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 […]
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 […]
Familiar and Strange – The Cuisine of Mexico
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
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
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
“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 […]
Clean Slate – Rotterdam’s Modernist Architecture
After the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris earlier this year, I saw many people on social media lamenting that they hadn’t had the chance to see Notre Dame before it was badly damaged. The lesson, of course, is that we should live in the present and not […]
The Wild and Not-So-Wild Life of Peru
The only Peruvian animal I heard of before going to Peru was llama, also known as alpaca, which later turned out were two completely different, albeit related animals. So I guess I really didn’t know anything. So when Victor mentioned that we were going to see condors fly through the Colca canyon and were going to visit an animal sanctuary, I got pretty excited. Even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to see. That’s just the kind of person that I am.