of delicious American food, including the best milkshakes in the world, red-leather bench seats and 1950s silver tables and the walls are covered in classical advertising for petroleum, 1960s Chevy cars and Route 66 signs. Plus most of the staff speaks English (and they have English menus!).


Despite the delicious fare offered at Starlight Diner, it is The Really Big Shawn Burger that catches my eye the most. The first time I went to Starlight I was with Wonderpants, Ms. Australia and Quagmire. We ordered a tall "giraffe" of beer, 3.5 litres, and perused the menu. Both Quagmire, another burger lover, and I immediately settled on The Really Big Shawn Burger.

"400 grams of beef with bacon, cheese and our house chili sauce layered between and served on a platter of our famous chili cheese fries. Think you can eat it all?"

The menu was teasing, ney, CHALLENGING us, so Quagmire and I both ordered The Really Big Shawn Burger. Dripping with grease and steaming with deliciousness, the two of us looked at the massive mound of food that was set out in front of us. A giant toothpick held the entire creation together. Do we eat it with a fork or with our hands and, in either case, how?

Quagmire and I both come from the same school of North American thought that a burger, like a pizza, is to be tackled with one's hands, the way a tiger tackles a gazelle. Oh wait, that's a lion. You get the picture.

With piping-hot grease burning our hands as it ran freely out of the burger and down our arms, we attacked. I can say that that first time I attempted The Really Big Shawn Burger I got my ass kicked. I ate 3/4 of it and some of the fries and felt proud of that fact, but there was literally no room left for another bite. Nevertheless the issue nagged at me for several months, as did Ms. Australia who continued to call Quagmire and I "pussies".

To rub salt into the wound a few months after that we returned to Starlight Diner on Mayakovskaya, this time with Gem who, goaded on by Ms. Australia, ordered The Really Big Shawn Burger. Ms. Australia commented at least a dozen times on how Quagmire and I couldn't finish it. To her credit, Gem did finish the monster burger but it took her nearly two hours! Needless to say that she didn't feel too good about it afterwards!



A month after the "Gem Incident" I returned to Starlight determined to consume the mammoth burger which, I've been told, includes the generous serving of chili-cheese fries. Once again, however, the burger prevailed and I felt like more of a loser, especially after watching Gem, a girl, finish it. This was a MAN'S burger, damnit! Why can't I eat a whole one?!? That second attempt at The Really Big Shawn Burger nearly did me in although, to be fair, I had been drinking beer for four hours straight when I attempted to tackle it.

After that I was depressed and convinced that life was not worth living. If a man can't eat a stupidly large cheeseburger, then what kind of man was he? I, obviously, was not a man.

Which is why on Friday, with only one week left in Russia, I joined a group of English teachers including Gem and we made our way to Starlight Diner. I had not forgotten about The Really Big Shawn Burger (bastard!) and I was sufficiently soused to believe that THIS TIME was the time. With prideful relish I told the waitress "One Really Big Shawn Burger!" Gem was in shock. "Again?" she asked.

Of course! I was not leaving Russia until I had managed to gain a victory over this motherf**ker of a burger, and this was it.

About 20 minutes later the beast arrived, looking like it had nearly a year ago when I first attempted it, steaming with arrogant deliciousness, the little pieces of bacon covered in cheese sticking out from the sides of the burger laughing at me. "Ha! You're back for some more, are you?"
"Oh yes. And this time, I shall prevail!"

I almost cried out "By the power of Greyskull!" when I seized the bastard with both hands and, ignoring the familiar pain of the burning grease I took a giant bite out of it (and nearly dislocated my jaw in the process). The burger merely shrugged off this mosquito bite, however, and hit me back with a solid weight in my stomach.

Ignoring the pain I washed some lingering fat-smeared lettuce out of my teeth with a swig of beer and chomped down again. This time the burger noticed and cried out. "Hey! So you wanna play hardball, do ya?"

It began to fight back harder and I admit that after my third bite I was sweating profusely, my stomach was doing somersaults and my hands were trembling, but I could not back down! I refused to return home hanging my head in shame. I swore to myself that if I didn't defeat The Really Big Shawn Burger this time around I would swear off meat forever and eat only carrots and lettuce. THAT was a life I refused to live! So with a burst of determination I took another giant bite out of the burger.

I could feel the fat and grease and beef and bacon and bread and cheese all clambering around in my stomach and trying to climb up my esophagus, which generous glasses of beer helped to keep under control, but I looked at the fearsome monster on my plate and realized that I had eaten 3/4 of it! With a burst of new confidence I seized the burger, looking a lot smaller and not so cocky now, and with three bites in rapid succession I finished it off!

I did it! I ate The Really Big Shawn Burger! There were still a bunch of chili-cheese fries on the plate but with their leader gone they offered no resistance, and quickly piled them into my mouth and then, exhausted but triumphant, I slouched back into the red leather bench and let out a long, well-earned belch.

From that day on I will no fear burger and always walk with my head held high. I defeated Starlight Diner's Really Big Shawn Burger!

Park Pabyedi (Victory Park)

Victory Park in Moscow is one of the more fascinating places in the city. Construction on the park started in 1961. It was meant to serve as a memorial to the great Soviet victory over the Nazis and as place where Victory Day celebrations could be held. Bureaucratic bungling and corruption, however, meant that the park took over 30 years to complete.It was finally completed in 1996 with the addition of a massive obelisk and a tank park.

The land that Victory Park was built on is the exact same spot where, in 1812, Napolean stood and watched Moscow burning. Today it has an extensive fountain garden, forest, a massive second world war museum, a tank park where both German and Soviet machines can be seen and many monuments ringing the hill.

To get to Victory Park take the dark blue metro line to Park Pabyedi (Парк Победы) and turn right when you exit the station. Walk down an understreet tunnel and when you emerge you will see the massive square lined with fountains and a gigantic obelisk at the far end. You are in Victory Park!

Парк Победы metro station



The Victory Obelisk dominates the skyline around the area. The names of nearly every battle the Red Army took part in during the 1941-1945 war is engraved on the obelisk.

Inside the Victory Museum is the "Hall of Tears", a solemn place where the 30 million + dead of the war can be honoured.

The 1st floor of the Victory Museum consists of stunning dioramas of major battles, such as this one depicting the seige of Leningrad.

The stairs to the second floor and the Hall of Heroes are interesting.

The Hall of Heroes: the names of every Soviet citizen who won the Order of Lenin are engraved on the walls.

Sadly, the museum glorifies the Kalishnikov AK-47, the world's most produced assault rifle and responsible for hundreds of conflicts and millions of lives since 1947.

Outside the Victory Museum, at the bottom of the hill, is the tank park. Nearly a hundred vehicles from both German and Soviet arsenals are parked here. All of them were recovered from actual battlefields and many bear the scars of war.

Soviet T-34. I noticed a giant shell hole in the rear of this tank.

Soviet ISU-152 tank-destroyer, recovered from the Kursk battlefield.

The tank park also houses a big collection of aircraft, from early Yak and Mig designs up to the modern-day Mig-29 fighter jet.

At the far end of the tank park is a recreated partisan village. Visitors can roam around and climb on the buildings (as I did!)

A massive Soviet railway gun used during the seige of Budapest.

There's a small waterpark with Soviet gunships and a recreated battlecruiser.

At the end of the tank park is a monument to the founding of the United Nations in 1945. Here a French soldier stands alongside a Russian, American and British soldier. What I never understood was "Why the French? They LOST the war!"

Heading away from Victory Park you are greeted with a fantastic view of the Moscow skyline.

Russian Culture As I See It

As the city of Moscow continues to endure a sweltering heat wave and the surrounding forests and peat bogs continue to burn and pour choking, toxic smoke into the city, I and everyone around me has become not a little on edge as of late. Sleep is nearly impossible and working at Central School, with all its politics and screwy scheduling, is a grinding ordeal. Taking the metro four times a day (which is also filled with putrid eye-burning smoke from the fires) and being jostled by millions of equally irritable people has stretched my nerves to the breaking point.

Yet there are a few things that keep me going. These things stop me from throwing my arms up in the air, boarding an airplane and getting out of this near-hell. The things that allow me to retain my sanity are Katya, Russian history and culture and my hope for the future.

As a girlfriend Katya is far and above anyone I have ever had the fortune (or misfortune) of dating in Canada. The qualities that make a Russian woman the best lover and companion in the world are too numerous to recount here, and there are millions of websites and books devoted to this topic, so I won't touch on them. All I can say is that, for the most part, Russian women are very intelligent, stunningly beautiful, entrancingly feminine and extremely charming. With their quick wits, laisser-faire outlooks on life and well-timed sense of humour, I have been blessed to have captured the heart of a Russian girl and it is in large part due to her that I can endure this summer in Moscow.

Indeed, what gives Russian woman these world-class qualities is Russian culture itself, and this is another reason I can put up with the heat and smoke and crappy situation at work. Russian culture is at the same time subtle and loud, beautiful and terrible, awe-inspiring and completely stupid.

I went to a restaurant near the Old Arbat that was located on ground floor of a beautiful 19th Century building. Inside the walls were painted in a calming soft-yellow and lime-green curtains hung from the huge windows. Paintings of serene Russian village life adorned the walls and soft yellow mini-chandeliers gave the place a warm atmosphere. With the decorative samovars dotted here and there and the wood-carved cats on the table and the smell of cooking lamb and chicken and potatoes wafting from the kitchen, it would have been the most cultured Restaurant I've ever been to.

Of course, this is Russia, and something beautiful has to be countered by something ugly.There were three badly-beaten televisions hanging from the ceiling and they were blaring horrendous Russian pop so loud that I couldn't hear my companions speaking. Although the food was delicious the service was horrible, and the mean old woman who served us actually shouted at us to hurry up and finish eating so she could stop working (it was 4 in the afternoon). A group of businessmen in the corner were getting pasted on vodka and started shouting at each other.

Oh, Russia.

Russia is ancient. People were settling these lands when Socrates was speaking at the Parthenon. The Vikings, on their epic trade journeys to the middle east, mixed with the original inhabitants to create the unique Slavic ethnicity. The Orthodox Church added an old-world, slightly-oriental mysticism to Slavic culture. The Mongol onslaught and subsequent four centuries of occupation gave Russian culture its distinct territoriality and ethnic pride. The beginning of the Czars, with Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible, created an Empire where politics and culture could be organized within the borders of a once-chaotic land.

Go to Red Square and stand in awe in front of the massive red-brick walls of the Kremlin, the original site of Moscow and the centre of so much of world history, or gaze with spiritual contemplation at the beauty of St. Basil's Cathedral. Check out the 700-year-old defensive walls of old Moscow in the Kitay Gorod. Visit the traditional splendour and beauty of old Russia at Suzdal and Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod.

Moscow 600 years ago: St. Basil's Cathedral.

This is the land of a culture that has confused and dazzled the world many times. In the mid 1800s a wave of Russomania swept over the world as the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol and Pushkin went international. Tchaikovsky was composing his great symphonies. Czar Alexandre I had liberated Europe from Napolean and Alexandre II was emancipating the serfs and slaves. Enourmous palaces and monuments were going up in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The 19th Century was Russia's Golden Age, and everywhere I go I can see evidence of this.Walk along the Old Arbat and take in the street painters, cafes, musicians and the beautiful Russo-European architecture. Check out the area around Red Square and admire the buildings and statues and gardens and cobbled streets. Take a visit to St. Petersburg for a real taste of Russia in the mid-19th Century.

Moscow 200 years ago: The Old Arbat.

Then came the October Revolution of 1917 and the brutal civil war that saw the Bolsheviks (Communists) of Lenin seize power, and overnight the classical culture of Russia was forcefully changed. The 20th Century was one of Soviet idealism and repression. The great monuments of Stalinism can be seen today in the glamorous Moscow Metro and the Seven Sisters skyscrapers that ring the city. Bleak and soulless apartment tenements from the era of Kruschev and Brezhnev are everywhere. Statues to Lenin can be found in every park.

Moscow 50 years ago: one of the 7 Sisters near Leningradski Station.

The Soviet era was not all bad for Russian culture. Indeed, it is because of the Communists forced-modernization of Russia that the value of a top-rate education is part of Russian culture today, and most Russians are very-well educated (some of the best Universities in the world, such as Moscow State University, are in Russia yet Russian degrees are not recognized in much of the world, despite a long history of producing some of the most brilliant minds in science, humanities and the arts). It was during the Soviet period that Bulgakov, one of my personal favourite authors, wrote "The Master and Margarita", a thinly-veiled critiscism of Soviet culture in which the Devil and his entourage come to Moscow and wreak hilarious havoc on the bureaucrats and Communist elite.

"The Master and Margarita" serves to show the world that although traditional Russian culture, wit and creativity and deep insight into the human soul, was well-hidden during the Soviet era, it was alive and well.

Russia today is undergoing another violent upheavel in its cultural values, as out-of-control capitalism clashes with traditional mores. The people of Russia, the bearers of the torch of that beautiful Russian culture, are losing their touch as they struggle with every day frustrations, government corruption and decreasing opportunities for the future. Katya, a true Slavophile who has done so much to teach me about the subtleties of these great people, despairs for the future of Russia and has told me that, today, "Russia is for sale at discount prices".

Moscow today: Glass high-rises going up all over the city.

Soon enough I will be returning to Canada, a country with a different and younger cultural heritage than this ancient land, and I no longer know what to expect. Canada is an experiment in multi-culturalism, with a stable democracy and government, well-managed free-market economy and a multi-layered diaspora of cultures all working together for a common cause. Canada represents above-average standards of living blended together with a deep love of nature and freedom, while Russia represents a long and beautiful cultural history mixed with periods of horror and uncertainty about the future. In short, Canada is much more boring than Russia.

And that is mainly why I continue to endure in this terrible Moscow summer.

Moscow Burning

It's a surreal scene in Moscow today. This unprecedented heatwave, the hottest Russia has endured since they began keeping records 130 years ago, has caused numerous forest and peat bog fires in the surrounding area to break out, and the smoke from these fires hangs over the city like a death shroud.

For the past week I've awoken every morning to something that smells like burning grass. A haze of grey smoke drifts throughout the city, through everyone's windows (kept wide open because of the heat) and reduces visibility to a few hundred yards. Everything in my apartment is covered in a light blanket of silky sediment and it is a constant battle to keep electronic equipment, and my fan in particular, clean. The city itself appears as if though it is slowly smoldering, and it reminds me of a scene from Dante's Inferno.

The local fire departments are combating the forest fires with some success, but the peat bog fires are nearly impossible to extinguish. The fires themselves are under the surface, and simply dousing water on the ground does nothing to put them out. In order to effectively fight them hundreds of miles of ditches filled with water need to be dug and Moscow simply doesn't have the resources for such an undertaking. I doubt any city in the world could pull it off.

In July I had Beeline hook up the internet in my new flat and as a promotion they offered me two months of free digital cable. I now have 200 channels, including all the Discovery network channels (which I can watch in English thanks to the modern technology of the digital cable box). Last week Katya and I were watching the news on Russia 1 and a scientist was showing the public why these peat bog fires are breaking out.

She had a one-metre long thermometre stuck into the ground in a grassy clearing and a bunch of monitoring equipment surrounding it. The temperature on the surface, under the relentlessly blazing sun, was an astounding 44 degrees centigrade! She pulled the thermometer out of the ground and the temperature one metre down read 33 degrees! Under the effects of a vicious sun and a long waterless drought, the peat and other plants below the surface are bursting into flames.

In my life I have endured some strange weather. My earliest memories include a tornado taking my bicycle away in Ontario. I have sweltered in the heat of south-east Asia and endured the biting cold of a Russian (and Canadian, for that matter) winter. I remember vicious windstorms cropping up in the Pacific and knocking down trees and houses on the coast. Like everyone everywhere, I stand in awe of the power of mother nature. This summer in Moscow, however, is the most insufferable weather I have ever encountered.

The classrooms at central school are veritable furnaces. There is no air conditioning in the building (like almost everywhere else in Moscow) and the big windows are sealed to keep heat in during the winter. The sun blazes down through the windows into the classroom and I have had one student pass out from the heat. I myself have had my vision go black and seen stars dancing around in front of my eyes. Night time is just as bad, as the sweltering heat causes everyone to sweat profusely in bed. Even with my fan on high I sweat like a pig because the fan simply blows hot, moist air on me like a convection oven. I manage a few hours of sleep at night, taken in snatches of exhaustion, and I know that almost all 15 million Muscovites are suffering through the same torments. Even Katya, who weighs in at a mere 100 lbs and gets cold simply thinking about ice cubes, is sweltering.

The heatwave continues unabated and there is no end in sight. Soon Russians will have been enduring this record-breaking heat for two months and with air conditioning absent from almost everywhere there is little anyone can do to cool down. I have 4 1/2 weeks left here and will soon find myself standing in a cool ocean breeze on Canada's Pacific coast, but for everyone else in Moscow, the only hope is that winter will come early this year.

The Lights Are On But Nobody's Home

A month ago the company I work for moved me from my cool and comfortable apartment in Mytischi to a stinking hot and uncomfortable apartment near Fili in Moscow. The weather has been abnormally hot and this new apartment has no airflow. The oven doesn't work and the landlord refuses to fix it, there is noisy traffic 24-hours a day outside my bedroom window and my bed has a hard wooden beam running down the center of the mattress.

In short, it sucks. In addition to that, my schedule at the Moscow central school is retarded. Everyday I work split shifts, with 9 am classes running to the early afternoon and then 7 pm classes running until 9:30 at night. By the time I get home I have to return to the school 10 hours later for my morning classes. I also do not have 2 consecutive days off, meaning that I cannot plan to go anywhere or do anything. While the students in my classes are wonderful (I love my students), the administrators who run the show are quite the opposite.

When I was living in Mytischi a month ago, I was planning on returning to Russia after my 12-month visa expired and staying on as a student for another 6-12 months, but my outook has since changed. A combination of the intense heat, a crappy work schedule, an uncomfortable apartment and the noise and bustle of Moscow has made me incredibly unhappy. It is nearly impossible for me to appreciate anything in this city now, so I am planning on returning to my home in British Columbia, Canada.

This doesn't sadden me. In fact, I'm quite happy with the decision. The past 2 years (and the past year in particular) have been an intense ride for me and I'm glad that I did it, but like I wrote in this blog a year ago, the night before I flew out of Ottawa for Moscow, I just want a place I can call my own and not worry about having to leave again.

There is nothing of excitement happening in Moscow right now. My work schedule is a hindrance to going out and doing anything and as I save money for my future plans I am simply plodding though my day. With less than 7 weeks remaining in Moscow, my thoughts have already left for cleaner waters while my body simply goes through the routine. Every day I dream of life back in British Columbia, what my home will look like (once I find one), what job I'll have (once I find one) and what the weather will be like. My sleeping dreams are filled with images of life on the west coast and far away from Moscow.

While I stagnate in boredom and heat, I wait with no little amount of impatience for my return home. In the meantime, I can only offer this advice: don't work for LL central school in Moscow!

A Near-Death Experience

The weather in Moscow is hot. It is friggin' hot and tops 40 degrees centigrade with the humidity. Unlike the rest of the world, Russians refuse to pay for air conditioning and simply swelter and suffer (not without the occasional burst of "Blin! It's hot!"). There is no air conditioning in the shops, in the restaurants or cafes or bars. The metro and the buses are like ovens. I went to a cinema to try and cool down but there was no air conditioning there, either!

So two weeks ago when, in the middle of my last class for the day, a sudden wave of feverish nausea swept over me, I attributed it to heat stroke. Unusually susceptible to heat stroke as I am (all my life I've suffered in anything above 20 degrees), I drank a glass of cold water and immediately I was wracked with a series of sharp, knife-stabbing-me-in-the-gut pains throughout my stomach which doubled me over. I ran to the toilet and the glass of water I drank a few seconds before left my body.

After shaking my fevered head in surprise, I made my way home, first stopping at the little outdoor McDonald's "walk-through" window at Novoslobodskaya for some dinner. Once home I took a big bite out of my quarter-pounder (a "Royal Cheeseburger" in Europe) and immediately ran to the washroom to get rid of it.

I suffered through that night in a series of feverish, fitful sleeps, sweating profusely for half an hour and then, despite the heat, shivering uncontrollably for another half an hour. Every hour or so I had to run to the toilet to drain whatever moisture remained in my body. This process repeated itself throughout that first night. I was forced to call in sick in the morning.

The next night Katya came over and, seeing my pale face and apparently sunken eyes, and watching me run to the toilet every thirty to sixty minutes, she immediately called the medical clinic my company provides insurance for and booked me an appointment. So it was that by the early afternoon of Friday I was laying on a bed in the doctor's office (in a very nice clinic, I might add, except that nobody speaks English) and the doctor was jamming her latex-covered fingertips up under my rib cage and touching my upper intestines, causing bolts of excruciating, tear-inducing pain to flash throughout my body.

She turned to Katya and said something in Russian to which Katya started to cry. "What? What is it?" I asked through clenched teeth. "They need to send you Moscow State Hospital #2." Katya replied, sobbing. "The Infectious Diseases Hospital!" I had heard nothing of this place before, but it sounded ominous, what with Katya sobbing and the doctor looking at me with a mixture of curiousity and pity. "Ummm...is that bad?" I asked, in hindsight, rather stupidly. "The only place worse is the Lubianka!" Katya choked, referring the infamous prison where the NKVD, and later the KGB (and now the FSB) tortured prisoners for years on end.

This wasn't good news for me, and as the pain from the doctor's probing subsided and the suffocating heat of the office once again stole the attention of my miserable nerve receptors (think there would be a/c in a medical clinic? Nope!), I tried to smile. "It will be alright. What, will they do some tests? What is wrong with me?" Katya translated to the doctor who looked over at me, laying on the table, and sadly patted my hand.

When someone asks a pleading question, the worst thing a person can do, as I learned last week, is to smile in a sad way and pat their hand. Rather than calming a person, that tends to panic them. "Tell her to stop looking at me like that!" I demanded of Katya, but she just sobbed.

Three hours later I was laying on a hard wooden board mounted on scaffolding-like poles mounted on wheels in State Hospital #2. There was, without any exaggeration, shit and blood and puke on the floors and walls all around me. A woman, somewhere (maybe even on another floor) was screaming with either grief or agony, a sound which lent to the surreal Halloween-cum-Hostel atmosphere in the hospital. There were armed guards standing outside the doors to the hallway I was wheeled down and they locked them after I was wheeled through!

It suddenly dawned on me, as a large central-asian woman with mean, uncaring eyes roughly pushed my wooden board down this hallway, that I was effectively a prisoner!

With all the attention that someone would pay to a trolley filled with garbage, the woman pushed my wooden slab down a brown and browner-stained corridor, past ominous-looking doorways with heavy locks on them and small peepholes for orderlies to look in. Laying as I was on my back, my view consisted of the passing of bare lightbulbs and lots of rusting pipes traversing the ceiling in a chaos of directions. At one point I tried to sit up (I had a fever and the runs, I wasn't dead) but the woman barked something in Russian at me and I quickly laid down again.

After twenty or so lightbulbs passed across my vision the ceiling suddenly turned to the right and I passed through a doorframe. "Vot!" The woman shouted, pointing to a bed with a plastic mattress. There was a single, dim lightbulb in the room and no windows. Three other beds, two of which were occupied, shared the room with the bed she was pointing at. There was a single rough woolen blanket bunched up on this bed, which, hot as it was (again, no friggin' air conditioning) I used as a pillow.

The woman made sure I was laying on the bed and then abruptly left, but my door wasn't closed or locked like the doors I had seen in the corridor.

In the bed beside me was a grizzled old Russian man whose mouth seemed to be pulled back into a sneer, until I realized that his skin was decaying while he was alive and I was effectively looking at a living skull! Grey stubble speckled his chin and he slept with a ghastly gurgling, wheezing breath. I decided to call him Fyodor, because I always liked that name. Across the aisle at my feet was another man with an IV drip pouring into his arm and a small machine that beeped every ten minutes or so, to what purpose I don't know.

Both my companions were fast asleep. I lay there in my bed and, having a high fever and no choice about my circumstances, I decided that the best course of action was to sleep. A good motto that has carried me through many strange circumstances is "Stay calm and carry on."

I drifted off to an uncomfortable sleep with little strings of wool from my brown blanket-pillow tickling my cheeks.

I don't know how long I was out for, but something strange happened. I awoke not because of noise, but because of a lack of noise. Fyodor, in the bed beside mine, had stopped gurgling and wheezing. I opened my eyes and turned my head towards him and was given a shock. His head was laying at a precarious angle off the side of his mattress and his eyes were staring at me! That skullish sneer was still on his face, but unblinking gray eyes were looking right at me!

I haven't been around death a lot in my life. The only corpse I've ever seen was at my grandmother's wake, and then she was dressed in her best and laying peacefully in her coffin with a bouquet of roses on her chest. The family was gathered around, some sobbing, and, young as I was, I didn't feel much grief because she looked so damn content.

Not so with Fyodor. Here was death quite literally staring at me, skull and all, and although in movies it is pretty terrifying in real life I felt nothing. I studied him for a few moments and said a silent prayer in my head for his departed soul, all the while those grey eyes stared through me, with a look of infinite knowledge. I don't know how I'm supposed to react in such a situation. It wasn't in my guide book, but I decided that the only humane thing left to do was to call for help.

"Hello?" I shouted in the direction of the door. "Prostitsye? (Excuse me?)" There was no response. "Hey! Come on! People are dying here!" I yelled as loud as I could. For a while there was no answer but finally a large, middle-aged blonde woman with breasts larger than my head stormed into the room and barked something to me in Russian. I pointed at Fyodor's body and said "He's dead. Morte." She didn't even glance at Fyodor but instead marched to my bedside and yelled something to me in Russian. "I don't know what you're saying! Ya nye gavaroo pa-Russki (I don't speak Russian). But he's dead!" I shouted that last part, which I learned that she didn't like because she slapped me across the head and stormed out of the room. Although she was dressed in a nurses' uniform, she was very obviously a jailer. Had I known the correct grammar, I would have demanded to see her medical credentials. As it was I received a slap on my forehead, and Fyodor was still staring at me.

Those eyes were starting to freak me out, so, gingerly at first but then with confidence, I reached across the void seperating our two beds and, in effect, the living and the dead, and I brushed his eyelids closed. Just like in the movies they closed incredibly easily, although they were cold (not even room-temperature...the only things in Russia that are cooler than the stinking heat are the dead...).

"Hey nurse!" I cried out one last time, determined to get her to understand that I was laying next to a corpse. "HEY!" The same jailor came storming into my room again, this time completely enraged, and slapped me across my forehead again. "Hey! Stop th-" I started to shout, but she had slapped me again. I stared at her with in stunned disbelief, maybe even with a bit of hatred, and she turned on her heels and practically goose-stepped out.

Then she came back, this time with a woman in a clean white lab-coat and a stethoscope around her neck. Finally, a real doctor! I pointed at poor Fyodor but they ignored me and the doctor beckoned me to follow her. I stood up (why I was allowed to now and not earlier I don't know) and followed the doctor to a little office next door. There was another small doctor's bed in there and she motioned me to lay down in the fetal position, facing the wall. I thought this was strange, but before I did as she requested she motioned for me to pull my pants down. Oh crap.

With my ass sticking out I laid on my side while behind me I heard a strange grating sound of metal on metal, like a Turkey knife being sharpened, and realized that I was in for a really bad day.

Four hours and several painful probes later, I emerged, blinking, from State Hospital #2 to find Katya, loyally waiting outside (how long she would have waited I don't know. The Russian woman is fiercely loyal, as evidenced by those wives who followed their husbands into Siberian exile in the times of the Tsars and then to the battlefronts and the GULAG prison camps in the times of the Soviets...never mess with a Russian woman's family!). I had a nice green piece of paper covered in official blue stamps, which I proferred to Katya. "What is wrong with me?" I asked.

That was how I found out that I had dysentery.

Dysentery is most commonly found throughout the third world and has been making a resurgence in Russia and Ukraine. It is contracted, normally, though infected water or fruits. It is a bacterial parasite that attacks the digestive system and causes extreme fevers and a draining of bodily fluids. After two weeks of dysentery most people are lucky if they have survived. Thankfully it is fairly easy to treat if identified in time.

With my little green stamp-covered piece of paper we went back to the nice medical clinic where I started my day, and the doctor prescribed a real cocktail of anti-bacterial medications and then a slough of medicine to counter the damaging effects of anti-bacterials. She also wrote out, for Katya, my diet for the next week. Only small portions of rice or mashed potatoes with no salt or butter. And definitely no alcohol. Oh, how I craved for a cold beer in that hot Moscow summer heat!

We went to an Aptyeka (pharmacy) and bought all the medicine and then decided to go to Katya's in Shyolkova, where there is a large forest and fewer cars and temperatures are a good ten degrees lower than in the concrete jungle of Moscow.

A week later I sat down in an American-style restaurant (with, miraculously, air conditioning!) and stared with gratitude at a big juicy bacon-cheeseburger and a large pint of cold beer. As I bit into into that heavenly burger and washed it down with deliciously cold ale, I realized that I had had a brush with death and come out the other end with an experience to remember. Plus, I had air conditioning, if only for an hour or so.

There's A Tear In My Beer

One week ago Ms. Australia left Russia. She returned to her home in Perth and left a big void in the communal life of our apartment in Mytischi. Today, at 6 am, Wonderpants also returned home to Virginia, and after a hectic day teaching in Moscow, I came back to our once lively abode to find it completely empty.

Yesterday Wonderpants and I spent his last day in Russia visiting Izhmailovsky Market, a huge outdoor tourist market filled with Russian hats, nesting dolls, replica war medals, etc, so he could buy gifts for his family and friends. Then we drank a few beers together and I made dinner (meatballs!) and then we said goodbye and went to our seperate bedrooms for the night.

It's actually a very sad day and I'm more than a little depressed. Ms. Australia and Wonderpants became two of my best friends and living together had become a comfortable and pleasant experience. Ms. Australia, by virtue of finishing classes earlier than Wonderpants and I, would usually cook dinner (chilli, peppered chicken and/or spaghetti bolognese). Sometimes Wonderpants or I would cook, but Ms. Australia made the majority of our meals.

Once Wonderpants and I finished work, all three of us would sit around our kitchen table and eat dinner together, Ms. Australia and I drinking beer and Wonderpants drinking wine, with the small TV above our heads playing Russian crime dramas or the news. It was like a small family.

On Tuesdays Ms. Australia and I would ritually drink beers in the small tree-lined foyer outside our building. On Fridays we would all go to the local pizza restaurant to close our week. On Saturdays Wonderpants and I would drink whiskey and listen to sea shanties. Week after week our little group of 3 would repeat the same ritual. Now they have left, and it is eerily, sadly, quiet and dark in this flat.

Katya is visiting her grandmother near Volgograd, so there is nobody here but me. When I first came home from Moscow I closed both their doors because it was depressing. Ms. Australia wasn't hovering over her laptop watching a vampire show (or was it One Tree Hill?) and there weren't mountains of books and dirty laundry on Wonderpants' floor.

Closing the doors felt like a betrayal, somehow, so I quickly re-opened them again. It's Tuesday and I feel weird drinking in the foyer alone, so I'm drinking a beer in my room. I only have one week left before I, too, need to leave this apartment (although to move into a Moscow flat and not someplace in Canada), and that adds a sense of finality to the whole situation.

I've made good friends before, teaching in Korea, and seen them leave but I have to say that this is different. Wonderpants, Ms. Australia and I had developed a real bond, caused by forced-proximity, and I will miss them dearly. While I am confident I will see Wonderpants again in the future (he lives a 12-hour drive from me), I would be surprised if I saw Ms. Australia again.

So as I drink this beer, I do so in honour of two of the best people I have ever had the opportunity to meet: Ms. Australia and Wonderpants!

Lords of the Jungle

In the summer of 2004 I went to Thailand for the first time. Together with my ex, her sister and her sister's boyfriend, we spent 4 frustrating days in Bangkok before flying south to the Pacific island of Koh Samui. A tropical paradise greeted us (and I learned to go directly to the islands first and finish up any Thai vacations with a few nights in Bangkok).

We spent a relaxing night on the east side of Koh Samui, drinking on the beach until midnight while we buried our feet in the sand and made up a trivia drinking game. The next day at 7 am we took a rusty ferry to the island of Koh Phagnang.

This island is famous for its Full Moon Parties in the town of Hadrin, but we weren't interested in being with crowds of people. We were on vacation from our teaching jobs in Seoul and we were all sick and tired of crowds, so we rented a "water taxi" which took us around to the east side of this tropical island and dropped us off at a non-descript resort tucked into the jungle along the beach.

Kaih's Beach, with the jungle behind it.

The resort had no name but the Thai owner was called "Kaih", so we simply called the resort "Kaih's Beach".The "resort", and I use the term loosely because it was nothing more than a dozen or so wooden bungalows perched on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with heavy jungle at their backs, had a central dining area which consisted of an outdoor patio with a grass roof and a small kitchen tucked in the back. There were no seats; instead, guests reclined on incredibly comfortable mats with triangular pillows at one end set around low tables. It was amazingly comfortable and relaxing. We lounged on that patio all our first day.

Mr. Korea lounging on the patio.

There were a few other guests there. A large, hairy Australian man with his stunningly-beautiful Thai rent-a-girlfriend sat privately in a corner while a tall and very-fit American sat next to us. We began talking to the American.

After some jokes he joined us at our table, and we learned, over the course of many drinks and delicious homemade potato chips, that he was from Houston but hadn't been home in years. He had spent the past 5 years travelling Asia and had recently been living in Nepal. He claimed to have met and spoken privately with the Dalai Lama, a claim which we believed.

Mr. Houston was, well, strange. He spoke slowly and clearly with confidence. He was in fantastic shape: lean, muscular and athletic, as if though he had been climbing mountains all his life. It was his eyes, however, that kept his drunken Canadian English-teaching audience held captive. Set beneath a shaved head, Mr. Houston had deep, crystal blue eyes that spoke of things we could not imagine. There was so much wisdom and philosphy in those eyes that had seen mystical things that when he calmly recounted his story of meeting the Dalai Lama, after we pressed him, we readily believed him. Although I have never seen him since, to this day I still believe that this wanderer from Houston, Texas, had been engaged in deep conversation with the Dalai Lama in Nepal.

After a while we enquired of Mr. Houston where we could get some pot. He calmly called over Kaih, who said "Grass? No problem!" and promptly delivered a big bag of green weed to our table. Mr. Houston then said "If you want, I know where we can get some mushrooms." My ex's sister's boyfriend, Mr. Korea (although he's not Korean, he ended up marrying a Korean girl so the moniquer fits), looked at me and we both said "Sure!"

Mr. Houston then explained to us that on the next beach, over a jungle hill, there was another resort which grew their own mushrooms. He told us that a few years ago he and a group of tourists used to trek through the jungle every day for mushrooms, and that there was a well-worn trail to follow. He offered to take us there if we wanted.

Nicely intoxicated with alcohol, Mr. Korea and I readily agreed. The girls decided not to go so Mr. Houston, Mr. Korea and I, garbed in shorts and flip-flops, set off into the jungle.

Things quickly went wrong from Mr. Korea and I. We had been living fattening lives in Seoul and although we spent time on the Seoul Metro, we didn't really do anything athletic. Pale, slightly overweight from too much beer and sticky rice, and desperately out of shape, we tried to keep up with Mr. Houston. The trail he had talked about had been reclaimed by the jungle so gigantic branches, vines and very prickly bushes constantly clutched at our t-shirts.

At one point I stepped out over a small decline in the ground which I couldn't see because of the flora and immediately slid down a muddy hill, feet first. A strange bush with millions of thorns snatched onto my t-shirt and I was left dangling in the air, held up by this torturous bush with my legs kicking in the air over a steep ravine. "Help!" I cried. Mr. Korea didn't have the energy to laugh, he simply struggled through the bushes towards me and began snapping the branches off. After a few moments he freed me from the last set of thorns and I tumbled down the hill.

We looked up and saw Mr. Houston standing on another hill far away. "What's taking you guys? Come on!" He shouted. Mr. Korea and I looked at each other, panting with effort. Mr. Houston didn't have a scratch on him. He wasn't wearing a shirt and he hadn't broken a sweat (Mr Korea and I, by comparison, were drenched in sweat, blood, dirt and bits of branches). Mr. Houston simply glided in and out of the jungle. "Hang....hang on!" We panted as loudly as we could. "We need a breather!" Mr. Houston shrugged and called back "It's only a few more kilometres. I'll meet you at the beach!" and then he gracefully disappeared into the jungle.

Mr. Korea and I sat down and lit a cigarette (it seemed like the only thing to do at the time). After ten minutes we stood up and set out again, trying to follow the direction Mr. Houston had gone.

The going was treachorous and painful and exhausting. At one point we came across a massive snake skin that had been shed. It was at least 10 feet long and very thick. We shuddered at the thought. Soon, night began to fall and the jungle took on terrifying proportions. Bushes rustled next to us and strange creatures called out from nearby as we stumbled and crashed and swore our way through.

Finally, just as the sun dipped below the horizon, we emerged from that suffocating hell onto a beautiful beach with several bungalows dotted around. The journey had taken us nearly 4 hours!
Mr. Houston was nowhere to be seen so we approached the Thai staff at the dining patio and, sweating profusely and covered in grime and blood, asked "Do you have any mushrooms?" The old Thai woman we asked didn't answer; she simply stared at us with her mouth open. I suppose we were a sight to see, crashing out of the jungle at night, looking the way we were, and demanding mushrooms.

She collected herself and practically backed away from us, yelling for someone to help her. A large-set Thai man appeared, stared at us intently for a few moments and then said "What do you want?"
"Mushrooms" we replied. "We want mushrooms."
"I don't have mushrooms." He stated, with finality.
"Look, just give us some mushrooms. We'll pay you double." Mr. Korea demanded. After everything we had been through to get here, I was willing to sell my girlfriend if I had to.
"Oh, you mean mushrooms!" The man smiled. "Okay! Okay! I get you mushrooms!"

He disappeared and then reappeared with a large ball of tinfoil. He peeled the edges off and opened the package and inside were dirt-covered slips of purple, orange and blue mushrooms, sparkling under the bare light bulb that hung above us. "Perfect!" We cried and paid the guy some money. Then we turned and looked back at the jungle.

We turned back to the man. "Umm, how much for a boat ride back to our beach?" we asked (he knew where we had come from).
"Alot!" He replied. Damn. Okay. We accepted whatever price he was offering because we sure as hell weren't going through that jungle at night.

Thirty minutes later his boat pulled up on Kaih's sandy beach and, clutching our package triumphantly, we leapt over the side and waded ashore. Our girlfriends were waiting for us. "What took you guys so long?" They asked. We recounted the story and then began to eat the mushrooms, sitting on Kaih's Beach under a large moon as a soft surf licked our feet. Later, Mr. Houston appeared out of nowhere, unfazed and perfectly calm. "Hey guys. You made it. Good for you!" He declared, and then disappeared again.

We never saw Mr. Houston again.

That night, after returning with our package!