As stoked as I was to be in the US, it was almost worse stopping back home for ten days. It was hard to leave the friends, culture and comforts and home, knowing that this time I’m really not coming back for nine more months. I tried to rally the excitement but it just wasn’t …
Coffee Break
For those who noticed my check-in on facebook at SFO, there was no small bit of surprise and puzzlement as to why I was apparently in California. I was lucky enough to make a ten day detour back to the homeland for a family reunion in Hawaii and my sister’s wedding in Napa. Tokyo-San Francisco-Kona-San …
Travel Notes: 10 Years Later
Tokyo I lived in Japan for seven weeks during a study abroad program in college. It was the summer of 2002 and I was 20 years old. During my time there I took intensive Japanese language courses all day every day for my first two weeks, after which, in an immersive learning experience, I was …
Breaking Waves
Japan was absolutely crushed by a tsunami. This was not one town or city. Hundreds of miles of coastline, from small fishing villages to moderately large cities, ports, harbors, industrial and residential, simple and advanced, ready or not, it didn’t matter. A lot of these towns were slightly below sea level, protected by seawalls sometimes …
Travel Notes: Whitsundays, The Reef and Uncle Brian’s
Whitsundays After pressing hard for three straight days, I woke up the morning after Fraser Island with the flu. As in, devastating. Not moving flu. As a result I have promised to take better care of myself. So far I’ve lived up to it. I had 48 hours to recover before Whitsundays, 12 of which …
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Travel Notes: Australia and Fraser Island
I arrived in Sydney on February 20, vaguely aware that my first country was already over with. Stayed at the Rooftop Traveler’s Lodge for three nights game planning before moving up the east coast. My last night in Sydney before leaving on an epic 13-day adventure tour was really a microcosm of this trip around …
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Crossing Paths
This is going to be a slightly different type of post. I’ve already written about my experiences with each of these people (except the Perry’s, who I’ve written about in this post), but I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the great people I’ve met so far. I’ve really met dozens …
Travel Notes: Wrapping New Zealand
Ok...it’s time to just catch up in time here. Considering I’ve just landed in Tokyo, and not posted anything about the 18 days in Australia, I’m simply going to put a wrap on New Zealand. After Franz Joseph, Dwayne and I drove I don’t know how many hours up the west coast, making quicks stops …
Travel Notes: Franz Joseph
Just a friendly reminder that you are a minuscule, insignificant fleck of dust. We woke up in Franz Joseph and parted ways with Maciek to head toward the Franz Joesph glacier. It had been raining all morning so we weren’t too keen, but decided to drive up there and check it out at the least. …
Travel Notes: Getting Out of Queenstown
As locals will tell you, Queenstown is a hard place to leave. It’s notorious for people coming there for a week or a month and staying for a year or longer. I knew I had to get out of there, so I planned to hitchhike to the Franz Joseph glacier, roughly a five or six …
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