Freelance Writer
Travel stories and articles
The Hakuba Valley is quite a beautiful place on bluebird days, with the backdrop of the Japanese Alps reminiscent of their European namesake. Here’s a resort guide for Honshu, Japan’s main island. If you want a general overview of skiing in Japan, click here. For a guide to some of Hokkaido’s resorts, click here.
The view of active volcano Mt. Yotei from Rusutsu’s Mt. Isola. Bluebird views in Hokkaido are pretty unique in the skiing world. The mountains around here are pretty tasty too. Here’s a resort guide for Hokkaido. If you want a general overview of what to expect from skiing in Japan, check here. Hokkaido is the…
Winter in Japan is a beautiful place. Happo One, Hakuba valley, Nagano prefecture, Japan. Photo by Tomas on Unsplash A few people have been asking me lately about travelling in Japan in general and skiing there more specifically. The first thing I did on my first visit to Japan in 2017 was get a flight to Hokkaido…
Tsutenkaku, Osaka, Japan Photo by Chilam Siu on Unsplash My first sight of Kyoto is the McDonald’s at Kyoto Station. I’ve been dropped off a sleepless night bus at 5am and it’s the first place to open. There’s a queue of 40 people waiting for the shutters to open at 5:30. I don’t know if they’re travelling, on…
Do I’ve any regrets from living in Asia for three years? Anything I left behind, anything I should have done more of, any opportunities I passed up, any more places I should have gone, any interests I should have explored further, any way I would have spent my time differently? Anything I shouldn’t have done?…
Photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash There’s more value in the books you haven’t read than in the ones you have, or so Nassim Taleb tells us about Umberto Eco’s anti-library: despite having over thirty thousand books in his personal library, he is prouder of the ones he hasn’t read than the ones he has. This attitude should…
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal “All right, brain. You don’t like me and I don’t like you, but let’s just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer.” Homer Simpson “It’s a DEAL!” Homer Simpson’s brain I’d just arrived…
I came across the word ‘sonder’ recently in the wonderful Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. sonder n. “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness”. Apparently it’s noun, though I’d use it the same way…
In trying to figure out who we are, we often cling to where we’re from – though that can change depending on who you’re with
About why I run and why I travel, and how I had the brainwave to combine the two by completing the Vietnam Mountain Marathon in Sapa in September 2018.