Took a trip to Japan in September 2016 with my parents, sisters, bro-in-law, nephew after our visit to Malaysia. It’s not often I get to travel abroad with my entire family and I had such a blast with them. I don’t think Japan is a stranger to anyone. We all know visitors go there for…
Author: KK
The spoils of travel
I had previously volunteered at this retirement home teaching the residents how to use Facebook, Skype, YouTube etc. You know, trying to make them “hip” and “cool” except I was only making them as “hip” and as “cool” as myself, a tech-dinosaur in comparison to the current generation. After these lessons, I gave out an…
Keep Portland Weird
If you took Austin, shrunk it, surrounded it with lush greenery, put a snow-capped mountain in the backdrop, added convenient public transportation, added light rain, and threw in a beautiful beach just outside the city which required a scenic drive to get to, you’d get Portland. It had that laid-back weird eccentric vibe, much like…
The Cenotes
Underground pools of fresh, clear, cold water. Stalactites and stalagmites. Fish. It’s quite another experience swimming in a cenote. It’s recommended during the hottest and sunniest hours of the day though, because the sunlight that penetrates the holes in the roof is the only element warming up the waters. Cenotes come in all varieties. The…
Bug tacos!
The caviar of the Aztec empire. That’s what they’re calling “escamoles” or ant larvae. Cooked in a buttery sauce and priced the same as actual caviar (not that I would know), escamoles is a delicacy that one has to hunt around a little bit for around Mexico City. Or visit one of the restaurants listed…
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo. She of the unibrow and colorful dresses. Although I recognized her name and have seen multiple pictures of her work, usually self-portraits complete with unibrow and colorful dresses, I never actually paid close attention to who she was and why she was such a big deal. They even made a movie about her,…
Scuba diving
Every time I talk to someone about scuba diving, they give me the same reply: “I don’t like being submerged in water”. Water covers roughly 70% of the Earth. I’d consider scuba diving a form of travel. We are traveling to parts of Earth that can’t be reached by train or plane or walking. To…
Skydiving
Took a while to get this crossed off the bucket list but it finally happened. Went to San Marcos with a coworker and his buddy. Arrived 2 pm, geared up around 5, jumped out around 5:15 with my tandem instructor Chris and my videographer Yoshi. Felt tiny bit of nerves prior to arrival but then…
Life Beneath The Waves – Deep Eddy
My coworker and friend Brent gave me a CD last week that he recorded with his band. The album was called ‘Life Beneath The Waves’. On its cover, we the viewer see a scuba diver from the underside. The sun is showing just above the water. I asked him if he could sign it with…
Montreal et Quebec City
Me: “Bonjour”Them: “Yes, can I help you?”Me: “Uh yes…can I get combo #1 please… Merci.” I wanted to impress the locals with my rudimentary command of French but in the end, nobody had time to entertain a tourist. They just want to do their jobs and get on with life. Fair enough. Unless I was…