We bid our early morning farewells to New Zealand and headed to Australia; specifically, Hamilton Island, a small resort island near the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the kind of place where golf carts are the mode of transportation and housing comes mostly in the form of timeshares and hotels. On our agenda: SCUBA diving in the Great…
Hobbiton! On our last day in New Zealand, we made the three hour drive from Auckland down to Hobbiton, the famed set of The Lord of the Rings. We went for the full Hobbiton feast, with tours before and after sunset. The set is actually on a sheep farm. When the location scouts initially inquired,…
We continue my journey through New Zealand as Jon, Pei, and I flew from Queenstown in South Island back up to Auckland in North Island and were joined by Young, Jessica, Karen, and Sam. It was a drastic change of scenery; despite being surrounded by plenty of nature, Auckland itself is very much a city. Breakfast at…
This is the second part of many in my journey through New Zealand and Australia. We pick up on Day 3 of our time in South Island, and the beautiful scenery continues. After lunch in Queenstown, we drove up to Wanaka (rhymes with Hannukah), where we would stay that night. We opted for a short…
New Zealand’s South Island is incredibly scenic. It’s the kind of setting that lends itself to descriptions like ‘awe-inspiring,’ ‘spectacular,’ ‘resplendent.’ It’s almost too much to take in when you’re actually there, when every turn reveals a different, equally impressive landscape. Now, in hindsight, having placed it in context with the rest of my three-week trip through New…
On an absolutely beautiful early summer day, we hopped on a train from Grand Central and headed thirty miles north of Manhattan to the bucolic Stone Barns Center in New York. Blue Hill is a restaurant located on Stone Barns, their sister farm. We spent the afternoon nibbling on bites from the farmer’s market and the…
Trying to time your arrival in Washington, D.C. to coincide with the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms is no small task. Each year, thousands of these beautiful trees bloom for just a couple weeks, with “peak bloom” lasting as short as a couple days. In the weeks leading up to my trip, the cherry…
Following my posts on Manhattan and our excursion to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, we continue the New York love with more ventures across the boroughs in search for good food. In fact, this post revolves almost entirely around food, so if you are very hungry or hate looking at food, consider yourself warned. Join…
It turns out that one of the best dining experiences in all of New York lies not in the city but 45 minutes north at a little farm in the Pocantico Hills. On a Sunday afternoon, we left Manhattan to spend a day at Blue Hill at Stone Barns where they take farm-to-table to its…
In this last post of my Taiwan trip, we start in Taroko Gorge, a beautiful national park on the eastern side of Taiwan, and finish with my last few days in Taipei for Lunar New Year. With a hike through a waterfall tunnel and a soak in a natural hot spring at the base of the…
We were walking through Kaohsiung’s Central Park at night, the park mostly empty but for a few young couples strolling through and the constant hum of cars and motorbikes on the surrounding streets. Alice and I were talking about her last couple months since moving from the U.S. to Taiwan, and she brought up an…