Packing smartly, Christmas markets and being a youtuber – plus other tips & tricks

Also, we return to the European Christmas markets – they are opening just this week in most areas. And as usual, we touch on many, many other topics!
Anders
00:00
Exactly. Recording in progress. And I will have a little bit of a larger. There you go.
Anders
00:12
Good. So hello everybody and welcome to this fifth episode of Southern Summers and Northern Winters. Hi Mark, how are you doing?
Mark
00:25
I am terrific Anders. Another day living the dream as I said before, you know, just summer’s coming along. The weekend was 35 degrees on Saturday here and it was rather warm.
Mark
00:37
I must say probably a little bit too warm for my liking, but you know what? Where there’s a house, there’s an air conditioner and away we go.
Anders
00:45
Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a little, it’s a little funny that you say that because here in Munich it’s morning, it’s slightly after 09:00 in the morning and we have frost at night and it’s a crispy, clear blue morning but it’s cold. Last week we had our first snow of the season so it’s really winter is coming
Mark
01:15
actually think that the coldest day I’ve ever been in it was a beautiful blue morning in Poland the Sun was out and it was like minus 19 degrees.
Anders
01:24
Yes.
Mark
01:25
Yes I think it’s over. I don’t spend much time in the winter obviously like you guys but it’s generally colder on a clear day, isn’t it? Yeah, it is.
Mark
01:33
In a cloudy day.
Anders
01:35
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this reminds me when I was doing, in my previous life and career, I would occasionally do business trips to Finland. And I was attending a meeting far north of the Polar Circle in a city called Rovaniemi.
Anders
02:00
And I don’t know if you’ve been there, Mark, but during the Finns, according to the Finns, this is where Santa Claus has his home. But I exited the airplane. It was 1 of those, you know, you stay on the tarmac and there’s a ladder coming or a staircase being rolled up to the airplane. And you go out into the air.
Anders
02:34
I mean, really there’s no gangway or anything. So it’s just, and it was minus 35 degrees.
Mark
02:44
That’s serious, isn’t it?
Anders
02:46
And I had a business suit on and didn’t wear my jacket and it was just oh So it was
Mark
02:55
I’ve never been up there been to Helsinki maybe Twice maybe 3 times actually but only only stayed there once and not transited there a few times but my main memory of Helsinki was that it was a very maybe uninspiring city there wasn’t too much there to say or do it was just drum I would call it.
Anders
03:16
What time of the year was it that you were there?
Mark
03:19
I was summer I was not like the the 1 thing I actually do remember about Finland and about Helsinki was I reckon that I’d had the bluest sky Of anywhere I’d ever been on a nice sunny day Like nice enough city, but you know somewhere that you wouldn’t need to stay any longer than a couple of days because I guess All that much there to say in the big picture the buildings are nice You know some that esplanade or the promenade that leads down. Yeah, wharf is really nice I’ve been have a market down in there’s a bit of green space, but yeah Helsinki
Anders
03:53
I’m not sure the Finns would agree, but, but yeah, no, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a different culture. It’s a different culture. And even within the Scandinavian region, in the Nordic region, we, Finland is not part of Scandinavia.
Anders
04:12
Scandinavia is just Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the Faroe Islands, I guess. The Nordic region includes Finland, but Finland is a different, it really is a different culture. They’re closer to Russia, they’re bordering up to Russia. But historically, it’s just, we don’t even understand.
Anders
04:37
In Scandinavia, the language branch is more or less the same. You know, Swedes and Norwegians and Danes, they sort of understand each other. At least if they, certainly if they want to understand 1 another, then it’s possible. But Finland, Finnish is a completely different language.
Anders
04:57
It’s, I don’t understand a word of Finnish. So yeah, that’s, yeah, but still, you know, I for 1 have enjoyed Finland many times on business trips. And as I said, It can be very, very cold in the winter. Minus 35 degrees was really the coldest I’ve ever been.
Anders
05:23
So it was all about going down that stairway and into the bus and into the airport terminal To the hotel and get some warm Appropriate clothes on because it was it was really cold. It was really cold
Mark
05:44
Yeah Like I said before I’m not a huge fan of the cold cold weather But I’m not a huge fan of the hot hot weather either if I could Plan somewhere to live that was 20 to 25 degrees or your end.
Anders
05:56
Oh,
Mark
05:56
yeah over that Okay, so I’ve actually
Anders
06:04
Yeah Let’s have it now
Speaker 3
06:09
All these evenings So I’ve actually got something to talk about. Yeah. Let’s have it.
Speaker 3
06:09
What’s on your mind this morning or
Mark
06:09
this evening? Let’s talk about it. I’m always interested on how people take their kids out of school to travel.
Anders
06:17
Oh yeah.
Mark
06:19
I know that in Australia we were able to, sorry a bit of background, I took our kids out of school for 13 months to travel full time. 1 of them was in high school in year 8 So she skipped all of year 8 another 1 was in grade 5 so she skipped all of grade 5 To travel I know this is harder in some countries I remember speaking to you about about it, and you told me that’s nearly impossible in Germany is that
Anders
06:46
you can’t do that You know you have You have school is you have to be present physically, present at school from school year and up and including ninth grade you have to be it’s obligatory to to go to school so yeah we can’t do what you are doing you know because you just have an obligation to educate your kids right?
Mark
07:21
Pretty much like it’s more in Australia or in Victoria anyway where we were it was more at the at the whim of the school not that Not that that probably would have mattered because in the big picture you can just take your kids out of school and and if you’re out of the country then they basically don’t have to be enrolled anywhere if you’re in Australia. So basically I could have withdrawn them from school and left the country obviously still being an Australian citizen with plans to come back. And there would not have been, there’s nothing that they can do if you do it that way.
Mark
07:53
And I know you can probably do that anyway, really, but you run the risk, I guess, of when you go back to your home base of trying to get your kids back into that school possibly that would be your only your only downfall or there may not be a place for them.
Anders
08:09
Oh yeah.
Mark
08:09
Still at that school but I’m losing track here so when we went we just went to our local school and said we want to take our kids out of school for 12 months. And yeah, more than happy with that. They said, yep, no worries.
Mark
08:25
Actually, they were very forthcoming with saying, we think that’s a great idea in that they will learn possibly far more on the road travelling than they will in school at that stage because when we travel we’re not ones to just go and sit on the beach or something like that like we like to go to museums and historical sites and do things like that. So they were always going to be learning and the school was very encouraging for us to do that. Yes. As for doing schoolwork, they supplied us with a little bit of schoolwork here and there and I had really big plans of making them do a lot of schoolwork and when I say plans that was the plan but the plan soon the plan soon broke down I must admit more
Anders
09:09
how’s that
Mark
09:09
to my through their reluctance to do any schoolwork oh yeah and my short short attempts at trying to get them to do a lot of school work sort of failed a bit in that retrospect but you know much to not much to my surprise. When they came back they slotted effortlessly back in school like they had not left school basically. And I think the year Willow got back to school she had a good honors award in 1 of her classes.
Mark
09:44
Marley was above average in all her classes on her reports. So in the big picture, I don’t actually think it hurt my kids 1 little bit to take them out of school for 12 months. Possibly what did hurt them though was that after we got back, COVID broke out shortly after and they were basically out of school for another 12 months. That was probably the more detrimental part.
Mark
10:08
So but yeah, so I don’t know. I know England also have a fine system for taking the kids out of school as well.
Anders
10:16
You know why the Germans think like they do in this regard? No. It’s because it goes back to, this is just what I’ve heard And if there are any Germans listening in, they can comment, please do.
Anders
10:37
But from what I’ve heard, it’s that it was after the Second World War, the Germans wanted to make sure that everybody got a proper education, a proper basic education without any indoctrination, religious or political, so that the reasons for Second World War couldn’t be repeated. The goal is to have an unbiased fundamental education for everybody. In order for that to happen, back then, they thought you need to be present so we can make sure that everybody gets this. It does make sense, particularly in Germany, where they really do not want to forget what happened during the Second World War.
Anders
11:46
They no longer feel guilty, I guess, this current generation. I mean, this happened, this was something that their great grandparents and grandparents, they were part of. So today’s modern generation, they really don’t feel any guilt, but they do feel an obligation to not forget in order for things not to repeat. So this is the reason why they want everybody to go to school and physically be present.
Anders
12:23
Another thing, which is beneficial now, because I can compare this to my native Denmark, where like in Australia, you have sort of an obligation to educate your child, but you don’t have to be physically present at school. There is a chance for some migrants to sort of create a parallel community where they can teach their kids whatever they want to teach them without having to send them to an official public school. And it happens in Denmark. It can’t happen in Germany because all children that are officially here with a license to stay or a permit, they have to go to school.
Anders
13:26
They have to go to a German school. So I guess That’s sort of the upside of it all. You can’t make these parallel communities.
Mark
13:37
So you can’t homeschool in Germany?
Anders
13:40
No, no, it’s not allowed.
Mark
13:42
Wow. Yeah. That is pretty strict,
Anders
13:46
isn’t it?
Mark
13:47
Yeah, it is. Homeschooling is a big movement these days, like in Lots of countries, I think.
Anders
13:53
And this is what you can do in Denmark. You are allowed to homeschool in Denmark. I don’t think it’s highly regarded because, again, the stun falls on the parents and their ability to do this properly.
Anders
14:11
I can understand, and Denmark is a small country, I mean There’s the distance compared to, for instance, Australian distances. I mean, we in Denmark within, I would say, 20 minutes, there’s a public school no matter where you live. It’s different in Australia. So homeschooling obviously
Mark
14:32
is, is, is needed. No, in all honesty, I couldn’t think of too many worst things to do. Then sit with my kids for 8 hours a day and try and teach them.
Anders
14:45
I wouldn’t have the patience.
Mark
14:47
No way. No, leave it to the people who get paid to
Anders
14:50
do it. Exactly.
Mark
14:52
You know, but I also wouldn’t be a teacher for all the money in the world. These days, like I’ll see things that go on and there’s, there’s little or no respect anymore for, for teachers in well, in our society, in society,
Anders
15:04
Western society in general.
Mark
15:06
Western society in general these days because kids know their rights and they know that teachers can’t punish them basically and police can’t punish them if they’re under 18. And, you know, so there’s absolutely no retribution at all for no,
Anders
15:22
no, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s sad. I mean, education and knowledge is more important now than ever. And, yeah, the, the, the, the teachers really should have, they should be paid like CEOs.
Anders
15:39
Definitely. Yeah. So yeah. Definitely.
Anders
15:43
But you’re right. In terms of taking your kid out of school and travel, see things, other cultures, other countries is most likely more beneficial than having that 1 way teaching from the board down to the classroom where there’s little to no interaction. And it’s, it’s yeah, I believe in that. I believe in traveling.
Speaker 3
16:17
I mean,
Mark
16:18
I mean, they all need that, but you can certainly have a mixture of it We where you should be able to take your kids out to do something like that Especially if you’re going to you know I don’t believe in kids sitting around home doing nothing because they want to day off or something like that like but you know if you’re gonna go and do something worthwhile that’s gonna You know make them better world citizens and you know more understanding and a bit more tolerant of you know what’s going on with other cultures and other religions and it can only really be a Can only be a good thing I guess in the end. Yeah, so if if you live anyone out there listening isn’t any other countries drop us a line and tell us what the what the situations like in your country in regards to taking kids out of school. Now, another point, I know last week we were touching on actually, no not that point, I was going to say was it’s Black Friday sales time.
Anders
17:14
Yeah.
Mark
17:17
Have you ever buy travel on Black Friday sales? Like I’ve never booked a trip or a ticket or anything like that on a Black Friday sale, not for any known reason. I just have never sort of waited around for it to come up.
Mark
17:31
I generally just book them when they come up but I do see a lot of good travel sales going around. But I’m more generally sorry buying things like suitcases and travel accessories and they come on sale than flights. Yeah. They come on sales and then flights.
Anders
17:48
So it’s quite. In general, I don’t know. There’s a lot of, in my other work, in my daily work, We are having, because that’s consumer goods that I work with and that’s Friday, Black Friday is a big thing.
Anders
18:10
But we are always, because I represent a rather sustainable company with ecological and ecology is a big thing and sustainability is a big thing. So we’re kind of a little bit edgy on the Black Friday thing because it comes across not always being sustainable because people buy stuff they really do not need. But in terms of services and travels, I actually think it would be a good idea because if you are already on the look for something
Mark
18:47
and
Anders
18:47
you’re already scanning the market for airline tickets or hotel accommodation or whatever and if a good offer comes up, why not? By all means.
Mark
18:57
It’s more like Black Friday month these days. It used to be what the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then it was like cyber Monday or something. And now the sales start like 2 weeks out before like Friday.
Mark
19:08
Now there’s always, always stuff on site.
Anders
19:11
You should always look at the, at the before price because that’s what they, where they typically will scam you is that they will just, you know, raise the before price and then you really just pay the same. Yeah. But if you are, like I know you are Mark, you’re scanning the markets constantly for airline tickets and you really, you know what an airline, what an airfare to let’s say China, what it should cost.
Anders
19:40
I mean, come on. So you really would know, when a black Friday offer comes up, if it’s a good offer or not.
Mark
19:48
I would hope. I would hope so. Anyway, speaking of China, my daughter went to a Christmas market in China on the weekend.
Anders
19:54
So it
Mark
19:55
looked much like something you’d find in Europe. There was like wooden, you know, wooden stoles and things like this. No, no snow, but it does snow in the town she was in so actually the day after we arrive I’m going to go and have a look at this because as I’ve said before I’ve been to a few big Christmas markets in Europe and a few small Christmas markets in Europe so I’m actually really keen to go and have a look at this Christmas market in China and see what it’s like.
Mark
20:22
It looked similar, it looked like they were selling little handicrafts and little ginger breads and all this sort of stuff like that. So it actually looked quite similar to, except for the fake grass that it was on. It was on like a fake grass was very green.
Anders
20:39
But you know, you know, we can, we can chat about the Christmas markets a little bit because, Yeah, this is something I had planned as well, 1 of my topics, because they are opening this week. This coming Friday is the big opening of most European Christmas markets. And I would like to ask you, you’ve been to quite a few.
Anders
21:07
What’s your favourite city or your favourite Christmas market?
Mark
21:13
I’ve been to Strasbourg. Strasbourg in France was really nice.
Anders
21:17
I saw the photo.
Mark
21:19
Prague was really nice as well. Munich was really nice. I’ve been to Berlin.
Mark
21:25
Probably some of my favourite markets are in the Alsace in France,
Anders
21:27
so it’s
Mark
21:27
Strasbourg, but like Colmar, Kaserberg, even Freiburg in Germany was really nice as well. So not as big and as well known as some of the others. But actually, this is 1 dist out of Freiburg in Germany.
Mark
21:42
And I’m going to pronounce this really wrong. And it’ll be, no, someone look it up. I have no idea. It was called Ravennaschlucht.
Mark
21:49
And it was out in the black edge of the edge of the black forest and it was set underneath a I would say a hundred foot high old brick train bridge Tressle Bridge and this market was yeah it was this in this bit of clearing in the forest. And apparently it’s still there. And it goes on every, you actually got to buy tickets in advance to go to it because it gets so, so packed. And actually it was 1 of the coldest places I’ve ever been.
Mark
22:16
And I went there. I was so cold. That’s beside the point, but Kolmar is a really outstanding market and it’s 1 of the more really popular ones. But I tell you what, 1 of the places that I really enjoyed most going to a market was Pilsen in the Czech Republic.
Mark
22:32
We stopped there for a night, just on the way from, I Think we were going to we were going to Berlin I think so we went from Munich and we went from Munich to Pilsen Yes, so we got into the cut in the Czech Republic.
Anders
22:44
Why yes, it was
Mark
22:45
just as fast and we rolled into the city. I wasn’t looking for it because we were actually going to the Pilsner Urquell or Urquell or however they pronounce the brewery. We were going to the brewery there, to this famous brewery.
Mark
23:00
I went there but then we walked into the old town and there was this fantastic market in the old town wasn’t overly packed because it was You know Pilsen’s not I wouldn’t say is not big on the on the tourist trail for for a lot of people It was really traditional. It was nice. There was good music good food. The prices were reasonable So yes I was really off the tourist trail a bit and I was probably 1 of the markets that really really sticks in my mind a lot.
Mark
23:26
But as for just in general in Christmas Warsaw was Warsaw Poland was 1 of the best cities I’ve ever been to. They had Christmas lights that were amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it and I stretched all the way through this main street in the city for about 3 kilometers. I was lit up.
Mark
23:41
Wow. It was yeah, absolutely outstanding. So So yeah, so I’ve been to a few of the really big markets and they’re all well worth going to, but the year we went to a lot of these, we went to about 10 I reckon in 1 year and by the end of it I was like, okay, I’ve had enough.
Anders
23:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve
Mark
23:59
seen it. I’ve done it.
Anders
24:00
That’s the way it goes, yeah. Yeah, you know what,
Speaker 3
24:05
As you were
Anders
24:05
talking about this, the Comar and the Strasbourg markets, they sort of look like Europe used to look like 500 years ago, right? This is the really the, I think we mentioned this before in the podcast is central European history. This is This this this is a little piece of central European history the Christmas markets this weekend some of the the the Christmas markets in Copenhagen opened and it didn’t come across very well because there is not a long tradition for Christmas markets in Denmark, oddly enough.
Anders
24:47
They’ve sort of exported this German Christmas market concept and just placed it in Copenhagen, even with international vendors. They hardly speak any Danish and they sell sauerkraut, they sell bratwurst without translating that into some local Danish folklore. So it does not, I mean as a Dane, going to a Christmas market, you can enjoy it for what it is, but it has nothing to do with Danish culture. And that was the criticism.
Anders
25:27
Because if they were going to have traditional Danish Christmas markets, it would be like crafts and of course a bit of food, obviously, and drink. But it wouldn’t be Glühwein. It would be Glökk, which is a different type of mulled wine. Yeah, it’s coming because there’s a commercial interest obviously.
Mark
25:56
Definitely, you know in the last 10 years the popularity of people wanting to visit European Christmas markets has exploded. So like all good things, we try and export any good concept to all 4 corners of the world because someone thinks they can make a dollar. Christmas markets in Melbourne, It doesn’t really relate to Australia because it’s summer when these markets are on.
Mark
26:21
So you sort of go, you know, and if you’ve ever been to Europe, winter is part of Christmas.
Anders
26:27
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Mark
26:28
But it gets cold, you get in the mood. So It’s a little bit hard to feel the same way about it when it’s 35 degrees and you’re walking around sweating.
Anders
26:37
Did you have mulled wine then?
Mark
26:40
No, I had cold wine. They did have mulled wine, but they had cold mulled wine.
Anders
26:46
That can be nice too. It’s just really about the spices that they put into it. You know, that’s a bit of cinnamon and
Mark
26:59
not a big fan of the hot wine. It gets very sweet.
Anders
27:04
Yeah.
Mark
27:04
Yeah. And I can’t come to it. I’m like, you know, I’m very much a cold drink person being Australian.
Anders
27:10
Me
Mark
27:10
too. I probably never drank, I probably never even drank hot drinks. I probably only, the last 10 years of my coffee person before that I would never drink anything hot at all. So, and I still actually enjoy my coffee probably more once I’ve left it sitting on the bench for half an hour and it’s gone, you know, nearly cold to be,
Anders
27:27
to
Mark
27:27
be in all, all honesty with you. So, So yeah, I find the glue vine 1 cup like you said is enough I always have 1 wherever we go because each market is different because yeah comes from a different a different region So it’s true. It’s part of it.
Mark
27:40
It’s part of the tradition to go and
Anders
27:42
yeah,
Mark
27:42
go and try 1 But 1 is probably
Anders
27:46
1 is 1 is 1 is enough. Yeah, because it really gets it’s very sweet. It’s not even because, I mean, yeah, sure, you can have, what the locals here do is that they, you can add a shot of rum or whiskey or whatever you would like, a Bailey Irish cream, something like that, to it.
Anders
28:06
But if you don’t do that, it’s really not strong. It’s just, you know, yeah.
Mark
28:12
And if you want a good wine, just go and drink a wine. Don’t ruin it by tricking it up to make it really sweet, I guess, because there’s plenty of good wine in France and Germany and places like that where they serve the glue vines So, you know just drink the wine. I say
Anders
28:30
yeah. Yeah, really I Agree. Yeah. No, so so Yeah, Christmas Christmas markets are up I’ll try to get into 1 probably this Friday already.
Anders
28:44
And There’s a small, there’s a little local 1 opening just around the corner from us and we’ll try to go there. I can send some photos so that listeners can see what the mood is like.
Mark
29:02
Sorry, do I still have that medieval Christmas market
Anders
29:05
in Munich? Yes, they do. They have the medieval.
Anders
29:08
Yeah. And that’s actually something that’s really nice because that’s where you can… It is unique and you can get in there and have… They call it medieval glühwein.
Anders
29:21
Obviously, I don’t know if the recipe is originally from medieval times, but yeah, you can also get some food that you don’t get elsewhere that has a more medieval feel to it. But yeah, it’s all about the atmosphere and obviously all the crafts that you can buy. You can buy clothes, you can buy… Typically what you can buy is, is my wife always says, you know, the stuff the world really don’t need.
Anders
29:53
But you know, but you know, like socks and house shoes and you know, a warm sweater and, and, and some,
Mark
30:05
it’s another, yeah. Another typically European thing is house shoes. Like no 1 has house shoes.
Anders
30:11
No, you have your crocs.
Mark
30:14
Yeah. You have crocs. I’ve got a pair of crocs on now. But, I don’t know, like I don’t wear shoes inside.
Mark
30:21
Like, you know, I flip me crocs off all me thongs So flip-flops, I don’t know what you want to call them over there.
Anders
30:25
Yeah, if
Mark
30:26
Americans are listening It’s not a thong that you wear son a pair of undies thong.
Anders
30:30
No, no, it’s it’s on your feet
Mark
30:31
It’s a pair. That’s a pair of shoes.
Anders
30:33
Yeah,
Mark
30:33
and you know, typically in Australia you get to the back door and you just take your shoes off and go inside. Maybe in winter you might have your socks on. But yeah, it’s another 1 of them things.
Mark
30:46
Another 1 of them cultural differences between Europe and Australia that we seem to dig into 1 each week or so at this rate. Yeah. So house shoes are not a thing, but you know, I’ve been to places in Europe where they hang, you know, like a little thing on the back of the door that’s full of shoes. Yes.
Mark
31:02
Yeah. Your little house. I’ve actually got 1 hanging on my wall here in this shed actually that we brought back from Poland.
Anders
31:09
Yeah. 10 years ago I
Mark
31:10
don’t reckon any of the shoes have been hanging over there in a little felt thing that you put your shoes in. And yeah,
Anders
31:18
it’s absolutely true. Because, and I’ll tell you why that is. That’s because in many old buildings in Europe, you, I mean, you, you, obviously you have heating that’s, that’s for sure.
Anders
31:32
But, but the floors will get cold during the winter. So yeah, we all wear house shoes, simply not to… Because if your feet gets cold, that’s when your whole body starts to get cold. Yeah.
Anders
31:49
So, so, yeah. But if you live in a modern building, a newly built with, I would say within the last 25 years, on the floor, heating has become a thing. So you don’t even have the radiators anymore. You just have on the floor heating and that will distribute the heating in the whole home differently.
Anders
32:12
And there will be no like cold corners and rooms because all the floors are not hot but comfortably warm and your feet will stay warm meaning that your whole body will stay you know.
Mark
32:35
Do you have house shoes for the summer or are they just the same shoes?
Anders
32:39
No. In the summer, I don’t, I don’t really wear house shoes. That’s that’s just like you, like in, in, in like thongs or, or, or so whatever. Yeah.
Anders
32:51
Yeah. So I, I am a kind of a bare feet person as well. I really enjoy that when I can. For years, I haven’t really In the winter, I wear socks, but in the summer, I don’t.
Anders
33:07
This has probably come across as a bit gross to some people, but I just slip into my shoes without socks. Of course, they start to stink at some point but I make sure I can put them in the washing machine.
Mark
33:24
Washing machine and washing.
Anders
33:26
Yeah and use some disinfectant, rinse, rinsing whatever so that you know and I do that on a regular basis. So so yeah, it’s it’s just to Yeah, as much as possible bare feet. Absolutely.
Anders
33:42
I agree
Mark
33:48
walking around on the grass bare feeted. It’s a good, it’s a nice connection to the earth.
Anders
33:54
That’s what they say, you know. It has a healing aspect. If you can find somewhere with no poisonous insects and stuff living in the grass, going bare feet in the grass is actually a really good thing.
Anders
34:16
If you’ve never done it, I remember when Anton was a little, he was a toddler, the first time his bare feet touched grass was really funny because we were holding him out like both arms and we would put him down, sit him down on the grass and he didn’t like that. He was tickly under his feet and he’s like, oh no. But yeah, It has a healing effect and it’s really soothing. Yeah.
Anders
34:48
Yeah. Yeah. So how’s that planning of the China trip coming along, Mark? Are you…
Anders
35:01
Have you… I know it’s not…
Mark
35:04
It’s only 3 weeks from today.
Anders
35:06
3 weeks from today. Yeah.
Mark
35:08
Yeah. 3 weeks from today.
Anders
35:10
So how long before do you start packing things well mentally maybe before But but I mean that’s a
Mark
35:16
good question actually considered going down the shed today and taking my My suitcase up into the house or in my office where we record this I generally keep suitcases because I don’t have a great deal of room in the house to keep him so I had considered doing that today because Funnily enough I went and bought a couple new pairs of shorts and a couple new t-shirts. Yeah
Speaker 3
35:41
so I
Mark
35:41
was like I should just get my suitcase and just put them straight in there because I Need them and there’s
Anders
35:49
yes
Mark
35:50
He’s putting him into the rotation in my drawer at this stage. Yeah, because I want to I want to take them to with me. So I generally go and buy when we’re going to Asia because it’s really sweaty and Bangkok will be, I generally go and buy a couple of cheap black t-shirts before I go anywhere because I’ve fallen into the habit of taking light t-shirts before and it looks like you’ve taken a bath or a swim after
Anders
36:15
if you’re
Mark
36:16
walking around. So I try and take a steady stream of black t-shirts whenever I am
Anders
36:22
which is also if you go to a very hot country and sunny country I mean wearing black is it’s also it will attract
Mark
36:31
the yeah
Anders
36:33
yeah but but I understand what you’re saying yeah
Mark
36:38
look I normally okay I have a packing system for Asia. Okay. So whenever we go anywhere in Asia, I take, I have A555 system.
Mark
36:46
I take 5 t-shirts, 5 pairs of shorts, 5 pairs of socks and 5 pairs of boxers shorts And yeah, that’s my standard pack because I know that nearly anywhere. I go in Asia. I’m not gonna need a Jumper I’m not gonna need a pair of pants. So what I do is I wear a jumper and a pair of pants on the plane yeah, and the way over so then I’ve got a pair and That’s generally all I take so I can generally get enough washing done all the time to To make everything clean Clean and fresh.
Anders
37:16
Yeah. So
Mark
37:16
yeah, so that’s my standard pack, but this time it’ll be a bit different. Cause like we said, we’re going to go to China and it’s going to be 2 degrees and we’ll go to Bangkok a few days later. It’s going to be 35 degrees.
Mark
37:25
So I’m going to have to take a few extra pairs of pants and maybe I’m definitely
Anders
37:30
going to
Mark
37:31
have to take a coat and some gloves And a beanie probably as
Anders
37:37
well. You have your Munich beer. Don’t you
Mark
37:40
I do have it?
Anders
37:42
Yeah, but
Mark
37:43
I lost 1 of the tassels off the side the other day so I’ve only got 1 that dangles down that side now. So, but I do still have that most definitely. And Willow had 1 too, and I actually took it over to her when we visited China in September to
Anders
37:57
wear.
Mark
37:58
So, I’m not quite sure. I might have to invade some of my wife’s suitcase space because I traveled this with a carry-on suitcase with a small 1. I try and do that.
Mark
38:10
Even though I check it, I just don’t like taking big bags because You arrive at an issue when there’s 3 or 4 of us traveling and everyone’s got a big suitcase and that issue is that you cannot fit them in the back of a taxi or an uber or a diddy or a grab so they end up having to get 2. So of course you’re twice the price because no 1 can fit 4 big suitcases in the back of their boot basically. It’s true.
Anders
38:34
Yeah.
Mark
38:35
So I try and we try and take 1 big suitcase which Rebecca takes and that’s more not for clothes but when we go to Asia it’s more for souvenirs and clothes that she can buy there because it’s cheap. So, and I take a small carry on, Marley takes a small carry on, and Willow generally takes a small carry on, plus we take a backpack. So we’re checking the carry ons, but it’s just more for convenience.
Mark
39:00
Cause sometimes I think that the more room you’ve got the more stuff you’re likely to share the Whether you need or not because I’ve taken big suitcases before and what happens is if you take a lot of clothes Whatever you whatever you’ve been wearing It’s dirty and you put it in a pile and then you get it washed and that cut that stuff comes back and goes straight back on the top of your suitcase and then you just wear that again. So yeah, any any any generally wearing 50% of stuff you’ve got and that’s the stuff that’s getting true freshly washed and put back on the top of your suitcase all the time. So true. So it’s a bizarre tactic, but so yeah, so my 5555 packing system
Anders
39:35
I use I use the exact same system I it’s just A77 because I I am I don’t want to wash more than once a week so it’s just oh
Mark
39:47
yeah that’s true yeah you know you know you just sometimes I have to wear 2 T-shirts a day because if you’re out and about by the time you come home and after a full day, you know, my T-shirt will be fairly wet and sweat.
Anders
39:59
Yeah, true.
Mark
39:59
Sometimes I have to, I sometimes have to wear 2 if I’m going back out at night
Anders
40:04
True a
Mark
40:05
fresh t-shirt, but if not, I just take it off and hang out Yeah, without without my t-shirt on but yeah, generally I find that Yeah, that’s pretty easy to get washing done over there and plus I’m getting an extra pair really because I’m wearing a set of clothes as well. Yeah, really? I’ve got 6 t-shirts and you know, 6 socks and 6 jocks going on
Anders
40:28
really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Mark
40:30
So that’s the realistic part of it for me. I mean you guys buy clothes anyway, especially
Speaker 3
40:34
if you
Mark
40:34
can’t age you pick up a t-shirt Yeah True. Yeah, so you probably
Anders
40:40
will do anyway. I mean you probably want to have like a souvenir t-shirt Or something like that
Mark
40:48
It’s quite quite surprising my wife buys a lot of stuff But I used to be a big big souvenir buyer of like fridge magnets All sorts of knickknacks and you can go into the box in the side of my shed over there and you’ll find a box full of it. Like, you know, so I reckon probably for the last 5 years, occasionally I might buy a fridge magnet. If something takes my fancy and somewhere we go.
Mark
41:11
But other than that, I generally don’t buy anything else anymore. They invite a shirt to say off of being there. It’s just, I don’t know. Memories, Memories are best made in your head.
Anders
41:24
That’s true. That is true. Well, do you, because I wanted to, about the packing and making mental notes before packing and so I guess you would also need like a almost a separate bag for all your techniques stuff technical stuff I mean
Mark
41:44
well I do So I carry a lot of that in my backpack, which is why I take a backpack as well. So Generally I’ll be taking you know a drone sometimes I take 2 drones You know, I will say got a GoPro that I take in case we go in the water. Then I’ve
Anders
42:02
got a
Mark
42:03
DJI Osmo gimbal I take as well. So yeah, so I take a fair bit of, a fair bit of equipment when we go. And luckily I offload some of that into my wife’s large suitcase.
Anders
42:14
Oh, that’s because it’s not just, it’s not just the devices themselves because they come with cables and charge and so that the cables yeah that the whole cable
Mark
42:26
laptop cables are heavy when you put that in your bag like So my backpack that’ll be all that’s in there so if I take me back back and there’ll be my laptop will be in there and I’m a laptop charger and then there’ll be a case for For the GoPro and then there’ll be a case for the DJI gimbal and then there’ll be a small case for the drone and that’ll be basically 7 kilos without putting anything else.
Anders
42:51
That’s what I’m saying yeah it’s not just the devices themselves it’s really everything that comes with them
Mark
42:58
yeah. I’ve tried to scale down a bit But it’s really hard to scale down a lot like I bought a really small drone to take which was a lot better. It doesn’t go as high as the DJI 1 but it does some nice little shots. And you know, it’s not enough to make a decent video for a YouTube channel Because I found us taking a drone and the options to put them up are getting slimmer and slimmer in a lot
Anders
43:28
of places.
Mark
43:29
Like, yeah, it’s tighter and tighter and, and hard, hard to get places to put them up honestly the country I thought which would really be hard China is not art at all anyway so yeah which is
Anders
43:42
which is quite odd yeah because I mean here in Germany You’re not allowed to fly drones anywhere. I mean you really you need a license to do that Yeah
Mark
43:51
Very strange, but so yeah, so my backpack is definitely taken up with Cables as well. You know I’ll take a pencil case full of USB cables and then you need charging ports and you know and adapters and all sorts of stuff to charge it you know everyone’s devices everyone’s got a phone charging overnight you got 2 cameras charging overnight and then I need a hard drive to download it all off just in case something happens to any of the cameras.
Anders
44:17
Absolutely yeah extra extra memory cards maybe and also I don’t know if you if this is a thing but like a plug-in adapter because no no power sockets are the same so you probably need an adapter for that also
Mark
44:37
Universal adapter
Anders
44:38
you probably also need like a power socket is kind of a 5 or 10 socket yeah Yeah
Mark
44:47
like a power board or a power strip.
Anders
44:49
Yeah exactly because What I usually find is that in hotel rooms sometimes you have 1 PowerPoint Somewhere in the corner
Mark
44:58
and it’s just Stunt latest to give you the shits.
Anders
45:02
Yeah,
Mark
45:02
well I do so But yeah, and like, you know, I’ve got to pack for the kids too. Like, you know, because they’re like, I need a charger and I need a cable and I need a cord and I need this and I need that. And, you know, and hell has no fury like children when their phones go flat and they’ve got no internet access.
Mark
45:21
They’ve got nothing better to do but annoy you when that happens. So you know so I’ve got to keep their stuff charged up too but I generally have like some little ziplock bags and I have 3 of them set up all the time that go into the cupboard and they’ve each got a cable and a universal charger and yes okay he’s yours he’s yours and he’s yours yeah
Anders
45:45
yeah that’s we kind of had the same system apart from from from which Anton is now in charge of packing his own, you know, technical stuff and and that doesn’t keep him from asking, you know, where’s my this and where’s my that is a well I don’t know you packed it yourself I hope you packed it yourself
Mark
46:07
that’s only 1 person’s fault
Anders
46:09
yeah but but just like you I it can get annoying if he’s He doesn’t have his phone and his entertainment, so I always make sure that I have an extra charger just in case he Yeah, yeah, because you know either he has he doesn’t Know where to find it right away or something happens and they break.
Mark
46:34
They take too much than too little these days. But it seems like most things are going towards USB-C charging anyway. Yeah.
Mark
46:42
Away from the actual PowerPoint, you know, besides the actual, you know, charger you need to put in the wall. Most things these days seem to be, yeah, seem to be charged by USB-C. I can charge my laptop with USB-C. Yeah.
Mark
46:55
Nearly everything these days can be, can be charged with a USB-C or a USB, you know, the old style mini USB cable, which yeah, everything used to be done like my JBL speaker here that’s still charged on the old style. But
Anders
47:11
yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s becoming the standard, particularly in Europe, within the, within the European union. Even Apple has to oblige to comply with the rules because Apple has had their own ecosystem of chargers but now they’ve been forced to use the USB-C standard. I think it’s good.
Anders
47:37
I think there’s way too much electronic junk being made with all kinds of various ecosystems and it’s really not necessary. I mean, are you having a technical issue? Marcus I can see on my screen here he’s, are you, can
Mark
48:02
you hear me? I was running out of charge so I had to charge 1 side of your headphones at the same time as battery running low so I was like okay I need to So I look like a bit of a Martian. I’ve got a cord going out of each side.
Mark
48:17
It looks like I’m plugged into last cord on my headphones at the moment, but it’s because I just leave. I don’t use headphones very often, except when I’m, when you’re pretty much been down here the last few, yeah. So I sort of take them off when we finish on a Monday night and I sit them on the bench and then I come down every Monday night and I go, oh, I haven’t charged them. Yeah, well.
Mark
48:39
So now I’ve had to plug them back in.
Anders
48:43
So I look forward to hearing about the packaging, packing process over the next couple of weeks, where you’re at next week at this time. You will. Yeah.
Anders
48:56
So,
Mark
48:57
yeah. 1 of the things I probably will do, and what we did when we went, travelled long term, even though we were going to Asia for 8 months. We knew we would need coats like when we When we got to Europe so we basically got some cable ties and rolled our coats up into like a you know like a sausage shape and strap them as tight as we could and then this put another cord through it so we can hang them over the top of our suitcase handle and then we could just take them as carry on so because the coat takes up a hell of a lot of room in your suitcase it does you know the puffer jacket sort of stuff that yeah or where these days So that’ll be 1 thing I will definitely be doing is rolling my coat up.
Anders
49:36
I’ve seen these backs, you can buy them online. You can put your stuff that takes out a lot of room but has very little actual physical substance. You can, you can put it to a back and then Hoover it with your vacuum cleaner.
Mark
49:55
Oh, yes, yes, yes. The, the suction bags. I’ve got a couple of them here somewhere.
Anders
49:59
So that’s a close up.
Mark
50:01
Yeah. This 1 says roll. Didn’t even need the hoover. You just sort of rolled it, rolled it, and rolled it until the air came out.
Mark
50:07
I don’t know why I’m doing hand actions here to show people you can’t see the hand actions that I’m actually doing. Maybe it’ll pop up in 1 of the videos I put on the YouTube channel. Yeah, I’ve got hand actions going on to you know to show Anders.
Anders
50:20
Yeah, I know what you’re getting at. Yeah, but you know packing tips and tricks, I mean My wife has taught me a lot about that because you know, in our early travel days, I would also be like, you know, I can’t fit anymore into the suitcase. It’s full.
Anders
50:41
No, it’s not full. What’s in your shoes? In my shoes. There’s nothing in my shoes.
Anders
50:46
Roll your socks and stuff them in your shoes and stuff like that. You know, so you can have it.
Mark
50:51
Do you roll? Do you roll your clothes? So do you do it?
Anders
50:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now I do. And now I roll them and tightly and then and then and then I fit them into these packing cells
Mark
51:02
and use the packing cell.
Anders
51:04
Yeah. And each of us in the family, we each have 2 packing cells, medium sized packing cells. And within that 1 packing cell, I can have like 7 t-shirts and 7 underwear or underpants and even 7 socks. Then it’s really tightly filled, but that’s all I need for 1 week.
Anders
51:27
And then in a different cell, I have like long pants and shorts and a pullover. So that’s sort of 2 cells is all I need for, for
Mark
51:42
my wife uses the packing cell. I generally don’t only because of the shape of my carry on suitcase.
Anders
51:51
Oh yeah.
Mark
51:51
As a, as a dip in the middle, I can, and a rich, which is good for, for rolling things, cause you can put it on each side of this ridge as you go Oh,
Anders
51:59
yeah, yeah
Mark
52:00
in the top section. There is a bit I could use it that zip it in but I like to I like to put my electronic stuff in that zip it in section to hold it Hold it in place and
Anders
52:10
for easy access if you want
Mark
52:12
Yeah, so I don’t generally use 1 but 1 thing packing cell does come in handy for is to put your dirty clothes in and take to the laundry and things like that.
Anders
52:20
True,
Mark
52:21
true. So it’s always a great thing to do with your packing cell.
Anders
52:26
Yeah, yeah. We have for dirty clothes, we have it’s sort of a bag, sort of a watertight.
Mark
52:36
Roastering bag.
Anders
52:37
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. It’s, it’s good.
Anders
52:41
What, you know, I, I really enjoy, going into shops that, that have this kind of stuff And I can easily get into buying stuff that I really do not need. We talked about Black Friday at the beginning of this episode. Should something come up for this Black Friday where you know I can go into an outdoor shop and find gear like that. That’s where I’m easily falling into the bad habit of buying stuff that I don’t need because I love, I love this stuff.
Mark
53:17
I’m sorry. I bought a new power bank for 1 of me phones the other day oh
Anders
53:24
yeah yeah
Mark
53:25
which is into the bottom of the phone it’s like a portable 1 so
Anders
53:28
yeah
Mark
53:29
yeah okay I could do with 1 of them and I bought 1 of them waterproof little sack bags like that you can roll up so I thought what if it rains I’ve got a camera that needs to go in there
Anders
53:37
doesn’t it? Obviously yeah.
Mark
53:40
I bought a new microphone for some vlogging because I actually had 2 little DJI microphones and I lost 1 in China. I don’t know whether it fell off my bag. I had a clip too, but I was pretty upset about that because they’re about $180 each.
Mark
53:56
They are
Anders
53:56
expensive, yeah.
Mark
53:57
And I’d only
Speaker 3
53:58
had it for
Mark
53:58
a couple of weeks, so I was actually pretty devo about that.
Anders
54:03
Oh, yeah.
Mark
54:04
So I want to be much more careful with it because I really need to, because if me and Rebecca are filming for YouTube, we both need a speaker or otherwise the sound sounds a bit crappy when 1 person’s really clear and the other person.
Anders
54:16
And these DJI microphones, actually, I was going to ask you about that are they easy to to pair with your camera if I don’t know if you use the your phone or have a separate camera?
Mark
54:28
If you’ve got Bluetooth if your camera’s got Bluetooth You can just connect it via Bluetooth to your
Anders
54:33
phone or
Mark
54:34
your camera. If it’s not and you’ve got like a old DSLR or something, they actually come with, you can get like a home-based docking thing that plugs into your camera and then they will connect to like this other dock that sits on top but that makes the system dearer if you only need the little speaker, the little microphone, that’s a lot cheaper. They’re still pretty dear though, I think a whole kit, even with the docking stations around 5 or 600 dollars.
Anders
55:05
Yeah Yeah,
Mark
55:06
but 2 speakers, but
Anders
55:08
if you are
Speaker 3
55:09
if you
Anders
55:09
are a vlogger you need it. I mean it’s it’s I see them all over all the YouTubers that I follow, they more or less, all of them, they use these DJI, they have this wind socket on it.
Mark
55:22
Yeah, the little fluffy bits on top. Yeah,
Speaker 3
55:24
yeah, yeah.
Mark
55:24
I don’t like them. If it’s not windy, I don’t use them. Yeah.
Mark
55:27
So I think they look a little bit, I don’t know, a little bit funny.
Anders
55:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark
55:33
Makes you stand out a little bit too much. You can sort of get away with it a bit if you’ve just got a black t-shirt on and a black speak and a little seizure and you can just sort of walk around a little bit incognito, but if you put the wind muff on top of it,
Speaker 3
55:45
you definitely…
Anders
55:45
Are you uncomfortable vlogging in other people’s presence?
Mark
55:49
I’ve gotten better. I must admit. I watched a few videos on this and people are like, you’ve just got to, you just go take no notice and you just got to do it.
Mark
56:00
If you want to succeed, you’ve just got to do it, you know, and why care what people think who don’t know you you know yes do you know you’ve got to be out there if you want to be there you need to be present you need to be out there need not worry about it and that’s a really hard thing to do actually it
Anders
56:15
is But
Mark
56:15
I have got better at not worrying where once upon a time I would never film when there was people around and but yeah But people who are successful this film wherever they want.
Anders
56:25
Yeah, this
Mark
56:26
what you gotta do.
Anders
56:27
I don’t
Mark
56:27
know these people I don’t care what they think, you know I’m trying to you know have a successful channel or a successful business. And I can’t let these people, the fear of what people are thinking about me, who I don’t know, affect what I’m doing. True.
Anders
56:41
I agree. Absolutely. I agree.
Anders
56:43
But it is a mental challenge to begin with. It is. It is something, you know, now I don’t really feel comfortable speaking out loud about this and that. But yeah, and also you maybe that’s what I’ve been thinking.
Anders
56:59
Sometimes, you know, people, if you want to film and report from a, from a certain environment, you don’t want people to take notice because you want it to be authentic, but still it doesn’t really hold water that argument because you, you just got to have to, you know, be able to report and just do it. And I’ve seen a couple of times people coming back to, this didn’t happen to me, but another vlogger I saw live in Munich, and there were, because Germans and their privacy, and they went up to them and said, you know, I don’t wanna be filmed. Well, first of all, you are allowed to film anywhere public, at least in Germany, you are allowed to do that. And secondly, you know, why would I, I don’t worry about that if I’m filmed and end up in someone else’s vlog.
Anders
57:53
I mean, this is, I mean, yeah, that can happen. But I see vloggers, they, they blur, people’s face.
Mark
58:02
Yeah. The backgrounds. Yeah.
Anders
58:07
Yeah. It’s, it’s just, it
Mark
58:09
is what it is. I mean, it’s the only thing I really try and be careful about is there’s a lot of kids around, I guess, people. Yeah.
Mark
58:15
Yeah. Touchy about, about that. You know, Especially if you’re down the beach or something these kids run around in bathing suits Yeah,
Anders
58:22
yeah, and
Mark
58:22
things like that like you know Because no 1 actually knows who you are what you’re doing. I get
Anders
58:28
no no
Mark
58:29
You know I mean I’m not running around taking photos of kids in bathers or anything.
Anders
58:33
Of course not.
Mark
58:34
They just happen to be in the background of, you know, a scene at a beach or something like that. But yeah, but Rebecca’s always big on that. My wife, she always say, just be careful because there’s a lot of kids here and a lot of families and things like that.
Mark
58:46
So I go, yeah, okay, yeah.
Anders
58:47
And it is true. I mean, you have to respect people’s feelings about this. And yeah, and should someone come up to me and say, you know, I’m not really comfortable with you filming here.
Anders
59:01
I would probably respect that. I would just say, don’t worry, I’m just doing a story. This has nothing to do with you. I’m just filming a story and want to go on, but I will respect what you’re saying.
Anders
59:16
And just- Do
Mark
59:17
you do any YouTubing anymore? Not really. I used
Anders
59:19
to make
Mark
59:19
There are some really good YouTube. Yeah.
Anders
59:21
I used to
Mark
59:21
like your channel. Your channel was really good.
Anders
59:23
Yeah. Thank you very much. I, maybe I could plug a link to that because I had a, A whole year I would do once a month, I would do like a 10 minute vlog about living in Germany.
Mark
59:37
Fantastic.
Anders
59:37
Yeah. But I haven’t, you know, after a year, I kind of, I would kind of follow the season, you know, what’s, what’s kind of the thing going on at this particular time of the year. But after that 1 year, I just, you know, I always say, you know, in vlogging, in blogging and anything, even in podcasting story is king. You have
Anders
01:00:00
As long as the story is good, you can engage your audience. And I kind of struggled with the vlog after a while saying, what kind of interesting stuff can I report? So that’s really, that’s really what it comes down to. Also, I must say, yeah, yeah, it is.
Anders
01:00:17
It is. I must say it’s also a lot of work doing a proper video.
Mark
01:00:22
It is a lot of work. Yeah. I’m just putting 1 together at the moment, about 7 days that we spend in the town that will always be in there.
Mark
01:00:30
I’m trying to chop 8 days into and I’m so far up to about 48 minutes. And oh wow. And I go and I go still the amount of editing I’m going to have to do and the amount of voiceover work I’m going to have to do and transitions and things like this to make some of these parts work. And 1 of the things that I always find is I always come back from somewhere and I go, I never actually finished.
Mark
01:00:56
I never actually did a finish. Like I never, I never summed it up on camera and went, ah, okay. Okay. So we’ve been here now and this is what we loved about it.
Mark
01:01:04
You know, I’ll come out, I’ll do all this filming and I’ll just forget 1 bit all the time with something. Yeah.
Anders
01:01:11
Yeah. No, it is a lot of work. And if you don’t do it like professionally, that can be, that can be shortcuts on the computer and workarounds that you’re not familiar with. It can take a lot of time, whereas if you’re a professional and you’re used to working in whatever software you’re editing in, you can quickly get to a good result.
Anders
01:01:35
But whereas if you’re an amateur and don’t do it on an everyday basis, it editing, like what’d you say? 48 minute video at the moment. Yeah. That takes a lot of time.
Anders
01:01:47
It really does.
Mark
01:01:47
I’ve been working on that for about 3 weeks. I reckon I’m about 20 odd hours in Abilene. Yeah.
Mark
01:01:52
I haven’t finished adding all the footage I need. But you know, you really need to go in with a plan and that’s something I lack. Like I know a lot of deficits I have in my creative output at this stage. And you know, and I because when I’m going somewhere like China, I don’t actually know what I’m going to say.
Mark
01:02:10
So I don’t really have a great plan. I just go and I film as much stuff as I can. And then I go home and I go, OK, Now let’s try and put this together with a few, with the voiceover or with what I’ve said while I’m there. But, but yeah, it sort of makes it hard if you had enough time and you could plan out exactly what you’re going to do, it would make it a lot easier.
Mark
01:02:29
But yeah, When you’re going overseas, a lot of it’s fly by the city of pants and you go, okay, well I’m like, oh, he, but actually this is going to make a good, good YouTube video. I haven’t had any time to research it or, you know, but I’m here now. So I need to start filming, you know, and things like that.
Anders
01:02:42
Yeah. I’m kind of thinking about what you’re saying because a couple of, of very famous YouTubers, they, they, they, they’ve, you know, address this particular thing. Because if you, if you have to follow a sort of a script every time, that can be stressful because then you probably want to get to a certain location and do a proper filming at maybe even a certain time of day or whatever. Whereas if you just travel and enjoy the travel and make sure, like you do, film as much as you can, Then the story eventually will evolve and that you find a narrative somehow.
Anders
01:03:26
Yeah.
Mark
01:03:27
It’s actually a little bit longer to edit it because you’ve got so much, so much footage And you go, well, I can’t just show it all. And in today’s society of TikTok lovers, where everyone’s got a short span of attention, there’s a lot of, I find I need to do a lot of splicing and cutting and keeping scenes shorter and moving all the time, because that’s the attention span of what people want to watch today You know if I put a clip that goes 1 minute of me walking somewhere looking at something after 10 seconds or 15 seconds people are gonna go But if I cut that clip into 4 or 5 sections, I can probably splice it in through the whole movie in different bits Yeah to use that whole clip, you know what I mean? But if I just had that running for for 1 minute in the clear people would go even if it was super useful to You know show where we’re doing.
Mark
01:04:16
Oh, yeah
Anders
01:04:18
It’s really it’s very interesting because that that is that certainly is a consideration that most content creators they need to make. Having said that, I’m actually, well maybe it’s because of my age, maybe I’m a different target group, but I enjoy YouTube videos that are sort of slow. This is very specific, but there’s a guy living in Portland, Oregon, who has a wood shop.
Anders
01:04:51
And he’s taking all these very, very huge wooden chunks. And he creates like furniture, tables, and he will sometimes mix it with acrylic, because in the wooden ores and stuff, there can be spaces and he will fill it up with a
Mark
01:05:17
PV store.
Anders
01:05:19
He will polish it and make it. These videos, they take like 45 minutes. He films them over what I guess will be months.
Anders
01:05:31
Even cut down to like 45 minutes, it’s a long video and there are long steps where you just see what he’s doing and he will do time lapses and stuff. But it’s enjoyable and for me it’s kind of soothing when I have my lunch or whatever, I will put 1 on 1 of those videos and just relax watching this on earth, this beautiful table or whatever it is he’s doing. I enjoy that, but it’s different when it’s a travel video. But have you heard about the movement of, I think we touched base on this, there’s a channel where they put a camera in front of a train and they just, you know, for 8 hours straight.
Mark
01:06:18
Yeah. The train drives. Yeah. I’ve seen a few of them.
Anders
01:06:22
So there are videos like that where you just.
Mark
01:06:25
There’s some out there for interesting for some people.
Anders
01:06:28
But the premise is set from the beginning. So, you know what you’re going into, you know, and it’s probably a different,
Mark
01:06:33
it’s very, very niche, isn’t it? It is.
Anders
01:06:35
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark
01:06:37
That’s what I like. I want to watch it.
Anders
01:06:40
Yeah, exactly. So, so, but you are right. You probably as a content creator, particularly in terms of travel, you wanna attract as many types of audience as possible.
Anders
01:06:58
And that should be a little bit for every taste. So yeah. And what we’re doing right now, a podcast, is also not to everyone’s taste, because you have, Depending on how you’re using podcasts or listening to podcasts that you can you can put on a pair of headphones and just do Other other things while whilst listening to it Or you can sit down and have a cup of coffee for an hour and listen to it. I don’t know.
Anders
01:07:24
It depends on what type of person you are, doesn’t it?
Mark
01:07:29
Most definitely. Most definitely.
Anders
01:07:31
Yeah. So Mark, this has been yet another hour in good company.
Mark
01:07:38
At least this 1, hasn’t it? This might be the longest 1. We’ve actually done.
Anders
01:07:43
I think so. Yeah Yeah, I really enjoy these and and Yeah, we’re gonna have 1 Next week as well mark. Can you tell us quickly about?
Anders
01:07:54
Because we talked about it before we started recording, but, but the website is coming up. What, what, what’s, What’s the plan there?
Mark
01:08:02
Yeah. So, we have a website. I’m still just refining it a little bit, but there’ll be each week when we release a podcast, there’ll be a link, there’ll be a couple of articles that come out, there’ll be 1, there’ll be a transcript of this. So if you don’t want to actually listen to the podcast you can read the podcast I guess if that’s what you want to do I’m not quite sure how you’ll find it despite reading it but you know nevertheless that option is there And then there will be an article also with an embedded version of our podcast from either Spotify or Apple Music.
Mark
01:08:39
Yeah. YouTube, maybe all of them. Maybe I’ll just embed all 3 players in each article. So you can, you can take your choice on, on which, which platform you’re a member of or which platform you want to listen to it
Anders
01:08:51
on. Exactly.
Mark
01:08:51
So yeah, so that’ll be it at this stage and there’s a there’ll be an about us page a little bit about me and Anders and so yeah so it’ll come along slowly it’s actually live at the moment but I’m not gonna give you the address because it still just needs a little bit of refining first. So next week we’ll release the address and you can have a look if you want to.
Anders
01:09:12
Yeah. And you can also already now, you can look us up on Facebook.
Mark
01:09:17
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Yeah. Everywhere.
Mark
01:09:21
Exactly.
Anders
01:09:21
I’m going to
Mark
01:09:22
Cover the market. I’m going to blanket the market.
Anders
01:09:24
Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, it’s coming along nicely. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a hobby thing. We do.
Anders
01:09:31
Yeah, definitely. So, so, But if you have suggestions, please do. Please do write. Mark, I also wanted to mention we have an increasing number of listeners.
Anders
01:09:44
I still need the final analytics. It takes a while, up to at least a month to start getting some proper analytics on listeners, but I can see that slowly coming together and we are having an increasing number of listeners. So thank you very much for listening.
Mark
01:10:05
Yes, most definitely. We appreciate everyone that takes the time to tune in to listen to me and Anders chat about something we’re passionate about or even just ramble on about something we’re
Anders
01:10:16
talking about. Exactly. So thank you very much and have a good week.
Anders
01:10:22
And we’ll be back again in about a week’s
Mark
01:10:26
time. Talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.