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Vietnam, Fall 2023 ~ Read
Ahead of our trip to Vietnam I wanted to read stories beyond the Vietnam War. Because I know so little about the region, and Vietnam specifically, I ended up reading three books, and was very happy with every one of my choices. To start in historically chronological order, I picked Bronze Drum: A Novel of Sisters and War by Phong Nguyen. Taking place in medieval Viet Nam, the book is very patriotic yet romantic, dark, yet informative. I loved getting a sense of ancient traditions and customs, and understanding Viet Nam’s millennia old bad blood with China. My next choice was actually set during the Vietnam War, but it was…
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Vietnam, Fall 2023 ~ Travel
We traveled to Vietnam as part of our 2023 “The Magnificent Mekong” river cruise with Viking. As a result, we were beholden to their itinerary, and saw Saigon, Hanoi and a few villages in the Mekong River delta only. This was a great introduction to the country, and left me wanting to come back another time to visit some of the other picturesque regions on the South China Sea coast and up north in the misty mountains. Vietnam delighted with us with food, of course, and interesting tidbits of history from the late 20th century. It is one of the rapidly growing countries in Southeast Asia, and so it was…
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Vietnam, Fall 2023 ~ Create
Egg coffee! At first, I thought they didn’t have me fooled, and that Vietnamese egg coffee would just use a whipped egg white on top, which is not so strange, as a meringue topping is a common thing in desserts. Not so fast, as this drink is actually made with an egg yolk, which complicates things on many different levels. Developed in 1946 at one of Hanoi’s top hotels, the Sofitel Legend Metropole, this ingenious recipe was, like so many inventions, born out of necessity. The country was experiencing severe milk shortages due to the French or First Indochina War, but the famous Vietnamese coffee still had to be served.…
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Cambodia, Fall 2023 ~ Read
The Foreigner’s Confession by Lya Badgley was a perfect book to read ahead of our trip to Cambodia. I also suggested it to my book club, and we had the pleasure of meeting the book’s author via Zoom for a discussion, since she lives in WA as well, and is a friend of a coworker of mine. It was a treat, through and through! The book is focused on healing story of an American expat living in Phnom Penh and volunteering for an amputee organization. She encounters a variety of other expats as well as Cambodians. While the storyline is mostly focused on the protagonist’s experience in Phnom Penh, the…
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Cambodia, Fall 2023 ~ Travel
Cambodia was delightful, both urban Phnom Penh and more rural areas surrounding Siem Reap, where Angkor Wat temples are located. We loved meeting local people, and were blown away by their warmth, friendliness and hospitality. Cambodia is a devoutly Buddhist country, and there are thousands of temples. The temples are gilded in gold and red, with tall columns supporting ornately tiled roofs with curled up cornices. Each temple complex is filled with ornate stupas and seven-headed nagas – snake beasts representing the rainbow, and it’s magical powers to connect earth to heaven. We found Cambodia to be cleaner than Vietnam, and busy streets and markets a little bit easier to…
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Cambodia, Fall 2023 ~ Revel
Apsaras are considered to be heavenly celestial beings, or angels, in Khmer mythology. They are omnipresent in Khmer temples, and are known for their grace, beauty and elegance. Apsara dance is peformed by several ornately dressed dancers, and is particularly known for its intricate hand gestures, characterized by dramatic bends in the wrist of the performer, and complicated combinations of fingers to symbolize feelings, objects and events through a flowing gestural storytelling.
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Portugal, Summer 2023 ~ Read
I am still in search of a great book set in Portugal. For now, I am substituting Journey to Portugal by Jose Saramago as a stand-in. It is a personal travelogue written by a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature that goes into a significant level of detail about every last little village and bend in a road and gurgling creek under a country bridge across the country. Saramago incorporates historical background, entertaining personal anecdotes, sometimes strange, sometimes enlightening encounters with locals, as he explores Portugal from north to south. I admit, I didn’t have the time or patience for this level of detail for every Portuguese hamlet, so…
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Portugal, Summer 2023 ~ Travel
Our trip to Portugal in June/July of 2023 was planned to coincide with our friends Scott and Diane move into their newly refurbished villa in Alcobaça, near Nazare on the Atlantic coast. They moved to Portugal for retirement, and it felt really neat to experience alongside them the joy of finally making it into their new home after a more than 8-month remodel and wait. I designed our trip to start in Lisbon, where we land, and then work our way north via Sintra’s fairytale castles, to Nazare’s Silver Coast, to Porto and the Douro River Valley to enjoy the lush countryside, and treat Michael to his favorite port wine.…
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Portugal, Summer 2023m ~ Create
I will not hide that one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Portugal was… azulejo tiles! Yes, not pastel de nata pastries, not port wine, not incredible views of the Atlantic or the Douro river valley, but tiles. I am generally obsessed with handicrafts anyway, and when something is elaborate, distinctive and BLUE, I will buy a transatlantic ticket to get up close and personal with it. Since I don’t have the skills or equipment to go into tile production, I turned to a new embroidery technique I have been dying to try – bargello. This is actually a Florentine tapestry technique, but I found that the visual…
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Mexico City, Winter 2023 ~ Read
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is the perfect book to read ahead of a visit to CDMX, especially if one is a fan of Frida Kahlo. The book describes Frida’s and Diego Riviera’s house in Coyoacan neighborhood in great detail. Many other sites throughout Mexico City show up in the story as well, such as Riviera’s famous murals in the municipal and state buildings, and a unique outdoor floating garden Xochimilco, where Frida flirts with Trotsky among colorful boats and food vendors. On my short trip to CDMX I was only able to visit Frida’s museum, but it was perfect. Both the indoor spaces and the ambiance of the neighborhood…
