Category: Country Life / City Lights

OK, maybe all of you already know this, but I was very impressed to find it out. I have been using the word ‘haoli’ – white guy, outsider – to describe myself when in Japan, Korea, or any Asian country. I was vaguely aware that it was slightly pejorative, but hell, I am as WASP-y… Read more

It’s difficult for an East Coaster to find ‘island time’. I got here a few days early ahead of my pair of Hawaiian classes, They’re bracketed this year by our two sets of dissection classes, and the absolute focus required in the lab – two cohorts of Japanese, well-meaning and well disciplined, but still, people… Read more

My otherwise spare hotel room has the standard German window that either opens like a door or tips in a little from the top if you twist the handle the other ways. Leipzig’s air is sweet and clean, so I have opened it wide – to the sound of church bells. The Nicholas Church is… Read more

Hazel, the rather tall local KMI practitioner, took me for a much-needed walk (she strides – I pumped my little legs to stay with her) up to this radio tower at the top of Sugarloaf, above the city of Christchurch, NZ. On the way, through a welter of mountain bike and ‘tramping’ trails (they’re all… Read more

Dear Annie, When stranded in a seaside city, one can do worse than taking the local ferries to get the ‘lay of the land’ – from the water. Someone with a day to kill in Portland can take the Casco Bay lines out to the islands, and of course we recommend our students on the… Read more

I had to turn to at 5 to get out of Beijing before the traffic. The closest point is 2 hours north, and my host’s partner Miss Bei drove David and I up in the dark. After a soporific ride out through the worsening ‘weather’ (pollution), it was still dark when we arrived and just… Read more