Breaking stereotypes. (while having a highly recommended tapas brunch at Vinos Gonzalez) 2 items off the bucket list in one day and 2 more tomorrow; we are really cramming superlatives into a short amount of time. Despite the Prado being closed on Mondays, we made a bee line to Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to [...]
Archive for the ‘Epiphanies on the Road’ Category
Witnessing Guernica
Monday, December 26th, 2011A Final Look at Myanmar
Saturday, August 6th, 2011The 66m long reclining buddha of Chaukhtatgyi Paya Traveling to Myanmar is like being in a time warp. Imagine a place untouched by McDonalds and Starbucks, where images of 1960s Southeast Asia become real life here. Cone-hat wearing villagers bike along a dirt road lined with endless rice paddies. This is a place not advertised [...]
“Where you come from?” “USA” “No, where you *really* from?”
Thursday, July 28th, 2011During the last 3 days in Bangladesh, I’ve come to develop a fondness for its brutal honesty. Given its complete lack of exposure to tourists and foreigners, rickshaw drivers and touts charge surprisingly such low fares that there’s very little need to haggle. Furthermore, the prices of everything in Bangladesh is so low, sometimes you’d [...]
Nostalgia in Chennai
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011My last few hours in one of my favorite countries has been a riot. It seems fitting that India wouldn’t let me down. Stephanie and I booked a flight out from Chennai to Sri Lanka at 10am the next morning, while Karen was flying out of Chennai to Kochin around the same time. The hard [...]
A New POV
Saturday, July 16th, 2011As a tourist (or traveler, a term Calvin prefers), we enter each city, see its sights, eat at the restaurants, and try to form a impression. This view, while vast geographically, is inherently shallow. Furthermore, up to this point in my travels, it has somewhat unavoidable. I have spent only up to 3 days in [...]
The Beauty of Relevance
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011I am alone. The desert gales wash my naked chest, and my bare feet burrow into the heat of the earth. I bathe in breathing moonlight. For a moment I can see God moving over the face of the sands. And I see only the desert. I feel a slight night shiver. – At time [...]
“The Story with Animals is the Better Story.”
Saturday, June 25th, 2011Doubt is useful for awhile. . . . But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. – Life of Pi, Chapter 7 In the course of 6 hours on the bus from Kathmandu to Pokahara I have finished Yann Martel’s [...]
Understanding a Moment in Amman
Sunday, June 19th, 2011We are the only two foreigners. Scratch that — the only two Asians in a sea of local Jordanians and other Arabians. In a balcony cafe awash with the perfumed smoke of nargile, we overlook the quiet chaos of downtown Amman. For a moment, everything seems simple, unable to be deconstructed and analyzed. For a [...]
On the way from JFK Airport
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011I took this shortly after landing from my South America trip 3 weeks ago, somewhere outside of JFK International Airport in NYC. I had forgotten about it until I found it in my memory card the other day. This image just gets to me; a memorial arrangement of flowers in the middle of a expressway, [...]
One Week in South America
Monday, April 4th, 2011As I step back on the escalators leading down to the NYC Subway, I see how much of the last 9 days I can remember. I remember Lima; the way we danced around the fountains as they danced around us, the taste of Peruvian chicken in the middle of the night, getting our 5am flight [...]
