Greetings from China! Finally I find a WiFi connection that works and I’m able to access my website but, as expected, all western s.media platforms are XXXXX, so won’t be able to post video for a while. I made it into China without hassel and cycling west through Inner Mongolia (autonomous region of northern China). […]
Predators, Problems, and Perception
A few years in Japan will turn any man soft, life was too good, and I knew the transition from comfort back to the nomadic experience was going to be tough, but I’m not the kind of person who tiptoes into cold water. I needed a challenge that would allow me to take the plunge […]
Bound for Mainland Russia
About a third of the way up Sakhalin island the coastal road veers inland. Traffic reduces to the occasional Japanese 4×4 burning passed or Lada Nivas struggling almost as much as me on the bumpy road, though more regularly I’m disturbed by the thunderous, clanking steel racket of dumpsters and transporters hauling machinery and parts […]
Getting to Know Russia
I arrived in the small township of Nevelsk, on the west coast, exhausted and with first degree frostbite on two fingers on my right hand, and second degree frostbite on one blistered toe. I spent a few days recuperating, treating my extremities, and readjust my gear in an old, brick boarding house. Footsteps and chatter […]
Setting Out
When I arrived in Japan in January ’08, following the journey through Southeast Asia and China, it felt like a holiday. Everything seemed to function in this orderly and fair, democratic society. Now I awaken to new cultures, face new challenges. The holiday is over. I spent a few days preparing in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, though I still need to sort […]
Sayonara Nihon!
Greetings from the Russian Far East! I’m set to begin the second stage of my journey, albeit later than I had intended, because I’ve struggled to meet my own deadline with the complicated preparations for this leg pushing my start date deeper into winter and presenting a greater challenge to plan for. I intended to […]
Tsunami Boats
Five days after the March 11 tsunami I visited the south-east coast of Hokkaido to see the results. I recently got around to processing the film from that trip, which reveals the damage sustained at one tiny fishing port. The boats were out of the water during the winter, when the water blasted through the inlet […]
Leg 2 Final Preparations
It’s been a while coming, but since completing the first stage of the journey to Japan I have managed to pull myself from financial ruin and set my focus again to life on the road. I’m now working on final preparations for leg 2 of this expedition. I have a lot to look forward to, an entire […]
Maps
The bicycle touring experience is determined by a jagged, uninterrupted path, as opposed to an itinerary. That’s really all there is to it — a scratch in the terrain, a maze through a city, a line on a map
Japan
#11 10 January 2008—12 February 2008 ‘You have only to see what you see and feel what you feel.’ —Mineko Iwasaki I had a fundamental decision to make. One that had been rolling around in my head since day one, and I knew I would have to face up to it in the next year: east […]