Singapore
I’ve been in Singapore for nearly a month now, but you’d hardly know it if you’ve been visiting these pages.
I wish my absence was due to lazying about in hammocks under palm fronds, munching on papaya slices and sipping Singapore Slings from tall glasses. But I’m afraid there’s been far too much work and far [...]
Fifty Things
I love lists. I always have. So while enjoying a perfectly simple holiday-birthday weekend, I was quietly concocting a way of sharing some of my favorite bits of the last year. A Little Miss Year in Pictures, if you will. And then the Queen of List-Making, the irreplaceable Andrea, made this list. And it made [...]
Love Letter #1
Let’s be clear: I have never left my heart in San Francisco. It’s not for lack of trying. But in my handful of visits over the last decade, the city in the bay has never wormed its way in. It’s left me foggy and shivering, perpetually freezing and somehow lost, as my otherwise impeccable sense of direction is challenged at every turn and I am unable to get my bearings. I can’t follow the direction of the sun because I cannot see the sun for all the hills and fog and hippies.
I should have warned you
But I really didn’t know.
When I sat on that plane to LAX, muscling my way through Night at the Museum II: The Legend of Curley’s Gold, I knew this trip home had a lot waiting for me. I just had no idea what that meant.
City of Angels
Well, if one is going to go on vacation, one may as well Go On Vacation with capital letters. I know it seems with all my gallivanting around northeastern Asia this year that I’ve done plenty of vacationing. But the truth is that in the last year I took one day off and had a [...]
Dear California
It’s been awhile, and I have to say, you are making me a little bit swoony.
Love,
Stephanie
The Disney World of Giant Buddhas
Just west of Hong Kong and Kowloon is Lantau Island, where you will find Hong Kong International Airport and a big, giant Buddha on top of a mountain. For $99 HK (that’s about $12.75 US), you can take a thirty minute cable car ride over turquoise waters and pristine rolling hills, through the delicate lace [...]
I could see farther than anyone
While lunching on warm afternoon air and asparagus stuffed chicken breast with saffron polenta, I was instructed by my local guide to make sure I took a trip down to the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. The previous day he’d instructed me to take my camera to Kowloon in the evening and watch the [...]
Did you have Dim Sum?
In February, I was tasked with the very difficult assignment of going to Hong Kong to acquire my work visa. Difficult because Hong Kong was enjoying temperatures well above 20ºC while Seoul was enjoying temperatures well below 0º.
If you ever have the opportunity to visit Hong Kong, I implore you to eat as much [...]
Perfect
In case you didn’t know, the perfect day includes:
A latte your father made with homefries your mother made.
Salty hair and sandy toes.
Small ones collecting crabs and shells in the tidepools.
A Cheez-It or two.
The sound of the waves and distant laughter when you are falling asleep in the sand with an old book.
Top Dog.
That certain quiet [...]
Boston
I learned a lot of things at home this summer, but the most important things were these:
I am excellent at Wii Golf. Just like a good little Birdie. Or perhaps an Eagle.
Former state prisons make excellent boutique hotels and fancy bars.
There is not a suitcase big enough to get everything I need from the Paper [...]
The Law of Reversed Effort
When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink. But when you try to sink, you float.
Alan Watts
Into the Future and Out of the Past
Things are moving…
Into the future and out of the past,
into the future and out of the past.
Ryan Adams
Jacksonville City Nights
All things go, all things go
Drove to Chicago
All things know, all things know.
I fell in love with the place, in my mind, in my mind
I made a lot of mistakes, in my mind, in my mind.
Sufjan Stevens
See all the photos here.
Dear Vancouver
It was love at first sight, really it was. I have scoured this continent for the better part of the last 15 years and have not yet found a city that romances me as much as you do. Sure, you showed up to our first date in your finest clothes, all that glorious sunshine and [...]
Things I’ve Learned in One Week
1. Every male on Vancouver Island, and quite possibly all of Canada itself, is named either Dave or Joel. Mostly Dave. This can be confusing in large groups, but makes meeting new people much easier.
2. In summer, British Columbia is perhaps one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Figure A:The people who live here? Even [...]
Maybe the sun will shine today
If you ride the Victoria Clipper from Seattle to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, this is what you will find waiting on the other side of Puget Sound:
Snow-capped mountains that reflect into the deepest blue water you’ve ever seen.
The tallest of pines that stand vertically at attention along every strip of landscape.
Picking fresh raspberries and eating [...]
‘Merica
The middle two weeks of June were spent in the Very Middle of America, hidden away in a cul-de-sac at the end of a tree-lined street in suburban St Louis. It is here that I claim one pregnant sister, one brother-in-law and one 2-year-old niece, who share a two bedroom ranch home with a two-car [...]
Buenos Annyong y Merci avec un poquito de Tequila!
The second stop on the 2008 North American Tour: Wheels on Fire found me heading south for my first real trip to Mexico to attend the wedding of my good friend, Marshall. I learned something interesting about traveling to Mexico. When you say “I’m going to Mexico for a week”, everyone–and I really mean everyone–thinks [...]
Summerteeth
The first week of my Summer Vacances Officielles found me in my former riverside house in Austin, Texas. It is my first time back in just over two years and it is safe to say that the old adage is dead-on: the more things change, the more they stay 100% absolutely the same.
Except me. I [...]
