Category: Travel Log

Beating back the darkness, Tokyo style

My wife and I wandered around downtown Tokyo, shuffling through our jetlag. It was Saturday night and it felt like mid-afternoon. 2pm? But it wasn’t the jetlag. And it wasn’t that siesta effect you get in super hot-time-in-the-summer cities —…

Las Vegas-style entertainment

So I’ve always heard that Las Vegas was known for having something for everybody. Harley Davidson-brand pedicures? Check. A shadow-puppet show featuring the songs of Hugo Chavez? Check. Guys who wear blue face paint and speak in pig latin? I’m…

Travel Tip

Here’s a travel tip that works for me and might work great for you too! When I’m away from home, sometimes I’ll see somebody on a cab line or in the hotel lobby who looks like my friend Dave. And…

Happy to be here

I flew into Chicago on Sunday. When I got off the plane I was greeted by a sign that said, “We’re happy you’re here.” Just like that — in quotes. And I’ll admit it, the quote marks stung. I thought…

To Raleigh’s and back

I spend so much time with my own tribe nowadays. You just get used to it, being around your own tribe. So it was a good, healthy shock to the system to go inside Raleigh’s today in Berkeley and find…

Travel blog postscript: #1

I have a few notes from our trip that didn’t make it into the heart of the travel log. I’ll be posting them here over the next few days because, quite frankly, these are important observations, too important for me…

Kicking it baby-style

We’re back in the States now, and I realize I nearly forgot to mention the time I came this close to getting into a fist fight with a Belgian chocolatier. We were buying truffles and, having already bought a bag…

And speaking of Gouda….

We spent a swell morning in the town of Gouda today, where my 9-year-old daughter offered up this memorable quote: Daddy? I forget. Oh wait — I remember. Daddy — compared to Gouda, American cheese is vomit. And I say,…

Young Gouda, I’m coming for ya….

When I was seven, my folks moved our family to Holland where we lived for the next five years. A big motivator for this trip has been my longstanding desire to make that return to wooded Wassenaar with my wife…