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 […]
Part II: Welcome to the Jungle … on Motorbikes!
Start with “Part I: Asia, Motorbikes and Us” here. Our evening in Hue we spent rearranging our next day’s schedule and our understanding of who we are as people. “I moved our Airbnb stay in Hoi An by one day and rescheduled the tailor appointment,” Julia said, “We are all […]
Part I: Asia, Motorbikes, and Us
A year ago in Cambodia, we had the misfortune of spending a night in a rat-infested, side-way leaning, bamboo bungalow which simultaneously happened to be 50 feet from a busy road full of thundering trucks, while also tilting into a muddy river where local fishermen started their morning calls to […]
Hand of God and Goal of the Century: Azteca Stadium
-Arbitro corrupto! Arbitro corrupto! We are sitting in the nosebleed section of Azteca Stadium on the outskirts of Mexico City, listening to hilarious chants from local soccer fans. I’m sitting so high that I feel dizzy and worry that my nose may actually bleed. I can’t believe I’m here. Azteca. […]
Accidental Medical Tourism or When Will This Stop Hurting?
Four days before we flew out to Vietnam, when the backpacks were already laid out on the floor in preparation for packing and to warn the cats of the upcoming vacation, I woke up with a sore throat. I spent the previous evening hanging out with my toddler niece, who […]
How Saigon Became Ho Chi Minh City and how Ho Chi Minh City Almost Killed Us
We landed in Ho Chi Minh City after struggling not to sleep through a thirteen-hour flight to Tokyo, a three-hour layover full of Japanese snacks, and another five-hour flight to Vietnam. We arrived in the early evening, damp air around us deceptively cool, but the asphalt still radiating warmth from […]
Itinerary Hell: I Hate It Here, I am Never Coming Back!
One of my very first trips, straight out of college, was a group tour around Europe with my best friends. We were completely inexperienced in international travel, the Internet wasn’t really as useful back then as it is now, and we had no idea how even to start planning something […]