After Singapore I flew to Yangon (once called Rangoon). Driving away from the airport, I saw a billboard for Myanmar (once called Burma). It welcomed me to the ‘Country of Gold.’ I saw the same billboard a week later when I was leaving the country . It was only then that I fully understood the […]
Lush Urban Luxury Lush urban luxury. These three words sum up Singapore. Singapore is tropical with abundant rainfall, high humidity and two monsoon seasons. I hate the sun, but I love the tropics. So I opened my umbrella and started walking around. This shot, below, typifies my experience. As if there isn’t already enough vegetation […]
Why Singapore? One. In 2016 I visited Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Within the first half-hour of my tour, my guide starts talking about how dirty KL is and how clean Singapore is. I think, “Hey, I should have gone there!” Two. Two years ago I saw Amazing Hotels. Life Beyond the Lobby on Netflix. Their first […]
After a month in Japan, I moved on to Shanghai. For the title image I chose the Huangpu River view of the city’s financial center with the distinctive Oriental Pearl TV Tower spiking the skyline. The sky was overcast for the three days I spent here. Shanghai: Getting Started I did here what I normally do: […]
Where to start? There are so many famous Japanese. Title image: Ieyasu Tokugawa (1543-1616), founder of the Tokugawa shogunate that effectively ruled Japan from 1600 – 1868. I did not, however, include him on my list below. I focused on more recent figures. But, as historical figures go, Tokugawa was a bad ass. Famous Japanese: […]
Iwasakisan and his wife, Yoshiko, took Gerard, Rimi and me to Kyoto for a day-trip. Here is Iwasakisan at the lunch we had that day. He is a totally cool guy. But now I am ahead of myself. Kyoto: Genkō-an Temple First we went to the Zen temple of Genkō-an. Every view is curated, I […]
(Un)translatables – my term – are words in one language that may take a paragraph to explain in another language … and still not quite get it right. (Title Image: Hokkaido University, kanji: ‘Japanese language’) All languages have them. Japanese has some really good ones. (Un)translatables in Japanese: The Bad #1 . hikikomori hiki = […]
Nara, Japan: Going There, Getting There Question: What to do on a Sunday afternoon? Answer: Hop a train and go to Nara. It’s the capital of Japan’s Nara Prefecture in south-central Honshu. It was the capital of Japan in the 8th century. The reason to go there is for the statue of the 8th-century Virocana Buddha, […]
Futon daiko is the word in Japanese for the kind of portable shrine pictured in the title image. Last week there was a futon daiko festival in Akashi, a town a good hour or more west of Osaka. My son, Gerard, is somewhere in the title image, but I can’t tell you where. futon = bed; […]
When I go to a new place, I now practice anchoring my experience by finding out about the country’s famous people. I always ask locals for suggestions. Naturally, I asked Koreans for some famous Koreans. However, I didn’t have to ask anyone for my #1. Famous Koreans: Historic King Sejong (1397-1450) is my first famous […]