“It’s like we’re high,” said my friend Eileen, and I laughed because she was right. We had headed out for a walk in my neighborhood but it was impossible for us to move forward, everything was wrapped in a sparkling clear layer of glassy ice and we needed to look all of it. Twice. Up …
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Sunny, our affable hiking guide, told the Brazilian Princess (BP) and me we had two options: spend the first trek night in a local villager’s home, or sleep over in a Buddhist monastery. Immediately visions popped into my head of spunky young novice monks waking us with gentle Burmese chanting in a bright, sunlit building …
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Somewhere in a flat or house in China is a Lonely Planet phrasebook in Mandarin which used to belong to me. It has ‘Anis Ibrahim, Feb 2005’ in big, happy letters on the inside cover. I met Fan on the T56, the overnight train from Xian to Beijing. When I first saw him, he was …
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We interrupt this month of guest posts for some pictures from the ice storm in Seattle.
Consider the sailboat plying the waters off Waikiki. With its billowy sails unfurling in the wind, a bow pointed toward the wide-open oceanic spaces of points unknown, the sailboat evokes a certain set of feelings and passions and desires. There are few images as iconic. For some, the sailboat represents romance—locales of tropical and forbidden …
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A driftwood sign at the end of the beach trail has an arrow pointing back towards the mainland: “Reality, 5 miles.” After hiking two and a half hours to the tip of the longest natural sand spit in the United States, you do feel removed from the rest of the world. For the general public, …
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