Need Christmas gift ideas? Go abroad!

My favorite time to go on vacation is the fall (well, technically my favorite time to go on vacation is any time, but you know what I’m getting at). The reason for this is not the lovely crisp air and possibility of a sample sale, but so I can do all my Christmas shopping in destination. It’s great. Combine that with Christmas shopping (my other excuse to go wild – within budget, of course – shopping time of the year) and it’s the best combination since cookies and milk.
What better way to cut down on costs? I always call vacation shopping my “get out of jail free” shopping – I’ve technically already spent the money buying the currency, now it’s just trading it for goods. So as long as I don’t overspend what I’ve brought with me and have to break out my debit card, I’m golden. It’s a second layer of protection to make sure I stay on budget. With exchange rates being what they are, the dollar goes farther in many countries, so you can also get bigger, better, more awesome gifts for your loved ones. And you can plan for this in advance, too. A couple of years ago I knew I was going to bring back Costa Rican coffee for everyone for Christmas (plentiful, not too heavy to carry, and world-renowned while not being budget-busting) but the guidebooks said that the quality was best in the whole roasted beans as opposed to the grounds. So all year I covertly checked with every coffee-drinker I know whether or not they had a coffee grinder. If they didn’t, they got one for their birthday! That year was great, I got built-in ideas for birthday gifts, too
Speaking of more awesome, instead of yet another scarf or gift card from Sears, I can guarantee your Aunt Mil is not going to get two of those hand-carved Guatemalan wine bottle holders from that tiny stall on the side of the tiny winding mountain road. That is going to be memorable. And knowing that you were thinking of them while on your great adventure, they appreciate the gesture more (in my experience, anyway). Plus, even if they don’t like it, they’re not going to return it (the airfare is too expensive) so you don’t need to worry about keeping the receipts.
The coolest thing, though, is that you can essentially get your loved ones anything, and it’s still special, because it’s from wherever. Seriously. Anything. “Yeah, it’s toothpaste, but it’s from Ecuador, so you don’t pronounce it Colgate, you pronounce it ‘Col-gaaat-eh’.” If someone gave you a couple of small pieces of wood tied together at one end with a string from the local Wal-Mart, you’d be thoroughly unimpressed. But if the same thing came back from Spain and were called castinets, now that’s cool.
So, if you’re having trouble coming up with Christmas gift ideas, just go on vacation between now and the holiday season, and everything will all fall into place for you. Simple, really.

Tags: BlogSherpa, budget, Christmas., coffee, gifts, shopping, souvenirs

Chiang Mai night market – Amazing!

            It was probobly the friendliest shopping experience I’ve ever had, and it involved bartering.   I know, I wouldn’t have believed it either, had I not experienced it.  In fact, I found myself wandering around the market night after night and waiting for the in-your-face sales tactics I’d experienced in other night markets around the world,  but never finding any.  By just being nice, the stall-keepers had sold me on the Chiang Mai night market, and I loved it.

           The market itself, no necessarily the items for sale, was the attraction.  It’s beautiful, a crazy maze of colours, textures, lights, people and sounds, everything brighter, louder, more sparkly than it’s predecessor.  It’s quite spread out as far as night markets go, although in places you’re still inevitably squished up against the other shoppers/walkers/stall walls (but then again, that just adds to the street market experience), and it’s large square footage means if you can’t find it here, you don’t need it.  Sure, most of the wares on offer are souvenir kitsch – carved elephants, Thai pillows, T-shirts with the Chiang Beer logo on them –  but it’s fun as hell to buy it.  One of my favorite things I’ve bought anywhere is my intricately detailed tuk tuk sculpted from a Coke Light can, some wire and a couple of buttons.   Carved soap was also a huge hit (we bought 5), where the artisan takes your standard drugstore bar of Dove and carves and paints it into a stunning orchid or mum or random pretty flower, then safely puts it in a small laquered box.  They look great on display, and it’s also good to know that in case of a dire soap shortage, I have a backup.

           Bartering scares me.  I know a lot of people who love it, who attack bartering as a game and will do almost anything to come out the victor, but I always get overwhelmed by guilt and knowing that the item advertised for CAD$3 would be at least CAD$15 at home, I’m willing to pay the full price.   Don’t get me wrong, I always barter, but I’m a soft sell.  I think that’s why the Chiang Mai market and I clicked.  The salespeople, being salespeople, would call out for your attention, but all you had to do was shake your head a polite “no” and they left you alone.  I’ve been followed by annoying bootleg DVD pushers in Kuala Lumpur, so this was a welcome surprise.  Not once did we have to pretend to be deaf (man, our sign language is so bad we’d probobly accidentally insult the royal family and someone’s dog) and could wander around for hours taking in the smells, sights and ambiance.  The only people that were kind of in your face were the hilltribe women selling the wooden frogs that if you ran a stick up and down their backs, they croak.  The women themselves were equally as friendly as the other salespeople, but that damn frog sound will follow you around for days!

       If you ever visit Chiang Mai and you don’t visit the night market, you’re doing yourself an injustice.  Even if you don’t like to shop, it’s a place that can’t be missed.  I’m already trying to figure out when I can go back!

Tags: bartering, beautiful, BlogSherpa, carved soap, Chiang Mai, coke light, elephants, friendly, frogs, fun, hilltribes, night market, shopping, souvenirs, Thailand

Grocery stores as a tourist attraction?

              Think about it.  Have you ever walked around your local supermarket and stopped at the ”international food” section, looking at all the different uses for rice or the cool/odd/disgusting/unpronounceable sauces on offer?  It’s fun, right?  Or at the very least, interesting.  Possibly even enlightening.    Multiply that by fifty and you get why I always try to swing by a grocery store in every country I’m in.   

             Doing  a bit of your own cooking (and by “cooking” I mean mainly buying bread and meat and making sandwiches or pouring your own bowl of cereal, unless you have a kitchenette) is always a great way to save money.  Even if it’s just snacks, bringing your own granola bar and water bottle can easily save you $5-$10 a day, depending on your destination and appetite.   That’s valuable souvenir money!  So while you’re at the grocery, you might as well take a few minutes to walk the aisles and see what culinary treasures you can unearth.  You never know if that brand of beer you had once ten years ago and could never find again is hiding around the corner, or if the chili lime chicken bouillon you find in aisle four is going to become the centerpiece for your new signature dish back home.  And when someone asks you where you got it, you can be all mysterious and say “it’s imported.”

           When in London, I’m all about finding the cool flavours of crisps.   We have your standard salt and vinegar, ketchup and nacho cheese in Canada, they have roasted lamb and mint, chargrilled steak, pickled onion, seafood mayonnaise, crispy duck in hoisin sauce, turkey with paxo sage and onion… if you can braise, boil or bake it, they probably have chips to match.  Southeast Asia is also good for this, though they have substantially more seafood options and their packaging usually involves more google-eyed animated characters.  One of my coworkers in Spain said the prawn cocktail is great, though I’ll have to take their word for it.  On one trip I actually kept a list, and found no less than 25 different flavours in one country in the space of a week.  Think I tried two of them.  And these flavours are, for the most part, incredibly accurate.  The chargrilled steak I tried smelled like nothing, but once on the tongue, you were just looking for the side of mashed potatoes and steamed veggies.

            I’m always drawn to snack-type foods, like chips, gum (oooh, there’s this applemint Dentyne in Thailand I loved so much I brought like 10 packs home with me) and candy, mainly because they’re cheap and small, so you can try something really experimental and, if it’s totally revolting, you can throw it out and you’re only out a buck.  Meat always intimidates me (especially since you can’t always read the label), but one day I’ll have a place with a stove in some far-flung destination and I’ll go for it.  It’s all about embracing the local culture.  In Singapore this past march we discovered pea cheezies (for lack of a better comparison).  They were made entirely of peas, green and shaped like a pod,  but puffed up, deep fried and lightly salted to the cheezie consistency.   Sounds strange on paper (hell, it looked strange in the bag, too, that’s why I bought it), but these were surprisingly good.   In Costa Rica, tamarind drink, once you get past it’s industrial-waste brown colour, is incredibly sweet and yummy.  I got all excited here when, on a day trip across the boarder to Seattle, I found some Tamarind Kool-Aid, but when I tried it back home it tasted kind of like cardboard.  Total let down.  Oh well, it’s a reason to go back to Costa Rica! 

            Also in Costa Rica I discovered my beloved coco pops (there is not a breakfast buffet worldwide that doesn’t have coco pops) are endorsed there by a space elephant named Melvin.  That was just funny.

            International grocery shopping can be a fun thing to do if you’re traveling with kids, too.  While you’re picking up the necessities, you can challenge young Jimmy to find the craziest looking fish in the seafood department or weirdest-sounding product name (this one can be particularly fun if you can’t speak the language).  Kids usually seem to gravitate to the gross, or what they think is gross, anyway, and this is where the cheaper options like candy come in handy.  Treat them to one small thing, but make it the grossest they can find, and hear the giggles start.  This can also be done locally, just check out the various ethnic food stores around your area and keep the kids entertained on a rainy afternoon.

          For me, I think this all stems back to my Grandparent’s travels when I was a little kid.  When they’d come back from driving across the US or touring Europe they’d bring me something we couldn’t get in Canada, like Barbie breakfast cereal, or Swiss cow-shaped chocolate, so now I always want to see what other surprises the world has to offer.  This can also be a good way to buy a gift for that impossible-to-shop-for person on your list.  Nobody ever turns down food, especially if it was brought into the country especially for them and you know it’s something they’ll like.  The one exception to this was when my BF got a bag of dried bean and anchovy trail mix from Hong Kong.  It’s been months and that’s still sitting unopened on his desk, but I can’t really blame him, the fish are dried whole in there, complete with the little dried heads and eyes.  But still, because we got it at a grocery store as opposed to a souvenir place, the cost was low enough that I don’t give him a hard time about *sniff* rejecting one of my gifts.

            Ever found anything spectacular/weird/memorable in the food aisle when on vacation?  Let me know.  But if not, try spending an hour of your next vacation at the supermercado and see how much culinary trouble you can get into!

Tags: Asia, BlogSherpa, budget, chips, coco pops, cooking, Costa Rica, Food, grocery stores, Hong Kong, kids, London, odd, souvenirs, Spain, tamarind

Vacation Anatomy part 3: The memories

                “Two weeks away, feels like the whole world should have changed, but I’m home now, and things still look the same.”  I think Dido puts it really well in this line from Sand in My Shoes, as that post-vacation letdown never gets any easier, no matter how often you travel.  It’s over.  You had spent such a long time anticipating this trip, and then you went and now… now what? 

          Now it’s time to develop those pictures, that’s what.  Just because the physical part of your trip is completed doesn’t mean your vacation is done.  Go through each exposure and laugh at the face you’re making in that one or how cool the Eiffel Tower looks in this one.  Take out all those cool new souvenirs and remember the story behind how you found that perfect vase in a tiny little shop down a dark “oh my God, why am I walking down here?” alley, but it turned out to be a total treasure trove.  Call up all your close friends and arrange to meet over coffee so you can give them the gift you brought back for them and describe all the cool things you saw.  Yes, your vacation might be technically over, but it’ll still be fresh in your mind for months, years to come.   Embrace this.   Use the words “remember that time…” as much as possible and milk every good feeling you can out of your trip.

           Of course, now that one trip is behind you, we can smoothly transition back  into the Anticipation stage again.   Travel is like a drug, once you get it in your system it’s hard to get out and it leaves you craving your next fix.   So do it.  Start thinking about where to go next.  I mean, you have to do something with those vacation days, right? 

Tags: BlogSherpa, memories, photos, souvenirs, travel agent