Blog

Like many Americans, I grew up watching baseball.  My team, the Oakland Athletics, played in the clunky old Oakland Coliseum, known for its broken seats, peeling paint, power outages, and failing sound systems.  Described as a “bland, charmless concrete monstrosity,” the Coliseum had a massive foul territory that pushed the fans far from the field.  […]

When you’re planning a trip to Athens, you go to the Acropolis. When you’re planning a trip to Agra, you go to the Taj Mahal. When you’re planning a trip to Pisa, you go to the Leaning Tower.   There are some cities that are just known for their one, primary tourist attraction.  Not that [...]

Those of us “of a certain age” remember the good old days of travel when one could go to the airport, walk right up to the gate, and meet our friends and family as they arrived or departed. Wasn’t it fantastic? In those heady days pre-9/11/2021, we were still required to pass through x-ray machines, […]

Years ago, on a trip to Florence, Italy, a friend and I find ourselves at a restaurant known for its “blueberry steak.” If that sounds like a strange combination of flavors, it certainly is. I imagine a scenario in which the chef’s husband spills a jar of blueberries on a freshly-grilled t-bone sitting on their […]

I never really knew our neighbor, Mrs. Jarvis, when I was growing up. Although I was occasionally friendly with her son, Ricky, his mother was essentially a mystery to me. Until Halloween night, that is, when she would deck herself out as an evil, cackling witch, stir the bubbling contents of a giant cauldron, and […]

I recently delivered a Powerpoint presentation at my local Toastmasters club about the three things that always stand out for me when traveling in Japan, namely: 1) Over-the-top Customer Service 2) Stunning Natural Beauty 3) Deliciously-Baffling Mysteries All of these things I experienced in spades on my recent trip to Hokkaido, most particularly at two […]

To receive the honor of visiting the Shiretoko Goko (Five Lakes) in Northeast Hokkaido, you need to follow a process. First you buy an admission ticket from a machine for 250 yen (~ $2). Next you fill out a registration form. Finally, you attend a 15-minute briefing session, geared towards disseminating proper trail behavior – […]

I’ve seen the Statue of Liberty three times: once in New York (on Liberty Island), once in Paris (on the Île aux Cygnes, an artificial island in the Seine River) and once in Tokyo (on Odaiba Island). What a strange, disorienting experience it is, seeing a landmark from one place suddenly transplanted to a completely […]

Am I the only one who wonders why Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco is such a boring place? I mean, here you have one of the most famous chocolate brands in the world, Ghirardelli Chocolate, but where’s the fanciful factory? The Oompa Loompas? The lickable wallpaper? What could have been a magical, Willy Wonka experience, […]

Don’t get me wrong: Otaru, Japan is not Fisherman’s Wharf, Time’s Square, or Niagara Falls. But it’s cut from the same cloth. It’s a town that I was prepared to adore. A port city on Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost island), Otaru sits on a bay about 90 minutes northwest of Sapporo. One of the first towns […]