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Yarns
Where Air is Water
I wish I had taken ballet as a kid. The pirouettes I force myself into, avoiding seemingly inevitable collisions with scooters and cars, on roads that have no sidewalks to speak of and drains wider than a cat is long, would make my grandmother proud. Add to that the scrapes on my hand and pride…
July 26, 2018
Japan Yarns Yarns
Stamps With a Story
Tracing the intricate calligraphy, an old Japanese man smiles and looks over at his granddaughter. He downs the last of his long neck Asahi Super Dry and lets out a boisterous laugh. “I can’t believe you’ve taken up a pastime beloved by elderly Japanese men,” he chuckles. I am sitting with my friend Yayoi in…
July 23, 2018
Yarns
A Christian Walks Into a Strip Club
Bare breasts are in my face, the stripper’s top hanging loosely from the bar stool next to me. I feel like I’ve descended into hell. The room is bathed in a red glow, like fire is enveloping the place, while disco balls spin delicately from above, illuminating men who watch the main stage with fervent…
July 18, 2018
Yarns
This Train is Bound for Tomorrow
On a late-night train, there was a girl. I faintly recall a scarf, round cheeks and bangs long enough that they caught on her eyelashes. Her hands fluttered to the cadence of her voice. Her leg was warm against mine. I don’t remember her name. One of the senior girls from Osaka University’s karate club…
July 16, 2018
Yarns
Finding Love in Lisbon
Following a few blissful weeks of drinking more cheap spirit mixers than water and eating nothing but pastries from some of Europe’s finest bakeries and hostel breakfast tables, I’ve come down with an inevitable bout of sore throat and laziness. I’m sitting in the hostel common room playing Jenga while the sun beams onto Lisbon’s…
July 7, 2018
Yarns
The Fiestas of San Fermin
The Running of the Bulls is what put the sleepy Spanish town of Pamplona on the map, but this pub dare gone way too far is merely the pointy end of a larger fiesta held there annually. Ernest Hemingway, Pamplona’s favourite backpacker, wrote of San Fermín in ‘The Sun Also Rises’. He said that by…
July 5, 2018
Yarns
How I Decided
It's a Sunday afternoon. I'm home in Milan rolling in bed after my Saturday night shift. I receive a message: it's my best friend Tommy, who lives in Australia. He's texting me and Ivan, who lives in Berlin. 15:36 – Asia on the 6th of January? I answer instinctively. Yes, I wish. Same, says Ivan.…
June 27, 2018
Yarns
A Gringo Goes to Salvador’s Carnival
When you hear 'Ziriguidum', you’re required to put both hands on your knees and bend down like you’re addressing an imaginary, ground-borne squirrel. Once you’re in that position – knees bent 45 north, waist 45 south – you extend your right arm to full, then the fingers on your right hand totally, as if hand-gesturing to…
June 24, 2018
Yarns
I Bought an Amazonian Toucan in Peru
I've never really been one to take to guts and gore. I fainted dissecting cane toads at school, cried for three hours when our van in Khao Lak hit a chicken and made a former boyfriend refund an African Safari video game called Big Buck Hunter. But it wasn’t really my fault – I just…
June 24, 2018
India Yarns Yarns
A Lonely Planet Surprise in India
My stay in Rajasthan’s Royal City of Udaipur was intended to be a Lonely Planet special: accommodation, eating and sightseeing all planned out by an expert travel writer. But, as is relatively common knowledge, Lonely Planet mostly tends to be a collection of drab instructions written by someone whose idea of a shoestring budget is…
June 24, 2018

Astray is a storytelling project centred on travel, place, culture and identity.

We’re run by a team of writers who mostly live, work and play in nipaluna / Hobart. With reverence, we acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and ongoing custodians of trouwunna / lutruwita / Tasmania: land that was stolen and never ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.