Borneo

A short trip to the land of Orang Utans....







...and of beautiful beaches.

Tokyo foods

Houston Rodeo Gorging

So my brother, two of my cousins and I spent a night at the Rodeo... though we ended missing most of the actual rodeo show because we were too busy eating batter-fried bacon and other goodies soaked in fat.



We also saw a lot of life stock, which exposed me to all sorts of bacteria and potential diseases a few days before a transatlantic flight... something I'm sure border control in Hong Kong wouldn't have been too thrilled about had they known. But how can you resist an Alpaca in a petting zoo when it creeps up behind you for a cuddle or a hard push?

It's been so long since I've been to the Rodeo. The last time I went I saw a dangly Bob Dylan croak country songs, strumming his guitar on a stage where a few moments before a man rode a bull. At the time, I felt very misplaced -- I had no idea who ZZ Top was. I pronounced the number π (pi) as "pee" because that's how you said it in German. I was a European teenager who was used to having all the freedom in the world and who was suddenly confronted with cops grazing highways after midnight for underaged kids. It took a while but in time I learned to appreciate Texan life: the enormity of everything from houses and people to food portions, the way that Texans always found a way to butcher my name and the long drives at night.

Texas will always have a special place in my heart - even if just in form of hardened gew in my arteries.

The fair:





The life stock:

Hong Kong snapshots with Emily

Doing touristy things with a friend who sang with me when I was 17.

Singapore

Went to Singapore to conduct training and worked for most of the day. Got to see the city at night though.

Hong Kong

First impressions:

Baltimore, Maryland

Our friend's wedding in Baltimore (at the National Aquarium)...

Marseille - Part 2

My aunt's greenhouses in Marseille.

Marseille - Part 1

Saw my aunt for the first time in 12 years and she took us around Southern France, from one beach to another.

The first photo below shows her as a child with my grandparents, my dad (as a baby), my great uncles and my great grandparents. More photos to come.

Berlin

Went to Berlin. Good people, familiar city.

Wanderlust and other diseases that perpetual travelers suffer from

The 'perpetual traveler'. A term I first came across when my London roommates designed a hotel room for jet-setting business types who have the option of re-ordering the same room all over the world via an online portal. It was one of the many master's projects they did for their degree in 'Creative Practice for Narrative Environments.'

Only later did I find out that the term 'perpetual traveler' applies to people who travel for tax evasion. People that reside in Hong Kong or Switzerland without a proper visa status in any country. An ever changing residency, so fleeting it's hard to call it permanent.

'Perpetual traveler.' Strangely enough, I always thought it had a positive ring to it. As the internet envelopes the globe and mobility becomes more of a life style than a luxury, I had come to accept constant wanderlust as a state of life. My oxygen was instability; my dream was marriage, a PhD during pregnancy, a house in a place where people around me speak a language I don't.

And now I am once more confronted with just that mundane definition of the perpetual traveler. I will have to do my taxes, admittedly/ashamedly for the first time. 'File as a non-permanent resident,' I remember being told on the phone by an accountant.

My New York driver's license says I'm a temporary visitor. My vacation plans remain unknown depending on my visa status. And my mind wanders off to memories of singing in Berlin, cooking in London, learning how to play the guitar in Houston. And my mind wanders off to goals of a correspondence in Hong Kong, a humanitarian post in Africa, a happy hippie life in Cuba.

I have never been told so often as in New York that I'm young.
'The world is your oyster.'
Even my far-away mother has adopted that view, realized that her children, who both moved out in their mid-teens, won't stay put in one place for very long.

A residue of teenage restlessness is amplified every single day by the cups of black coffee I consume. I feel part of a generation so willing to seek, so unwilling to procreate, so ... as New Yorkers would tell me... young. But by that I don't just mean the physical age. The chronology of life no longer applies, fuck biological compulsions.

And yet, I wish for settlement. Is that still tied to geography?

And I wonder, wander, wonder.

Peru Travel Log

Peru travel log from Lam Thuy Vo on Vimeo.

This video is dedicated to the lovely Beckey Bright who told me wondrous stories about this country's potatoes, in such an enticing way, I wanted to tell her about our experiences.

Also massive thank yous to Daniel Cavero, Alejandra Costa, Matthias Bernold and all the other lovely people who showed us around and connected us.

Music by Nattapoom

Text:

10 hours of torturous butt-clenching trickled on
as B-movies flickered through shut eyelids
to ruin an overnight flight
but then we crawled
out of our pretentious new york minds

peru

A citiscape lies flat before us,
only to grow, eventually,
in the gentrified ways of a metropolis.

A citiscape, a third world country,
a path to yuppie dreams of jungle.
A mountain Lima wall, where villages are growing,
to hint at the bought adventure to come.

A mountain city, the second part
of for us predictable intinerists.
A posed-for picture, so lonely planet,
and for the cost of a Manhattan coffee.

The smiles of vendors,
patting our conscience,
but still we're struck.
The city beams,
the mountain air so thin
we sleep in the afternoon,
the morning
and the night.

Then choo-chooing
and zig-zagging,
we make it all come true
The yuppie dream of real jungle
is whiffing through
our train window.

And then the climax,
so pre-written,
as beautiful can be.
But
with tourists spotting our view.
Some push-me pull-yous
Some mountain rabbits
Some nature,
pure and good,
pure and good,
some nature,
pure and good.

A Macchu Picchu (bless you)
a crowded ugly, pretty place.
Some ruins, history, culture, blah,
some ruins,
pure and good.

Admittedly,
I have to say.
I am.
A tourist,
stupidly in awe.