November 2004. The Dreaming In 1623, Dutch East India Company captain Willem Joosten van Colster sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and...

July 2016 Right out of Singapore's sometimes weird history, I literally stumbled across this old mansion while walking along the ...

March 2015 Counterpoint Arad Fort is one of Bahrain's most important fortified castles. The Fort was built in the style of Islamic forts...

Mt Canlaon, Negros. Barcelona Seaport, Escalante City, Negros. securing the bus Cruising down the road, Cebu. June 2016. On the summer...

Me and Kimio, March 1986. On my little street in the Kawauchi section of Sendai, I lived a few houses down from "Convenience 52". It...

Bridge on the River Arun, Arundel, England. May 2013 On one of my free weekends doing the CELTA course in London, Adrian FVdR and I took...

March 2018 Something unique to Saudi Arabia is the concept of the "mamsha". A mamsha is a linear park made especially for strolling in...

July 2017 Alkmaar has many medieval buildings that are still intact, most notably the tall tower of the Grote or Sint-Laurenskerk, where...

December 2003 King Pandukabhaya formally planned the city with gates and quarters for traders. The city at the time covered an area of...

Danube River from Devin Castle. July 2019 [from FB post: November 5, 2019] Reflections: Over 30 years ago I had traveled "behind the...

July 2017 It was rebuilt as a castle in 1184 by Izz al-Din Usama, a general in the army of Saladin. The castle controlled traffic along...

July 2019 I was travelling back to Iraq after summer vacation and Perry Place in DC was not available for an easy stopover that summer,...

Al Roof Restaurant, Gali Duhok. September 2019 Ironically, a relative of the owner of the Rooftop Bar [see: Rooftop Bar], Ryan, opened a...

This is right down the street from the Condo we used to own in Hoboken. I used to regret letting it go, now... I guess it really was a...

Pan Am Worldport (from internet - in its glory days) [from FB post: October 27, 2011] First off... let's talk AIRPORTS. I was in JFK,...

August 2017 When I lived in Japan I was shocked at how little Japanese learned in their history classes about World War II and the...

August 2020 Coming full circle On my forced layover in Istanbul during the start of the Coronavirus Pandemic I took multiple long walks...

July 2016. The tower is known to have existed by the 1st century, built or perhaps rebuilt under Trajan, possibly on foundations...

March 2016 Walking around the palace in Muscat [see: palace] these two old forts came into view, Al Jalali on an island and Al Mirani on...

Beit Betek, Abha. January 2017 [from FB post: October 26, 2013] Invited to dinner by colleagues last night (non American). "What would...