What’s New with Wu

Now that’s what I call a honeymoon!

Unfortunately every time I come to Japan I want to do everything I’ve ever done here:  climb a mountain, visit onsen, eat soba, tonkatsu, sushi, go to kabuki - in short, do a repeat of every trip I’ve ever done

but even failing that, I will say this about japan, even if I do the same stuff here every time, it never gets old

This week I am flying around the world. That sounds more daunting than it is in reality - its just a few plane flights, nothing special.

Very impressed by the airports in Iceland and Copenhagen.

Copenhagen, in particular, comes close to the ideal that everything we deal with should be designed. I noticed this when I noticed that the design in Copenhagen extends all the way to the those bins used in the security line.

And I thought - yes, why do most places just use those ugly grey bins ?

My first full travel series -

What happens when you mix geek with weightlifter?  Yuri Vlasov, one of the greatest lifters of all time.

I’m writing along with the book a new travel article on Mongolia.  Travel writing that doesn’t suck is hard -fortunately  Seth Stevenson is my guide for this kind of stuff.

His Japan series is totally classic in my opinion, even if you’ve spent time in Japan.

The greatest cliche in travel is “old meets new.”   I must say the conference organizers took that to a new and unexcepted level last night by mixing this

with this

To a remixed version of “Greensleeves” brought to you via turntable and Gayaguem (zither).

I had never thought of zither and breakdancing together but it was a memorable combination.

I’m off to the OECD’s “Future of the Internet” meeting in Seoul.    Unfortunately I have already been to the Kimchi museum so I’ll have to think of somewhere else to go in my off time.

An annual ascent of Shasta would probably be best.  But once every five years is better than nothing.

(photo credit SP8254 on flickr, CC license)

My once idealized vision of U.S. Park Rangers was sure sullied today by their operation of a speed trap in Yosemite Park. Near Tuolumne meadows, on a straight empty stretch of road, there’s a sudden drop in the speed limit from 45 - 35 mph, and the rangers make a good business of busting everyone going 50 mph.
When the Ranger stopped me I thought he was coming over to help with directions or something, and I was actually quite pleased about that, because in fact I had a few questions. But no, it was the whole tough guy state cop routine; and instead of a hiker suddenly you’ve become some kind of felon. In fact, the stupid thing took so long I got out of the car for a while to go wander around (its nice in Tuolumne Meadows) - but oh no, out came an order to return to the car.