One I've my favourite characteristics of travel is the random and extraordinary things that can happen. And as far as crazy coincidence goes, I think I have topped that category on the flight to El Calafate. I sat down in my window seat and got myself set up for the three hour plus flight, and I ended up chatting with the couple next to me, who were also (coincidentally) from Canada. Actually, they were from Calgary(coincidentally)... and actually it turns out he's one of the Vice Presidents of the company that I work for! So in summary, on a domestic flight in Argentina, over 10,000 km from home (and work), I'm sitting on a plane with over one hundred other total strangers on it, and the person seated right next to me is not only also ... read more

Let the fun begin! Work has been crazy the last while, so I'm thrilled with the timing of this month off to explore Argentina! I have done very little planning at all for this trip. I've read some stuff, but I've booked nothing in advance (except the flight), and I packed the day of. So I'm mostly figuring it out as I go. Should be a good one! The first chance I had to start getting excited was at the check-in counter in Edmonton. Here we go, this is going to be good! I was looking forward to a month to do whatever I wanted.... I just needed a nap. I actually slept pretty decently on the plane, probably because I was so exhausted in the first place, and I had 20 hours to make it ... read more

Another thing you can do in Kyoto, besides speed tourism, is night hiking. But one of the key considerations for night hiking is that you have to do it at night. So we had to do a bunch of boring stuff in the day to get to it, and I'm going to write about that first. Actually, something awesome happened the night before, after speed tourism. We met up with Maria, who was also at our hostel in Tokyo, and went over to the local sake bar. This sake bar had exactly seven seats in it, and all of them were around the bar. It also had a karaoke machine. This place ticked a lot of boxes for us. We clapped along while a local man sang along to a Japanese song, and then Mitch, Mike ... read more

After I went to bed on Saturday, Mitch and Mike ended up staying up pretty much all night. Mitch managed to get up on his own, but we had to wake Mike up. My first attempt to wake Mike up yielded no reaction. Great. Mike's dead. What a downer. That's probably going to end the trip right there. A second more forceful attempt sort of did the trick, but he went back to sleep immediately. Mitch and I recovered in the lounge, and I found out that they had stayed up until 5am. Actually, Mike had fallen asleep in the lounge. Some other people who were just getting back from Shibuya (because they chose to stay out all night instead of trying to catch the last subway, which is an interesting proposition, and apparently pretty standard ... read more

Well, if ever there was a lesson in blogging before the day is over, my night in Vienna would be a good example. Pretty much I didn't go to bed right away. And pretty much I drank several beers. I ended up hanging out with the Germans I met earlier. They were on their way out to some festival thing, and I figured in the spirit of getting into this solo traveling thing, I'd better start practicing seizing every opportunity to hang out with people! So our adventure started in the hostel kitchen, which is in the basement, and is behind about 5 heavy steel doors. Seriously. Straight out of Get Smart. Except without the shoe phone, sadly. It was quite a while before we actually left the hostel. So late, in fact that we had ... read more