As you travel the planet, you tend to run into people that you really enjoy talking to, however briefly. Often times the goodbyes are followed up with a "if you're ever in the neighbourhood drop in on us" but that can be dangerous when you're dealing with DH (in the finest tradition of crazy glue, she bonds quickly). Larry and Theresa D made that offer after we met them in Bangkok- they were just finishing up a trip that we were just starting on so we we...

One of my earliest job postings had me living in Kamloops for a year and I was absolutely certain of that until we started exploring the area around our hotel. My memory seems to be razor sharp for all events that have taken place within the last hour or two, gets progressively fuzzier until I hit about a twenty year horizon, and then drops off dramatically to the point of false memories ("you mean I wasn't a star quarterback in the NFL??"). But as we wandere...

Just by chance, we dropped by the Harbour View seaplane office/terminal that's next to Coal Harbour in Vancouver and they had a good rate on flights to Nanaimo so, never wanting to pass up a new adventure, we booked a couple of tiny seats on one of these floating and flying tin cans. I was really impressed with the whole experience- it was a reminder of what flying used to be before government bureaucrats and airlines turned it into hours of unbroken misery. ...

While traveling through Korea, a couple of things became readily apparent. First traveling in this area during the summer holidays is both crowded (kiddie overload), and secondly it is very hot and humid with a fair bit of rain. Since our next stop was going to be Japan which is a bit of a challenge at any time of the year, we decided to slow it down for the month of August and take a bit of a break.DH immediately started promoting the idea of dropping in to see ...

The border between North & South Korea is 250 kilometres long, approximately 4 km wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. The coastline and islands on both sides of the DMZ are also heavily militarized. Apparently this precarious balance of power is maintained only through the diligent confiscation of diving knives at Incheon Airport (see my rantings in the previous post). The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until...