moleskinerie

Kevin Shannon: The World (bike) Tour

Biker Kevin Shannon left a note at our Facebook group about his project:

"Moleskine are very kindly donating a selection of notebooks to use on my around the world cycling expedition to raise £1 Million for Combat Stress..."

From his site's "About" page:

Whilst flicking through an endless pile of gap year brochures, i quickly became disillusioned with the idea of ‘taking a year out and seeing the world’. It felt as though to travel in this way would mean conforming to predetermined idea of ‘Backpacking’. I have nothing against this form of travelling, it just doesn’t interest me. I was looking for a way to travel that would totally immerse myself in the cultures of the countries i travel through. After a couple of months of trawling through the internet and going through numerous plans, such as using public transport or hitchhiking my way to Sydney and travelling to New Zealand on a freighter. Then i stumbled across a couple of websites about cycle touring and fell in love with the method of travel and so the expedition was born.

Learn more.

Related: Ben Saunders and his Moleskine

Book: 500 places to see before they disappear

MoleskineCity blog has posted a review by Franca Mochi.

"500 Places to see before they disappear" is the first Frommer  publishing's guidebook dedicated to passionate travellers who want to have the last chance to visit the most endangered tourist destinations in the world. f you are concerned about the earth's survival and you worry each time you hear an alarming bad omen on the future of the globe, this book is enlightening and useful for a better understanding of the nature of the threat against each place..."

Read more.

*I doubt if I can afford to travel to all 500. Maybe 10. What's on your list?

Moleskine in Kiev? Try Antresol

We've received a few queries from those traveling in Eastern Europe for the nearest Moleskine dealer. The Kyiv Post points us to a coffee shop in Kiev for those who need the notebook in Ukraine.

All literature sold at Antresol is managed by a so-called “librarian,” an assistant sitting at the entrance near the book shelves. He or she will help you to choose something from fiction, science, books for children, and books in foreign languages. There are also some Ukrainian magazines lying in a pile on the cashier’s desk and on the bar, so you can always get updated on the latest events in the capital. ...

Antresol is one of few places in Kyiv, where you can purchase Moleskines. These popular notebooks, usually with a black cover and a rubber string to fasten the pages, have become a real fetish abroad. In Ukraine, they are seldom met and are quickly sold out. When I dropped by at Antresol not long ago, I found only a narrow assortment remaining: small diaries for Hr 88 and large ones for Hr 110-150, and city notebooks for Hr 135. However, the shop assistant assured me that a new Moleskine collection is expected in November.   

Read the full article

Photo: © 2008 Yaroslav Debelyi

[Thanks Chris!]

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Finally, join "Open Session", The Moleskinerie Open Thread Discussion. Have a fun weekend. See you on Monday!

WebFind: Anna's Japan Blog

Here's a site we found to compliment that trip with your new Tokyo or Kyoto City Notebook. Anna's blog is a travel blog with a focus on culture.

"My site is new but has loads of content about Japan.  I am..working hard on it."

Visit

Your recommendations for similar sites on Japan?

Fred Lynch in Viterbo, Italy

Fred Lynch (and his Moleskine) are back from Viterbo, Italy where he teaches a sketchbook class for the month of July.

He's recently posted his work from this July on the course's blog. In the coming weeks, his students' work will be featured as well.

In this course, Journalistic Drawing in Italy, students develop a series of images in a sketchbook journal, based directly on their experiences living and traveling in Italy. Students closely observe, document, and comment on their investigations of various aspects of Italian life and culture. On-site drawing is a major focus of the course.

Fred Lynch is a professor and chair of the Illustration Department at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts. Fred is also a professor in the Illustration Department at Rhode Island School of Design (his alma mater).

Also visit Mr. Lynch's website.

Travel through history

For the couch traveler in all of us:

When Spain commissioned Ferdinand Magellan to find a westward route to the Spice Islands in 1519, the explorer commanded five ships and 240 men. Six years later, nearly every member of the expedition, including its commander, was dead. When the American writer Jack Kerouac tried in 1951 to find the words to convey his wayward journey through the United States and Mexico, he commanded a typewriter and a massive stash of Benzedrine. After a few weeks, the first draft of On the Road was completed. These are just two of the journeys that have left indelible marks on our collective maps, and are endless sources of fascination. Here is compilation of some of the most famous jaunts of all time—both factual and fictional—that show us how far we’ve come, and where we might go next.

LINK

Bogotá and Buenos Aires

Another chapter in Tim Bayne's seemingly endless travels around the world. This time he takes us to Colombia and Argentina.

As I waited for colleague Melissa I re-read the email:

"There are significant issues in traveling to Colombia. It is for that reason that such travel should be closely examined to ensure that all prudent precautions are taken. The primary security concern/issue, of course, is the FARC and its 40 years of experience in terrorism".

The email read more like a CV than a call to precaution. We boarded the plane for Miami, where we would transfer to American Airlines flight to Bogotá. This leg of the journey represented 6,000 miles of the 16,000 miles M and I would cover in the next five days.

BOGOTA:  This is the capital city of Colombia, with 7 million inhabitants. The city today has a lower murder rate than Caracas, São Paulo, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. The situation in Bogotá seems to be "greatly improved in terms of security and public safety from five years ago, and the atmosphere is much more relaxed", said Marshall Louis, a spokesman for the United States Embassy. The city was quieter as we left the hotel at four-thirty the next morning for the flight to Buenos Aires. Coffee in a wonderfully empty and clean airport terminal was welcome. The sun, shining red to highlight the tail fins of the local airline's 737's and overalls of their ground crews.

BUENOS AIRES: Later Melissa and I walked along the side of the Puerto Madero one of the coolest barrios of Buenos Aires, regenerated from red brick warehouses were all but abandoned when the port left the city in the 1930's. We found a restaurant, waited briefly for a table outside looking across the waterfront.

Friday footnote: Melissa was remaining behind, taking some holiday. She planned to explore the icebergs, towering peaks and the drama of the Perito Moreno Glacier in the far south of Argentina. It was grey and dull as the taxi took me back out the airport. Adios Bogotá, adios Buenos Aires, thank you for your warmth, your energy, attention and hospitality.

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE  http://timbaynes.spaces.live.com/

LINK TO Tim's GALLERY www.timbaynes.co.uk

Dave Gibson's Notebook

The New Zealand Herald asked Elemeno P's lead singer Dave Gibson how he travels:

"What type of luggage do you carry?
I'm not a branded luggage kind of guy but I have a big silver hard case spaceship-looking bag ... with wheels on it, of course.

What's always in your hand luggage?
My laptop, iPod (been replaced with an iPhone) and my Moleskine journal (turns out I'm more of a branded journal kind of guy).

Planner or last-minute packer?
I have a packing list saved on my laptop and usually just use that the night before.

More of this interview here.

Image: Wikipedia

[Thanks Chris!]

Tm Baynes : Sao Paulo

COM OS PAULISTOS

(For my friends here, especially M)

January and 32 degrees of heat

Everyone noticeably more tanned than me

Energy and colour still the same in San Paulo

Traffic still crazy

People still friendly

Now the place is familiar and the rhythm is right.

I have the same driver at the airport, Elaine

She greets me with a big smile

We hug and make the pact:

To rendezvous on time for the journey back in three days time

I know where I am are going

Into the Hilton at 8am and the Bell Boy organises a coffee

It arrives before you have finished checking in

Service and miles my home for three days

Glass marble and pale pale wood

Chocolates from the manager

Across the plaza from the hotel and into the office

A second home for the duration

San Paulo,

Energy and heat and wonderful women

Brazil so famous for fabulous womanhood

Travel the greatest privilege, the work there too

Be grateful for only the minutes or hours you have to step out

To soak up the culture

Travelling is being open and appreciative.

Can there be a better evening than in the company of a friend?

The best of warm conversation

Just two bars full of Paulistos,

In both I am the only gringo in the Mercearia and Posto Seis

M and I talk of work, talk of history and culture,

I hear about Luiz de Camões,

His book Os Lusíadas

Portugal’s Chaucer

Learning that Portuguese was born out of Spanish

That the former can understand the latter but not the other way around

Discovering how big and beautiful this country really is

Travel is learning.

In each and every bar the same energy, People out talking, enjoying the warm summer evening,

Music, music oozing out of every pore

Brazilian beer and small side dishes

Sustenance as substantive as any banquet

Flavoured and garnished with laughter and conversation

Oh lucky traveller.

Thank you M.

Tim Baynes
Visit his blog
And website

© 2003-2008 TBaynes All Rights Reserved 

Minimalist sketching kit

Moleskinerie pal Katherine Tyrrell is back from her desert adventures and blogging about it:

"Technically - this was what I worked out as the minimalist sketching kit to be carried in my 'bumbag' (which I think might be known as a 'fanny pack' in the USA) - a small sketchbook Moleskine and half a dozen pencils in desert colours plus my usual pencil and pen. In reality I subsequently realised that I had the potential to use a lot of space in the topbox or saddlebag panniers - but I was trying to shed my "kitchensinkitis" reputation. Read on for why they were never used........

We headed for the Anzo-Borrego Desert through the east of San Diego county along Interstate 8 (very near the USA border with Mexico). We passed giant boulder fields of granite created by erosion due to extremes of temperature - before turning north at Ocatillo on to S2 to go north to Ocatillo Wells, then east along Highway 78 to the Salton Sea and then north to an area where the San Andreas fault is well marked...."

Visit her blog, "Travels with a Sketchbook"

Moleskinerie pal Katherine Tyrrell is back from her desert adventures and blogging about it:

"Technically - this was what I worked out as the minimalist sketching kit to be carried in my 'bumbag' (which I think might be known as a 'fanny pack' in the USA) - a small sketchbook Moleskine and half a dozen pencils in desert colours plus my usual pencil and pen. In reality I subsequently realised that I had the potential to use a lot of space in the topbox or saddlebag panniers - but I was trying to shed my "kitchensinkitis" reputation. Read on for why they were never used........

We headed for the Anzo-Borrego Desert through the east of San Diego county along Interstate 8 (very near the USA border with Mexico). We passed giant boulder fields of granite created by erosion due to extremes of temperature - before turning north at Ocatillo on to S2 to go north to Ocatillo Wells, then east along Highway 78 to the Salton Sea and then north to an area where the San Andreas fault is well marked...."

Visit her blog, "Travels with a Sketchbook"