I visited Calgary two years ago and liked it so much that I knew I would come back. I made time for a short stopover after Yellowknife and enjoyed revisiting the same hot yoga venue, restaurants, and asian grocery store (with the biggest Nashi Pears I have ever seen). Increasingly, my favorite destinations are places where I live my daily routine as if I had been living there permanently for a decade. The little differences between each place I stay, like the local gyms, where I buy daily or weekly passes, make it feel like I am transporting myself among various parallel realities (e.g., each with its own local gym offering daily and weekly passes).
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You may already be familiar with the scientific, hemispheric phenomenon known as the northern lights (aurora borealis). If you are not, I describe it as a night-time-sky-thing that is like a shimmery, slowly moving cloud of green or blue. It’s like a night rainbow made of darkness and radiant, translucent clouds of radioactive fallout. I believe a more scientific(-ish) explanation could be that the magnetic field surrounding our Earth, polarized between the northern Arctic and Antarctica, acts as an atmospheric shield protecting the planet from… stuff (“particles”?). Sometimes, some of that stuff hits the magnetic field/shield (like a mosquito in an electric bug zapper) and creates a sort of low-key, mellowed-out, slow-motion melty lava-lamp-in-the-night-sky effect. That’s the northern lights. I prefer to think of the aurora borealis as space magic. It comes from space and looks like a glowing ghost swaying in the sky. I’m mixing a lot of metaphors (or similies?), trying to describe it, which is consistent with the challenges of describing things that are magic, so let’s just call it magic. I traveled to Yellowknife, Canada, to see for myself this space magic. To increase the odds of seeing space magic, ancient texts (the internet) had recommended […]
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Over the past few years, I have been making a concerted effort to explore more of Canada, America’s hat. Edmonton has always seemed like an interesting, blue-collar oil town that I wanted to visit. When I was in Calgary in 2024, I couldn’t fit it into my itinerary. This time around, though, it was a perfect stopover destination on the way further north. I didn’t get much done apart from working. I had tried to get NHL hockey tickets and even decided to invest in some first-row, against-the-glass seats in hopes of using my new camera to catch high-speed action shots. Unfortunately, when I tried to purchase the tickets online, there was an error with the Ticketmaster checkout process that I didn’t realize until game night, a few days later. I had another ticket fiasco, too! I found an orchestra playing Star Wars music in Edmonton, so I bought tickets. In my excitement to secure them, I overlooked that the date was January 11, not December 11. I had bought tickets for the wrong month. The owner of my Airbnb rental was not as appreciative as I would have been if someone had gifted me free Star Wars tickets 6 […]
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On my way into the USA, I spent a couple of nights with my friend, Vince, who hosted me in his mansion. We always have fun eating and drinking too much together. Vince does all the cooking, but it’s okay because I make up for it by doing most of the eating. He is an accomplished amateur chef who has been highly inspired by Anthony Bourdain to both travel the world and become an excellent cook. When I’m lucky, Vince fires up his backyard brick oven to grill steaks or takes out his salt slab to bake chocolate chip cookies. Tiberius (Ti) and Augustus (Gus), Vince’s two Beauceron dogs, are always the additional members of the party. Thanks again for hosting me, Vince. My time at your house really feels like I’m at home, and it gives me insight and awareness into the lifestyle I have forgone (sacrificed?) in order to navigate my own path in life. You are a positive affirmation and influence that someday I might find my own peaceful and happy place with two dogs and an outside brick oven where I can be content to live and also stay.
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My 79-year-old father fell off a horse in October while riding a horse in Wyoming. He broke his neck and had a severe concussion. The path to recovery was a difficult one over the course of the following months. As my brother and sister were stateside, they took on the majority of the support operations along with my father’s wife, while he was nursed back to health by hospital medical staff. It was a grueling and arduous path to recovery for everyone involved. To show support and help orient and align the family to the next steps in his continuing recovery, my siblings and I visited my father in early December. At that time, it was a difficult process to confront the changes in our father and his life since the accident. A lot of good did come from our visit, though I believe most of it was the time my siblings and I were able to spend with each other. Our parents were divorced when I was very young, and my siblings and I mostly grew up apart from each other. My brother and sister have happy, loving spouses and families of their own now, which is a credit […]
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I spent Thanksgiving in Kansas City, Missouri, visiting my brother, his family, and my mother and stepfather. It’s my favorite holiday of the year—partly because it features dishes I rarely eat outside this one meal. I went in with high expectations for pumpkin pie, and, as always, my brother delivered. He also organized a game of Dungeons & Dragons so I could join him and his friends. (For the record, I play a level 3 satyr bard named Lyrican Shadowstrum—a wandering urchin with trust issues and a staff that magically grows flowers.) I’m not great at the quick arithmetic of ability scores, but I love the storytelling, and Lyrican’s floral staff is hard not to like. After Thanksgiving, I hosted Marce for a few days. She’s vegetarian, so she skipped the turkey dinner, but she enjoyed exploring Kansas City—a place most visitors to the U.S. tend to overlook. Autumn made it even cozier, and it was a treat to share it with her and the family. Sadly, my beloved Fujifilm X100T camera—my constant travel companion since 2015—died just before I arrived. I’ve taken over 50,000 photos with it, many of which are on this site. That camera fit my right […]
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To keep my days in the U.S. under 35 in 2024 for tax purposes, I spent a week in Cancun before flying back to visit my brother for Thanksgiving. I went fully “basic” — two different all-inclusive resorts, sun, sand, and cocktails. And honestly? It was awesome. There’s a certain crowd of travelers who dismiss all-inclusive resorts, seeing them as soulless vacation factories where people lounge around instead of exploring local culture or history. I get that perspective but this trip gave me a newfound appreciation for destinations designed purely for fun. When I arrived in Cancun, I hadn’t taken real time off work since my trip to the Seychelles two years earlier. Working for myself means every day off is a day without income, so I kept working a bit during the trip. But when I wasn’t working, it felt like a vacation in the best sense. The resort food was exceptional, the beaches in Cancun’s hotel zone far exceeded expectations (genuinely fantastic), and perhaps most surprising of all was the value. I can’t think of another international spot with such high quality at such a bargain. I did manage a day trip to Chichén Itzá, the famous Mayan […]
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After Taiwan, I spent some time visiting my sister and her family in California. The easiest and most comfortable entry point into the USA, ever! Thank you, sister for the delicious food and hospitality, comfortable workspace, and cozy family time.
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I’m grateful I had the chance to visit Ukraine in 2019—before Russia’s invasion changed everything. I’ve had similar feelings about Taiwan. It feels like a place living on borrowed time, quietly awaiting a potential Chinese invasion. One of the central themes of my experience in Taiwan was the striking convergence of Japanese and Chinese cultural and historical influences. I was surprised to hear some locals express openness to the idea of Chinese rule, believing it might bring improvements to infrastructure, governance, and quality of life. Of course, not everyone shares that view. Like anywhere else, Taiwan has its own political factions, each with distinct perspectives and interests. Hearing those views firsthand was eye-opening. Taiwanese cuisine reflects the island’s cultural hybridity—rooted in its own traditions while clearly shaped by both Chinese and Japanese elements. Traditional Mandarin is still spoken here, making Taiwan one of the few places where simplified characters aren’t the norm. While some people spoke English—especially in cosmopolitan Taipei—English menus weren’t common. That said, locals were consistently kind and patient as I fumbled my way through conversations in Mandarin. In one surreal moment, I walked into a 7-Eleven and ran into Kevin, an old friend I hadn’t seen since […]
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