According to a google search (which I can do now that I’m outside of China; google and facebook are heavily censored and/or blocked in the PRC… but bing and yahoo were mostly good to go… I was just too lazy to change my browser’s default search engine and thus opted to wait until now to […]
The bureaucracy of transiting through China is as one might expect. By that I mean as a guy who speaks maybe three phrases in Chinese (hello, thank you, and happy new year), I was a stranger in a strange land and so wasn’t entirely sure of the process. Given that I was grabbing a domestic […]
I know nothing. Nothing. Upon checking in at Tom Bradley for my flight, it’s unclear whether or not I have a transit hotel like they offered en route to Bali. It’s also unclear how my visa situation as a transit passenger in the People’s Republic of China will shake out. I do have a valid […]
My visa is all set. According to my pre-travel letter from Albatros Adventures, while the local currency is the kyat (pronounced chat and abbreviated K), I really should bring US dollars. *But* they need to be unmarked and in excellent condition as the locals are “reluctant to deal with damaged notes.” I assume counterfeit bills […]
I’m packing up for Myanmar/Burma this weekend. A few weeks ago I mentioned how I was feeling really conflicted about going to run the Bagan Temple Marathon. It’s a global shame considering ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be the order of the day, week, month, year at present over there. I haven’t gotten any […]
Today I sent in my deposit. The Road to Zanzibar runs past Mt. Kilimanjaro. June 2018
Twenty some odd years ago I wrote an outline for a screenplay entitled “Disney’s Bulletproof Cat.” It was a joke exercise, just something to do. In it, a collegiate chemistry professor was experimenting with bulletproof spray, a gas which obviously makes anything impervious to bullets. Through some hilarious snafu, the professor’s cat gets spritzed with […]
How long it takes to build up one’s endurance and how quickly it slips away. Taking stock via a post-morterm of the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge, considering it was a total of 19.3 miles run over two days, I’m not-so-incredibly hulkingly stiff, sore, and smashed. This morning I went for a painfully slow 4 miles and […]
This is the way runDisney ends in Anaheim. Not with a bang…or a biff… or a pow… but with a whimper. Friends, runners, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury runDisney in California, not to praise it. The final event to be held at the West Coast Disneyland Resorts was a weirdly anticlimactic […]
Thor’s mighty hammer lies in ruins. So too do the hopes and dreams of runDisney in Anaheim. Whether it’s the official story that so much construction in the area for a new Star Wars Land… and beyond… makes running through the Disneyland Parks logistically impossible or the rumored dispute with the area residents about road […]