Nic can't post right now because of the Great Firewall
This is Ian posting to Nic's blog because he's in China and can't post right now - For more information on the Great Firewall - visit Wikipedia - Article Here Once he leaves China controlled internet, I'm sure we'll hear from him sooner or later...
So, my nine-day tour of Central Mongolia, including Kharkhorin, the ancient capital of the Mongolian Empire and a three-day horse-tour of the 8-lakes region is complete. Within two hours of arriving back in Ulan-Bator I began gearing up for a 9-day trip to the South Gobi... I leave at 8AM tomorrow morning and will be back in UB late on the 22nd, just in time to get a good nights sleep in a "real" (i.e. Hostel dorm) bed and hop on a two-day-long train/sleeper-bus connection to Beijing that leaves in the evening of the 23rd. It's 12:30 right now and I still need to finish packing... I'll do what I can to fill everyone in on what I've been doing for the last 2 weeks...
My "tour group" which included myself, Miquel, a Spaniard, Dan, an American, Carlo and Liat respectively Italian and Israeli, on their honeymoon, and our driver, Sagi, a local Mongolian from Ulan-Bator (UB) whose wife was in hospital about to deliver their first child on the day we left UB. (*NOTE* I still can't figure out how to spell Sagi's name. It's pronounced "Sahg-ee")
This is just a brief note to let everyone know that I won't be posting for a couple of weeks. I've arrived safe and sound in UB (though managed to nearly get myself deported from Mongolia before I even got off the train... All's well that ends well though... )... Anyway... a few friensd and I are renting a van and heading deep into the Western Mongolian wilderness. We'll be gone for at least 9 days. Following that I may, or may not, be heading South into the Gobi... The short version is that I won't have 'net access for quite a while, but I *WILL* have some interesting updates for you guys when I get back.
For those interested in doing more research, I'll be heading into the 8-lakes and White Lake regions, almost due East of Ulan-Bator.
[2007-08-13:CORRECTION: The 8-lakes and White Lake areas are due WEST of Ulan-Bator, not due East, as stated. This is what I get for rattling off a blog post at 6AM on only two hours of sleep...]
Irkutsk is, as one of my former editors put it, The Paris of Siberia... It's an oddly accurate description really. Despite the fact that the city itself has almost nothing to offer even the most dedicated and adventurous tourist, it is, in it's own strange and unqiue way, quite an interesting town... I've spent nearly a week here, based out of either Irkutsk itself, or, for three nights, Olkhon Island, which is 350 hundred kilometers north of here and takes somewhere between 6 and 8 hours to reach by bus, depending on how adept the driver is at dodging potholes and cows, both of which can be found in great abundance on the dirt roads of Siberia... The bus trip north was, for the most part, uneventful, though I did manage to make myself a new friend on the way. Karolina, a Polish girl who's travelling exploits make mine, to date, look quite meager, was sitting behind me on the bus. She was the only other English-speaker on the bus at the start of the trip (Not counting a pair of Quebecois who made it fairly clear they were "from Quebec, not Canada" and didn't like Canadian anglophones) and we managed to become decent friends over the course of the trip. Being a linguistics student, Karolina's Russian skills are, to say the least, far superior to my own; we spent the better part of two days bumming around on beaches and hiking the island before she had to return to Irkutsk to catch a train to Mongolia. We're planning on meeting up and getting a group together for some tours in Ulan-Bator once I get there...
Seeing as how there's been a distinct lack of pictures lately, I'll start this post by throwing up a few shots from St. Petersburg and Moscow... I've talked about both in previous posts, but words really don't do the places justice...
... That may not be QUITE how the old saying goes, but it's certainly a decent approximation of my life these days...
St. Petersburg itself was absolutely amazing, and I really do reccomend anyone and everyone who has the opportunity to visit to do so. The city is the cleanest European city I've stepped foot in in my life, the people are amazingly friendly and warm, accomodation and food are both cheap (compared to Moscow at least.) and the scenery is amazing. The Hermitage alone needs a week, at least, to go through. I'm sad to be leaving so soon, and really do think I'll try and spend the better part of a month in St. P. the next time I'm in this neck of the woods...
I'm back in Moscow right now after 3 days and two night in St. Petersburg, and am currently waiting for train 006 to take me from Moscow to Irkutsk. The trip is about 4500 km and will take 3 days and 4 nights. If all goes according to plan I'll leave Moscow at 9:35PM tonight and will step off the train at 5:13 AM local-time in Irkutsk on July 23... What I'm going to DO in Irkutsk at 5AM remains to be seen, as I doubt I'll be able to show up at my hostel until 9 or 10AM at least... I'm sure I'll find something to entertain myself with...
That's it for now. I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to find wifi in Irkutsk (hopefully at my hostel) so I can throw a few pictures up.
This will be, as my last several updates have been, brief. My apologies again to those of you wanting some more in-depth information and/or pictures. Considering it's size, finding wireless internet in Moscow (especially near my hotel) is ridiculously difficult, meaning that these last few updates have been written on cyber-cafe computers, surrounded by 13 year-old boys playing Counter-Strike the like...
Moscow has been wonderful, and I really am a bit sad that I'm not staying longer. The city is gorgeous, the history here is astounding, and the people really are some of the friendliest I've met thus far... Highlights from the city have included eating a cheeseburger in front of Lenin's tomb, before bribing my way in just after closing (it seemed appropriate) and spending an afternoon reading a good book under a tree in Alexander's Garden, just behind the Kremlin.
On a more somber note, I spent half a day and visited Mitinskoya Cemetary, where the Chernobyl Heroes are buried. The monument above their graves is one of the most potent I've seen in the post-soviet states since I arrived. The monument itself is in the shape of a giant mushroom cloud. Standing in front of it a lone bronze figure, with radiation burns across his face, shields the 28 graves of the heroes from the radiation...
The Web informs me that my hostel in St. Petersburg has internet access. I should have a bit of time there to sit down and write some more, and if it's wifi, even post a few pictures from Moscow.
Dear Diary,
Today I ate a McDonalds cheeseburger in front of Lenin's tomb...
...
If I kept a diary, I think that would likely be one of the more bizarre entries for the week... This statement does, of course, mean that I've arrived mostly-safely in Moscow, and (after being evicted from one set of accomodations at 6PM on my first day here... It's a long story...) am now happily residing at a place called the Hotel Altai. I haven't had a chance to grab GPS coordinates yet, but I'll try and have them by the next time I post. Pictures are also in the works, though I can't find any wireless internet access in Moscow, and thus can't upload pictures as easily as I'd like... They're coming, I promise. This post, for the same reason, will have to be brief. Suffice it to say that I've arrived, have stood in Red Square (McDonalds cheeseburger in hand, no less) and am already happily darting around the town on the Moscow metro. My tickets to both St. Petersburg and Irkutsk (Eastern Siberia) are booked, and I'll be heading out of Moscow in 5 days or so.
This is just a brief note to tell everyone that my SportsShooter.com profile page has been updated with some more Chernobyl work. As always, I'd love some (hopefully constructive) criticism.
My most sincere apologies to those of you who have complained about my somewhat infrequent blog posts over the last week. Things have been at once remarkably busy, and remarkably quiet. I've spent another two days inside the exclusion zone, one of which was spent entirely in Pripyat. I've had a few "down" days, getting a bit of rest, and had a few more days of driving around and talking to people. I've also tracked down a few people in Moscow that I've been trying to find for a long time, and have booked my train tickets into Russia (I leave Ukraine July 7 and arrive in Russia on July 8).
Most of today's work revolved around talking with an old couple living in a small town near Ivankiv. They've been pretty heavily photographed by other shooters over the years, but they were neat to go and talk to, and were wonderfully friendly. Vladimir and I arrived just in time to meet their cow as she returned from pasture and got milked.
It's awfully cliched, I'm sure, but Shelley's verse kept running through my head today as I clambered my way through the ruins of Pripyat, the largest town that was evacuated following the Chernobyl disaster. Vladimir and I got word early in the morning that we would have access today and, after a few more problems with the van, made our way out to the Exclusion Zone. (For some background reading on the Exlcusion Zone, what it is, and how it functions, I reccomend, as always, Wikipedia's article, available here.)
Stops today included an old Kindergarten outside of Chernobyl, which used to be for the children of the village of Kopachi, one of the towns inside the zone. Stop number two was Reactor 4 itself, though you can only get within about 100 meters or so. Our guide helpfully informed us that the electrified fence around it actually carries enough current to kill a person.
I’m writing this blog entry from the passenger seat of a Ford Transit diesel-powered delivery van with a leaky windshield, leaky brake—line (we have to top up the brake fluid every few days when it starts to run low), a leaky front tire (also topped up every 48 hours or so) and a second-hand alternator that was installed two days ago after the first one literally fell off it’s mount. Vladimir, my fixer, is driving south towards Kyiv on the M01 E95 highway, going 120 k/h in an 80 zone; we’ve already bribed our way out of one speeding ticket earlier in the day.
There are no seatbelts.
I love my job.
(Below: Vladimir and a mechanic at a garage in Ivankiv, 120km outside of Kiev, debate the best course of action after the van's alternator decided to stop ... um... alternating.)
I spent almost all of today in Slavutych, the small town built to house all of the Chernobyl workers once the town of Chernobyl became contaminated following the 1986 disaster. Today it’s almost entirely inhabited by current plant workers, people who work other jobs inside The Zone, and the few people who provide support services (shops, restaurants, etc.) to them. Today was probably the most successful 12 hours I’ve spent in Ukraine. We decided to head to Slavutych today after an abysmal day yesterday wandering around the outskirts of The Zone on the west side of the Dnieper river. We had originally planned to spend the whole day inside the exclusion zone, but the cops who were supposed to be “arranging” for our access all got dragged into a big raid on some scrap-metal salvagers that had just been caught. Instead, we ended up driving through villages, shooting abandoned farms and houses, and chatting with a few people along the way. It wasn’t nearly as productive as I’d hoped, but it was good in it’s own way, and allowed me to work through a few things in my head that I really needed to sort out.
Today was different. Vladimir and I both slept in by accident and woke up at 9:30 instead of the planned 7:30, then managed to get stuck in traffic on the way out of Kyiv. We arrived in Slavutych after nearly 2 ½ hours of driving (As I write this, V informs me that we’ve driven 1730 km together since I got here last Saturday.) After a quick lunch in Slavutych we took a brief wander around the town to the memorial for fallen firefighters located in the town square; from there we decided to start wandering and interviewing random people in the hopes of finding someone with a good story to tell.
I’m writing this blog entry on my way back from my second day in Ivankiv, the largest settlement just outside the Exclusion Zone ( EZ ) around Chernobyl. My fixer, Vladimir, is an amazing asset. I doubt I’d even be able to function at all without him
Have arrived in Kyiv. This post will be short as internet access is... spotty... Updates shortly.
As of 6:15 PM this Friday, June 15, I'll be leaving Budapest and heading in to Kyiv to start shooting Chernobyl. I haven't a clue what my internet access there will be like, but I suspect it won't be nearly as convenient as what I have right now (Wifi in-house at my nephew Tristan's place, where I'm staying) so those of you who have been in regular contact with me, please don't expect me to be too prompt with my email replies.
Budapest has been AMAZING, and I'm really quite sad that I have to leave tomorrow. There's been no shortage of interesting things to keep me occupied during my stay. I've climbed Gellert Hill (Among other things, an old WWII fortress, but with evidence of use dating back to 1200BC and the Celts.), wandered through St. Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika in Hungarian) seen his mummified hand in a shrine. (The church keeps it in a reliquary at the back of the basilica. The hand is kept in the dark unless you put 100 Forints ($0.75 CDN or so) into a small machine to one side. Once you've paid up, a light comes on illuminating the hand for 60 seconds or so. If you want more time to pray to it, you need to pay more.) The rest of the Basilica is absolutely GORGEOUS, and quite honestly blows St. Paul's in London clear out of the water. Even Notre Dame in Paris couldn't hold a candle up to what they've got here in Budapest.
It's been the better part of a week since my last "real" update. My apologies...
Before leaving London I got to take a day-trip out to Milton Keynes, where Bletchley Park is located. Those of you not familiar with the Park's history really should be. Wikipedia article is here. I had an AMAZING time out there, and even got to see a full-size, *FUNCTIONING* replica of Colossus, the world's first electronic computer. (It's existence has only been recently declassified, and ENIAC, in the US, was incorrectly regarded as the first until recently. Colussus pre-dated ENIAC by two or so years.) I had a WONDERFUL chat with one of the engineers who have been rebuilding Colossus, and managed to get myself some paper-tape from a bona-fide Lorenz 40/42 Cipher being cracked by the machine. Interestingly enough, due to the parallel architecture used by Colossus, it still breaks codes as fast, and sometimes faster, as modern-day computers running software to crack the same 1943 ciphers. Astounding. I'll spare you all the technical details, but suffice it to say this is one of the few computers I've seen in my life that I've ever truly been in awe of.
Have safely arrived in Budapest.
I had many grand plans to write a nice long new post detailing my last days in London and my 48 hour (quite interesting) journey to Budapest via Paris, as well as my adventures with Chunnel security and what it's like to watch a rugby tournament taking place in the middle of a Paris street.
Sadly (well, not really) my plans have been delayed as my most wonderful nephew Tristan has gotten me quite drunk on Hungarian beer and German Jagermeister as a welcome to the country. I promise I'll update tomorrow. (Depending on how bad the hangover is.)
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Nic's Current Location:
Tristan and Krisztina Hume's Apartment, Budapest, Hungary
+47° 29' 25.43", +19° 4' 6.08"
Spent most of the daytime today in the Imperial War Museum. It's awfully similar to the way I remember it being when I was here last (1998 or so) but it's still an incredible place to simply wander through. The Secret War exhibit, which deals with everything from codebreaking to special forces black ops, was particularly interesting; The twin 15" canons mounted in the park directly in front of the museum were quite a bit more intimidating than I had recalled. Awe-inspiring might be a better word.
Took a walk up to The Canada Store (Yes, that's it's name, though it plays triple-duty as "The Australian Store" and "The South African store") to pick up some Vegemite for my nephew Tristan in Budapest, which is where I'm off to on Friday. (Note: Who knew that you could buy Vegemite in 1kg bulk containers?)
From there I walked down towards the River and met up with a friend of Robyn's named Michelle and hung out with her for a bit (Why do I always meet beautiful, intelligent women when I'm about to LEAVE a city?) before meeting up with Robyn and Jamie and heading up the London Eye. There's a GORGEOUS view (as you'd expect) from the top; the whole thing's a bit pricey, but a damn neat experience, and not like anything else I've ever done.
So a number of you, most notably my dad, have been harassing me for a blog update. It's late here, and I'm exhausted, but here you go. Things have been exceedingly busy for the last week. Most of my time in Vancouver was spent doing last-minute odds-and-ends work on packing, lightening my pack (I ditched most of my cold-weather gear, contact lens solution, and DVD's, but cut down almost 20 pounds) and the like. Got on the plane with no problem at all, even though my checked baggage was STILL overweight at 23kg, and my carry-on must have been 20 lbs at least, well over the 5lb maximum... Regardless, I got on OK. Had all my gear serial numbers recorded by Canada Customs so I can get back into the country without being charged tax on my own gear. When I offered to unpack my bag and let the customs officer check the numbers she just told me it "looked like it was all old" and not to worry about it... Go figure. (Above: St. Paul's Cathedral at Sunset, as seen from Shakespeare's Globe, across the river Thames.)
Arrived in London with relatively few complications, was treated to a WONDERFUL dinner by Robyn's new in-laws who are, quite possibly, the nicest people I've ever met. Have spent my first few days in London exploring the Fleet Street area of town, in particular a "small" church called St. Bride's, (There's a half-decent Wikipedia article here as well.) which calls itself "...the spiritual home of printing & the media." It's a wonderful place that was designed by Christopher Wren, in the late 1600's, though parts of the crypt and foundations date back to the first century and earlier. They've actually created a small chapel in the crypt, so that services can be held in the same place they were 2000 years ago. Pretty neat if you ask me.
I'm PRETTY sure this is the place Matt Lambert told me about several months ago, with a spiral stair-case up the spire and a great view of St. Paul's, but they wouldn't let me go up it without having arranged something well before-hand. Perhaps next time I visit...
(Below: St. Bride's is the tall steeple on the left. Fleet street can be seen on the right-hand side.)
Other highlights while I've been here have included climbing the great fire Monument, and getting all the way to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral (600-and-something steps... Yeesh...), having beer in a pub called Seven Stars that's been around since 1602, and seeing The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare's Globe...
(Below: Seven Stars. Note the "A.D. 1602" at the top of the sign.)
Plan on heading to the War Museum and the London Eye tomorrow, have also booked my tickets to Bletchley Park on Wednesday, my Othello groundling ticket for Thursday, and my train tickets to Budapest (with a half-day in Paris, and a transfer in Munich) as well.
That's all for now, It's 1:30 here and I need to be up in 6 hours. My apologies if I'm slightly less than coherent in this post, it's been a long, long week...
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Nic's Current Location: Robyn Goodman's House; Sevenoaks, Kent. UK.
+51° 16' 42.64", +0° 10' 43.69"
So, I'm gone... Or at least, I've left Victoria and I'm in Vancouver and I'm only semi-connected to the world... For the first time since I was 17 or so I don't have a cell phone and it's really, REALLY strange...
I said goodbye to my dad this morning (picture above) at the Schwartz Bay ferry terminal hopped on the 11AM boat out of Victoria, hit the mainland right on schedule at 12:35 and then spent four hours busing and walking around Richmond and downtown Vancouver picking my D200 from Nikon (it feels *SO* good to have a "real" camera back in my hands. My backup D80 just wasn't cutting it...) and picking up my British passport from Visa Connection with my Russian and Mongolian visas in it. My backpack weighs in at around 80 pounds or so, by my best guess, with my camera bag adding another 25 to that. (I know that sounds a lot, but that's still well under 1/3 of my body-weight, which, as I understand it, is the recommended max weight for a pack)... Amazingly enough it didn't actually feel very heavy at all once I got it up on my shoulders and had all the straps adjusted... I wouldn't want to walk for 8 hours with it, but that's more because I'm in bad shape and my legs would get tired rather than from any discomfort. The biggest problem I had (and it wasn't REALLY a problem) is that with my camera bag slung across my body UNDER the backpack straps, the camera-bag strap digs in a bit, and is much harder to adjust than when I don't have the backpack on. Hardly critical, but a mild nuisance...
The overall experience was good, as it was handy to see how well I could move around with all my gear. Aside from being firmly reminded of exactly HOW out-of-shape I am, I'm quite pleased with everything. The gear is heavy, but quite manageable, and I'm quite sure I'd be able to run short distances with it if necessary (One of my hard-and-fast rules is that I'll never go traveling/on-assignment with gear that I can't run with, or abandon, should the need arise...)
I'm at my brother Mark's house now, and am relaxing a bit before doing some invoicing and then going for a beer with my friend Kirsti, who I haven't seen in almost a year (She was an ASM at last year's Shakespeare in the Summer festival in Victoria. I was, for a time, the Technical Director of said festival...)
My plans for tomorrow involve a beach, a book, and my D200. (Hopefully some cute girls as well, but I'll have to play that bit by ear...)
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Nic's Current Location:
Mark Hume's House, Vancouver, Canada
+49° 14' 46.69"N, -123° 10' 10.30"W
Yes, it's been AGES since I posted.
Yes, that makes me a bad person.
Yes, I'm cross-posting a facebook post because I'm rushed for time. Sorry. There will be more soon. (In more recent news, I just got word, as I was typing this, that my Mongolian visa has been OK'd... Hooray!)
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I've been getting piles and PILES of people asking where I'm going, how long I'm gone for, etc. etc. etc. over the last few weeks... I hardly mind explaining my travel plans to people, but after the 30th or 40th time, it gets a bit old... SO... Here's what I'm doing, where I'm going, and all that... You can keep track of my on my blog and webpage if you're so inclined...
As most of you know, I was laid off from the Times Colonist at the end of February, 2007. Not having much of a freelance editorial market in Victoria, I figured now would be a GREAT time to take off and visit some places and do some work that I've always wanted to. Chernobyl seemed like a good idea, and I've always been quite curious about the area and it's stories) ... After getting myself vaguely set-up to visit the worlds only urban nuclear disaster area, I figured a brief jaunt up to Russia would be in order... From there I got hooked on the idea of taking the Trans-Siberian (Technically Trans-Manchurian in my case) Railroad across the continent, and ending up in Mongolia for a month, before progressing on to China... After that, and seeing as I'd be in "that corner of the world" I figured a stint down to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand would be in order too. Laos is supposed to be nice that time of year as well...
After South Asia, I've got two options:
a) If I'm utterly travel-weary and exhausted, I'll head home.
b) If I'm having a blast and not burned out, I'll keep heading south.
If I take option A, I plan on hitching a ride on a freighter over to Vancouver... if I choose option B then I expect I'll head down through the Indies, into Australia, then New Zealand, then catch a freighter from THERE over to Punta Arenas or somewhere near the south end of South America, and work my way back north from there... If I can find a way to go anywhere NEAR Antarctica at the same time, I'd love to do that too. We'll see...
I've got a very rough travel itinerary that gets me as far as Thailand so far. The dates are as follows:
June 1: Fly Vancouver --> London England. Get put up by exceedingly generous friends, try and network a bit, and visit some old friends.
June 8-ish: Train to Budapest via Paris. Spend some time in Budapest visiting my nephew (who is also generously putting me up)
June 16: Kiev. Spend 3 1/2 weeks in Kiev and Chernobyl doing documentary work around the old reactor and the surrounding area.
July 7: Leave for St. Petersburg. Most "tourist" stuff here, though I hope to find some interesting stuff to shoot as well.
July 14: Moscow. A few tidbits of remaining doc. work on Chernobyl. There are some cemeteries and memorials I want to visit, and one survivor in particular I want to try and track down.
July 21-ish: Trans-siberian express to Irkutsk. Possible stop in Yeketarinburg. End up in Irkutsk.
August 4: Enter Mongolia. 1 month based in / around Ulan Bataar. Hope to get out into the Gobi for a bit just to check it out. May try for a train-trip to Uliastay. We'll see.
September 1: China. Have a dual-entry visa. Expect to only stay a month, and want to hit Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and (somehow) see the Three Gorges dam as well.
September 29-ish: Vietnam: No plans beyond staying a month. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are both (obviously) on the list.
Late October: Cambodia. Ditto to Thailand re: no specific plans. Will see what haapens.
November: Thailand or Laos.
Things get awfully fuzzy from here on in. I'm not about to try and plan things beyond 6 months out. I'm QUITE confident in my own ability to find trouble / end up in the middle of a civil war / get arrested / whatever.
So. There you have it. That's where I'll be. If anyone feels like joining up with me along the way, feel free to drop me a line (nic@nichume.com, or facebook, are the best ways to reach me these days. Obviously my cell phone and land-lines are NOT the best ways to reach me.)
I have, again, been up to my eyeballs this last week with work, planning, organizing, phoning, emailing, and all that other ... stuff... that goes along with leaving a place for 6 months or more...
I had my first dental exam in far FAR too long done today, $200 down the drain, but it was worth it to know that I likely won't need any work done by Siberian dentists... not that I have anything AGAINST Siberian dentists, if there are any reading this, but I'd feel more comfortable having my own dentist work on me. As it turns out, my OLD dentist has retired since the last time I went to visit and his practice has been bought out by a new guy, Dr. Krieger. Seemed like a very nice chap all in all, though a couple of his dental assistants were a bit shy on the experience side (Having the person polishing your teeth talking to another person and commenting on how exciting it is to polish teeth because she "almost never gets to to do this" doesn't do a lot to instill confidence in me, but I survived, and everyone was quite nice and competent, so ...
My dad returned home on Friday from a few weeks in the UK doing family research and the like. We've jumped straight back into a routine of doing Hume & Hume's as fast as we can to get a nice buffer built up before I leave the country... There's a few fun / interesting characters coming up, so it'll be a nice change from politicians too (not that I mind politicians, but it's nice to get some variety :) )
As far as travel stuff goes, I've had a few minor-to-major developments as well. Notably, I now have a new backpack that actually fits me properly... it's an 85L Osprey Aether (The Osprey website is kinda broken, but you can at least see the thing) and I swear I don't even know I'm wearing it, even with 60 lbs or weight in the thing... I'm also well on the way to having some customized GPS software that's more suited to the type of application that I want. A friend of mine, Evan Willms, is coding it for me in exchange for my Lego Mindstorms NXT set, that I never had the chance to play with anyway. Basically the program is a fairly simple/small/light app. that spurts out GPS coordinates in a Google Maps URL so they can be easily incorporated as a link into my blog posts. Check out the bottom of this post for an example. It's pretty spiffy really. He's also got the thing rigged up to record trip-data while I'm offline, and output KML files that can be dumped into GoogleEarth later on if I want...
I've also finally made solid contact with Don Weber's fixer, Vladimir, in Ukraine. He seems like quite a nice guy, and has asked me to try and bring some Kraft Dinner cheese packets and Pepsi along with me when I go. Apparently neither of these things are readily available in Ukraine... It seems a BIT odd to me to be, in effect, including KD Cheese as part of a payment to get me Exclusion Zone access, but I think it's a good sign that this guy is on the same wavelength as me. I like him already :)
On a final note, I've finally set a good-bye party date... May 25th, at the Union Pacific (see map below...) ... Jimmy, the owner, has agreed to go so far as to post a world map and track my progress with pins while I'm gone... I think it's his way of keeping track of how long his primary source of revenue will be out-of-country, but it's kinda cool too...
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Nic's Current Location:
Union Pacific Coffee, Victoria, B.C.
+48° 25' 48.40", -123° 22' 6.59"
I've been lax about posting here lately, largely because I've been running my head off all over the place for the last week or two. I was in Vancouver over the weekend attending the WCNPA conference there, then up in Kelowna visiting an old friend for an evening, then back in Victoria and straight into a couple of days of work at the Metro... Throw in trip planning, an insane 23-hour day at the beginning of last week, a smattering of shoots for corporate clients, and trying to cram in errands / visits with friends while I was in Van. and you've got a pretty busy week all in all.
In the Good News category, I now have my Chinese visa in my Canadian passport, and my Russian visa in my British passport. Still waiting on the Mongolian one; it will get sent in to the embassy on May 15th, and I should hear back from them by the 23rd or so. If I *DON'T* get a visa I've decided to just drop it and head straight to China from Russia... I'm keeping my fingers crossed though...
There's been so much other ... well... stuff... going on these last few weeks that I'm not even going to try and cram it all in. None of it is particularly significant but it's totally drained me. One addition to my arsenal of gadgets that *IS* worth noting is my brand spankin' new GlobalSat USB GPS receiver. Each blog post I make from now on will include my position, down to around 50ft accuracy or so, so those of you who *ARE* interested can keep track of where I am. I'm looking for a software solution that will let me provide a link to a satellite view / map of where I am. I haven't found a simple / clean solution for that yet, so for now, you're stuck with just the numbers :)
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Nic's Current Location:
Union Pacific Coffee Company, Victoria, B.C.
48º25.81'N 123º22.08'W
So, I finally broke down and created a facebook account about 4 or 5 days ago. It's been quite a trip down memory lane, touching base with old friends long-forgotten, and people I went to pre-school with...
It's also been a very, very sobering experience.
In the last 24 hours I've connected and reconnected with the two people I least expected, one, an old Camosun friend who shall go unnamed, has had a rough time of it since I saw him last. Health problems abound, and he's still fighting the ghosts of a failed steroid-treatment for an autoimmune neuromuscular disorder, and withdrawal from the medical morphine that was given to help him with the pain. Either of those things on their own, I suspect, would be more taxing than most of us will ever know; I feel glad that the worst I ever have to deal with is a particularly bad cold.
On the other side of things, I received a message out of the blue from a niece (by marriage), Yolanda, that I didn't know I had, and saw pictures of my two great-nephews for the first time ever... I didn't even know their names until today (Indeo and Ryven). Oddly enough, this latter connection happened through entirely non-family channels. It seems Yolanda is friends with the Cheimak family, the younger members of whom I went to SMUS with. We're going to try and set up a meeting of some kind before I leave on my trip, so I can meet Indeo and Ryven, and their dad Jubal, who I've only heard passing mention of until now.
Facebook is a strange, strange place. I've gone from getting horrible news about good friends, to being connected with "new" family in the space of one evening. I don't think I've had this much of an emotional up-and-down day in a long time.
Some days the world seems huge and daunting; others it seems so small I feel like I can just reach across it. Today's been a bit of both...
