“Who’s the winner?” The tattooed Filipino man holding the microphone asked me.
Midget Boxing in Manila
A Few Random Pictures from My Trip Home
I’m from a small town in Canada’s Rocky Mountains called Cranbrook. Cranbrook has a population of about 20,000 people. The main industries are mining, logging, and tourism. There are numerous trailer parks and it’s likely there are more people living in trailers than houses. The surrounding area is checkered with farms. Wide brimmed cowboy hats, belt buckles that could double as coffee tables, and blue jeans so dark they look wet worn tight enough to induce infertility are always in style. The vehicle of choice is the pickup truck. Trucks suspended less than three feet off the ground with tires smaller in circumference than hula hoops are considered to be “for pussys”. Bingo night is big news. Hockey is religion.
Ten Quotes About Walking
Why would I write a list of walking quotes? Today wrote a a query letter to a magazine editor about an article about different walks that a person can take in Taiwan. While looking up quotations to use in the query I suddenly remembered how much I used to enjoy walking. When I first started traveling, whenever I arrived in a new city, after putting my things in a hostel, the first thing I would do was walk down random streets and alleys and I wouldn’t stop until I had gotten myself good and lost. That would usually take one or two hours, and finding my way back several more. One my first trip outside of North America ( I was 18 at the time) I spent eight hours lost in Madrid at night. It was the most exciting thing that I had ever done. I explored cobblestone alleys and unknown plazas and wandered among centuries old pillars holding up centuries old roofs. I saw gangs of street hoods and tapa bars filled with overweight, overly made-up prostitutes — things I’d never seen before in my life. I was even accosted by one extremely persistent old hooker missing several teeth who insisted in walking arm-in-arm with me and chattering away to me in Spanish even though it was obvious that I didn’t speak Spanish and wasn’t going to give her any money.
Check Out This Month’s Action Asia Magazine
Check out this month’s Action Asia magazine for my profile of one of Taiwan’s most prominent and longstanding foreign paragliding pilots, Malcom Vargas.
A Good Year for Awards (I Won Another One)
Damn, it’s been a good year for awards. Today I was notified that I was chosen as one of the top fifty travel blogs of 2010 ) by Awarding the Web — an organization that strives “to recognize excellent web content so that those who have worthwhile content can be distinguished from the useless, bad content that plagues today’s internet.”
Watch it Now: Illegal Border Crossing Simulation from VBS.tv
The good folks at VBS.tv are, in my opinion, some of the best documentarians in the world. They go after ridiculous and unthinkable stories gonzo style, resulting in a humanistic view of incredible tragedies, and incredibly weird topics. A couple months ago I posted the riveting, and extremely disturbing, Vice Guide to Liberia. Next, in a series of VBS videos I plan to post, is this documentary on a service that offers a simulated illegal border crossing from Mexico into the United States, complete with a shady ‘coyote’ guide and potential arrest.
