Today wrote a a query letter to a magazine editor about an article about different walks that a person can take in Taiwan.  While looking up quotations to use in the query I suddenly remembered how much I used to enjoy walking.  When I first started traveling, whenever I arrived in a new city, after putting my things in a hostel, the first thing I would do was walk down random streets and alleys and I wouldn't stop until I had gotten myself good and lost.  That would usually take one or two hours, and finding my way back several more. One my first trip outside of North America ( I was 18 at the time) I spent eight hours lost in Madrid at night.  It was the most exciting thing that I had ever done.  I explored cobblestone alleys and unknown plazas and wandered among centuries old pillars holding up centuries old roofs. I saw gangs of street hoods and tapa bars filled with overweight, overly made-up prostitutes -- things I'd never seen before in my life.  I was even accosted by one extremely persistent old hooker missing several teeth who insisted in walking arm-in-arm with me and chattering away to me in Spanish even though it was obvious that I didn't speak Spanish and wasn't going to give her any money.

Walking is the best way to see a place.  If you drive, you watch the road.  In a taxi, the city moves past too quickly.  Riding a bicycle is even too fast and distracting. Walking is the only way to really examine the people, the shops, the art, and the trash.  The only way to feel the texture of a city at ground level is with your feet.

So, in celebration of my remembrance of my favorite way to explore, here are ten quotes about the glory of walking:

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
~ Henry David Thoreau

My father considered a walk among the mountains
as the equivalent of churchgoing.
~ Aldous Huxley

Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation,
a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind.
Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
~ Gary Snyder

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
~ John Muir

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country.  A fine landscape is like
a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo.  Even a bicycle goes too fast.
~ Paul Scott Mowrer

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
~ Steven Wright

I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.
~ Ernest Hemingway

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It is a great art to saunter.
~ Henry David Thoreau

Meandering leads to perfection.
~ Lao Tzu

Check out this month's Action Asia magazine for my profile of one of Taiwan's most prominent and longstanding foreign paragliding pilots, Malcom Vargas.

Damn, it's been a good year for awards.  Today I was notified that I was chosen as one of the top fifty travel blogs of 2010 ) by Awarding the Web -- an organization that strives "to recognize excellent web content so that those who have worthwhile content can be distinguished from the useless, bad content that plagues today’s internet."

I have no idea how these people find my blog.  I don't rank high enough with Google to come up at the top of searches, and I'm not listed in the top sections of any of the travel blog toplists.  Yet, this is the second award (read about the first one here) I've received this year.

Strangely, both of these awards came from contests sponsored by online education companies.  This award was sponsored by Online Schools, and clicking on the badge will take you to their website.

Regardless of who they came from, they're very flattering.  I hope you all continue to enjoy the blog, and keep nominating me for awards!

The good folks at VBS.tv are, in my opinion, some of the best documentarians in the world.  They go after ridiculous and unthinkable stories gonzo style, resulting in a humanistic view of incredible tragedies, and incredibly weird topics.  A couple months ago I posted the riveting, and extremely disturbing, Vice Guide to Liberia.  Next, in a series of VBS videos I plan to post, is this documentary on a service that offers a simulated illegal border crossing from Mexico into the United States, complete with a shady 'coyote' guide and potential arrest.

Watch it now! (29 min)

For the first time in my life, I'm ashamed to be Canadian.

We Canadians are overwhelmingly proud of our country. Why shouldn't we be?  For all of its shortcomings Canada has often (although not always)  shown itself to be a fair country, especially when dealing with civil disturbances and inner conflicts.

The police reaction to the recent G20 protests in Toronto, however, was shameful.  They used excessive force dealing with protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful and arrested hundreds of protesters that showed no aggression whatsoever.  Consider the following videos.

In this video, the police attack a group of protestors without provocation (except for singing our national anthem).

And in this video the police surround and close in on a large group of protesters, also all exercising their rights to non-violent protest. The don't allow anyone to leave and then arrest them.

It is a sad day for Canada.  Tonight I will go out to a Canada Day party and, like most Canadians, drink a ridiculous amount of beer.  This time though, I will not drink to celebrate.  I will drink to forget.

I just received an email from Online Degree Programs.  They ranked Matt-Gibson.org as one of the 50 best travel blogs in the world. I'm even placed third on the list (although I don't think that really means anything), just after World Hum and Best Travel Writing, two of the biggest and best group travel blogs in out there.

How flattering is that?

You can read their blog post that I'm featured in here: http://www.onlinedegreeprograms.com/blog/2010/50-best-blogs-for-travel-writing/

Check it out.  I was just featured on TravelBlogs.com. TravelBlogs.com is website that offers a ton of useful travel information such as, stories, book reviews, panel discussions, and a really, really long list of travel blogs.

My listing is here: http://www.travelblogs.com/blogs/matt-gibson-org

For the last few days I've been working on my application for the Glimpse Correspondent Program. I've gone through all of my old photos, picked out my favorites, and touched them up. I now have a total of thirty-three pictures.  The problem is, I need to narrow my submission down to twenty.  If you have a minute, it would be a great help if you could look through the photos and leave a comment telling me which photos you think I should keep, and which I should trash, and why.

Don't worry about my feelings.  Be ruthless.  Telling me which ones you hate will help more than telling me which ones you like.  But, of course, I hope you like them all.

It’s nice to be noticed. A couple of weeks ago Matt-Gibson.org was TravelPod’s blog of the day. TravelPod offers free blogs to travelers who want to share their adventures with their friends online.

It’s very easy to use; great for new bloggers. You can upload as many photos and videos as you want, make travel maps, and do all sorts of other dorky travel stuff. Of course, TravelPod has to make money. To do this, it displays travel-related ads alongside your blog. You do have the option to remove the ads; purchase an enhanced membership for about $39.95USD per year. The enhanced membership also gives you control over who is and isn’t allowed to see your blog. Not a bad deal. Actually, had I known about it when I first moved to Taiwan, I totally would have signed up.

A few years ago Vice Magazine, a punk counterculture magazine that started out as a welfare work scam and grew into an international trend setting voice for youth culture, started an online television station called VBS.tv.  Like the magazine, The television station produces borderline gonzo new journalism style documentaries about the edgiest and wildest topics that you could imagine.  The work that the station has done is of such a high caliber, and so interesting, that CNN has partnered with them.

It's wild.  One episode focuses on a part of northern Columbia where men commonly, and surprisingly openly, have sex with donkeys.  They actually show it.  In another they visit the last surviving members of an Aryan community started half a century ago in Paraguay.

Last night I watched the Webby nominated documentary, The Vice Guide to Liberia.  It's one of the best, and most horrific, documentaries I've ever seen.  You must watch it now (but do so at your own discretion--it is incredibly disturbing).

If the you have problems watching it using the embedded player below, you can watch it here.