TokyoLand

Dear Friends,
Earlier this year the thought of running 200 metres to catch a bus was unappealing to me. But always one for a challenge and a laugh I decided to try running in a competitive road race this year. So two days ago, after a few months of training, I ran a 21.1km Half Marathon [...]

Y is for Yarmag, in Mongolia.
The taxi dropped me off in the middle of what would usually be the Mongolian steppe, near the village of Yarmag, somewhere outside the capital Ulaan Baatar. Usually the fields would be grass and empty of life as far as one could see. But now, in July, the land [...]

X is for Xi’an, China.
I’d been on holiday, in Mongolia (see photographs of Mongolia), then travelled by train back into China, to Hohhot, to Beijing. And then, my first time in China, onwards to Xi’an as the schoolboy archaeologist in me wanted to see the Terracotta Army.
On arrival at Xi’an airport I’d booked a bus [...]

W is for Where Two Continents Meet, in Istanbul, Turkey.
The job came in, go to Uzbekistan (see my photographs of Uzbekistan). So I begin talking with my trusty colleague, Mr. Orange from New York, who’d also be going, to make the logistical plans for the assignment. “Ok, we can get there by flying via Istanbul, [...]

V is for Vulnerability Whilst Travelling. So I’m in Bucharest, few years back, late 90’s or early 2000’s. I decide to go for a walk mid-afternoon, and take my Leica in case there’s anything to be seen.
Out into Piatta Rossetti, out into the blinding sunshine from the dark interior of the home I stay in [...]

2005 South Korea Whale Embassy - Images by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
U is for Ulsan, South Korea. Stinky, dusty, bad diet, disease ridden bed linen, always one hour away from a beating, non-stop pornography, fermenting kimchi, Ulsan.
As so many of these stories begin, it begins with a phone call, “Can you go to Ulsan for 3 to [...]

T is for Tavurvur.
I can’t remember if it was the alarm on my Baby-G watch which awoke me, the mosquito in the room, or the thudding around of my colleague, but whichever it was I was awake, morning had arrived, 18th September, dawn in another hotel room. The light came through the mosquito mesh on [...]