From the category archives:

Travel Tales

Traveling is a necessity to living fully, to expanding your horizons and partaking in life, if ever so briefly, beyond your immediate surroundings and perhaps beyond your own country and continent. Traveling away from home and to new places can change your thoughts, sharpen your senses, introduce you to wonderful people and places, and create [...]

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It is just after sunset here in Maui on a glorious February evening. For the last hour, we were glued to our balcony not to watch the stunning sunset against the magnificent drop that is Hawaii. That alone should have sufficed, for the beauty which Mother Nature has bestowed upon Hawaii is abundant. But we [...]

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The bleak of winter can be a heavy burden on the soul. The sunless skies, the freezing rain, the brutal wind, the scenery of naked trees stripped of all life until the warmer seasons. However do we make it to spring year after year without losing heart? For me, it is taking refuge in the [...]

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Sometimes we put off some of the most obvious things on our bucket list for an unusually long time. We cannot explain it beyond the excuse that we just haven’t come around to doing them. Over 8 years ago, in a small Mexican restaurant that has since shut down, Argentine tango found me. I say [...]

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Being a savvy traveler is an exceptionally smart skill to have, easy to develop and hard to do without once you firmly establish the habit. When I look back at our initial travels, I shudder at the immature ways I went about them. I can almost pinpoint the day that my husband read an article [...]

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Paris means something different to everyone. Everyone who has walked the streets of this immutable city knows and loves a Paris all their own. For that reason alone, it is impossible to create a universal guide for enjoying Paris. And an even more daunting task would be to claim to have such a guide for [...]

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Memories of a Thanksgiving in Hong Kong

by Farnoosh on November 30, 2009

in Travel Tales

This Thanksgiving was with family and friends. Last Thanksgiving, Hawaii. But I will never forget that in 2007, after a trying year with career and other challenges, we decided in a moment’s notice to pack up and go to Hong Kong for Thanksgiving. Traveling there from East Coast of United States is not exactly a [...]

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If you desire it, they will have it, in the world’s best kept and most delicious secret: the Depachika, the food havens in the heart of underground malls of Tokyo.

A depachika is a contraction of depato (department store) and chika (underground mall), a place of endless wonder and marvel producing a feast for the eyes, [...]

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I cannot remember my first cup of espresso but I have had countless sweet memories of delicious espresso over the years. When in 2007 I decided to give up my daily coffee, I missed more than anything the idea of having a cup of espresso, the preparation, and the aroma. It takes great courage to [...]

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The fabulous Toronto International Film Festival

by Farnoosh on September 21, 2009

in Travel Tales

For the Love of Film. The beautiful motto seen everywhere across Toronto during the fabulous, exciting, and thoroughly fun film festival, also known as TIFF. This was our very first film festival and I am eternally grateful to my friend Naomi for sharing her yearly tradition with us. The festival’s energy had completely engulfed Toronto [...]

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I was not expecting to get a call from the Executive desk at American Airlines this week, but I did.
“Hello Mrs. Brock, this is the AA Executive Desk”
“Oh yes, hi. How can I help you?”
“Well, we were just wondering if you are ok. We haven’t seen you fly as much this year.”
“Uhm. Oh. Yeah I [...]

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The awe from standing in the Pantheon and looking up at the oculus is inadequate for words, and yet I will attempt to put into words the rush of emotion from the sight of the last standing Roman architectural feat. I will ascribe words to a human achievement built as if by a miracle some [...]

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