Tag: travel
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Oh, hey, Canada! Notes on National Holidays for the Globally-Wired Brain
As some of you may have gleaned through recent subtext in my posts, I am secretly Canadian. Secretly in the sense that unless my status as a Canadian actually comes up directly in conversation, I don’t tend to talk about it or write about it or even think about it really. It’s not in any…
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2nd Tier City, 1st Class Hotel: A Totally Impractical Review of Hangzhou Oakwood Residence
As you may know, my Super Secret job with the linguistic CIA sends me all over China to do covert linguistic operations. If I told you more about what I do for a living, they’ll kill Noam Chomsky. We can’t have that. What I can do, however, is to use my extensive experience and critical…
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Notes on Scuba Diving in Thailand (and Elsewhere) for the Non-Amphibious
When I was about five years old I had a dream. It was one of the very few I ever remembered after waking up and is probably the only one I still remember vividly 30 or so years after it was dreamt. I’ll spare you the details, as dreams are generally of little interest to…
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Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou
I’ve been on a bit of a ‘zhou bender in the past month, flitting around the Eastern seaboard of China with two 4-day stints in Hangzhou and one down in Fuzhou. Given this, I should be writing a top ten list of places to visit, delightful things to see, local delicacies to sample, cultural curiosities…
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7 Reasons Why Sri Lanka is More Badass Than You Could Ever Hope to Be
Sri Lanka is kicking our ass. Yes, this elegant, soft-spoken, fragrant and verdant island is far tougher than it appears on the surface (and I’m not even going to go into the whole civil war thing here). How do I know for sure that Sri Lanka is a true badass disguised in a waft…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #2: Connie Hum of Connvoyage
Welcome to the second in my series of interviews with expats, re-pats, un-pats, quarter-pats and half-pats. For this one, I bring you Connie Hum of Connvoyage. Once upon a time, not too long ago in a parallel universe, Connie had an awesome apartment in New York and a job at an international consulting firm. She…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #1: Nancy Lewis of Wandering Solo
Welcome to the first interview in a series that has not yet had its parameters defined. I’ve loosely determined that I want to talk to as many people as possible (or at least until I start annoying people and cease-and-desist comments begin to outnumber spam) about a topic that has been banging around quite…
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Travelling Yourself Into a Corner: On Impulse Control and Unplanned Stability
It looks like we’re going to be here in Shanghai for a while. Doug has just signed a three year contract with his school; I have another year left on my two-year contract. We own a slow cooker, a full set of cutlery and several potted plants (which are somehow still alive), including one…
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Berfumery and Hosbitality in Cairo
We will start with Mohammed Ali and the perfumists of Cairo. We wandered down the mad and busy streets between the meydans, searching for a cafe, a restaurant, anything for a hint of food. Do Caireans eat? There are bags and watches and travel agencies and tea houses but we could find no food…
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(101 Things About Shanghai) Taxis
Taxis in Shanghai aren’t actually particularly nifty but they are remarkably cheap and easy to get around in. A half hour trip from deepest, darkest Pudong to Puxi, with bags and bags of illicit espresso in tow and no desire to take the Metro? 30 yuan max! A half hour trip out to the…