I never travelled much when I was younger. Too busy reading and earning a simple living… so I could read some more (what else?). Dull stuff, I admit.

  Not long into my self-educative journey, after dropping out of school in order to… what else, read!… I figured it was time to visit Paris. It was there that one of my early heroes spent a momentous decade of his life nearly starving and finding his true voice. I found a job washing dishes in a restaurant and wandered the grey streets Henry Miller trod during those joyously bleak early 1930’s years. But the streets weren’t grey anymore and the city wasn’t the one that gave birth to the artist Miller and I felt I was wasting my time on a fool’s errand thinking I could derive something from another man’s struggles a half century before. 

  So back to Canada I flew to continue my own unique personal journey. 

  Well, it’s decades later and an insistent urge to see the world I’ve been diligently reading about for four decades bedevils me. Join me here at the Omphalos Cafe as I set out to see the sights and meet my fellow citizens spread across this vast globe!

  As an aside, the intention is to post every day, however, there will be days when a wi-fi or internet connection will be lacking for one reason or another. That’s just part of the travel experience. 

  So what’s in store this autumn into winter? 

  Firstly, after last year’s crossing of the Pacific aboard a cruise ship I wish to continue with the slow voyage theme. That means train rides across the vast 5500 km corridor separating the Atlantic from the Pacific here in Canada. Halifax to Montreal first aboard the Ocean, then a quicky from Montreal to Toronto, and finally The Canadian north out of Toronto, over the Precambrian majesty of Northern Ontario, the rolling grasslands of the prairie provinces, and through the craggy grandeur of the Rockies and Coastal Mountain ranges of British Columbia into Vancouver. 

  From Vancouver I’ll be flying to Shanghai for my first visit to the ancient and resurgent Middle Kingdom. Here’s where the plans are open still. I’ll be taking trains inland, perhaps as far as Chongqing, before veering south through Guilin into Hong Kong. Eventually my loose itinerary will see me flying back to perhaps Osaka, Japan, before making my way back to Tokyo for the return flight to Canada in the New Year. 

  Photos and words to follow!

  All humanity…

  Indeed all Life…

  Is the new community we need foster…!