This is a continuation of a previous post regarding my visit to the country of Georgia. The place is still on my mind, and not for the best reasons! Here I share several additional insights and experiences from my time spent there. The rubble seen in the post header photo is representative of the kinds […]
Read More Georgia (still) on my mindAh, but not the US state. The country where Stalin was born and raised. Aka, in Georgian, “Sakartvelo” — land of the wine makers. The place where 8000-year-old evidence has been found of winemaking, the oldest in the world. The land where Jason and the Argonauts came for the golden fleece. Georgia is a dynamic, […]
Read More The North Carolinian Went Down to GeorgiaWhen we first began spending time in Czechia in 2021, I envisioned that a possibility would be to purchase an apartment in Prague to use while in town and then maybe rent out while elsewhere. For various reasons this is no longer realistic for me, including the huge price increases which continue every year. In […]
Read More Prague’s Housing UnaffordabilityOver the past several months I’ve been recording notable Czech insights I’ve learned. Some of these apply only to Prague, which is in Bohemia, but many are generally Czech and so are applicable to other regions of the country, including Moravia and Silesia. In this post I describe a few of the highlights. ANGLO-AMERICAN UNIVERSITY […]
Read More Bohemian Rhapsodies – Part 1During Independence Day weekend, after helping Ben to move into his new Manhattan apartment, I kept having the phrase “New York City?!” go through my head. I hadn’t visited this wonderful “country within a country” since a work trip back in June 2001, when the World Trade Center towers still existed. I’m super-excited for this […]
Read More New York City?!Fine dining, fine views, and hefty fines — this is Singapore! Keep your gum at home, and properly dispose of your litter. Singapore (a city-state) is definitely worth a visit for a few days. English is spoken well, there’s lots to see and do, and it’s memorable and even a bit strange. It’s full of […]
Read More Singapore, a fine cityOn a day trip from Hong Kong, Ben and I traveled by ferry to Macau, another special administrative region of China, and a former Portuguese colony and territory, turned back over to China in 1999. It is the most densely-populated territory on the planet, and it has a very high standard of living and one […]
Read More Macau: it’s not Hong Kong, but had ping pongDing dings, five-year plans, bamboo scaffolding, life imprisonment for selling CBD, and phone zombies?! Must be Hong Kong! It’s quite a unique and memorable place. This was Ben’s and my second destination, and in advance I coordinated with my niece (Ben’s cousin) Katelyn, who had been traveling solo around southeastern Asia, to meet us in […]
Read More Hong Kong, Ding Ding!To continue where we left off in the previous post on Taiwan, let’s have a look at some of the notable buildings and architecture. Taipei is a big city, and as one would expect, there is a variety of height, quality, and spacing of buildings. Ben and I stayed in an older, denser neighborhood called […]
Read More Xièxiè, Taiwan!Bao down to what may be East Asia’s friendliest and hippest country, especially the cool capital city of Taipei. Compared to other regional destinations like Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, Taiwan prices are much more reasonable, and English is spoken relatively well. Americans are welcomed there, and it’s not yet a tourist hotspot, at […]
Read More Taiwan, You Had Me At Ni Hao
