Together with a flood of Japanese businessmen on their way home, I leave the train station and embark on a journey through Tokyo's suburbia. It’s a mild summer night and crickets are chirping in one continuous orchestra as I walk by the channel of a small creek framed in green. The moon shines on high…
“Dinner, madam?”
A small frame stretched up and peered into my bed with inquisitive eyes as the Aravalli Range whipped past through the window behind him. He was a dabbawala – a lunchbox delivery man – and he couldn’t have come at a better time.
For several weeks now, I had been traipsing across the…
I’m not your fetish. I’m not easy for you to obtain, and I’m not an object of your affections.
I am a Chinese girl with a dark complexion, green hair and a loud mouth. I am a Chinese girl who has spent most of her life living in the city of Brisbane, a predominantly white-populated…
Photo by Jens Johnsson
Camping in the Atacama Desert with a group of Chilean hippies was always going to present something of a communication challenge. With my bare-bones Spanish, I had needed help just to translate the invitation. It offered a position volunteering at a weekend gathering of ceremony and traditional medicine called Vive Piuke Mapu, 150…
I sit in the back seat of an old Mercedes-Benz that smells like cheap tobacco and think about what I should say to the mystery man behind the wheel. Squished next to me and buried under our backpacks are Noam and Ziv, two Israeli girls I met in a hostel in Sarandë. Our driver and…
Did you know that Spaniards have their own term of disendearment for us? Well they do, it’s guiri (pronounced giddy), and it basically means sunburnt foreigner who puts chorizo in all their dishes, but is also levelled at us whenever we commit a faux pas while travelling in the kingdom.
Your Spanish friends/girlfriend/in-laws will place hand…
I arrived in Canada to begin what was to become my fourth snow season, but my first long-term solo overseas trip. I had no job and vague intentions of making my way to Banff, but figured a few days in Vancouver would be a good time to start.
As a veteran of three seasons in…
We all go through a Mulan phase. Not so much the cross-dressing our way into the army, saving China and cosying up with mega dreamboat Captain Li Shang part. It’s more like looking in the mirror and offkey singing, “Who is that accumulation of cells and bad-choices I see / staring straight back at me?”…
I’m camping in Europe at the moment. Pitching my tent at rest stops, in the mountains and inconspicuously behind bushes on private land. I’m camping because there are some day hikes I can’t bear to leave after only a few hours. I want to wake up in the fog and sleep amongst all the creatures…
Using my tweed blazer, online degree from the University of Metaphysical Sciences, and superior height, I convinced three of the mugs I was living with to follow me into a Balinese forest and summon up spirits.
They believe I can read minds. This is half because I keep saying I can, and half because I…
You look at the biro-ink peaks of Mount Olympus on the back of your ouzo receipt. The receptionist at your previous Greek hostel made them look more innocent than what was to come. The triangular mountains are dotted with the incision lines of the E4 track; it will lead you to your refuge for the…
I stare out the plane window at the twinkling lights in the darkness below. That’s Japan down there. Hitting the ground feels like victory: a life’s dream of coming here fulfilled in the matter of seconds. With a big smile despite my tired eyes, I step out of the arrival gate and drink in the…