Travel Log

The hard part of planning is often choosing the places to visit.  For this, I’ve developed my own rating system to guide me.  It is a scale from 1-10, with 10 being a world-class must-see-before-you-exit-this-Earth type of place, while a 1 represents that neighborhood pizza shop with mediocre food that the locals love to frequent.

NOTE: This article was originally published on May 20, 2017, years before The Pandemic. I was cleaning up old posts on my blogs and thought I’d share this one again. Man, I really can’t wait to cruise and travel the world again! We went on a cruise! It was our fourth cruise. We’ve found that […]

“What’s in Iceland?” That’s what people would always ask whenever I told them I was going to Iceland. Most people have never left their home country. Even the travelers amongst us may have been to the airport in Iceland on their way to other places, but most have never stayed to explore. But why Iceland? […]

On New Year’s Day 1999, the American Eagle was removed from the United States quarter for the first time in over 200 years.  It was almost blasphemy.  The eagle was replaced by an image of Caesar. But wait, it wasn’t replaced by the laurel wreath-topped image of the Roman politician who died 2,000 years ago. […]

ASHBURN Virginia, U.S.A. About 35 miles west of Washington, D.C., on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, is the suburban community of Ashburn.  Until the past 20 years or so, Ashburn has been known mostly for its farms and large homes where the wealthy doctors, lawyers, and politicians have come to settle.  For football […]

Between 2002 and 2005 I made several trips to Taiwan, spending most of my time in and around Taipei. 2003 SARS paranoia In early 2003, I had just graduated from college and had a scholarship opportunity to study Mandarin Chinese language in Taipei, Taiwan.  It was a lucky break for me since my girlfriend at […]