Back in the summer Future Shop had a sale on the extended BlueRay versions of the Lord Of the Rings. Given that they were basically 50% off and that I know I eventually wanted to buy a BlueRay player, I decided to buy a set. Now that I’m back in Canada, I went out and finally bought a BlueRay player. I sat down over the Christmas break to watch a few of them, and I can say without a doubt that the quality of the films in excellent. But what seems absolutely incredible to me is how each disc has 5 or 6 crappy trailers that you are forced to watch whenever you put one of the discs in. The disc menu ...

In the fall of 2010, I decided I wanted to set out on a big travel adventure. At the time I had become a bit bored of life in Chilliwack, and wanted to take advantage of the fact that I can work anywhere with an internet connection and actually see some of the world. I sold most of my furniture at the time and put the rest into a storage locker. And almost exactly a year ago, I boarded a plane and headed to South America. Natalie and Bruno in Wellington I spent approximately eight months of this past year living out of a suitcase, bouncing between apartments and hostels, working from little remote ...

Now that I’ve had time to reflect on my time in New Zealand, I thought I would post an update with what I thought of the country in general. First, New Zealand is gorgeous. I didn’t get a chance to visit the South Island on this trip, but I made my way from tip to tip of the North Island. One thing that’s pretty amazing there is just how green the grass is. We have green grass in Canada, but it’s more of a florescent green in New Zealand – it’s pretty surreal. It’s like what grass looks like when you bump the saturation up on a typical grass shot in photoshop, except you don’t have to do that ...

As many people now know, I’m back at home in Chilliwack. I left Wellington a little over a week ago, flew to Auckland, and caught a flight back to Vancouver. I was always planning on being back for Christmas, but decided to leave Wellington a bit early to get back home and sort a few things out. I have a few more posts to write about the last few months of travel – I’ll try and get those done over the Christmas break. But people keep asking me what my plans are, so I thought I’d detail those a bit here. First, I decided a few months ago that going forward I wanted to have a home base somewhere ...

In less than three days I’ll be vacating my little apartment here in Auckland and hitting the open road again. Most people told me beforehand that Auckland wouldn’t be that interesting, but I quite enjoyed my time here. Here is a summary about my four week visit to Auckland, New Zealand. First, I took two weekends worth of sailing lessons from a pretty famous New Zealander named Penny Whiting. While I still have a ways to go, I now have a Certificate of Sailing Competency, which should allow me to charter a boat on my travels if I want. Penny was a great teacher, and she’s well known for being ...

Last summer I was sitting in a rented room in Vancouver, trying to decide where I was going to go next on my little adventure. I had always had New Zealand at the top of my list, but given how it was winter in the southern hemisphere, I needed to come up with a plan that didn’t involve freezing to death. After all, I am a migratory nerd, so I should probably follow the sunshine. Sam and Scott That’s when my friends, Scott and Sam, contacted me and said they were going to be in Thailand for a few months and that I should come for a visit. Thailand: land of smiles; I like happy people, so it seemed ...

Skytower in Auckland I’m only in Auckland until the end of the month, but I have a pretty busy schedule until then. This weekend I start sailing lessons with the Penny Whiting sailing school. It looks like there are about 8 people in our group, so it should be a fun experience. I’ve already received some introductory material, so I’ll spend the next few evenings going over it to get ready for the course on Saturday. One of the items we were told is that we’re not allowed to wear any non-white soles on the sailboat. That gave me a good excuse to go out and buy a new pair of Adidas casual shoes ...

I left Koh Samui just a few days ago and flew up to Bangkok. My original plan was to spend three days in the city and then fly out to Auckland, New Zealand on the following Monday. Unfortunately though, the flood crisis in Bangkok was hitting the tipping point, and residents were being urged to get out of the city if they had the means. Since Air Canada was offering free change fees on all flights in and out of Bangkok, I decided to change my flight around. All in all it worked out for the best. Instead of a 10 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, I ended up with a direct flight to Auckland on Thai Airways. ...

As per my last post, I was supposed to spend the weekend in Bangkok this weekend and then head to Auckland on Monday. But given how people are evacuating from Bangkok, I decided to try and change my flights around to get out before things get even worse. Even the smallest penguin can change the course of the future Thankfully most airlines (including mine, Air Canada) are offering free change fees on flights to and from Bangkok due to the flooding crisis there, so my ticket was eligible for a change. I tried calling last night to sort it out, but unfortunately due to the time change I didn’t get ...

I checked out my hotel in Ubud, Bali and made my way down to the airport. I gotta say, driving in Bali is one of the scarier driving experiences I’ve ever had. People are fairly ruthless on the roads, and most of the paid drivers are extremely agressive (passing in the other lane when there’s lots of traffic). You sort of have to trust that these guys know what they are doing, and do your best not to pay too much attention to what is going on. I heard that traffic might be bad, so I left the hotel early knowing I’d probably end up with time to kill at the airport. Unfortunately for me the free ...

After visiting Kuala Lumpur for five days, I decided to take a three hour flight down to Bali, Indonesia. Bali is known as The Island of the Gods due to it’s amazing temples. It also happens to be a primary resort area for most Australians looking for an ocean-side vacation. I spent my first few days laying low in the hotel, mainly to catch up on sleep after a fun, somewhat exhausting weekend in Kuala Lumpur. I was staying in a hotel in Sanur, which is a beach area on the south-east coast of Bali. Ultimately I wanted to head to the cultural centre of Bali, Ubud, to meet up with a friend of mine ...

Petronas Towers I always knew I would be in Kuala Lumpur briefly, since I have a 9 hour connection there on my way to New Zealand. But outside of that I really wanted to make a trip down to Malaysia, if only to see the Petronas Towers in person. Given that my laptop was dead in Phuket, I decided to simply head down to Kuala Lumpur early. I stumbled upon a really cheap flight ($50) on Malaysia airlines and booked it the same day. Five hours later I was getting off a plane in Kuala Lumpur and heading down to the Reggae Mansion hostel in Chinatown. Here is a summary of the time I spent visiting Kuala ...

The more research that’s published, the more evidence I seem to run into that indicates insulin resistance (and consequently obesity) seems to be related to oxidative stress and/or nutritional deficiencies. As I’ve pointed out before, one of the strange paradoxes that most theories generally can’t explain is why obesity often goes hand in hand with poor nutrition. That is, if obesity is caused solely by overeating, then we should see the lack of obesity in populations where food is scarce or nutrient poor. As several populations have shown us (most notably the Pima Indians), that isn’t always ...

After leaving Koh Tao, I took the ferry back to Koh Samui and boarded a Bangkok Airways flight for Krabi. Krabi is a little town on the west coast of Thailand, and one of two gateways over to the Phi Phi Islands (the other being Phuket). Given the distance between the two locations, I couldn’t find another way to get to Koh Phi Phi in one day, other than to fly to Krabi instead of bus. So that’s what I ended up doing. The ferry was late getting back to Koh Samui, and even though I had pre-booked a taxi and had him waiting for me, I was probably about 30 seconds away from missing my flight when ...

I am in Koh Phi Phi, and it’s gorgeous here. This area of Thailand is where the film The Beach was filmed, so last night I downloaded a copy to my laptop and watched it before bed. When I woke up, I opened my laptop up and realized it was dead. So I grabbed my charger (which I had used yesterday to charge it) and plugged it in, waiting of course for the little green light to turn on, but it never did. I spent about ten minutes wiggling it and rechecking connections only to finally admit it wasn’t working. I then grabbed my little camera charger and plugged it in, and sure enough, it worked fine. ...

I left Koh Samui in the afternoon on Friday and made my way down to the Maenom ferry dock. I booked a high speed catamaran with Lomprayah. They actually had a deal going on where they would include a pick-up at your hotel, so that worked out great. They give you a 20 minute window where you need to wait in front of your hotel, and eventually a shuttlebus picks you up and takes you down to the ferry. We actually were there with plenty of time to spare, but I suspect that’s deliberate since they have their own restaurant and store there, and there’s not much else to do. The ferry to Koh Tao took ...

By the time this year is over, I will have spent nearly eight months away from home and on the road. I’ve been to South America, Europe, back to North America, over to Asia, and will soon be heading down to Oceania. I’ll have close to 100,000 kilometers of flying under my belt by the time it’s over, and will hopefully have my silver elite status. And yet despite all the traveling I have done though, I haven’t really done much backpacking, other than the odd weekend trip. Usually when I go see something new, I branch out from my home-base on a weekend and simply grab a hotel or a hostel for a few ...

My phone gave me a warning last night that my Internet package was about to expire. That means I’ve officially been in Thailand one month now. Chewang Beach I still have to do a write-up about my adventures in Chiang Mai, but I’m just waiting for a few of my photos to go up, as well as some Scott took with his point and shoot (I didn’t take my SLR out around the elephants as it was a bit too dirty and wet for my liking). But hopefully this week I’ll write a big post about my adventures up there, as it was a really good time. West side of Koh Samui I have only four weeks left in Thailand. Yesterday ...

While many people advocate going to school and getting an education, the reality is that education costs are more expensive than most people realize. Canada thankfully provides reasonably priced educations compared to the rest of the world, but it is far from free. Given that I grew up in Chilliwack, and that I had to move out to Vancouver to attend UBC, I spent approximately $11,000 per 8-month period, which included housing on the UBC campus along with a university food program (which tasted fairly similar to prison food, I imagine). Of those costs, approximately $3,000 went towards tuition, ...

Last year my friend Dave got his genetic profile done up by 23andMe. Basically they can take a saliva sample, extract your DNA from it, and then compare it against all the current research in the field of genetics. When they originally launched they were asking over $400 for each profile. I’ve been patiently waiting for a sale to get mine done, and eventually managed to find a coupon to bring the cost down to $99. So right before leaving to Thailand I mailed off a saliva sample to California and have been waiting for the results. Some people have told me previously that they actually wouldn’t ...