Winter sucks. All the crap you hear about a white christmas and freshly fallen snow is totally bunk. The temperature here has been in the single digits fahrenheit (-13C), the sun sets a little after 4pm, and there is over a foot of snow. It has been below freezing now for over two weeks and …
Read part 1 of my 2008 travel round-up here July July marked my last month in Australia. I flew from Perth to Adelaide. After weeks of driving across Western Australia, the thought of more driving didn’t appeal to me. Adelaide was overcast and cold the entire time I was there, but I did get to …
I’m off to Darwin in a few hours to begin the western half of my Australia adventure. I’m going to miss Cairns because the weather here is so amazing. This is the second nicest weather I’ve encountered on my trip (#1 being Honolulu). I get bombarded by advice from Aussies when I tell them I’m …
My friend and author, Francis Tapon, has been traveling around Africa for the past year. While I was sailing up the west coast of Africa this year, he had been traveling across similar territory by land. Given how different our trips were, I thought it would be interesting for Francis to compare his observations about …
If you’ve paid attention to the news in the last several days, you’ve probably heard about the brushfires in Australia. I’ve been paying closer attention to that story than I normally would have because I’ve been to many of the places which have been damaged by the fire. I’ve driven through country Victoria, I’ve seen …
Today marks the 9 month anniversary of me closing on my house and becoming homeless. It is also the day that my old college roommate Sean will be appearing on Jeopardy. Sean and I were the backbone of the Macalester College Bowl team. We were the first and only team to ever beat the faculty. …
Hong Kong is very densely populated. I knew that before I came here and I knew that my selection of affordable lodging wouldn’t be first class. I have no problem with that, and for the first several days I was in Hong Kong I had a nice, but small, place to stay. However, I wanted …
Here are various observations on Hong Kong that are probably too short to justify their own posts: Street signage in Hong Kong for stores are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They not only extend into the road, but often will cross the meridian and overlap signs from the other side of the street. The effect …
Here is the 15 second explanation of Macau: Macau lies about 40 miles away from Hong Kong and was a former colony of Portugal. It was handed back to China in 1999 and has a status similar to Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region. It has its own currency as well as its own …