Posts from year 2008
Found 34 hits, currently showing 11-20.
Forbidden City in Beijing
Beijing is a magnificent monster built on dynasties, revolutions and dumplings fried in oil older than your ancestors. The smog rolls in like a bad hangover while the traffic honks with imperial authority.
Tent heating in Mongolia
Mongolia doesn’t care about your comfort. It doesn’t pretend to. Out here on the steppe, where the wind could strip the flesh from your bones and the stars feel close enough to punch you in the face, survival isn’t a metaphor, it’s a daily negotiation.
Dawn in Ulaanbaatar
One minute I’m dozing on a Soviet-era train, the next I’m dropped into the Mongolian capital like a sack of flour from a low-flying plane. I place my dusty shoes on the pavement of the Ulaanbataar railway station and quickly scan the area.
Isolation on Trans-Siberian railway
I shared cabin with a Russian couple on a night train from Helsinki to Moscow earlier this week. They told me that a plane had crashed near Perm with 80 dead and some damage done to the Trans-Siberian railway.
Red Square of Moscow
There are places that smack you in the face the moment you set foot in them. Red Square is one of those places. Less a tourist attraction, more a stone colossus of history staring you down. Welcome to Moscow, comrade. This isn’t Paris, and it sure as hell isn’t Disneyland.
The black balsam of Riga
When I set out to explore a new city, I tend to look for the odd things that will expand my horizon. Some day someone will say that I should be careful what I wish for.
Way Out West 2008 post mortem
The time had come to visit the overpriced frenzy of Way Out West. It turned out to be just as I thought it would be. On one hand, it’s quite comfy to visit a festival at the heart of your home town.
Examining Google Knol
Google is expanding their toolkit every day and this morning saw the release of Google Knol, a service quite reminiscent of Wikipedia where the term Knol refers to a unit of knowledge.
Arvika festival goes floodland
It’s been a couple of years since last time, but it felt good to be back in the forest at Arvikafestivalen. The first days were scorchingly hot, but the last one surprised us all with a lightning storm that came from nowhere and almost swept the festival away.
Driving across Scotland
We came, we saw, we scarfed down haggis like maniacs. Over two hundred kilometers in seven days, chasing the horizon through cities, forgotten villages and empty landscapes where the only traffic jams were wandering sheep.