September 14th, 2017:

I spent the second half of July and the first half or August on the road this summer. It was my first circumnavigation of the world in a single trip; I bounced from Belgium to Singapore, onwards to work with a few NGO’s in Cambodia and Vietnam before wrapping up the trip eating my way through Hong Kong for a couple days. I shared as I went on Instagram, but (as has become the new normal) my blog is being updated after the fact with images.

My first stop was to spend a week in Antwerp with my friends John and Marianne.  They were amazing hosts who kept me far too well fed, very full of fantastic beer, tried to keep me in shape cycling around the city and spent the entire week showing me around Belgium.  The images in this post are from Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent in July.

I met Wilfred Van Bauwel while wandering Antwerp with John.  John was excited and said he’d love to introduce me to his “shoe guy” who is super unique and friendly. We arrived at Wilfred’s shoe shop at 11am and were offer a cup of red wine and we chatted for a bit. Then, right before I left, he said “People think I am a shoe maker, but I am all kinds of things.”

He then rummaged around for his keys and walked us across the building to another room that housed 4 decades of his art work. John knew nothing about Wilfred’s second career and we talked art for a while and I shot a few images.

As we prepared to go a second time, Wilfred pulled out the last painting in this series, said “You like it?” Then rolled it up, and handed it to me.

I’m always dumbfounded when the world surprises me with it’s generosity of new experiences and new people.

My friends Marianne and John.