Japan and China are such radically different countries that it’s a real culture shock having gone from one to the other. Before trying to describe the China we are experiencing (with, granted, our own cultural biases), I want to remember…
We arrived in Shanghai two days ago, and I immediately had the sense, à la Dorothy and Toto: We’re not in Tokyo anymore. For one thing, I had to smuggle this post out of China. I use Blogger, a Google…
I held on as long as I could, but to give you a sense of the full sensory overload: Yet another Pokemon store. This one had just had its “Grand Open” [sic] two days earlier. And also, bunnies (look up…
Our 2-day journey outside of Tokyo was a loop of sorts that involved multiple means of transportation: train, to electric tram that zig-zags up the mountains (2 times it literally pulls into a dead end, they pull a track switch,…
We journeyed outside Tokyo for a couple days. Today we hope to catch sight of Mt. Fuji, clouds permitting. We stayed one night in the historic Fujiya Hotel and had tempura at a delightful little mom-and-pop restaurant where I was…
Our arrival in Tokyo and the usual trek through immigration and customs, search for ATM and train tickets to the city, navigation of taxi stand and journey to hotel went so smoothly I barely felt that we were in another…
Home / Latin America / Patagonia Adventure Patagonia Adventure 2015 My travel journal for this trip involved only pen and paper, so I have no day-by-day “blog” this time. But as I look back over my musings from the trip,…
The last few days at the yoga retreat brought out many emotions: elation that I had enjoyed the experience so much, despite not knowing the people beforehand; sadness that it was all ending
The retreat leader had suggested to the participants that they consider spending one day, or part of a day, in silence. Only people who wanted to…
In Spanish, the “y” is pronounced almost like a “j,” so, for example, Joe (yo, for I) is almost always up to something. So when I arrived at this resort of thatched-roof cabanas on the beach on the north shore…