{"id":176,"date":"2003-03-22T01:38:00","date_gmt":"2003-03-22T00:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/2003\/3\/in_the_emerald_city.html"},"modified":"2003-03-22T01:38:00","modified_gmt":"2003-03-22T00:38:00","slug":"in_the_emerald_city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/2003\/03\/22\/in_the_emerald_city\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Emerald City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is good to be back in the Western world, even though its leadership seems to be fraught with even more idiocy than I had imagined.  I&#8217;m in Oz now, and I&#8217;ve got to say I had no idea how much I&#8217;d missed the whole urban living thing until I set foot here.  I feel great!  There are museums and operas and parks and people on the street speak a language I can actually understand!  Not only that, but in the 5 days I&#8217;ve been here nobody has tried to sell me something I didn&#8217;t want.  I&#8217;ve walked past no less than a hundred taxis and not one of them has insisted I go with him or asked my why not.  I bought stilettos and a jacket (it&#8217;s chilly &#8211; at least, compared to SE Asia it is) and didn&#8217;t haggle over the price.  OK, the prices are pretty painful, but still.  You get the idea.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that I didn&#8217;t enjoy my time in Asia &#8211; I had an amazing time, and may go back there before long.  I just don&#8217;t think I could live in a place like Bangkok or Chiang Mai or Hanoi for an extended period of time.  Much as I like to think of myself as an adaptable and cosmopolitan chicky, I do have my limits.  It&#8217;s just not in me.  <\/p>\n<p>That said, I&#8217;ve got a lot more to write about &#8211; but I&#8217;m tired right now and I&#8217;ve been replying to backlogged email for the past hour and a half, so you&#8217;ll have to wait.  Look for upcoming installments on: the Gili Islands, the utter stupidity of war, nightlife and wildlife here in Sydney, etc. etc.  But for now, it&#8217;s off to take a little nap before the evening begins&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is good to be back in the Western world, even though its leadership seems to be fraught with even&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","category-the-big-trip-2002-2003","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/custom-deluxe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}