bitofarambler

Haha yeah, every run is context, that's great.

If they didn't feel weird straight off, you should have a very comfortable transition to minimum soles, i was very lucky last month to have a nice barefoot track in my neighborhood, but I'm running in sandals again in Bacolod, which is still fine.

I'm very happy your new shoes are comfortable.

No footwear is do or die, but after personal trial and error it does seem like minimal soles are comfortable and healthy.

Let me know if you have any questions/updates, how your minimum sole experiment continues, I'm curious how things go with other people after my own experience.

I had a lot of fun singing in this relaxed family gathering type setting

Very nice. Venezuelans, Colombians, Guatemalans, Panamanians all told me to go to Medellin and I had a great time. Everyone was nice, great public parks, very decent monthly rentals on Airbnb and really cool public transit where you can take cable cars up the mountains around the cities. Good hikes with exercise parks at the top.

Medellin is now my alternate start-traveling location I recommend for affordability, health care, culture, food, and general easygoing-ness. It has most things Thailand has plus a way more comfortable climate.

I lucked out with the altitude and didn't end up sick in Cusco, but i did run a lot in medellin beforehand to try to prepare, so maybe that paid off.

Are you any closer to making your travel choice?

Only medellin. I almost want to bogota next because of its fairly wild elevation and then reading wikivoyage found out the elevation of cusco and went there instead, loved cusco so much

I can't be perfectly objective because i haven't been to Argentina, but Colombia was great last year.

Beautiful mountains, modern city, great food, good people.

The weather is 365 21-23C, very comfortable

Thanks, I'm pretty sure i haven't tried that yet. Do they have different flavors?

I was in Cebu before and got a lot of dried mangos. I think I prefer Thai mangos, but I know a bunch of those are from the Philippines anyway.

I passed by a couple cafes today, but tried sisig and tocino looking for some savory. Mango sago soon, thanks.

Maybe it's like New Zealand and they export their best produce.

I've had blood sausages and stews before, but never a sweet one, now i'm really curious.

I guess there's that tang, like coppery tang, but i always literally thought the word tang rather than sweet with that flavor, although it is kind of subtly sweet. Interesting, thanks.

Haha, i get s lot of kitchen double takes and side glances, especially if i order a dish by its proper name.

Or spicy, i'm often asked if i'm sure i want something spicy. And they make it spicy but it looks like none of them believe me or they shake their head like i don't know what i'm doing

Cool, thanks. More a street vendor thing or a cafe thing?

Dinuguan, I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks.

I'm not usually for sweet food, but it seems like sweet is a pretty prominent flavor in filipino food?

For sure! Has me wondering about colors in other religions.

Even here in Jogja(96% fewer people than Bali/Jakarta), I was able to get a video of an ambulance, lights and siren on, stuck behind two packed lanes as far as the eye could see.

good questions.

"Verses from the Qur'an describing reclining on green cushions and garments of fine silk imbue the color with a sense of tranquility and peace. Believers are adorned with green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, symbolizing purity and divine favor."

wikipedia

maybe?

Oh, that's the bell that was ringing, haha. I guess that means I get to watch the IT Crowd again, thanks!

Hahha I've never seen that, that's great!

Few things going on there. Disappearing a couple generals is pretty par for the course for Xi and it wouldn't be ruffling any feathers if the economy wasn't stumbling, unemployment wasn't crazy high and his covid policy wasn't an unmitigated paying-it-forward disaster.

He's probably asserting authority because he knows he's run out of a lot of runway, and I've read things and listened to people saying that Xi is really at the end of his rope, but being in China myself recently, so educated guess having talked to Chinese people, unless there's a military coup, which seems imprudent and not to the advantage of the military, I don't see Xi being ousted from leadership.

He's changed the constitution so that he can be president for life, released indoctrination pamphlets, but way more importantly on the ground, has dominated trump publicly and repeatedly, which Chinese people love to see, and the technological infrastructure and development of China is so rapidly outpacing the rest of the world due to Xi's directives(400% medical tourism increase in the last 5 years, more than double solar energy installation than the other 199 countries combined every year, 25% of global battery energy grid storage added annually in China alone, BYD destroying Tesla, driverless taxis being commonplace in China, delivery drones, wind farms/turbines) that China already looks progressive, almost futuristic, and has no reason to stop pushing forward.

It's impossible to know, but i think this move will further strengthen his authority that is resting on his political victories on the public stage and that head party and military members won't want to risk removing Xi from power now for fear of losing this opportunity to completely outpace the US in practically every field while trump is fumbling everything scientific, social, and technological while simultaneously destroying almost a century of international goodwill and trust.

Chinese people care a lot about face, and while they aren't domestically happy about covid/economy/unemployment, a lot of them are very happy to be prevailing over the US and for the rest of the world to be witnessing repeated Chinese victories over the US.

2028? Depends on how Xi does. For now, I can't see the advantage to any faction in China removing Xi in the near future and throwing away this golden opportunity trump has handed to them.

Taxes: everybody's hoop.

Which latest consolidation of power? I lived in China for 7 something years.

I use 1440 for news in general, and if I want to confirm or get more context on something, I use a few different sources to piece together the consistent facts.

Moved out of the US, legally stopped paying earned income taxes using the FEIE via physical presence test, an IRS procedure that allows you not to pay taxes if you live outside of the US for 330 or more days out of 365 consecutive days including the day you pay taxes.