So we, two lively backpackers, or as I labelled us budding ‘Rational Internationals’ were on our way to Huế (pronounced ‘Hway’), an understated city in the centre of Vietnam. The cosy flipside to the pandemonium of Hanoi. Puns such as ‘Hue to go!’ would be common to the ear amongst Westerners. We’d been on a … Continued
Wandering through the magnificent boot shaped country, I believed I had stepped foot in a nineteenth century film with the sights of old brick stone structures, painted walls, narrow roads, and stained-glass churches. As a child, surrounded by new sights and smells, I was beyond curious about the new world I was witnessing and had … Continued
The garden of quiet contemplation I had been travelling for several days in Japan when I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. While Tokyo is a buzzing metropolis of tailored business suits and costumed Sailor Moon look-alikes, Kyoto is like a geisha, elegant and discrete. You see geishas in the Gion district … Continued
I am red and hot and smelly. I yank my large backpack off the back of the taxi motorcycle and look up to see my first glimpse of the Casimiro Huanca Quechua Indigenous University. The gates are large and iron, artfully screening the bricked academic buildings and a horizon trimmed by feathers of treetops. Just … Continued
Surprise Mother!” My three children exclaimed. It was the day before Mother’s Day and they had something special planned for me. I was going to spend a glorious time at Lincoln Terrace Park (also known as Arthur S. Somers Park) on a photo shoot. We took a quick drive to start my photo shoot at … Continued
Pagudpud, Philippines….thank you! My bare feet first touched the sands. It felt so warm, so comforting, and thought to myself how the sun must have done a pretty good job in warming up the ocean shores. The waves beckoned me to touch it, to feel it, see what it has to offer, and so … Continued
THE RAT It had not been an easy year. The three jobs I’d had since arriving in South-East Asia almost a year ago had been a comedy of errors. If errors include getting stitches from motorcycle crashes. The third job was on a small island in southern Thailand that had once been called “everything that … Continued
I am an unemployed 28-year old college graduate from an accredited American University who is currently sleeping in a single bed in a spare room in her estranged parent’s house. I’ve worked countless hours as a teenager, as a college student and as an adult to get me to this prestigious pinnacle of my nonexistent … Continued
Where do you feel most grateful? Those holiday moments when I am excessively smothered with my families love, encompassed by the stark contrast of warmth emitted from the fireplace in comparison to the fresh, frigid gusts of Montanan snow flurrying against the windowpanes, I feel grateful. That ideal combination of unconditional love, both natural and … Continued
July 27, 2012, one year since the most devastating day of our lives, Erika and I wound our way toward Table Rock State Park north of Greenville, South Carolina. A gigantic rectangular granite expanse loomed in the distance. Cherokee legend honors this mountain as the dining table of the Great Spirit and the smaller mountain … Continued