BANGKOK – Being on the 32nd floor of a hotel overlooking the Chao Phraya river in this city is a pretty cool place to watch a thunderstorm. Kinda ruined my shot at dining outdoors at the luscious-looking Thai restaurant here (see photo of the seating area by the river) at the Peninsula Hotel, but I’ll try tomorrow for a drink anyway. It’s my first visit to Thailand and, naturally, first to Bangkok. So far, so good. I had fabulous and spicy Tom Yum Goong soup at the outdoor café here overlooking the river, as well as a dish of minced Read more
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NOTE: THESE POSTS WERE FILED TO MY TORONTO STAR BLOG IN DECEMBER 2010. AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE – Walking into town from my hotel it didn’t look like much. But once I got past the garish kiddie rides that have taken over the main square here for Christmas (they did the same thing in Paris at the Bastille, which is another matter entirely) I was suddenly in a charming, ancient city. Aix was founded by the Romans back in 122 B.C. after a convincing military victory over local Ligurian tribes, and it’s filled with lovely squares and limestone buildings in various Provencal shades of Read more
Here are two blogs from various visits to Hong Kong, one of the world’s great cities. HONG KONG – This is a huge, bustling, wild and teeming city. No doubt about that. But one of the things I love about Hong Kong is that you can get away from it all far easier than in many cities. There’s Victoria Peak, of course, where you can walk for a couple miles amid hanging vines and towering trees and gaze down at not only the buildings of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon but also vast ravines and wide open stretches of ocean Read more
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – We hear a lot about bungee jumping and hot springs in Rotorua and those oh-so wonderful pinot noir wines from Otago and the sauvignon blancs from Marlborough. But even a travel guy who should know better finds himself in this wonderful country and gets surprised at the sheer variety of the place. Auckland, for example, gets vastly overshadowed by the “usual” tourist spots in New Zealand, not to mention the attention that gets showered on cities such as Sydney by visitors such as Oprah Winfrey. It doesn’t have an opera house to rival Sydney or a Read more
BERMUDA – So, apparently Dark and Stormy isn’t just the name of a popular drink in this island nation. Ba-doom-boom. Okay, so it really was a fairly decent day overall. It’s just that I had desperately wanted a hot, clear sky and plenty of sunshine and ended up with almost no sun and a reasonable amount of drizzle. And it’s raining again this morning as I type up my notes. Still, my half-day on this lovely island was a pretty decent start to a long-weekend. And it looks like we might get a break this afternoon or maybe Saturday afternoon. Read more
