Mexico: The Tour Kick Off

So, I forgot to mention that the first leg of our World Tour was Mexico City. The project actually covers five countries – Mexico, Japan, India, South Africa, and Italy. The shoot in Mexico was awesome and took place April 8th and 9th. Mat will write more of our adventures and the wonderful people we met along the way. But, in the meantime, here are a few pictures from the trip (a la Wilson). 

Metropolitan Cathedral

Zocalo Square

Dinner at Villa Maria

In the first photo, we’re in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Zocalo Square at the end of our first day of shooting. The second is a self portrait of Wilson. Finally, we have our Mexico City crew after a lovely dinner at Villa Maria – me, Mat, Devon, Nathalie, Karen, Wilson, and Maria Elena. Devon is from the LAF. Karen, Nathalie, and Maria Elena were our AMAZING Mexico City folks that made it all happen.

World Tour ‘08

Wilson and I left yesterday (Thursday) for a quick 19-day trip around the globe. Here’s a photo of us leaving the Austin airport with all of our luggage. You’ll notice my suitcase is in close competition with our Pelican case, which is usually the biggest piece of equipment/luggage we take on any shoot. I’m thinking I may have overpacked a bit.

Bon Voyage

Anne Can’t Pack Light

Why are we traveling around the world, you ask? Well, we’re extremely lucky to be working with our long-time partner, the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF), on an exciting project. They invited us to help research the state/perception of cancer internationally. To accomplish this, we’ll be doing man-on-the-street interviews as well as scheduled interviews with cancer survivors, healthcare providers, and non-profit leaders in each city. Claire is joining us from the LAF.

Here’s our itinerary. My plan is to post stories, photos and video along the way. We hope you’ll  join us on this grand adventure.
- Tokyo, Japan: April 25th – 29th
- Trivandrum, India: April 29th – May 3rd
- Cape Town, South Africa: May 3rd – 7th
- Rome, Italy: May 8th – 11th

Day 1 & 2: Our flight from Austin to Dallas went without a hitch. Once we got to Dallas, our flight to Tokyo was delayed 5 hours. So, we sat in the airport and entertained ourselves with trashy magazines. We arrived in Tokyo at 8pm (instead of 3pm) after a short 13-hour flight and made it to the hotel by 11:45pm – wiped out. We’re 14 hours ahead of Austin so that was 9:45am Austin-time. I think I got about three hours of sleep on the flight. I really hope my body learns to sleep sitting up over the course of this trip. Wilson got more than I did but Claire was the clear winner coming in at eight hours of sleep. Nice one, Claire. 

Day 3: It’s Saturday and we’re having lunch with Kenichi, our host at the Japan Wellness Center. We’ll be spending Monday with them but he’s graciously offered to take us on a tour of Tokyo today. We’re really excited and will be shooting some b-roll throughout the day. I’ll try to post some photos of Tokyo when we get back to the hotel.