After-party

About 10 hours ago, I landed in Changi Airport and was greeted by the friendly sounds of Singlish that filled the air. I've spent the last couple of weeks on a mad rampage to see the world before I get confined to a life of no more summer vacations :P After graduation, I headed down to Peru with my brother to embark on a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu along the Inca trail, an endeavor that was preceded by 3 days of altitude sickness which involved masive headaches and some degree of nausea. (Interesting fact: The best way to deal with altitude sickness in Peru is to drink coca tea or chew coca leaves. Incidentally, these leaves are one of the components in the manufacture of cocaine. No, you don't get high chewing the stuff itself.) Nonetheless, Machu Picchu and the other Inca sites are pretty darn amazing. The sheer scale and intricacy of the construction is truly a testament of what alot of people can do with alot of time. The jigsaw puzzle-like walls carved from stones dragged over from faraway mountains have even led one guy to theorize that the Incas must have had help from aliens. The Incas were also really into building terraces for agricultural purposes -- to experiment with plants and to acclimatize low altitude plants to higher altitudes. Now that's some pretty neat stuff! For anyone thinking of heading to Peru, I would highly recommend going on the Inca Trail, especially if you get hooked up with a decent company like SAS or Andean Life. The trek itself was pretty demanding since we didn't hire personal porters, but the service (which included hot tea during your wake-up call) was simply mind-boggling. It's luxury camping that well worth the price you're paying.

After Peru, my brother went back to Singapore (earning $300 along the way due to an overbooked flight), while I flew to Tokyo to meet up with my girlfriend. Having flown through Narita Airport on the way to the US about 3 times now, I've always wanted to see what Japan was like outside the terminal. In reality, not much is happening outside the terminal since it is about a 1.5 hr ride to the northeast corner of the city. We hit most of the major locations in Tokyo then headed out to Nikko for a day, which was an altogether more rural-esque escape. Highlights of the trip for me were the Tsukiji fish market (where we ate supposedly the best ultra-fresh sushi available), staying at a ryokan and looking at all the crazy food like US$157 watermelons and desserts that look like main-course items (e.g hamburgers, sandwiches, cod roe...)

So now I'm back in Singapore, exhausted from planes and trains, and starting work the day after tomorrow. Fun times :)