The Magic of the Moment

I am so thankful that my last post finally got up. You have no idea how many tries it took to get that working! There was so much to say and so much to share that I refused to give up.

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the magic of the moment for me in Laos.  I was feeling pretty good after my first evening in Luang Prabang. It felt this energy coming back into my being that was missing. It was one of those things when you don't realize how much the thing is missing until it comes back.  It was such a relief to be able to connect with someone in English and sink back into interaction. I know that probably sounds a little weird, but I was so isolated in Bangkok that the little interaction I had with anyone was limited to truncated sentiment in broken English while ordering food or buying something at 7-11. (For reference, 7-11 serves the purpose of the local super market. Some have more than others, but it's where a lot of people do their simple shopping. They are also prolific in Bangkok - literally one on almost every block.)   If you do that for a month it really does take a little bit to get back into the the rhythm of conversation.  The people I met at the ecolodge really brought me back to a vibrancy that was missing from my experience in Bangkok.

As I was walking to the tuk tuk shuttle going into town on my first morning (first full day), I saw two women practicing yoga on this large wooden platform near the river. I previously read that the lodge offered yoga, but hadn't asked about it yet. I was really excited to check it out, but I got nervous that it would be serious yoga people and that it would be too much for me.  I had been practicing quite a bit in Bangkok with my favorite YouTube yogi, but there were still a lot of positions I didn't feel comfortable doing because of my back surgery a few months ago.  I couldn't tell how intense it was when I was staring at the practice on my way to the shuttle because it was the very end but I decide to ask about it when I returned to the lodge. 

After my awesome morning at the waterfall I returned to the lodge and signed up for a yin class taking place later that afternoon.  I hadn't really ever done a full yin practice before, but understood the concept. In a yin session you focus on more restorative yoga as opposed to a flow or a power yoga.  On the surface it seems downright easy, but in reality it's physically and mentally strenuous. It's sort of like meditation and yoga combined because you hold each pose for anywhere from two to five minutes each.  The primary purpose is not to stretch your muscles; it's using gravity to moderately stress your tendons, fasciae, and ligaments with the purpose of improving flexibility and circulation.  (Thank you, Wikipedia for putting into words what I knew but had a hard time articulating.)  If you want to see how challenging that is, sit on the floor cross legged. Get comfortable. Don't worry about any special form or anything like that. Now hold that exact position for five minutes. Don't fuss, don't scratch, don't fidget.  Try to slow your breathing down. If need be, breath in for six counts, pause, breathe out for six counts, pause. Repeat. Every time you breath in feeling your body expand. Every time you breathe out, breathe into the spot where you feel the stretch and try to relax any muscles that might be tensing.  For five minutes. Now do it in a pose that is a lot more challenging. You'd be surprised how many poses don't seem to challenge at first, but then after a minute in become so incredibly uncomfortable.

I sound a bit disparaging, but I loved the way I felt after this yin session. I was very uncomfortable during the entire thing and was fighting my mind for at least half of it, but my body hadn't felt that good in a long time.  I had an absolutely awful bed in Bangkok. It felt like a 30 year old spring mattress on a platform that made it hard as the floor.  The Ikea couch in the apartment unfolded to a bed, but it was so soft that it had practically no support. I alternated sleeping on each for a few nights in a row.  My back bothered me a lot in Bangkok.  It didn't help that it was my first month getting back into regular work outs too.  I put a lot of pressure on my back and had very little to support it. Generally speaking I've felt great since my surgery, but there's a spot where the muscle is still quite tight in my back.  The yoga is helping ease that, but it's not without its challenges.  I have to find that sweet spot between stretching what needs to be stretched, but not stretching too far to cause lingering discomfort or pain. Even though my muscles were screaming some days the good news is that I didn't have any nerve pain along with it.  Anyway, my point was that the yin helped release a lot of that tension in my back.  I've continued to do it after I returned to Thailand and plan to do it at least once a week moving forward. Here are some photos of me and my new friends doing some yoga. We took them on our last day together after a vinyasa session. You can't really tell from the photos, but the NamKhan river is right beyond the tree. There were also some bamboo trees to our right and left. The trees creaked when the breeze blew. It was a gorgeous and super relaxing setting. 

  

One real big disappointment I had is that I did not sleep well at the lodge. The bed was pretty great, a major improvement over my Bangkok bed, but for some reason I still didn't sleep well. I normally don't subscribe to things like this, but I really think it had to do with the moon. When I was at the lodge there was that huge special harvest moon and there were a few body-related things that felt a bit different to me than usual. I think it had to do with the moon. I think the switch from loud city noises to mostly quite country noises also messed me up a little. 

This didn't happen until my last two nights, but the lodge had at least two turkeys who liked to gobble a lot very loudly in the morning.  One morning, after I left my windows open overnight to try to get my room to cool off, I was abruptly woken up by the turkey calls. It was SO loud. I couldn't fathom how that turkey was so loud because the pen for it was at least 20-30 yards away.  Well, it turns out the turkey was roaming free because when I poked my head out my window it was right below me.  I then saw a man chasing it with a stick to get it back to where it needed to be. I kind of felt like I was in a cartoon.

  

Anyway, back to the main story here.  At yin yoga I met Deborah, our British instructor, and was joined by Baptist, a very nice Parisian man, and Emmy, a wonderful Dutch woman living in China who was escaping the mainland for a while to avoid coronavirus.  I had met Baptist and Emmy both very briefly earlier and was happy to have buddies for yoga. Emmy was the woman I had seen practicing with Deborah as I left earlier in the day and Baptist shared that he had tried yoga twice before coming to Laos and so was pretty new to it all.  The variety of experience put me at ease and I thought "ok, these are my people." Boy, was I right!

It's a bit cheesy to say that we all just clicked, but it did feel a bit like pieces coming together to form a temporary puzzle.  I spent the rest of my time at the lodge and in Luang Prabang together with these three beautiful souls. We were all pretty different, but had enough interests in common to keep conversation flowing naturally. After yoga each morning we had breakfast together in the lodge restaurant and then mostly spent the day doing activities together.  We talked about books, podcasts, diets, and culture.  We explored the night market and local dining. We tubed down the NamKhan river together. We watched the sun set from a temple at the top of Phousi Hill. It was so... easy.  The companionship really fed my soul and made me feel like I regained something I lost in Bangkok. I'll risk being a little over dramatic, but I really do think that Deborah, Emmy, and Baptist revived my sabbatical. No longer did all of my experiences pale in comparison to the Australian Open. I was able to have something great and feel a joy come through me again like it did in Australia.

I'll post more photos in following posts. I'm a little nervous that if I try to post them all here my internet will crap out and I'll lose this post after a bunch of effort and get frustrated like last time. 

Laos, I Love You!

I was ridiculously frustrated last night because I spent 3 hours working on a post about my first 24 hours in Laos and lost it all.  I had all of the pictures and videos uploaded, it was saved more times than I can count both through the autosave feature and by manually saving it, and then when I went to publish the internet wouldn’t work. When I refreshed the page, none of my edits saved over the three hours. I went to bed disheartened, but hoping that whatever glitch was going on would be resolved in the morning.  It was not. Thankfully, I had written some of the post in a Word document when I didn’t have internet access, which meant I didn’t have to completely start from scratch. So… here is my second attempt at my first Laos post written in the airport.

... and I had internet issues again, so this post was finished a few days after I returned to Thailand. 

************************************************************************************************************

I know I haven't finished my Australian Open, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok posts (What emoji do  I insert here to that represents feeling embarrassed, ashamed, anxious, and also like I don’t give a shit?), but I've decided to forgo all semblance of a timeline and post as I can.

I struggled with living in Bangkok a lot and was happy to leave it a few days ago.  I worked on an important step in my textbook development, but it doesn't look like much yet to be honest. I have a lot of anxiety around being able to actually accomplish this and have it be a productive contribution toward my promotion. To combat my lack of confidence I’ve been trying to use positive language and change my mindset around it.  I set the goal of working at least three hours a day, and I know that doesn't sound like much, but my daily tasks were tedious. Plus, one component of a sabbatical is to rest and disengage a bit. Maybe there are differing philosophies, but I don’t believe the purpose is to work as much or even more than one usually does, just on different pursuits. I spent my month in Bangkok developing a survey for sport and social media professionals, gathered over 1000 contacts, and then started administering the survey.  My hope is that this survey will help inform the content of my book. One of the worst things that could happen is for me to spend all this time developing a textbook that isn't relevant, or one that has gaping holes in it.  

Getting the 1000 contacts was boring, annoying, and actually somewhat challenging at times. There is no magic list out there of the people I want to target and many organizations don't have complete, or sometimes even any, staff directories on their websites. When there is a staff directory there is rarely an email address associated with the individuals, the only exception being college athletics. I understand why professional sports organizations and agencies do this, but it's annoying when you're trying to contact people for a constructive, professional reason.  All in all, it probably took me legitimately at least 20 hours of work to gather all of these contacts. 

After I pilot tested my survey with a few people I started sending out the invitation to participate for real.  I am sending out personalized messages, so even though there is some element of copy/paste it still takes a while.  I've sent 100 of them so far, but I ran out of time in Bangkok.  My internet connection has been inconsistent in Loas that it makes internet-based work more frustrating than worthwhile.  The progress feels slow and I am nervous about returning home with very little work product, but I know this is an important step in the process.  (Cue my insecurities about others judging me for not being a workhorse over sabbatical and writing this entire book in the span of 6 or 8 months.) Of course there were a few not-so-supportive messages that came back, but I've also gotten a lot of really positive responses from people in industry. There are a lot of people interested in participating further and willing to help me in my development of this text. It's also confirmed for me that the idea I have for the book is a good one, and I believe would really be embraced.  There were a couple practitioners who talked about their experiences adjuncting and confirmed for me that there is interested in this book. If anything, that’s going to keep me going. I can always ground myself back in that sentiment when I start to doubt myself.

I'm telling you all of this to explain that Bangkok was difficult for me because I felt really isolated.  On top of doing this tedious work that wasn't feeling very rewarding and made me question my approach to writing this text, I had a really hard time not being connected to anyone.  I’m sure every non-white person in America is about to say, “Duh!”, but it’s also really difficult being the only face that look different than absolutely everyone else.  It's one thing to travel and stay in hotels and have experiences around other tourists, it's another thing to live in an apartment in another country, have very little interaction with others, and be different not just in physical appears but also in customs and norms. It’s something that you can know intellectually, but living that experience is something else. I have a lot of travel time left and I'm not going to say that I'm not going to stay in any apartments moving forward, but I'm considering mixing up apartment stays with hotel stays so that I don't go that long in an isolated situation again. Financially it can be very beneficial, but I think it contributed to a less than positive experience in Bangkok.  My challenge is to find a happy medium with interaction with others and the ability to get some work done day to day.  

Coming to Laos for four days was the best choice I could have made.  It kind of a whim and worked out quite well for me.  Coming in to Bangkok and getting a visa on arrival I knew that I could be asked to produce documentation that showed when I was leaving.  Even though my plans were open-ended I needed to have a plan, especially in case I didn’t get a visa extension. My original plan was to stay in Thailand for two to three months, but has since changed. In order to be prepared in case I got asked this questions, which now going through the process I’m 99.9% they never actually do, I found the cheapest flight out of the country I could so that if I decided not to use it, it wouldn’t be a major waste of money.  That’s how I ended up in Luang Prabang.  For your reference, here’s a map because if you’re anything like me you’d never heard of it until you read these words. The blue dot shows where I was.

I had no idea how much I would fall in love with this country.  It’s so peaceful here. It’s ridiculously beautiful; it’s mountainous and somehow feels lush, even though it’s the dry season and all of the trees look almost dead. It’s weird because the trees remind me of New York winters, but the temperature reminds of my North Carolina summers. Speaking of temperatures, I happened to be visiting in Laos during quite the hot spell. Every day the high temperature was at least 100 degrees which I believe is a little bit warmer than normal at this time of the year.

I chose to stay in a place called the NamKhan Ecolodge in Luang Prabang. I found this place on Hotels.com and I couldn’t be happier.  It was a bit of a risk because it’s a good 15-20 minute tuk tuk ride out of town, but it was well worth it.  A tuk tuk in Luang Prabang is like a pick up truck with a canopy over the back and two bench seats. Think of a red neck covered wagon. Aside from motor bikes and then vans that take tourists to a few key destinations, that’s the only transportation I saw.  There’s something both exhilarating and terrifying of riding in the back of a truck like this with the wind blowing in your hair down a dirt road to a place out in the Laotian countryside.

The Ecolodge is the funky open-air type resort with cabin rooms and canvas tents available to rent.  The Mekong river goes through Luang Prabang, but so does the NamKhan and it’s that river that curves around the resort. Some aspects of the resort have a more rustic feel – like the fact that the rooms don’t have air conditioning, despite the fact that I realllly thought the ad said it did. Even though I don’t have A/C, I have a wonderful overhead fan and late into the night it gets quite cool outside.  I learned to open the windows at night to cool off my room, but I do still wish I had A/C.  I haven’t slept that while since I’ve been here and I think being too hot is one of the reasons why.  It is a little weird because anyone could walk past my room and basically look directly in on me sleeping. I don’t feel uncomfortable about it though because the resort is fairly empty because of the coronavirus hubbub.

The ecolodge is a beautiful property. The riverbank is dotted with canvas tents that are more “glamping” tents than anything else.  I stayed in one of the cabins that have beautiful wood ceilings, floors, trim, and furniture.  It’s all got that super glossy finish of a new build.  The lodge opened about 4 months ago.  There is a very nice open-air reception area and restaurant.  Breakfast was included in my stay and it’s been yummy and satisfying for me.  There’s always eggs, cereal, fresh fruit, salad, yogurt, coffee, tea, juice, toast with all the accoutrements, etc. etc.  I’ve eaten in the restaurant a few times aside from breakfast and have been pleased with the selection and preparation of the food.  While it’s much more expensive than the street food in town, it’s still much cheaper in the US.  For example, the other night I had fried spring rolls for an appetizer, pad thai, and a lime daiquiri all for $23.  The portions were also quite plentiful.

In addition to the housing and the restaurant, the lodge has a beautiful garden that you’re welcome to tour. Much of the food served comes from the garden. The pool was beautifully situated, but the water looked almost like it had a lot of sediment in it. I’d say it was about the same color of the NamKhan which is a light jade color – quite clear in some spots and less than that in others. That’s to say I didn’t use that pool at all.  There’s a second café/ bar at the entrance to the complex. There are lots of activities at your disposal – pony riding, hiking, tubing on the river, morning and afternoon yoga, basket-weaving with a local, movie nights, and I’m sure a lot more things that I can’t think of right now. One thing I wish was a bit different was the small fees associated with the activities. I paid $8 per session of yoga, which is quite cheap for the US, but a bit expensive for and activity Laos.  It felt a little bit like getting nickeled and dimed because the advertisements for the resort talk about all the activities and make it sound like they’re included without overtly saying that. I paid $9 for 30 minutes of tubing down the river, which was AWESOME, but we all thought we got to go 2-3 times down the path from one edge of the property to the other. It turns out that once you go with the guide and pay, you can then take a tube and go on your own at any other time. That wasn’t sufficiently explained to us so instead of doing that with the guide early in my stay and then tubing more later, I did it late in my stay and didn’t. Going even just twice would have justified the $9 more. What is great about all that they offer is that it’s easy to stay on the resort property and just relax. It’s good to go into town for cheap food, more variety, and the night market, but it’s also really not necessary if you’re not interested.

"Me" is one of the dogs that welcomed me to the lodge.  "Me" means "bear" in lao.  It turns out there are black bears in Laos, but they are poached and the population is being decimated so there are some black bear reserves. The dog population in Laos is quite high, but when I checked in, the receptionist explained to me that there used to be a major problem with wild, roaming dogs so the government cracked down a few years ago and now they require that the dogs are cared for and have their shots. They are mostly friendly, or if anything they are just disinterested and don't pay attention to people they don't know. None of them have tags of any sort, most don't have collars, and all of them definitely don't get regular baths. 

This is the view of the lodge property from reception. In the distance on the right side are the gardens and on the near left is where the restaurant is.  My cabin was on the near right side. 

I want to tell you about the amazing people I met while at the resort, but before I do that I need to tell you about the two American women I met in the airport.  Before my arrival in Laos I did one of two things – either got bad visa information or didn’t remember to follow up on the initial information I did find. Honestly, I can’t remember which one it was.  I had it in my head that I didn’t need a visa for Laos. That was absolutely not accurate.  I was supposed to have a passport photo with me and 35 American dollars to pay the fee. Once we landed and I learned this I thought I would be ok because in every airport I’ve been to in Asia there were accessible ATMs before I had to go through immigration. I also randomly had a passport photo in my carry-on from my immigration saga in Thailand. (I know I didn’t post about that yet, but I will. I promise.)  What is crazy is that I considered packing those photos in my suitcase, but for some crazy reason at the last minute I moved them to my carry-on. Once we entered the airport and went directly into immigration there were no ATMs.  I have no idea what they do if you don’t have money.  I don’t know because Linda, an amazing New Jersey nurse taking a holiday after working with Nurses Without Borders, gave me the $35 I need. I was exactly in the right place at the right time.  Honestly, I’ve learned that the Laos people are super nice and things are quite lax here, as in Linda’s friend Grace who was already in Laos was chatting with us over a barely-there barrier while we were in immigration. Despite there being “security” no one stopped her from walking in and no one was concerned. I suspect that if you don’t have the cash they walk you to the ATM outside of baggage claim and wait for you to get it. Honestly, they might just direct you to go and trust you to come back. Anyway, I tried to pay Linda back, but by the time we all got through immigration and I got my luggage and found the ATM, she and her friend had already left because they had an impatient tuk tuk driver. So, where ever you are Linda – thank you for being my guardian angel and taking care of me! The videos below are of me telling the story to a few friends on Snapchat. 

The third American in the mix was a 23-year told named Jackie who was from the Buffalo area and actually went to RIT! So here I am entering Laos, stressing about getting my visa upon arrival and one of the people helping me figure out what to do is a young woman who knows exactly where I lived in Rochester. It was crazy! Before we all got separated Jackie and I exchanged contact information and set up plans to meet for dinner. I got settled at the ecolodge and then headed into town on the ecolodge’s tuk tuk shuttle.  It had a pretty decent schedule, but put me in town an hour and a half before I was to meet Jackie.  I spent my time by walking around, looking at a temple, and catching a happy hour beer at a restaurant on the Mekong river.

 

 

Jackie was easy to talk to and we had a lovely meal of super cheap, but good quality street food together.  Jackie, along with several other people to come in this story, talked about how a lot of the food was very similar if not the same as in Thailand. I can tell you that I ate a lot better food in Laos than what I had in Bangkok. The food in Bangkok wasn’t always bad, but the meat was often lower quality. I liked the spices most of the time, but the gristle got to me a lot.  The food in Laos seemed better, of a higher quality.  The flavors were delicious – garlic, chili pepper, and I’m sure much more but I just don’t know! After our meal we walked around the night market in town and then parted ways for the night.

Jackie and I made loose plans to go to the Kouang Si Waterfalls the next morning. We both almost bailed, but then stopped hesitating and met up to go. Jackie had to catch a bus to another city in the afternoon, so we went a bit earlier than is normal and it totally paid off. The waterfalls were gorgeous – again, the water was the beautiful light jade color.  We were both on the same page of “let’s get in, take some photos that will look great on Instagram before there are too many people, and then we can just relax and enjoy.” That’s basically what we did. There are four levels and we took the advice that someone in Jackie’s hostel gave her and we started from the top and worked our way down.  When you arrive you enter at the bottom level so people tend to be in awe taking pictures and going for a swim there. By starting up top we saw what I think are the more beautiful areas, but also got an opportunity to take pictures with fewer people around. When we went to the second area we were alone for a good 15 -20 minutes. Let me write that in a different way. We swam in a naturally occurring beautiful jade-colored pool with a waterfall with no one else around. It was amazing! I almost can’t believe we did it! The water was quite cool, but not too cold to enjoy. There were lots of fish nibbling our toes and in many areas it was short enough to stand up or sit on a rock. 

 

I'm actually standing on a rock in this next photo. It was pretty deep in this little pool.

Better Than I Imagined (Day 10)

Garbine Muguruza v. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (30)

Garbine played solid tennis, was confident and aggressive, and kept on rolling. It was a good match. It looks like no one attended, but in fact everyone was just trying to escape the blistering sun by moving to the ends of the areas that were covered by the roof. It was the first day in a short string of wicked hot temperatures in Melbourne. A few days after this the temperatures topped triple digits. At this point it wasn't ridiculously hot, but it was unbearable in the direct sunlight. As the match progressed my seat went from being in the shade to being in the sun. Thankfully I was able to scoot over a few seats and watched the remainder of the match in the shade. 

Garbine's match was the only one on my schedule for the day, so I had a bunch of free time.  I wanted to use my time wisely, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.  I knew I should take advantage of a mostly open afternoon and evening by going to a museum or checking out a significant tourist attraction, but I had an impulse that was nagging at me.  When I was in the Whitsundays I had the urge to get a new tattoo.  I hadn't thought about a new tattoo in years. I had absolutely zero desire to get one, but it's like once I had a few enjoyable days in the Whitsundays the idea got under my skin and I couldn't let it go. In the past I have sworn that I would absolutely never get a tattoo in a foreign country, but you know what they say - never say never. :) 

I held on to the idea from the Whitsundays to Sydney and then to Melbourne.  It felt right in the Whitsundays, but I couldn't come up with an image I really wanted.  I didn't feel right in Sydney at all, but I kept the door open.  I was interested, but I wanted the moment to feel right and I didn't want to force it.  There were three things that ended up tipping the scales for me Melbourne .  First after asking around and reading some articles, I learned that the tattoo industry in Australia is just as stringent when it comes to safety, cleanliness, and health as it is in the US.  From a clinical perspective, it wasn't any riskier to get a tattoo in Australia than it would be in the US.  Plus, culturally tattoos are SUPER accepted in Australia. It's more uncommon to find someone who doesn't have one at all, as opposed to the other way around like most of us are used to.  I was surprised to see how many people have neck tattoos in Australia and have prevalent tattoo parlors are.  

The second thing that led me to go for it was the fact that I found what I wanted.  Like I said, I wasn't thinking of getting a tattoo at all before coming to Australia. In the Whitsundays I got the idea of doing it, but didn't have an idea of what to get.  I wanted it to be something "Australia" but I didn't want it to be cheesy. I wanted it to feel organic. A koala bear on a beach holding a tennis racquet wasn't quite what I was going for even though all of the elements would represent my time in Australia.  A few days before I actually went to get the tattoo I was walking down one of the streets in central Melbourne and I found a t-shirt that had a graphic I like.  Anyone who has seen my other three tattoos can attest that mine are all fairly simplistic and geometric. I wanted to keep a new one in the same vein and the graphic I found would do just that.  

The third thing that fell into place was that I found a well-respected tattoo parlor that accepted walk-ins at a reasonable price.  I found a few articles on the internet about the best tattoo parlors in Melbourne and several were repeated on all of the lists.  After the Muguruza match I called Good Luck Tattoo and they told me that if I wanted to could come over and get it done right then. So I did!

When I reached the tattoo parlor I started getting more nervous.  What if I was being too impulsive? What if I regretted getting it?  What if it turned out kind of cheesy and feel really juvenile?  These thoughts raced through my mind and were at war with the opposing ones. Spontaneous is not the same as impulsive.  What if I regretted not getting it?  I can always get it removed or hide it.  I've had some great experiences in life because I'm spontaneous, and maybe a bit impulsive. :) That's how I ended up with a shaved head, a nose ring, a trampoline, and I'm sure a ton of things that weren't momentous, but also never caused me real harm. So, I went with my gut at did it!  

I know that my foot/ ankle looks kind of grubby in some of these pictures. I took special care to wash and shave really well in the morning as I was tossing around the idea of getting the tattoo in my head, but I wore sandals that day and walked around the tennis grounds and Melbourne for half the day.  Once I got the tattoo parlor my feet were kind of gross. In general my feet have been pretty grubby this entire trip because of walking around so much in sandals. 

This guy isn't anyone special, just a guy I thought was hot waiting to get a tattoo. He was very tall. And Australian.  He was eventually replaced by another tall Australian. I enjoyed my time in the shop.

The thing about tattoos is that you can never remember exactly what it's like to get one.  I alway describe it as having someone drag a shard of glass through your skin.  People who don't have them assume the needles feel the same as getting a short or getting blood drawn. I couldn't disagree more. To me, it's a totally different sensation.  When the artist, Hwaro, started all I could think was, "Holy fuck this is way more painful than I remember!"  It was not great.  After a few minutes he moved on to a different section and it was almost like I wasn't feeling it at all. It turns out that the spot where he started was just the most sensitive spot.  I think it was probably the most sensitive spot I had with any of my tattoos.  

 

I'm really happy with my tattoo choice, the color, and it's placement, but I'll be honest and say I'm disappointed in the quality of the work by the artist, especially since this parlor was so highly praised.  The artist's other works are amazing with impeccable lines. I thought it would turn out that way, but once it healed and the scabs fell off you can the uneven thickness of the line.  The above picture is from right after I got it done.  The below picture was from two or three weeks after I got it done. You can tell that there is a distinctively thicker section of line on the kangaroo's back.  If it really bothers me over time I can get it worked on, but I'll probably leave it. The color will fade over time because it's brown and also because of where it's located/ high skin cell turnover rate.  When that starts to happen it'll probably be even less noticeable.  I'm also pretty sure that no one will be able to tell from a normal vantage point. I'm still glad I got it.