Author Archive

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #175

Location: Blenz yaletown – Richards & Davie

Still around the downtown lands of Vancouver. I came around the shop solely for strangering purposes, it must have been around 10pm when I got there. After a couple of people that said no (one of them was “too high to share”), this guy agreed to take some time on his way out to share his tattoo story:

“I’ll tell you about this one, because it is the easiest to show. I used to do martial arts and I kicked with the left, so when I was younger I thought it was cool to have a dragon there to symbolize that every kick would be like a dragon tail-kick. It was the first one as well  from when I was younger. But there is also a story behind the dragon itself:

You know how we have salmon in here, and how they go up the river to hatch and then they go back. Well, in China they have carps, and you know how while they are swimming against the current they can get trapped in whirlpools or caught by fishermen or animals. They believed that this journey mirrored the path of our human lives, sometimes we get trapped in emotional whirlpools and we can’t move on, sometimes we die in the way. So it is traditionally believed that when carps that are not meant to follow the normal path reach a waterfall, they try to swim to the top. Those that make it become a dragon. So that’s the story.”

WOW! I did not know this. It was a beautiful story.

He went on his way and I sat down to sip a decaf coffee and scribble this down. I’m always amazed by the cool things I find.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #163

Location: that cool sweets and candy shop around Main and 10th (can’t remember its name)

I met with a friend for light lunch. Lunch turned into a stroll. A stroll ended up in curiosity for a candy shop in which we stepped in. There’s where I found my story. I told this guy about the project and he agreed to be stranger number one sixty three.

“I got in London Ontario, and they are actually x-rays of my own hands, they are enlarged a little bit and this signifies my want to move away  and letting go from all the negative things around my life. So basically I have Death holding me from behind and pushing me forward. These are not completed yet, and it is funny because the artist moved to Vancouver way before I did, so now he’d be able to finish them. These tattoos (he had them in both arms) are one of many to come…”

We talked a bit more about skull tattoos and how more than half of the time they have nothing to do with death (see this cool stranger story about the Paris catacombs). He then asked if we had to remain strangers after the fact. I said that we didn’t, so we introduced ourselves. It was a cool encounter with really unique tattoos.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #160

Location: Langara Library (study area)

Being extra early for class has its rewards. The library has been packed lately so I decided to look for some tattoo stories here. I went up to a group of people who were studying together and told them about the project. Immediately a couple of them said they had tattoos and came on board. This week’s story was one of them:

“I have a pretty good story…”, she said as she rolled her lip. I heard a bunch of WOWs, everyone on the table was surprised, they had no idea. “It was the last day of the Olympics, I was pretty intoxicated and I wanted to get a tattoo, so a friend told me “you’re a babe, so you should just get ‘babe’’. He told me to go get another drink and when I came back, he tattooed this on me. The next morning I woke up and I felt my lip a bit strange, and I saw it and I didn’t remember getting it, I thought it was a dream. But it’s ok, I quite like it now, plus I can’t see it, so it doesn’t bother me at all.”

There were a few other stories after this one. It is aways cool when the story is shared not only with me, but also with some the stranger’s friends hearing it for the first time. I’m always honoured to be able to hear and collect these little glimpses into people’s lives. It’s pretty pretty cool. :)

So thank you strangers! And have an awesome week start, y’all!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #152

Location: the Foundation on Main

I stepped by the place to grab some food after class. It was the end of a tiring day, I was starving, I still needed to collect the stranger story, a bunch of friends didn’t want to/couldn’t join me for dinner and I felt weird sitting on a huge booth just by myself. Oh life. Well, it was when I was waiting for my food when I decided to talk to some people. A couple of girls were sitting by and I told them about the project. “Oh I don’t have any tattoos, but she’s got one, and you are gonna like it!”. Woah, I immediately got curious and asked. “Well, I got one tattoo… and it’s on my bum.”, she said. She suggested that if I wanted to take a picture, we’d go into the ladies’ room to do so. Said room was occupied so we tried going into the guys’s room, only then to be pulled back out by a girl who worked there, who said there wasn’t any toilet paper on the guys’ washroom. Errrr…. Haha, so anyways, miss stranger said that if I could take the shot really quickly we could do it just outside the washroom, just hidden enough from the public. I prepared the camera and took the shot. We checked it for light and then we went back to her table.

“Well, the whole deal with this tattoo was that I got it so I’d always remember how much I love weed. If I grow older and I become a very conservative woman (because you know, you never know what might happen throughout life), I’d still remember how much I loved weed right now. This was done around October 2009.”

That was the story. It was a great one and definitely one of the highlights of the project. I thanked them both for letting me intrude in their day and for sharing such a unique piece.  I scribbled the blog for them and then went back to my huge booth. Later, circumstances would get me a free beer! How was that for turning my low-energy day around, eh. Perfect! Project saves the day. :)

Thank you strangers! And thank you all for reading, have an awesome week start!
To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #150

Location: Lucy’s on Main || Found: Sunday night (Feb 27th).

Woah, what a busy week, day, life. Crazy! After quite a day of production, I went by to the good ol’dinner place around the ‘hood to fulfill strangering and food needs. The moment I walked in, I saw a familiar face, a lovely stranger from the past who immediately shouted “hello stranger! how are you doing tonight?!”. If I was almost a walking zombie, this made me smile. He immediately followed with “you know what? You should talk to this stranger right here!”, as he pointed to a guy sitting right at the bar. I turned to him and immediately repeated the chant: “Oh hi stranger, how are you doing?” The new stranger followed on with the conversation and then I told him about the whole deal. He was right into it and showed me several tattoos he had, from a classic japanese mask to the name of his son, all really awesome. “But I already know which one I’ll pick to share”, he said. He rolled his sleeve and showed me his sailor tattoos. “It is not finished yet, but there’s a bit of a story to it…”.

“I grew up on boats, and been around boats my entire life, and I even almost died on one. But I’m still very attached to them and water, regardless of that experience. What happened was that quite a few years ago I was out by the beach with whom is now my ex-wife, for some reason [note: I think he mentioned there was a kid left by himself on the beach] I ventured by myself into the ocean. It was this old 1957 boat that my grandfather had bought, ironically I had I named it ‘Baby Bitch’ (like the Ween song) ‘cos I knew one day it would… anyways; the thing is I was going far into the ocean, full throttle, and in those boats you had to be standing to steer it, because you wouldn’t be able to see if you sat down, so I was standing and somehow I managed to get thrown off the boat! I just fell right into the water.

So you had me there in the water, floating in the middle of the ocean and with the boat going in circles around me. I had to swim back into the boat, which was terrifying because like I told you, it was still going and the motor was so close to me in the water. But I managed to get back on it and control it. Then on the way back, one of the boat’s patches, that I had put myself, blew and we started getting water. Anyways long story short, we ended up being rescued by a film crew boat that was passing by, and Sean Penn happened to be in it. So there you have it, a near-death experience and a super-star encounter. Then I got the tattoo, I had always wanted it, but I guess I got my sailing wings through that experience, haha…”

I later asked why would the boat had gone in circles when he was in the water, he told me that that’s something the old boats used to do as soon as you let go of the steering wheel. Pretty crazy. He then let me take the shot. He was a really cool guy. He typed down the blog address on his phone, and then I proceeded to sit on one of those mini booths, and have dinner. On my way out I thanked them both: the new stranger and the not-so-stranger anymore, who then gave me a hug. I kinda get a hug every time I’m around now. Very cool people! And definitely, today’s story and happenings made my night. :)

Thank you strangers!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #144 – Stories from Cambodia

Location: Elysian on Ash

Repeated locations = I am at work, or in school, or unable to go out of the neighbourhood due to time or $ restrictions (hey! somebody asked  if this could get expensive, and it kinda does at times). A coffee break at work set the opportunity to find today’s story, it is always intriguing because you never know what you’ll find. I had my coffee with me already when I saw an individual with some tattoos; she was awesome. I explained the project to her and she picked this one to share with you:

“I went to Korea and, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Korea, but it is pretty boring. I was teaching there, so I decided to go on vacation to South East Asia. While I was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we were walking around and I saw this tattoo parlour next to a hair salon. So I walked in and saw this guy who was around 18. I was trying to bargain there for a bit, to see how much he’d do it for; he started at $100 and ended up being about $30. Then he started drawing it on my arm, and I looked at it and thought ‘oh my god, it’s pretty bad!’. I was getting pretty nervous, but then this older guy came by and started talking to him and he washed it all off and redrew it. It is (Ba Chua Xu?) the Cambodian version of the goddess of prosperity…”

She later told me that the tattoo machine wasn’t a conventional one either, “the tattoo machine they used looks like a big fat pen with one needle, it is very different”. I thanked her, she wrote down the blog and then I went back to work. Really cool find!

Thank you stranger! Have a great week start y’all.

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com