It’s always the greenness of the drive which gets me; after I’ve left the airport and merged on to I5, whether it’s northbound from Seattle or southbound from Vancouver. It’s so easy to take a color for granted, but such a concentration of it after an extended absence makes me realize what I’ve missed. The …
travel tales
Farewell to My 20s!
Ten years. Looking ahead, it seems like such a long time, but looking back it’s amazing to see how the time has flown. It seems like such a short time ago that I was planning my first trip overseas. But then, when I think back to what I’ve done in that time, the span of …
Hiking Sinbulsan in the Yeongnam Alps
Whenever I’m away from mountains, I feel their absence. For those drawn to them, they are irreplaceable in our souls. It’s not just their beauty that draws us, but also the challenge they represent. An anvil to strike ourselves against to see the strength of our mettle. It has been far too long since I …
Riding a Scooter from Taipei to Taroko and Back Again
It’s been an adventure-less summer. Breaking my leg at the end of April meant that I spent most of the season getting to the point where I could walk again. While I’m still not 100%, I am finally able to be active, so I was eagerly awaiting my trip to Taiwan to meet up with …
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My Grandfather’s Coins
Travel is many things to many people. It is many things to me. But perhaps the thing I cherish most about travel is its ability to imbue meaning into other things. For memories of it to link to those of people and experiences, for it to entwine itself around the roots of who we are. …
Temple Stay at Golgulsa
The monk’s bones appeared to melt, turning him into a rag doll instead of an actual person. He wrapped his legs into a pretzel and pushed himself onto his fingertips. The crowd hooted and hollered as they took photo after photo, enthralled by the spectacle. I was at Golgulsa (골굴사) for the weekend, and we were …
I Used to Hate: A Look at How Travel Changed My Life
The person I was 10 years ago was very different from the one I am today. Development and change are intrinsic to living and growing, but what’s happened to me over the past decade has been more than typical maturation. I’m still me, to be sure, but so many things that I thought defined me have …
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The Hungry Ghost of Xingping
For a more complete experience, read the first in this series: The Haunting at Jangsa Beach. This story jumps the Yellow Sea from the Korean Peninsula to the karst-studded plains of Southern China. While the area now is beautiful and calm, dark secrets lie buried beneath its placid surface. That brings us to this story: …
The Peace of the Wild Things
I stepped out of the cab and was immediately assailed by a blast of hot, sticky Hong Kong air. The Sai Wan pavilion is nestled in a bend in the road and marks the starting point for several treks through Sai Kung East Country Park; I was there on a friend’s recommendation to escape the bustling madness of …
Fear and Loathing on the Pamir Highway
It was an awful night. Trapped at the border station on the Tajik side of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, my lack of acclimatization and over-exertions from the previous day had led to an intense bout of altitude sickness. I spent the night staggering from my bunk in the barracks to the pit toilet outside, alternating between …