I’ve been thinking that if my friend Dan Emerson in all his awesomeness is but a chip off the ol’ block - how awesome must his dad be, since Dan is a diluted version of him? A concentrated version of Dan; is such a thing possible? We’ll discover this together right here on 77ZI, hopefully - you know…if he answers. Interview guidelines found here.

So Dan’s dad, firstly, what is your current name and what names have you held throughout your lifetime?

State your favorite and least favorite country that you’ve lived in and why.

What where you doing with your life when you met the Family and were you one of the “I knew in that moment that I was supposed to join” types or did it take longer?

Name three of your heroes when you were a teenager and three of your heroes now.

Most memorable construction moment?

If you could go back in time to before you had kids and give yourself one piece of parenting advice, what would it be?

Have you ever held a job that you were entirely unsuited for but did out of necessity or for the cause of Christ?

What trait has Dan inherited from you that is most apparent to you?

While we’re on the topic, like the importunate woman I put out another heartfelt-yet-totally-un-pressured-and-utterly-non-demanding-while-
remaining-entirely-sincere invitation to Robin to finish the interview, only if you feel like it. And I promise this is the last time I’ll ask

Since we’re on the subject of Nepal; Lily and Steven - we had the awesomest time ever and thank you so much for all your help in setting us up and putting us up and putting up with us and for just being all-around swell, fun, and delightfully dynamic people. You totally rule!

CC: A poignant and interpretive moment in Nagerkat. The view is obstructed by prayer flags. It’s a Restaurant. I’m about to have the best pot of tea ever created by man. Jules is going to have some other unimportant gruel.

Besides the above photo, which I thought captured an interpretive and poignant moment, the rest of these are ordered chronologically.

CC: The Airport in Taipei after we had been rerouted there for the second time. We had flown over Hong Kong twice, decided it was too cloudy and headed back to Taipei for some quality runway sitting. This time we were let out of the plane. You can tell by my expression (which I’m positive is only a mirror of my BFF’s heartfelt expression) that we’re not sure what to make of all this freedom.

CC: Out the window of our very first bus ride, and probably the least exciting one of all. Or the least life threatening. Either way.

CC: Indeed this picture is neither exclusive nor inclusive. (what??) Wasn’t this our very first restaurant experience Jules? I’d like to mention that if you ever visit Nepal, each meal will take about two hours. I suggested to Jules that since it took them so long to get our food to us - we should just give them plenty of warning by ordering dinner when we first got up in the morning. That way, by the time we got there at night, it should be fresh out of the oven.
The long waits were usually worth it though. Traditional Nepali food is the shiznit. Not to mention their tea. Their tea was my forever friend.

CC: First morning in Pokra. We later hired two bicycles for hire. They had baskets. I put my water bottle in my basket.

CC: This is the restaurant where we took a picture of the bicycles. I’m waiting for my yummy tea. It doesn’t really matter what Jules is waiting for. It wasn’t as good as my tea.

CC: We also hired a boat in Pokra. This is a very important picture. Jules had encountered a blood sucking leech that had attached itself as we explored the other side of the lake. Instead of remove it right away - we decided to leave it on to suck out all of her impurities. We had to leave it on a very long, long time.
Instead of dwelling on the evil - we decided to dwell on the good and show you how victorious her other foot was in spite of the rapid loss of blood that her leech foot was encountering (all for the greater good of course) What a victory out of seeming defeat. PTL!

CC: Still on the boat

CC: Our favorite room from our whole trip. Overlooking the lake at Pokra. We stayed in this room for a whole TWO nights. The longest we ever stayed in one place. (Besides the Katmandu home. Thanks guys!) It was basic in amenities, but had a stone wall, two orange walls and light bulbs with decorated rice paper over them. At night, the lake had little fireflies floating over it. With hot water to boot, you really can’t beat that at only 7 dollars a night.

CC: This a picture from our hotel in Sarankot at the top of the Mountain we climbed.

CC: The view from our hotel room. The view is overlooking Pokra where we walked from. You can even see the lake where we rowed our boat.

CC: Sere’s house. Jules met him as she climbed the mountain. He invited us for tea at his mountain-side house. It was a single room with 6 people living inside. We had buffalo milk tea (best tea ever).

CC: The Buffalo that gave us of its tits.

CC: Sere’s family (photo taken by Sere.) The grandma in the middle was the best of the bunch. I took video’s of her with the camera and showed her. She laughed a lot. She has a nose ring that’s bigger than her entire nose. Hippest granny ever.

CC: Up early in Sarankot to watch the “sunrise”. It consisted of a yellowish ball rising on the horizon. My view of this historic event was blocked by the tree next to me. But it doesn’t really matter. I had tea. I’m pretty sure Jules just had Half Baked Dribble.

CC: Climbing back down Sarankot. Most of the way up was stone stairs that the locals made with their own two hands. Going down was alot easier than going up. The day before, it took Jules three hours, and myself two to make it to the top. Going down was a breeze. It would have been much faster if we hadn’t been so diverted by our own foolishness. (Both videos below were taken on the way down.) But it was early morning and we were young and virile.

CC: Yo

CC: Breakfast after walking down the mountain of a thousand steps. We ate at “Green Peace cafe” because we…you know…support green peace in the middle east. Besides the questionable looking squids - it was stellar.

CC: Rafting trip stop over. We rafted here and spent the night here.

CC: You can’t tell by our sun-shiny faces, but we were about to be swept away by a tornado outside our tent. Then our rafting guides cooked us a magnificent dinner and we talked with our three doctor buddies who were chain smokers. Such good samples.

CC: Behind us you can see our rival boat. One of them pulled me into the water when I wasn’t looking. Don’t worry though - I showed them who was master of the oar. Heck yea.

CC: After we rafted, we took a bus the rest of the way to Chitwan. We were stopped by huge crowds of people covered in red, celebrating the Mouists’ win of the elections. This is a bunch of police next to our bus. I’m guessing they were there in case things got out of hand.

CC: Our very first elephant ride. As cool and exotic as that sounds - after two hours of staring at elephant butt (we got the back) and rocking back and forth in a small cage, you don’t feel exotic or cool anymore.

CC: Since we couldn’t take pictures of ourselves on the elephant, we got some of our fellow travelers. That’s pretty much what we looked like anyway. All tourists look the same.



CC: We saw this wild Rhino while sitting on our elephant.

CC: A jeep ride I took without my BFF. These nifty girls were touroids from London. We saw wild bison and swallowed flies.

CC: Our last trip to another city. We went with the illustrious Nepal home this time. They had contacts for free food and lodging. Remember that touching first picture with the prayer flags? This is the front view of that poignant moment.



CC: RETARD!!!

CC: The best time ever. After staying on top of this mountain in Nagarkot, we spent the whole day “meandering” down the mountain with beer in our hands. Best day of my life.

Do you concur?

From Chuck: King Kenji Onlyism. That’s right, I like it. Thankfully it is now thoroughly entrenched within my epidermis and down into the relevantly dermis layer of skinal factions. If you’re educated in the field of King Kenji Onlyism and you feel that I have somehow misrepresented the true foundation of our movement, just ask about it in the comments as it will most likely stem from the simplification that his perfectly chiseled features had to undergo in order to present them in this format, rather than actual error on my part. Although, that too is possible.

From Jules: While I’m firmly against the filtering of artistic expression or the exercising of cognitive dissonance, I believe that some imagery just isn’t worth not getting inked on oneself. It’s not that I think a person would be stumbled by it. For if you had any reasonable basis for your love for Jeremy, it would take more than a little tattoo to stumble you. That aside though, I think that this is a great tattoo, and if getting Jeremy’s face inked on your back brings about such expressions, then keep doing it. The results speak for themselves in this case I think.

Prayers are much appreciated, especially since the elections are happening smack dab in the middle of our trip, then there’s the Maoists and stuff. Pray also for my lungs and appendages; Chuck is a supreme fitness practitioner who is going to be running up and down the Himalayas the whole time, I’m hoping to just make it to the top of whatever mountains we climb in one living piece. As anyone who knows me will testify, this will involve much prayer in order to happen.

We’ll be seeing you all later and el blog will be very boring unless sister Steph decides to update it. Will also try to crank out an Interview of the Month before I leave.

So now, when the Enemy comes with around with his discouragement, trying to tell me how uncool I am, I’m gonna be all like “Yo, I backpacked through Nepal. Get outta my face!”