Bamboo Banga.

Elephant Trekking, unexpected mudslides, eating spiders and scorpians, typhoons, monsoons, and janky ass bus rides on the borders of cambodia and thailand have been on my daily to-do list and routine's these past 2 weeks.

Hello, I am in CamBODIA, land and home of the unfamiliar smell of rotten dun, roached cockroaches and mopeds. Yes.

mm.

The only regret I have so far coming here is that I didn't blog everyday about all the crazy shit that I've done over the duration of 2 weeks, but thats where my moleskin comes in play.

Everytime I come back to Cambodia, the situations always get's worse and worse; in especially this year. What the fuck have I been doing? huh huh?? HUH? .. Well, wrapped in a banana leaf nutshell, I have been working with the UN with their Border's Relief Operation for Khmer Refugees with Nat (backpacking; in it's most literal sense).. and this shit has got me WRENCHED. (I help with mostly child trafficking protection and emergency relief needs) Also, on top of this, I have been working with 50x70 poster awareness pepods.


it says please give all weapons from here on.

I first started out in Kampot (very south of Cambodia) and worked my way up all the way to Siem Pang, just on the very tip of the border between Cambodia and Laos. All this were a combustling combination via row boat, power boat, water jets, bus, jet, and train. I basically didn't know what I got myself into until the 2nd day I was out here. Alan, our the head of our UN unit, told us to carry a revolver. He said, ".. just in case." We quietly carried these little tiny killer's in our backpack while we were all pissing/shitting our pants. Thankfully, we didn't use it; fucking crazy! I would't even take it out of my backpack because i was so frazzled the fact that I had one.

Bamboo Train


the restarant suggested that we pick which ever one we thought was the juiciest.. yummmmmmm


Kampong Chnanng


nearby dentist in Kampong


busy life in Prek Pak


kids from i to i!! (I know some of them from last summer)


monkssssss


yo wassup?!


tame water before the massive monsoon waves


before I almost died


beef, pork, lamb, goat, lamb, dog, cat, bear


typical grocery store


huts


Kambot hospital where we stayed for 2 days

Tonle Bet Girl



aftermath of typhoon in Pothisat

I wake up to new cities everyday and I am arranged different tasks everyday like distributing sandbags to the poorest villages in the Kampot to finding kids on the street selling themselves and taking them out of brothels and into educational orphanages.

Day by day, I have been doing this and its been one HELL of a fucking ride. I sleep everyday, completely jaded and exhausted emotionally (from what I do during the day) yet nostalgic because I miss everyone at hommmee. But then I feel good when I help so it's all it's worth, of course.

Realization# 34:
I realized that traveling alone makes you yearn for home. A lot.

During all of this, I had absolutely no internet connection nor a phone to call to western civilization. When I was in Siem Reap, thankfully, while looking for some delicious coconut juice, I found myself a broken down bodega with a small little window 97 cubicle with internet access. You have no idea, it was like a miracle or something. I cried and peed all over my panties. I needed to talk to my family at home so bad. So after checking, I found out that everyone thought I was dead; which was no surprise.

I mean, hell, of course they call this a "once in a lifetime" experience, but I've done this last year.. but still I feel like this trip was absolutely, without a doubt, no questions asked, craziest experience of my LIFE. I don't often ride on boats when there is a dangerous typhoon, eat fried pig brains and walk on old untouched landmines. There were moments where I find myself saying, "wow, i'm going to die." But then I realize that the people have to deal with this everyday.. and kudos to them living life as it is. God bless them. yeeeee.

Speaking of cheese,

Before I left for the jungle, I left CDG in Nippon, not permanetly but temporary. I told dumb drunk french tampon, or sophie, that my time at CDG ends here. (They gave me an option of leaving whenever) and tampon told me that she kinda wanted me to freelance for them until they find a new illustrator person expected in december, so of course, duhh I was like FUCK NO!! Why would I ever want to work under YOUR stank ass tampon ass?

jk.

I said yes.


my gaylo's


peen's


rem (shaven) and his friend luke


cdg's cracked out rooftop

Will (maxi pads) Yamadadadada in Hiroshima


asakusa blessing with hikaru and hatsumii


we couldn't find our way out.


nevermind.


typical straight boy's room


oyeshee eyes creamuuuu


(Maxi) " will" yamada's soju exploded in his backpack


kids


prada exhibit in yokohama with will tsai and company


visited the other gayylo in taipei


we went to tamsui and did dumb things.. like take this picture.
Also, I was in Rome and Paris for a wee bit, basically attached to mr. filip pagowski, creator of the ugly deformed CDG heart and "cousin" the green, as fugh, heart. No, fo' real, he's a cool dude, I respect him. He's nice. I saw stratton for 3 seconds and saw DORETIO (circa last summer italian dreamboat). which was great, really. Too bad he turned gay...

jk.

no he has a girlfriend now. whatever dude. I wish I had more time with my boo in Europe but CDG gave me no free time. Sorry babyboo, no hard feelings kk?

I returned to Taipei to see my girlfriend Jason and went back to Tokyo for 1.5 seconds and went straight for the jungle.

I'm leaving Siem Pang tomorrow and Tokyo is calling me.

Peace, Love and Spider,
Tiffa

heartbreaker

hello, it's 9:20AM here in Taipei and the weather is 97 degrees.

a lot has been happening and i'm basically on my 2 weeks vaca from CDG. its great, cause i'm not an intern anymore but someone who works there.. which means that i work 10,000 times as much as an intern.

i want to upload goodies and shit and pictures and shit.. but it takes a lot of time and patience and right now.. i don't have neither.

i'll be back. pronto.

peace, love, and yakult,
tiffa.

PS. my summer schedule this time around:
Thailand: july 4th
ROME: july 8th
Paris: july 12th
tokyo: july 15th
cambodia: july 17th
tokyo july 21st

I'm estatic.

oh, and btw, junya watanabe's team wants me to help out on their new collaboration with vans... ANYTHING to get myself away from cdg is cool.


pss. im going to try to get these from cdg.. their reversable.


psssss. what i'm working on with cdg these past days

You Ain't no Picasso

the air in tokyo hasn't smelled any better than this in a while.. hello, its 15 past 3 and I have officially started the much anticipated internship. Tokyo has been a grand better than I thought it would be like...

when i got here though, they basically weren't bullshitting when they told me that I was going to start right away.. My first day started off with running across the city from Ometesando to Ayase which is basically from distance... (San Francisco to San Jose or Manhattan to Newark Airport).. in the rain.. without an umbrella..

by the time i came back, they told me my schedule.. which i found out that I was working more than I thought i would.. 9am-6pm and occasionally.. throw in a overshift between somedays.. I'm off from Thursday's to Sunday

I ended my first day at 3am.. they needed extra people to help with their benefit party or whatever. Which ended up being fun. but very draining..

my third day here started off right.. with an 5.0 magnitude earthquake tremble.. so cute right? There was a bookshelf full of books that toppled a few feet away from me and Hatsumi... I expected, after the earthquake and aftershocks, sophie (crazy french bitch) would be like "hey is everyone ok???" no. she was like "CON MERDE!!!" (which is her favorite combo which i later found out was cunt shit) and she pointed at me and hatsumi to put all the 3,000+ archive magazines/books back in the book shelf.. that took us probably a good 7 hours?? it sucked.

after assuming that I would be working like this until August, I was pissing my panties.

but thankfully.. sophie told me that I won't be working long shifts after next week.. and I'll be able to sleep and shit. Phew.

To my surprise.. I've actually been having a lot of fun throughout these couple of days.. I've been meeting new crazy japanese fools.. and actually enjoying every minute of my time here..

enough of my internship.

My grandpappy got me a puppy.. which I later named with cousin, Yumiko... because my grandpa thought it was the best name.. I dont know why.

In terms of how I've been feeling lately, I've been pretty happy. ever since Parsons.. i've been pretty content. its almost bittersweet though, I miss my friends in NY a LOT. I've been away from them in probably a month. and it seems like 4EVERRR. meehaa.

PENIS.

I'm leaving for Taipei with Will to do fun things.. on the 28th. and than thailand for a few days and then my fav, phnom penh. considering the fact that I get thursday's and sunday's offf, I am going to take advantage of that and travel around asia.. cause everything is so close to each other..

I'm in okinawa right now, i need to go.

peace, love and dog,
tiffa

ps. i will post pictures soon. check again laterrr

What's that you got on? Is it Comme des Garcons?

my smoking habits have gone to an extent where I find myself pulling a carton that I bought in the morning and noticing that its already half way gone. Really not cute. Just wanted to write that on here.. Im currently at a cafe near the Sakea station... and I want to write more.. but the computer is yelling at me in Japanese saying that I only have 5 minutes left. uh oh. yah.

American Apparel in Fukuoka is a lot nicer than the ones in the states but a lot more of exposure in the ads. i mean a lot. a little booby action.. kinda weird.

boo.

i was talking to my mom on the phone and i told her i was at american apparel in fukuoka and she was like.. "do they have nice pillows or somesing?" im like.. "what are you talking about?"
and she goes..

"you say American Pillow, *in japanese/mandarin* 'so what? they have nice pillows or something? whats so special about that store?"

.... oh mother.
i will eventually post more pictures.. its just. right now. the computer is about to shutdown on me.. and i have no time to so.

hopefully by next blog, which won't be anytime soon considering that im going to be in the outskirts of fukuoka which is in the middle of no where and completely outside of civilization, im going to cut down my smoking habits to a mere two cigarettes a day rather then more than half of the carton.

xo.
tiffa.