Tokyo’s Piss Alley and Golden Gai areas used to be very Japanese, and thus very exclusive, but a revisit five years later shows them to be now astonishingly touristy. What to think when a place changes?
Sometimes when traveling, the town you choose for your home base isn’t all that whippy, such as Nazare, Portugal. Nothing to do but hang in low-rate places.
It’s tempting to stay at your hotel for an easy breakfast when traveling, but please let me tell you why it’s so much more rewarding to venture out.
Kyoto has a massive number of sights, and you need more than a listing; you need a solid strategy to tackle them. Here, let me lay out a way to think about tackling a visit to Kyoto.
Pan amb oli (panamboli) or Pan con tomate is a canonical, beloved dish of Spain’s Mallorca island and of Catalonia, but gosh it’s simple. Can bread with tomato and olive oil really be considered a composed dish? An outsider contemplates what makes a dish a dish.
One form of fine dining in Osaka Japan is called Kappo, where everyone sits together at a counter in front of the open kitchen. Here’s my experience in one place.
You want to see Switzerland. We all do. The mountains, the lakes, the cheese and chocolate, yes yes. Plus there are watches and army knives involved. But the country is prohibitively expensive, and you don’t have a secret Swiss bank account to cover it. How does one travel to Switzerland cheaply?
Have you ever seen animals killed in front of you? The Toraja region of Sulawesi, Indonesia is obsessed with death. In my visit to their villages, I saw ritual sacrifice in a funeral, cliff graves, skulls, and lots of blood.
The bar is one of humankind’s greatest inventions, but Western and Eastern traditions are different. Let me run down a Western perspective of the characteristics of an Asian bar, what makes bars in East Asia different and interesting.
What to do on a rainy day in Osaka? This city, not known for its must-see sights, is woven with covered arcade market streets called shotengai. Some are like any shopping streets, others dedicated to a niche such as kitchenware, and one brilliant one holds a food market made for snacking. Here is how to explore these, whether it’s raining or not.
What to do in Paris on a Sunday? Yes, many things are closed, but let me provide you with several ideas and plans for making the most of a Sunday, without leaving town.
You need to see some ruins when you’re in Sicily, because they have much, and some are brilliant. Once easy site is Solunto, in the northwest, for the ruins, the view, the setting, the very easy day-trip, and the sense of place.
