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Rainbow over Lhasa, Tibet
So I went up on the rooftop of the Shangri-La Hotel in ...
Rainbow over Lhasa, Tibet
So I went up on the rooftop of the Shangri-La Hotel in Lhasa, hoping to get a nice shot of the Potala Palace at sunset. I was sitting on a couch in the lounge when a friend said, “Have you seen the rainbow?” I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting, so it was […]
Surprises Along the W: Trekking Patagonia’s Torres del Paine
I realize now that trekking the ‘W’ in Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park was something I should have been better prepared for. So when I heard recently that World Expeditions was looking for #BestMountainTrek stories and personal experiences in Patagonia, these memories of our haphazard planning and some of the surprises we encountered came […]
The Terra Cotta Army, Xian, China
I was prepared not to like the Terra Cotta Warriors of Xian. Despite the fact that everyone has already seen images of the thousands of clay figures, I was more than slightly skeptical as to whether seeing them would be worth the effort it takes to get to Xian from Beijing. We got up very […]
Taipei Tips and Highlights
Taipei, I hardly knew ya. We traveled to Taipei for one week–sandwiched between Hong Kong and Seoul–and the challenge was to take it easy so I could recover from a knee injury, but still visit the top sites and get to know a corner of the city. The taking it easy part was the hardest. […]
The Temple of Heaven, Beijing
One of the coolest things about this pavilion in the Temple of Heaven complex, other than the spectacular painting of course, was the fact that these galleries wound around the park in various directions, and every 10 meters or so, there was a group of old men or old women just chatting away. Of course, […]
The Great Wall Near Beijing, China
It’s hard to say anything original about the Great Wall of China, other than according to some astronauts’ accounts I’ve read, you really can’t see it from space. The Great Wall, especially the Badaling section near Beijing where we went today, is like pretty much everywhere else we’ve been in China–teeming with tourists. But luckily […]
The Moat of the Forbidden City, Beijing
Perhaps the hardest part of shooting in the Forbidden City of Beijing is trying to get just one shot that doesn’t have a thousand people in it. We’ve been to a lot of tourist attractions over the past six years, but I’ve never seen anything like the hordes here in China. And, like most everywhere […]
Young Women in Traditional Dress, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul, Korea
If you visit the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, in traditional Korean dress, you get free admission to the complex. We were there on a day where there was also an event featuring traditional Korean music, so the attendees in traditional dress must have numbered in the hundreds. And, they’re all to happy to pose for […]
Two Temples in Taipei
It’s an odd quirk of the Unesco World Heritage system that there are no World Heritage sites in Taiwan. It’s politics, you see. According to China, Taiwan is China. (Of course, according to Taiwan, Taiwan is the Republic of China.) So, in Unesco’s eyes, they can’t name any sites in Taiwan as World Heritage sites, […]
Jongmyo Shrine, Seoul, South Korea
The Jongmyo Shrine in Seoul is a Confucian shrine that was built to serve as the venue for the memorial services of the Korean dynasty that ruled from the 14th to 19th Century. The rooms house the “tablets” which pertain to the dead kings and queens, and the long row of rooms is not open […]
