Journey From my journal on September 9: "Going home in nine days. Actually, I'm leaving Bangkok in eight. I'm on the six hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, growing steadily angrier at the bus driver's liberal use of the horn. On either side, Cambodian rice paddies, farms and villages stream by. Most of the wooden houses sit on stilts, raised maybe 3 to 6 feet off the ground. The reason, which eluded me earlier, has become obvious. In wet seasons the flat rice fields are flooded with water. This being September, the road, which is raised a few [View Full Entry]

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Good Morning. I've just enjoyed coffee and bread with chocolate on top for breakfast. Mmmmm. Despite the information listed above, I'm actually in Laos and it's September 11. Yesterday, I realized something. I'm going home in seven days and there is still SO MUCH I need to see. Problematic because I'm heading to northern Laos now, and I have to make it back to Bangkok by September 16 (today is the 11th). Especially distressing because in my one day here, I've fell in love with Vientiane, Laos's capital. LP describes it like this: "Were Laos, Thailand and Vietnam tuk-tuk drivers, the [View Full Entry]

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Okay, you all know (especially Dad) what it's like to write something on the computer and then have it disappear before your eyes. That just happened and it's irritating! lol, anyway, here we go. From my journal today: Restaruant in Ko Tau "Lost and Found Item of the Week: this journal, at a clothing shop in Hat Rin. Retrieved two days later. Broken Item of the Week: my glasses. I stepped on them in the bathroom in Bottle Beach. "Let me start with an apology for the paucity of pictures. I was a bit too paranoid about theft when I got [View Full Entry]

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Landed yesterday in Bangkok, VERY late. My ticket was a cheap return ticket from Seoul (since I fly back to Canada out of Seoul in a few weeks) with a 5.5 hour layover in Beijing. I met (this is a recurring theme no?) a half Korean, half American guy on the plane. Son of an American soldier and a Korean woman, he was travelling to Thailand to study muy thai (boxing) in Chang Mai. Good company. I'll look up his school if I decide to head north from Bangkok. Anyway, the flight over I was worried about landing in Bangkok at [View Full Entry]

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Or anyone grossed out by sexual "art" and toilet humour. Seriously, I'm not joking. There'll be another post for you to read, I promise. Last chance to turn back. Well first of all, I know I've been even worse than usual with the posting. But I've had a hell of a time lately, lost (and found!) passport, etc. Sigh. To answer my cousin's query, I'm in Seoul right now. Sunday I fly to Bangkok through Beijing. Gyeonju To return to the story, I arrived in Gyeonju (the pronunciation is actually closer to Kee-yong-ju despite the spelling) by bus from Busan. It's [View Full Entry]

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From my journal today: "I'm sitting atop a drydocked Korean warship in the "Unification Park" on the east coast. It's a big boat, 4 stories high, in service from 1944 to 1999. I'm sitting at the stern as I write, facing the water. That's another thing Toronto is missing. The sea, representation of an endless frontier. If you don't think too much, don't think that Japan is just over the horizon, that distant blue is magical. I don't want to go home in September. I want to keep travelling, not that I can afford it. I'm not looking to find myself [View Full Entry]

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Well, no I don't. It's actually pretty tasty. But I do hate what the never-ending parade of Korean food is doing to my stomach. I'll spare you the details. Sorry for the long delay in blog posts. I would say that I haven't had access to the computer, but the truth is nothing particuarly notable was going on, I was sick, and I didn't feel like writing (and uploading photos and videos - which is a painful process). But now I have a few stories. And access to a computer for an hour while I wait for a bus. Today, by [View Full Entry]

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After the fireworks of Osaka, I went to the station to look for my night bus. It took me an hour of circling the station to find the line of people waiting for the bus. Luckily, I"d arrived an hour early so I still made it. "This is the bus to Hiroshima" a Japanese man in shabby clothing tried to reassure me. "Okay." "I'm going to Hiroshima to write poetry." "Okay." "Here, this is what I write. I spent days crying in Hiroshima. Sleeping on the streets. Feeling the city's pain. I'm going to Hiroshima now to sell these poems to [View Full Entry]

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Sorry for the long delays in posting. While Japan may be completely developed and broadband wired up, they also know to charge you left, right, and centre for access. This is the first free internet hostel I've stayed at for about ten days. So I finally have the time to write. On the negative side, I'm squishing three cities into one blog post. Kyoto July 29-30 After climbing Fuji, I tried an onsen in Kawaguchiko Lake, nearby. It was REALLY nice. Although I was definitely worried about proper etiquette and well, being naked in front of a whole bunch of Japanese [View Full Entry]

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Ah, Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan at 3776 m. One reason I decided to climb it is that one of my favourite restaurants back home is called Fujiyama. Also, after a few days of only Tokyo, I was itching to get moving. I planned it out perfectly. I would take a direct bus from Shinjuku to Kawaguchi-ko fifth station, the most common starting point for the climb. I would rent a locker and deposit my stuff there. I would begin the 8 hour climb at 9:30 pm and I would arrive at the summit for sunrise the next morning. [View Full Entry]

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