The second week of July, members of the Facebook group Seoul Brew Club started posting photos of Stone IPA and Ruination 2.0 to their community page. In this way, the group of homebrewers and beer …
July 18, 2015
Asia: travel reviews
Seoul bump
Juan’s foreign affairs, cont’d
Fresh from an April junket with his wife in the Bavarian Alps paid for by nonprofit foundations backed by German industrialists, House Democrat Juan Vargas embarked alone on another free foreign journey in May, thanks …
July 1, 2015
After the Wave: Sumatra, Indonesia
While living in Asia I decided to travel a bit. My first stop was the island of Sumatra, Indonesia – devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 230,000 people in 14 different …
May 21, 2015
Grandma drove a tank while pregnant in 1948 Jerusalem
Israel was the first foreign country I visited, in 1980, four months after I was born. Although my Jewish-ish parents didn’t take my brother and me to temple, I went to the Holy Land six …
May 20, 2015
The real Chiang Rai
After easing through Phuket and bustling through Bangkok, the Northern mountainous jungle villages of Chiang Rai left the friendly smiles of the big cities behind. My first impression of Chiang Rai? Holy crap! Never before …
May 4, 2015
Ağva's "Club Bar"
My friend Saba and I decided to take a trip outside of Istanbul to Ağva, a vacation village in the mountains, by the Black Sea. Saba is a native Turk, but she majored in American …
March 31, 2015
Adventures in Tawi-Tawi
Editor's note: The author visited Tawi Tawi in 2007. There are a few more accommodations there now, it looks like. A few years ago, ignoring the advice of our horrified Filipino friends, my wife and …
March 26, 2015
Destination: Kinmen
In Kinmen you don’t have to worry about getting blown up anymore. I kept reminding myself of this as I wandered alone on a deserted beach. It was a sunny day with few clouds. Across …
March 5, 2015
From “Urvasi, or Ideal Beauty”
Thou art not Mother, art not Daughter, art not Bride, thou beautiful comely One, O Dweller in Paradise, Urvasi! When Evening descends on the pastures, drawing about her tired body her golden cloth, Thou lightest …
February 25, 2015
Up, India, and conquer the world with your spirituality!
Up, India, and conquer the world with your spirituality! Aye, as has been declared on this soil first, love must conquer hatred, hatred cannot conquer itself. Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered …
February 11, 2015
Journey to ground zero: Hiroshima, Japan
Stepping off the bullet train into a cold Hiroshima morning, we could sense the past. My wife Irene and I became immersed in its history by chance. A journey through New Mexico took us to …
February 3, 2015
Bangkok's kitchens
The sounds of a kitchen are like conversations. In the beginning, you hear the fracas of so many people speaking to each other, sometimes over each other. It’s the repartee against the quick pause and …
January 1, 2015
From The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy
Before “A Christian” indulged in a tirade about persons being “degraded by Asiatic effeminacy,” he should have recollected that almost all the ancient prophets and patriarchs venerated by Christians, nay even Jesus Christ himself, a …
December 3, 2014
I shall not sink into the well of poison
No more shall I wander and live amid error. I have rested all upon the Feet that banish fear, and with fear I shall not shake again. Weighted no more with the worldly passions that …
November 19, 2014
Huế down yonder in Vietnam
Stretching before me is an archaeological site straight out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But this is no studio set; Y Khiêm Viện and Trì Khiêm Viện are the real McCoy. The …