GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

Watch my illicit little movie It's a traveling exhibition of individualized Moleskine notebooks by artsy types that you can fondle and admire - with white gloves. I've used a Moleskine for years - my favorite ones are the simple notebooks that come in packs of three and fit into the tightest jeans pocket. Guess what - they still tell you phone numbers and addresses even after your cellphone dies. The most memorable one - on fast glance because unbeknownst to me, you weren't supposed to photograph anything - was designer Julia Lohmann's glass (or was it crystal?) studded Moleskine. It gave me all kinds of ideas of what to do with the draw full of found objects I can't quite bring myself to trash ... More at http://www.galfromdownunder.com/japan I'll be wringing the most out of my $US330 (!!!) Japan Rail Pass from Oct 29-Nov 4, using internet cafes rather than lugging my precious MacBook Pro, so stand by ...

Above: Pink is the new pink in Japan - read about my adventures on the tikit at the link below I've barely managed to blog about my Singapore experiences and now I'm in Japan already. Am I losing my grip? For the sake of simplicity I'm multimediaclasting (that's blogging with words, images, video) on the Bike Friday website at this page: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/japan but feel free to leave comments here! Below: One of the 'greenspaces' in Tokyo - a small neighborhood park - yes, apart from a handful of established gardens like the Imperial Palace, real estate is *this* much of a premium

Here's a clue to where I'll be when, or was: Bike Friday Event Calendar  ... specifically my spot on it +++ Oct 2009 Singapore and Japan Sep 2009 Cape Cod Jun 2009 Georgia May 2009 New York April 2009 Colorado April 2009 Yoga Teacher Certification March 2009 Arizona +++ Jan 2008 San Francisco/Sacramento Feb 2008 Hawaii Mar 2008 Arizona Mar-Aug 2008 Galfromdownunder downunder Sep 2008 New York GAL MOVIES Check out the latest Gal movies on YouTube or go right to the all-time best ones My old Livejournal Latest News use to do the job of this WHERE sticky - now it just stores interesting history about my Cuba book for posterity Permalink for this post: www.galfromdownunder.com/where

Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Houses, Oak Bluffs. They're not all pink ... I'm just back from a weeks riding on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket with 40 or so cyclists, courtesy of Friday Friendly Tour Company BikeandtheLike and 5 magnanimous Bike Friday customers. I have these customers to thank: Sue, Glen, Leo, The Knables, plus Charlie (he must be inside getting some chowder) for sponsoring my visit to the Cape How magnanimous? I cajoled them into signing up for a Friday Friendly trip in the Berkshires, but due to the recession? Hills? The tour was undersubscribed, and thus cancelled for this year. A bit of fast webgotiating and within an hour I had them switched to a completely different Friday Friendly tour company, $400 less expensive, and subbing my attendance to the tune of $100 each. "If you can get them to sponsor you, I'll kick in the rest," said Suzy the tour operator. Of course, my part of the bargain was to write a full multimedia

Tucked between the concrete, concessions, cars and cacophany of NYC are some Edenic little gardens, lovingly maintained and enjoyed by the surrounding neighborhood. This is one of many on the lower east side I visited with my mother and friend Christina, who has the coveted iron key. The garden spreads to the surrounding neighborhood My mother in front of the cute mini chalet My mother communes with flowers Christina in the gardenshe shares with her Lower East Side neighbors Inside the little treehouse. The Traffic Cone Bag ever present - in city mode.

The house that Alison sat looked a bit like this, but unlike Thoreau's digs, was way more than a stone's throw from a home cooked meal and hoogs (that's hugs in Scottish). WHEN you're asked that standard contest question, "Who do you admire the most in the world, and why?" - just who comes to mind for you? Someone famous? Infamous? Completely unknown? When asked this 10, 5 and 2 years ago, I thought of the same gal each time - a friend I met in my travels called Alison. More about her in a moment. This question came up recently in a heated, though chummy debate with a couple of friends about Henry David Thoreau, the eloquent writer/philosopher/inward excursionist who's practically deified by the general public for his contribution to voluntary poverty, or rather, simplicity. Don't get me wrong - he wrote a great book, but when I read that his little cabin was a stone's throw from a home cooked dinner with a loving and supportive family - gimm

Continuing my tikit on Trial experiments in NYC, we test the welcome at some upscale locations, proving there's almost nowhere a Bike Friday can't go ... MOVIES tikit on Trial in NYC Check out the new videoblogs about a certain Princess Pink tikit living large PLUS Meet Bicycling writer Steve Friedman, father and son Cantos and Bfold staff - the people you meet while loitering under the stoop at a bfold.com ...