Getting My Ears Picked in Taiwan

One of the pleasures of going to Asia, at least for me, is the massages.  Everywhere from Thailand to Vietnam to Cambodia, the massages are excellent, cheap, and widely available. From restorative foot massages after a long day of hiking, to full body deep tissue rubdown that leaves me in […]

Kaohsiung 高雄市: My kind of town

“Please just point to it on the map. Don’t try to pronounce it!” Julia pleaded with me as we approached a ticket counter at the Tainan train station to buy tickets to our next destination. The day before, she was chatting with her massage therapist and tried to tell him […]

Introductory Course: Taipei 101

All of a sudden, everyone knows what Taipei 101 is, after Alex Honnold scaled Taiwan’s tallest building with no ropes and no fear, live on Netflix. We were in Taipei a month before this death-defying stunt, and when Victor mentioned that we would visit Taipei 101, I had no idea […]

Hail Mary at Taoist Temple

“You enter on the right through the dragon door and exit on the left through the tiger door. And you never enter or exit through the middle door. That door is for gods.” We sat on a bench in front of a brightly colored Taoist temple with a rooftop looking […]

Taiwan: The First 24 Hours

The first 24 hours in Asia are crucial. This isn’t an easy 4-hour flight to Mexico City, where we get out of the airplane and hit the ground running, only occasionally stopping to marvel that just a few hours ago we were at home. It doesn’t have a mere 6-8 […]

Money, Money, Money

By Julia / February 9, 2023

The biggest headache in planning the Cuba trip wasn’t the itinerary, flights, or visa.  It was money.  Due to the official embargo, Cuban banks do not recognize U.S.-issued debit and credit cards.  So, paying with credit cards and withdrawing cash through ATMs is absolutely not possible for anyone using American […]

How to Sneak into Cuba

By Julia / January 26, 2023

There were two types of reactions to my last post about visiting Cuba and bringing gifts of hygiene supplies and medicine: “Did you really have to bring soap and pills with you? I thought Cuba had everything by now…” Or “Wait… You went to Cuba? Is that legal? How did […]

More Souvenirs: Part II

By Victor / January 19, 2023

Last month, we wrote about some unique souvenirs that we brought back from our travels.  Today is Part 2 of that post. African masks, Egypt In our collection, we have eight African masks, which is a lot, considering we haven’t really visited Africa yet.  The only nominal African country we’ve […]

An Honest Conversation in Havana

By Julia / January 12, 2023

There is a conversation that happens in every country we visit.  The locals earnestly ask, we honestly answer, the locals are thrilled, and by the end of it, everyone is happy.  But this one time, it went off script. “How do you like Cuba?” the taxi driver asked, flashing us […]

Our Own Museum of Travel

By Victor / December 15, 2022

Our condo is a museum of our never-ending globetrotting.  African masks, religious statues, souvenirs, and mementos from all over the world constantly fight for shelf space with the cats.  The more we travel, the more things we bring home.  Our minimalist way of life directly conflicts with the constant desire […]

Unexpected Food Capital of South America

By Victor / December 8, 2022

How come Peru has two restaurants in the top 10 restaurants in the world list, while the U.S. has none? This was the question we puzzled over while boarding our flight to Lima.  The answer was found shortly thereafter, during our nine-day crisscrossing of the land of the Incas, alpacas, […]

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