I’ve ridden camels. I’ve pet sharks. I’ve been thrown off an ostrich. I’ve had my lunch swiped by a monkey. But up until my visit to Cambodia, I’d never actually sat on an elephant. When Mom and I were in South Africa two years ago, we visited an elephant sanctuary. We fed them, we nuzzled [...]
Photo Friday: Monterrico, Guatemala
January 13, 2012 By 32 Comments
I never did much coverage of our 2008 trip to Guatemala, primarily because neither of us were wild about the destination. We found Antigua too touristy, the Puerto Quetzal area too run down, the rainy season (which lasts much of the year) a bit too restrictive and the no-see-ums that found their way into our [...]
Photo Friday: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
January 6, 2012 By 27 Comments
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of when a Vietnamese army toppled the Khmer Rouge regime from Phnom Penh—a topic I will write about in greater depth next week—so I thought it fitting that today’s Photo Friday come from the Cambodian capital (again). This oft-overlooked Southeast Asian hub is extremely rich in both culture and history. SVV [...]
Photo Friday: Kyoto, Japan
December 30, 2011 By 37 Comments
The last stop on the Asian leg of our Semester at Sea voyage was in Japan. We docked in Kobe, but SVV and I immediately hopped a train from there to Kyoto for the night (about $10 each and a 45-minute ride). News flash: Japan is expensive, y’all. While a few of our ship friends [...]
Photo Friday: Shanghai, China
December 23, 2011 By 30 Comments
The whole four days we were in Shanghai, a curtain of cold and gloom hung heavy over the city in an ominous sort of manner. But at night, it was a different story. This fog only served to enhance the skyline lit up along the Bund and over the water in Pudong. We snuck up [...]
Photo Friday: Playa Esterillos, Costa Rica
December 16, 2011 By 26 Comments
Jumping ahead in time a bit to the near end of our Semester at Sea voyage, we docked in Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica for a very brief 36 hours. SVV and I headed straight for Alma del Pacifico, down along Playa Esterillos near Manuel Antonio National Park for a very quiet night away from the [...]
Photo Friday: Lantau Island, Hong Kong
December 9, 2011 By 27 Comments
While in Hong Kong last month, we went on a Semester at Sea FDP with Professor Jim Huffman and took the hour-long bus ride over to Lantau Island, the biggest of the Islands District isles and home to the Hong Kong International Airport, as well as Disneyland. Our first stop was to the ancient fishing [...]
Photo Friday: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
December 2, 2011 By 10 Comments
We hadn’t been on the ground in Cambodia for an hour, when our bus whisked us away to the Mekong River for a sunset cruise. At first, I wasn’t so keen on being on a boat again when we’d already been on the Semester at Sea ship for two full months at this point. I [...]
Photo Friday: Hong Kong, SAR
November 18, 2011 By 32 Comments
After Vietnam, we sailed to Hong Kong, where many of the students took a ferry directly across the bay to do a little Macau gambling at the likes of the Venetian, MGM Grand and the Wynn. While I had just done the Macau thing two years ago, SVV and I opted to kill some time [...]
Photo Friday: Penang, Malaysia
November 11, 2011 By 16 Comments
Often, while Kristin is slaving away and ticking off boxes on fancy, bureaucratic documents while we’re in port, I get into the countryside for little effortless jaunts with our carefully planned collegiate extension of U.Va and the ISE curriculum. Semester at Sea offers field programs to students as part of their practicum in-country with over-qualified [...]
