Category: Travel
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Moab Vignette
Bonus post for you subscribers! When I close my eyes, I can still see the desert. I look down and toe the red-brown dirt at my feet. I look up, and a vast horizon unfolds before me, the carpet of dirt for miles, dotted with the occasional tenacious yellow-green scrub bush. Far beyond, a ribbon…
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Stand-Up Paddleboard in Southern Taiwan
This post is on stand-up paddle board (SUP) in the vicinity of Kaohsiung, specifically. Mama: What is this thing you do, Yiling? Paddleboat, like with your feet? Me: Um, no mama, it’s called stand-up paddleboard. Mama: Paddleboat? Me: No, BOARD. It’s like a surf board, but bigger and more stable. You stand on it, and…
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What to Know About Your Phone for International Travel
Taiwan Pro-Tip EditionSIM Card Rental & Local Pay Options $ < Global Data Plan $$$ Did you know: you can rent a SIM card or cell phone when you arrive at the airport in Taiwan? I found this out once I was there, after already having purchased my $10-a-day global data plan with AT&T. AT&T would charge…
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Kaohsiung, Taiwan in the Morning
Hi Folks, I’m in Taiwan* for QingMing Jie. Lots of over-deep thoughts to organize, food eaten, and photos to sort out. In the mean time, this video clip for you: If you have any questions on what it’s like here, let me know this week and I’ll try to find out! *where my mother grew…
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Taiwan Adventures – Going “Home” Part 2
Recap of What I Expected to Find in Taiwan: (see Taiwan Adventures – Going Home 1 for the full intro) -Familiar but unfamiliar: being too-rusty in language skills, feeling a stranger in a friendly city -Pollution galore What did I find? Arrival Aah, that southern Chinese accent! Familiar, just …familiar.I walked off the plane to…
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Going Home
Taiwan Adventures 1Dear reader, I’m trying something different this time with the writing. Let me know how it goes. Thanks! Y Belonging is a funny thing. As an Asian American kid growing up in Minnesota, I just wanted to be like everyone else I knew. My mother (born in Taiwan) persistently spoke to me in Chinese despite…
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How to Time Travel
Tips on Extending Your Vacation Time & SpaceAlaska’s official state motto is “North to the Future,” meant to represent Alaska as a land of promise. In the spirit of time travel,* here are some tips on how to stretch your vacation outside the bounds of the time you were physically there, with my Alaskan Adventures for illustration.
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5 Things To Explore in Fairbanks
Alaskan Adventures Part 4This last installment on Alaskan Adventures is packed with travel tips. Enjoy! “To know the wilderness is to know a profound humility, to recognize one’s littleness, to sense dependence, and interdependence, indebtedness and responsibility.” -Howard Zahniser, author of the Wilderness Act of 1964 Downtown Fairbanks was more cosmopolitan than I expected (ok ok, I did…
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Aurora Hunting & Chena Hot Springs in Alaska
Alaskan Adventures Part 3My grandma used to tell me that the Northern Lights were the spirits of our ancestors celebrating as they look down on us from above. If you whistle, they will draw near and dance for you. -Raymond Frank (per the Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitor Center) Given the snow storm the weekend we were there,…
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Dog Sledding: Just Short of Magic
Alaskan Adventures Part 2This blog post is one of a multi-part series on Alaskan adventures near Fairbanks. In 2010 the Alaskan Malamute was named the official state dog of Alaska. Slate.com April 2012 One of many excellent recommendations per our VRBO hosts was to book with Just Short of Magic** for a sled dog ride (a.k.a. mushing), a little drive north of…