June 2015 On my first trip to KL with Masaaki in the mid-80's, the old Central Market of KL was just being renovated and reformatted into...

March 2016 A little piece of Irish Sanity I was so excited when my good Singapore-days friend, SL, got a job at Emirates Aviation College...

February 2010 On our trip to Kerala, it was the first time back to India for Brian and me (well, he had been back for work, but that...

August 2007 we knew it all along By the time we had visited Luang Prabang, Brian and I must have seen a thousand temples due to our...

June 1997 On my first visit to Paris [see: first trip to Paris], MAP and I discovered the big clock and cafe on the rooftop level of the...

October 2009 [from FB post: May 7, 2010] I had a GREAT lunch today with my good friend (and local FAMOUS PERSON -- LOL) Lori G. down on...

June 2016 Ancient vs Old I had blundered upon an archeological dig on the fringes of modern Salalah [see: Al Baleed, Salalah]. After...

July 2019 Nitra is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. It is located 95...

February 2001 After a very long boat ride through the Chilean fjords of Patagonia - a very similar trip to the Inside Passage of Canada...

February 1990 slow learner My favorite part of the Sunday New York Times was the Travel Section and I anxiously awaited it each week. ...

July 2019 I had watched the late afternoon glow on the Charles Bridge and then die as the lights slowly re-illuminated the statues of the...

April 2019 The first visit to the Hofburg in 1987 I was amazed. That initial trip to Europe was a series of "wow" moments, but also...

April 1998 The Forbidden City Only foreigners call the Palace Museum the "Forbidden City". To the Chinese it is the "Palace Museum" in...

June 2019 Transformation of meanings A word I came to know while working in the Middle East was "corniche". Clearly a French word, I...

Bazaar June 2016 A very strange set of circumstances led me to As Salt. It all started in Diriyah, Riyadh on a visit with AQ when we...

January 2020 over-renovated On my trip to Valencia, one of the day trips planned was to Sagunto to see its Roman amphitheatre. The trip...

July 2017 I was day tripping into Amsterdam from Amersfoort, seeing chunks of the city as time and weather permitted. The day I was in...

December 2003 saved by colonialism Brian and I had come out of the misty tea mountains of Sri Lanka and headed toward beautiful Galle, a...

August 2007 Luang Prabang. The only thing we knew about it was that it had a lot of old temples. That would have been the...

July 2019 I decided to explore Pilsen after my delicious beer and lunch on the town square [see: Plzeň]. The old city center was not...