GorepartY

Finally, I reached the Scottish Highlands. Probably not the roughest, wildest part - but the Highlands nonetheless. Unfortunately, in this rat-race of connectedness and disconnectedness from space and time we are living in, I had by far not the time I wanted to explore them in-depth. In the past, things like these would upset me. I was so close, I would say. I haven't seen even 10% of what I wanted to see, I would say. Things have changed a little bit these days, maybe with advancing age, maybe with the realization that life is, indeed, much shorter than it seems when you are 18 years old and take your first solo-trip. Realistically speaking, I know that I will probably not be able to see all the places I want to visit, although I consider myself ... read more

They say Malta is doing pretty well. To be precise, our local guide told us that Malta’s unemployment is at Europe’s lowest – a meagre 4%. He was also quite eager to point out that Malta is “like Germany” in economic terms. While I have no empirical evidence for that, I can tell you that the archipelago is visually way more pleasing that good ol’ Deutschland and 20 degrees Celsius in March are also not bad for the European Union. What is more, Malta is the third most crowded country in the world, after Hong Kong and Macau. What a lucky man I am, I have spent most of my last 5 years in the most densely populated places on planet earth. Most of Malta’s population concentrates around their southern island (which is called Malta in ... read more

Here I am, back with a very special blog entry; in fact this entry is made special by its simplicity and complexity at the same time, by its lack of importance and, maybe the most important moment of my life since I started writing this blog. What makes it special you say? Well, this is the first blog written since I permanently left Asia, having started TravelBlog when I decided to leave Europe for the Far East in 2010. It has been almost half a year since my "return" - to use this term lightly as I have returned to a country I actually never had been to. I live in England now, where I work and where also THH moved at the beginning of this year. A happy ending of my story you might say, ... read more

During my past blogs I have frequently touched upon the concept of authenticity, or better the conflict between tourists looking for the "real thing" while still falling into a seemingly fabricated type of experience. In the case of Southeast Asia I have also mentioned that ending up in tourist circles is often unavaidable due to cultural and financial differences between most tourists and the local people. This time I would like to discuss a similar phenomenon. Similar, but not exactly the same - my issues with "attraction hopping". When I talk about attraction hopping I mean the intentional or unintentional ticking (and photographing) of all the flagship attractions of a certain destination. This kind of behavior is typically associated with Chinese or Asian tourists in general (the Europe in one week tours anyone?), but more frequently ... read more

Today I was walking down the streets of Macau when suddenly I got stopped by someting so unseemingly familiar. Just a faint smell, hitting my nostrils and catapulting me back in time. I literally stopped on a pedestrian walk and tried to figure out what just happened. Fried onion I thought. Nothing special, I fry onion all the time. But on that pedestrian walk, on this sunny afternoon the faint smell of fried onion triggered something in my brain. Something that reminded me on my elementary school days. Something that reminded me of my grandmother. Me, barely 6-7 years old, helping my grandma to flatten out dough to make her special potato gnocchi. Of course I was of no help at all, but I am sure my grandma loved to see me try at least. I ... read more