In the Saddle: Conquering Cerro de la Silla

Its image is everywhere — on labels of tostadas and tortillas, wall murals, and even in the logo of the local baseball team. It’s the symbol of the city. The most recognizable landmark.  It is as iconic as Rio de Janeiro’s Sugarloaf or Cape Town’s Table Mountain. Cerro de la […]

São Paulo: Hate At First Sight

“Skip São Paulo. It’s just a concrete jungle. Nothing to see there,” was the advice I received while planning a trip to Brazil. Nonsense. We are big city people. We love architecture, museums, and restaurants. Big cities have this never-ending energy and are always full of activities and things to […]

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 […]

Singing the Portuguese Blues

By Julia / April 1, 2021

It’s dusk in Lisbon.  Darkness is setting over narrow streets, and mournful melodies flow out of every pub, café, and restaurant.  It’s the sound of traditional Portuguese lament, produced by a twelve-string guitar, a viola, and a heartbroken woman (or sometimes a man). This is fado, folk music of Lisbon’s […]

Surrounded by Van Gogh

By Victor / March 19, 2021

Earlier this month, we visited the hottest show in Chicago-The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit. The installation lets visitors explore masterpieces by Vincent Van Gogh through 360-degree digital projections and an immersive light and sound show. Sitting in a large hall surrounded by changing images of the artist’s works, we were […]

A “Ruined” Vacation in Mexico

By Victor / March 11, 2021

Soft light of the early morning sun gently streamed through the trees as we made our way through the jungle. Waking up early and driving in a half-asleep state for two hours from Puerto Morelos was totally worth it. We were rewarded with the chance to explore the ruins of […]

Did I Do That?! Driving in the UK

By Julia / March 5, 2021

Please start with our previous post to learn how and why I ended up driving through rural England. In May 2018, we flew to London to spend 5 days in southwest England.  By the time we walked out of Heathrow airport, it was three hours later than we planned.  The […]

“You Almost Killed a Man!” or Why I No Longer Drive on Our Trips

By Julia / February 26, 2021

We were in a tiny Peugeot, in a small Spanish city, staring at a road, going up the hill.  The car was manual, the hill was steep.  Victor, who happened to get a traffic ticket two days before we left for our trip and thus didn’t have his driver’s license, […]

Welcome to Glastonbury, UK or Why is Everyone Naked?

By Julia / February 18, 2021

It was late afternoon, and we were having tea.  But it was not just any tea, and it was not just any afternoon.  We were in Bath, one of the most beautiful cities in England, surrounded by rows of elegant houses built in a classical Georgian style, housing world-class museums, […]

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