Riding and visiting various trains around Okayama, Tottori and Shimane Japan, plus saying hello to some goats, and watching a plane take off at Kansai airport.
Tag Archives: train
Scenes of Life in Phitsanulok (2016) – Lomo photos, colour
The city of Phitsanulok, (Pits-NOH-loh) in central Thailand is a workaday, very “normal” city, a capital of sorts long ago, now known for some famous Buddhas (where isn’t?) and a University.
I spent time at the excellent hospitals in the city and also, frankly, because its not on the tourist circuit of party beach towns and ex-pat enclaves. I can be comfortably and obviously anonymous – Its just normal.
I travel there by train and sometimes leave by plane from the smallish airpot (where i Boeing 747 sits in disassembly on the tarmac. I usually stay for week or three at a time, undergoing medical tests, as well as receiving traditional Thai “royal court” massage and other natural treatments.
I wander through the markets (usually buy seasonal fruit), stay at the same guest house, and eat at a family-run noodle stand or the outdoor hot-pot restaurant across the street from the aforementioned Hip Inn.
What follows are unedited snaps taken by a Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera loaded with expired film. I take photos “from the hip” to capture the hazy, vaguely watercoloured impression i feel there when wandering the lanes, streets and markets. This is all.
Continue reading Scenes of Life in Phitsanulok (2016) – Lomo photos, colour
Towns and Trains: Chiang Mai > Phitsanulok (2016) – Lomo photos, colour
When i visit Thailand, i fly into Chiang Mai – a bustling olden city in the north area, rather than Bangkok which is just too much city for countryboy me. Then i head for the city of Phitsanulok, (Pits-NOH-loh) in central Thailand which is a workaday, very “normal” city for medical treatment (Phitsanulok life is detailed elsewhere in a similar fashion.
I travel by train – either a 1960s era Japanese model or a new Chinese-built machine with folding beds for the nighttime journey. Along the way, i write poetry and gaze out the window (poetry series Towns and Trains is – or might be – elsewhere in this archive).
What follows are snaps taken by a Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera loaded with expired film snapped from a moving train for no particular reason aside to see what happens and capture the washes of colour fleeting by as i roll, as well as a few folks i encountered along the way and a few places i slept or soaked.
Continue reading Towns and Trains: Chiang Mai > Phitsanulok (2016) – Lomo photos, colour
Train’d – Items: Forgotten in Drawers (vol. 1)
Trainspotting: VIA Rail’s “the Ocean” Heads Out of Moncton, New Brunswick
The VIA Rail train “The Ocean” – from which i just disembarked – pulls out of Moncton, New Brunswick heading west towards Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
This train is Viarail’s The Ocean which goes between Montreal and Halifax… In this case, dumping me off in Moncton, New Brunswick (from Truro, Nova Scotia) last summer when I explored eastern/maritime Canada seeking a new home Unsuccessfully — I did find many find communities between Montréal’s mile end, Quebec City, Halifax’s north end, St. John’s Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia… to name a few but turns out I’m #Pacific through and through. Note: met wonderful people in each place… So much more #friendly & open than #Vancouver indeed – also way way thriftier place to find a home and exist.
Swipe for multiple views of this fine (by 1960s standards anyway) conveyance.
“Rock Train” Cross-Canada, 2012 / mixed media collage
June 2012, i boarded a VIA with 11 bands, a doc film crew, CBC radio 3, a bushel of photographers, a handful of fans and me as onboard community Svengali – complete a Bob Marley/Hunter Thompson inspired medical kit.
Across the lands we bounded, each band performing acoustically in the glass act-deco caboose in car, they played a showcase in the “activity” car, then a rousing full rocking set at the Gladstone in Toronto for CBC Radio 3 NXNE showcase.
Along the way, we made 4 whistlestop performances which all featured lateness, weirdness and rampaging small towns before escaping back to the diplomatic immunity of the train.
In those 4-1/2 days, we knew we were in a magic situation and no one wanted to miss a moment. “Every Night” we’d holler after another show where we packed in, climbing the train walls for a view of Adaline Sings, The Matinee, Top Less Gay Love Tekno Party, Jean-Paul Maurice, Bear Mountain, Sidney York, Portage and Main, Shred Kelly and more – always blown away by the variety and quality.
You probably know i made a 6or7 part podcast series – tracking the trek and Green Couch are crafting a Tracks on Tracks documentary… which i think should be 10 hours long.
I gathered all my paper-y bits and pieces and made another of my commemorative story boards AKA “static montage” with CDs, stickers, snaps, stubs, postcards and even a pic from my keynote address at NXNE Interactive about social media in crisis and revolutions.
With John Biehler’s help, here is the static montage, hopefully in a size you can zoom in and catch each detail.
Tag it up, wallpaper it, share it. Enjoy and let’s go again!
Thailand Train in Hat Yai Station
Showing the livery and sounds of a train in station in Hat Yai, Thailand after disembarking from an overnight ride from Phitsanulok on March 15, 2017.
Tripunithura Train Station (Ernankulum, Kerala, India) / oil pastel
Tripunithura train station (Ernakulam, Kerala, India)
Oil pastel on paper
Trainspotting: Train Rolling through Thrippunithura Station, Kerala
A classic train rolls through a rather insignificant (generally speaking as it is important to the community of course) train station called Tripunithura in the state of Kerala, India. That’s all. I do like trains. I made a painting of this station as well.
Train Station and Classic Engine in Phitsanulok, Thailand
just a panorama of a roundabout in Phitsanulok, (central) Thailand showing train station, a classic train engine on display and traffic going about daily business