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I have been working very hard these last few weeks—a little too hard, at times. To break the monotony of laying code every day I elected to go for a proper ride yesterday. Since moving to Tainan I haven’t gone on any long rides whatsoever—so I geared up for a day on the road, preparing for almost any eventuality. I had several destinations in mind such as the badlands to the east of the city but struck out to the north on a whim, intending to make it to at least Chiayi City by sundown.

One of my stranger day trips in Malaysia was to the mystic island of Pulau Besar in the state of Melaka, better known as Malacca to most English-speaking people. Situated in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, the small island of Pulau Besar is steeped in myth and legend. It is also widely considered to be haunted—which partly explains why part of the island is abandoned.

In March of 2014 I went to see the Xú Bīng (徐冰) retrospective at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館), easily my favourite gallery space in Taiwan. Xu Bing is a Chinese artist working mainly with representations of language, particularly in the context of interactions between East and West. I first discovered him through an article about character amnesia that discussed A Book From The Sky (天書), a work that immediately captured my imagination.

I woke in a rundown hotel room not far from the railway station in Fengyuan. Sunlight trickled in through discolored drapes, filling the room with a murky glow. My muscles were knotted and my lower back ached, a consequence of sleeping on the rock-hard mattress and a tough, lumpy pillow after yesterday’s long ride. The passage of night left me feeling a vague sense of unease. I lingered in bed, letting the moment pass.

After taking it easy the day before I set out to ride south to Fengyuan, Taichung, nearly 90 km from my starting point in Zhubei. There were several sights I wanted to see on the way there so I wasn’t entirely sure I would make it with daylight to spare. In fact, I was quite sure I would not—I had been up late again, wracked by insomnia, and was not ready to go until the early afternoon.

The second day of my round-the-island tour of Taiwan was relatively uneventful. I had slept poorly after first day on the road and did not fully awaken until after noon. Since I was in no particular hurry I decided to take a day to ride around Zhubei and Hsinchu City before setting out for Taichung the following day.

I moved to Taiwan in early 2013 without much of a plan or any real idea about whether I would stay. While doing research prior to departure I stumbled upon several blogs describing the huandao (環島), a road trip around the main island on bicycle or scooter often taken as a rite of passage. I was intrigued, though I had never before embarked upon a multi-day cycling trip, nor even gone for a really long ride. Though I was deeply unsure of my own capabilities I decided, as September approached, to give it a shot. I scheduled a bicycle rental from a Giant shop in Dadaocheng, put what little I owned into storage, and hit the road on the afternoon of September 8th, 2013, hoping for a reprieve from the daytime heat.

I discovered Kampung Numbak using Wikimapia, a mash up of Google Maps and Wikipedia, while staying at 1Borneo, a megamall on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. After finding it online I decided to pay Numbak a visit. There was something very strange about the juxtaposition of Borneo’s biggest mall and this impoverished village of 5,000 a stone’s throw away.

At the beginning of February I spent several days near Tuaran, a town outside of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia. Here are a few photos from my adventures there…

Here is the final gallery featuring photos from Tanjung Simpang Mengayau, the northernmost tip of Borneo, in Kudat. All of these shots were captured on Pantai Avoi with the exception of the last photo which was shot on the road heading back to Pantai Kalampunian.

This is the second of three galleries featuring photographs captured near Tanjung Simpang Mengayau, the northernmost tip of Borneo, in the state of Sabah, Malaysia. All of these were shot on Pantai Kalampunian, the beach on the western side of the tip along the South China Sea.

The first of three galleries showing off the natural beauty of Tanjung Simpang Mengayau in Kudat, the northernmost tip of Borneo, in the state of Sabah, Malaysia.

These photos were shot while touring an old Chinese cemetery in Kampung Bakut, a village just outside of Tuaran in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Many Hakka Chinese migrated to this area in the late 19th century, hence the need for a place formally known in Malay as Tanah Perkuburan Orang Cina Tuaran (斗亞蘭華人福壽山). It is a forlorn, neglected place: a hilltop encrusted with elaborate tombs in an elegant state of disrepair. Cemeteries are typically avoided by the local people, a consequence of the widely-held belief that anything to do with death will bring bad luck. Even so, these burial grounds are littered with rubbish and empty glue canisters—an indication that the cemetery entertains at least a few visitors now and then.

Vancouver recently lay under cover of fog for days. This prompted me to grab my camera to find out what could be captured of such mysterious atmospheric conditions. I ventured out into Stanley Park with a tripod one night only to discover that there really isn’t any light to work with. I couldn’t discern the skyline through the thick mire. In fact, I could hardly even see a few meters in front of me. I called that mission off and headed out the next day over Burrard Bridge, around False Creek, and back to the West End by way of Gastown. This time I did not bring a tripod—hence the grainy quality of some of these later photos, all of which were shot by hand with a fixed 35mm lens.

I met up with an old friend to hit the road in search of adventure today. And so we crossed the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to the North Shore. We stopped in some random industrial area just off the Dollarton Highway then proceeded to Cates Park before entering Deep Cove. I figured it would be picturesque. Instead it was kind of dull and vaguely unwelcoming. We forged ahead to North Woodlands, which I only knew about from messing around with Google Maps. Turns out this remote community was even less welcoming than Deep Cove—virtually every vantage point was blocked by private homes. We snapped a few photos from the wharf and called it a day.

One of the pleasures of living in the West End neighbourhood of Vancouver is that I can easily cycle out to Stanley Park and ride the seawall. I have been doing so regularly, several times a month, despite the deepening cold. Wintertime in Vancouver is toothless compared to what I’ve endured for decades in Toronto. I suppose not everyone feels this way, for the seawall—particularly the far side, beyond the bridge—is virtually empty most of the time. I like it that way.

Seeking to break up the monotony of the work week I took advantage of a supposedly rare dry spell during the Vancouver wet season to voyage down the Capilano River trails from Cleveland Dam. Access to the park is effortless; a city bus crossing the Lion’s Gate bridge delivered me to the park in less than an hour. The lake you see in the photos below is the source of nearly half of the drinking water in the Vancouver region. Presented below are some of the photos I shot on this brief jaunt to the North Shore.

I recently moved to the West End neighbourhood of Vancouver. Not long after I began taking advantage of the proximity to Stanley Park to engage in a long-standing Vancouver tradition: riding the seawall. Here are a few photos from my first trip around the park.

It rains a lot in Vancouver but I don’t mind. It isn’t great for taking photos (hence all the washed out grey skies) but I enjoy the ambience just the same. Here are a bunch of photos from my wanderings around Mount Pleasant and the False Creek area of Vancouver in the fall of 2012. It may not seem as if this is a beautiful city but it truly is; I just happen to be drawn to the more run-down things I see in my travels.

This post collects my final thoughts about my trip to Seoul, South Korea, in April 2012. To write these posts I have been working from a series of letters I sent home to family and friends as well as some notes I jotted down while still in Seoul. Not everything fit into previous posts but there are a few things I still wish to share. Expect to read an assortment of anecdotes and fleeting impressions from the remainder of my stay in the South Korean capital.