On The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse

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One year on foot - 4646km through China. That is some way to see China. And to think that Christoph’s original plan was to walk all the way back to Germany. Compare to his journey, the Camino must have been a walk in the park. Here’s the except from his journey and his web site, ‘The Longest Way"’.

November 9th 2007 - November 13th 2008
one year on foot - 4646km through China
unlimited beard & hair growth
www.thelongestway.com
musical score by the kingpins (www.thekingpins.com) and zhu fengbo
Additional info:
- I never finished my original goal of walking to Germany. Instead, I walked for a year and roughly 4500km, passed the desert of Gobi, and then decided to stop walking for now.
- All of the distance from Beijing to Ürümqi has been completed solely on foot, straight good old walking. There are instances where you can see me in the video sitting on a plane or riding a boat, but those are during breaks I had to take from walking, either to sort out bureaucracy issues or to take care of some personal things.
- I had been planning this trip for over a year before I even started, and getting as far as I got was an experience for which I am very grateful.
- Obtaining the necessary visa for a trip like this was not very easy, hence I had to go back to Beijing a few times to resolve some issues.
- The songs I used in the video are 1) Zhu Fengbo - "Olive Tree" and 2) The Kingpins - "L'aventurier" - visit the Kingpins website if you want to know more, they are very cool I think.
- This is not a strict "1 pic a day" video, because I wanted to make it a bit more alive by adding some additional movement. Sometimes during the film you would follow me turn around, or something would happen in the background. I tried to capture these moments to make the video more interesting.
- The core of this project is in fact my website "www.thelongestway.com" where I have posted my extensive travel diary, starting from day 1 (Nov 9th 2007) and describing every single day until the end one year later.

Another meeting of pilgrims

Rosalinda (with Sancho) on the left and Isabella on the right at Albergue Rosalinda :)

I've just gotten back for a few weeks from a trip to Provence with the wife. I've decided to go there via Milano and visit a dear pilgrim Rosalinda along the way. Best albergue and hospitalero outside the camino, :))))

Here is a photo during the camino in 2006. Bénédicte left and Rosalinda on the right.

Elf Yourself is ready for the Xmas 2008 season

Taken from my other blog, Elf Yourself 2008.

Technorati tags: elfyourself, xmas, ecards

A meeting of pilgrims

Today is a great day. I get to see Peter here in Singapore, a pilgrim from Germany that I have met during my first Camino back in 2006. He's here in this region visiting his business associates, and of course a fellow pilgrim (me!).

It's a wonderful feeling, the bond that pilgrims share, even between different countries, age group and job industries.

Here a picture taken in Santiago de Compostela almost two and half years ago.

Blogging On The Camino - With Google's Blogger (Part 3)

Google's Blogger is probably one of the most used platform for blogging. It's simple, easy to get started and free. Other popular platform for blogging are Wordpress and Typepad. They are mainly for bloggers who wants more control for their blog and do not mind hosting or paying others to have their blog hosted.

Assuming you have a Google blogger's account, blogging with images is dead simple. With the USB reader for your phone's memory card, you just upload the image, add the title, the text and just press the 'Publish Post' button.

A more efficient way is to use Google's Mail-to-Blogger feature. This way you can check your emails and blog at the same time.

Setup an unique email address to post your blog under Settings -> Email. Any mail sent to this address will be posted immediately to your blog. So an mail with an photo attachment like below:

Will end up in your blog like this with the subject of the mail becomes the title in the blog.

Similarly on a mobile device with email capability, the screen might look something like this:

With a mobile device, I have the advantage of writing the posts as draft emails in advance and dispatch them out the moment I am connected to a free wlan at the library or cybercafe. In other words, if I have 2 days without internet connection, I don't have to spend extra time filling in the back logs. In addition, the photo(s) are attached directly from the phone's memory card so there's no fumbling with USB card readers.

This is what they called moblog (mobile blogging).

If you have email application on your phone but no wlan, don't use this as the cost is exorbitant for accessing the internet via the cellular network.

Technorati tags: blogging, camino, guide

Blogging On The Camino - Internet Access (Part 2)

On the Camino Frances, a few albergues have coin operated internet terminals. They are usually expensive (one Euro for only 15 minutes) and a closed system (no USB port to plug in any device).

A better way is to head for the local library (Bibloteca). They are free and most cities and town with a decent population in Spain will have one. They are usually closed after 2 pm and open again after 5 pm so you can take your siesta first and come in later in the evening.

You might have to wait your turn. Pilgrims are a patient bunch, no?

Alternatively, the majority of the libraries in Spain has unsecured free wlan (wireless lan) access. If you have a phone with wlan you don't have to wait. That way, you also allow the local kids to have more time on the computer. However, phone with wlan are not cheap.

The picture above is my Nokia E61i. All Nokia E-Series phones comes with wlan. Here is a partial list of all the phones with wlan support. The screen are small and they do require some technical know how to set up and operate. This may not be for everyone. Hopefully technology will make it easier in the future for just about anyone to use it. But for those who can hack this, here's what you can do right now with just 1 device (the really cool stuff are from point 5 onwards):

1. Phone.
2. Camera.
3. Alarm clock.
4. mp3 player.
5. Ebook reader. (Read Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage during my last camino)
6. Mail. (Including blog posting, more on that later)
7. Light web browsing
8. Voip (Skype or equilavalent). Cheap 2 cents a minute call anywhere in the world provided if you can put up with slight voice communication delay.
9. Able to access the internet on Sunday even when the library is closed (provided the wlan signal is still strong from outside the library).

Next - Blogging On The Camino - With Google's Blogger (Part 3)

Technorati tags: blogging, camino, guide

Blogging On The Camino - Photos (Part 1)

Times has changed. No longer are blogs restricted to just text. Photos have become ubiquitous in all blogs.

Should you bring along a digital camera? Or camera phone? Unless you are photography buff, a 2-3 megapixel camera phone will do just fine for prints and also for blogging. That way you only need to carry 1 charger on the camino. The only requirement is that your phone must have support for external memory card for storage.

The external memory card that is bundled with the phone are usually small (around 256-512 Meg). Quadruple the capacity by investing around 30 USD for a 2 Gigabyte card. On my 2 megapixel camera phone, the estimate is around 4800 photos! That's more than enough for a few caminos without having to remove any photos from the card.

There are different types of memory cards for the camera phone. The newer the phone, the smaller the card tends to be. They are basically SD (small), MINI-SD (smaller) or MICRO-SD like in the photo above (tiny). Make sure you have a USB reader for the card. If you buy an additional MICRO-SD card, they usually throw in the reader for free. If not, a USB reader usually cost only a couple of dollars.

With the USB reader, you can plug it into any computer during your camino and have access to the photos stored in the card. This is also necessary if you want to post images to your blog. And at the end of your camino, you can use the reader to move your photos from your camera phone to your computer.

Next - Blogging On The Camino - Internet Access (Part 2)

Technorati tags: blogging, camino, guide

Cinzia's Cammino di Santiago 2008

From Burgos to Santiago. From my Via de la Plata, a reunion with her together with Rosalinda and Mike in Santiago. We then continued to Finisterre and Muxia.

Technorati tags: camino de santiago, video, finisterre, muxia

My Camino Via de la Plata Planner

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Now that my Camino Via de la Plata is over, I had just archived to Google Docs my journey's spreadsheet with an overlay of my stops. I got the original from Godesalco.

Technorati tags: camino, via de la Plata, planner, spreadsheet

The Camino on the local Singapore papers

Denise Chng wrote a nice piece on the camino for the local papers here. She's now staying in Quebec, Canada.

No soft copy of the article is available online, but I did manage to locate her blog.

Technorati tags: singapore, travel, writer, camino, straits times, newspaper