Reign Bough Fiddle

Reign Bough Fiddle 2019

This was a festival was like none I have ever been to before. I knew it from the moment I saw dogs and children running around. It was a beautiful sight, seeing the sun come down and friends new and old working on projects all across the grounds.

Soon after settling in we waited for the upcoming storm. I had already spent a couple days in Edmonton weathering the rain and grabbing a new pair of shoes that don't leak.

While it was hot and Justin put up the tarp with quite a bit of effort. It was lovely that he did because little did we know that we had to set up camp in the rain and tarp he set up in the sunshine was our saving grace.

The following days one tarp became a handful and soon we were called tarp city! It wasn't as big as it could have been but the amount of coverage gave us shelter and over time we gained a lot of accommodating neighbours.

Everyone pitched in together and made sure that the tarps didn't fly away and pegs being ripped out of the ground by winds were being manned. The boys did a wonderful job taking shifts and making sure our humble sanctuary from the storm was tended too.

This festival was the first time I had ever been able to play with dogs and work with children. We quested and built things, making benches and bartering with children to only team up and finish all the adventures. It gave me a whole new feeling to what being a big kid would be all about.

I will definitely we going back since reunions are always a must. Next time I will bring more waterproof clothes.

Victoria To Seattle

If you have been to Victoria, BC you already know that it is a lovely area to be in. When the weather is sunny and loving you sure can feel it in everyone around you. People are smiling and the ocean banks seem to glimmer a bit brighter than usual.

Anyone else think that Peacocks in the park is awesome?

The art in this capital city arises beyond my imagination, it seems to flourish everywhere I look. From artist drawing on the ferry, graffiti on the streets and even down to the art shops down by the docks. I was inspired to draw, paint and express myself in as many ways as possible. Even I picked up my pencil a more times than usual to see what one could create when surrounded in such lovely atmosphere.

Our purpose for being here during the early September times is for a festival called Rifflandia. The 10th year celebration of 10 venues with musicians rocking out every stage, an ample amount of music provided by the city. I highly recommend going if you have the opportunity in the years to come.

Full on 4 days and 4 nights of amazing artists preforming throughout with little tidbits of activities and many other events happening in the city. I couldn't imagine a better place to live, then again I do love coastal cities as much as mountain towns.

There was a 10 year anniversary called One Wave the international indigenous arts and culture celebration at the legislative grounds which was really informative. Most of all eye opening to see how elders and modern day society have flourished together.

After visiting some friends and family we were ready for a quick departure to Seattle. We were ferry bound to Port Angeles and from there we took a bus to Seattle airport (SEATAC). A lovely rainy evening in with a bath and take out, to prepare ourselves for the long haul journey ahead of us. 

The Wedding and Beyond!

To continue on from the previous post, if you can call it that since it was mainly for me to get back into the groove of things.

I got married! <- Click for Album

After all these years of seeking the perfect mate and traveling around the world I really thought that I would get hitched to someone that didn't speak English as their first language. After all of that I ended up with someone from my own country, who would have thought? 

I am super thankful because what I have learned after all these years of traveling and relationships is that you really have to be on the same wave length as your partner in all things you do. From our mistakes we obtain lessons to make us ready for the person we are meant to become and most of all be with. As long as we know ourselves we can make a difference in all that we do. 

Now where was I?

Right... after a wedding many people suggested that we buy a house, move into an apartment and get one of those jobs which I am quite good at avoiding. I dabbled in the idea for awhile and seriously at that, visited an apartment and even applied for jobs so much that I got myself an interview. 

When push came to shove, moving into the apartment didn't really jive with me and even saying no to the interview at the end of it felt like the right thing to do. There was no need to rush life, I am not saying that it isn't ideal to have some stability and start building a marriage in a financial sense. I can value the importance and most of all the sensibility. I ain't knocking it, honestly I should probably be doing it.

Raise your hand if you think you know what I am about to say. :P

I decided that the trip wasn't over, the wanderlust in me wasn't about to retire quite yet or ever.

"People ask, when do you think you will stop traveling? Would you ask an artist or a musician when they will stop creating? No, it is just a part of who they are. Sometimes we set it aside to do other things that require our attention but it never goes away, we adjust it accordingly."

So here I am riding the high of the wedding and most of all ready for a honeymoon. Adam surprised me with a short weekend camping trip at Serenity Harvest Music Festival in between cleaning up from the wedding before taking off to Victoria, BC. 

Thanks for reading it has really been awhile since I have written much, I sure feel out of practice. :P

Back From Haitus!

It has been a helluva long time since I got guts to get back onto the blog, I wanted to do it many times over and never got around to it. I will have to take a little bit of your time to explain what I have been up to or you have the option to skip ahead.

Excuses are just procrastination revved up to the max, as time goes on I always seem to eventually end up back at the computer thinking to myself how much I wish I was writing....so here I am. 

TADA!

Life became 'hectic' after the move to Vancouver after decided again Edmonton wasn't for me, that is right folks I moved out west again. lol A place called Burnaby for a little while. That lead us straight into April 2017 where I got another opportunity to travel again with my now husband Adam ( I am going to be name dropping him from time to time, like I said a lot has happened this year thus far.)

We packed up our bags, hopped on a plane from Kelowna -> Vancouver -> Taipei, Taiwan -> Tokyo, Japan. I thought that it would be different with a partner and it was, it was tougher than I had imagined at times and easier too. I had someone to react to and sometimes that is just more fun, to have someone to bounce ideas off of and relive experiences with in the future. 

I will make and attempt to keep the recap short, we traveled throughout Japan on the infamous JR rail pass and I finally got to see parts of Japan that I had been dying to during all these months gone by. I was really home sick for JapanLand for those who know me well enough. Unable to shake the Asian homesickness I was back and in full force where I was able to ride the rails just the way I like it, on a bullet train. 

After the two weeks of unlimited travel which is now about mid May 2017, I was ready to attempt another workaway after a bad experience in the past with Wwoofing. We found a place called Nozawaonsen home to a whopping 3400 people, a quaint ski mountain town about an hour out of Nagano. (If anyone remembers it was where the winter Olympics were once.)

Using the last day of our pass we were able to make it to Nozawa shaving off an extortionate rail prices if we weren't on the pass. I will skip the finer details and just say that we made ourselves a contact here and worked for room and board. I ended up staying here for 5 weeks total doing interior painting, sanding, oiling trim and general cleaning. 

During this time here we were able to hitch a ride to the top of the mountain and to train stations into Iiyama and Nagano city. Including discovering a free croquet course on the side of a ski hill where we eventually decided to get married. *insert awesome sound effect*

Before getting hitched in Japan, some family emergencies took us by surprise and eventually we both returned to Canada cutting our trip short. I traveled onward to Hong Kong to visit my grandmother in the hospital for 4 days before returning home. 

Back in Canada we did some camping to help us regroup near Gibsons, BC after touching down in Vancouver. The weather kissed us with the perfect camping spot at Smugglers Cove, which is still one of my favorite camping memories to date.

Of course I headed home to Edmonton, AB to visit with friends and family. Don't forget Jamtron, a music festival worth going to if you are ever in the area at the right time.

With a minor detour mini road trip to Drum Heller to learn about the underwater river which is now a dinosaur rich lands. We very quickly learned that the prairies are not ideal for camping since they home some of the strongest winds I have faced in a tent. So much so we had to tear down and to sleep in the tent before finally making our way back to the Shuswap, BC. 

This leads us to WEDDING IN 30 DAYS.

KAMP Festival

WOW, like wow. I have been thinking to myself how I would go about describing what KAMP was like and all I could muster up is that it is pretty damn BODEGA (which later on I found out is convenience store) In my mind it was one sexy party!

On our way out we stopped in Golden BC to meet up with Kevin's friends before driving out together. A couple random ferry rides and we made it to our final destination for the weekend. I couldn't wait for what was to come and to be entirely honest I have very little idea of the dynamic of this party was going to play out.

The activities alone had me wandering around being super curious, being a on a colour team was amazing since that brought people together in a different way than usual. I love it when people change up the undertone of a party. Loved every minute of it.

The first day had so many events and shows but my favorite out of all of them was definitely Bass Caravan!

Kamp Video

The rest of the day was pretty chill with some dancing and story telling under the stars a girl couldn't ask for a better Canada Day. I totally forgot we were even celebrating the long weekend I was having so much fun at KAMP.

North Country Fair =^.^=

Oh butterflies mean good luck right?! 

Day 1: Finally after slaving away with school all week I was more pumped than ever to hit the road.

First music festival of the year!! NORTH COUNTRY FAIR. We departed the city and with very little rain clouds in sight and a way we were off. There wasn't much we forgot (unless you were Kevin) that we couldn't pick up, a water jug, some tongs and an impromptu ticket purchase at a car wash [that is correct you read that right] for another music festival.

I'll be volunteering at North Country to earn my ticket. I'm actually quite enamored with the idea of meeting all the people that make the magic happen. It had even crossed my mind when I was at Roskilde in Denmark last year. 

I was a little saddened by the fact that I wasn't at Distortion in Copenhagen since it came back up on my news feed but there is no time to waste.

I did however see the same red telly tubby at North country.

Oh we found the famous unicorn.

Rain clouds being all ominous. 

To be honest i wish I had taken more photos but I was able to get a couple on my camera. This one of stormy clouds was just a small clip of the weather we had out there. From what I was told they endured rain for the previous days leading up to the festival.

Day 2: I awoke in hopes that I could sport my bikini the whole time, I was unable to. However, I was able to dress up for Psychedelic Saturday. 

There are surprisingly no pictures of me so hopefully I will get some nice party pictures at the next festival! 

As I walked around NCF I met lovely people enjoying themselves barefoot and singing. What is lovely place, I was finally able to enjoy myself relax and just change the pace up. Flip back to my sojourn to sunrises. Oh how I miss them. 

I might have had a hard time remember people's names but I was very grateful for everyone that told me theirs, including the rainbows.  

Day 3: After waking up at 1 pm it was already time to pack up and leave. I was overcome with a sadness like always that I had to return back to responsibilities. Until next time.

Many fires with rotating scenery. I would have loved to hang back just a couple additional days.👌🖒👏

*2weeks later*

The Ghent Festival

The whole city of Ghent in the centre of the city has a music festival. This alternative canal filled town just celebrates for 10 days every year.

When I heard about it I really thought to myself that I should really attend. So I did just that. From July 19-29 they had their celebrations. 

There were stages all over the place, we really could have used a map. 

We met some nice people from holland under a bridge who gave us a beer and chatted with me about Edmonton. Who would have known that he would have been to the biggest mall >.< 

We got totally drenched in the rain but we still were able to meet more people trying to avoid the rain. This picture was taken by one of the French guys that were married to Belgian woman.

Last but not least I was able to even meet up with monika! As you may have known I met her again in Poland after Japan. Lucky me! 

Roskilde Music Festival

I was lucky enough to go to Roskilde because of this guy! I didn't even know about it until I got to Denmark. :P

Add Jager, to everything. I am dead serious. 

And things like this happens. 

There are things you can climb but you shouldn't.

Who doesn't like camping and music? 

Everyone here seems to have their own sound system, ours was a pirate ship :P

And sometimes you have to go looking for a guitar, luckily for us it was at the camp next door.

Yup you can build all sorts of things, we built a table. 

Happy Canada Day! It seems to be a common occurrence that I am at a music festival for Canada day.

You got your indoor venues too! 

There was 7 days of fun here, I recommend it! I am too tired to write thanks for checking out the photos. Europe is tiring. :P

Summer Sonic 2014

I finally made it to a music festival here in Tokyo, it is about an hour away from my house and really it was one of those last minute decisions.

For those who know me, I love Mogwai and I couldn't imagine my sleepless nights without them.
I was able to create many hours worth of work because of their music. So after my return from South Korea I was thinking about how I could see them, it so happens that they were playing at Summer Sonic.

I walked in the middle of the night to two 7-11's to find tickets, I struck out at the first one. Due to the staff's lack of English skills but at the second one he spoke great English! So the store clerk was able to help me buy a ticket. I really was able to to go, I had a ticket in hand.

There were 5 main stages and 5 little ones all held at Makuhari Messe which is next to the baseball stadium. The baseball stadium was also used as the main stage for the larger bands, though on Saturday we were all caught in the rain. Man was I glad I brought my umbrella!

Motion Notion - Sunday & Monday

Sunday seemed like an early start but there was some serious napping that took place in the evening. I think I woke up at about 11pm. Which was fine since I made it down to the main stage for Shpongle he played a 2 hour set. I danced and danced it was what the doctor ordered, when his set was finished we meandered to the other stages. The smaller chill space was playing ambient to dubstep for most of the evening from what I could tell. Out in the woods was more of a funk set....but all I could hear is bass rattling my many organs.

The butterfly that Danny and I painted.

In action in black light,

Shpongle!

One of the many mind blowing pieces of art displayed at the main stage.

Time to eat some delicious ginger snaps (they were the tastiest ginger snaps I think I have ever had! Oh the sugary chewy goodness --YUM)

From there I headed back to my friend Chris's camping site where a handful of my friends were all camping together. On our way back to the main stage the sky started to light up, at first I thought that it was a strobe light; it was not. A storm was a brewing, from there I ran back to camp to figure what to do with our tent (fyi: our tent didn't have a tarp) So after trying to decide what to do, I had to move over to the camp next to us and untie and move the tarp over our tent in the middle of the night. Now I believe this was about 5:30am in the morning, had a bite of pasta before crawling into bed.

The Woods.

I was woken up at about 9am to pack up the tent so we would be ready to leave. Danny was sun burnt (probably obtained some sun stroke on top of that) and wasn't in the most pleasant of moods due to his many inflicting illnesses. The girls were no where to be found....

Needing a lot more sleep I arose to pack up our entire campsite by myself with little to no assistance. After tetris'in all our things in the car I was irritated by the lack of help. Who was I to judge, I could have very well just ran off. Now that I think about it I totally should have...teehee.

Finally, the girls were located on the beach now back to the vehicle. I think we departed about 12:30pm. We decided to follow my friend to Entwistle for some breakfast before driving back into Edmonton. This town has about 500 people and only three restaurants! Before we could do that we had to fix a metal piece that had semi-detached itself from the bottom of the car due to the huge pot holes on the way in. We tried our best to duck tape it to the car, 5-10 minutes into the drive out the piece just fell off. At least that saved us from listening to the rickety sound that would have eventually drove us to the edge of insanity.

Breakfast was what I needed I didn't think that I was that hungry but I mowed down all my food, now back to the city.

We made it home roughly after 3pm, since I drove home with out putting up a fuss I delegated the work of unloading the car to the rest of the crew. I felt better that I didn't have to do anymore work. It was all worth it in the end!

Motion Notion was sure hard on the body I am exhausted beyond belief. I think I need to rest for a week to catch up. I would love to come back to Motion Notion in the future it was a blast to see so many good people in one place celebrating music and nature.