I sometimes wonder why we don't just establish a foreign legion like France, or at least permit foreigners to join as enlisted (not officer ranks) like other countries as a pathway to Canadian citizenship. The risk in active service is a far greater display of commitment to Canada than the average study permit holder, and expanding our recruitment pool to Francophone nations in Africa, and states in the Caribbean would at least help greatly in finding non-specialized enlisted.

I don't see the security risk considering that the vast majority of CF recruits are never assessed for loyalty in their background checks, so long as they don't serve in their countries of origin. I've completed the reference check for CF recruit background checks - I really don't think they're that rigorous if they're essentially being outsourced to third party companies.

The fact that having any kind of university degree automatically puts you into the officer cadre, in a country with an extremely high post-secondary education rate like Canada and low tuition fees/generous student funding (versus the US where the opposite is true and the Army is a pathway to post-secondary education), is only furthering a ridiculous ratio of officers to the enlisted. I see more value in starting to recruit from countries where pathways to move up on the social ladder are deeply stifled, and building a base of those who are willing to make meaningful sacrifices to become Canadians (versus yet another MBA student from University Canada West that's only in it for themselves).

I remember a period of time where I was being prescribed three medications (all pretty minor) and they insisted I do a medication review. They get to bill the province $70 for those and they have a quota to hit.

I learned later on that medication reviews aren't just checking boxes off the list, but intended to ensure that patients are using their prescriptions safely and effectively, helping to identify any potential drug interactions/side effects, and consider alternative drug regimens. This never happened in my medication reviews, they were just 2 minute checkbox exercises.

Honestly, that's a fair comment. It might be an ambitious thing to ask.

The great firewall situation was always interesting, because if you would use a roaming Sim, then you will be able to access anything

Roaming SIMs work because the APN sets a network routing path outside of China.

Cool writeup. I remember implementing BBR many years ago when I was trying to bypass the Great Firewall for an extended stay. Helped deal greatly with the huge congestion on Chinanet backbone at the time, but it's less of an issue these days now that foreigners can use CN2.

My guilty pleasure is watching those YouTube videos of people vacationing at absurdly cheap caravan parks, and the general vibe I get is that these places are pretty run down but are surprisingly adequate if all you're looking to do is get away from town. Low-cost European carriers have definitely done a number on a lot of domestic UK resorts though - they simply aren't competitive for the reasons you've stated.

I tend to run pretty hot. Right before I visited Japan in January, I was in Southeast Asia and dying from the heat. The locals told me it was the coolest time of the year yet I was struggling to survive... I am partial to a mild winter I guess.

I liked getting the Sendai Area Pass and just taking the Loopie bus. It was a pretty good value and in many of the smaller attractions, I was the only tourist there that day (like the Sankyozawa 100-Year Electric History Center).

It made it pretty easy to see Sendai in two days. The only thing that was closed in the winter that I would've liked to see were the University of Tohoku's botanical gardens (not that there aren't other botanical gardens I couldn't have gone to).

I really enjoyed Gyutan too (beef tongue) too. I don't know if I got to try high-quality beef but I definitely enjoyed the food.

This is a great find. I remember about a year ago, people were speculating that Air Greenland was going to become a partner of Air Canada - my hopes were dashed when that didn't materialize.

None of these sources point to tourism promotion in Mogadishu.

I think I'm going to need a source for that...

On top of that, there's little tourism infrastructure in Mogadishu so I doubt that. There's basically Omar and Ali's Visit Mogadishu outfit and his guest house, and that's really about it.

I'm surprised I guess, BRQ airport has seasonal connections across Europe...

Not sure that counts - there's like 4 hotels in the whole area.

I'd love to see that video if you end up remembering which vlogger it was.

Any advice you might have for wandering off the beaten path into some of these villages?

I think this kind of thing is mostly viable because of the strength of Japan's land transit system.

I'd say it counts so long as they aren't basically closing for the off-season.

This response definitely took me by surprise too. I've heard it described as one of the most overrated, overtouristed places in Southeast Asia.

Highly recommend it, especially between the edges of off-season and shoulder season. I went to Fukushima and was basically one of two tourists in town (the other being a Rwandan artist-in-residence). When I was in Sendai in January, the most touristed attraction (Sendai Castle ruins) couldn't have had more than 40 visitors, and I remember taking a $10 airport limo bus to the hotel meant for 55 travelers, and I was the only one on it. I've made it a goal to visit Akita and Aomori in the future.

I remember visiting a youth summit here in Canada, and the Indonesian ambassador to Canada was present. I remember he got pretty exasperated that the only thing people in attendance knew about Indonesia was Bali (and thought it was Indonesia's capital), despite being the world's fourth largest country in population. He gave us all Indomie and ginger chews though - nice guy, but he got me hooked on Indomie for much of university.

Appreciate the thoughts. I'm not disagreeing with you I've heard Bhutan is debatable from a handful that have been there, simply because there's a sizable amount of tourism from India and Bangladesh. The infrastructure for getting around and staying overnight is definitely there, but the diversity of attractions is very limited as well (heavily focused around temples), so I feel like it's a bit of an edge case.

Since I heard this though, as I understand it, it appears that the freedom of movement for Indian citizens in Bhutan has been limited and the Sustainable Development Fee tax got reduced from 200 USD to 100 USD, because of how dramatically it impacted the amount of "high value tourism" they were getting.

I liked Solana Cain's new photo essay in the Globe and Mail today about Bhutan. I probably ought to put it on my radar.