Bad Things

We arrived in Taipei on December 13th and left on the 18th to explore Alishan. On December 19th, 2025, a 27-year-old man threw smoke grenades and stabbed people in a Taipei metro station, killing three people and injuring eleven others. He then killed himself by jumping from a building. This […]

Taiwan: Shaking in Our Boots

It was an evening of our last day in Kaohsiung, and we were visiting the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas.  Temples in Taiwan usually have dragons painted by one set of doors to indicate that those doors are used to enter the temple, and tigers by another set of doors, which […]

Day Lilies, Yuli Noodles, and the Mountain Mist

Of the four days in the East, we spent three days driving up and down the coastal highway.  These days were filled with stopping at ocean viewpoints, exploring the shoreline’s rugged geoparks, and learning about local indigenous culture. But as we navigated through this narrow stretch of land, sandwiched between […]

The Wild, Wild East: Taiwan’s Enigmatic East Coast

Like Alishan, we considered cutting the East Coast out of our itinerary entirely. The region was remote, and it was a logistical puzzle to plan.  Also, it was the only place in Taiwan where we needed to rent a car and potentially drive through what looked on the map like […]

Food.  Taiwan.  Must I Say More?

I wanted to write about the top 10 dishes we ate in Taiwan and quickly realized that the list was way longer than 10 and each dish deserved its own blog post, and this would quickly spiral into Two Cats Backpack Eats Taiwanese Food for Entirety of the Foreseeable Future […]

Museum of Russian Aggression

By Victor / April 7, 2022

The world is shocked by the unprecedented Russian aggression in Ukraine.  But the sad truth is that it was very much precedented, by Russian aggression in Georgia in 2008.  Much like Ukraine, Georgia began eyeing integration into NATO, which led to a deteriorated relationship with Russia and eventually to the […]

Слава Україні! Glory to Ukraine!

By Julia / March 12, 2022

On February 24, we planned to post about El Salvador and Victor’s surfing attempt at Las Flores beach.  Then, Russia invaded Ukraine, and blogging about travel became irrelevant. I was born in Ukraine, in the tiny village of Ponornytsya in Chernihiv Province, because the hospital of Korop, a slightly larger […]

Beyond the Flowers:  Hiking Ruta de las Flores

By Julia / February 16, 2022

If a foreign tourist does venture into El Salvador, he will inevitably come for one of two things – to surf or to visit Ruta de las Flores.  As Victor is diligently working on his “surviving surfing” post, I will, in the meantime, describe one of the most magical regions […]

Searching for Crashed Planes, Helicopters and Guerillas: A Very Unusual Christmas in El Salvador

By Victor / February 4, 2022

We spent the past holidays in El Salvador, and it turned out to be one of the strangest Christmases we’ve had during our travels.  No, it didn’t top our Christmas in India in 2014, when on Christmas Eve we nearly lost our camera, money, and Julia’s passport and ended up […]

El Salvador: The Beginning And The End

By Julia / January 27, 2022

For our very first story about our recent trip to El Salvador, I will start at the end and then, logically, will go backward. It was our last day in the country, and we had our backpacks ready with tourist trinkets, dirty clothes, and at least five bags of coffee […]

Chasing the Light in France

By Victor / January 20, 2022

In the summer of 2009, we went to France to “chase the light”.  When I initially announced plans for the trip, Julia gave me a confused look and asked me to elaborate. I explained that we would start in Paris, visiting as many art museums as possible, and then venture […]

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