Compared to the glittery metropolis of Tokyo or the ancient sublimity of Kyoto, it’s easy to forget the more grounded and working class city of Osaka. But that would be a mistake. The second largest metropolitan area in Japan…
Discovering San Francisco: dive bars, red meat, strips clubs, and martinis.
June 28, 2018
By the time I first made it to Haight-Ashbury the only hippies left were crusty gutter punks yelling at the tourists from their cardboard sidewalk guesthouses. A jangle of extremes. A mix of cultures, tempered by the past, with…
Backpacking the Ancient Lakes and Kamiak Butte.
June 7, 2018
Last year my awesome partner Katy (aka Unicorn) hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Having hiked extensively in my younger days I was quite jealous of her adventure, but suffering several knee injuries and surgeries my through-hiking days are over….
Paris. Chasing the romantic ghost.
May 31, 2018
When I asked my daughter if she could pick any place in the world to see she chose Paris. A city hopelessly entwined with the collective consciousness of postcard stereotypes and cartoon romanticism. Both deeply longed for in my…
Bitterballen, hotchpotch stampot, jenever, and haring. Hunting down traditional Dutch food in Amsterdam.
May 10, 2018
Honestly, when it comes to northern European food, I hadn’t heard good things. But I have to say I fell in love with traditional Dutch food. Tasty bar snacks, hearty home-style meals with long simmered meats, a variety of cured…
Walking every goddamn inch of Amsterdam’s Old Centre, the canal rings, and the Jordaan.
May 3, 2018
I know the trope. Go to Amsterdam, get baked, sleep with a Ukranian prostitute. It’s so pervasive that that’s all that anyone seems to think about Amsterdam. Just the mention and you get the squinty nod of wishful collusion….
You better Belize it! Getting slow on Caye Caulker, Belize.
April 20, 2018
This place made me feel good. A little piece of paradise. I can imagine myself one day dropping off the grid and tending a thatched-roof sand-floor bar waiting on the next massive hurricane to sweep me out into a windex…
C215 (aka Christian Guémy) and Hazul Luzah. A look at street art from Barcelona, Spain and Porto, Portugal.
April 16, 2018
While I was in Barcelona, I was drawn to the street art there. Seattle also has a high level of street art and I recognized some local sticker artist’s work. But I was specifically drawn to an artist C125…
Seeking Zen. Exploring the Buddhist temples of Kyoto, Japan.
April 12, 2018
Kyoto is the religious and cultural center of Japan. It has over 2000 active temples, 1600 Buddhist and 400 Shinto. Spared most of the destruction of World War II, it remains one of the best examples of prewar city…
Robots, lasers, and noodles! Prowling Tokyo’s Shinjuku redlight district.
March 28, 2018
Shinjuku is a major metropolitan transit hub inside of Tokyo with over 3.64 million commuters per day at the Shinjuku station as well as the city’s predominant redlight district. The stacked fluorescent neon strata fantasy worlds of new Tokyo…