Day 424: Street Art in Bogota

It was supposed to take us eight hours to get from Armenia to Bogota. It took us fifteen.

We later found out that this is fairly common. We shared a taxi into the city with two other travelers and after dropping them off, we arrived at our guesthouse in Bogota around midnight, utterly exhausted. In my efforts to not bore you with another day of us sitting on a bus, or complaining about sitting on said bus, I put together a melange of street art that we discovered during our stay in Bogota. Just in our late night taxi ride from the station to our guesthouse alone, I was amazed by the beautiful murals along the highway. They were everywhere. They were beautiful. They were big. While it was too dark to shoot footage from the cab at night, I found some other equally impressive art throughout Bogota and tried to record as much of it as I could. Had we known from the start of our stay, we would have readily gone on the Bogota Street Art Tour, but didn’t find out about it until we were on our way out of the city.

There are some impressive artists in Bogota. Unfortunately the links that the aforementioned tour provide didn’t work for me, except this one. DJLU was one of my favorites. Also scattered around the city, were these public sculptures of famous artists as well as political and historical figures sitting on rooftops. As well as a few colorful walls and doors dotted the streets as well. How could I refuse taking a picture of this pretty juxtaposition of color?

Day 360: Miraflores; This is it?

Miraflores is a district in Lima. It’s the weathiest, and according to Wikipedia, “Miraflores is known for its shopping areas, gardens, flower-filled parks and beaches.” We walked through two lovely parks, and through some tourist markets, and then through a LOT of gated apartment buildings with heavy security to the Pacific. It looked as if there were beaches down below the cliffs we were perched upon, but it did not look like the kind of beach I would want to hang out on (read: cold and windy) and I had to assume that I was missing something- that we were missing something.

What is there to do in Miraflores? What were we missing? Is there more? There has to be! What do all of these people in ritzy (I’m assuming) and expensive apartments do here? Bottom line: I didn’t see much. Admittedly, because it took so long to navigate through the traffic to get from one side of town to the other, we didn’t have longer than half of an afternoon to explore, but I certainly didn’t leave with that wistful “Oh man, I wish we had more time here!” feeling at all!

I couldn’t pass up this freshly painted garage in the market. Momma was busy buying something for someone (little did we know then that this would be her favorite thing to do) so I made Andrew stand in front of the door so I could photograph him. I keep teasing him that he’s going to have a pretty solid modeling portfolio by the end of this trip. Except, that he’s wearing the exact same three outfits throughout all of the pictures.

The park on the cliff overlooking the Pacific that we walked to is called the Park of Love. In the middle of the park is a passionate sculpture titled “El Beso”, by Victor Delfin. It seemed to be popular with young couples. Momma made Andrew and I pose for a picture in front of the sculpture. Obviously we posed just like the sculpture. Just kidding.

Day 340: Barcelona Old City Walking Tour

Anxious to get out of bed, but still a bit sleepy, we headed across town to join the Runner Bean Barcelona Old City Walking Tour in the morning. It was great, but it was also very similar to other ‘old city walking tours’ that we’ve been on lately, and my attention wavered more than it should have. I tried to focus on what pretty pictures I could take of Barcelona Old City, and tried to forget that I was still a bit sleep deprived, but I wasn’t always so successful. After the tour, we meandered down by the seaport and walked around to some different eateries in hopes that our friend, Nat would be game to hopping around to a few for tapas at night. She was! We were all thrilled to see each other again (we met in Tanzania a few months ago) and spent a good deal of time trying to sort out where our respective travels have taken us since Arusha!

We met in Plaça Reial by the water fountain and soon we were winding our way through the little streets of the old town towards another square with a big church, and this beautiful still-intact building façade. While everyone couldn’t get enough of the facade and the church, I couldn’t get enough of the scissors and knife shop below.

We walked by a shrine to a young woman who refused to renounce her Catholic faith, then through the Jewish district and finally to one of the more major squares with political buildings on either side. Despite the tour being wonderful and our guide being very knowledgeable, I think Andrew and I were more keen on finding coffee.

We were told this is the most photographed bridge in Barcelona. A pedestrian one at that, the Carrer del Bisbe Irurita is between two buildings in a narrow alleyway in the Gothic Quarter of the Old City. It was beautiful and I could see why it is so popular to photograph. I’m always blown away by such intricate marble and wood carving and how they have survived over the years.

An interesting thing I noticed throughout our tour: all graffiti seemed to be contained to the doors. The beautiful stone buildings were left virtually untouched, but the doors would be COVERED with paint. If I hadn’t been to Greece, I would think it was a shame, but after seeing how everything was covered in Greece, I thought it was somewhat respectful that the walls weren’t covered with tags on top of the doors.

We made our way outside of the Barcelona Cathedral. I’m still working with one lens and knew I didn’t have a chance to fit the whole façade in using it, so I tried to get as much in as possible from where we were standing, looking up. It was immense. There were a lot of people. Instead of fighting our way through, we walked on, past another church, past several mouth-watering tapas restaurants and learned a little bit more about Barcelona Old City, but wasn’t able to retain it over my hunger and need for caffeine. (Sorry, friends)

One stop that I would have not known had it not been for this tour, was inside a small courtyard featuring three old Roman columns. Everyone filtered in, stopped to take them in, mostly in awe of them still being so well preserved, snapped a few pictures, and then we made our way out. One family still lives in one of the apartments surrounding the courtyard. I bet that’s fun dealing with a steady stream of visitors everyday… Afterwards, we made our way to Plaça del Rei (King’s Square) which is most well known for the steps where it is believed that Ferdinand and Isabella welcomed Columbus when he arrived home from his first voyage. Our guide didn’t seem to take a lot of stock in this story, insisting somewhat that it was more likely he was received at sea instead. But who knows! The steps were pretty and grand, so it makes for a good story regardless. Our tour ended not long after and we wandered through the backstreets in a similar direction from where we started. Of course, I was drawn to the street art and then this massive art installation in the middle of a side square. Unfortunately there wasn’t any information (that I saw) about it!

I couldn’t stop taking in the beauty of the apartment buildings. Someone somewhere said that ‘Barcelona knows how to do laundry’ or something similar, and I couldn’t agree more. Laundry, plants, even colorful plastic chairs… It all looks prettier in Barcelona! Close to the port, another modern sculpture dominated a square, otherwise surrounded by traffic. Getting a close up of the colors against the bright blue sky made crossing the street worth it.

Passing the time to meet our friend, we walked through more streets, and looked for suggested tapas restaurants to check out later. When we met Nat, we knew exactly where to go and which places we wanted to try out! We started at Bodega Biarritz for sangria and tapas and then hopped in and out of places we liked the looks of as we walked around the Born and Gothic neighborhoods. Nat told us that the pinchos were tapas put on bread so patrons could cover their drinks so flies wouldn’t get in! So clever! Some of the restaurants were so busy, we couldn’t even get an order in- at one, we actually gave up and went elsewhere because after fifteen minutes or so of trying to get to the counter, we didn’t have any luck! Even though eating so late could take some getting used to, I love the idea of tapas and getting to sample so many different tastes in one sitting. Restaurant hopping to try even more settings and sangria made the evening even better!

Day 324: DOX Museum & Letna Park

Andrew likes to introduce me to new television shows and films (especially of the foreign variety) while I like to introduce him to art. More like: he humors me when I say I would like to visit a contemporary art museum. I promised a beer garden after- perhaps this helped. I have to admit, I really enjoy contemporary art museums, much like I enjoy thrift stores. As we were walking through the DOX Contemporary Art Museum, it dawned on me that they can be quite similar experiences. Often, in a thrift or secondhand store, it’s filled with a lot of things you aren’t interested in. at. all. You may even walk out with nothing, feeling a bit disappointed. But when you do see something you like- or even love- it’s like a bit of a treasure and it makes up for having to sift through so much that you simply didn’t appreciate. I felt this way walking through the DOX today. I was on the fence about the Disabled by Normality exhibition until I saw the Isolabella film by Danica Dakic and fell in love with the concept. I think Andrew even liked it… although I’m pretty sure he enjoyed Letna Park, the views of Prague complimented by the old school hip hop blasting from the skateboard park, and the beer (of course) a little bit more. But, hey, it’s pretty hard to beat this view, so I don’t blame him.

The exhibition was interesting, we may have done it in an incorrect order (I can never understand why museums don’t use more arrows) but like I said above, by far, my favorite part was this super interesting short film made in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Danica Dakic. I’m pretty sure it was the best part of the entire (somewhat large) exhibition.

Within this post, there used to be a still I managed to take of the video, of one resident playing the piano with his mask on backwards. I had credited the photo as being a still from the video made by Dakic, and in no way was trying to infringe on copyright, but was contacted by another photographer, who didn’t state any relation to Dakic. This photographer was unhappy with how I inserted the still of Dakic’s video in this blog post. Not only was he unhappy, but I found his message to be super condescending. Frankly had he not been so condescending or perhaps explained his relationship to Dakic… moreover if Dakic himself had contacted me- I would have immediately taken steps to appease him by “appropriately crediting” Dakic, even though in my opinion, I already had. It’s unfortunate. Dakic’s website is so minimal, it does not even provide stills or clips of the video to link up to at least try to convey how lovely the film turned out. It’s photographers and artists like the one who contact me that make me cringe and frankly dislike being any part of the “art world.” If I was Dakic, I would be ashamed of having this other photographer speak on my behalf. Artists, moreover photographers (like the one who contacted me) don’t have to be rude and condescending.

Instead of providing a still that I took (of one of my favorite moments of the video), and a complimentary “about” the video that I loved, I just took it all down out of annoyance. It’s a shame that art can’t be spread around the world because of persons like the one who emailed me.

I also enjoyed Kamila Ženatá’s solo exhibition: The Women’s Yard. When we got to the last room, it was filled with hanging crystals and changing lights. It was quite beautiful, but I scared myself silly when I walked into the dark room and then saw someone sitting (working) in the corner. He laughed at me. a lot. And then let me take a few pictures, but they really don’t do the light in the room justice…

After the DOX, as promised, we headed to Letna. First stop: the metronome. There used to be a huge (HUGE) Stalin monument here, but it was removed and a few years later this giant metronome was put in its place as a symbol of the change over time. The shoes hanging from an electrical wire were new to me though (so within the past six years they’ve been added) and I loved them! There were even a pair of old ice-skates dangling from the wire. They made me a little nervous, I mean, wouldn’t that be just my luck they accidentally fell on top of me walking underneath them? We walked around the park, and then doubled back to have a couple of Pilsners in the gardens before heading “home.”

Day 309: Mostar and its bridge; JUMP!

A friend commented on an Instagram photo I had posted last week, asking if this place really exists. It does. And it’s beautiful. During the war, and after, without the bridge intact, it probably (ok, I’m sure it definitely wasn’t) as pristine looking… But now, thanks to the reconstruction of the bridge, and a growing young population ignoring the rules of the previously divided Croat vs. Bosnian sides,  the town seems (at least to my visitor’s eye) to be one again. Despite a plethora of tourists walking through the town during the day, it was a fraction of how crowded the streets were in Dubrovnik and Kotor. In the evening, only a handful of visitors roamed the cobblestoned alleyways and the town had a bit of magic in the air that gently reminded us both how lucky we were to be able to visit and enjoy this little town together.

We started our day in Mostar at the Museum of the Old Bridge. It’s on the small side, basically housed in one of the towers (Tara tower) and discusses the history of the original construction. It provides views of the bridge from above, a walk through the older underground sections below, and a bit on the destruction and reconstruction. I know, you might be a little surprised at my (our) interest in a museum dedicated to a bridge… But it really was quite fascinating. The architecture is pretty amazing and the history involving the destruction during the war is eye-opening. Normally, I might not suggest starting with a museum like this, but in this case, I highly recommend it.

Damage to the city, from the war, is still evident. Buildings like this one dotted the streets. Usually, when we visit a city devastated by war at some point in history, it’s so far in the past that only a museum serves as a reminder. You get an entirely different perspective when you look at a building crushed by a bomb or riddled with bullet and grenade holes.

Crossing the bridge, I was surprised to see a young man standing on the edge of the bridge, acting as if he was going to jump. I waited (as you can see in the video) and then got bored… waiting. As we walked past him, I asked if he was going to jump.

“If 25 euros are collected, then I will jump!” He answered.

“Ohhh, I see…” Andrew sighed. I rolled my eyes. He stood on the ledge all afternoon. He was there all throughout our next museum visit in the opposite tower. He got longer shorts when it looked as if it was going to rain, but still stood out on the ledge. He was even standing on the ledge a few hours later when we climbed up a minaret down the way for a different view of the bridge… I didn’t (and still don’t) understand their system. Why these boys don’t have an organized daily jump surprises me. It seems as though it would be a much better idea to have a daily jump at a specific time everyday. Ask the city if they will sponsor them, even if it’s just by printing flyers and advertising their daily jump on their tourist website. Pose for pictures before the jump. Jump. Collect donations afterwards. Boom. One hour and done. I’m sure they would even make more than 25 euros per jump!

Instead, dude stood around on a ledge of a bridge for at least four hours waiting for one person, or a crowd to take it upon themselves to collect 25 euros for him to jump. Lame. Unless he likes the attention, which could very well be his thing… but it didn’t look like he ever made any money standing on the ledge all afternoon…

We walked out of the old town to see what Mostar was like outside the historical/bridge area. The most interesting thing we saw was an abandoned building that looked as if it was a graffiti mecca. That, and judging by the amount of empty bottles of beer littered around the floor, that it was/is probably a local night haunt for Mostar teens.

We made our way back towards the old town, looking for the mosque with the minaret that had a wonderful view of the bridge and both banks of the river. Koskin-Mehmed Pasha’s Mosque is small, and we were told it is no longer in use, however a man was praying inside after we climbed down from the minaret.

You go to this mosque, not for the interior, but for the view of the town (and the bridge) from the minaret. Climbing the minaret wasn’t my most favorite thing to do, but once you get to the top, you’ll see that the short climb (going in circles in the dark) is worth it.

Towards dusk, we went around to the other side of the old town and sat at the water’s edge to take some pictures of the bridge at night.

I even set up the self-timer and scurried across the rocks to sit with Andrew for a few pictures of us. If I was looking at these pictures of another couple, I would roll my eyes. I told Andrew just that.

“Ohmigod, these pictures are sooo cheesy!” I started laughing at us.

“What? It’s not our fault our love is so adorable!” He responded, on his way into the bathroom, and then he promptly yelled at me that I had left a turd in the toilet.

“Well, I don’t know how it got there!” I just yelled back.

Day 270: Athens

Greece has been one of those countries that has been on my list for awhile now. I tried to go when I lived in Prague, it didn’t work out. I looked up flights from Seoul, they were too expensive. It was one of the first countries on the “Round the World” list that I was not going to cross out no matter what. While Thessaloniki was nice, it didn’t really feel like we arrived in Greece until we were walking the streets of Athens this afternoon. Don’t tell Thessaloniki.

We arrived super early and even though we could walk from the station to our hotel, Andrew knew it wasn’t in the best part of town. Taxi drivers were telling us the three minute ride would cost us 10-15 euro. We took the metro, and probably ended up walking farther from the metro stop than we would have had we just walked from the station at dawn. Despite it being a “bad part of town” I wasn’t phased after some of the stops on this trip. It seemed quiet when we walked to our hotel before six. I was also looking forward to immediately crashing, as we were told we would be able to the night before. Unfortunately the attendant on duty did not seem to think this was possible and we had to wait. I had unintentionally stepped in pee on our way. So there we sat in the lobby, me smelling like pee, trying not to fall asleep until we were able to check into our room. An hour later, the shift changed and we were able to get a room, at least for the morning to shower and sleep.

By early afternoon, we were walking back out of our hotel, ready to hit the town. I still wasn’t thinking the part of town we were in was that bad until a man walked by with blood dripping down his face. Andrew was a few meters ahead (per usual) and I almost chuckled when I saw Andrew notice and react to the dude’s bloody face. Meanwhile, the dude seemed oblivious to the fact that blood was dripping down his face and continued to walk down the street, checking a message on his phone at the same time. It was like he was an extra in a television or film shoot and had fifteen minutes to go get a coffee or something. Only there wasn’t a set around. What might be more troubling about this encounter is how remarkably not phased we were. We just exchanged a look like “Did you see that?” and kept walking.

Our first stop was Monastiraki. It’s known as the ‘flea market’ neighborhood of Athens. Unfortunately it seemed as though tourist shops selling the same selection of trinkets had taken over the area and we were nonplussed. Andrew had a Lonely Planet walking tour on his phone, but the subway stop where the tour began was closed for the day, so we were more or less working our way backwards of the tour. Haphazardly working our way backwards as the tour quickly unfolded into a meandering of sorts.

Athens seems to be covered with just as much graffiti as Thessaloniki was. I kept getting distracted by the quality (in my opinion) street art mixed in.

As we were walking, looking for a church we thought we were near, a chef stopped to help point us in (what he thought) was the right direction. Then he came back up to us to ask where we were from. After we told him we were American, he informed us that he was from Pakistan. He had a few words for us about our country’s involvement in Pakistan and our media’s response to the American involvement in his country. English obviously not being his first language, I’m not quite sure what his message was. But he tried really hard to deliver it to us, and we listened, because it seemed important to him. We didn’t even comment or give a response when he felt he was finished. He thanked us for listening and then turned and walked away.

We continued walking and I couldn’t help but be intrigued and a little bit proud? of the interaction. Before I lived abroad, and probably before we started this trip, I was always quicker to talk. To make sure someone else knew my opinion about something. Andrew will tease me that I still am… But now, especially I think, with those from another country I’m quicker to listen.

A few stairways later, we found ourselves in the middle of an Anafi community of houses. It was like we had been suddenly transported to an island, not at all as though we were a short walk away from downtown Athens. Signs pointed up to the Acropolis, but all you could see was the wall and all you could hear were the birds and one older man watering his rooftop garden. It was serene and absolutely beautiful.

We walked down to the more traveled touristy roads and out towards the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

It was closed, but we could still sneak a picture through the gate. And a snapshot of another Hadrian’s Gate. We made our way back the way we came and stopped off to get a huge Greek salad (YUM), feta fries (YUM), and a gyro (YUM). As if that wasn’t enough, when we stopped at a bakery on our way ‘home’ the chef behind the counter laughed at me making fun of Andrew not being able to decide what to get. Then he came around to our side to hand us some little treats on the house.

Day 268: Plans are a changin’

Today turned into one of those days we tried to decide where we are going to be in Europe, and when. It wasn’t easy. I spent a couple hours educating myself on the Balkan countries. Andrew spent a couple of hours looking up flights to South America. We debated. We argued. We attempted to compromise. I edited down. Andrew looked at flights from Prague to Barcleona. From Prague to Paris. From London to Barcelona. From Germany to Cuba. The possibilities are endless. Somewhat.

It’s exciting, but sometimes a little bit daunting. We’re still not sure what exactly we’re going to do with our time in Europe, nor what we’ll be able to do with the last few months of our trip in South/Central America. Hopefully it will be just as much of an adventure as the past nine have already proven to be.

In desperate need of food and fresh air, we finally put the computers, calendars, and notes away. We made it out of our hotel late in the afternoon for a walk around a really quiet town. It was as if everything was shut down permanently, or closed for the evening by four o’clock. Also: everything, and I mean EVERYTHING continued to be covered in graffiti. Except most of the historical sites- which obviously provided a stark contrast to the modern apartment buildings surrounding something so ancient. So these additional pictures, and the second video of graffiti around the town is just to emphasize simply how abundant it is. Also, with everything being closed down- it seemed a more interesting subject matter compared to the closed- and sometimes chained shut doors.

Day 267: Istanbul to Thessaloniki

If I had a dollar for every 12-hour bus-ride, I probably wouldn’t be over budget at the moment! I exaggerate. But here we were again, this time from Istanbul to Thessaloniki, and this time our drivers liked to smoke on the bus. It wasn’t so bad though and we actually arrived to Thessaloniki two hours earlier than we thought we would. By dusk, we were debating between the hotel with the mental institution-like room or the hotel with the nicer room with breakfast for 10 euros more. After we agreed on the nicer room, and then went out for dinner and noticed the crazy amount of graffiti on EVERYTHING. Fortunately, a few pieces of street art stood out on our walk home.

Day 238: Lion’s Head

Things I wanted to do in Cape Town but could not justify going even more over budget than I already am included repelling off of Table Mountain, cage diving with sharks, and eating at famous (some fancy) restaurants. Instead of spending a ridiculous amount of money doing one of those things on our last afternoon in Cape Town, we climbed Lion’s Head for free. Repelling and cage diving will simply have to wait until next time.

After a quick drive to the base of Lion’s Head, we began our climb before the sun got too hot. What was cool about the climb was how it circled around Lion’s Head as you went up so you got different views of Cape Town, Table Mountain, and beautiful views of the ocean as climbed up and around. You also went in and out of the sun and shade so when you got too hot, suddenly you were walking in the shade and were able to cool off.

It turned out to be quite a lovely climb and I regretted (only slightly) not scheduling more time for the trek up. Close to the top, we were told it was another forty minutes to get to the very top. Forty minutes Andrew didn’t think we had. We cut our climb short and headed back down to have enough time to look for some street art I saw from the bus the previous day, get to the airport, return the car, and check in.

Going on a scavenger hunt for street art in a city you do not know the lay of the land for, and you left your bus route behind at the hostel turned into a little adventure. I knew roughly where the two paintings were, and Andrew pulled up Google to help navigate our way there. A few circles later, I was able to hop out and snap a few shots before we picked up our bags and headed to the airport for our first of three flights to Istanbul!

Day 223: Main Street Market + I was shot in Joburg

When you plan to go on a trip around the world, you get excited about all of the new friends you’re going to make. You don’t prepare yourself for making new, wonderful friends from elsewhere in the world and then meeting up with them several months later in their home country. That’s what happened today. Even better, they came to pick us up and took us out around Joburg for the day! We headed to The Main Street Market and discovered I was shot in Joburg!

We met Tony and Raquel trekking through Northern Vietnam for three days. Tony even had seen my blog prior to the trip! (I’m sure he was just humoring me, but I felt like a celebrity nonetheless that he actually had read my blog before!) They had planned on us staying with them while we were in Joburg, but our timing was off and we arrived the very week they moved into a new place AND started a new job. To give you an idea of how sweet these two are, they told us how they kept us in mind when shopping for a pull-out couch for us to sleep on. They wanted to make sure it was not only comfortable for us, but that Andrew would fit on it. I could have kissed them. After traveling around for nearly eight months now, we’re used to taking care of each other, but when someone else jumps in to help take care of us, well, it just feels special.

They decided to take us down to Main Street Market, similar to Neighbour Goods Market, but in a different part of town. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to try foods we didn’t try the day before. Andrew found a micro-brewery. Thanks, SMACK! Republic!

I found some photography exhibitions, specifically one featuring street kids that totally rocked my socks off. (I have a thing for grids, alright?)

I was shot in Joburg (from their website) “is a brand providing a platform for street children, who’ve received photography training through the Studio_Bernard Viljoen Foundation [NGO], to apply their newly developed skills and generate an income…

Now, how can I do this in NYC when we move there next year? I was shot in Joburg people, let me know! I’ll be your American liaison! Your American counterpart! Your American fan- if nothing else. (Even though, I’m sure you probably have one of those already…)

And then, I found some street art on the way out, made everyone wait in the car for me, while I ran down the street to photograph them.

And then we went for coffee and Bloody Marys. Do you like how I made it sound like we all had both? We didn’t. Everyone else had coffee. I had a Bloody Mary. My first Bloody in at least eight months. “Once it hits your lips… It’s so good!”

Day 60: Peace, Love, Pai

Pai offers trekking tours, elephant rides, and motorbikes and maps to explore around the outskirts of town. But really, Pai wants you to relax. It's practically demanded that you sit in a coffee shop and read, chat, or simply drink something delicious with or without company. And that's just what we did. We slept in late, we ate a huge breakfast at Boomelicious (maybe my favorite restaurant on this trip so far) and then sat with our computers and coffees for awhile. We got up, wandered, found another cafe and sat for awhile, before it was time to streetfood stall hop for dinner and then, get our portrait painted by a street artist.

When in Pai…

Day 59: Life in Pai

We weren't sure if we were going to swing up to Pai or not, but after the not so lovely front deskman at The Chiang Mai Thai House informed me we'd have to move to a more expensive room if we wanted to stay, we decided we may as well catch a bus to Pai after all! I'm rather glad that the stars aligned for us to visit. Because somehow, I managed to forget how much I love this tiny town.

It's much more popular than it was four years ago. When I was here last, there was one shop to get eclectic hippie meets graphic design postcards and paraphanalia… now there are dozens. The town stays up later than it did in the past, and many more tourists sit in coffeeshops by day and roam the streets by night. The roads have since opened up to more streetfood stalls and vendors selling t-shirts, leather bags, woven scarves, and so much more. It's glorious. The only problem with Pai is that I want to buy everything! (Including the beautiful and out of my price-range handmade leather bag I'm eyeing in the video. And yes, I know, it's another bag… I do not deny I have a problem. At least the giant black and silver ring I found- not at all to Andrew's surprise, was in my price range!)