Ghostrunners - 515 - Scott & Isaac Are Back From China

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Scott and Isaac join this episode to talk about their time in China and Malaysia! Check out Main Street Roasters and use code GRKC at check out for a 10% discount! https://mainstreetroasters.com Ghostrunners merch: https://bit.ly/399MXFu Become a Patron and get exclusive content from Jake & Brad: https://bit.ly/2XJ1h3y Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/33WAq4P Leave us a voice memo and ask a question: https://anchor.fm/jake-triplett/message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, happy Wednesday. Hey, Jake. Hey, what's going on? Hey, Timon. Go ahead and say something to the camera time. What's up? Nice. Hey.

Timon has no microphone today because he has valiantly given it up for two of our best friends in the entire world. Isaac McDonald, Scott Pack here to talk to us about their travels. World travelers. World travelers. Scott went to China for the first time. And I will tell you what, it was hilarious. And you brought a little bit back with you so far, I've heard. It's settling down.

Yeah. The first couple of days back, what did I text? I said, Isaac, when did you know you had a parasite? Oh, no. Which is a funny text. And then Isaac's response was like, when I had diarrhea for three months straight. Yeah, you got a few months to wait where you really know. Got back home and stomach wasn't feeling quite right.

And Isaac was like, you probably just have travelers diarrhea. And I'm like, oh, gullible Scott. Gollable Scott's going to fall for this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he's like, no, it's a real thing. So, yeah, me and Chat GPT had a little conversation about it. It sounded like what I had, and it has mellowed out. So I think it was a little TD.

You said in Chad, GPD some pictures. Like, is this kind of what it's supposed to look like? Yeah, is what it's supposed to look like? It's funny to say that. I've been this close. I've been this close to taking picks and be like, who should I send this to? This ain't right. Does it sound like this?

I've had Travelers. diarrhea for 10 months. You've been traveling, you've got to stop travel, dude. Gotta stop driving. My tape worm is way bigger than Scots. Way bigger than Scots. I have an average-sized tapeworm.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, ooh, I think this tight beat means that it's going down with some random thoughts and white meat too. Midwest best friends eating fast food on repeat. So come along. Let's have some fun and go ahead. Get on your feet because it's a ghost. We, uh, I don't know what I was going to say. I think I just, I mean, just to start it off, Isaac just got to listen to me like

wine about international travel. Oh my God. Dude. Why? The guy was a baby. It's just everything so difficult. Here he goes again. Everything is so hard to try to do international travel. Tell me more.

And you guys think I'm traveling with Scott and Scott's the dad on this trip. No. No. Isaac was kind of my security blanket the whole time. He was like, he was always optimistic. I mean, like, right off the bat, we lose our luggage. Like, we get to China and bags are rolling out, rolling out, rolling out, and like, they're not freaking coming. And so we go over to the desk, the baggage desk, and we're trying to explain our situation

to somebody that barely speaks English. Really? So like, I'm like, if you work in an international airport, probably should at least, there's got to be somebody there that speaks a little bit of English. And he did speak a little bit. Was it a big internet? Like, was it like Beijing? It was Guangzhou.

Guangzhou. It's a big airport. They have 19 million people in that city. We took a, after we de ward of the flight, we took a, what felt like 30 minute bus to get to like baggage claim. Yeah. Also on that on that bus ride, we had a pretty funny experience. There were like three other American, oh, not necessarily Americans, white guys on that

bus. And they were maybe 20. They looked. Yeah. They were young. and they just looked like they had that like backpacker vibe. One of them was wearing like the super baggy jeans that have like the... He could jump out of a plane and be fine.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But anyway, they're talking and they're just like, oh, man, I cannot wait to get to our hostel and just shower with all the girls. What? We were like, what? What is going on? Where are you going?

So you're not here for pickleball. paddle. Yeah, that was awkward. Yeah, those guys were interesting. That was the only English we heard on the bus. But when we got to baggage claim, I had a weird experience. Okay, so our flight schedule or our flight path was from Kansas City to Seattle,

Seattle to Vancouver. Seven hour layover in Vancouver. Okay, this is the other weird thing. For some reason, whenever we booked our flights, we got put on the same flight to Seattle, but then we got put on separate flights. from Seattle to Vancouver. Literally like a 20-minute flight. It was the shortest flight of all time.

Split the boys up. Yeah. So I have no idea why or how that happened. Scott had like a two or three-hour layover in Seattle. I had like a 20-minute layover. Got to Vancouver, had a seven-hour layover. This is actually where the baggage trouble started. So in Seattle, when I'm getting on the plane,

it's a tiny plane. It's a 20-minute ride. And they're like your carry-on suitcase is a little bit too big. You have to check it. Okay. And they say your final destination is Guangzhou. I'm like, yes, but I need this carry-on bag for my layover in Vancouver because it's like seven hours long and I've got like toilet trees and other random stuff in there. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be able to get it in Vancouver for sure. So we get to Vancouver. Vancouver. And I am not able to get I am not able to get my bag that I gate checked.

And so then I'm like talking to someone at a desk somewhere. And she's like called this number. And they're not very helpful. They're like, oh, well, it's already been transferred over to China Southern, which was the airline we're flying. We'll get into China Southern later. We're not able to get it. You're going to have to talk to China Southern.

But they don't get here until 11 p.m. because your flight's not until 2 a.m. Anyway, it was a process. I ended up getting it. It was fine. Scott made it to Vancouver a little bit later. I was jealous that Isaac had the longer layover because he got into this airport lounge.

You ever dabbled at an airport lounge? No, I've heard stories. It's kind of... You see them on... Whoops, sorry. Whatever that was. Chad Powers. You see...

I am Chad Powers. You see him on TV. No, I didn't. Oh, yeah, I did. Oh, yeah, I did. Yeah, we loved it. It was a great show. We sponsored on the YouTube.

Oh, I was like, why are you saying this? This is for favorite show. You see airport lounges on movies sometimes, but you also see like school on movies and it's like, that's not how school is. So I'm like, I don't know. Our airport lounge is just like what I've seen on the movies, or are they better or worse? This one was pretty friggin' sick.

You got tears for sure. So when we were on our flight, I knew I had a really long layover. And I was curious. I was like, can I get a day pass into a lounge? Like, can you just pay for a day pass? That might be worth it. Yeah. Just hang out there and whatnot.

And then funny enough, like, an hour before we're about to land in Vancouver. Matt texts us and he's like, hey, you guys can get day passes at a lounge. Just go buy one of those on the business. On the business card. And so I was like, oh, great. So initially I go to this lounge, I pay for it.

And I go in, I'm like, oh, this is kind of mediocre. But to the left, I noticed this much nicer lounge that look good. So then I, like, 20 minutes in, like, screw this lounge. I went back. I'm like, can I pay for the other one? And they're like, yeah. The first lounge kind of had like golden corral vibe. Okay, it was like a buffet and a bunch of open seating and a lot of people.

And the other one had Denny's vibes, dude. It was nice. Denny's a nice. The other one had like, yeah, like steakhouse vines. How much are we talking for a day pass? It was like $100. Yeah, $80 to $100. But when you're there for seven hours, it's worth it. You get unlimited free food, desserts, drinks. It was awesome.

It was great. Super nice little lounge area. They have a weight staff. Yeah, unlimited. food, like what we, what we, the comparable value of what we consumed in that lounge at an airport might have been like three to four hundred dollars. At least. You're like stashing up. I was, I was there by myself for about three hours and I was just like so giddy to be in there, getting all this pretty good, nice free food. I literally FaceTime my mom. I don't do that very often.

I was just like, I got to tell someone, I was like, hey, mom, I made it to Vancouver. I'm in a lounge. Look at all this food. And I just like, turn the camera. And I've got like, three tiramisu things out here. Two entrees. It was delicious food. It's so fun whenever you're like, like an all inclusive resort or whatever, where it's like the food is unlimited.

So you can be like, I don't know if I like tiramisu, but yeah, I'll try it. I'll try it. And that's exactly what we did. Lounge that I've been to is kind of what you're describing

where it's kind of like just a buffet, where it's like you're almost just paid for the seating. It's like, well, at least I have a place to sit. Yeah.

But this sounds actually nice. This one was nice. I had someone check in on me every two minutes. I was sitting at this table by myself. They kept coming around. You need anything? They had menus. I would order. They'd bring it out to me. It was like a full-up restaurant. It's always good when there's no prices on the menu. Yeah, dude. It was point and click.

But yeah, I went through the same thing. I got there and I could see Isaac, like, you walk in, there's a desk. I can see Isaac back in this nice lounge. Hey, man. It's like, yeah, my friends over there, can I, and they're like, oh, that one's expensive. You're only here for two hours. It's not worth it. You know, whatever. And I was like, no, my friends over there. I want to go to that one. Why don't I tell you what's worth it? Bring me six rib-eyes. So she's like, no, just trust me. And so I'm thinking I can get there, like, the back way or whatever.

And so I pay for the Golden Corral one. And I walk around and I just like, no, dude, you got to go to this other one. And so I had to walk back to the desk and be like, I understand it's more. I understand it's not worth it. I want to get it. It was so funny. I was filming him. I was filming him.

He couldn't get it. I'm like, loser. Yeah. So I paid a second transaction to get into there. And then, yeah, we just had the time of our. lives for a few hours in Vancouver. Vives were high. Vives are very high. And we get on the flight at 2 a.m. in Vancouver. We had been up at this point for 20 hours. I don't know how long. Yeah. Up for a long time. We downloaded a like a sleep tracker or like oh yeah, Jake told us but it's like called

time shifter. Jake told us about it and it like tells you when you should go to bed. Oh cool. When you should be up when you should consume caffeine. So like yeah, where are you going? When are your flights? Yeah. This is the optimal time to sleep. It's pretty nice. Yeah, it was pretty much like take a power nap as soon as you get on the flight and then stay awake for like six or seven hours and then sleep for the last little bit. So our plane, like we thought we were going to have a middle seat occupant and we just kept waiting for them to board the plane. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, I know. Yeah. We just kept waiting from the board of the plane and finally like nobody was coming and our middle seat was still open. And that's Isaac and I were just, I mean, it was, that was the best thing about the plane.

Yeah. Because outside of that, I think I texted the guys. I was like, it was gross. This plane is very old. Yeah, the seats were. No Wi-Fi. No Wi-Fi. Yeah, no Wi-Fi.

Like, literally no connectivity to the outside world for 13 hours. Yeah. You texted something, you're like, this has to be the, like, oldest plane that still flies internationally. It had to be. Yeah, that's what, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, this is dangerous. It was janky.

I mean, they had screens that showed like a flight tracker, but. They have movies on the screens at least? Yeah, yeah. And I had, I mean, I had ways to entertain myself, but because I can't sleep on planes. Isaac is like a machine. Really? I learned from the best. Yeah.

Jake Triplett. Yeah. On tour, I really did have to learn. I was just like kind of peek back at Jake. And it's like before we've taken off. And he's already gone. I'm like, how is he doing this? I don't get it.

I know so many times on flights like there and on the way back, I just look over at Isaac. And he's just. Yeah, as it goes down. Yeah. And I'm like, how do you sleep? like that. I try to go back, but then I end up like this. I'm always down. Yeah. I'm a head on the big twitcher. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, do you try though? I tried. Yeah. I mean, I might have got. Did you like shut your eyes and like, do you know how to fall asleep?

No, dude. I look over and Scott's like, I, I don't know, dude. Tell me more. Because I, in my head, I'm like, if you close your eyes for enough time, you're going to fall asleep. That's how I am. I have to do it for like 30 minutes. Yes. Sometimes it takes a long time. It takes a long time. Yeah. But then you'll fall asleep. It sounds like you just don't have that dog in you know. I don't have the sleeping dog in me. And it's like all things considered an economy seating on international flight that was like as comfortable as I could be. Because I had a window seat. We had footroom in front of us. The chairs reclined. I had a pillow. I had my neck pillow. I had everything to be comfortable as comfortable as possible. And I still just couldn't like I might have dosed off for 30 minutes and then

back up. That's crazy. Being that tired like pulling it all night or and still can't sleep. I also can't sleep, even if it's like a little bumpy, I can't sleep. Really? Are you a light sleeper at home? No. I'm like dead to the world. But yeah, if it starts bumping and I felt like the universe was conspiring against me on all flights as soon as I would try to sleep, I'll have some bumps here. The dude is a divo when traveling internationally. It's like we knew Scott was a diva, but my goodness. Yeah. At least he's like probably kept his thoughts to himself and like didn't talk. Yeah, yeah. I didn't verbalize. Yeah, he didn't like verbally process anything with you.

No. Man, I verbally processed a lot. I remember a text I received. I think you guys were still in Vancouver. So I'm guessing, like, you're starting to get an idea of who's on this plane with you as the gate fills up. And Isaac sends in quotation marks a text from Scott that said, you know, sentence that said that Scott that said, I didn't. What was it? I need.

I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't prepared for being surrounded by this many Asians. We're going to China. It's like I knew. I think I said, oh, you just wait, brother. Yeah, I'm trying to, I'll see if I can find the text, but I'm pretty sure I was just like, I knew this was going to happen, but I was unprepared to just like only be surrounded by Asian people. Scott was experiencing, there there'd be like more like NBA basketball teams.

Scott was experiencing culture shock before we had boarded the plane. Here we go. Just to update you, Jake. Scott just said this. This is something I should have prepared myself for, but it's truly wild being surrounded by Asians. Yeah, Scott's in Vancouver. He's like, some people talk differently here, bro. I don't know if I can do this.

We're in the international travel. He's like, no one speaks English. Yeah. So all that to say, Isaac and I, massive travel day. We get to China. We had a blast together. Yeah, we did have a lot of fun. But no luggage.

And we realized that we needed to get our bags in Vancouver and then recheck them. We don't know about this. I'm not confident about this. Isaac doesn't think that's the case. Because this is still. I've traveled internationally before and it's like abundantly clear when you travel internationally if you have to recheck your bags. Like there's no other option other than to like go through customs, get your bag, recheck it.

It was not clear in the Vancouver airport. Yeah, there was no place to go do that. No place to go do it. I also checked, gate checked my carry on bag in Seattle and when we got, huh? Seattle to. Vancouver first and then to China. So I gate check that one. Okay.

And you lost that one too? Huh? Did you lose that one too? No. Oh, you can't check it. Okay. Yeah, I wasn't able to get it back. They're like,

China Southerner already has it. And so when we get to baggage claim, I tell Scott, I'm like, dude, I'm almost certain that my carry-on bag is not going to make it. Comes out pretty quick. I'm like, oh, great, we're good.

Then the big boys don't make it. And so because of that, I'm like, I don't know if we had to, I think we just got really unlucky. Because our bag tags in Kansas City said MCI to CAN, which is the airport code for Guangzhou. So I'm not told. Yeah. That's rough when you're going to Canada.

Yeah. I'm not fully convinced that it was our fault. Yeah. Whatever the reason was, we had no bags. So then we have to like file this paper report with this guy at the baggage desk. Paper report wasn't even English. But like I'm leaving there. I'm like, we just filed a piece of paper

and they're supposed to find our bag in Vancouver and get it here on the next flight. Like there's no way this is happening. I mean, I was, I'm generally very optimistic and I was like, there's no chance. I mean, I just lost $1,500 worth of Lulu Lemon. Like, it's all gone. Diva.

Scott's like following the claim with insurance for it already. I put the greatest hits in that luggage and they're all gone. I was in pretty good spirits. I was laughing. I'm like, this sucks, but we're going to get it. They're like, there's a flight. through China Southern that gets to Guangzhou

Saturday morning, it's like, okay, great. Like this happens at airports. People lose their luggage and then it's recovered. Yeah. It was tough in a like a little bit, tough to believe that we'd get it when you don't speak the same language as them and it's hard to understand what they're telling you.

Yeah, so what was the plan as far as like, all right? Like, how do you start when you don't have any luggage? So luckily we had about like one change of clothes, but... And my toiletries were in my carry-on. Our manufacturer... Yeah. Leo and Vic, the guys are just amazing. So we get in the car and we tell them about this.

They're laughing. They think it's the funniest thing that we lost our luggage. They greeted us with flowers again, which was great. Okay, flowers. And McDonald's. But like the first thing that we did was when we got to the city that we were staying in was go to a shopping mall. And we had a great time in the shopping mall.

So we drive about three hours inland once we land. Yeah. To the city where our factory is. What's the city? Hoping? Hoping, but it's spelled hepping. Okay. But it's pronounced hoping.

Okay. Spelled hepping. Hepping. He's pronounced hoping. Hoping. But it's spelled hepping. Okay. From being over.

So we're like, I think we're far enough inland into China where it's, and it's very apparent that for a lot of people, we might be the first white Americans they've ever seen with their own eyes. Okay. So we're walking around this shopping mall and, I mean, heads are turning. Like, people are giggling, heads are turning. And so we find that we go to like this, I don't know, just a sporting good type of apparel shop in the mall.

And our manufacturer explains to the store people there, like the situation. And then all of a sudden we have this army of employees. We're the only people in the store. Army of employees just catering to our every needs. No way. We're telling me what we need. Like, hey, we need some short. You're Chris Tucker and they're like.

Yes. It was hilarious. Jodai. Jodai. How big is the waist? Let's go in. Yeah. Puck skin.

It was funny because it's wintertime there. It's like 60. I did. Quote rush hour to a lot. I was like, lay homa, girl. But it's like 60 degrees there, and they have all of their winter stuff out there. So they don't even have shorts or t-shirts.

We're telling them we need shorts and t-shirts. Then they're going to like the back of the store into like little warehouse area digging through boxes for us. Throwing out shorts, throwing out shirts for us. They don't even have shorts available. No, there was literally like we go to every store. We're looking for t-shirt shorts. It's very simple.

and there's nothing. It's just like long sleeves or pants. Because even like in the dead of winter here, there would be shorts at Dick's. Exactly. Along with other good things at Dick's Morning Goods. Great store. Yeah.

Incredible amazing. Yeah. But yeah, it was just so funny because every, we had to go to cut. We had to get like shorts and shirt. We had to get shirts at one store and socks. And then we had to go to another store to find shorts. Another store to get underwear.

Underware was an experience. Yeah. But it's like every story. Double Xels for your boy. Yeah. They were snug. Not comfortable. I was curious about that.

I was like, I bet the size is like, I'm wearing double XLs and they were hugging. Yeah. I think I wore Excel shirts, maybe an Excel underwear. A small underwear. Underwear was the same size. What size did you get? Is it double XL? Yeah, me too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. But it was funny. I mean, it was just like a, it felt like a very unique shopping experience. One of the girls that was working. We're telling them we need. And you're like so dead tired right now, too. Right. I mean, I was laughing. I was having a great time. It was just so funny.

Adrenaline kind of kicks in, but yeah, we're exhausted. I mean, especially like you haven't got any sleep. I've surprisingly felt really good. But 40 hours? Dude, just tell him you're tired. I was tired. I was tired. I was like, I didn't need that. I'm just saying, move. I understand you were, but like literally you hadn't been asleep for 40 hours or whatever it was. That's all. So you were, you were tired. I was so tired. Yeah. I couldn't believe. Good answer. I was like, shorts, please. I didn't need that. I'm just saying this is this you literally went

from the airport to this place is all I'm trying to make sure went to the hotel dropped our stuff off the malls attached to the hotel there was one girl

that was like the cash register or whatever cashier sorry I'm just laughing She's Asian she's very smart I'm going to Chris Tucker over over again

I think we're in you know She was giggling the whole time like giggling pulling out her phone recording us, taking selfies with us. It was great. Yeah, she wanted a picture with us and just like the whole touch. Just giggling the whole time. It is so funny. Like, what do you think

their exposure to white people is? Like, obviously they don't have YouTube and Instagram, but they've seen American pop culture, right? Probably about the same as Scott's exposure to Asians, apparently. It's not much. Not much. Like, have they seen American movies at least? Have they seen like... That's what I'm saying. I don't know. Like, the way they were looking at us made me think that they I hadn't seen a white person ever. Yeah. Like in any form. Especially in like inland China.

And if they were younger, it was typically a lot of the younger people that were staring, that were kids around, those were the people that were staring and laughing. Because they definitely haven't been out of China. Older people were just like, hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think Matt went for a jog like one morning and just, I mean, heads were just cranking. Like, I mean, imagine seeing a white guy just jogging through your town.

He's got a six-pack. I mean, he's pretty lean. Yeah. Yeah. You can't get your attention in any city. Yeah. But, yeah. I mean, the shopping experience was pretty freaking funny.

Yeah, shopping experience was great. From there, we pretty much just went straight to the factory and got down to it. How did it compare to your expectations? The factory? Yeah. I was actually really impressed. I feel like the, you know, the connotation of like stuff made in China. It's like awful working conditions.

Like, wow, I would never want to be there. But they actually was like. putting together iPads. Yes, exactly. But no, it seemed like very professionally run. Like all the guys we dealt with were very professional and knowledgeable. And we went in the factory. Yeah, people had like nice working stations, good working conditions.

They were telling us about like this huge party they're throwing for all their employees at the end of the week. One thing I could not get over though is the work hours. Like this is one where it's like, like yeah, they work nine to nine six days a week. I was like what? Right now, right now they are. I don't think it's always like that. No, I think it is. is like typically 10 hours, 10 hour days.

Leading up to Chinese a week. But I think leading up to Chinese New Year, they've been grinding for us. So shout out. Shout out to them. Yeah. And they have apartments on site that people like stay in so you don't really like leave the process. A lot of the factory workers don't live in the same city as the factory. So they'll stay there for a couple weeks at a time.

Their family will come and stay in like the, which I didn't, I didn't think I like understood that the first time we went. I don't think so either. Yeah. Yeah. But one thing I will say. So, yeah, had a good day of the factory, and then we went to our first dinner. And I heard, I mean, horror stories from Jake and Isaac and Matt the first time around. So going into this dinner, dude, I don't think I don't even think I express this to you.

I was like almost sick to my stomach nervous. Like, I was genuinely nervous because I was starving too. And I was like, I'm not going to be. I'm not going to be turkey foot. Yeah. And I just was like, I don't know what's going to be put on this table. And we got into the restaurant and it smelled. bad like it just i feel like china just in general smells like like frying oil

cabbage kind of thick yeah just like yeah and so i was like i was really nervous for that dinner and foody too i yeah i love food yeah and honestly like the first dinner it was probably the worst of the week but i think it was still better than most of what you guys had yeah and i will say this time for for me i didn't explore as much if something the parasite was a little bit picky. If something came around that I knew I wasn't going to like, I didn't, I wasn't going to be like, I'll try it because I'm here. I did that the first time around.

You didn't try like everything. No, there was I mean, I tried a lot. Like there was a few things, there's a few things where I said I was never going to try, but like one of the first dishes they brought out because everything's on, it's like a lazy Susan. It's a rotating kind of big table. So they just plop dishes on there. You grab it as you go and

one of the things they brought out was like a whole chicken. You know, it obviously has been cut up and everything. Chicken heads on there. I think we did. Chicken heads on there and it just looks like it was just... Well, it was cut up. Oh.

The head was on there. I thought I was like, imagining one with feathers and like walking around. Yeah. I'm kind of. Yeah. But it looked like it had been plopped into just boiling water

and nothing else. Like, I mean, it was just like the skin was still on and it was like a nasty yellow color and I tried one piece of that with like this garlic dip that you're supposed to dip in and it was, that might have been the worst thing I tasted all week.

Because that's like the safe thing. That's what I thought. That was one of the first bites of the night and I was like, oh, we're in for a long night. But there was some, they had some like on the flight there, Scott, we get meals on the flight or whatever. Meal comes out and Scott. It's like sweet and sour chicken basically. He said, this food looks sucks. And I said, oh, you just wait.

Oh, you just wait. You're in for a treat. If you think this looks sus, good luck. So what were the foods you passed on that first night, like the nasty ones? Oh, man. They were too suss. There was one thing that was like, it was like, Scots out here using suss. Scots out here using suss.

Cs. Riz. It was cringed. The Chinese pizza was one that I did not try. They brought that out right away. It was like, not again. Like oysters. Oysters, octopus, shrimp.

Yeah, fish eggs all on this like, I don't know what the crust was. But I did not try that. There was one thing I tried that was really nasty. It was like pork. inside of this bitter melon and boy, did they name that melon properly. It was, it called it bitter

so bitter. Do you think that these, so Leo, was that? Oh yeah, dude. Do you think that they understand what they're doing to you guys? Yeah, I think a little bit because the first time when we were there,

we would ask Vic like, like, what is this? And then he would like translate it and he would be giggling the whole time. I think they were trying to give us the... I actually think this, the first, time that we went, they were maybe trying to mess with us a little bit. Like, let's give them the full experience.

Let's bring out some crazy foods that we know Americans are going to be like, whoa. Seerchin soup I had, the first meal. Seerchant soup. This is my first meal. I have a video of you eating that. It's so fun. I'm like, how is it? Jake's tried to be polite.

He's like, no, not good. Dude, it's great. Thank you guys for this. Yeah. It was so funny. I love that video. Don't do it. Don't do it.

But, yeah, I think just going, like, staying on the meal, trend. The night to dinner was actually pretty dang good. It was like a Seshwan style restaurant, so kind of spicier foods. I did try cow stomach on that one. And the texture is not great. The taste was fine. Yeah. And then they had some, what were some of the other dishes that second night? They had goose, which I didn't try because that thing looked nasty. It had some like spicy beef that was actually pretty good. See, that's funny. Like, goose is one of the few things I could have in China. I had to load up on goods. It was kind of a bummer for you when you're there because most of the things that were like halfway decent is any sort of beef.

Yeah. And obviously Jake can't have that. Yeah, they had some good beef dishes for sure. All good for me. I will say, we ate a lot more McDonald's this time around, which was awesome. So we only went out to like those lazy Susan. We only went out to those lazy Susan restaurants for dinner. But lunches, this trip, it felt like we got a lot more work done in the factory.

And so we stayed at the factory and had McDonald's delivered to us. and it was awesome. And we had a McDonald's right down the street from our hotel, so we got breakfast there every day. So literally, like, I've never eaten so much McDonald's in a three-day stretch. What kind of McDonald's?

Like, what are you eating for McDonald's? It was like good fried chicken. Matt was obsessed with the fried chicken. It was hilarious. Yeah, Matt, if you asked Matt, that was Michelin-starred fried chicken

from McDonald's. I was like, that's fine. It's fried chicken, but he was like, he was going crazy. But we had like... I had a Big Mac.

Yeah, sausage McMuffins for breakfast. Okay. They had some interesting stuff on the menu too. Like, I'm trying to remember some of the other things. I didn't get like an egg burger like I didn't. Yeah, a scrambled egg sandwich or whatever.

But it tastes like it would hear. Tastes better probably. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was great. But yeah, and then the third night, we went to this hot pot place. I don't know if you've ever eaten hot pot, but I've heard of it. Yeah, essentially just, I've had it. Yeah.

You just have a boiling pot of water and then the lazy Susan comes around with like raw, thin sliced beef or vegetables or whatever, and you just dunk it in the pot to cook it, dunk it in like a really nice sauce. that you make and then eat and that was like it doesn't matter where you are in the world that was a good meal that wasn't like oh it was good for china like that was good if I would have ate it like you would eat that here yeah yeah it was good and that was the first time that like Leo and Vic and the other factory workers got to see me eat and they enjoyed it they just kept loading up these raw plates of beef they were just like pile I was done eating they got to see the worker to tell him the worker to bring me out more food and they're just like piling it on I do I if we can include

a video clip, like I will send you a clip of Isaac. So the pot is boiling in front of you. So it's a little toasty in there. Isaac is like dripping sweat. I think he has the meat sweats and like the actual hot sweats. He's doing the Nathan's hot dog challenge. Yes. Yeah. So he's like, you can literally see this video. He's got he's dripping sweat. And then they brought out like another thing of beef, like another plate of beef because Isaac was just going to town. He might have eaten two pounds of beef. Let's go that night. It was good. And Leo's next to him just like basically. holding the dish and just dumping it into Isaac's boiling water. Probably like a pound of meat.

He just picks up the whole thing off the plate and just scoops it in to my hot pot. Scott, what's he saying as he's doing it? You eat more beef. You appetite. You eat so much. I'm just saying some other wild things. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that can't be shared on the podcast of what came out of Leo's mouth.

Leo and I, we obviously bonded the first time around. those two together are something. We really bonded this. The guy's just like a little nut job. I would just like call him cute. He's just like cute and I just have the time of my life with him.

He's so funny. Is he the one that I saw a picture of you and this Chinese guy that you look at the airport. Yeah. That's Leo. So happy together. Isaac and Leo are like peanut butter and jelly

in China, man. Best buds. So funny to be around. But yeah, as far as all things considered as far as meals go, that was one of the things I was most scared of on this trip, and it ended up being just fine.

That's what I'm saying. I wonder if, like, there's a lot more hot pot experiences out there that you're not getting and you're getting more of like these ridiculous ones. There's probably plenty of good food in China. Right. Try to a little beef tongue to Beijing or Shanghai or, you know, like you can pray, you know, get a McAllister's deli there. You probably got some nice and sweet deal.

McAllister's del. One funny story with Leo, this was. Scott's password on his phone. What is it? I see him. He's got the six-digit pass where he just goes, one, one, one, one, one. Oh, that's good.

That's good. Well, okay, so my phone, my phone when I had smucker on here, you had to have a, you have to have face ID or pass code, and which is super annoying, because I don't want that on my phone. And so I just, yeah, whatever. I haven't taken the face ID off because banks, jacks with my phone all the time, and I want them getting into it. So, classic.

Yeah. Now you know. One, one, one, one. There's one funny story. We were in the factory. We were in the testing lab because one of the big things that we were doing while we were there was running all of these ridiculous tests on our paddles so that it gets what's called UPA approved so that Rachel Rohrabacher, I'm sure Jake has explained so that she can play with it.

So we're running a bunch of those tests. We're in the lab. And at times it gets pretty loud in there because they're firing balls at machines. And so I put on like these big headphones and then I start dancing like I'm listening to music. And Leo is like recording me just giggling And I'm like twerking, looking back at it And he is just like laughing, filming this. I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

And then later that night at dinner, he's showing all of the other people at dinner This video of like me twerking and it's so funny. And then he goes to me and he's like, what you call it? Gay, I have gay cousin. Gay cousin. I sent video to him.

Look what he responded. So we responded in Chinese, obviously, and I translate it. And the first text is an emoji with hard eyes. The next text translates to, that butt is so upturned. Great translation. And then the next text translated to the F-bomb. The butt is so upturned. Yeah.

We quoted that a few more times on the turn. And that butt is so upturned. Yeah. Leo was making a lot of other references to Isaac's sexual references the whole trip. And it was quite funny. So time of China, I mean, from what I know, very productive, got a lot done. Great with, you know, paddle, QC and everything. Any other stories from there? You want to go on to Malaysia?

First day in Scott said, I can't wait to get out of this place. That's all I'll say. Did I? Yes. I was like worried. I'm like, is Scott not going to have fun on this trip at all? No, it was a little bit of cultural culture shock. Like the first day, I was just like, I mean, we stopped at a gas station and it was like no place I'd ever been on planet Earth.

I remember that. Our first gas station. Yeah. Middle, nowhere. Just like things are not on shelves. They're on pallets and they're, you know, it's just like. The one that we stopped out was like very nice. It was almost like a shopping mall.

Yeah. Our experience was different. Our experience was grungy and gross. Yeah. This one was nice. This one. Oh, yeah, it was just, yeah, it was like. You just walk in.

There's like a couple restaurants. but it's just like the food that they're displaying is nothing I've ever seen before. And like, vacuum sealed chicken feet. Yeah. We wanted to grab just like some snacks for the rest of the drive. And it's like there's no beverages I recognize. There's no snacks I even think I want to eat.

Like we ended up getting some pringles, which like you obviously can tell it because it's in like a tube of a can. Yeah. You know, so it was just some culture shot. And I walk in the bathroom at the gas station. I didn't have to go number two. But I just like,

I just walk past the stall and you just see a hole in the ground. Yeah. You didn't have to go number two then, but you did at some point. I did do the squat later on. But yeah, they don't have toilets. It's just a hole in the ground and you just kind of squat down and let it rip. So I did that twice when we were at the factory. I had to go.

So nowhere they have toilets. We had our hotel had toilets. And I didn't see any other public place that had toilets. Do you think most people's homes have toilets? Probably not. Really? I mean, it functions like a toilet because you flush it, but yeah, it's on the ground. Is that like a, is it tough to aim?

Aim for one or also just like your quads get sore from squat. No, it's kind of like a catcher's squat. Well, you probably don't do it for a lot. I also don't take as long as Jake, 30 minutes. Jake's legs would be on fire. Jake's catching seven innings of no-hit ball. Fastball right down the middle.

That's funny. But I mean, that's why I think I even told Isaac too. It's like, yeah, you're not spending time on your phone and those stalls. No, yeah, it's a wall sit. You're squatting in and out. But I mean, you get all the way. I got all the way down. So I was like, too far down.

I wasn't like in like a parallel. Scott was actually sitting on the ground. Legs up. He's sitting. No, it's pretty easy to aim. You just kind of put your hole on its hole. What do you mean aim? Just line up the holes.

But no, I did come to. I mean, I obviously still very much preferred Malaysia, but I did come to it. Appreciate China a little bit more. that first day was rough though for sure yeah but that like so leaving china this was the final like piece of the china story that we have to talk about so obviously like we we bought some clothes a couple outfits and going to malaysia i'm like i'm not i'm not sure how upturned was your butt my butt was very upturned that wasn't the only thing upturned uh so we're like okay we

should probably do laundry you know our last morning just in case uh because who truly i at this one i'm still like 10% or no, I mean. At this point, Vic had like called the airport. That's true. He was translating for us. They said that they had found our bags in Vancouver and they were going to be put on the flight. So we're feeling pretty good. We felt good, but I wasn't a hundred percent convinced that we were going to get all our clothes back.

They were going to go to, they were going to fly them to China. Yes. I didn't know if you meant like they were going to fly them to Malaysia. It's pronounced hoping that's felt differently. No, they were going to take it to to the Guangzhou airport. We were going to pick it up right before our flight to Malaysia and then check it and, you know, go.

Yeah, that's a tough window, though. Like, it was. Well, initially they were going to like, we'll bring them to your hotel. And we're like, no, no, no, don't bring them to our hotel. We're leaving that day. We need to get them before our next flight. Yeah. Got it.

So we're already in kind of a time crunch. Let's do some laundry that morning, just have clean clothes just in case. So Matt gets up early and puts everybody's laundry. And I think you might have gotten up with him. I didn't. But puts everybody's laundry in. And he's like, we got a problem. And he's like, it takes 30 minutes to wash and three hours to dry.

and we're like, what? What do you mean? And then he ended up not being able to, the washing machine like locked and he couldn't get it out. Well, it's like a public. Yeah, one, it took Matt 30 minutes how to figure out how to work this thing.

He said he had three workers come up. They're going talking all the story. He was up there for 30 minutes. He comes back down. I'm talking to him. He's like, I need to take a break. I can't talk anymore. I don't know what I just experienced with the laundry.

Like tags you in. Yeah, you go to the factory. Then we come back. to the hotel to grab all of our clothes that are supposed to be dry and then go to the airport. So, well, Matt's clothes, your guys' clothes had dried.

Mine did not dry after the first drying cycle. They were still soaking wet. Isaac's clothes were boiling hot. It was sopping wet at the same time. Yes, it was the weirdest thing ever. So then we ran another drying cycle. We went to the factory for about an hour, came back, hoping they're a little bit dry.

There's still like two hours. Hoping. Hoping. Spelled up. Spelled hell. We come back to the hotel for me to quick run in to get the laundry and then get back in the car and go. I go up there, turn off the machine, like pause the thing. We also have Isaac's phone so he like can't use, because Matt and I were going to go grab like some snacks.

And Isaac had, he was the only form, he was the only form of payment because he downloaded like whatever alley pay or something you have to use. So we were going to go buy stuff. So he's up there like without any means of translation. To communicate to these people. Just raw dog in translation. Dryer. I pause it. I think it's going to be easy.

I brought my suitcase up there. Dryer is off and I try to open the door and it's locked. And I am up there like trying to figure it out, pressing buttons. It is staying locked. So eventually I have to run down and be like the dryer is law. I can't get into it at all. So then Vic comes up with me. He's trying to figure out.

He can't figure it out. Gets a guy at the front desk from the hotel. to come up there. So now I'm the one with two people going back and forth. I'm not understanding anything. The thing will not open at all. So then we decided, I mean, at this point, it's been 30 minutes. Then we decided, all right, we have to run a load and wait for the load to finish before I can get my close out. So luckily there was like a 10 minute like steam cycle. We ran that, waited for it to finish. And then it opened up. I see water being poured into the machine. Yeah. No, it's a wrong way. So after the 10 minute cycle. It's done. I open it up. Clothes are dripping and I just have to toss them in my

suitcase. Dripping? Yeah, quite. That's a little. I mean, I could ring water out of them for sure. Toss them into my suitcase. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Hey, your your your suitcase is over the weight limits. 88 pounds. Sorry. Like, wow. Yeah. Isaac, do you like coffee? I love coffee. Would you ever spend a lot of money on something that makes coffee? Like, uh, machine like espresso machine yeah yeah I would you would invest I would totally do it and do you regret get away for that's got espresso machine no I don't regret it at all do you think all that I need from that point on you don't have to open it to get our good beans are good beans there's a all I need from that point on after I have the

espresso machine we're doing an affirmation well I'm trying to give him to sniff and he's about to rip it apart like a bear here just there's holes in the front no you don't have to open it either there's there's holes for you to sniff out of every coffee bag has yeah no but there's not on this not super familiar with coffee bags. You have to just like, I sniff it every week. Let me sure you're where the holes are.

Show me the, oh, right there. Same place they always are. So if Jake would have said there's holes on the front of it, I probably would have understood it. I wish you would have told me that.

Once you have a really nice machine, all you need from then on now is beans. All you need from then on is beans and you can make the best coffee as long as you have good beans. And you have to have like a cup to put it in. You have to have a cup, but you can reuse that cup.

You can reuse that cup. But then it's like super, affordable. I've saved so much money on coffee. Yes. And I make sure to get good beans. Yes. That makes a difference. Good beans. Good beans. Good beans right here. Main Street Roasters beans, boy. How does that smell? Scott.

Those beans are nice. I actually remember I got a big five-pound bag of Main Street Roosters. Loved every five pounds of them. It was awesome. Was that Brandeboos season? Just the one. You got an open bag of these? We can try? I got an open bag of home. Do you? Oh, Southern precond pie? No, I don't have southern precond pie at home. I want to try that.

Well, hey, take that one home. Yeah. And you know what? Next time? Yeah, for my coffee maker at home. Yeah. Scott's not, you know, make coffee. Okay, I'll give you a coffee maker.

Okay. Easy. GRKC is our promo code. It's 10% off, right, Scotty? Yeah. Good deal. Do you know the URL? Mainsre Roasters.

com slash GRKC. Just Mainstero.com. Use the promo code. Check them out. It's Mastroosers. It's the best coffee. This side of the, the Malaysian Divider. Malaysian Divide.

South China Sea. north of the equator Ring it up Ring it up We'd be saying that You remember guys But all that to say that like That put us kind of behind the A ball

In terms of time Because we're driving three hours to The airport And we allowed We like we got there pretty early We were trying to get there Two and a half-ish hours before So we get there

And then we're waiting Where they told told us to wait for our bags. I call them and they're like, yeah, we'll bring them out. That was a more complicated conversation than I expected to be. But we still had to wait like 25 minutes or so

before finally this guy comes out with our luggage on a cart. It's the best feeling ever. I mean, just italation, just pure elation. I wanted to go up and like kiss him on the forehead. But we got our bags and then we go upstairs and just the whole like international travel. So dumb.

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Please play response. We wait in this long line to go. Waiting line sucks. To go check our bag. And then we are ready to check our bag. She's like, you got to go back over to that desk to pay for your bags. And I'm like, what do you mean? Let's pay right here.

Like, we can't pay right here. He has all he pay on his phone. Yeah. So we, she like checks our bag. She's holding our boarding passes hostage. We go over here, pay at just this like what looks like an information desk. And this guy just has like a manual calculator. And then a card machine.

And I'm like, what? This is how you pay for bags here? That is kind of funny. Yeah. He's like, okay, there you go. Call it 200. Yeah. And so we ended, and it was expensive too.

I think to check multiple bags because we, we were bringing four bags full of paddles. And so we each had multiple. I think it was like $330 to check a second bag on this flight. It was crazy. And so anyways, we go back and then we are like, we get our bags checked. We go to get some currency. We're exchanging dollars for ring it. Well, Matt had went to go do this by himself.

And then he was like, I wasn't able to get any currency. They said they needed two passports. We're like, yeah, like two. So if one person is trying to get cash, they can't get it. They need two. So then I go and give them my passport and they say, oh, yours doesn't work. I was like, what? They're like, have you used it to get money here before?

And I was like, like last year, I think they're like, oh, yeah, we can't use yours. Can't do that. What? If you've used, like, if you've used the calculator, yeah, that's not going to work. So anyways, we go provide the two step very. verification. I give them my password. We go get in line security, go through security. I take more stuff out of my bag post security than I've ever had to in my life. I mean, charging cords, power banks, toiletries, like everything they're wanting to look through. I'm like, okay, whatever.

We get through there. Then we got to go wait in a customs line. Get through the customs line. We're all starving at this point. We find a subway. We can't communicate to this guy what we want for our subs. They take forever to make the subs. and we finally get down to our gate and the entire, like, we're eight minutes late for when they started boarding, the entire plane is already boarding. I'm having, I'm having a good time.

Scott is complaining, being a diva. I'm like, it's fine. Matt, Matt gets his sub. He's going in another shop. He's like, I just did not, I didn't, I should have gotten a full sub. I got to go get another snack, you know. And I'm like calling Matt.

I'm like, dude, forget the snacks. The whole plane is boarded. We were like, I think one of the last couple people on the plane. And so it's like going back and looking at everything that had happened in the previous two and a half hours. I'm like, wow, we kind of. Wow. If my clothes were locked in that dryer for 10 more minutes.

Or if we had to wait any longer for our bags. That is kind of crazy. Yeah. Right. So those are the fun parts of travel. Like you don't get memories like that if you don't travel. Like you don't expose yourself. Well, in the moment, it could be hard to see that.

I told Isaac when we got back to Kansas City after the whole trip, I was like, man, I can't wait for a direct flight from Kansas City to Phoenix. Just a nice, easy travel. Just get on the plane, check my bag, pick it up, we're done. Just get on the plane, follow us, sitting there in my eyes open for dreams. Watch narcos and, yeah. But anyways, we, uh... Blomo. So, we got on the plane to Malaysia and sat next to these two, like, really cool guys.

It was like, my first impression of Malaysia was like these two, you know, mid-20s-year-old guys. Both seem really cool. They speak English. I'm like, you guys are awesome. We can communicate. My brother. It was the most cramped. Scott was like,

you know the word Riz, right? Yeah. They clicked. It was the most cramped plane I've ever been on, though. Really? I think, like, I'm not, I'm six feet tall

and my knees were up against them. I'm 5 foot 11 and a half. And my knees were up against the back seat the entire time. And I was like, I can't imagine what Isaac's going through right now. But it was a very, very cramped. Isaac's asleep.

Yeah. It's like, Isaac, are you uncomfortable back there? Wait, how long was the flight? I have no idea. It was about six hours.

Oh, wow. No, it was four. It was about four hours. Yeah, was four. You need to sleep, you don't really know. I don't know.

Okay. Yeah. That was pretty easy. We got into Malaysia with no, well, actually, we didn't get no hitches. We, you don't need a visa

or anything to get in Malaysia. So, like, we just brought our passports, didn't do anything else. We get in line, we find out, we have to just fill out this pretty simple form.

we scan a QR code. Matt and I fill it out. No problem. It doesn't cost us anything. Meanwhile, Scott's at the back of the line. He doesn't scan the QR code. He just Googles it. Clicks on a like sponsored, random like Visa Malaysian thing. Oh, my God. Fills it out. The six-foot guy did that?

He's like, you guys had to pay $130 bucks to us? And Matt and I were like, what? No. There's a QR code. Scan the QR code. He's like, oh, frick. I think I just got to. scammed. I'm like, yeah, you did.

I don't know what he filled out. I don't know what information you gave him, but probably everything. So, yeah, they're in the front of the line. There's a little thing that has a QR code, like he said, that takes you directly to the government website to fill out this digital act, like digital entry card or something, whatever they call it.

I'm at the back of the line, so I don't see that QR code. Is this the same story you just told? Yes. I'm telling you from my perspective what I saw. I had picked myself. I had picked on this weird thing, I'd have spent $130 in and have to. I'm telling it from my perspective. So far it's the exact same story.

Fast forward to me Googling Malaysia MDAC. I click on the first thing I see because it looks legit. And then it's... So far it's the same. And it says like, get your MDAC in three days or pay $130 to get it in 30 minutes. And I'm like, wait, did we really need to do this multiple days in advance? Yeah. I'm like, let me click the expedited.

And I tell them, like, guys, I got to wait 30 minutes. It's not a little bit like. I got to wait 30 minutes and I just paid $130.30. And they both text back. They're like, I just got mine for free immediately. I was like, oh, well, then I did something wrong. So I ended up. This is probably what led to the next thing that happened in Malaysia.

It could be related. Maybe. Maybe, yeah. Well, for one, then you have these like, yeah. Digital, like, entryway. You just like scan your boarding pass. Then it scans your face. And then it lets you through.

It wouldn't scan my face. because my passport is from like 2017 and I'm a crazy messent boy. I look so young. So I don't think it like recognized my face. So I had to go like talk to an actual person. We get in. We go through customs. We declared goods for our paddles.

We thought we were going to pay taxes on. Turns out they were just like, no, you're good. So we don't need to get into that too much. But get our bags. Our bags all made it there. We've got like nine pieces of luggage. And we had been connected with a guy by the name of P.K., great guy who had bought a bunch of Friday paddles in the past and brought him to Malaysia.

And he was helping us sort out some events while we're there and everything. And we were going to be very busy going from facility to facility. So we wanted to have a driver. So we asked them, we're like, hey, any recommendations for getting a driver? He sends us this transportation service. Website looks very legit. He recommended it to us. So I go on there.

I'm like, we want a private driver for three days. That was going to be a thousand bucks. So I was like, no, we don't need to do this. let's just get a ride from the airport to our hotel. Which, for perspective, a thousand U.S.D in Malaysia is like, you're a millionaire. A lot of money. So the ride from the airport to the hotel ended up being like 80 USD.

So it was like, great. We're getting a big van, nine pieces of luggage. It's an hour drive. I didn't think anything of it. Didn't think anything of it. We load up. Our driver is probably the person in Malaysia that speaks. speaks like the most broken English.

It was the toughest person to understand in Malaysia. But he was nice. We're about 10 minutes out from our hotel. And Copcar drives in front of us on the highway. Lights come on. And then just a hand out the window and waving us over. Pulls us over from the front, which was weird. So we're like, oh boy, here we go.

Our driver, we can tell he is panicking. He immediately gets out of the car. Well, before he gets out of the car, he goes, say we're front, say we're front, say we're front, say we're front. Say we're friends. Say we're friends. Okay. Okay. And then he gets out of the car and like runs back to their, you would never do that in America. That's like the quickest way to get shot in America. He just takes off running. He runs towards the cop. Yeah, he just gets out of the car and then goes to talk to him. We're looking back. He looks, our driver looks like he is in some distress. Yeah. He is talking very fast to him and we're laughing what the heck is going on. Eventually, officer comes up, opens a sliding door.

and is now like questioning us, where are you guys coming from? What's in the suitcases? Luckily, they love pickleballs. We're like, pickleball paddles. He's like, oh, he actually seemed pretty chill. Yeah. And then he's like, did you guys pay your driver?

And I was like, yeah. He's like, how much? I was like, like, 100 USD. He's like, okay, and our driver's standing right there and you could tell he did not like that answer. He's like, I paid my friend that much. Yeah. Yeah.

So then they go back. They talk for about 10 more minutes. And then our driver comes back, opens a sliding door. And he goes, I said, I said to say we're friends. I said to say we're friends. He goes, if you want job, one job. No, he goes, you make, you make. Do you pay friend for, pick you off of that point? He's like, I'm sorry, we didn't know, we just, but.

He's like, grabbing some sort of paper out of his glove compartment. He's like, you make trouble for me. You make a lot of trouble for me. Yeah. Yeah. Make trouble for me. So now we're, I mean, we've been pulled over for 30 minutes at this point. And then he comes over and, okay, real quick, rewining. In hour prior, Scott is talking to these guys that he met on the plane. The one thing they say about Malaysia is that the police.

are corrupt here. He said, that's like the one big issue is the police are just very corrupt. And don't take on any targeted ads, you see. Don't tell them which hotel you're staying at. Anyway, have fun. Like, they take bribes and people have to pay them off and it's just like a mess or whatever. And so eventually our driver then comes back, opens a door and says, we need, I need cash. You have cash. I need money, friend. And immediately, I'm just like, I think I even said out loud immediately. I was like, no way are we about to bribe these guys. So he needs

300 ring it and Matt starts pulling out his wallet and then he just starts reaching in and starts grabbing the money. I see him slip one bill into his pocket and take the other stack in his hand. I'm like, why did he do that? It's like 80 to $100. Yeah, roughly.

And he takes it back and pays the officers and then we get on our way. Yeah. Was he friendly? after that? Yeah, he was cool. Yeah, he was fine. I even left my carry-on bag by accident in his car. We get dropped off the hotel. Ten minutes later, I get a call, thankfully, and he's like, Hey, a friend. Friend. We're friends, right? What fronts? We're friends.

Bag still in here. So, yeah, so he brought my bag back, which was awesome, because, but I'm pretty, I'm fairly certain he was in on it. Like, I think he was in on the whole thing. So the very next day at our first event, we have a lot of people that know us and follow us, and I posted some of this to our story, and they were so apologetic the whole time. I'm so, so, so sorry for your experience last night. We did not want that to be your first. And I was like, no, it's all good. Like, it was just like funny to us.

We're laughing about it. It's whatever. Not a big deal at all. And then they were like, also, you paid up a hundred bucks for that ride? It was like, yeah, they're like, oh, you got ripped off. Yeah. And you had to bribe the officers. Oh, yeah.

Your driver was in on it. So we don't know what happens. I think a lot of the DMs replying said that too. Yeah. They're like, oh, you guys got hosed by everyone here. Yeah. because we gave him like 300. He gave the officer some and basically like came to bring us back change.

And we kind of like just gave him that as form of a tip because we felt bad. We're like we didn't say the right thing at the right moment. So you keep this. And I was like, he was in on that. Yay. That was going to happen. One point he was like 150 each. Yeah.

He's like we had to pay him each something. So. But yeah, that was really the only hiccup in Malaysia. And then the rest of our time there was unreal. Yeah, it's unreal. It was really cool because like Malaysia is, it's just an interesting culture. It's like has enough like Western influence to make you feel like you're kind of home. Like kind of in a big city in the States or something.

But it's also very much an Asian culture and everybody speaks English. So like you can communicate everywhere you go. Okay. Which is really cool. And then yeah, we were just kind of blown away. Our very first event, we were blown away by how many people knew who we were. Like I didn't know. I mean, we've looked at our metrics of like how many Malaysian viewers.

we have. It's like 1.5% of our viewers are Malaysians. And I was like, I think half of our subscribers are Malaysians. Yeah, we get there and people are like immediately filming us. We're getting interviewed by people. Signing paddles, taking pictures, like everybody, I mean, quoting videos back to us and stuff. And that's, people were asking about me my heart rate and yeah, that's good time. Yeah, yeah, they're like that. They're like, Isaac, what's your heart rate at? That's amazing. You got slowed down. Yeah. It's been crazy even since it. I mean, I mean, every day we get tagged in something new that you guys filmed while in Malaysia. Like, people are still making edits of like, I mean, you guys were just like, so one thing that's, yeah, just content machines for other people.

One thing that's really cool is in Malaysia, all of the people are super into social media content. And specifically pickleball right now because the sport is exploding out there. They're all crazy addicted to it. And everyone is like little micro influencers with pickleball out there. So people are filming literally everything. People are filming us constantly. There was one time we were at a facility where a lady. I think filmed us for the three hours straight

that we were on court and then they had a cold plunge and a sauna and we get followed to the cold plunge and sauna in a private room and she's following us behind us just filming the whole thing. I thought you said extra large. Double XL Oh really?

You only have half egg roll in there. I will edit. I will edit. We edit in post But it was funny, yeah, they followed us in there And I thought she was just gonna he's like you're okay being shirtless on camera and I was here like I don't whatever And I thought she just like you know film our initial reaction we both get in the cold tub at the same time It's a rectangular tiny like one person cold plunge I'm like let's just get in there together Who cares so we're like

Cissory and she's for the full two and a half three minutes we're in there Scott and are just kind of like That's hilarious she's just right over our shoulders Still filming. Still filming us. He's like, I have gay cousin. He will love this. We heard about the upturned butt. Yeah, I thought she just filmed us for like 10 seconds and like, okay, enjoy your time.

I mean, we just played three, like, a couple of our events were like challenge courts where two people would come on and challenge us to try and win a free paddle. And it was Monday night and the Tuesday morning, we had six full hours of that. where Isaac and I did not leave the court. And I made the analogy, like, you know, in Space Jam, where the aliens want to, like, chain Michael Jordan up and make all the aliens play against him. Two points. Yeah.

That's kind of what it felt like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, but I enjoyed every second of it, but it was physically exhausting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After it's over. It's summer there. It's humid there.

Yeah. So we had, like, we did that for three hours one night, had a very, like, very little bit of sleep, and then did it for three hours, first thing the next morning. And so getting in this cold plunge was actually like clutch because, yeah, my body felt way better after that. But yeah, that was a, that was a funny experience.

We were on court playing pickleball, I think far more than we were like sleeping. We were getting three or four hours of sleep there night because we'd get home pretty late and then have the shower and like Scott was having to do tickets, like customer service stuff. I was trying to go through a bunch of footage and like put stuff on the stories. I was just like, wasn't even trying to tell us. I was just post something. I'm so tired. We had zero time to like even pull out my phone during the day and even film any of my own

like vertical footage because we were just constantly going. We were late everywhere because an event would end and then people would be just lining up to get autographs or pictures or talk to us about something. So we were just always running late. Every event went an hour late, 30 minutes to an hour late. And then we had drivers that were like picking us up and they were waiting on us. us and I mean it was really everyone in Malaysia was like the maybe the kindest people I've ever met it was so hospitable and just like took extremely good care of us they were driving us everywhere

they were taking us out to meals they were like paying for our meals like no no no like let us pay I mean it was just like people are giving us gifts and buying us snacks and like during the events making sure we had everything yeah constantly asking us coconut water yeah sure coconut water was so go there. Really? I've had it a lot before and I've kind of been like meh on it. At this one club, they brought out some fresh coconut water, the best coconut water ever had. Cold plunge club. Yeah, cold plunge club.

Yeah, cold plunge club was nice. It was one of my favorite of the week. The very first night that we get there, our first day, we have two of our own events, morning and afternoon, you know, pretty exhausted, got three hours of sleep. But then that night, it just so happened the weekend that we were there.

The Miami pickleball club was going to be in Malaysia putting on some events and they brought like major league pickleball team yeah they brought like four of the top we know pro players to Malaysia to do some like exhibitions or whatever at this place called Tomaz pickleball club it might be the nicest pickleball facility in the world yeah like the place was unbelievable the even the logo on the outside of the building was like stunning and then around like surrounding the doors are these massive LED screens with like all of the players like faces on them and everything. The pro shop looks like an apple store.

The pro shop does look like an apple store. It's got a court in it, like nice clothes in there. There's a very nice restaurant in there. And then there's tons of very nice courts with a bunch of space. In the middle of the walkway, there's like palm trees. And then there's an upper level of it with more courts. And then when you get to the very back of the arena, there's like this garage door. And when you open up the garage door, there's like a pickleball arena inside.

With like, I don't know how many seats. 500, a few hundred, a few hundred, but like a very nice court. Really sick atmosphere. Massive video screens on the sides, on the backs, where they've got like the score and all these graphics, like, very well. I mean, the place was like, incredible. Amazing. One of the coolest places I've ever been in.

The coolest place when it comes to pickleball. It was unreal. And even walking through that, like going to this other event, we're getting stopped and people are taking pictures. Like, it was awesome. Yeah, we're hounded by people. But the best thing about the night was when the event, like, started or whatever, before the event started, the, they brought out some pickleball dancers. And they were doing like, pickle girls.

Pickle girls came out. Lights came down. And music was being blasted. They had this choreographed dance that they were doing. It was a long routine, too. Yeah. I mean, it was like a full on, like, half-time show of, like, a college dance team. It's like, this is the thing for your song.

After this, let me show you. a video. We're not going to put it up. I did Shazam a song in one of the clubs. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a long routine and they did two of them and it was just, yeah, I was like I don't, I didn't know how to like react, sit, watch.

You certainly didn't. We were sitting in front row and they were right in front of us. And I just was kind of like I don't know if that was a, I didn't know what like, I don't know what you're supposed to do. They're just all standing right there. Just like, Yeah, they're like bending over throwing

Yeah, they're just like, oh, ceiling in here is really Oh, wow, spray foam is like. Is that noise dampening of that? Yeah, that event was super cool, super fun. That whole facility, unfortunately, it's a big time Yola facility, so they're like, never heard of them. Yeah, who are they? But no, that was a blast.

Pickleball dancers was hilarious. I was like, pickleball is a big deal. out there right now, a big deal. Ragged Sports. It was sold out. People were, like, loving it. The players put on a good show. Shout out to Federico Staxrude and Eric Anzance.

They were great performers. They were playing some of the top Malaysian players. And, yeah, they put on, like, an entertaining exhibition match. One of the top Malaysian players was this girl who we ended up getting to play a few days later in an exhibition match, which was cool. We beat her. Oh, two on one. Twice. no she was really good though uh yeah like as i said they're it's like it's like i was kind of like

america in 2021 when everybody was crazy about pickleball they're just like they're all obsessed but they're probably a year or two behind and skill level i would say they're just there's only a handful of players i would say our level or better and everyone else is just like out there grinding to get better yeah it was awesome yeah it was uh love it yeah we had uh one of the guys that took us from event to event he was a little bit young His name was Melton, great kid. And at one point, he's playing some music. Melton.

Last name, Pot. Melton. We'll get in. We'll get into Malaysian names here in a second. He was playing some music, and all of a sudden he looks at me, he goes, you like, Kendrick? Hey. Is Kendrick?

And I was like, yeah, so he puts on some Kendrick, and he is, like, bop into it. He's rap in every single word, which is hilarious. And then I look back at Scott, and I'm like, should we introduce him to Big X, the plug? was just like a rapper that has some like fun songs that Scott T.J. And Jake, we listen to like whenever we're tournament. We're about to go into a tournament or whatever. So we play him the song called The Largest. He loved it.

He loved it. It was so funny because we're blasts. I turn up the volume. We're blasting it. And he's driving just like this, like popping. It's so funny. The video is hilarious. Oh, this is nice.

It's nice. like this. That's great. Oh, it was great. But yeah, going back to names, it was because we met so many people. And so, like, in these challenge matches, you know, you come up, you say, hey, I'm Scott. You know, what's your name? And it was so funny because, like, about 50% of the time, they'd come up and be like, Jason, Eric, Darius. There was a little kid, like a little, like, boy. Like, what's your name? He goes, Darius.

Yeah. Really? So, are you sure? And so normally when I would greet someone, I would be like, Darius, nice to meet you. I repeat their name. And then sometimes they come up and be like, hey, what's your name? Like, Neng Chowcha.

And I'm just like, nice to meet you. So let's play some ball. Right on, brother. Cool. But it's so funny. Like, you have extremely Asian names and then you have the most American sounding name, like Melton or Melvin. I just love the name, Melton.

I just love the name Melton because it's like, no one's named that in America. Like, that's not. Melton was a good name. That's a random name. But it's like, choose one of the top 100. Like, don't go melt. Yeah. We did have some other, like, pretty cool experiences.

Again, I mean, the people were just so nice and so complimentary of us and, like, complimentary of the brand, the videos, like, everything. So, like, that was really cool within itself. There was one instance specifically where I'm trying to remember. There's two instances I'm thinking of. The first one was a guy came up to us and was just, like, very complimentary. And this was something that meant a lot to me, came up to me. like watched our most recent video where we just kind of did like talking head about our 50,000

subscribers and we all kind of shared how we Scott went from smucker to pickleball full time. Jake quit being a stand-up comedian and I was building furniture and go to college. So shared all that and he came up. He goes, me and my daughter were so inspired by you not going to like college and like she loves it and I just want to say thank you so much for inspiring us. I was like, I was like the coolest thing anyone has ever said it. miles away. Yeah.

Like what is this? To teach his daughter's like an entrepreneurial mindset. Yeah. I was so inspired by that. And yeah, he was like, I think that event started at 8 p.m. He's like, I wish they could have come. It was a late night, you know, whatever. But there was literally some super fans there.

Like there were these two ladies at one event. We were asking random questions about us or our content for people to win shirts or hats or whatever. And we had to tell them to stop answering because they knew like everything. the answer to everything. How old is Scott? They're like 34. What's Scott Stupor?

5.23. Huh. Who does Isaac have a crush on? Duh, what's Isaac Stupor? 4.86 or whatever. And just like, wow. Like, okay. And these ladies were such big fans.

I'm like, man, they're like ghosties. Like they are, I even wrote, what I wrote in my notes was Malaysian ghosties. Yeah. Like, I was like, if you guys live in the United States, they would listen to the Ghostrunners podcast and just eat it up. But yeah, We had a few people that were very, very big fans, which was, yeah, I was not expecting. That's so funny.

I would not have thought that either. Yeah. Yeah, there was one other instance where I remember someone saying, like, something pretty meaningful to the both of us or about Friday. I can't remember what it was, but I wish I did. But all that to say, like, do you remember? No, I'm totally blanking right now. It's hard to remember.

Yeah. But, yeah, dude, the people out there were just, like, so nice and so, so amazing. Food in Malaysia was nuts, too. It was so good. Really? Yeah. good. The first lunch we had there, I was like, this is some of the best food I've ever tasted in my life. Yeah. Yeah. We had this, it was like a, it's a very kind of like Western influenced type restaurant,

but they had like chicken satay with like this dipping sauce that was insane. And they had this like truffle mushroom pizza that was insane. And unfortunately, we, I'm going to eat the shizz out of me. I think I did say that. There's a good chance. But then we also went to this like, satay's got its teeth in me. This like, they've been. This like, they, these corner kind of open-air restaurants. There's no walls, but it's like Indian-Malaysian-style food. I think it's called Nasi Kandar is like the style of food. We had this one dinner just was like tons of food. We each got a Coke. We got this like chocolate milk drink. We got this like orange creamsicle juice, all this food. The guy's super nice. He's like, oh, don't worry about it. I'll

go get it. He comes back. He's like, yeah, it was 30 bucks. I was like, dude, just our drinks in America would have been $30. The whole, like, everybody's, the whole meal was $30. And it was such delicious food. They brought us this thing. It was like this crispy, kind of sweet and crispy, like, fried batter. Yeah, fried batter that was like, I kid you not, like, this tall. You would have loved it.

Oh, I saw those pictures. I don't know what it was. Yeah, it was awesome. They brought it and they just plop it on the table and you just kind of break off pieces and eat it. I'll show you a picture, but it was, yeah, it was pretty cool. They bring it out. I was not what I was expecting, but it's like super thin, crispy.

sweet kind of dough. So you'd be more excited to go back to Malaysia than China. Oh, yeah. Safe to say. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think we probably are going this summer, right? By the time we left, I think the very last night there, Matt comes into our room.

He goes, guys, I think we need to be back here within the next eight weeks. Oh. Wow. Like, Matt, I think we're going to be divorced in eight weeks. Shout out Sam. Shout out Sam. Shout out Sam. Yeah.

Shout out Sam. Thank you, Sam. She held down my. The fort for a week and a half while I was gone. So, but yeah, that was, I mean, it was an overall unforgettable trip. It was super fun to experience with Isaac and Matt and, yeah, just missed you. Miss Jake. We really missed you.

Yeah. But it'll be fun to bring, we're going to bring, you know, the full team back. We'll bring Kyle. We'll bring Rachel. Maybe a hundred different times people would come up to us to introduce themselves and they'd be like, where's the funny guy? Yeah. Where's the funny guy? So it's kind of like, we're like.

We're like, what are we? It's just us. Yeah. It's just us. But people were asking about you a bunch. That's cool. Yeah. That's crazy.

So Malaysia. Who would have thought? Who would have thought they spoke so much English too? Pretty surreal. Was Vietnam also like, did they say that they knew? No. So like I went going to Malaysia, I kind of expected it to be very similar experiences. Boy, was I wrong.

Like Malaysia was just like so much more structured, organized. How many eggs? No eggs. No eggs. One banner though. A nice banner. Nice banner. Nice banner. Yeah, just like way more organized.

Obviously everyone spoke like great English there in Vietnam. It was not that case at all. Like we didn't meet anyone that spoke any English. Granted, we were in Denang, which we've heard from some other people was probably not the place to go for like pickleball. And more people speak a little bit better English in Ho Chi Minh City. and the pickup ball scene is way bigger out there. But yeah. Vietnam was like,

I was expecting like the bikes to be everywhere and people to be swerving everywhere, but it was just like we were on like a normal road, a normal highway and just like driving. They do drive on the other side of the road, though. You almost said wrong side of the road. I love that. They're the wrong color too over there.

And drive on the wrong side of the road. Yeah. What were those bikes called in Vietnam? Grab. Grab was like the Uber app or whatever. So we did get some grab. They have grab out there. So we did get a good handful of grabs when we were in Malaysia.

$7 for a 30-minute ride. A good handful of grab. Yeah. We really got ripped off on that airport ride. Yeah. Once we paid for that one, I was like, wow, we got hosed on the airport. Which I should have known better because Vietnam was the same way. It was $2 to get 30 minutes away.

But. Wallet got upturned. Wallet got up turned. Took a lot of ring it. They didn't have any dong in Malaysia. I was missing dong. Anytime we'd sell a paddle and event, we'd say, ring it up.

Did we say that? Yeah. I did. Yeah, everyone was kind of... Yeah, everyone was saying. I didn't hear that once. Ring it up. It was catching on by the time we left, I thought.

Yeah, it was fun, though. We brought the oras and aura pros. We would all say it together, we would say, one, two, three, ring it up! We were all doing that. I didn't hear it once. Darius was doing it.

That sounds funny. People love the paddles, though. We brought like 150 with us, sold some. Yeah. It's kind of fun that the first people in the world to get the new paddles are people in Malaysia. Yeah, that's kind of fun. Like, the only place you can get, like, reviews of these paddles is like Malaysians. You're going to get Malaysians on Discord.

Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty surreal, though, just like if you'd ever look at your location on a map, realizing how far you were. Yeah. I mean, it's like we're almost on the other side of Australia. Wow. And further north, obviously.

but yeah, I think it was almost 9,500 miles from home. I talked about it on the podcast. It's different. Like when I've had long flights, it's like, oh, hey, it's kind of fun. Oh, you know, I'll download books or shows, whatever. I don't even think about that much. But when you're not the one on the flight, it's crazy how long it is. Like knowing that night you left Vancouver, was it?

No, Seattle. No, they took it from Seattle to be in. Hepping. Hepping. But just like the amount I got done, just while you guys were flying. It was like, I slept all night and then worked all day. And then like, you guys like, all right, we landed. I was crazy what I've gotten done today. That's kind of how it was following Matt's journey back home, like, because he was flying through

Tokyo and stayed in Tokyo for a couple days. And his flight got delayed and then canceled. And just multiple days in a row. I was like, Matt, where are you? Yeah, give us an update, which country are you? Yeah. And he's like, um, four hours from New York City. Wow. Oh, you're like in the Arctic Circle right now. Cool. Yeah. All right, any final words? I don't think so. You gotta come back with us.

Ring it up. Ring it up. Ring it up. Ring it up, baby. We were saying that all the time. People loved it. We did get a few, like at the end of the events. People would be, we'd take a big group photo.

And then sometimes they'd ask for like a video too. So we would go Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And they loved it. Shout out to Kyle for that. Yeah, he's a big catchphrase, Kelly. It was great. That's a good catchphrase. It is.

No, it was just awesome. Super grateful at the end of the day. It was just like, who would have thought? Yeah, really? These places. So it was amazing. It was awesome. Thanks for joining the podcast today, boys.

Thanks for having us. Yeah. Talk about that trip forever. That was a good time. Yeah, I think. It's fun to have Scott out there. You got to experience Scott in Asia. You got to experience Scott in China, specifically.

Like, Malaysia, he's fine, but China. I'll be desensitized by the second trip. Just travel with him internationally. The guy will complain the whole time. I can't wait. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It was a blast.

No, I did have one moment, I think, in the airport in Kansas City when we were about to leave where I was like, I can't believe that six years ago we were playing at Matt Taylor Park in pouring rain. Yes. And now we're so addicted to the sport. Yes. And pouring rain. And now we're flying to Malaysia to play exhibition matches.

Yeah. To like sell your product. Yeah. That was a pretty surreal moment. And I had a couple other pinch me mom. moments just, you know, out on court, like, wow, I could be smucking right now. Yeah, right. And I'm not.

Yeah. I'm playing pickleball in Malaysia. It was fun to be there with Matt, too. Yeah. Matt was awesome. How many times do we hear? Wow. Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's a big Matt. Like the vice here. Wow. Yeah. Sometimes you could say the most like, on, like, non-revelation thing. Like, oh, I think they want to schedule that meeting Tuesday and say Wednesday. Wow.

I also love how he says exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And he says a lot. It's awesome. Exactly. Exactly.

Oh. Yeah, Matt's... I'm so glad that Matt came with us, too. Because that trip, I mean, logistically, it ended up being a lot. Like, everything that we did at the factory. We had to split up in Malaysia because we had so many things going on. So Scott and I would go to events and then Matt would go meet with, like, retail. that I had set things up with

because we just didn't have enough time. Yeah, dividing and conquering. Kuala Lumpur. Yeah, our final Tuesday was productive. We were like, we went to three straight events back to back to back, and the whole time Matt's just slinging paddles

with retailers. Matt was it a promo video himself? Doing photos shoots, video shoots. You'll appreciate it, brother. It was great. It was so funny. And Matt knew it was going to be so funny. He's like, I don't know, man.

Matt's the best. It was awesome. I'm so glad he came. That was truly, like if you and I had tried to do that trip by ourselves, I think that would, we would have made a work, but it would have been much more. We needed more people. Yeah. Yeah. Especially everything that we did in the factory, too, was, it was nice to have him there.

Yeah, definitely. And good news for time. And I remember FaceTime you guys one night and you're like, we need you out here next time. We need a whole team out here. We need a videographer. I thought that constantly while we were in Malaysia. I was, that's what I told you the other day. I was like, time.

And I thought about you a lot there. I was like, one, I just want to. see Tyman in Asia experience like traveling internationally with Tyman because that would be a blast but then too I was like we need a videographer out here who can just like be filming everything because you're getting like barred yeah

couldn't pull out my phone and film anything so I was a blast can't wait to go back yeah I love Asia I love Asia specifically China Scott was complaining ordering coffees the whole time can't do this it's so difficult it's good

Thanks for having us. All right. Good, so. Yeah, I was always. Thank you. That was fun. Give us a little Chris Tucker to end it. Oh, man.

Or El Taco de Gael. El Taco de Ga. That's better. All right, Ghosties. We'll see you Monday. Yes. Love you guys. Ghosts from a podcast.