... Santa baby, a '54 convertible too, light blue, I'll wait up for you dear Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight -- Marilyn Monroe Only a few days before Christmas. The air in San Antonio smells a little sweeter in the last couple of days. Christmas time conjures a familiar spirit inside me, although sometimes it is desecrated by the over-commercialization of desperate American industries, trying to recuperate from the current recession. This is what people would refer to as 'the most wonderful time of the year' - all of the five senses are brutally attacke [View Full Entry]

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A man may stand there and put all America behind him -- Transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau, about Cape Cod I can recall maybe around six or seven times in my life when I have suffered from somewhat severe sunburn; but this particular time is different for several reasons. One, it is a cheerful reminiscence of a perfect and relaxing weekend, chillaxing - chill and relaxing at the beach by experiencing the Atlantic with all of my senses, in addition to some care-free napping, is the way to enjoy a warm summer day. It is definitely a nice escape from the [View Full Entry]

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“So you’re Lan Zi,” my tea specialist concluded in her broken English. She was suspiciously staring at me as if I had just poured hot water all over her delicate hand. I just finished explaining my lame excuse for not being able to talk in any of the Chinese dialects fluently - the ability to speaking Chinese stopped in my generation because I was born in the non-Chinese-speaking country of Indonesia. That, and I now live in the United States. “Lan Zi, what’s that?” I thought. I just innocently blinked at her, while sipping my precious Ti Kuan Yin Oolong [View Full Entry]

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Macau - Most Americans would raise their eyebrows upon hearing the name. For us, Macau is almost as exotic as secluded Timbuktu or legendary El Dorado, but in reality, it is more accessible than those two aforementioned places. Unfortunately, Macau is not going to be on traveler’s top list places to visit anytime soon. Its proximate location to mega polis Hong Kong dwarfs the importance of this region - and one can’t help but comparing Macau with Hong Kong. Yet, Macau holds many fascinating gems that are worth checking out - UNESCO just added its thirty historical structur [View Full Entry]

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Within only 85 miles north of the equator line, Singapore is wickedly humid. Lush tropical trees and exotic plants are thriving and covering most of the island - along its roads and in between modern buildings and historical structures, making it even hard to breathe yet comfortable for having the shades over human habitation down on the ground level. After receiving a bad news from my brother-in-law, I scrambled around to find a plane ticket to Singapore, and some twenty-eight hours later, I stepped out from Terminal One of Changi International Airport to meet up with my immediate family, [View Full Entry]

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So, I found out that Eric, our fraternity's traveling Charge consultant, is obsessed with the beautiful upcoming country singer Taylor Swift. He so adores her and the rest of us on the table couldn't help it but look at each other and smile. Our conversation at our little Japanese dinner continued, ranging from Boston's party scene to our pact of hiking up the Mt. Kilimanjaro sometime in the near future, and our brotherhood in the fraternity has been established once more. Only a few hours before, I was introduced to Eric and 'Optimus Prime' at the University of South Carolina's beaut [View Full Entry]

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Mazel Tov! -- ‘Good fortune’ - a phrase that is often said frequently and loudly at Jewish celebrations. The excited exclamation brings me back from my brief daydream, after a couple of minutes listening to a foreign speech that I can not understand. I look around and find myself sitting among a hundred enthusiast worshippers inside Baron Hirsch Synagogue - an intricate American Orthodox Judaism synagogue in the City of Blues - Memphis, Tennessee. The congregation hall is inviting, with stain glass windows hanging high, depicting several bearded men and various [View Full Entry]

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Monday, October 1st, 2007 - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia I have to admit that I have not found any negative things about Australia so far. Beautiful nature, stunning harbors and an easy going culture - what else one might want? It seems like the whole continent has a good gene pool - everybody is fit and athletic, and the only obese people I have spotted so far are international tourists (and unfortunately most of them seemed to be Northern Americans). After another twelve hour coach overnight ride from Melbourne’s Southern Cross, I was excited to be back in Sydney C [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia After backpacking and moving to one new place to the next for almost a month now, I started to understand the importance of having a home base. A place where you feel belong, a place where your heart is. Thus in my case, I am becoming an unofficial bum in Australia, of which I can’t complain much anyway. Homesick started to hit me pretty hard, and I came to a realization that as much as it sounds fun and exciting, traveling can also become a difficult adjustment with no sense of [View Full Entry]

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Friday, September 21st, 2007 - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Fauna of the Down Under are unique to the region, concluded a nineteenth century British biologist named Alfred Russell Wallace, after noticing the distinctive mammal species that can not be found anywhere else in the world upon his visits to Australia. Back in our Indonesian high school, we always learned about the Wallace Line which defines the zoogeographical region between Asian and Australian faunas, thus put the archipelago of Indonesian islands into one of the highest concentration of biodiversity in the world, [View Full Entry]

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