We swapped hot, humid Vietnam for the hot and even higher humidity of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is just under a 3-hour flight from Da Nang, and we landed just as a massive thunderstorm was rolling in. That storm was a harbinger of the nights to come; spring in Malaysia seems to be characterized by sunny,…
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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a history nut. Sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming trying to distill thousands of years of history into a manageable chunk, and Vietnam’s past was one of those challenges; I kept getting lost in minutiae. So I finally admitted defeat and what follows is just a…
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Jutting out from mainland China, the 900km (559 mile) long Korean peninsula separates the Sea of Japan from the Yellow Sea. An ancient civilization populated by often warring tribal states was unified into three kingdoms (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla) in 57 BCE. The Baekje kingdom established their capital of Hanseong in the area of modern-day…
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After spending 9 nights in Tokyo and 7 nights in Kyoto, we ended our time in Japan with a whirlwind journey west, covering roughly 1100 km (690 miles) and using just about every mode of transport possible: train, bus, ferry, street car/tram and taxi, before finally catching a flight to Seoul, South Korea. Visiting Japan…
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Kyoto Prefecture (a prefecture is analogous to a province or state) has a population of 2.61 million people, with just over half of those people living in the city of Kyoto, one of the oldest municipalities in Japan. While the mainland has quite a lengthy history of China encroaching on its neighbours, simple geography shielded…
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We left the sunny California desert and headed for the largest megacity in the world – Tokyo, population 37,274,000. February weather in Tokyo isn’t terrible, by Canadian standards. During our stay temperatures hovered around the 10° – 14°C (50° – 57°F) mark (we did have one day of snow with a high of only 0°C…
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From Portugal we crossed the Atlantic, and a good chunk of North America, to spend Christmas with my parents at their winter home in the Palm Springs area. Our boys flew down from Calgary for a few days too, and we all enjoyed soaking up the desert sun together. Because we were staying with family,…
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I wonder how different the world would look if the Portuguese hadn’t been such intrepid explorers. Their maritime empire lasted for nearly six centuries and touched every continent save for Antarctica. Expansion began in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa and, ended in 1999 when they transferred sovereignty over Macau back to…
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We drove from Montefiascone, Italy to Malpica, Spain, which is roughly 2200 km (1367 miles). In Canada Howard would think nothing of an 11-hour day of driving, making a journey of 2200 km a very doable two-day trip. European roads are not so conducive. Vehicles were travelling anywhere between 70 km over the speed limit…
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This post is a bit of a weird combination of destinations. Our time in Sicily was separated by a two-week stint in Malta, and then we did a couple of quick stops on mainland Italy before embarking on a 2,200 km (1,367 miles) trek to Spain (that will be the next post), so I apologize…
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