Every once in a while you'll find yourself in a situation where you just need to do something. sometimes its quitting your crappy job, or telling that girl how you really feel. Other times its about helping out a friend who could use it-- that's how I ended up in Grenada last week. I just had to go visit a friend of mine. He's been living down there with his girlfriend for about 6 months and the small island life was getting to him. So when I saw them over the holidays and Megan, the girlfriend, pulled me aside and said "he wishes you could come visit," I pulled out my phone right there at the bar and started looking for flights.

"I got my first tattoo last June. The 24th, for those of you who have been in my life long enough to connect those dots. Its a small tattoo, not even two inches long on my left wrist. My own handwriting that reads 'Make It Happen.' Over the past few years this has become a mantra for the way i try to live my life. Maybe a shortened version of 'If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to make it happen.' If ever in my life there was a week that I made it happen, it'd be this one. I'm currently jotting down notes at an airport bar in Piarco, Trinidad" -excerpt from my travel journal

Three days after my conversation with Megan, I had flights for my surprise visit. Two days after that, I was at LAX starting my journey to Grenada. 4 flights and two days later, I landed at Maurice Bishop Int'l Airport. Sleep deprived and amazed by the lack of professionalism by airlines in the Caribbean, I hopped in a cab with a restaurant name, and vague directions. "Walk up the hill across the street. its the house on stilts." Not a whole lot to go on, but whats the worst that could happen?

"What the hell are you doing here?!" was my greeting and I threw my hands up, shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm here to visit." ...we've known each other since first grade. That's pretty much how our relationship works.

The next 5 days consisted of sleeping in, "what do you want to do today?" and random adventures around the island. Their only transportation was a small scooter, but it worked just fine for getting Brandon and I around.

If you're ever on an island, I highly recommend using these scooters as transportation.

The first day, we went do St. George and just kinda walked around. The locals are very friendly and always trying to start conversations or sell you something. People selling fruit or spices on the road would yell and try to stop us to make a sale. I walked into what I thought was an abandoned building on the waterfront and discovered a man who told us the story of how they are renovating the fish market and would be moving buildings soon. ....but it was like 1PM and he had a bottle in his hand, so who knows.

he was saying something about the fish market. i couldn't really understand through the accent and slurs.

By far my favorite adventure on the island was hiking out to Seven Sisters Falls in the middle of the island. The little bit of research i had done made it seem like the best thing to do in Grenada. So once the rain let up long enough for the hike to be bearable, we went for it.

The mud was about as much as my half cabs could handle, but luckily we got walking sticks and trudged on. I guess it was worth it...

Amazing right?  yea... I swam in that. — Amazing right? yea... I swam in that.

he swears he was only taking a picture with his phone...

In the couple days that I planned for this trip I teamed up with a friend of mine to shoot some stuff for his clothing company Freeman's Collective while in Grenada. So I was pretty set on getting into some fun and documenting it all.

I had no idea what to expect in Grenada, I did very little research. Like all I did was "Hey Megan, do I need a visa or can I just show up in Grenada?" Anyway, I knew that we'd make it to the beach and I have always wanted to hang out in a hammock at the beach. Plus it would be a sweet shot for FMC, so I packed it up and made that happen.

Grenada was a great trip. Completely last minute, but like I said, it was something I just had to do. It was awesome getting to spend some solid time with Brandon and see what life is like for him down there. Another trip in the books with plenty of amazing memories.

PS: One of my favorite things about traveling is the people you meet and the interactions that you can have in such a short time. During my layover in Trinidad I posted up at an airport bar and ultimately became friends with several of the workers in the airport. Kevon was particularly good company and we talked about all sorts of topics from picking up girls at bars to world politics. Early in our conversations Kevon asked about my Freeman's Collective hat and though I needed it for my adventures in Grenada, I gave it to him on my way back through Trinidad. So thanks Kevon for being a rad dude and offering up you place to stay. People like you are why I hope to never stop traveling.

I recently spent a couple weeks in Beijing visiting a friend and getting feel for China. I'm always looking for reasons to travel so having my buddy Russ out there made it an easy decision. To make things even better, he had also set me up with an interview for a teaching position at an international school as well. Always trying to have the best of both worlds, i figured it might be possible to have a big kid job and still keep traveling too. So I booked a flight.

China was.... strange. I never really felt out of place or had much culture shock, but it never felt quite right either. The simplest things were a struggle. It took me 2 days, two failed attempts to find a post office, and 3 hotel concierges to mail a post card. I was only there for two weeks but there were plenty of "wtf china?" moments. For example, toddlers over there don't use diapers apparently. They just have pants with holes in the crotch and the kids just squat and do their business wherever. My first day there I saw a woman holding her son over a bush while he peed. Right there on the street. Not a single duck given. There is very little sense of privacy in Chinese culture.

Child plays with a camera in Tiananmen Square

Aside from my post card troubles, it was a pretty bad trip for me as an experienced traveler. my first night there i left my backpack in a bar. Luckily got that back. Then a few days before flying home i managed to leave my bicycle on the subway. Yea, a bike. I don't know how i managed to forget that i had my bike with me, but i did. I got super lucky with that one too and was able to pick it up at the end of the subway line the next morning.

Guard at the entrance to the Forbidden City

I didn't shoot as much as i had hoped while i was there. Overall i found it to be mostly uninteresting. There was a lot of "huh, that's how they do that over here." but nothing that was really that out of place... maybe aside from the children peeing everywhere. I wandered around a bit and shot some scenes that i thought looked cool, but i quickly lost interest. It was difficult to get into it. I didn't find much that i wanted to document. Until we went to the Great Wall. That thing was totally freakin' awesome. Seriously.. that was pretty much worth the whole trip.

We took a private car a few hours outside of Beijing to a section of the wall that is supposedly one of the least repaired in the last few hundred years. Unfortunately China isn't really big on preserving their history, and as we hiked further out you could tell that it hadn't been as well maintained. We were lucky to have a real clear day and the weather wasn't too bad except for a little snow.

I probably said "This is amazing!" about 50 times in the 4 hours we were on the wall. I simply couldn't wrap my head around how huge it was. Not that the height was overly impressive, but it went on as far as you could see in both directions. It really makes you feel small.

Most of the wall that we hiked was pretty easy walking. Some of it got real steep, some of it had steps, and some parts we had to climb a little bit. At one of the towers the ceiling had collapsed and there was a few holds that could be climbed up to get to the top of the tower. Russ, being a an experienced climber, was all about it. I was skeptical. I got to the top, but my hands went numb trying to find a hand hold in the snow and decided i better not try it. Russ got up there and found a really cool relief carving of a dragon. Unfortunately the image doesn't translate well in pictures. I wandered around the tower and found my own souvenirs.

Russ during one of our pit stops in the towers.

The Great Wall was absolutely my favorite part of my time spent in China. I'm not one to get out and take pictures in front of monuments and do the touristy things. I'd much rather get out and interact with the place that I'm in. Getting to spend time on a clear day hiking on the Great Wall with literally nobody else there was pretty great. It was one of the days that makes all of the struggles worth it. I'll gladly take the weeks of saving, long and sketchy plane rides, jet lag and all the other nonsense for a single day like this.

Drinking a PBR on the Great Wall after lunch.  iPhone photo by Russ. — Drinking a PBR on the Great Wall after lunch. iPhone photo by Russ.

In the end, the interview didn't work out, and it definitely wasn't a wise financial move for me to pull the trigger and go to China spontaneously, but I'm happy i did. I had been curious about the job since Russ and I had first started talking about it months before. Getting out there, seeing the school and meeting the people gave me some good closure and drowned out the "what if?" that might have lasted. Plus i probably wont have many other reasons to go to China, so i'm glad i took advantage of the opportunity. I know i started this off a little negative about it all, but i really am thankful to now have the experience. New places, new friends, new stories. Adventure in everything.