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 […]

Sardines and Egg Custard Tarts – The Overlooked Cuisine of Portugal

By Victor / October 30, 2019

We were standing in a giant store where every wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves, displaying thousands of cans of sardines. “Is this… a sardines store?” Julia asked no one in particular. Her question echoed off endlessly stacked cans and down the airport hallway. We had arrived on an overnight […]

NSFW Temples or How Victor and I became Temporary Celebrities

By Julia / October 23, 2019

Buckle in, the day has come.  This is our very first NSFW post.  None of this previous “Asian Massage but no Happy Ending” or “Pot Pizza without Any Actual Pot” nonsense.  This post is going to contain the most non-family-friendly pictures so far, at least until we get to posting […]

Familiar and Strange – The Cuisine of Mexico

By Victor / October 17, 2019

Before we ever visited Mexico, one thing we thought we understood well about it was the food.  Fajitas, nachos, and tacos are our go-to comfort foods. Imagine our surprise when we found very different menu offerings south of the border, with most of our favorites conspicuously missing. It turned out […]

Village Homestay in India – New Year, Goats, and Bootleg Brandy

By Julia / October 10, 2019

Ever since we started seriously traveling, we usually take two weeks either around Thanksgiving or Christmas/New Year for a long trip out of the country.   To date, we have celebrated New Year watching fireworks while wearing white and drinking champagne with locals on a beach in Brazil; lost in a […]

Música Brasileira – The Music of Brazil

By Victor / September 26, 2019

The word “Brazil” means so many different things for me-world-renowned beaches, the national soccer team, and 1980s telenovelas with enough twists and turns to bring the whole of the USSR to a standstill. But above all, Brazil is all about its music-samba, bossa nova, samba-reggae. While we didn’t visit Brazil […]

Egypt in the Spring – Arab Spring

By Julia / September 19, 2019

“Mohammed! Mohammed! Cairo is burning!” We are in the middle of the international terminal of the O’Hare airport, staring transfixed at the multiple TV screens showing fire and mayhem on the streets of Cairo. Victor is holding a phone, with the faint voice of Mohammed, our hired Egyptian guide, on […]

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