Those of you who have been to Hong Kong in the last decade certainly know of the Octopus card. For those who haven't, it is an e-money smart card that you can use for many, many transactions in Hong Kong. It operates like most touchless smart cards in most modern cities for subway and transit systems, but you can use it for way more things in ( Read more... )

Before I'd booked the Brazil trip, I knew I'd be going to Melbourne to play the Aussie Millions. You might think, why not just book a Vancouver-Rio-Melbourne open-jaw, but no, I had to make life difficult. Instead of one very long trip, I settled broke it up into three merely long trips. So after going Rio-Sao Paulo-Toronto-Vancouver yesterday, ( Read more... )

Wow ( Read more... )

I'm at YVR now, headed to HKG in just under an hour. Was just stopped and searched by a Canada Customs agent here at the gate, after security. Didn't even know they could do that ( Read more... )

I've been waking up pretty consistently at 7 AM since returning from the Bahamas. Today was the first day I opened the shades after waking up. And what should be looking back at me but the IFC building serving as a massive, well-lit phallic symbol off in the distance.


( Read more... )

Suckout[1] of the day ( Read more... )

I'm back in Hong Kong.

My flight was very decent, as 16-hour flights go. Contributing factors:

- No one was in the middle seat.
- Continent's in-flight long-haul entertainment is excellent. Even better than Cathay's. Movies watched: Catch Me If You Can, American Beauty, Stand By Me. Television watched: House, Law and Order: SVU, Frasier ( ( Read more... )

I guess I'm just a suspicious-looking guy.

I've blogged many, many times in the past how I get stopped waaaaaaay more often than the average person at various international borders. But I haven't been randomly stopped on the street since leaving Costa Rica.

Guess the counter restarts today!

Met up with some CouchSurfers from France (by way of ( Read more... )

Well, the energy gained from the aforementioned grass-fed beef burger motivated sufficiently to tidy up. Here's the place, all 320 awesome square feet of it.

( Ye olde LJ cut for pics )

This is the blog post I'm writing instead of taking a nap, which with any luck will help me fall asleep on tomorrow's Hong Kong to Sydney flight ( Read more... )