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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It had been eight years since I was last in Thailand. When I left, I wasn’t in any rush to return. I had been living on the island of Koh Phangan, known for its wild parties, 20-something international travelers, bootleg moonshine that sometimes kills foreigners, and psychedelic mushroom shakes. I mostly kept out of trouble by crossing the island each day on my scooter, training on Haad Rin Beach, and swimming in the ocean. It wasn’t until I got to the departure airport that I realized I had overstayed my 30-day tourist visa by two days. As luck would have it, the local currency in my pocket covered the fine. When I was warned that the overstay might affect my ability to enter the country again in the future, I simply said, “Thank goodness,” and left without much desire to return. At the time, I knew there was much more to see, explore, and eat in Thailand—but it would be years before I felt any real pull to come back. You can only neglect a continent for so long (excluding Australia—highly neglectable, in my opinion). And when it comes to flying over a place en route to somewhere else, I’ve […]
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I chose Bangkok for a few days to cushion the entry and time-zone adjustment while re-acclimatizing Asia. It had been three years since I was in Asia and I needed to eat copious amounts of Thai food to back-fill my deficiencies upon re-entry. It was my first time in Bangkok, and I coasted by for a few days by working and walking around looking at Asian stuff in the streets. I did a food tour through the Chinatown district which is known for its variety and mix of cuisines.
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I spent a week in Tbilisi as a week-long reconnaissance trip stop-over on the way to Asia. As per usual, it served the intended purpose of scratching the surface of a place I’ve never visited before (but have been desiring to) and paving the way for coming back again for longer to do and see more, with a better idea of where to stay and what I will do. I had a busy work schedule while I was visting that had me glued to my kitchen table work desk more than I would prefer, but even that was a fun thing. I was staying in a very old AirBnb with very high ceilings (wood embossed), and large cracks through the walls and concrete floors. It had this dilapidated, dusty charm that I decided suited me well. Gigantic windows faced and overlooked the historic center 15 minutes walk down a hill. It was a cool place to be glued to my desk. My shifted work hours had me finishing past midnight most nights, but luckily enough there was still time for a quick ten-minute stroll down the hill to find a local restaurant still serving traditional Georgian fare. One place I […]
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I spent a week in Budapest to follow up on last year’s first visit. This time around, I had enough time to walk around the city and explore more. I stayed in the city center, an area crawling with ex-pats, digital nomads, and short-term vacationers. I wasn’t able to get as much of a local feel for how the city operates outside of these influences as I would have liked — my own fault. Next time I hope to spend more time, and outside of this vacationer bubble. I did manage to escape during a rainy weekend outside of the city to an Airbnb in the town of Pécs, which was the perfect weekend hideaway from the storm of cold, wind, and rain. Another highlight of Budapest this time around was my visit to a locally famous bodybuilding gym, which is apparently often frequented by Hollywood movie stars who spend time filming in Budapest. I didn’t see any, but there were a lot of pictures on the wall of them with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems to have some sort of association with the gym—there was a metal statue of a Terminator robot in the gym’s lobby. AS visiting local gyms […]
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When I was in Madrid this summer I had drinks with my friends, Adam and JP, who invited me to join them in on two islands in Greece for two weeks while we worked remotely. Of course I accepted – I hadn’t been to Greece since the 1990s, and never to an Greek island. We spent the first 5 days on the island of Kos, a small island, and then moved to Rodos, which was much larger. I had a lot of work to do while we were there, but so did the guys. We did a good job of balancing the work with exploration, beach time, the gym, drinks and conversation, and eating as much Greek food as we could. I thought both Kos and Rodos were really great. I was surprised at how delicious the food was — authentic, inexpensive and plentiful too. The three of us relished the local house wines, flavors and dishes at a local bistro whose father and son made their small homestyle operation seem effortless. We kept returning for the beef liver that didn’t taste like you always expect liver to taste — livery. Our local neighborhood didn’t have other tourists and it […]
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A week in Bratislava, for the first time. The city is underrated as a European summer destination – the streets aren’t packed with tourists and the architecture is beautiful. I attended a boat party on the Danube River which was a great way to spent an August evening.
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