Taipei served as the brackets to the 2017 trip to Oceania, a day-long layover both to and from Australia. In each instance, this meant an early morning arrival and late evening departure, with a full (and at times long) day in between. I had been to Taipei only once before, in 2008, for a few… Read More Parenthetical Taipei
We landed at the airport in Kayseri mid-day. The city is a pleasant and tidy, if uninspiring, vision of Turkish urbanity set at the foot of some vast mountain chain on the plains of central Anatolia. Owing to the fact that airport traffic seems exclusive to only 2 destinations, we were soon whisked away in… Read More Anatolian Lions
Beyoglu and Sultanahmet, though each charming in their own respective ways, are merely small slices of Istanbul. In the last 100 years the city’s population has ballooned; once small villages have passed from suburbia into the urban. An ever-expanding march of development and the relentless drum beat of modernism in the construction hammers and the… Read More Modern Times
We landed late in the night into Istanbul, nee Constantinople, just beating out a charter flight from China to the passport control line, a fortunate turn given the general disregard for lines and queues. We too were somewhat short of the willpower to fight them off, but before too long we ushered ourselves into a… Read More A Tale of Two Cities
And so the last day came and went and I find myself sitting in the Denver airport. Earlier while camping on the ground I saw a white person coming toward me and tried to think of how I knew this person. Then I remembered there were white people everywhere. Turns out he was going to… Read More 千言和万语
I went through my last classes a week ago, telling my students what I will be doing and where I’ll be going after I leave them behind. They were a little sad, as was I, and the word ‘bittersweet’ was the one I chose for illustrating my feelings about leaving. In truth, it is nice… Read More Landslide
Ten days! That is all the time remaining. An American friend, Eric, and myself ventured south from Beijing this weekend to Luoyang, one of the cities of Henan province. It is situated on the central plain of China, a repository of ancient Chinese history and centuries of farming in the land fed by the mighty… Read More Room to Give
I feel like I’ve had it happen before, the clock running down, the last classes approaching, the impending arrival of summer and the freedom that it brings. Yet this year is different, as I will be leaving China now. I’m still in the process of sorting all of that out. Walking home the other day… Read More Walk Into Splintered Sunlight
I have four day weekends here, as a rule. I have yet to really, truly, and fully take advantage of this opportunity up here. Part of it is that I’ve been to a number of places, part is the dearth of travel companions here compared to Shenzhen. Last weekend, with the clock ticking on my… Read More Northern Exposure
Can’t believe that the adventure is almost over. Tori and I have been in Bangkok since yesterday. We did the whole Khao San Road thing as we stayed very near it. Khao San is actually several roads of street vendors, restaurants, cart/street food, etc that sells everything you did and didn’t want during your stay… Read More Almost Home
Zak Abroad 