“Welcome to Fiji”, announced the captain of the Atlantic Pacific, Boeing 747-400. It had been a 10 hour and 45 minute flight from Los Angeles to Nadi, the third largest municipality on the Viti Levu Isle. Fiji was the first stop of a Cultural-Volunteer Expedition Lead by Carpe Diem followed by, New Zealand, and Australia. Our purpose was to live, learn, and aid, to fully acclimate ourselves in the spirit of Fiji. As the team left the plane, we … [Read more...]
A night of fun in Bangkok
We started the evening meeting up with the engaging and very accomplished @somcity for a tour of Lebua State Tower Hotel. Lebua made appearances in the movies, Bangkok Dangerous starring Nicholas Cage and the crazy Hangover II. As a result a visit here is also popular with tourists. Lebua tried to maintain strict standards of dress but when Hangover II came out, tourists started showing up in shorts and t shirts and flip flops and during our … [Read more...]
Ecuador – Chocaholics Paradise
The first ´traveller´ to sample chocolates bitter sweet charms was Christopher Columbus in 1502, although it´s likely that the Indigenous Maya and Aztec people had already been drinking it for the previous thousand years. The cacao bean itself had originated in South America millions of years before and is now being reclaimed by its discoverers, yep, chocolate is coming home. Artisan and organic chocolate is the subject on every foodie´s … [Read more...]
Beirut in the Baltics
John M. Edwards is drawn into the Wild Wild East of “Europe Minor.” After the collapse of communism in the USSR, inflation in the freshly minted Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia rolled up the ruble into the cheapest toilet paper around, so I decided to go East and stock up. I needed a cheap place to wipe my ass because I was then unemployed, and an Orwellian year of freelancing in Paris had left me as restless … [Read more...]
The Secret of Happiness: London (UK)
On Shakespeare's "Sceptr'd Isle," in London, John M. Edwards is confronted by an Aggro Cockney near Hyde Park's Free-Speech Forum: "Speaker's Corner" I once came across a swarthy gentleman wearing a sign around his neck emblazoned with the words, “The Secret of Happiness." Obviously a palmed pound coin could loosen the red rascal’s lips. Even if the “secret” was passed down generation to generation by word of mouth within a Da Vinci … [Read more...]
Get dirty, get partying at Antigua resorts
Never have I gone to a party at the house of someone who owns an all-inclusive Caribbean resort. Nor have I rooted in slimy muck of a saltwater lagoon at another all inclusive with its chef, foraging for food to cook and eat. But I did both, in gloriously fun fashion, at Curtain Bluff and Hermitage Bay, two resorts on Antigua in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies, where the rich and famous have homes, such as Georgio Armani, Richard … [Read more...]
One of the Keys to Happiness is a Bad Memory.
For the past decade, I’ve had this recurring nightmare. It involves concrete apartment structures hundreds and hundreds of stories tall and one city block wide. I’m usually stuck on one of the top floors, which are so high in the sky that small communities complete with little stores and schools have been established up there. Rickety walkways strung from windows connect the buildings so the tenants don’t have to make the journey down and back … [Read more...]
A relaxing day in Fiji
After the stresses of non stop travel the past month I was ready for some serious R&R. Seashell Momi is a Diver's and Surfer's hangout about 45 minutes south of the capital Nadi. Arriving in the dark after passing through beautiful green hills as far as the eye could see, I simply crashed. It was 8pm. I awoke the next morning, 14 hours later at 10am - still tired but certainly more refreshed. Apparently there are only 5 people staying here out of … [Read more...]
Touring Australia’s Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley, when compared to the age of the European wine regions is rather young. However if you look deeper you realize there is a lot of "history" here. These are some of the oldest soils on the planet - the mountain ranges have been so well weathered they are now just gentle rolling hills. The Barossa is one of Australia's earliest wine regions - having been founded not by the British but by German settlers in the early 1840's. … [Read more...]
Dispatch: The Berlin Stories Check-in at Checkpoint Charlie
Separated from his student tour group in East Berlin, a much younger John M. Edwards gets seriously lost and says, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (I am a doughnut!), but, er, for exactly how long? It’s a race against time to find “Chuck” and bust through the border crossing before the “Iron Curtain” closes. . . . For numerology fans, both the first Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock and the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall fell on my birthday: … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- …
- 151
- Next Page »