Borders blur from the bullet train window, and while the frontier between Russia and Finland is distinct, the signs themselves literally become invisible at high speeds. Instead, the only indicators are passport control agents on their purpose-filled staccato journey through each car, offering seatside passport and visa inspections with a cursory goodbye and welcome, depending… Read More And the Livin’s Easy
We left Moscow on the Sapsan, peregrine falcon in Russian, a bullet train whisking between the countryside connecting the two major Russian cities. I am a great fan of these trains, but in this case I was a little disappointed not to have pushed for the overnight train. Bullet trains are certainly faster and almost… Read More Window to the West
Has it really been three years? Unsurprisingly it has felt like far more, and the choice of main destination for our 2019 trip takes on added weight in retrospect – Russia. In the simpler pre-pandemic and pre-war days our criteria were to go somewhere new and different. Russia fit that bill, and after fulfilling some… Read More Ex Post Facto
While the bumping, winding and ultimately delayed bus that spirited us from Bogota was a great way to see the beautiful Colombian countryside, it was distinctly not time efficient. I was quite happy we had arranged our onward journey to Cartagena, our final stop, by plane. One celebrity siting and a few hours later, we… Read More Watching the Wheels
With our only alternative being to flag down the next errant late-night bus, Hannah and I pulled out our phones, turned on the flashlights, and waded into the darkness. Within a few minutes the gatehouse looked small; in a few more, it was gone entirely, obscured either by a curve in the road or the… Read More Medellin Meddling
We landed in Bogota early Sunday morning, finally passed off from the last leg of our relay via Denver and Panama City before alighting. The taxi into the heart of the city was uneventful, save for the periodic cursing our driver shared with himself as he faced closed roads and barricaded streets. Sunday is Ciclovia… Read More Start Your Engines
I had been to our last stop, Shanghai, a few times when I lived in China. The city had never grabbed me, seemingly just another big Chinese metropolis, though admittedly one a bit more full of itself than most. I will confess to enjoying it a lot however with Hannah, perhaps in part due to… Read More Once More Unto the Breach
The almighty Cloud has, unfortunately, let us down. In lieu of saving and securing photos sent off into the supernatural ether, it has decided that removing them instead was the better option. As a result, this particularly entry will have to rely on the strength of my ability as a writer to describe a scene.… Read More Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
It had been five years since I’d last been to Hong Kong, nexus of east Asia. The city remains the same outwardly, spindly concrete jostling each other to crowd out the sky, hemming in narrow pavements thick with people walking and carrying out their commerce. The same calls for copy watch, copy suit, copy handbag… Read More Hong Kong & Shenzhen: The Reboot
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
Zak Abroad 