Petra has been amazing so far, and the Treasury is even more impressive in person even though I have seen countless pictures of this famous ancient monument prior to the trip. But James and I know there’s more than just this magnificent structure – believed […]
The world is filled with so many wonderful places, and that’s often why a lot of us travel across the globe to see and experience those sites ourselves. Most of the time they meet our expectations, although sometimes we come home feeling disappointed for various […]
Rainy season has officially arrived in Jakarta, after a prolonged dry season which rendered a lot of parks and gardens in the city brown and barren. Those which received a regular watering schedule, either from the city government or from local community associations, fared slightly […]
The hamlet of Bambanglipuro is an archetypal village in the heartland of Java; rows of traditional houses and small mosques interspersed with patches of paddy fields line both sides of the country road we take from the city of Yogyakarta, or Jogja for short. Our […]
Humans and art are inseparable. Thanks to the discoveries of cave paintings around the globe from France to Indonesia, dating back more than 40,000 years ago, we now have a better understanding that the urge for Homo sapiens to express what their senses perceive through […]
Several months ago, after so many years of dreaming, I finally got the chance to visit ancient Roman ruins for the very first time in Baalbek, Lebanon. Due to their sheer size, the city’s Temple of Jupiter and Temple of Bacchus are considered the largest […]
In the desert landscape of Wadi Rum, when James and I were sitting in the communal space near our tent to wait for dinner, we spoke to a German man who with his wife and two daughters were also on holiday. We were talking about […]
People make resolutions on the first day of January every year hoping to achieve them by the end of December. Losing some weight, doing more exercise, eating more fruits and vegetables, having a better work-life balance, and spending more time with family are among the […]
I must admit, contemporary art is something I have never been able to truly enjoy. Its propensity toward anything “out of the box” which requires deep contemplation to “understand” it rarely inspires me. Of all the artworks that fall into this category, there’s one particular […]
Having two parents with opposing views of the arts has not always been easy for me. My mom, who used to teach at a traditional Javanese dance school founded by her late father, understandably has a strong artistic calling. She taught me how to sing […]
The city of Bandung – Indonesia’s fourth largest with over 2.5 million residents – since 2002 has become one of the most special places for me in the country, and will remain so, thanks to the five years I spent there for college and running […]
Since antiquity, the Armenians have always been known as brave, mercantile people who sought opportunities beyond their traditional homeland. For centuries, the Kingdom of Armenia was one of the most powerful entities in this part of the world with its territory straddling three seas: the […]
