Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
Observations about Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam:1. They sell tulip bulbs in the gift shops.2. All announcements in the airport are terse threats to the people late for their flights, who must “come to the gate NOW or we will offload your luggage immediately”3. Under no circumstances, not even your grandfather’s funeral, will they allow you to board a plane heading … Read More
One of the highlights of my trip to Portugal was a visit to Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, considered the mecca of portuguese egg tarts. Normally you can get custard tarts in any Portuguese snack bar by asking for “pastéis de nata”, but the best ones are to be found at this bakery, served warm out of the oven, and specially … Read More
there are lots of ads around Stockholm consisting of pixelated 18th-century oil paintings—a marketing ploy by the national museum for their lust & last (“lust & vice”) exhibit. according to the museum: The exhibition Lust & Vice shows examples of how sexuality, virtue and sin have been depicted in art since the 16th century – from an age when the Church … Read More
had a nice visit to Paris with my parents, and was surprised to learn a few things about food in France: as expected, the food at most of the random French restaurants we tried was delicious. unexpected: the portions were huge. any dessert that even mentions chocolate is swimming in it. and chocolate shops are everywhere. moules frites: our waitress … Read More
food findings from a short but sweet visit to Krakow: ok, it wasn’t *really* cake in a can, but only the filling (to my disappointment–sort of like discovering poutine in a can is actually only the sauce). this time it was definitely lard on bread. not too bad, but I should have added some salt. I later found a bottled … Read More
Since it’s December and minus 15°C out, I thought I’d write about the beach. Or at least about the last time I’d been to a beach, which was in Dalian on China’s Northeast coast. Dalian was rated China’s most livable city in 2006–a fact that kept popping up everywhere we went (or maybe we were just watching too many CCTV … Read More
I’m in Copenhagen for a few days and thought I’d go see the the Little Mermaid (“den lille Havfrue”, originally created by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen). Ok, so the statue is actually currently in Shanghai for the Expo, but I was curious what would be in its place. So after walking through a beautiful park (filled with runners and … Read More
Trains are a great way to travel within China. There are several different categories of train, as identified through the route number. Routes consisting only of digits (no letters) are the regular, cheapest (and slowest) trains. Train numbers starting with ‘K’ are fast trains (kuai literally means fast), T trains are te-kuai (especially fast), and Z trains are zui kuai … Read More
There is a section of the Great Wall just outside of Dandong called 虎山长城 (Tiger Mountain Great Wall), again along the border with North Korea. The wall itself is not all that remarkable if you’ve been to other sections: it looks way too new & reconstructed, with the site obviously renovated to herd tourists. But I must admit the view … Read More
This is my second time facing North Korea–the first time being a tour of the DMZ organized by the USO–but this time it’s from China. I’m now in Dandong, a very industrial looking city with 600,000 inhabitants. 查看大图 As you can see, the Yalu (“duck green”) river separates China from North Korea–the Chinese side looks rather raucous and full of … Read More