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"The US west coast has always been a magnet for young searchers, and it was that for me as well. Though in my case it was more of a vast departure lounge, a long drawn out stopover, than a final destination.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, trips to Asia always began in California. Sailing by freighter from San Francisco, or on multi-stopover air tickets to Tokyo or Bangkok originating in SFO or LAX. I stayed in cheap hotels, or half-slept in all-night cinemas, met people and photographed them and wandered around the streets by day and by night. I would linger for days or weeks, travel by Greyhound bus to other cities, and then eventually board a plane or ship to cross the Pacific.

In a way these pictures mark the beginning of a trip I never returned from. A time of heightened anticipation: the new everyday around me and the one to come when I finally arrived in one of Asia's great cities (and, as it turned out, didn't leave for decades). Thanks to Misha Kominek at Kominek Books these photographs are now finding an audience I couldn't dare imagine at the time."

Greg Girard