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 found myself bunkered in a cabin on a night train from Helsinki to Moscow, flanked by a Russian couple whose smiles betrayed the same mix of curiosity and fatigue I’d been nursing since Europe’s civilized rhythms gave way to endless birch forests.
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 submit myself to the polished machinery of Way Out West. A celebration of music, sustainability, corporate sponsorship and people who somehow manage to look fashionable while standing in a muddy field.
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.
Arvikafestivalen goes floodland
It had been a couple of years since my last pilgrimage into the forests of Värmland, but Arvikafestivalen still felt like coming home.
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.