- The Grand Retrospective
- Book 1 ~ New Zealand
- Book 2 ~ Japan
- Book 3 ~ South America & South Africa
- Book 4 ~ Germany
- Book 5 ~ And everything else
- Selected Statistics
- Last Learnings
- The Road Ahead
At this point, it has been almost 10 years since I've started travelling. A whole chapter of my life is now dedicated to this, and I've changed a lot over that time. I could probably keep going places and writing this blog for years to come, but truth to be told, what I really want to do is finally invest more time into my dream, the Chronicles of Ceal. So, even though I'll probably keep on travelling and probably keep on posting in this blog, I plan to dial down the level of time and effort I put into it a lot after this. Which is why I will now wrap this up with...
The Grand Retrospective
I know I already did something like this for the first three books in Book III ~ Epilogue ~ Memories of the World, so I'll approach this a bit different now: For each book, I'll go over my most memorable experiences, those moments and times that despite everything that happened since then have stuck up until now, the things I can still remember without looking them up, and the ones that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life, starting with...
Book 1 ~ New Zealand
2016-2017
Before arriving there, my flight took me over Singapore Changi airport, the most fantastic airport in the world, which is why I should end up returning here a total of five more times over the years. On top of the first-class airport experience, I also got a free city tour through Singapore, seeing many of its famous sights along the way.
I started out in Auckland, where I stayed for a few nights in a hostel room with a gang of spoiled just-out-of-school German boys who treated travelling like a big party. I couldn't get out of there soon enough for my taste, and quickly found my first host with Cynthia in Oakura. That was my first WWOOFing experience, and the contrast to the party-boys could not have been starker: Helping out a middle-aged lady in the middle of nowhere, taking my first tentative steps walking the world in my spare time, eating very humble food such as rice with soy sauce and little else. In the end, I got scolded for spending so much time in front of my computer (remember: I was also writing the first version of my first novel "The Call of the Crystals" back then), and she said she wouldn't allow any other helper on the internet after that, which shocked me a bit. In the end, I had a reasonably good time there though, and definitely a good start into my travels. Maybe not great, but definitely good.
Next, I vividly recall getting kicked out at my next WWOOFing place in Marton, which was run by Max & Suzanne, my only two hosts of whom I didn't draw a gift artwork on account of them suddenly kicking me out one day. They home-schooled their two kids - Lennon and Hazel - with whom I got along great, but apparently Suzanne thought I was a bad influence on them, "seducing" them with my computer and Minecraft. Not that Suzanne put that big an effort in home-schooling her kids: Despite being already 8 years old, Hazel still had trouble reading. In the end, I left the place without making a scene, but also kinda shaken by the sudden eviction. I got to work a lot with animals there, including pigs, cows, goats, ducks and chickens, and I learned a lot. I also did my first tentative cycling tours there, though they should pale in comparison to the distances I would cover later. I won't miss my hosts, but I do miss Lennon and Hazel and wonder what has become of them since. By now, Lennon is already a grown man, and Hazel should be 16 or 17 years old.
My first genuinely good WWOOFing experience was in Te Horo, where I stayed with Ian and Pierre, who were originally from Canada, and had returned there the last I heard. I still remember jumping into an ice-cold pool there, and having an energetic border collie named Koru around to keep me company during my tasks. This was also the first time since departing from Auckland that I got to team up with another WWOOFer, a girl from Germany by the name of Kathi. I tried to befriend here, but nothing became of it. Oh well.
I had just crossed over onto the South Island and was staying with an older man living in the middle of miles and miles of vineyards in the sunny Blenheim valley when Trump got elected for president the first time... and to my shock my host was quite happy about that. I got a lot of training in diplomatically holding my tongue in the days to come. On the upside, I got to ride a bike again, slowly building my stamina for the bigger tours yet to come. I also started my tradition of unluckily picking impassable paths, and then finding ways through them anyway. In this case, I had to lift my bike over a fence gate in order to continue. This was also the first time I put my newly acquired international driver's license to good use, giving my host a ride for a reason that I can't remember. What I do remember, though, is ending up on the wrong side of the road after a right turn (remember, New Zealand has left-hand traffic). Thankfully, the road was empty and I was able to quickly correct it. I also rescued a little rabbit kit while digging out an ash pit, learning two things in the process: That it's not uncommon in New Zealand to simply burn your rubbish on your land, and that rabbits are considered a severe pest here. I still couldn't bring myself to hurt the cute little kit though, so I let it go.
Next, I ended up in my most remote location yet: A farm in the southern Alps with literally no one but my hosts for miles around. They also had kids, and cows, and sheep, but what I really remember from that time is almost dying in the legendary 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake that started barely 20km away from this place, was the second-largest earthquake in New Zealand ever recorded, and has been described as the most complex earthquake ever studied. The funny thing is that - although I was terribly afraid when it struck in the middle of the night as I was already lying in bed after a full day's hard work - I was not nearly as afraid as I should have been, because this was the first earthquake I ever experienced, and I had no reference frame, so although it felt like the house would be coming down on top of me any second now, I kept telling myself that this was probably just a "normal" earthquake that people experienced all the time over here. So once I stopped, I simply rolled over and tried to fall asleep again. It was not until my hosts came to check on me that I learned how bad of a quake it had really been, and that my fear had been entirely justified. On a brighter note, this is also where I learned to drive a truck through a river and learned hod to bulldoze a pasture for use by sheep and cattle (while getting stung by a million sand-flies).
Christchurch was my big stopover in New Zealand, first in the Renegades Community Centre, where I am still wondering just how deep I was involved in shady business at that time. As best as I can tell, my host Ajay commandeered an abandoned building of the Full Gospel Church and tried to turn it into a community centre with the help of WWOOFers such as myself, as well as a friend who was even more sus than he himself and eventually hightailed it out of there. This was also the first place where food was not included in exchange for reduced work hours, which I used to look for a temporary employment in the city. I ended up working in a logistics warehouse for a few days, which could have been fun if I had actually gotten assigned to running around and finding the goods to fill the boxes with instead of just wrapping up the finished parcels. In the end, I was often idle and since my foreman said I could make myself useful with minor tasks in the downtime I did just that. I don't know what happened after that, but after a few days there I got fired, and wasn't exactly sad about it, because the whole warehouse had an atmosphere about it of a place where dreams die, and ever since then I have a lot more sympathy for people who have to work for Amazon and the likes.
This was also where I met the first person on my travels with whom I'm still in contact to this day: A nice snep by the name of Joppy who kindly took me in for a few days over Christmas. In return, I baked him tasty German Plätzchen and prepared other yummy food for him. There was also another fox by the name of Kakapo around, but I didn't manage to stay in touch with him.
Still in Christchurch was my most abusive and also final WWOOFing experience. Carried out on a farm at the southern edge of the city, it was still quite fun, nonetheless, featuring the only experience with llamas that I should get. My hay-fever kicked in bad at that time, though, and since literally all of the work to be done was outside that was particularly bothersome. I also got to prune grapes, paint a door, and pick up horse poop in the fields for sale as fertilizer together with a mentally disabled person. Really, the only bad thing was the sheer amount of work expected of me: Significantly exceeding the normal 4 hours per day for food and shelter, I often worked over 50 hours a week for no additional pay, and my hosts were acting like that was a perfectly normal thing for WWOOFers to do. Adding that to my experiences in Oakura, Marton and the Renegades Community Centre was the final straw, and since one of the other WWOOFers I met along the way had told me about an alternative platform called HelpX, that is what I changed to after that.
I next made an financially not entirely optimal decision to visit the FurCoNZ (New Zealand's Furry Convention) in Taupo by catching a plane back to Auckland and then from there to Taupo at a price where it would have been cheaper to just travel there by bus and ferry and pay for several stays in hostels along the way. On the upside, I got a few great aerial views along the way. As for the FurCoNZ itself, that was pretty fun, and I met a couple of nice furs with whom I should cross paths again later.
My first HelpX experience in Outram was fun and way more relaxing than most of my WWOOFing experiences. My host was perfectly fine with me doing whatever I liked outside of my 4 daily work hours, and even took me to small community dinners and the city. This was also where I horribly overestimated my hiking skills and ended up having to make my way down the mountainside off the track as a result. I had to climb down a ravine, navigate through a forested valley, and eventually push my way through a patch of spiky gorse, ruining the first pair of boots on my travels in the process. In retrospective, this was probably a key experience for me that resulted in many later choices of "are you sure this is a"-ways and "where's a will there's a"-ways. Still, I was never as happy to see a gravel road again as when I finally made it down that mountain.
Next, I ended up meeting with the wicked witch of the west coast - Gabriella - the female of a backpacking couple from Germany who had also just graduated from school, and who was just in the painful process of learning that she was not as entitled as she had thought herself to be. In addition to "helping out" at night in the little restaurant at Woodstock where I was staying, she also had a day job in the nearby town of nearby Hokitika, which she found very stressful. As a result, she constantly railed at us at night and at one point even threw a basket full of knives and forks squat into the sink where I was doing the dishes. I was lucky to get my hands out of there in time. By contrast, my hosts and literally all the other helpers were really nice, as was the atmosphere in this jolly countryside tavern... even though I had to do so many dishes.
On my tip north, the bus made a brief stop at the Pancake Rocks, a geological curiosity that I would have completely missed out on if not by courtesy of the InterCity bus line making scheduled stop here. Talk about lucky!
After that I spent some time with Sparky, a fursuit maker whom I met at the FurCoNZ a few months ago, and who also ran a farm with plenty or critters on it, including a bunch of very friendly cats. I still remember young Hopper, who was always out to get my Müsli in the morning, and another cat who curled up on top of me after I returned home from a cycling tour and collapsed on the couch. That was the point in time when I decided that I wanted to have cats back home for sure, although unlike the affectionate cats over there, regrettably none of them have taken a liking to curling up on top of me. I also got to clean out a pigsty over there, which was actually quite satisfying, because the contrast between "before" and "after" was like night and day.
Waipukurau was the second time that I actually did paid work while in New Zealand, this time as part of an agreement between me and my host, who offered to pay me for any overtime that I put in during my stay - an offer that I was happy to accept. In the end, a lot of that overtime went into making maps of her various pastures, which is something that I quite enjoyed. Apparently, making maps is one of my things. I also got to sort sheep in a sheep run here, as well as build a cobblestone path, which is harder than it seems. The tricky path is getting the path to be nice and flat in the end.
I next helped out Karen, another single mother - this time of two little boys by the names of Rowan and Finn - in her farm near Gisborne. I had a really great time there, both helping out, and also being part of the family. I really miss Karen and her boys, who by this point will already be in their teens. I actually was the first helper that Karen ever got, and a few weeks later I actually got a call from her where she thanked me again for being such a great help during my stay, saying that since she's also had a young German couple for helpers, and that those hadn't been a pleasant experience for her at all. Want to wager a guess if this was one of the two young German couples that I already had the displeasure of meeting? Or do you think there's just something fundamentally wrong with young German backpacking couples in general?
On a farm in Opotiki, I put my map making skills to good use again, creating the most complex map thus far, which I should take as inspiration for my Ceal maps later on. The process of doing so also involved many days of fieldwork, hiking across the pastures armed with paper, pen and clipboard, taking notes of the locations of troughs, gates, fences and everything. On one occasion, I got to ride a motorbike across the farm, and on another I almost got stuck in a muddy path and had to take the long way around. Once I found a dead cow who had died during childbirth, with the dead calf only halfway out, just lying there in the fields with the other cows seemingly not caring. In the end, my host John offered me a day trip to White Island - a nearby volcanic island - as a reward, but I declined, and so he gave me a check over 200$ instead. Interestingly enough, a few years later an eruption of White Island did kill a bunch of tourists who were presently on the island.
In Cambridge, I had my first major dog-walking gig, walking a pair of energetic little woofs all around the neighborhood on a regular basis, while also splitting some firewood and picking a lock (my host assured me he has gotten permission from the owner). There was also a nice cat who got along surprisingly well with the three dogs. I also went on some long bicycling tours at this point, and made a point of not visiting nearby Hobbiton, although it was clearly within my range, just to make the point that you can visit New Zealand and not go to Hobbiton.
In Mangapai, I lived in a house that was expertly designed to heat and cool itself in a natural manner, minimizing energy costs. The design featured north-facing windows with a roof just long enough to keep out the sun during summer, yet allow it to fall onto the black floor during winter, as well as the best isolation I've ever seen in New Zealand. I also went on the epic Paparoa Tour, which at a whopping 900m of ascents is still unbeaten as of today, and not just barely, but by a comfortable margin. In fact, all of the top four rides with the most ascents were in New Zealand, with place 5 being the Petal of the Snake, followed by two more rides in New Zealand. I really must have been in peak condition back then, because otherwise I can't fathom how I could have covered 90km and 900m of altitude in little over 9 hours, and that on a bike that was kinda small for me.
Finally, I rented a car to make it all the way to the northernmost end of New Zealand. Along the way, I rescued a lost dog (who messed up the car and cost me 100$ in cleaning, but oh well), and eventually made it all the way to the remote and little-known Spirits Bay with its rainbow sands, located to the east of Cape Reinga. A fantastic finale!
After New Zealand, I had to go home to Germany in order to acquire a visa for Japan, and a good thing I did, because after a stressful job hunt, I was able to net my first IT job, which I was also able to carry out with great flexibility during my coming travels, thus making me a good deal more independent from hosts and job offers while in Japan.
Book 2 ~ Japan
2018-2019
Having flown by way of Singapore last time, I opted to try out Bangkok this time around, and DRAGON was I disappointed. Not only was the airport kinda mediocre by contrast, but I also got some of my tools confiscated in the security there. Still, nice pagoda.
In Tokyo, I was positively thrilled to find that what I read about foxes serving as guardians at Inari Shrines turning out to be true, and not only occasionally, but all over the place. Before I knew it, this had turned into an outright obsession for me, and I should hence spend most of my free time in Japan hunting for shrines and temples, racking up a total of 2500 - over 600 of which featured foxes - on my first visit alone.
Apart from that, my first time in Tokyo was long and, well, actually not all that fun. First, I went to Japanese school for six weeks, which was kinda stressful, and reminded me again why I hated school so much in the first place. Don't get me wrong, the teachers and students were all nice, but... it really feels like there was a lot of pressure there, and I didn't really learn all that much. I definitely prefer doing things at my own pace.
The worst part, however, was staying in the share house, the Ooizumi Mansion, with quite a collection of young German backpackers, two of whom even mated in the dorm while I and at least one other person was in the room. I also got sick for several weeks from an illness that one of my roommates brought in, and the temperature was surprisingly cold for a lack of heating. In the end, I was really glad when I finally managed to get out of there.
Also, getting a job there did not really go well. Although I paid for it, the travel agencies efforts in helping me find a job left much to be desired. At one point, I ended up working in an industrial kitchen for a few days before they said they didn't want me to come anymore, formulated in a very polite Japanese tone, but sacking me nonetheless, with no reasons given. Well, I didn't much like it there anyway, and since I had my remote and very well-paying IT job as an alternative, it didn't exactly put me in a tight spot. In a manner of speaking, this may be when my new "run wild and be free"-mindset that I should develop over the course of this trip started.
After three months, I finally left Tokyo behind and travelled north with my best friend Robert, who went on vacation to join me for the next three weeks. We travelled through Nikko and Morioka, visited the disappointing cat island of Tashirojima, and eventually made it all the way to Sapporo by train through the world's longest tunnel with an undersea segment, but by far the most amazing part was our visit to the Zao Kitsuna Mura, where I got to cuddle a real-life fox kit. I can die happy now.
Leaving Robert behind on account of his vacation being over, I then continued north all the way to Wakkanai, the northernmost place in Japan, where I walked a trail that was closed off because of bears, and ate spongy sea urchin Udon at a restaurant at cape Noshappu. It's not quite the northernmost point of Japan, but close enough for me to be satisfied.
Next, I returned to Sapporo for my first HelpX stay in Japan, where I helped out a couple and their kids with their strawberry farm. Walking around on one of my free days, I ruined another pair of boots, and really had trouble finding another pair my size here in Japan, where people tend to have smaller feet. My hosts also took me to see the epic and amazing Yosakoi Soran Matsuri that is celebrated annually in summer here, and Dragon was that an epic sight to behold. Of all the festivals that I've been to in Japan to this date, this is still the one I would most recommend, since it features the entire inner city of Sapporo being closed of for hundreds of performances for which the dancers clearly practiced all year.
During my trip to Wakkanai, my host in my stopover in Asahikawa told me about the Kitami Kitakitsune Bokujo - another fox village in Japan that I didn't know anything about - and I literally scrambled all of my plans to make it there. I rented a tiny Daihatsu Move which I drove all over Hokkaido to get there, also seeing a geyser in action for the first time in my life purely by chance, and also made it all the way to cape Nemuro, the easternmost point of modern day Japan. Naturally, it goes without saying that despite all this trip had to offer, the highlight was still the Kitami Kitakitsune Bokujou, and not only because it had foxes, but also because it additionally featured Tanuki in the open enclosure.
After that, I helped out in Pension Mutti in the hills of Appi-Kogen near Morioka, which once again included a lot of doing dishes, but was also a generally enjoyable stay. Once again I got to make a map of the place to help people find their way there, and this was one of the few times I got to make my legendary tri-Tail Pizza in Japan, because ovens are actually a bit of a rarity around there. Me and the other helpers also got to see the Sansa Oodori Matsuri in Morioka, which though still impressive did not come close to the Yosakoi Soran Matsuri.
I next visited the island of Sado - Japan's sixth-largest island - which is famous for its many temples. I actually was there during some of the hottest days of the entire year, and did my best to keep up my spirits while I was there, visiting the local bird park as well as the historic gold mine with its interactive gold panning experience. Though really, the most memorable part was still my ride with the jetfoil boat to get to the island.
Next, there was another of those bad experiences, this time featuring Anna, the wicked witch of the east, who steals peoples names, and makes them her slaves. She tried running a whole five-story hot springs hostel in Yudanaka only with the help of four volunteers during the busiest season of the year, and as a result, the four of us were worked to the bone. The organization was horrible to the point where I eventually hit the local konbini, bought some paper (and almost had it stolen from me by the local monkeys) and took over the organization of the four of us. We had to take care of our own food in the completely unsanitary and neglected kitchen with trash piling up in the corner. She was constantly dissatisfied with the way we did some tasks, such as cleaning the Onsen. And worst of all, the work hours once again far exceeded the traditional 4 hours per day, which was a stretch with the food situation anyway. So eventually, I just packed my bags one night, took the first train out of town in the morning, and never looked back, leaving behind only a piece of gift artwork that I dedicated to us four valiant helpers instead of our horrible host.
And that was the point when my new "run wild and be free"-mindset really took off. Cranking up the hours I put into my remote IT job, I didn't need to comply to any abusive hosts, and was just able to go wherever I wanted to go, not worrying about my next place to stay or my financial situation, and let me tell you, running away has never felt so good, and this was really the point where it sank in that I didn't need to stay in a place that treated me poorly. In the coming weeks, I went through Nagano, Nanao and Nagahama, before finally staying in Daisen for a while, where in my most epic feat yet I cycled from sea level to the foot of Mt. Daisen, and then scaled it right up to its peak at 1710m right at the day of the autumn equinox together with over 9000 Japanese people, and then back again all in the same day, and DRAGON was I wasted the next few days. I could barely muster walking down the stairs from my room to get to the bathroom. Totally worth it, though.
In Fukuoka, I spent the HelpX stay that I have the fondest memories of to this day. Staying with Sumire, her hyperactive son Hikaru, their equally hyperactive dog Colin, and their very vocal cat Mokka, I really became a part of the family over the month that I spent with them, and cried when it was time to leave. That's how you can recognize the really good places. I wonder how they're doing now. Hikaru should be around 16 years old by now. I actually tried sending them a good old-fashioned letter, but didn't get a reply to date (and it's entirely possible that I got the address wrong). So yeah, if there's one place that became my home more than any other during all of my travels, then this is it right here.
Next up, I travelled to Okinawa, and just because I could and it felt right, I did so by ship, although a plain would have been both faster and cheaper. Just like in New Zealand, I ended up on a tiny island here on the southernmost part of my trip - specifically Tokashiki of the Kerama islands in front of Okinawa - though this time around the island should be significantly smaller, yet have a lot more inhabitants at the same time. I actually did a lot of island hopping during that time and visited all major islands of the Kerama islands using a small ferry service that ran between them, and also went onto a day trip on the big island of Okinawa at one point. Helping out in a small backpackers here was actually my last HelpX job ever, and once again I had a really good time and had to cry when everyone came to see me off at the harbor at the day of my departure. One of my fellow helpers there actually was an old Japanese teacher by the name of HAL who eventually moved to Korea, and with whom I stayed in touch for a while. I wonder how he's doing now.
After that, I was slowly starting to run out of time, so I hastened towards my next major stop of Kyoto rather quickly. Along the way, there were some complications, such as a ferry running between Kyushu and Shikoku that had terminated service a few months prior, requiring me to change plans on the fly, and stormy conditions forcing me to cut short my visit on Aoshima, the island of really many cat, short from several hours to just ten minutes. Those still were the cattiest ten minutes of my life, mind you!
And in the aftermath, I unexpectedly got to chat with a friendly monk by the name of Kinomoto in the nearby Zuiryuuji (瑞龍寺 "Congratulating Dragon Temple). He even invited me in for some tea and a bite to eat, and allowed me a glimpse of the innermost sanctuary.
I next visited Ookunoshima, the island of rabbits while being based in the very shrine- and temple-rich town of Onomichi jsut north of the Shimanami Kaidan, a series of seven great bridges that tie Shikoku to Honshu hopping across six of the many islands littering the inland sea. This area was really one of the highlights in my trip and I can only recommend it as a stop to anyone travelling east from Osaka towards Hiroshima. You definitely don't want to miss out on getting smothered to death by a thousand cute bunnies!
Kyoto...
Foxes...
So... many... foxes... (dies)
After that overdose of vulpine bliss, my next stop was Toyokawa and Toyohashi, where I not only got more vulpine bliss at Toyokawa Inari, but also attended the JMoF (Japan Meeting of Furries) and not only got an overdose of fluffiness, but also was able to shoot what to date still is one of my three top-ranking YouTube Videos (JMoF 2019 Moments ~ Fursuit Parade).
My final stop before returning to Tokyo was Numazu, where I went absolutely nuts and rode up all the way to the flank of mighty Mt. Fuji using a single-gear bike. That's 870m up from sea level, mind you, and I actually had to push my bike part of the way. I actually had planned to use a bike with at least a few from a shared pool available bikes, but naturally that one bike was taken on that one day, so it was do or die. And die I did the next day, barely able to make it out of bed. But fortunately I got better, and once again, the view that I got on that day was absolutely worth it. On a side note: Cycling uphill in winter is actually kinda cool, since the air will cool you right down. Riding downhill in winter on the other side is a surefire ticket to several days in bed.
Returning to the Radiant Metropolis after 9 months on the road in Japan, I actually stayed in Kawasaki, the city directly adjunct to Tokyo in the south. One one of my last days there, I completed a grand stray of 31km in 9 hours which to this date is still my longest stray ever. However, the main event of this last bit was clearly when the daughter of my hosts in Appi-Kogen helped me attend a Buddhist-Ceremony at the Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin temple, which is a memory that I'll hold in my heart forever, moreso because any kind of recording was not allowed during the ceremony. At that time, I wished for success with the Chronicles of Ceal. To this date, this wish hasn't come true yet, but we'll see...
With my Visa in Japan finally expiring, I decided to make good on my plan to really travel all around the world this time around, which should result in me travelling from Japan directly to...
Book 3 ~ South America & South Africa
2019-2020
First off, I really tried to get to stay in HelpX places or the likes in South America and South Africa respectively, but nothing I tried worked out. An ex-boss of my dad's originally hooked me up with someone in Argentinia, which is why I had purchased tickets to Foz do Iguaçu on the Brazilian side of the border, but that eventually fell apart, so it was "run wild and be free" once again for me. Anyway, since Brazil is literally on the other side of the world from Japan, it was one long flight over Canada - specifically Toronto - to get there, and along the way my luggage was lost due to a snowstorm, thankfully only temporarily. Not a good start into the book, but definitely a memorable one.
Brazil was the first country I travelled to where I suffered from severe language proficiency deficiency, and nearby Argentina and Paraguay were not any better. Still, being able to actually read all of the letters in the supermarket again helped a lot, as did the fact that most people actually understood English. There's actually two most memorable moments in this episode, and both happened during my visit to the Iguazu Falls on the Argentinian side. First are naturally the falls itself, which I can add up right there next to New Zealand's Cable bay in the Are you kidding me? Landscape this beautiful only exists in photoshopped images!"-category.
The other thing are the coatis, the cutest critters that you didn't know even existed. Belonging to the same family as raccoons, these adorable critters are literally all over the place, and sadly suffer from being fed too much and too unhealthy stuff by the tourists here, developing illnesses such as diabetes in the process. As a consequence of this exceeding cuteness, I now own every single piece of coati merchandise that the gift shop offered and which I could reasonably fit into my already over-stuffed bag.
My trip from South America to South Africa was cursed and is still one of my top 5 major financial losses. First, I was prohibited from boarding the plane on account of missing a vaccination that I was sure I had gotten ahead of my trip, so I had to extend my stay in Brazil for a full 10 days, cutting short my stay in South Africa in the process. What's worse, both the flight agency and Expedia - the website over which I booked the flight - were unable to cancel or re-book my flight because of this, so I ended up paying for a flight that I did not take (three flights, really). Then, on my second attempt, I suffered a traumatic experience as the clerk at the Foz do Iguaçu refused to accept the booking on my name despite it being printed in both my passport and national ID, and me having brought an official proof of residence in three languages. That caused me to have a breakdown right there and then, and ended up with me being forced to buy another airplane ticket on my old name, without me being able to refund the one I didn't use, so in the end I paid for seven flights to get to South Africa, of which I "used" only three. To this date, I am still afraid of airport check-ins. And because that was clearly not enough, the local police opted to pick me out and thoroughly search my luggage during my layover in Angola, which made this one of the countries that is now on my personal "not to visit"-list.
Things finally got better once in South Africa, and once again, it is not one experience that truly stood out here, but two. First, there was my hike and climb up Table Mountain, which is another one of the wonders of the natural world (the first having been the Iguazu Falls).
That would be the mainstream memorable moment. Much more majestic, however, was the experience of getting to pet a real-life cheetah out in the Cheetah Outreach reserve, where a bunch of enthusiastic activists take care of endangered local animals. Volunteering here had actually also been on my list of prospective things to do out in the world at the very beginning, but I passed on it in favor of going to New Zealand. Now I got here anywhere after all this time, which makes it feel like a neat closing of the circle. They also have bat-eared foxes, by the way, and I should eventually adopt Janet - matriarch of the bat-eared foxes at the reserve - as a sponsor, until she eventually died of old age.
My travel back home via Istanbul was blissfully uneventful, and after finally returning back home to the Fox Den after over a year of travel, I used the souvenirs and materials I had gathered in Japan to set up my own personal Inari shrine at home.
Afterwards, I resolved to learn more about my own home country, and started Project Petal as a consequence. I already covered this in depth during the previous chapter, so I won't go into detail about it here, but to put it into temporal context, this is when the Snake Petal took place, only two months after I had finally returned home. And yeah, the "where's a will there's a way" attitude I acquired as a result of my many rides and stray abroad really started to shine through here too.
Intending to finally get cats of my own, I also moved from the Fox Den - which I shared with my father - to my own place at the Fox Loft - the former home of my late grandparents. I've been living there ever since but it should yet be some time before I finally got my own set of cats. In the meantime, moving house was an unforgettable adventure in its own right, and is one of these experiences that I really hope I don't have to repeat every decade.
True to my agenda of learning more about my home country, my next travels should take me through all of...
Book 4 ~ Germany
2020-2021
This book started with the Green Shnolz (aka Covid 19) holding the world hostage, with fragged Robert's and my plan to visit Japan again this year as the pandemic wiped the streets empty all over the world.
After the situation calmed down a bit in late summer, international travel was still heavily restricted, but since we were free to move around Germany again, Robert and I decided to salvage our vacation by travelling all around Germany instead, starting with the Sächsische Schweiz ("Saxon Switzerland"), where we got to see some pretty impressive mountains.
In Görlitz, we not only visited the easternmost point of Germany (which included me hitting Robert with a bike tour that he wasn't anywhere even close to ready for, sorry about that), but also crossed over the Polish border in search of some Oszczypek, a tasty Polish cheese that Robert wanted to try again after having last tasted it as a kid. We only found something kinda like that in the end though. I also was rather shocked to see how run-down the Polish city was.
Next we visited Rügen, the largest island of Germany. Of course I still remember the reasonably impressive chalk cliffs near Sassnitz, but another thing I remember remarkably clearly is how hard it was to find a place to do laundry there.
On Sylt, we visited the northernmost point of Germany by means of a blissfully flat bike tour down the dunes. I also recall finding a Geocache up there that had been signed by chieftains from the future.
In Bremen, we covered the obligatory Bremer Stadtmusikanten ("Bremen Town Musicians") in half a dozen varieties or so, but apart from that, there wasn't anything truly remarkable in this smallest of Germany's states.
After that, we went to Geilenkirchen, where we embarked on a long stray to Germany's westernmost point, taking a bus to our set-out point, and eventually another bus back home after walking four 28km. We also walked quite a bit through the Netherlands, with Belgium pretty close, but not really within walking distance.
The last part of our initial round was Trier, from where we rented bikes and cycled up and down the Mosel all the way to Luxembourg and back again. For me, this was a relaxing and rewarding ride, but once again, I'm afraid I asked too much of Robert there.
Come summer next year, we completed our visits to the four cardinal points of Germany by also making our way into the alps and up to the southernmost point of Germany. The weather could have definitely been better there, and we all but skidded down the Austrian side to our hotel for the night.
And finally, we also went and visited the center of Germany. Several of them, actually, since the exact center varies by definition (though most of them are roughly in the same area). They are also quite differently signposted, with some of them featuring big. prominent marks, and others... well... not.
I also finally got my cats! Adopting Jamie and Toledo from the animal shelter had a big impact on my life, and now the Fox Loft is their home as much as it is mine. Ever since, they have entertained me with their antics, yet also occasionally tried my patience. Even so, I am quite happy that I adopted them, and hope they'll enrich my life for many more years to come.
So much for Germany. I now know my own home country a whole lot better, and I thought this might mark an end to my travels. However, fate had other things in mind and put me out on the road time and time again, which is what the next book is all about.
Book 5 ~ And everything else
2021-2024
This started with me quitting my job at the startup company of Cesonia on account of too much unpaid overtime and too little pay (which apparently was liquidated by now). It took me two tries from there to arrive at my current job, with the first one sending me to Canada for a couple of weeks instead. In the end, this turned out to be my second-worst job after MegaZebra, and I am glad I got out of that place quick. However, the trip to Canada was nice, even if the most readily available memory of that time was the horror of six-lane highways.
I also visited the Niagara Falls, which were maybe not quite as impressive as the Iguazu Falls, but still pretty neat. Especially the fact that you could just walk right up to the edge of the falls was cool.
Following Canada, a failed attempt at romance and starting a family led me to the Philippines, which was an experience that was painful and unpleasant in a wide variety of ways. For starers, I had just gotten over a flu and relapsed into that - probably due to the plane trip - and the sickness stayed pretty much all over the vacation. Then, there was the hod and humid climate, which made actually going out quite a pain, and finally, it turns out that the "real" Philippines (outside of holiday resorts and such) are actually not that great a place.
We eventually visited my then-fiance's family on the countryside, where two unpleasant memories vie for the rank of most memorable: First, there was the motorbike ride, where one of her siblings took her, me and our luggage from the bus stop to the village by means of a very normal-sized motorcycle. The other was when I got such a horrible cramp from coughing while laying on the cloth-covered piece of wood that passes as a bed there that it felt like my side was being ripped open, and Elgen took me to a witch doctor for treatment, which unsurprisingly did not help at all. No pictures exist of either of these events, but here's a rough sketch of how that motorbike ride went (and felt).
Back in Germany, I ended up visiting the Eurofurence during it's first time in Hamburg, which allowed me to explore a whole new city there, along with getting myself recruited as a volunteer helper, and became a part of a whole new family there.
Right thereafter, Robert and I finally went to Japan once again, meeting up with his sister Bea and her husband Brett there. I got to play tour guide during our two weeks there, with our first stop being Nara, the city of deer, where these cute cervids walk all over the place. On a downside, though, the temperatures should be and remain piping hot for the entirety of our trip.
In Ise, we visited the Ise Jingu, one of the most important sites of Shintoism. This is also where the divide in our group became apparent as Bea and Brett left after a day to go sightseeing in Kyoto again.
From there to our next stop, we took a rather adventurous route that included us riding across the Ise bay by ferry. Apart from that, there was also a bus segment and several railroad segments, and because this is Japan, all the connections worked without issues.
In Shimada, we got to watch the Shimada Mage Matsuri. Of all the Matsuri I witnessed in Japan, this was clearly the least impressive yet, even if the traditional hairstyles worn by the dancers (which is what this Matsuri was all about) were pretty elaborate.
Finally, in Tokyo, I did a lot of walking around in search of shrines, and we also visited the Ueno Panda Matsuri at the day of the autumn equinox, which was very... Japanese. Also, loud, so we didn't stay for long.
The Spielwiesn - where I'm also a volunteer helper - also moved to Augsburg this year, which resulted in me doing a lot of commuting on the days of. The new location is pretty neat, though, and offers a lot more room than the old venue in Munich.
And then, there was the trip to Paris that I partook in as part of a team event/expo visit to the Viva Tech. I learned a lot about what crazy new technology is currently vying for the market, but I also took some time to explore the hills of Meudon.
That concludes my most memorable moments from all the books. Now, let me showcase some...
Selected Statistics
For once, I'll keep this short and simple. Also, all statistics presented relate only to the journeys that I covered in the Travelling Fox Blog.
- Countries visited: 15 (+3 layovers)
- Flights: 28
- Ferry rides: 15
- Bus rides: 37
- Train rides: 162
- Bike rides: 173 (combined distance: 7,100km)
- Strays: 384 (combined distance: 3,000km)
- Dogwalks: 45 (combined distance: 170km)
- Geocaches: 2051 attempted, 1235 found, 95 passed (60% find rate)
- Natural disasters survived: 2
- Different jobs performed: 31
And now to some record holders:
Longest Ride: Circadian Century Circuit @ 127km
See: Book III ~ Chapter 13 ~ Corona and the Century Circadian Circuit
Steepest Ride: The Plucky Paparoa Pilgirmage @ 900m
See: Book I ~ Chapter 29 ~ Mangapai Mania
Longest Stray: Grand Finale Kawasaki/Tokyo Stray @ 31km
See: Book II ~ Final Chapter ~ Of Spirits and Shrines
Steepest Stray: Table Mountain Ascent Stray @ 1400m
See: Book III ~ Chapter 5 ~ African Adventures
Best working stay: Seina & Hikaru @ Fukuoka
See: Book II ~ Chapter 14 ~ Fantastic Fukuoka Family Friendliness
Worst working stay: Nozaru Hostel @ Yudanaka
See: Book II ~ Chapter 11 ~ The Yoke of Yudanaka
Best stay place: Miroku Sanbu Izakaya @ Shizuoka
See: Book V ~ Chapter 26 ~ Shizuoka & Shimada Shenanigans
Worst stay place: Long Beach House @ Ishinomaki
See: Book II ~ Chapter 5 ~ A Trip Together
And some meta-data:
- Blog chapters written: 140
- Time spent on blog: 2,640h (more than a full-time job for a year)
- Av. hours per chapter: 19
- Total pages: ~15,000 (longer than the complete Wheel of Time series)
- Av. pages per chapter: 107
- Av. pages per hour: 5.6
- Longest chapter: Book V ~ Chapter 2 ~ Trecking Through Toronto (392 pages)
- Total pictures: ~20,000
- Total photos taken: ~ 55,000
- Total videos: ~900
- Total video source shots: ~2500
- Total data volume: ~1,3TB
- Total blog views: ~60,000
- Most viewed chapter: Book II ~ Epilogue ~ A Memory of Foxes (516 views)
- Top 5 audience sources:
- USA: ~12,000
- Germany: ~11,800
- Hong Kong: ~5,700
- Singapore: ~5,400
- Russia: 4,600
...and if you are interested in any more statistics, just drop me a comment and I'll add them here, assuming I can procure them with reasonable ease. But since these are all that I can think of right now, let's leave it at that and proceed to the...
Last Learnings
So, what did I learn from all that time on the road? Well, for one, there are lots and lots of different people out there, all with their very own way of life. And there's not one that's intrinsically better than the others, they're all just different. Some people are genuinely valicious, but you don't need to put up with them, because there's plenty of nice folk all around. You just need the courage to leave the bad people behind, no matter how much they try to convince you that it's the same everywhere.
I've also been to so many interesting places all over the world, and my understanding of what the world is like has thus changed from textbook knowledge to first-hand experience. Making all these maps along the way also helped, because through that I got an understanding of how landforms really work. Most importantly, however, I got to see just how much natural beauty there exists all over the place, and how important it is to protect that.
And it wasn't only far away places that I got to learn a lot better. By courtesy of Project Petal, I also learned a lot more about my immediate surroundings. Before, if you had asked me to draw a rough map of my surroundings, it would probably have looked somewhat like this:
It's almost painful to look at that now that I've got so much of a better understanding of my surroundings. Today, when faced with the same task, I can draw the following map from memory with relative ease. It definitely still has quite a bunch of flaws and distortions (especially in terms of proportion, for example, I'm fairly certain that the Lech, Isar and Inn are actually pretty evenly spaced, but you try drawing that from memory and have it turn out right!), but when compared to my previous mental model, it is SO MUCH more thorough. If you feel like it, you can try to figure out how many things I still got wrong. I for my part still had to guess on a number of points.
I also got quite a lot of experience in planning bike routes in a way that avoids the steepest ascents, but also in writing, seeing how much I typed over the course of this blog, which brings us straight to...
The Road Ahead
So, here we are, at the end of the last book of the Travelling Fox Blog. But will this truly be the end? Probably not. I've already got my next trip planned, and I'll probably want to share about it, just... not in that much detail anymore.
Why? Well, you've seen the statistics. Up until this point, I have poured over 2,600 hours into this blog, and looking back, I certainly don't regret putting in this much time and effort, and yet...
...starting now, I would really like to be able to dedicate more time into the Chronicles of Ceal again. For contrast, writing the first book of the Crystal Seal chronicle took me about 320 hours, which means that in the time I spent on the blog over the last few years, I could have completed all 6 books of the Crystal Seal Chronicle and still have time to spare.
What does that mean going forward? You can probably expect irregular and shorter posts on this blog as my travels take me somewhere new. It'll probably be more pictures and less text, and I probably won't spend as much time on fancy compound images and such. Apart from that, well, we'll have to see, but I'm sure it'll turn out alright in the end.
As for the Chronicles of Ceal... I'll definitely keep you posted. Right now, my plan is to re-write the first book with all the experience of my travels under my belt and then publish it online somewhere. Ideally, I'll find a site that lets me publish and update it on a chapter-by-chapter basis. If I can find such a place, then you can probably expect the first chapter to go live sometime in January.
And regarding my next journey that I mentioned above... I don't want to spoil too much right now, but I'm headed north, and you can probably expect to read about it sometime in late February or March. Until then, have a wonderful generic secular holiday season, and be of great cheer!
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