| Roaming and roving, errantly exploring, wonder wander meander. |
[May. 29th, 2005|04:18 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | martialarts, travel | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  travelicious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Prince Live at the Aladdin: Strollin' | ] |
On Wednesday I'm going to go visit my mom in Hope, British Columbia (just outside of Vancouver) for about 10 days. Help her get the house set up, get my head straight, flush out the smog, get some exercise and what they call "clean air". Anybody out there in/around Vancouver and wanna meet up, give me a buzz and hopefully we can arrange a few hours.
Since I started traveling in 2000, I've tried my best to make a trip out of state at least once a year. Here be some of my past jaunts outside my native California:
-When I was 2 or something I went to Maryland where my Aunt lived. Naturally I don't remember a goddamn thing except being in snow and too cold to move (there's a picture of a pintsized me standing motionless in snow somewhere at home). The only other trip I remember from my youth is when we accidentally drove into Nevada by overshooting Lake Tahoe.
-When I was in 9th grade we took a Carnival cruise to Mexico. It sucked because it was cold (only season when we could afford it) and I just wanted to stay on the damn boat with the gigantic arcade. We spent a few hours on a small island off the coast, and later in Ensenada and I remember being miserable the whole time. The boat was awesome, though.
-In 2000 I went to Detroit, Michigan for a week to do Capoeira workshops for the branch of our group there. There wasn't much to do there and it was pretty cold, but I had so many friends that it was just a party all the time. Good people, good times.
-Later that year when summer was setting in, I was lucky enough to go to Kauai (part of the Hawaiian islands) to do Capoeira workshops on special invitation by a friend of my Mestre. I was on the north coast and spent most of my time around Hanalei Bay. That was only for a week or two, but it was an extremely memorable trip. I met a man named Jack who took me to the caves and some beaches I never would've found on my own. He was a grizzled man in his mid 60's, I wonder if he's still there. More pics of Kauai here.
-In early 2001 I went to Buffalo, New York for even more Capoeira workshops. It was during winter which was my first taste of negative temperatures, and MAN was it fucking hard to train in a freezing auditorium. But like Detroit, I had tons of friends there (most everyone from Detroit came by), and it was again party all the time party all the time. GREAT food too.
The best part of those three trips is that everything was paid for. Those were truly excellent times. More pics of those workshop trips here.
-In April 2001 I went to Kirkland, Washington (just outside Seattle) to work on a test for The Matrix Online. It wasn't officially The Matrix yet, Lithtech/Monolith just needed us for a test to see if their system would work. We didn't have much time to spend outside of work and the hotel.
In 2002 I didn't go out of state. Those were the years I was neck-deep in the ghetto fab filmmaking and made Title Pending 2 and Damn 3 (which made me even more infamous/liked/hated on el intarweb)
-In February 2003 I returned to Seattle to work for Monolith again. Seattle is really nice, it's like San Francisco with cleaner streets and less hills. Got my obligatory Space Needle pic that time. There was this cool bartender we talked to for a while after work one evening, she was originally from Orange County (for some reason it's always bothered me that I've forgotten her name). Now that I know more people who live in Seattle, I have to go there again someday and get my game on.
-In mid-October 2003 I went to Edmonton, Alberta to visit my girlfriend at the time. I fell completely in love with Canada. Absurdly clean air, nice people, great public transportation, Tim Horton's. More pics of Canada (and Spongebob Kraft Dinner) here.
-December 2003 was Japan for Devil May Cry 3. I was staying in Shibuya, spent most of my time there finding every arcade I could. Once I learned to use the train, I went to Akihabara (pictured above) as often as possible. That was a job to be savored. More pictures of Japan here.
-I returned to Edmonton in January 2004 in the dead of winter and experienced MINUS 32 DEGREES. HOLY SHIT. Body parts falling off and everything. I'd like to go back someday when it's spring or summer.
-In April 2004 I visited my mom on the big island of Hawaii. I didn't enjoy it that much because the bugs were just TEARING MY ASS UP, and the beaches were inferior to those I experienced on Kauai. The beaches were so heavenly in Kauai that it made up for the 80-odd bites I got. On the big island the beaches were rocky and very shallow. Still, it was quite beautiful. Pictures here and pictures here.
-April 2005 was St.Vincent Island in the Caribbean, as displayed in this previous entry. That included an all too brief stop in Puerto Rico (which I absolutely MUST see again). The plane also stopped on the way back in Barbados and Florida, but I didn't get to look around either of those places.
I've been very fortunate to travel as much as I have, considering a lot of people don't get the chance to go anywhere for years at a time. If you really want to go somewhere, you have to SEIZE the opportunity when it presents itself- get away and broaden your horizons, or just kick back and clear your head. Sometimes taking a risk to get away for a while is completely worth it.
Future places to visit: England, France, Germany, Scotland, Greece, Brazil, New Zealand, maybe Jakarta to roll Andrew-style, and misc HerVert locations (MD,OR,GA etc). My godparents live in Italy, perhaps there as well (although I hear that country's particularly snide to foreigners). But we'll see. Never know, I might just get crushed by a meteor tomorrow *knock wood*.
Anyway, any of y'alls got lists/pics/memories/recommendations of places you've visited outside of your territorial familiarity, I'd love to read 'em. |
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