Dinner time at Day of the Dead | Photo by Lauren Girardin

Though we returned from our round-the-world trip several months ago, Todd and I are still updating Ephemerratic with stories and images from the global road—

"Yeah, right," you harrumph.

Gah! We're caught! The real world has sunk its sharp little teeth into our haunches and is gnawing away at our muscles.

We've both been fortunate to find full time work in a crappy economy: Todd's back to substitute teaching and I'm consulting on marketing and communications. Between earning money and our extroverted tendency to never say no to a good party, we're having trouble making time for Ephemerratic.

Hidden San Francisco park | Photo by Lauren Girardin

It's also been wonderful to be back in San Francisco. We're going on Bike Posse rides around the city, hanging out with much-missed friends, eating burritos—

"Excuses are for wimps!" you holler. "Give us more travel stories! What about China? The Philippines? South Korea? Bali?"

We hollaback: "Damn, Reader. That's some tough love."

If we looked hard at our schedules, we have plenty of time most days to spend on Ephemerratic-related whatnots. I'm still struggling with the physical limitations – it's literally painful to get on the computer to write after spending 50 or more hours a week at the same keyboard to get my consulting projects done. I know I am supposed to suffer for my art, but I'd prefer an existential crisis to carpal tunnel.

So, with that confession, we hope you'll still keep reading when we manage to eek out a post.

Oh, look! The sun's come out in our backyard. Why don't I go hang out there for a while instead of in front of this computer...

Our distracting backyard | Photo by Lauren Girardin

As our storytelling heads into China and its cuisine that often challenges the Western imagination of what is edible versus what is best left for grinding into hotdogs, I can’t help but think about cultural food norms.

We encountered plenty of food in China that took bravery and a bit of mental trickery to eat, but we didn’t have to travel to a foreign country to get weirded out by food. There’s plenty to be had at home in San Francisco.

Kombucha close up | Photo by debra solomon

(Keep reading on www.ephemerratic.com for questionable edibles you can get in San Francisco)

All night shopping in Hong Kong | Photo by Lauren Girardin

The social melee in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighborhood induces our first bout of culture shock on this trip. Most of the past three months we’ve traveled slowly overland through swaths of mellow and, relative to Hong Kong, underpopulated Southeast Asia. Here, we face a wall of people every way we turn.

(Email and RSS readers, visit www.ephemerratic.com to read the rest of the story about Hong Kong)

Playing with my twitching food

We skip willy-nilly through the time-space continuum over on Matador Network, who just published my new travel story about eating live animals in South Korea. Here's a taste:

My chopsticks finally aim towards the last untried morsels, a substance that can be generously described as resembling chunks of slug. Its glossy, soft flesh is a mottled mix of khaki green, deep brown, mustard yellow, and blue-gray, combined to make a surface both artful and repulsive.

Thanks to the dozen complete strangers that have commented on the post. The comments are worth reading too. I'd love to read your comment on Matador.

>> Read the rest of the story on MatadorAbroad.com

You don't get to see or do much when you get kicked out of a country. So most of our YEH-MEH-NAHs are for things within a few blocks of our hostels, the immigration office, and Pantip Plaza. That's right - we didn't see a single one of Bangkok's sites. But we did eat!

(Email and RSS readers, visit www.ephemerratic.com to read the travel tips from Bangkok, Thailand)