Tag: rtw

Money, On Travel & Writing

How We’re Flying Through Java, Brunei, Kuching, Penang, Cambodia and Thailand for Under $300

AFTER FOUR HOURS OF SHITTY MATH, I found myself awake past 11:30 last night, staring at my computer screen, clicking and refreshing as my desk lay covered in sticky pads noting various potential flight routes. PUS – CGK, CGK – PHN, BKK – PEN. Or PUS – BWN, BWN – KL, KL – BKK. PUS – CGK, JOG – SIN, SIN – BWN? Suffice to … Continue reading How We’re Flying Through Java, Brunei, Kuching, Penang, Cambodia and Thailand for Under $300

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Asia, South Korea

Guinsa, South Korea: Accidentally the Only White Guy Among 8,000 Koreans in an Extremely Holy Temple in the Middle of Nowhere

A VERY PARTICULAR DARKNESS envelops Guinsa at night. Arriving after sunset, I was met by the few dozen parked cars surrounded by something smaller than a village—a smattering of homes and restaurants, maybe 30 in all, mostly closed up by 8 p.m. The temple complex itself lies one kilometer uphill, wedged within a valley surrounded by mountains on the eastern border of North Chungcheong, the … Continue reading Guinsa, South Korea: Accidentally the Only White Guy Among 8,000 Koreans in an Extremely Holy Temple in the Middle of Nowhere

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Asia, Taiwan

Taitung, Taiwan: Wherein Nearly Everything Goes Wrong (or: How I Learned to Never Stop Worrying and Love Itineraries)

ACROSS THE STREET from the Taitung County airport, in a rural patch of southeast Taiwan, sits a gift shop-slash-restaurant that is in no way discernibly Taiwanese. On its walls hang aboriginal-style handbags of primary colours, generic landscape paintings, kitschy bamboo scrolls and an inexplicable amount of Snoopy paraphernalia. My notes on the contents of this gift-shop-slash-restaurant are extensive, because I sat there for two hours, … Continue reading Taitung, Taiwan: Wherein Nearly Everything Goes Wrong (or: How I Learned to Never Stop Worrying and Love Itineraries)

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Asia, China

Qingdao, China: Sleeping Everywhere But in a Motel

WE HADN’T SLEPT longer than an hour when the disinterested, pale-shirted, tired-eyed Chinese airport security guard padded over and shook us awake. I knew immediately that our plan had failed. When you travel like this, very rarely do things go as expected. Flustered by interrupted sleep at 1:30 a.m. and a lack of ability in any Chinese language, we tried to explain, to plead that … Continue reading Qingdao, China: Sleeping Everywhere But in a Motel

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Asia, Taiwan

Taiwan: Gearing Up for the Chinese New Year (Photo Essay)

IN JANUARY 2012, weeks after my 23rd birthday, I took my first solo vacation to Taiwan, moving from Taipei down south through Hualien, Ruisui and Taitung, one week before the Chinese New Year. Taipei has remained in my memory as one of my favourite cities—like, in the world—though the trip was not without its share of problems. This photo essay is meant to show how Taiwanese culture … Continue reading Taiwan: Gearing Up for the Chinese New Year (Photo Essay)

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Asia, China

Chenjiapu Valley, China: A Refreshing Take on the Great Wall

ACCORDING TO GOOGLE MAPS, Chen Yang’s farm is situated in the middle of a patch of complete, unblemished grayness. There is no Street View. Driving directions on his website are an exhausting 368 words long: Jingzang Expressway to Badaling, a tunnel to exit 62, keep right after a U-turn 200 meters after a toll booth at a fork in the road. It’s safe to say … Continue reading Chenjiapu Valley, China: A Refreshing Take on the Great Wall

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Asia, Laos, Vietnam

The Viet-Lao Border: Wherein Our Bus Deserts Us on a Remote Mountain Range

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN Hue, Vietnam’s pre-communist capital, and Savannakhet, a sleepy Lao city by the Mekong River, is over 400 kilometres of thick tropical forest. The border checkpoint, somewhere in-between, lies truly in the middle of nowhere. Four hours got us this far, and it would be longer until Savannakhet: five hours by bus, and unimaginably longer if the bus, say, left without us. Which, … Continue reading The Viet-Lao Border: Wherein Our Bus Deserts Us on a Remote Mountain Range

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Asia, South Korea

Busan, South Korea: Texas Street is an Angry, Lonely Place

Let me be clear: the lads only went to see boobs. This is why, after two-and-a-half hours of drinking through one of South Korea’s most notorious and least desirable red light districts—and having eyeballed disappointingly zero nipples—it seemed a good idea to ask the six-foot-two, black-leather-jacketed Russian man stumbling down the street at 2:30 in the morning: “Do you know where a strip bar is?” … Continue reading Busan, South Korea: Texas Street is an Angry, Lonely Place

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Asia, South Korea

Notes on Visiting a Korean Acupuncture Clinic

NECESSARY PRETEXT: I am a nervous laugher. I laugh uncontrollably in bad situations. I’ve laughed at funerals, giggled at being dumped, chuckled at the doctor’s and chortled at the dentist’s. So it should come as no surprise that, after my first half-marathon resulted in a strikingly painful bout of runner’s knee, my first visit to a Korean acupuncture clinic was a seemingly delightful experience, as I … Continue reading Notes on Visiting a Korean Acupuncture Clinic

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Money, On Travel & Writing

On Traveler’s Unemployment

ON AUGUST 27, 2013, I will be legally unemployed for the first time since I turned 18, over six years ago, and earned my first steady paycheck. I say “steady” because discovery of some legal document tucked away in an Eglinton Avenue filing cabinet could hypothetically prove that my first-ever paycheck was in fact for Timothy’s Coffee, in the summer of 2005, for roughly $40, or … Continue reading On Traveler’s Unemployment

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