Gear, Pt. 2

Good random Tuesday to you. I'm back with some updates concerning what'll be inside the bag I carry on my back through several countries. The final round of internet orderings came, and I wanna share with you what's going on, just in case I refer to it later or you wanna have a little insight into what your ass should pack if you ever wanna do something similar. Refer to post one regarding gear if you're not caught up.

Let's get the most boring and utilitarian items out of the way. I got a quick-drying towel and a small waterproof pouch. Whoopdie-doo, loser. Alright, moving on.

I'm not sure what a Yookie is, but that big blue bag is also waterproof. You may be thinking, why would you need a 15 liter waterproof bag? Silly rabbit. That waterproof bag is my washing machine. I've been thinking about how best to do laundry as a long-term traveler and I've come across a couple of items that are basically bags you throw your dirty clothes in, fill up with water, put some detergent in, and then sort of deeply massage with your feet while you play on Facebook for ten or fifteen minutes and voila! Clothes so clean you'll need sunglasses to look at 'em. Being the enterprising not-so-young man that I am (read: cheap ass), I thought, why pay fifty bucks for a waterproof bag that's labeled for laundry use when I can get one that's not labeled for laundry use for ten? And here we are. I'll maybe let you know if it was a good decision or not.

Next, we come to that water bottle. That ain't no normal water bottle. That thang comes with a filter.

That filter instantly removes chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, sediment, bacteria, and viruses, rendering any source of fresh water in the world potable. What a time to be alive, eh? Shout out to Drinksafe, who successfully got U.S. Marines to go out into the desert and drink their own urine as a test for this thing. And yes, it even worked with urine. The filter lasts for up to 1600 liters, which is much more water than I'll need for this whole trip. No more polluting the Earth with discarded plastic bottles, nor paying to buy them. This'll pay for itself before I set foot in America if I don't lose it before then...

 Next up, we got a sleeping bag liner.

 Wut wut? If I've learned one thing from my past travels, it's that if you wanna save money, sometimes you're gonna sleep on questionable surfaces. This I plan to use at least for the several overnight trains in India, as well as for its intended use in Nepal, and those are just the foreseeable instances where this'll be useful. In a pinch, this puppy will protect against bedbugs, or put a layer between my body and the mystery stains of some seedy hotel room.

This last one's not gear, but something that I've been very anxiously awaiting since November and arguably the most important thing mentioned today. It's my 2018 World Cup Fan ID.

What a gem of a pic, eh? But that's not the point. Pay attention! In case you are unaware, Russia has a...very restrictive entry policy for tourists. Call it a holdover from the days of the USSR. One must pay a large sum of money to the specific Russian Embassy of one's own country and accompany that sum with a letter of invitation from Russia, which comes at an additional price from hotels or organized tours. It's expensive as well as time consuming and I don't have the luxury of visiting the US just to get a Russian visa. But Putin did something extraordinary for the upcoming World Cup. He waived that requirement for the entire month of the games for anyone holding a Fan ID, which comes free with the purchase of a ticket to any game. That means I can enter the country with only this, and for cheaper than the normal visa cost.

There are a couple of reasons for the anxiety though. The website for obtaining the Fan ID is less than helpful. It's definitely set up like a website from the early 2000s: everything is bulky, and some of the info is outdated or incorrect. They state that they send out the Fan IDs upon receipt of the application, which most definitely is not true. I filled that application out in early November. Then, it sat under the category of "unprocessed" until January. Then, it sat in the category of "in print" for another couple of weeks (that's a really slow printer) until I received a text telling me it was sent to the post office about two weeks ago. And of course there's no way to track it after it leaves Russia.

That's not all. The application itself is wonky. They control what characters one can input into certain fields. The address was particularly frustrating. Korea changed its zip code system a couple years back, but of course the Fan ID website only allows one to put in the old Korean zip code, yet also requires one to fill out the fields labeled " building number" and "apartment number," which is particularly troubling for those who live in a house with no additional apartment number. On top of that, they botched the address I entered anyway. They forgot to include the building number, which is pretty important in finding where to specifically send a package.

I gotta give Korea some props here. The deliveryman must have seen my name and remembered that I was the only foreigner living on my street. Even with the old zip code and a missing building number, he brought that shit right up to the correct door lickedy-split. No muss, no fuss. And my heart rate can now slow to normal again. Everything is going according to plan.