Christmas Day

Guess what date it is today? I'll give you a clue, its December and it's Xmas day? Give up? Oh well you will just have to live in suspense.

Just ate lots of food and dessert and did the presents thing and all that.

Went to Castly hill a couple days ago and I'm still sore now. Back and shoulders are nicely worked.

I think it's high time I paid a visit to Nicholas Hanafin so off I go.

Touchdown

Home on christchurch soil. Being driven home by mumsy and daddy as we speak...

--
Sent from my mobile device

Auckland

Currently I am chilling and geeking out at Matt's place in Auckland. I leave here on Tuesday for Christchurch.

And so here ends my 6 months from Canada to New Zealand.
I love travelling and it has been great to visit people I haven't seen for a while and hang some more with others I have.

Airport

<observations>Here i am about to leave thailand after a bit over 2
months here. The airport seems to be running normally and a british
guy is cackling to someone on the phone next to me. Ive uploaded a
couple pictures of the part of the airport im currently in to flickr.
It really is quite cool. Ranjene is in a taxi on her way home from
seeing me off at the moment. The queue of people getting on the plane
is huge so in sitting here waiting for it to get a lot shorter before
i stand up. </observations>

--
Sent from my mobile device

Youtube uploading is a piece of shit

Excuse my language but I felt the need for an offensive title due to high levels of frustration.

Uploading videos to youtube, the number 1 video sharing site in the world is far from adequate. Ranjene and I wasted half a day yesterday trying to upload videos with very limited success.

I am a big user of flickr and the difference between it and youtube in terms of uploading content is night and day. Flickr has great 3rd party uploading tools and also tools made by flickr to bulk upload your images and video to their site. Even uploading images using a browser right on their website is a pretty painless experience with lots of nice feedback.

On the other hand I can't find a reliable uploading program for youtube, I tried a handful of programs I did find and they either didn't work or didn't work reliably. Why hasn't youtube made such an app?

Furthermore the uploading experience in a browser at youtube.com is pretty horrible. Even the newer bulk file uploader didn't want to work reliably for us and there was no way to delete a clip once added to the cue (and this is before you tell it to start uploading) The bulk uploader uses google gears and I suspect this may have been part of our problem on Ranjene's computer. But why'd they use this whole plugin business anyway? Can't we just have a desktop app to bulk upload with? I want to be able to tag and label all my uploads, resume if something fails, save my session for later etc. Google please just copy the flickr uploader it's pretty much perfect.

Next we come to single file uploads in a webbrowser, they don't provide you any progress feedback so you have no idea how much has been uploaded and in our case you don't know that the file upload has actually failed or got stuck which brings me to the most annoying part of the whole experience.

We have a less than stellar connection here and it does weird things at times, (I can't for example download my latest ipod update from apple as it always fails somewhere along the way) but youtube was unable to give me any feedback about the status of my uploads or the fact that they had actually failed, nor was I able to go back and edit information about a clip once it had got to this stuck state nor even to restart the upload or pause for the matter or anything, it's just a crap web uploading interface. I mean come on? it's youtube! Most of the services I use on the web now have good responsive feedback providing user interfaces and/or desktop tools associated with them that I can use instead.

Arrrrgggggg

Still Here

The protesters have not been evicted from the airports and I'm still in Bangkok.
Quite exciting to be stuck in the middle of it all.

Around Bangkok all seems normal, the news keep publishing information on whats happening but we haven't personally noticed anything ourselves in our day to day lives here. I shall keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

Extended stay

I have rebooked my flights for the 9th December. Assuming the airports are all go again by then I will fly home, until then I get another week and a half in Bangkok!

Bangkok Heat

Things are heating up here in Bangkok, with the situation at the airports very close to exploding. I think tomorrow will be key in revealing what will happen next. If I was to guess today I would have said coup for sure but now I'm on the fence. It could be that the Police/army steps in to try to remove the PAD from the airports and if that happens who knows how it will go or whether it will get bloody. Another factor is that pro government forces are threatening to take up arms if the military steps in to oust the current govt. This seems to be a major difference from the last coup which ousted former prime minister Thaksin who is now in exile having fled from corruption charges and potential jail time. Basically the way it looks to me is that either the army steps in risking major civil uprising or it does not and the stalemate continues and I am stuck here indefinitely. We shall see.

Bangkok Airport Closed

I'm supposed to leave Thailand tomorrow and fly to Auckland via Sydney but as of 2 hours ago the airport has been closed because anti government protesters stormed the airport. No mention when it will open again but I suspect I wont be flying home tomorrow.

In other news I had 2 suits made and tonight we ate at a buffet restaurant on the 82nd floor of the Baiyoke sky tower. Needless to say the view was kick ass.

Krabi town

We are sitting in swensons ice cream parlour in the vogue department
store in krabi town killing time at the moment. We were in the pizza
company eating tom yum goong pizza before this. Man that is a good
pizza. Im pretty full right now and the swensons ice cream i just ate
may have made me feel just a little sickly. We fly back to bangkok
tonight and our flight leaves at 9pm which is in 3.5 hours. Time to
wander around for a bit and then negotiate the extortionist taxi
drivers and get ourselves to the airport for a reasonable price. Good
luck to us..

--
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Lucky restaurant

And here we are, our last night in the islands and we find ourselves
eating at lucky restaurant at the far and of east railey beach. We
just ate a delicious curry pizza and drank mixed fruit shakes. Mmm.
Tomorrow we fly back to bangkok in the evening so we will spend the
morning here and the afternoon in krabi town.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Not Feeling So Good

Today I are not feeling so good. Quite upset stomach it seems.
Feeling a bit better now that I've eaten buffet breakfast and had a noodle soup for lunch.

Ranjene went on a half day climbing course this morning and learned the basics so that now we can rent some gear and go climbing together.
So long as I'm feeling ok tomorrow we shall rent some gear and go climb.

Red curry in a coconut

After numerous hours this morning fixing and updating nutvs website
ranjene and i walked to phra nang beach for a swim, collecting take
away som tum salad in styrofoam containers to eat for lunch on the
beach. We grabbed fruit shakes on the way also.

After swimming and building sand sculptures we walked back to railey
east and grabbed dinner at yayas which was as the title of this post
suggests a red curry served in a coconut.

Now we are sitting in a nice restaurant on the beach on railey west.
Hans and larissa just ate a sticky rice with mango.

--
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Railey East

We Are now staying at a really nice place on Railey east that has buffet breakfasts and wifi so I'm happy ;)

We spent yesterday on the beach and went to a really nice restaurant for dinner.
We stayed in Andaman nature resort over on Tonsai the night before and we were pretty unhappy with the whole beach. I remembered the place with such fond memories but now its just so full of trash everywhere and the bungalows seem so run down. Weirdly disappointed.. oh well its pretty sweet over on Railey. (maybe I'm just getting old)

More photos on flickr (another 90 pics on the way up at the mo.)

On the way to krabi

We are now on a mini bus heading for krabi. We left samui this morning
via mini bus then ferry to the mainland. We ran into the usual scam
when we arrived in surat thani and had to change buses. We were told
the bus would not be arriving for 2 hours and they threw in a not so
convincing line about the journey taking 4 hours on the bus anyway so
we had better pay them to take us by mini van. All very amusing.
Anyways we are making our way to krabi slowly.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Leaving samui

Its raining and it has been for days. Not just normal everyday rain
either. Heavy rain punctuated by Torrential downpours.

Because of this we have decided to abandon samui and this side of
thailand in favour of potentially better weather on the krabi / phuket
side.

Muesli fruit and yogurt and then we hit the road!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Testing out video embedding from nutv.ca

So recently I have been working on a new webpage for NUTV. It is basically a page for showing all their video content. Below is me testing out one of the new features which allows people to embed the video from nutv.ca in their own blogs or websites.
You can take a look at one of their new shows "Dino_Myte" embedded below if you like.

Jungle Club

We have been staying at the Jungle club resort on Samui for the past couple days, its been raining a lot so almost no beach time so far which is unfortuneate but oh well.

Internet speeds haven't been the greatest so I'm struggling to keep up with uploading my pictures that I've been taking, got a few uploaded today at an internet cafe in Chaweng noi beach.

Mmmm fruit shakes...

Koh Samui

Yesterday we flew from Bangkok to Ko Samui, the largest of 3 islands off the east coast of Thailand near the mainland town of Surat Thani.

We are staying in a pretty nice place up on top of the hills above chaweng noi beach. The view is stunning, they have a pool, one of those ones that has no proper edge where the view is so the water from the pool meets the water of the ocean way in the distance when you are in it. Very nice. We have to get here and back by 4wd which they provide. Food has been delicious.

We slept to a thundering rain storm last night which was awesome to sleep to being that the hut we sleep in is so basic.

I have internet whenever I need it via my phone so I check my email many times per day as usual and I don't need to face my internet addiction ;)

Border Run Part 4, the final chapter

I'm now back at Nonsi residence in Bangkok. Up reaaaally early in the morning to fly to Samui, beaches!!

Border Run Part 3

So this is the 3rd time I've tried to write this post but have been thwarted the previous 2 attempts. 3rd times a charm.

I have just been "processed" at the border and am now back on the bus. A pretty painless process really. 30 mins turn around time I think. Another 4 hours and i'll be back in Bangkok.

It's always a kinda weird feeling to be stared at by locals in a place where you couldn't be more out of place. It's not uncomfortable, not like being a shitey walking around the streets of Harlem, NYC... just weird.

The process of the border run was somewhat interesting in itself too, nothing new for me, I had to do it a few times back in 2003 when I was here last. They have it down to an art also. The company I paid for the service takes you on a bus to the border and ferrys you through the process. You check out of Thailand, check into Cambodia, check out of Cambodia and then check back into Thailand. To make this easier all you actually have to do is check out of thailand and then hand your passport over to the company who then riuns the passports in and out of Cambodia for you so you can then check back into Thailand.

Anyways, heading back to Bangkok now and will be updating the map with my location along the way.

To Cambodia and Back (border run part 2.)

So we just had our first stop, used the facilities, jumped back on the bus and were given fried rice for lunch which, if I may, I shall talk about for a moment.

Thai fried rice is not quite like my experiences with chinese fried rice. It is somehow lighter and tastier and laced with things like cilantro and fresh tomato and cucumber. Very tasty. Mine had shrimp.

So that said, before I close this post for now, I might just say that its pretty kick ass that I'm writing this from a bus burning through the countryside in Thailand. It may not be the fastest internet but it is good enough for email and such and its only costing me 1 baht / minute which is around $3/hour canadian and because I can turn internet on, connect to my email, turn it off and write and read emails and then turn it back on to send / update it costs very little to keep myself connected like the internet junkie that I am. So far I've had coverage the whole way. I can only hope the same applies when we head to the islands tomorrow.

Oh, and in terms of how I'm doing it, I have my cell phone sitting in my bag beside me and I can use it to connect and disconnect to the internet as needed through bluetooth (a wireless protocol)

More to come...

Visa run. Part 1.

I have to get to the cambodian border and get a new visa today. So far
progress is good. I have made it to the rally point, handed over my
passport and photos and paid my fee for the trip. Ready to get on the
bus

--
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Bangkok bank

Ranjene is opening a bank account at a bangkok bank branch near nana
sky train. As she does so i thought i might write a quick blog post.
We are heading first for ko samui by plane on the day after tomorrow.
Tomorrow though, i have to head for the cambodian border to refresh my
visa and give myself another 30 in the country. Joy. Once we hit samui
we will make some decisions about where to go and what to do in the
islands. Ill keep ya posted.

--
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The Answer is Bergamot

I sooo haven't been updating my blog lately. Slack of me. We just moved from the last place south of the downtown area in Bangkok to Ranjene's new apartment which is pretty nice and has a pool and such which is gonna be awesome.

I still have to return the keys from the last place, i'll probably do that tomorrow before class. Speaking of which I only have 2 more classes before I'm all done my thai lessons. 30 hours of lessons since I got here so thats pretty sweet. My Thai has definitely improved a lot but I'm painfully aware of my shortcomings. I still can't follow any conversation as Thais speak way to fast. I can at least get by when it comes to ordering food and so on.

Check the map to the right of this post to see where we are located now. Use the zoom controls to see with more acuracy.

Cell Phones and Thai Lessons

I got a new cell phone! It's what we in the business refer to as a "burner" as in you use and discard it once you are done. Cost me about $30 cad and Ranjene got one too. Now I have 2 phones and 2 phone numbers so I can seperate out the calling from the hi-tech gadgetry. Seeing as my good phone which does gps and maps and all the fun stuff is prone to failure in the humidity at least if it does I still can make and receive calls on the burner.

I had another Thai lesson today and I have homework and a small test on verbs tomorrow. I must study. Ranjene is off to her work for training tomorrow. I've been training her on how to get around on the skytrain and buses so tomorrow she will be off on her own! I will stay at home to work for the morning and then head off to class around 3pm.

I've been taking a look at a CMS (content management system) called silverstripe which I think I shall try using on a couple upcoming projects perhaps, need to look into it little further but it seems really intuitive to build websites with and is supposed to be standards compliant which is great! - If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, disregard the last paragraph ;)

Map Badge, Phone problems and Chatuchak Market

So firstly Ive switched the map badge back to blogloc and you can now see with much greater detail where I am by zooming into the maps. (I'll never leave you again rainer ;) Secondly my phone is suffering from what i suspect to be humidity problems. Sometimes the keypad works sometimes it doesnt, sometimes the phone is totally ok sometimes I just dials people randomly whenever you turn it on. Its a total pain, leaving it off for a while can help and I have a bag with moisture absorption silcon gel packs in it for storing, such are the problems of.. look I know this is boring for some of you but I like this stuff and years from now when I look back I want to remember that my phone (nokia n95 future Richie if you are reading this) had moisture problems while in Bangkok Thailand, ok? .. technology while travelling, or not travelling, or just technology in general, which brings me to my third point (not sure how it brings me there cos its totally unrelated) that we visited chatuchak market yesterday which was totally nuts. Tonnes of people, food, clothes, watches, glasses and other stuff. I took a bunch of pictures which I will upload in a couple minutes assuming the connection is going full speed. Damn it how did it get to be 11am already? I have class at 4pm and will try and get some work done before then. Really need to start going and looking at some of the places Ranjene has been writing down from her searches on various apartment sites. Finding an apartment in Bangkok is hard work (but totally fun)

Ranjene Has Arrived

I went and got Ron from the airport last night around midnight. I tried to use only public transport to get to the airport but made it only half way before I ran into a hump. No bus 552 showed up to go to the airport at the stop I was waiting at. There was even a sign on the stop sign that said that bus 552 stopped there. In the end after waiting about 40 mins I grabbed a taxi and hoofed it for the airport. Unfortunately the taxi broke gown and glided to the side of the road within sight of the airport. I ended up grabbing another taxi and taking that to the airport, the driver waited and I went and found Ron pretty much right away. 

Today we had a pretty slack day, ate a lot and I went to class and learned more about thai numbers, addresses and phone numbers etc. fun fun

I've decided to play a game called find the most absurd catcall from the thai vendors on the street.

Some of the best I am aware of are:

I haaaave some sing

Cold water 5 baht, fresh oran juuuuuice

and my personal favourite and it should be yours too

Meeeeooowww chicken sandwich (this one comes from Matt and Ana, alas I have never heard this one myself)

I shall be on the look out for more.

Videoblog Entry

Bangkok Apartment

I am now the proud renter of an apartment south of the downtown area in Bangkok for the next 3-4 weeks. It is nice and quiet and has fast internet and air conditioning and even cable tv. Its pretty much a hotel room. Outside on the street it is constant chaos during the day, hot and loud and smelly and awesome. There are lots of places for me to explore and the Thai people around here are so genuine and usually very friendly. I'm really not near any of the tourist spots so I am a bit more out of place and a bit less seen as a walking atm. hehe

Right now its pissing down outside with thunder and lightning. Feels good, such a nice feeling.
Tonight I went down the road and found some kind of small street market where I bought a coconut, some watermelon, some bananas and a tonne of dinner all for a whopping fee of $3 CAD

I have a tonne of work to catch up on but now that I have a place to live and work from that shouldnt be a problem. I spent most of today working away and will do so for the next 2 days solid.

Thai Lessons

I start Thai lessons tomorrow from 4pm - 6pm.  I will be learning 5 days a week for 2 hours a day and I will have homework!

I plan to get a better handle on the buses if at all possible which may require a trip to a tourist info booth and also I plan to investigate more places to work from and some places to live for the next month.

fun in Bangkok!

Bangkok

I'm in Bangkok! It's great to be back. The smells, the chaos, the heat and so on. I got myself a thai cell number and can now use my cell phone to get internet on my laptop anywhere which is what i'm doing right now.

Theres a loud and obnoxious Brit in the room next door, I suspect he may be drunk.

It's 1:30am and I'm having a little trouble getting to sleep as it's only 7:30pm in London where I came from today. 

Tomorrow I shall endeavour to get my bag from the airline seeing as they managed to somehow leave it in London. I shall look forward to getting my toilet bag and cleaning my teeth.

Derby

In Derby chilling with Luke now. Went for a walk in the country this afternoon and will be having a roast this evening. Sunday roast, yum yum.

Going to do a little bit of work tomorrow from Lukes couch and then will be getting a lift in to Heath Row where I will fly to Bangkok. 

Oslo Airport

Sitting at the airport in Oslo at the moment.
Plane is 2 hours delayed. Something to do with the forward entrance door. Oh holy crap... I take that back they just made an announcement... Wont be leaving till 20 after midnight... sigh 7 hours delay.

Opera at the underwaterwater pub

Mik and I are currently in a really cool bar called the underwater
pub. It is themed to look luke it's underwater and tonight and every
tuesday and Thursday night they have opera singers come in and sing up
a storm. The last set involved a duet and was as much acting as it was
singing. Very cool. Oh and we also ate a pizza and drunk some coke and
beer (me and Mik respectively)

Oslo

I am now at Mik's place in Oslo, very nice apartment.
My trip from the airport into town felt like guesswork. I couldnt read my ticket and it took most of the trip for the gps to kick in and show me where I was.
I got here however and Oslo looks really cool.

Oktoberfest

Went and rode the rollercoaster and wandered around at oktoberfest today. Fun fun.
Went to a cool place called the Augustiner afterwards where a friendly german dude told us all about the history. The place has been brewing beer since the 1400s

Richie - Body Position

Richie - Body Position, originally uploaded by greatsage.

Another picture taken by Jonathan of me bouldering in Fontainebleau. Font rules.

Richie Trois Pignons

Richie Trois Pignons, originally uploaded by greatsage.

Jonathan took this pic of me bouldering in Fontainebleau, France.

an update finally

Ive been meaning to update the blog for a few days now. Been keeping my head down here in Munich. The weather hasnt been so great and there was 2 days that i didn't go outside.

Its Oktoberfest here at the moment which means a lot of drunk people stumbling around and puking on things.

I shall be uploading more pictures in a moment and perhaps a couple videos. I streamed a new qik video today also from a really sexy cafe we had tea at.

More climbing

I've just woken up and we have today and tomorrow left to climb before
we are out of here.

Time for breakfast and a shower, we have been eating a lot of baguette
with Brie, good cheese is so cheap here as is good bread. We often sit
in a small cafe somewhere and drink espeesso also. I don't usually
drink coffee but it seems appropriate.

Yesterday was a rest day, we went in to Fontainebleau town and
wandered around, saw the chateau and took pictures etc. The chateau
was pretty amazing I must say. Oh and we also saw a huge sculpture of
a cyclops head in the forest that an artist had installed. It was
pretty huge and made of iron with what looked like big gears sticking
out and a tiled face. See pictures for a better idea of what I'm
talking about.

Brian and sandra left us to go back to Switzerland yesterday so it is
just Jonathan Mik and I for the next couple days before Jonathan and I
head back to Germany and Mik heads back to Norway.

More pics uploaded

Uploaded about 90 new pics in the past day or so.

Climbing

Fontainebleau really is an amazing spot for bouldering. It could keep
me amused for weeks and months and years. I shall have to come back
for another trip as this one will definitely be too short.

The past few days have been a blur. We have been driving like French
people through tiny streets trying not to hit things in our rental car
with me desperately trying to navigate the rabbit warren of streets
with my gps.

Paris was great to see but after spending so much time in big cities
lately I was happy to get out of it and into the French countryside.

I will try to upload a few pics from Paris tomorrow and endeavor to
take some pics of Fontainebleau and all the boulders we are climbing

Fontainebleau

Real quick update. Made it through paris and got to font. Brian,
sandra, mik and jonathan are with me. Off to climbing! More later

--
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Road trip?

Im on a road trip. How did this happen? The only way it could of
course. A complete balls up. We missed our flight to paris took a
moment to regroup ourselves and rented a car. As i write this we are
over half way to paris from munich. 350km and we will be there. Ill do
a map update in a moment.

--
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Times Square

Yesterday we spent the day in Times Square, wandering around and staring up at all the bilboards and signs and screens and bling flashing in front of us while trying to navigate the chaos of people in front, behind and all around us.

We ate at a small cafe called "PAX" for what was supposed to be breakfast but was probably about 1pm.

We looked into shops and watched a movie in a Times Square theatre. We stayed in Times square till after dark and the lights around us got brighter crazier. When we got back to the hostel in Harlem we were pretty exhausted from all the walking and muggy heat.

A couple Italian brothers and a couple Montreal Canadian brothers managed to convice us that we needed to sample the New York night life which ended up being a lot more walking, a short taxi ride, some training and a small amount of dancing. Fun and tiring.

Fell into bed around 3am and got up at lunch time. Still havent eaten breakfast and am right now starving while waiting for the girls to get ready.

heres a video from the night sohinee arrived when we went to the upper west side for dinner at a thai place and Matt Dillon was eating there.



heres a video from Times Square:



Another Video of Sohinee buying a kebab on the street:



Another video from the subway:

Back in NYC

We are back at our hostel in NYC awaiting the arrival of ranjenes
sister who is joining us for the weekend.
I've just updated our position in the map and will try to post some
pictures soon

Atlantic City and Philadelphia

Yesterday we got up and headed for Philadelphia and checked out some of the cities historial buildings (see flickr pics here) and saw where the rocky run took place.
After Philadelphia we headed to Atlantic city to check out the casinos and beach. I haven't seen Vagas but I imagine Atlantic city to be a bit like an east coast version of vegas. All kinds of crazy bling. We spent some time lounging around on the beach which was nice and somewhat unexpected on this trip.

Video of Water display in Atlantic City

Heres a short video I took of the fountains going as they do on the hour in Caesar's casino in Atlantic city.

Heellooo Neeeww Yoorrkk

Well, Ranjene and I flew into Newark Airport yesterday at around 4pm after which began our adventure into Manhatten Island. We caught a bus into times square, jumped on the subway and took the red line up to Harlem where our Hostel is. It took us a while to figure out which train to take and which direction. Once we had that sorted the stuffy subway was no problem.

All we had the energy to do yesterday after arriving at our hostel was to check into our room and find somewhere to eat in Harlem. After that we crashed and got up nice and early.

After breakfast today we took the train down to Penn station, wandered around, checked out Madison Square Garden, the empire state building, the New York Apple store and walked along the edge of central park. I had a debacle buying a replacement cell phone charger which is now all dealt with.

We met Audhild and Hilde (family friends from way back) for lunch in a small cafe near Madison Ave and 60th st. We then picked up our stuff from the Hostel and came with Audhild to her house near Philadelphia which is were we are now and for the next day or two. (Had a lobster dinner mm hmmm)

Videos From the Trip

Heres a couple videos from the trip. All 450 images from the trip are now uploaded. See them at flickr or just watch the slideshow on the right hand side of this page.

1. We Discover Wood Bison On the side of the road.. A whole herd!


2.We visited West Edmonton Mall. Second largest mall in North America with themeparks, a hockey rink and a hotel in it.


3. We arrived home in Calgary and were a little tired.

Back In Calgary

Ok so I'm a little tired but I'm back in Calgary. Staying with Bryson tonight. Had a couple meetings at NUTV this evening about new web initiatives for NUTV and also regarding live broadcasting. I'll try and get a few photos from the Alaska trip posted before bed and get all up to date with the blog.

Trip Coming to a Close

Well we survived our last night of camping in a provincial park about
1.5 hours north of edmonton. We had a sweet spot on top of a hill with
a fire on which we toasted marshmallows.

We are now on our way to edmonton after getting a bite to eat in
whitespot. Might check out west edmonton mall which is so big as to
have a hotel and water park in it.

Our last leg of the journey will be 3 hours from edmonton to calgary.
I have a couple meetings tonight so need to be back in calgary by
around 5.

Nearly back in calgary

Well we survived our last night of camping in a provincial park about
1.5 hours north of edmonton. We had a sweet spot on top of a hill with
a fire on which we toasted marshmallows.

We are now on our way to edmonton after getting a bite to eat in
whitespot. Might check out west edmonton mall which is so big as to
have a hotel and water park in it.

Our last leg of the journey will be 3 hours from edmonton to calgary.
I have a couple meetings tonight so need to be back in calgary by
around 5.

--
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Whitehorse again

We are back in Whitehorse again after a long 13 hours on the road.

Bryson is off looking around the shops while I get some blog updating
done.

We stayed in a campground that had showers last night so it was great
to get clean again this morning.

I'm going to go drink some green tea before we make another big push
to fort at john today.

Seward

Today we are in Seward exploring the museum, glaciers and aquatic
centre. Scenery is very nice. Oh and we saw 2 moose in some wetlands
off the side of the road. Moose are cool!

Anchorage

We finally made it to anchorage this morning and are now sitting at
a pub eating lunch and playing with the internets.

We visited the info centre to find out what we should see while we
are here. So next couple of days should be pretty exciting.

Stuff we are thinking about doing:

Seward - aquarium
Glaciers hiking to and driving near
See whales
Animal rehab centre with bears and moose and such

Weather here isn't too cold because we are at sea level. Bout 10
degrees overnight up to 20 degrees on a sunny day (which is not today)

Oh we saw a moose on the side of the road drinking from a puddle
yesterday while driving here.

Kick ass Alaska rules!!

Poofter

Had some real gay sex with a large bear of a man today.  I think I'm finally coming to accept that I am gay.  Enough of this experimenting with women crap.  Gay sex just feels right.  Who cares what mom and dad think.  Not sure what to tell Bryson though.  He's so awesome cool.

Update: In case you couldnt tell, Bryson got hold of my computer.. if you cant laugh at yourself though, who can you laugh at? I guess the post stays... ;)

Panorama

Palmer

Well we almost made it to anchorage. We got to palmer, about 30mins
short. We are staying in a motel as bryson is shattered from driving
13 hours straight for 2 days running.

--
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Haines junction

We stayed at a place called haines junction last night in a govt
campground. Had a fire and some pasta before bed. This morning we had
showers at the laundromat. They happenned to have wifi so we are
sitting in the car with all my technology checking our email. Time to
fire up the gps and hit the road.

Whitehorse

We are in Whitehorse, in Yukon Province. Going to keep pressing on tonight for a couple more hours I think.

The GPS maps updating my position stuff is still down for now so ill just try and say where Im at whenever I can.

Todays highlights.
1. Cassier, abandoned aspestos mining town where there is a truely mammouth pile of aspestos.
2. A brown bear wandering over to our car window while we stopped in the middle of the road. Cool

Dease Lake

If you care to look it up we are in Dease Lake in Northern BC.

Was a fairly cold night last night, we are at about 1000m elevation here.

Internet is really sparse and no cell phone coverage and i dont expect any for a while.

I shall try to update when I get the chance.

Leaving jasper

In jasper town at the moment. Going to find a coffee shop before we
head to prince george

Day 2. Jasper

We are in jasper alberta at a camp ground. Just ate dinner. Soon to bed. Keep an eye on the right hand col of the blog in the my current location section. I aim to update that via gps at least once a day

Invermere

Night 1 finds us in Invermere. We are staying the night in a loft
where brysons girlfriend lives during the week.

I have rigged brysons car with various cabling so that we have power
for my laptop, my iPod, an fm transmitter and my cell phone which
doubles up as a gps unit. The way I have it set up the cell/gps is
mounted to the dash and shows a map of where we are and tracks our
current position as we drive. The iPod and the fm transmitter are for
playing music onto the car stereo. Sweeeet.

Oh yea back to the trip stuff. So if you are interested look down the
right column of this page for the "my current location" section. I am
using gps to periodically update my location, probably just at the end
of each day.

So time for bed and tomorrow.. To Jasper.

Gmail 502 error

Users (including me) of gmail are having to deal with not being able to access their account properly.
Gmail just says 502 error, we are working on it sit tight. No doubt it will be back up soon. In the mean time this dude has a gmail outage survival guide here: http://skfox.com/2008/06/09/surviving-gmail-502-outages/
and you can check what googles saying and doing about it at google groups
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Announcements-and-Alerts-en/browse_thread/thread/9a69798cd0db14a5

To Alaska!

So I leave for Alaska today with my old room mate Bryson. I'm pretty much packed and good to go.
This is to be a road trip of around 7000 km return. We are driving all the way from Calgary to Anchorage in Bryson's Honda Civic.

Heres a route map:


View Larger Map

The Stache

So I simply couldnt help myself. I got back to Calgary and was giving the beard a trim when I realized that I was this close to an amazing stache... I went for it! Oh and I also uploaded a tonne more pictures (see box to the right or go to flickr.com/digitalsadhu) from Hawaii, a cool Korean temple we visited and more beach shots.

Vancouver airport

And so ends my 2 weeks in Hawaii. I have just arrived in Vancouver.
Connecting flight to Calgary in a couple hours.

Last day in Hawaii

It's 8:30am and my final day in Hawaii has just begun. I leave tonight
at ~ 10pm and head back to Calgary via Vancouver arriving mid morning
tomorrow.

So what to do today..
I think a swim is in order, possibly a surf depending on the waves.
Hawaii has some uhh interesting foods to sample such as a block of
rice with a hunk of spam dropped on top and a ribbon of seaweed to tie
it on with... Might give that a miss. Maybe ill go for another premium
hawaiian dish instead.. The plate lunch.

trying to get some work done

I'm in at Ambasador Pender's office trying to get some work done. My phone however has run into problems so I am trying to fix it before moving on to more important things such as work.

Went for a swim at Ala Moana this morning. Its such a nice swimming beach. Calm and clear water.

I leave here in a couple days and most of the excitement has been had so its mostly just winding down till Wednesday.

diving

Went for 2 dives today off the north shore. One to 67 ft. and one only as low as 38 ft. Was good to dive again as I hadn't been since I got certified in Thailand in 2003. Didn't take too long to get the hang of it again. Swam with a pretty large turtle which was cool. The reefs are fairly dead compared with what I saw in thailand however.

Had sushi for lunch and picked up a hitch hiker who turned out to be a surfer (in hawaii? really?) and he said he was paddling out near diamond head when a tiger shark came by and he bolted it for shore. Tiger sharks are pretty much the only really dangerous shark out here though there are a few other ones which are smaller and more timid such as grey sharks, galapagus sharks and white tip sharks.

Turtles are cool.

New Layout, More Surfing

I spent a little time tinkering with the layout of the blog today and what you see in front of you is the result, a nice stripy heading and such. Went surfing at Diamond head around 3pm this afternoon and the ways were quite large compared with the last couple days. I got thrown around a lot and there was tonnes of paddling involved. Consequently my arms are feeling nicely worked and actually I have quite sore nipples on account of not wearing a rash guard. Its quite common I'm told.

Waimea Bay re-edit

I just finished reworking this timelapse with some music and such. I've started using a site called vimeo to host my high end videos as they offer 720p hd options which look very nice. If you click through to the vimeo site the picture is much larger and nicer.


Waimea Bay from Richard Walker on Vimeo.

Lava

Below is another video from our experiences with the lava...

"the big island"

Hawaii is made up of a bunch of Islands with Oahu being the major
island upon which Honolulu resides. On Sunday morning ambassador Pender and
myself jumped on a plane from Oahu to Hawaii, the big island and were
there for 3 nights.
A quick overview of what was achieved.

See active lava flow from less than 2m away at night. check
Snorkel with turtles and other fishies. check
See a sunset at 4200m on the top of Hawaii's tallest mountain. check
(altitute sickness can start to affect some people as low as 3000m)
Hike into an aggressive black "sand" beach. check. I say beach cos its
fine volcanic rock.
Hike over fairly fresh but hardened lava fields. check
Camp outside under the stars (and get blown around by the wind). check.
Observe the stars at the information centre half way up Hawaii's
tallest mountain. check

Somewhere in there we fitted in all kinds of eating, especially Thai
food. There was also tonnes of swimming, driving, a trip to an ocean
discovery centre, exploring towns, hanging out at a drum circle with a
bunch of hippies at a nudist beach and a huge family performing
dance/music troup.

Hell of a 3 day trip. Back on the mainland now. Its all about surfing
and working for the next week. Maybe some diving (fingers crossed)

Volcano!

Well I'm not sure that I would ever get so close to a lava that I
could poke a stick at it but night before last I did just that. I'll
have timelapse footage and other footage when I get back to Oahu where
I will be returning tomorrow night.

Off to the big island

Off to The island of Hawaii today which is often refered to as "the big island". Going to be doing some snorkelling and swimming and hiking and the like. I'll be out of contact for a couple days. Heres another timelapse.

Sunset At Waimea Bay

Above is a timelapse I took from Waimea bay while we climbed around a little rock outcrop. It was a very nice beach.

Today we are now back at Pender's house once again. Had a pretty late start to the day. Went to see Pearl Harbour today which was cool. They showed us a documentary about the events leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbour before taking us out to a monument that has been constructed over the USS Arizona. Once of the ships that was bombed. A torpedo hit it and managed to strike the munitions hold on the ship causing a massive chain of exposions sinking the ship in a mere 9 minutes and killing everyone of the approx. 1400 crew. Whatever bodies remained were never recovered as it was decided to leave the ship as an underwater tomb. In the 60s they constructed the memorial over top looking down at the watery grave.

Tried to go sufing this evening but couldnt find a park and ended up going elsewhere for a swim in a really nice bay just after sunset. It was calm and warm and quite floaty.

Sunburn

I'm burned. Just rubbed aloe lotion all over my back and shoulders.

We went all around the island of Oahu today, first stop was a lookout where in the right season you can see hump back whales after which we stopped at a beach with massive waves that we timidly body surfed. Got dumped a couple times by the ways and came up spluttering. Cool sitting atop a wave looking 3m down to the people below you.

Next we grabbed the snorkelling gear and went to the next bay round. Lots of pretty dead coral but quite a few fishes swimming around. Pender saw a turtle which I missed. Apparantly not a big deal as I will see more later.

We grabbed a little lunch from the supermarket and sat in the shade after that before heading around a couple more bays to most definitely the nicest beach I've seen so far. Apparantly it is just huge waves in the winter months but right now at this time of the year, no waves and crystal clear water. Had another swim in it as we walked our way around to some rocks at the far end to go bouldering. Bouldered for a while and then jumped off a high rock into the ocean. That wonderful feeling of terror as you plummet toward the water. Did that a couple times before coming home.

So there you have it, my whole day in detail. What did you do today? ;)

A Long Day

Take around 4 hours of sleep. Add a 4 hour hike up to the top of one of the hills overlooking much of Oahu. Finish it off with a swim at the beach and you have earned the right to eat whatever fatty food you so feel inclined to eat.

The beach was pretty nice, sunset over the ocean, the buildings lit up after dark. All excellent. I could get used to Hawaii.

Its going to be a very early one tonight. Might go surfing tomorrow. Or snorkling. Or diving.

The sounds of the night here remind me of Thailand. I can hear the geckos. Theres a certain humid scent in the air. I could definitely get used to this...

Hawaii

I arrived in Hawaii a few hours ago and Mr Pender picked me up from the airport. We dropped my stuff off at his house if you can call it that. Its actually the underside of a house. There are no walls, it just opens to air and there is a pretty damn nice view of city lights in the distance. There is a humid smell in the air and a stickyness to the air. After dropping my stuff off we went out for sushi, so fresh and delicious. I'm now getting a few things done on my computer before I go to sleep.

Back in calgary

After not posting for a couple days I am now back in Calgary for today and part of tomorrow before flying to Hawaii.

Im back to being surrounded by gadgets and tech, upgraded my ipod as soon as i got back and fixed my phone by replacing its screen. Now Im off to pick up my new laptop so I can start organizing my digital life into one place.

I'm going to be working from Hawaii and other places from now on from my laptop but first, errands to run.

Rest day?

Tim and I are feeling pretty tired from climbing yesterday and we may
take the day off...

Yesterday we ran into some Calgary climbers including chris weldon who
I first met when bouldering in hampi, India in 2003.

Tim is thinking of staying here after I leave so I may catch a bus
back to Calgary on Sunday or Monday night. Details yet to be figured
out.

Last night a kid in the campsite next to us slung up a hammock about
5m in the air, slung between 2 trees. Reminded me of nick hanafins
antics of a similar nature back at paynes ford,nz.

Half Day

I am uploading some new photos from last night which will be up shortly. Tim is taking a rest day today but I'm going to do a short amount of climbing after we are done emailing and such.

We are still trying to decide whether to return to Calgary on Monday or Tuesday. It may depend on the weather. So far we haven't had a single day of rain in a week and a half but it may rain on Sunday which could be a problem.

Ice cream

I'm sitting in a little gelato place on the main street of Squamish
eating a massive coffee crisp ice cream. There is little doubt that I
will feel pretty sick afterward. Its a waffle cone which I am quite
happy about and the ice cream is all through my beard which pleases me
not. Earlier today we went for a swim in a small lake which was a
pleasant temperature and then lay about in the sun drying off. After
this we went to Boston pizza for dinner. Tim is now at a film festival
watching some climbing films while I meander about town. Oh that ice
cream I mentioned earlier... Its all done... And I feel sick

Disaster strikes!!

My backup cellphone which I have with me because I managed to trash
the screen on my main cell is dead. Not sure if its the phone or the
charger but either way I'm down to just the iPod touch until I get
back to Calgary. Oh and I also saw a hummingbird today. It hovered
around me for a short while with its wings going a million miles per
hour. Cool

Bunnies

Bunnies acting like house cats are not really what you'd expect lazing
around the camp ground but there they are. (pictures tomorrow
hopefully) they kinda mooch around the camp and you can get within a
metre of them.

Anyways... I'm at the movies again after another days climbing and a
meal at whitespot. Tonight we are seeing wall-e. This is now the only
movie we haven't seen.

Vancouver and a Bear

I saw my first bear in the wild so to speak yesterday! It was eating grass on the side of the road as we were driving to Vancouver for the day. It didn't seem to care that 5 million people had stopped their cars and were watching it and taking pictures of it from 15 m away. Can't say that was a very smart thing for them to do however as I'm not sure they could have got to the safety of their cars before it charged them down had it so desired. I'm not sure how safe the safety of the car is for that matter.

Carrying on...We went into Vancouver for the day where we walked around the sea wall with cousin Roger and then met Thomas for a sit down at the beach followed by all you can eat sushi in the west end. Very good sushi. Tim and I drove back to Squamish that night.

Today it was climbing as usual. I'm tired now and we are at the local library mooching internet before we go eat and then probably go see Hell Boy 2 at the local movie theatre.

Ouch!

My fingers are still too sore from yesterday so I'm going to take 2
days off climbing to let them recover. Also we woke up to a flat tire/
tyre (depending on where you come from)

A days climbing

Pushed myself kinda hard today and now have a damaged finger tip and a
stressed finger for my trouble. I will have to take it a little easy
tomorrow.

Went to Boston pizza for dinner and ate pizza, yum

Climbing again

After yesterdays rest day we are all set to climb the next couple
days. Will take our next rest on Sunday and may head into Vancouver
for the day.

I'm starving. We have settled into a routine of getting up late,
heading to the supermarket to grab fruit and ice and then heading to
the boulders to climb till evening.

A few pictures

Rest day

Today we are having a rest day from climbing. So far I've done little
more than mill around camp. Might go explore Squamish town later but
right now I'm hungry for breakfast!

Fritos

I am currently eating fritos (BBQ) flavour. There is a huge waterfall
on my right and a wooden cabin with an eagle sculpture in front of me.
If you are interested in finding out about Squamish, the town I'm
currently in, here's a link. Http://En.wikipedia.org/wiki/squamish,_british_Columbia
There's tonnes of construction going on in these parts leading up to
the winter olympics so driving can be pretty slow.

First day climbing

So after getting into the campground pretty late last night we slept
in a bit and went to the supermarket and grabbed a few things. We got
to the boulders to climb by maybe 1:30 and climbed till about 6:30. Im
writing this from the movie theatre as the dudes in the seat behind us
keep saying "popping corn" ooo movie is starting...

Sunny first day

Sunny day today. Clear blue sky and warm. About to hit the shower then
might move camp or go get tim a new tent or try to find him some tent
pegs as he didn't bring the right one for his tent. At some point
after that we will go climbing.

Gnight world

We have just set up camp in squarmish and I'm about to hit the hay.
Climbing tomorrow yea!!

Uh oh miscommunication!

I thought we were going for 2 weeks while tim thought we were going
for 3. This arose because we left a week later than initially planned
and I assumed that meant the trip got a week shorter. Shitty.

Squamish

Any minute now Tim should be picking me up and we will be heading to
Squamish for 2 weeks bouldering. I will be posting updates from my
phone along the way and photos probably when I get back on the 21st.