Is technology a help or hindrance? Does it facilitate our friendships or control our choices? I once heard a comedian say, “I dare you to take a dump without your iPhone.” The convenience of the world is constantly at our fingertips, and it’s hard to put it down. The information of our collective history, photos of Earth’s natural wonders, images from space, cute cat videos, babies dancing, or girls falling off tire swings are all available to us for free. We can communicate with colleagues in foreign lands or Skype with family across town. We can create, configure and imagine our lives to appear any way we choose on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and chat apps. The question remains, is it a good or bad thing? Continue reading
Author: william
Five Days in Japan
Osaka
Spotless. Trash less. Small houses with laundry racks. Cute white dog walking an old lady up a gentle sloping hill. Power lines crisscrossing the perfectly paved streets. Somehow the old houses look new. The apartment block buildings are not unpleasant to the eyes and most have balconies with overflowing foliage. Train moves past Mikunigaoka and Sakaishi. Japanese names are fun to say. Continue reading
Taking the Sleeper Train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok
City dwellers wave goodbye to the train wearing the eponymous grins from the “Land of Smiles”, motorbikes sit idling at the crossing. Brick walls evaporate into the rice paddies. Two pretty Asian girls in glasses and ponytails settle in across from me, one thin and bird like, the other, cute and plump. I’m sweating and they are pulling out their shoulder wraps to prevent a chill from settling upon their ultra delicate skin. Continue reading
Sitting on the Slow Boat from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai
1st Day
Green trees, brown water, red and blue boats, jagged, moist rocks poking up from the riverine depths. More Mekong sights, but this time–on the river, churning and chugging through the calm muddy currents. Engine grumbling behind, people spread out on used minivan seats, fires ashore. Trees like stars, uncountable and mesmerizing. Light rain, coldest air I’ve felt in 2 months, cruising speed. Continue reading
One Month in Laos: View From a Bus
Buses held together with duct tape, given as goodwill gestures by more prosperous countries like Korea and Japan when they were deemed embarrassingly old and dirty, yet functional enough for their poorer neighbors to the south. Swirling fans above my head momentarily brush away the flies flitting through the cabin. Continue reading
A Walk in Vientiane, Laos
A wet pug dog, temple of red and gold. Bob Marley in my headphones. Busy street, balconies, streetlights, alleys, old unbalanced doors, sidewalk jammed with trash flowers, SUV’s on the curb, mini-mart, same peaceful breeze as last night. Special, bow tied and helpless baskets full of jellies or Nescafé. Finally the fruits. Mangoes, grapes, apples, starfruit, grapefruit, dragon fruit. The old, interchangeable ladies selling those cherries and avocados. Continue reading
Two Weeks in Cambodia
Written Pictures on a Bus:
Dusty Cambodia. No hills. Cows same color as the ground. Trees incapable of providing shade. Angkor Beer posters flapping in the dull, stale air. Country life. Mostly shirtless. Houses on stilts as if they were clambering up on shaky wooden legs to escape the baking earth. Thirsty looking palm trees drooping under the powerful sun. Tiny muddy reservoirs. Naked kids the color of creamed coffee bathing at a hand pump. Strange Khmer writing replacing the accent laden Roman script of Vietnam. Hammocks aplenty. Continue reading
One Month in Vietnam
Vietnam makes you walk along its spine as you move through the country. You can go up or down. I went down. Continue reading
Russian Men at the Beach
Vladimir Putin is infamous for his former KGB affiliations, media suppression, gay rights antagonism, pontification against American foreign interventions, but perhaps most notably for his penchant of going shirtless in numerous photo opportunities. His body can best be described as a fleshy barrel, a thick, hairless keg of supposed masculinity. I’d always assumed he was proud of his body and the presumed power than comes from confidence in one’s shape. Continue reading
Worship and Devotion
It’s only been about two weeks in Vietnam and already I’m feeling overwhelmed by temples, pagodas, shrines, tombs and memorials. They are beautiful, awe-inspiring testaments to creativity and construction. But, what strikes me as odd is the reason for these wonderful monuments. They are to praise kings usually, or sometimes gods. I am no fan of gods, organized religion nor monarchy. As an quasi-anti-theist American, I have no reverence for gods nor kings. Continue reading
William Sabia 