Moscow does hidden bars right. There’s no pretense of secret doors hidden behind a bookshelf, or phone booths where you dial just the right number. No. Moscow speakeasies do not want to be found. They conceal themselves well — behind unmarked metal…
Travel Tips: Yokohama
Yokohama doesn’t have the crowds of Tokyo, the quiet charm of Kyoto, nor the frenetic buzz of Osaka. But it does have the sea. There’s a beautiful port and the remnants of Yohokama’s former past as the window into Japanese…
Travel Tips: Harbin
I just came back from a frigid, yet incredible weekend in Harbin, where I flew to visit the ice and snow festival. Harbin is a must-do in the winter in China. The Ice Festival is Disneyland meets Elsa’s castle from…
How to get to the DMZ (and get back safely)
There are two security checkpoints at the DMZ. We take out our passports and an armed guard verifies them against the passport numbers we provided at the start of the morning. He gives a salute to our van driver, who…
Cold beer and Korean BBQ
I get off the train of Hongkik University and the first thing I notice is how good it smells. Seriously, there’s an entire two block stretch that smells like sweet buttermilk biscuits, Cajun fries, and fried chicken. There’s a small…
When it rains..
This weekend, it poured. It didn’t just pour, it typhooned. I got caught in a massive rainstorm running errands on Saturday and hid out under an awning on Changle Lu while the rain came down in sheets and other people…
Homecoming
I never got around to publishing this last week. I’m working on something about my time in St. Petersburg now, but my feelings are so different from what I wrote last week that I feel this needs to be published…
Are we too old to go to Thailand?
I looked like I belonged on Khao San road, but something still didn’t feel right.
So you're taking your American boyfriend to meet your Russian grandmother
You will cut down an apple tree. You will saw apple wood for barbecue, eat the barbecue chicken straight off the skewer outside, and drink vodka for lunch because it fits the occasion. D is with me visiting my grandparents…
Home-Coming
The first few hours in Russia are always unbearable, brutal. I’m accosted by the smells of male sweat masked by deodorant, smoked meats, and the sweet-acidity of the metro that hits you as soon as you enter the station and descend 60…
Terracotta warriors, biang biang noodles, and other things you can't find in Shanghai Part II
In which we finally see the terracotta warriors and I search in vain for non-squat toilets in Western China.. The first day in Xi’an, I learn three things: When you are on the back seat of a tandem bike on…
Terracotta warriors, biang biang noodles, and other things you can't find in Shanghai Part I
Parts of western China seem trapped between the ravages of 1970s Russian communism and pre-1920s Chinese imperialism