There is a small Korean island located between South Korea and Japan, known as Jeju. After two weeks in the big cities of Busan and Seoul, I had planned a more pastoral experience on Jeju and had rented a car to explore from two different AirBnbs on the East and West sides of the island. Unfortunately, upon arrival at Jeju Airport from Seoul, I was unable to take possession of the rental car without an international driver’s license. This piece of paper is a bureaucratic requirement, apparently facilitated by a request to a US governing authority, along with a US driver’s license. South Korea, along with Japan, appears to be one of the few countries that require this. My US driver’s license, which has always been accepted in the other countries where I have rented cars (many), doesn’t work in South Korea. However, I can use my US driver’s license to obtain an international driver’s license. I got the impression, for the first time, that there were likely other things about South Korea I would find annoying as I became more familiar with how things actually work. That’s actually a fun part of learning about a foreign country, a sort […]
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Seoul feels safe, organized, clean, and efficient every time I visit. I think it must be because there are so few foreigners like me around. Every country has its challenges and discomforts, but as a short-term visitor, it really feels like this is a place I can stay and be entirely insulated from nagging annoyances that plague daily life; this isn’t typically achievable in many of the countries I visit. I suppose one risk of staying in South Korea for an extended period would be feeling isolated. I would guess it could take five years before a local approaches you to say hello. It isn’t that people here are rude or inconsiderate; quite the opposite, it’s just that you could live anonymously in Seoul without anyone ever noticing. No new surprises this time in Seoul, which was just fine for me. I was relishing revisiting my favorite neighborhoods and eating as much Korean food as I could find. I met my local friend Justin and his wife, Laura, who moved from Bogotá to Seoul while her US visa is being processed. They had met in Bogotá and then obtained a one-year visa in South Korea along with a rental apartment […]
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My body was severely deficient in Korean BBQ: it had been six years since I last traveled to South Korea. This trip, I entered the country through Busan, a coastal city and the country’s second-largest, which I hadn’t yet visited (Busan had been on my travel list since my first visit to Seoul in 2015). I stayed for 10 days and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the city, which was quite different from Seoul, as it is a coastal city, smaller, and with accessible nature on its outskirts. I was fortunate because my workload was especially low, and so I mostly avoided late-night meetings with my USA-based clients and colleagues. Busan is an ideal destination for anyone seeking to explore South Korea. It felt larger than I had anticipated, but I was never in a crowded or noisy place. Instead, the city streets and roadways seemed orderly, clean, and relaxed. You could spend weeks here without talking to anyone, owing to the local, seemingly introverted culture, which, while respectful of foreign tourists, does not seem concerned with them. Coming from Italy, it was a refreshing break not having to dodge street vendors or tourist traps. Despite obviously being a foreigner, I felt […]
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I spent ten days in the Roman suburb of San Lorenzo. From what I gathered prior, San Lorenzo is known for graffiti, university students, and dive bars, which interested me more than the sort of tourist traps I had surrounded myself with while in Palermo. For several years now, Rome has been a destination on my list; my European friends had been telling me how much they love it, which surprised me, as Rome didn’t make a positive impression on me the first time I visited, on a high school trip when I was 16 years old. However, I have traveled enough since then to understand that first impressions are just that. My first impression of Rome was how much the historic center seemed to pull everything toward it. Even a few kilometers away from the Colosseum and Forum, the city still felt centered, with a slight slope towards its core. The train station, the streets I passed through, the tourist services, stores, and restaurants, all of it angled inward, as if the whole city sloped naturally toward the tourist vortex. It’s difficult to describe, but I certainly felt a gravitational pull on the streets to where the mobs of […]
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I met my sister in Olbia, a main city on the island of Sardinia, Italy, for a five-day yoga retreat. She was leaving Paris and returning home to California, and before she did, we made time to see each other and do some yoga too. The retreat’s location was truly beautiful, situated on a private estate along the coast, and the hosts did an amazing job of making everyone feel welcome, including me, the only man in attendance. The airline lost my luggage, so I was without a change of clothes for the first two days, but it didn’t matter much; I made do with some help from my new friends. There was one other American lady in the group; the rest of the women lived in London, though their original nationalities varied. Argentina, France, Colombia, and Tunis were all represented, which made for some great dinner conversations and a lot of fun. I’m a little sad that everyone is based in London, because all these new friends I’ve made will be difficult to keep up with. I’ll try and pass through London on my way in or out of Europe the next time I can make it work; I […]
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I haven’t seen as much of Italy as I had hoped to by now. Recent visits to Tuscany, and Lake Ledro & Lake Garda, motivated me to make more of an effort to explore and learn more about the country. Increasingly, I found myself relishing Italian food, despite being the only person I know who avoids pasta and sweets (something I had always attributed to Italian cuisine). That’s just to say that I’m having a fun time figuring Italy out, bit by bit. What has kept my attention most is the regional differences. Italy feels bifurcated between north and south. In Sicily, a tour guide told me that Sicilians see themselves as Mediterranean, rather than just Italian. The divide isn’t hostile, just deeply ingrained, which might be similar to the divide in the USA between the North and South, or the East Coast and the rest of the country. This dynamic has reminded me a bit of Germany’s regional diversity with different spoken dialects (Sicily has its own regional dialect) I only had a week in Sicily before meeting my sister at a yoga retreat in Sardinia, and Palermo felt like the right place to spend it. Just enough time […]
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The yearly pilgrimage to Dalmatia continued unabated again this year, as I sought the holy waters of the Adriatic Sea to cleanse my spirit, a tradition I have kept over the past ten years. This year’s itinerary included a handful of days in Split, a return to the island of Vis, where I last visited six years ago, and a new, more remote island destination for me, Lastovo. Part of this plan is an intention to discover new reasons to continue returning to Croatia each year, as my friends here are dwindling, and so too are my reasons to return, amid the adoption of the Euro, post-COVID inflation, the joining of Schengen, rising tourist numbers, and increasing rental prices. These sacred waters have soothed me for ten years, but it might be time to pursue other horizons. While in Split, I tried to keep up with acquaintances. My friends David and Marketa, who will soon move to the Czech Republic to raise their first child. They hosted me for dinner, and Marketa made her world-famous Bún bò Nam Bộ. Really must learn this recipe because very soon I will not have the ability to eat it :(( I invited David, […]
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This was my second time visiting Berlin, and I thought it was great. Unfortunately, the Pergamonmuseum was closed for the second time I attempted to visit it. This is after visiting Pergamon, Turkey, and being unable to see the ancient relics that were looted by the Germans. The museum is currently closed to visitors and is expected to remain closed for 12 to 18 years, between 2037 and 2043, for the execution of comprehensive renovation works. Every other consideration regarding my visit to Berlin is secondary to that disappointment. I waited ten years to visit the Pergamonmuseum, only to discover I will need to wait another 15. –Germany I had a lot of work the week I visited and was unable to attend the KitKatClub, a famous nightclub in the area. Maybe I will pay it a visit when I am sixty years old, returning to see the Pergamonmuseum. I visited Berlin’s Zoo, as well as some other blasé landmarks; e.g., Jewish memorials do not interest me in an age of Israeli genocide. Which you can see in the photos. Going just about anywhere is fun when I bring my camera with me, because the ordinary becomes a fun challenge […]
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Every time I stop in Mexico City for a week on my way somewhere else, I’m reminded I should stay longer. The food’s incredible, the city’s endlessly walkable, and I get to use my Spanish. I think I’ve reached the point where there are simply too many places I’m happy to be, and that makes choosing where to stay harder than ever. Maybe that’s the quiet success of all this movement: I’ve already found what I was looking for. So why keep traveling if everywhere I return to already feels like a home? It’s possible that I am actively avoiding feeling at home. As usual, Montezuma found me in Mexico City. I didn’t touch street food this time, so I’m blaming the store-bought lettuce from the homemade salads I’d become obsessed with (see here). At this point, it feels inevitable. Montezuma always knows when I’ve crossed the border. There’s no hiding, not even in my own apartment. Let’s just say I haven’t made a salad at home since. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Thank you, Marce, for saving my life. The rest of my time in Mexico City was great. I also solved a medical mystery that started […]
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Curitiba struck me as one of those cities where I could actually live comfortably, walkably, and peacefully. My friend Jeff, who’s spent more time in Brazil than I have, told me before I went, “Curitiba is one of my favorite cities in Brazil. It’s safer than almost anywhere else, and it actually feels like it was designed for the people who live there.” Maybe that shaped my expectations, but he was right. The city boasts excellent museums, thoughtful infrastructure, lush parks, and traffic that never bothered me. People seemed relaxed and content everywhere I went. I even found a solid rodízio spot for about $30, which is all-you-can-eat, and in my book, that’s a steal. Curitiba is located within the state of Paraná, Brazil, and I spent some time trying to understand the cultural relevance of Paraná within Brazil. I didn’t really get a sense of those distinguishing aspects that make it special in relation to other places within Brazil. I’m reading the Wikipedia article I linked above right now, and it seems to say that industry and farming are defining aspects of it. Seems like I have some more room to learn and explore. I cooked most nights as […]
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