Trundling

Sometimes it’s the simple things that really resonate. That deep primal joy of fresh baked cookies, hitting a baseball for all your worth and a good hair day. The best things in life are often the most distilled – free of the clutter of confusion and complication. A few days back I had one of those moments of Zen, a moment worth sharing. It all started on Saturday when I went on an overnight hiking trip with my lifelong friend Bryan and a new friend Mark. We set out into the wilderness near a place called the Highwood Pass, deep in the heart of Kaninaskis Country in the Canadian Rockies. The plan was to follow a river to its source, turn right to a pass and camp for the night. The following day we’d follow a ridge back to the starting point and complete a great little loop.

The first day was filled with pleasant hiking up the river with intermittent views, the odd pile of bear shit and a running commentary of good conversation. We gained the pass and made camp, ate dinner and decided to go for a little hike to pass the time till bedtime. Further up the ridge we walked until we eventually summated the peak of the ridge. We sat on the crumbling summit and took in the magnificent view. Before long, the inner ten-year-old grabbed hold of my better judgement and I tossed a rock off the edge into the void. There wasn’t another soul in the area; both sides of the ridge were devoid of tracks and habitation. One rock grew to a second and soon the small stones weren’t large enough. The first rock we chose to roll down was about the size of a basketball. It skipped off the summit, dropped for 50meters, landed on a grassy shelf and accelerated to terminal velocity before dropping over some smaller cliff bands and disappearing into space.

Bryan mid trundle

The game was on. Prising rocks the size of microwaves, bar fridges and desktop hard drives we let them free to tumble, skip, roll and eventually fly into the unknown. Giddy with pre-pubescent excitement we strained to out due each other, launching rocks with ever increasing mass. Cheering like rabid sports fans we jumped with excitement when the boulders had enough geologic integrity to hold together before launching over the final cliff band and into the abyss.

It wasn’t long before we noticed the ultimate prize. Over the other side of the ridge, a couple hundred meters down the slope was a stand of dead trees. Like a thousand bleached white bowling pins, they were just asking for it, begging for it, calling for it. The first rock, moderate size by our standards, the girth of the TV I owned in my first apartment hit the stand of dead poplar with the force of a hand grenade. Bark exploded like a cluster bomb shooting skyward in a cloud of munched dead timber. More and more we rolled, ever increasing cracks were heard echoing throughout the valley. The largest was the size of a coffee table, rolling on its edge, somehow threaded the needle of the first row of trees before impacting a dead tree the once stood 10meters tall. It was no match for our mighty stone, the dead conifer exploded like a Bastion bomb. Branches flew in every direction and the sound reverberated through the range. Like a thunderclap the silence that followed was deafening.

Was it immature – maybe? Who gives a shit. When we were kids our dads wouldn’t have let us do that and soon enough we’ll be telling our kids to watch out, be careful and don’t throw rocks. It was a moment of Zen a trip back to a simpler time when there was pure joy to be found in trundling a rock down a hill just to do it for nothing more then the pure joy of being there and doing it.

SK

I’m Scott Kennedy you may know me from…

Just in case you wanted to learn a bit more about me, like the fact that I like Zanzibar and recommend comfortable shoes, you can cruise on over to the Lonely Planet website and have a look at my freshly updated bio. There is a picture there so you can see what I look like, if you don’t know, plus some links to order the books I've written. With one book on the shelves, two at the printer, one currently being written and another being planned for – LP really has become a huge part of my life.

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/authors.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673240969&bmUID=1216918283922

As for the book that is in the planning stage… well I’ll give you a hint – Magnum PI. Or how about this video clip for another little hint…

Aloha,
SK

The Foundation

When does youth end? When do we pass through the magical gate and leave childhood behind for good? Is it when we leave the nest, get a job, get a dog, marry our high school sweetheart and lock in for 20years at prime. I don’t know, or at least I didn’t know.

When I was a kid my parents bought me a swing set for the back yard. I can’t remember the day that it arrived in a box from Sears, I must have been 5 years old. I can't remember helping my dad put it up in the back yard. I helped mix the cement that would anchor the legs, stirring the 5 gallon pale of grey slop. Dad dug the holes and I helped to pour the concrete in once the set was erected and ready to become a permanent part of the back lawn.

That swing set became a part of my existence. It was the sure sign of spring when I would rescue the swings from the shed and attach them back onto the crossbar. For the next few months I was swinging. Pumping my legs I’d climb higher and higher yet. I’d boast to my friends that one day I’d ride it all the way around – like my dad did when he was a boy – or at least I assumed he had. With the kids from down the street we’d alternate pendulum swings and the spun steel would creak and groan under the weight. Never once did it bend or break – the foundation was deep and strong.

As I grew older I didn’t stop swinging. It sounds odd articulating it now, but sometime around ten I discovered the joy of thinking. I would escape into my own thoughts and daydream for hours at a stretch. With my first generation Sony Sports Walkman clipped to the belt of my shorts I’d swing for what seemed like the entire day listening to the Beach Boys, The Beatles and whatever was on AM106 at the time. My mind would drift to all corners of the globe and I’d be lost amongst the cathartic kinaesthetic rhythm, metronoming back and forth, grinding a groove in the sky.

As I grew the swings stayed longer and longer in the shed after the snow faded until one year when they never made it onto the set at all. One year stretched to two and before long the swings were lost amongst the clutter behind the lawn mower and my first two-wheeler. Still as strong as the day it went into the ground the swingset stood like a stoic reminder of days gone by. It became a part of the back yard a sort of art installation that outsiders never really understood. When I moved away from home I strolled through the house and said a quiet goodbye to my life at 136 Bracewood – but the swing never entered my mind.

Ten years pass in a blink of an eye and that swing set still hasn’t moved an inch. I now stay in my old room as a guest and share a glass of vino with my folks and discuss married life – everything has evolved. The swings have long since been thrown out and the idea of a smaller house for retirement comes up over dinner more then once. I make the suggestion without really considering the memorial implications of the act I offer to do.

It’s a hot day, not a cloud in the sky, my sports walkman in now an iPod with every album I’ve ever owned loaded onto it. I dial up The Who and Roger’s voice belts in my ear, “I hope I die before I get old…” with a twinge of sadness I start to dig. The footing was deep, deeper then I thought it would be, this swing set was built to last. I clear off the cement and do the same for the other three anchor points. It feels like I’m felling an old growth rainforest when the saw fires up and I cut through the first steel post. One down, three to go. In the space of 30minutes the swing set is no more.

Twisted and sad I clear up the rubbish and replace the sod. The slate’s been wiped clean, like it was never there. For 26 years it stood there and now it’s gone, gone forever.

It’s been said that on the path to enlightenment the student must at some point kill the teacher. So what does it mean when the child has to cut down his own swing set? Some may say that there is little behind this concept other then yard maintenance and doing something for the folks before they sell up and move onto new horizons. But as that last post fell and the final remnants of my youth were erased from the landscape of my childhood home I knew that there was something more to the process.

So when do we become adults? I don’t know. I can’t tell you a defining moment that is the turning point from one stage of life to the next. Like winter turning to spring, the change is so gradual, pinpointing a day is near on impossible. It isn’t until you remember building the snowman that you realize that spring has come.

Though the swing set is gone now and the family home isn’t far behind, the foundation that we set into the ground will remain forever. Just under the surface, too big to be removed, like a rock to which my youth was anchored. A foundation that I built the rest of my life upon. Swinging high, higher then I thought I could. Dreaming of far away lands, lost in thought, cutting an arc in the sky, wind in my hair. I close my eyes and I’m right back, right here, a million miles away and in the same place all at the same time. The swing set is gone – but I’ll never stop swinging.

SK

Home & Abroad

Hello Blogland!

A cool little project that I worked on a little while ago has finally “gone live” on the web. It’s for a site called Home & Abroad (www.homeandabroad.com), H&A an online travel planner that generates custom itineraries for various locations around the globe. For my part I’ve acted as the local expert for St Lucia (down in the Caribbean) offering expert tips on what to see and do while you are on the island. It was a great project to be a part of and a really neat concept. The way the site works is you enter where you want to go, what sort of stuff you like to do and how long you are going to be there for. And then the site spits out an itinerary for you packed with stuff that should perk your interest. Here are a couple of screen shots of what the site is about – this first one is the main entry portal. (http://www.homeandabroad.com/bootStrap.ha)

This second screen is all about yours truly – that very Caribbean looking photo was in fact taken in Africa, so shhh, don’t tell anyone! (http://www.homeandabroad.com/viewCeBio.ha?destinationId=134)

Whether this sort of ultra prescriptive travel advice is for you is a question that you will have to answer for yourself. Having said that the concept and the user interface are very cool and definitely worth having a play with. The future potential is pretty amazing for this concept – very web 3.0 or at least 2.5. When it’s integrated into your iPhone/GPS, cross referenced to your Facebook friends recommendations and all the points of interest are Geo-cached that is when we’ll know that web 3.0 is here – but hey that’s a whole different blog!

Happy virtual traveling!
SK

Bryan Adams need not apply

In honour of being in Canada at the moment I thought I’d share a few of my favourite Canadian bits of art. Music and cinema are two of my fav mediums so that is where these two clips fall into. The first is the trailer for the spectacular film “Hard Core Logo”. This film hit the cultural scene a good 10 years ago now – but I can still remember the night I saw it at the old Uptown theatre in downtown Calgary. Bruce McDonald fused music, poetry, and the death of a dream transcribed over the Canadian landscape. Check the great Dead Boys cover in the trailer too. It is without doubt my favourite Canadian film – find it if you can…



The second video is a live performance for the band The Arcade Fire – "Wake Up" is an older tack of theirs, but it is one of their best. U2 used this song to get the crowd going before they hit the stage during their last tour – and that’s saying something!



As Mr. Neil Young, great Canadian, says – Keep on Rocking in the Free World.
SK

Watch This Space...

Coming soon…

SK

Photo of the day – Japan

I’m currently working on a photo series from my recent trip to Japan – I thought I’d give everybody a sneak peak at one of my favourite images. This shot was taken in a little village called Nikko, about 2hrs by train north of Tokyo. Known for its Shinto temples, Nikko is the anti-Tokyo. Where the capital is busy, bright and fast paced, this little mountain village is serine. Walking along the river I came across these statues, quietly watching over the pathway. They are the guardians of wayward travelers and lost children – each one of them representing a lost soul. I counted seventy statues as I walked silently in the approaching rain. Stay tuned for more – have a good weekend…
Scott

I am a fake cowboy

Howdy Blogland!

Well it’s been a great visit to Canada, as always. Full of fun in the mountains (complete with bear sightings and snow in July) and catching up with old friends. We happened to coincide with an iconic Calgary event this year – The Calgary Stampede. For those not in the know the Stampede is an enormous rodeo, music festival, carnival, pancake breakfast and over indulgent party that lasts for the first 10 days of July. It was great fun and a real cultural experience for my wife Sophie, who hailing from Australia was endlessly fascinated by the whole experience. Here are a few pics that tell the story of our stampede experience. By the way this is the first time I’ve been coaxed into cowboy gear in about 15 years (what can I say, Soph was keen to really get into it – and how can I blame her!)

That’s a big yee-haw and a yah-hoo from Cowtown!
Cheers
Scott

The Arusha Plaster House

Hello Blogland,
Today’s blog is something that is near and dear to my heart – and for that reason it is being simulcast on both my blog and on a page of its own on my website. I’ve never wanted to use my blog as a pulpit or a means to bombard you with my ideological point of view, but this is something that I feel is really important. Have a read, go to my website and look at www.adventureskope.com/plasterhouse and have a think. If you want to join in and help out, let me know and we can make it happen.

~~~~

The Arusha Plaster House
In October 2007 my wife Sophie and I traveled to the African nation of Tanzania. We were there to experience the wilderness, the people and the sites of Africa. If only we’d have known what an impact visiting this region of the earth would have on our lives.

Sarah Wallis is a lifelong friend of Sophie’s. The two of them grew up as neighbors in suburban Melbourne, Australia. As adults the wanderlust of travel infected them both and while Sophie journeyed to Canada and eventually to New Zealand, Sarah went to Africa. As a trained Occupational Therapist, Sarah’s skills were a hot commodity in the developing nation of Tanzania. It was five years ago that she first moved to Arusha, and her impact on the city has been extraordinary.


Sarah is spearheading a project called The Arusha Plaster House, through the Selian Lutheran Hospital and we want to help her as much as we can. Life in Tanzania is hard, especially for children. The houses are mud huts called bomas where an open fire in the centre serves as both furnace and stove for the family and animals that call the boma home. Children are often injured by this cooking fire. As infants they stumble into the flames and sustain horrific burns for which there is little nearby treatment. So often times a burn to the foot will heal in such a way that the skin contracts bringing the toes to near the shin and making it almost impossible for the child to walk.

In the third world not being able to fend for yourself is often a death sentence. If you can’t help with the cattle, fetch water or tend the crops then you are a burden on the family and children like this are often abandoned. But there is hope – aid agencies from the west have set up hospitals that perform plastic surgeries and fix these injuries. Not to mention cleft pallets and other afflictions that would be easily fixed in the west.



But there is a limitation to this help and that comes in the form of bed space. After a surgery the young patients need a place to recover, get physical therapy and be monitored while they are bound in plaster. At the moment they stay in the hospital or in the rehab center. But this clog of patients severely limits the number of surgeries that can be done. No beds equals no surgeries.


This is where the plaster house comes in. It is going to be a place where the children can recover from their surgeries, get better and then enter the rehab center when they are ready. This simple intermediate step will change the lives of countless children. When Sophie and I were in Arusha we had the opportunity to meet these kids, and despite the tough life that they’ve been through, they were more alive then any group of people I have ever met. To us they appear to have nothing, only the filthy clothes on their backs. But the reality is that they have people who care for them so they are rich beyond their dreams. Where once they may have been abandoned to suffer alone, now they have a place to go so that they can have a chance at a real life. You can tell by their smiles that they know how luck they really are.

So what can you do? The Plaster House isn’t going to build itself. It isn’t funded by the government and doesn’t have any corporate benefactors. It also isn’t corrupt, tangled in bureaucracy and political ideologies. This is just good people helping people who need a hand. They need funding from like minded caring individuals like yourselves.

The Arusha Plaster House is our charity of choice and we would be honored if you would join us in donating to this inspirational project – together we really can make a difference.
To donate you can either send us a cheque or arrange a bank transfer. We will gladly make sure that it gets to Sarah in Tanzania and she will ensure that your donation helps out the kids.

Thank you from both Sophie, myself, Sarah and all the kids – we all appreciate whatever help you can give.
Scott Kennedy
July 2008.

Dried Pig Intestine, Raw Horse Sashimi and the Best Sushi You’ve Ever Had.

Eating in Japan is more to write home about them most destinations. It’s one of those journey defining experiences that will resonate for years to come. There’s the weird, the wonderful, the delicious and the downright wrong – all served with a bow. Japanese food has become the fodder of mini-malls and primary school lunches over the past few years. You can get ho-hum sushi from Albuquerque to Zurich, but you really haven’t experienced proper sushi until you consume it at the source.

Sushi starts its journey to your table at the Tokyo Fish Market. In the way too early hours of the morning the market kicks off with literally hundreds of stalls selling every conceivable (and some not quiet so appealing) creature from the depths. Wandering around blurry eyed at 6am it’s a kinetic mix of wholesalers, restaurateurs and thousands of fish. Twisting passageways snake through the dawn-lit warehouse. Stacks of ice filled boxes overflowing with fish caught the day previous form a ramshackle town grid. Flamboyant haggling over the price of salmon, eel and most notably tuna fills the air. The mix of acrid stale cigarette smoke and rotting fish hangs in my nose as I try to keep my feet dry amongst the puddles nesting in the dips of the cobblestone. Tuna the size of beef hind quarters are dragged in and brought to the stalls to be filleted. Like a samurai, the fish monger produces a knife that look more like a sword then a kitchen utensil. It takes 3 people to hold the carcass steady as the razor sharp 4 foot blade slices through the 200kg tuna.



Getting lost amongst the rows the stalls begin to run together, the same wares arranged in the same ways it’s a wonder how a chef would choose the correct one. Until another nameless corner produces a different looking stall. Well lit, larger and sparsely populated with fish. Only a few massive pieces of meat sit on the crushed ice. Cuts the size of a Christmas hams are displayed with pride. But this was no fish; this stall sold the only mammal in the whole market. The gentle giant of the sea – yes, they were selling whale meat. It was shocking and sad to see – I was expecting to find it somewhere in the market, but I expected it to be hidden away in a corner with a black-market aroma to the dealings. But this was front row center, complete with a cartoon whale on the sign and a poster indicating which species were on offer. They were selling this protected species with panache, pride and the stench of smugness. For years Japan has been whaling for what it calls, “scientific research purposes.” Well I’ve seen it with my own eyes and that claim of science is utter bullshit. This whale meat was bound for a Tokyo restaurant table and any claims of research, science or the betterment of man are as believable as the tooth fairy. Though I thoroughly loved my time in Japan, just the sight of whale up for sale was deplorable, enraging and sickening.


Beyond the ethical bombshells the market was a fascinating way to start the day. It makes dinner a whole lot more interesting when you saw the fish you’re eating that morning on ice. And what meals they were – I was lucky enough to have a few unbelievable eating experiences in Tokyo. My good friend Matt Firestone lives in Tokyo and was kind enough to show me the ropes during my visit. Matt is legend, a grad of Harvard & Cambridge he now writes for Lonely Planet. When he’s not jetting off to Jordan or the Congo to write he calls Tokyo home – a New Jersey boy by birth he’s lived in the land of the rising sun for 6 years. He speaks the language, knows the culture and has a real passion for the place. You couldn’t ask for a better guide. With Matt I went to one of the best sushi restaurants in town (and in Tokyo, that’s saying al lot!). We dined on the most delicate (raw) fish, cut with precision right in front of us. It was divine and one of the best dining experiences of my life – and I’ve eaten a lot of meals, usually up to three every day.

One night Matt gave me an insight into the weird of the wonderful at dinner. Though we skipped the raw horse meat sashimi we did go for the dried pig intestine. Lets just say, give it a miss, you’re really not missing all that much other then a good story. Then came the salted fish on a stick – corn-dog style. Again not the best thing ever, but getting better. Next course was fried prawns, heads and shells included. delicious, once you got around the, “I’m crunching the head now” bit. Okonomeaki (a cabbage omelette), sushi, noodles and rice all followed and raised the bar to the second best Japanese meal of my life. Real write home about sort of stuff.

The only real way to gather the courage to eat pig intestine (especially as a vegetarian) is to have a few drinks. Japanese beer was out of this world good – and I’m not much of a beer guy. Light and flavourful but with a creamy head that held form like good Irish Guinness. Soon we hit the hard stuff – plum wine was the first go. Sickly sweet, it removes the enamel from your teeth and goes down smooth enough to get you dancing on the table before the main course. Sochu followed – some sort of rice derived spirit it has the flavour of furniture polish cut with a little bit of naphthalene for flavour. It tasted like I was drinking strychnine and was begging for a nip of tequila to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. The variety we were drinking was affectionately described as Okinawan Moonshine, never a good sign. Things get a bit hazy from there, but I’ve been told I had a good time.

Some of the food in Tokyo was outstanding, some was so beyond my comfort zone I would never have conceived eating it and some of it turned my stomach if only for ethical reasons. It a delicious place – and I’m already hanging out for my second course

Bon appetite,
Scott