Road, Trip

Old Kyoto © Manny Santiago

“One is not to admire the cherry blossoms only when they are in full bloom, or the moon only when it is uncovered by the clouds.”

- Yoshida Kenko – Tsurezuregusa

You remember The Trip, don’t you? Initially a ferry from Osaka will serve to reach Shanghai, after which point I will begin traveling in a westward direction overland across China, into Mongolia, past Lake Baikal and deeper on into Ekaterinburg and other Russian territory, ending in St. Petersburg (the end of the Trans-Siberian Rail) where I will begin the difficult journey of avoiding the expense that Western Europe presents, jumping over to Helsinki (or heading south into Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania) and from there to Copenhagen, which is where The Trip will get interestingly tricky.

I had initially planned to go by boat through to Seyðisfjörður in Iceland (I don’t know how to say it either), which is possible via Bergen in Norway, Esbjerg in Denmark and Scrabster in Scotland for way too many €uros. A few problems presented themselves since researching The Trip west from Iceland and onward into Greenland, Newfoundland in Canada and the continental U.S.

• Iceland is prohibitively expensive. The cheapest price for a hostel I found was €55, which would be about $75. No wonder their banks failed first and were hardest hit in the economic “downturn” of late 2008, their Big Macs are $10 apiece…
• Apparently there are no connecting ferries to Greenland, because, also apparently, no one wants to go to Greenland. The world has found out about Iceland’s ruse of misnaming the big, roadless block of ice as “Green” and decided that, well yeah, actually, why would we go there? And if we did, why would we take a boat?

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So with the looming possibility of conquering China, marching through Mongolia, rouletting Russia, and skirting Europe to make it all the way to Iceland, only to get stuck in one of the coldest, most expensive places in the world, doesn’t seem as attractive as it did, well, hell, even before writing this (despite the solid research time already put in, I’m kind of winging it here). So the question remains: How will I cross the Atlantic Ocean?

Therefore I am attempting to put together media sponsorship for The Trip, which will begin on April 2nd (departure for Shanghai) and am seeking to find out as much as possible about alternative sea routes from Denmark or Germany through Scandinavia or other parts of Europe, and across the Atlantic to mainland North America. I will be a writing and photographing fool along the way and therefore, I am open to any suggestions and / or other possibilities, of where to procure revenue:

• Is the Atlantic hiring ex-patriot gadabouts to write about artisanal production of Airag (fermented Mongolian mare’s milk)?
• The wealthy Chinese widow market must be booming. Contacts?
• Buy a photo?
• Donate to the Cause?  (All donations are tax deductible. Ask for a receipt!).
  

  Alms for the Perambulator

  Cool $1.00 Thanks $5.00 Very Nice of You $10.00 I Can Eat Today $20.00 Amsterdam Here I Come! $100.00

  

Unsure of how much information possibly exists “out there”, but if anyone knows of any methods (including possible employment opportunities), commenting would be greatly appreciated.

“To while away the idle hours, seated the livelong day before the ink slab, by jotting down without order or purpose whatever trifling thoughts pass through my mind, truly this is a queer and crazy thing to do!”

Yoshida Kenko – Tsurezuregusa

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 08:44. It is filed under Projects and tagged with HESO Magazine, Hitchhiking, Manny Santiago, No planes just trains, Round the world trip, Sugardisaster, The Trip, €uros. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.