I tried to visit the famous Franklin BBQ, but it was mostly sold out by the time I arrived (14:20). I was able to get some leftover "mixed meats", which was better than nothing:
The LBJ Library and Museum was a nice museum in the University, to finish the day. I learned a lot about the man, and he was one of the better presidents that the country did get:
When I was done with the LBJ libray and museum, I went to check out the 6th av district, including murals:
many businesses had these signs, saying anyone with any gun, was unwelcome
I went to check out the museum of the weird, but it was a lesser Ripley's Believe It Or Not, nothing to write home about.
The Texas Toy Museum and Arcade (click me) was a lot more fun, though. Good way to burn time until sunset, when the bats were supposed to come out under some bridge, but by then it started pouring rain, and they didn't come out anytime
everyone waiting and hoping, but no luck
nice views, though
After that, it was time to meet my friend Marc Antoine for a great evening together over some local BBQ:
And that was it for visiting Austin, outside of one museum that was closed that day, got to see all things on my worthwhile list ;)
I had planned for the so called Great American Eclipse of 2024, and thanks to my friend Marc Antoine who lives in Austin, I did indeed pick Austin as a destination, and at the same time, he told me about a big festival. I was invited to join NAPF, North America Psytrance Family, and we had a great group camping spot just next to the psytrance stages, woot!
I was able to bring my outfit and find a way to charge it nightly without external power (more on solar below):
As a one off festival, I found it was reasonably well organized, at least from what I got to experience:
- ok, tickets were weird, you had print at home tickets that told you they were good enough to get in, but that was not true, they had to be swapped for actual car stickers at will call. Thankfully there was a convenient will call at the airport baggage terminal with virtually no wait when I arrived a day early (thursday)
- early entry on thursday wasn't bad, by then they worked out the kinks of stupid pointless searches trying to take people's vitamins and other personal items that are more than reasonable to have in your vehicle and campsite (like tools to fix things), but I was specifically very annoyed with them feeling they had the right to go through people's personal drugs, over the counter, or prescription and take everything away that wasn't prescription in original bottle (if you have pill boxes, you're screwed). Thankfully by thursday they had less time to search people's stuff, but still, not acceptable
- My wait in line for search was less than 15mn and the search of my car was 5mn, at most.
- The drive in to the NAPF camp was long and slow on a very dusty road, took over 20mn. All in all from the outside road to camp was a bit less than 1h, not too bad
- I've been told that of course the next day (first official opening day), it took longer to get in, and for people with RV who had paid for and reserved a spot with power/hookups, didn't get them, either because they were partly oversold, and/or because some people who hadn't paid for the spots, took them :(
Setup
I was able to bring a reasonable tent in my check in luggage to austin, as well as enough of a solar system to use the rental car battery as a power station that would get recharged by the panels I bought. It was a bit last minute, experimental, and rough looking, but it worked well enough. The couple of times when I didn't get enough sun, the car came with a free generator ;) (external generators were not allowed in camping):
please don't judge, it worked :)
charging the LED outfit batteries from the car batteries, in turn recharged by solar panels
North American Psytrance Family's (NAPF) camp
We had a nice little setup:
Venue/Grounds
Pictures from arrival:
car search line
many camps, reasonable signage
pretty dry and dusty overall, but a few places with water
the nature looked pretty nice in places
The venue
After getting to camp with early arrival on thursday just before sunset, setup camp and went to check out the venue. All the stages were not open yet, but enough things were running:
festival grounds had several entrances with a pretty quick somewhat pointless looking search
it wasn't burning man, but there was a descent selection of lit art
Lots of vendors of hippie gear :)
And other misc things:
A reasonable number of food options for all tastes:
They had multiple water refill stations and lockers, although the water refill stations ran out at times, which was not ideal, and I'm told they were turned off (no more water) on monday afternoon after they asked people to evacuate, not great...
multiple first aid stations, but apparently they were underequipped (more on that below)
the general store I went to was reasonably equipped, but the prices were hidden and very high
the better VIP area had an IV station where you could pay a lot for some fluids
A few "art cars"
The grounds were quite big and had multiple areas:
There was even a nice river and a makeshift beach:
To pass the day, they also had 2 stages with talks, some were pretty interesting:
great to see Rick Doblin again to talk about his work
The festival had close to 10 stages, 6 of them were pretty big. Honestly they were impressive given that they were indeed in the middle of nothing. The only downside was that the map was pretty poor and it was not too obvious which stage was which from the symbols. But yes, the stages were pretty:
NAPF was adjunct to the Ether stage, so we had our own party:
A highlight was to see Oakenfold's day set:
People
Like each festival I go to, I always enjoy the party that other people bring, with lights, costumes, and more:
glad to see the same friends across different festivals
TFSF represent
Videos
Drone show:
Samskara show:
Small summary of the event:
Nice Lit Display:
A minute of my outfit:
Eclipse and Evacuation Day
Early Departure
Monday morning, with barely a shred of a bar on one of my 2 cellphones, I got an urgent message that said bad weather was on the way, that everything left was cancelled (including the main party monday night and the DJs I really wanted to see), and to evacuate as soon as practical. I was weary that the traffic to exit would be terrible, especially from the southernmost camp, about as far from the main road as you can be, so I packed everything in 15mn and got on the exit road. Thankfully I beat most people to it, and was only delayed an extra 25mn or so by the people closer to the exit who had had more time to pack up and get in line too. All in all, I was out to the main road in 45mn, which wasn't bad. While I expected burning man level exodus lines and many hour long waits, I heard most people got out in fewer than 2h, which wasn't bad.
By then, the weather forecast was such that we wouldn't be able to see anything, so I figured I might as well leave early, but most others chose to stay until after the eclipse and some had renegade parties and stayed until tuesday anyway. The very bad weather that was forecast and caused the organizers to cancel the rest of the event, ended up not happening, but after a statement made by the organizers later, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and that they acted reasonably given the forecast they had at the time. It's true that if hail had come, or even just a lot of rain, the whole event would have become a muddy mess with potentially many cars stuck, getting everyone else, stuck there.
my early departure plan worked out pretty well
obviously not the only car in line, but we got out pretty well
Eclipse
I had looked at the weather forecast enough to have 0 hope to see the eclipse, as the forecast was for a solid overcast and then some rain, but with the evacuation I got out about 1.5H before totality and figured I'd go drive to my friend Marc's ranch about 1h away to spend the rest of the time with him.
Sure enough, the weather did not look good:
from time to time, the sun poked out for a minute or so
made it in time to Marc's ranch
and as we got closer to totality, the sun became visible more often
yes!
and yes!
not bad for a handheld camera
and before long, it was over
and the sun went hiding again, that was close!
Thoughts/Conclusion
Medical Facilities
There were concerns with the medical staff, they had plenty of it (good), when I got bitten by a big spider, I was able to see someone quickly enough to make sure it wasn't poisonous (also good), but for at least one person who needed more serious help, apparently they didn't have a defibrillator at most stations (causing one person not to get medical care for over 45mn), or even a more simple blood pressure monitor, which was suboptimal.
Apparently at least one person died, most likely due to lack of timely medical care, but it's also fair to say that when you have so many people in one place, by the sheer law of numbers, someone is likely to die anyway.
I'll also add that prompt first rate medical care was not included in the ticket, when you're in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a field, more than 45-60mn away from a hospital, expectations should be set accordingly.
Other things
The map in the app was not very useful as it didn't show you where you were on it. An attendee nicely made a pretty good web based map with location dot, but unfortunately it mostly didn't work for me and wouldn't show me where I was. Getting around was somewhat harder than it needed to be.
Water locations were not well indicated on that map either and were not easy to find at night
The festival did have a wristband money scheme, but thankfully it was not required and all vendors also took contactless credit cards, so that was the best of both worlds. I happily ignored the wristband money scheme and used my phone to pay without issues
The security started wrong (taking people's vitamins on their campsite location, totally not ok), but they loosened up over time. Honestly the perimeter to the inside festival was mostly to keep honest people honest as they say. It was trivial to get past the fence in many places, but at the same time, who would travel all the way there just to try to sneak in? I think it was just enough for good measure
I'm not entirely sure what was meant to be disallowed between the campgrounds and festival ground. Once a security person was trying to take a can of mixed drink I had (which did contain alcohol), but that's about it. You could take food in as far as I know
The water points were not 100% reliable, which was a potential problem, but I brought enough of my own water that it didn't matter
There were no official showers included with the price, not even for VIP, but there was a spa built not too far from my camp that offered showers for $16, a reasonable enough price considering.
VIP was a bit of a ripoff in my opinion. The "expedited" VIP entry was totally pointless, there was no wait ever between my camp and the festival grounds. One VIP area had a couple of interesting things and better toilets (although still no place to wash yourself), the other VIP area was just a few toilets and shade, nothing much. I definitely regret paying extra for VIP.
Conclusion
Honestly, given that this is not a yearly festival in the middle of nowhere in a place that wasn't used for that before, a lot of things went right
The stages themselves were actually pretty good considering it was the middle of nowhere, I was pretty impressed.
I'm told the organizers spent several months getting the site ready, including adding the dirt roads to get around and making all of this possible, just once, for only a few days. My impressions were actually "not bad at all".
Price may have felt a bit high, especially VIP that offered very little for its added price. The add ons like group car camping (around $250 extra), early entry (another almost $100 extra), did add up.
The cancellation on monday was very unfortunate, I think it was the right call, but it really damaged the event. The organizers promised a partial refund, still waiting for it at the time of this writing.
All in all I still had a good time, the eclipse itself was fantastic, especially since we were some of the few people in Texas that actually had enough clear sky to see the eclipse when it happened.
CDMX, Ciudad de Mexico, also known as Mexico City, being the capital of Mexico, was much higher than I thought, 7300ft or over 2000 meters of altitude. It's not montainous looking, but it's a high plateau and definitely a bit harder to breathe at for flat landers :) While I was ready for that, I had no idea that the city was also pretty close to an active volcano that routinely spews ash in the air, and it was doing that when I went to visit during EDC Mexico, so the air quality was poor, which added to the altitude, makes things challenging for some.
Then Palacio De Bellas Artes was an interesting building to visit, with ok-ish displays inside:
After EDC Mexico was over, for a half day, it was best to go check out the Aquario Inbursa (click for blog and more pictures)
Next door was the Museo Sumaya, interesting building from the outside;
Next was time to check out the Museum of Tequilla and Mezcal, do a premium tasting and a dinner on its plaza:
The next day was a day tour to see the Pyramids of Teotihuacan (click for blog)
The tour started with a stop at Basilica of Our LAdy Guadalupe:
Then, we went to see the pyramids, and after coming back from the tour, a bit of time to burn so I quickly checked out the local Ripley's. It was ok-ish, at best, but a good way to spend 1h before the evening activity:
The last day started with Chapultepec Castle (click for the blog with more details):
And the day ended with just enough time to visit National Antropological Museum (click for blog) before having to head to the airport for the flight home
And that was it for the visit of CDMX. Happy to have been able to see the hightlights.
Unkonscious Festival after 4 days around Pattaya, ended with 2 Days in Bangkok, so that was a good reason to go visit it again before having to fly back. This was a quick visit compared to my [visiting Bangkok in 2023|], but was good as a day overview
I took my friend to the main palaces, starting with the royal palace:
Then the big reclining buddha is a short walk away:
And a few more temples:
quick river crossing
And the golden temple in time for sunset:
A bit more time to check out downtown:
After that, one last Unkonscious party, day #6, and went directly back to the airport for flights home.
I arrived a bit late from Sapporo that day, but enough to check in the hotel in the middle of Ancient City, and have a nice yummy dinner:
The next morning, it was time to visit the park, which is a smaller recreation of all of Thailand, although it is not small in any way, it takes several hours to get around it in a golf cart:
Thailand likes reclining buddhas :)
you could walk the floating market and of course yummy drinks :)
It was a impressive and well built place, definitely worth at least 3 hours with a golf cart, and more if you can:
After spending the day visiting sights, and checking in the next hotel, arrived in time for the boat party by Pattaya:
After the boat party was over, had a bit of time to visit downtown Pattaya main street, and it was very seedy indeed (not posting everything I saw, haha):
There was a bit of time the next day in the morning to visit more sights:
And that was the end of the half sightseeing day, the rest of the time was spent at Unkonscious Festival.
Once the festival was over, had most of day to visit more local sights before going back to Bangkok:
Found a nice chinese temple on the way:
The local water market was fun enough and worth visiting on foot too:
Next was another nice park with a so-so crocodile show:
the gardens were quite nice, though
and it was then time to go towards Bangkok to check in our new hotel and go to the 5th Unkonscious Party. The [last 2 days were spent in Bangkok|]/perso/thailand/post_2024-02-04_Finishing-Unkonscious-Festival-with-2-Days-in-Bangkok.html].
After 24H in Tokyo, flew to Sapporo and barely made it with my snowboard as the airport staff was overachieving in finding things in checked in luggage that they didn't love on the plane. Taking my spray on wax (no propellant in the 100mg container) was a bit over the top, though :(
met Arturo there to join us and drive to Niseko
food food as always
Arturo won wasabi roulette :)
Hokkaido and Niseko especially gets reliable snow, and it actually snowed every day we were thee, not huge amount like in tahoe, but enough that it was fun:
After 2 days in Annupuri, we moved to the main Niseko Village base and stayed at the wonderful Pension Island and with wonderful Kako-SAn:
she is adorable and took great care of us
The food trucks close to our Pension, were fun dinner options:
did I mention it snowed almost all the time? :)
we also did a sit down dinner at a somewhat expensie restaurant we actually had been to before
my own google maps review said it was overpriced and not that great last time we went, but we did enjoy it more this time around
After 8 days around Niseko, Rusutsu and ending in Kiroro, we drove to Chitose to be close to our plane back out the next day:
managed to use enough of my japanese to order food in a restaurant which spoke no english at all
last breakfast before heading out
We had great snow, here are the blog reports on snowboarding:
Once in Haneda, I checked in my snowboard for my trip to Sapporo the next day, which was a bit of a hassle but saved me from carrying the bulky bag across Tokyo.
missed out on a cheap haircut :)
I decided to base myself in Shinjuku for that short time, because fun things:
Did a quick hop to Harajuku:
Harajuku is known for a special kind of fashion
After that, I went to a language exchange café to chat with locals:
And went out for dinner:
hahaha, can't argue with that
yum
The next morning, went back to Harajuku and Meiji Jingu:
