More travelin'

Word up.

I'm back. Being blogger and rad dad at the same time is hard. So I had to give up being a blogger for a bit. 

Life's been swell. Got a new roof on the house, so that's good. Solid holidays and all that. 

In the meantime I did some more traveling. In December I went back down to the jungle of Peru for work. It was more magical the first time. 

People ride motorcycles through the flooded streets of Puerto Maldonado

Then last month I went to Singapore, Cambodia and Okinawa.

Singapore has cool beer, which is nice on a warm day.

Singapore totally lived up to the hype. Everything is pristine, no litter, amazing public transit. Even away from the touristy areas downtown it's still extremely clean and orderly. The food was really cheap, and it's nice that everything is in English. Unfortunately I missed meeting my sisters there by about a week. My buddy Ryan did a jaywalk!

Singapore also has cool architecture

Cambodia was a polar opposite. Anything goes, especially when it comes to traffic. Don't like traffic, just hop your motorcycle up on the sidewalk. Any place with $1 beers is an immediate like for me.

This guy in Cambodia really loves green onion

This guy was delivering ice from a big block in the back of his truck

New places are fun, but going back to Japan is nice since I feel like I've been there enough to know what to expect and how things work (except pachinko). I'm a bit of a pro at the sushi go-round. I even learned to skateboard while I was there!

On top of an old castle in Okinawa

Getting paid to travel is still awesome, but it's hard to be away from home for long. Until next time...

Some Inspiration

You knew it was coming eventually

From my office wife Bunny who sent me this today.

Granted, Mr. McCandless's adventurous spirit eventually was his own demise. I read a book written about him once, and while I enjoyed it greatly I did not recall this passage until Bunny sent it to me along with some words of encouragement. It joins the likes Thoreau and and Jack London which has provided inspiration thus far. I even found some inspiration from the Helen Keller Quote  "Life is a grand adventure - or it is nothing" although I heard that she never actually said this (she was a mute, lol). I also fancied a high school yearbook quote by one of my good friend; "don't lose the dreams inside your head, they'll only be there until you're dead." Later I realized that it was lifted from a Dave Matthews Band song and it lost some, but not much meaning.

Alaska

After I graduate college I hope to have a few months off before I start my career. Many graduates take this time prepare themselves for 35 years of mundane office life, full of Excel spreadsheets, memos and TPS reports. With my last summer vacation I intend to go into the Alaskan wilderness to prospect gold for a month. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, but didn't decide to really do it until a few months ago.

The first thing people usually ask me when I tell them is "Why?". Well, I guess it's because I want a challenge. I want to be self-reliant. I want to prove to myself that I can survive. I image it is for many of the same reasons that Throueau went to Walden, Christopher McCandless went into the wild, and John Muir decided to leave his ranch to climb Mount Rainer. When I come to die, I don't want to discover that I had not lived. One of my fears is that I won't have any experiences that will truly define my life. I think that's why people join the Army or backpack across Europe, or skydive, so that they can have something to define their lives. Perhaps the core of man's spirit truly is through new experiences.

I read Into the Wild as a sophomore in High School. When I saw a piece on tv about Christopher McCandless there was a park ranger that tried to explain that if he had only brought a map he would have been able to hike out and save himself. I think the park ranger completely missed the point of why he was there in the first place, to live without the map.

But I don't just want to hangout in Alaska for a month. I have things that I want to do, mostly prospect gold. Gold prices are at an all time high and the idea of finding gold completely tantalizes me. Every night I think about standing in an Alaskan stream in the warm June sun, with the mountains around me as I pan for gold. Even if I don't find any, I think the experience will be well worth it.

So over the past few months I have been reading books about gold prospecting, gold rushes, wilderness survival and Alaska. I have been looking up placer gold deposits, making lists of supplies I will need and scouting where I want to go. Although I'm not quite sure of what I exactly plan to do, I do have an idea. My general plan is to fly into Anchorage and take the Trans-Alaskian Railroad to its terminus at Seward, AK.


From there I will hike into the Kenai Pennesula and set up camp somewhere along one of the many rivers that flow out of the Kenai Fjords. I will hunt, fish, trap, forage and scavenge for supplementary food. I will prospect for gold during the day and build fires at night. I will stay until I decide to hike out. Then I will sell my gold, if I have any, and return home.

I have already started to think about what to bring, namely how much whiskey will be required, and how I will be able to transport all those bags of Franzia. I do worry about bears being attracted to the sweet aroma of the Chablis. This is one of the reasons I intend to purchase an AR-15 assault rifle. It should be light out nearly 24 hours a day while I am there so I don't have to worry about things going bump in the night. I have held off reading Into the Wild and Call of the Wild, so I can bring them with me. I also need to decide which American Flag to bring, but I think I will go with the eagle.

This is my chance to get off the grid and live without reservation and without responsibility. A month without cell phones, Facebook, Ipod's, and blogs. Hopefully I will be able to find a job that allows my pipe dream to become a reality. I believe that everyone looks for an adventure in their life, but some are too afraid to find it. This will be my adventure.