Bootstrappin’

Interesting fact about the world’s most popular soft drink… Coca-Cola is pronounced ‘ke kou ke le’ in Chinese, which coincidentally translates into “Delicious Happiness.” Where it came from: In the 1920s, Coke created the four Chinese characters that, when combined, approximated the English sound of “Coca-Cola.” As the official Mandarin-language Coca-Cola logo gained visibility, local […]

Taiwan is swarming with locusts right now, and somebody has to catch them. I went for a walk this morning in Taitung, and stumbled into the Lishu Recreational Area, a little park with the Shinto “Longfong Tower” and a nature walk called the “Liyushan Trail.” The sky was black with locusts buzzing everywhere, and I […]

Japan has a lot of rules, and there are signs like this posted everywhere. I don’t know what half of these pictures even mean, but I have some guesses (from left to right, top to bottom): 1. No smoking. 2. No black dogs with white ears. 3. No calculating of the air speed velocity of […]

From my understanding, this is what a typical chap brings when he goes hitchhiking: Bindle. Pack of Smokes and/or large block of chewin’ tobacky. Harmonica. Can of beans. Knife. Anything beyond that is probably unnecessary. Then again, we’re traveling around the world for months, to first world and developing nations. We’ll be staying anywhere from […]