Over the years when talking to a foreign tourist who has come to my motherland for the very first time I've gotten used to hearing expressions such as "wow! I see you have restaurants in Iran!", or "Believe me Iran was not what I'd thought", "I never thought you had such a beautiful country" and so on. For the global public opinions and the mass majority who do not have any particular way of knowing a distant land rather than relying on the … [Read more...]
Persepolis; The Magnificence of Asian History
There are currently nine world heritage sites registered to UNESCO from Iran: Persepolis is the first of them all. Persepolis is the main symbol of Persian culture and civilization for Iranians around the globe and is reckoned a source of honor for young people in modern day Iran. The architectural traits of this ceremonial palace make it a unique site in the country -- and the world -- and an attraction for thousands of tourists who … [Read more...]
The Fire Temples of Darius
Just down the street from where the Ayatollah Khomeini's simple house stands in a leafy northern suburb of Tehran, someone had scrawled the following on a wall: 'America: there is not a damn thing you can do!' It was spray painted in English. Elsewhere, I spotted large murals depicting skulls on the American flag with the words "Down with the USA!" across it. Also in English. None of this came as a shock to me; in fact I expected to see such … [Read more...]
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles anchors the heart of Southern California and LA is the 'King' here in the south land. International tourists who visit California often say to me, I visited Los Angeles and San Francisco, and I really didn't like Los Angeles, but San Francisco was so awesome; it is such a small city - easy to get around, manageable, picturesque etc. Well that is not what LA is about. To the casual visitor Los Angeles can be extremely overwhelming to … [Read more...]