The Student Becomes the Teacher
But by the third day, I had settled into the rhythm of life in the studio. We ate breakfast of bread, cheese, and tea and then Khushnud and I spent the morning at the pottery wheels, throwing new pieces, decorating, and trimming whatever had dried enough to handle. Before long, it […]
Detained at the Uzbek-Kyrgyz Border
While Julia was busy taking pottery classes, I got my ass in trouble. Funny story. When we arrived in Rishton, it was already dark outside, and we barely saw the surroundings. But as we settled for the night at the pottery studio, I looked at Google Maps on my phone […]
Pottery for Pets
I woke up the next morning with my heart fluttering. It was the first day of my pottery retreat. I threw on older clothes I didn’t mind getting dirty with clay and hurried outside. I hadn’t really seen the courtyard the night before. We arrived after dark, when little was […]
First Lesson. Rishton.
It was late evening, and we had just arrived at the pottery studio of one of the most famous ceramic artists in Uzbekistan. We were exhausted and sweaty and weren’t sure if our long day of travel was over or if we would now need to look for alternative accommodation. […]
Getting There. Rishton.
I’ve been talking about doing a pottery retreat for a long time – somewhere I can learn new skills, work with different types of clay and glazing techniques, get some fresh ideas for my craft. It was always “one day” and “wouldn’t it be cool” type of idea. I might […]
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 […]
Breakfast of Champions in Taiwan
One thing that never stopped surprising me about Taiwan is how you can be strolling down a sidewalk one moment and the next, you are suddenly in the middle of a busy restaurant. And I don’t mean just outdoor seating, which is common enough around the world. I am talking […]
Little Teapot Short and Stout
If your country historically has rocks and water in close proximity to each other, I will probably end up writing a post about it. Let me explain. Anywhere in the world where there are rocks and water, there will usually be deposits of clay, created by the breakdown of igneous […]
The Mist, the Cloud, the Tea, and the Sunset: The Trails of Shizhuo
The hardest part of any itinerary is usually not where to visit or when, but for how long. There are always disagreements online over how much time each place deserves, with some people claiming to have fully explored everything in one day, while others take a week. And when it’s […]
Spilling the Tea about Alishan
Victor loves coffee, and this blog is a clear testament to that. There are so many posts about coffee tours, coffee shops, coffee destinations, conversations about coffee over coffee, and even hiking through coffee plantations. Yet if you were to go through our kitchen, you’d find at most two bags […]