Category Archives: Travel

Walking through an imperial garden today in Tokyo, as the rain poured on little old me, fiercely gripping an umbrella and clenching my fists to stay warm, a variety of memories streamed through my head.

One memory started in Rome, late one night after dinner…lost in the wrong side of town, struggling to find the right public transit line and hoping the many drunk Italian men wouldn’t approach me in this deserted bus station and ask what I was doing.

As I build my collection of travel experiences I am starting to connect different memories. Sometimes an emotion bonds the memories, or sometimes it’s a physical appearance, or a crazy local who reminds me of a crazy local in a different country.

Seeing the latticework develop, drawing the connections, and discovering why my mind — without consulting me — decided to relate disparate experiences, is an enormously rewarding subconscious exercise. And it struck me, on this wet rainy night in Tokyo, that finding meaning and connection among different memories is not only fun, but an important capability to develop in business and in life.

The best way, of course, to develop the capability is to accumulate and record your experiences. One reason why I like blogging. Because in the blogging world, not only do I record my experiences and ideas and can see how my thought process developed, but I let others participate in that process too.

And is there any more exciting moment than two different takes on the same experience?

Tomorrow I fly to Tokyo and begin my six week journey through Japan, China, and India.

If you’d like to follow my adventures you can cruise over to my Gap Year Travel Blog where I’ll be posting regular dispatches and photos. Highlights will appear on this blog. For new readers, I was in Europe for two months at the beginning of the summer and Asia is the second leg of my worldwide journeys.

It won’t be all tourism. The past couple weeks I’ve been working 16 hour days on my book, travel plans, and other business commitments, and such a pace will need to continue through Thanksgiving. Somehow, I’ll fit it in with my tourism!

Hopefully my next post will be written with my mouth full of sushi.

My worldwide adventures to explore globalization on the ground, meet cool people, and understand other cultures and my own better, continue this fall! In October I intend to travel to Japan, China, and India for six weeks. I am looking for:

1. Contacts — Do you know people in any or all of these countries? Do you live in one of those countries? I’m looking for shelter and/or good conversations.

2. Advice — If you have been to these countries and have tips, I’m all ears. I’m not particularly interested in, say, specific restaurants as much as more general guidance.

I have no firm plans in any of these countries. I will probably go to Tokyo/Kyoto in Japan, Beijing and some places in the west in China, and Mumbai/Bangalore in India, but it’s wide open. I’m particularly interested in meeting businesspeople, academics, journalists, educators, or young people in leadership positions. In addition, I’m interested in checking out offshore shops in China and India.

It’s harder being an English speaking American citizen in these countries than it is in Europe, which is why I’m hopeful I can connect with as many locals as possible.

For those who don’t know, I recently spent seven weeks in Europe and stayed with blog readers and friends of friends and everything worked out marvelously.

Please email me if you have any connections. Thank you very much!

My friend Meredith just emailed me and said, "Don’t eat at the Spanish restaurants in Spain…The Italian and French places there are much better."

I must admit: I felt somewhat guilty after eating at a Chinese restaurant in Spain my first night here. Aren’t I missing out on the authentic Spanish experience?

If someone overseas visited the United States and wanted to "experience America" from a culinary perspective, perhaps he would eat lots of hamburgers, pancakes, and bagels. Yes, Americans eat all these things, but when when they/we go to restaurants, isn’t it usually to ethnic cuisine? Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Italian, etc. In San Francisco at least, there aren’t nearly as many places offering "True American Cuisine" as there are ethnic variety from around the world.

This again highlights the paradox of diversity when talking about cultural globalization: for tourists, it’s harder to find differences between your own culture and the one you’re visiting and harder to experience authenticity (whatever that means). On the other hand, for residents, it’s fantastic: more options, higher quality, and the opportunity to be as cosmopolitan as you want.

For my 18th birthday my Mom gave me a stipend to take a cooking class. My cooking skills are marginal: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, meat sandwich, and probably some other stuff if you gave me instructions.

A couple nights ago I took a Regional Tuscan Cuisine English cooking class in Florence. It was $105 for 2.5 hours. Unfortunately, it wasn’t how-to as much as "do it!". Most of the other students were taking several classes there — I was the only drop-in. The demographics gave me a chuckle: moms over 50 in one corner and college-age students in the other.

After arriving and receiving my apron, the chef started going through the ingredients for each of the three courses. At one point she asked, "Does anyone know what gelatin is made of?" A college aged male student responded in that way only college students can answer: "Jello?" The chef smiled. "No, fishbones." She continued. About a minute later the guy answers, "Really? Fishbones?"

We made three dishes. Panzanella (a salad dish), Polpettine Guarinte Garnished Meat Balls (main dish), and Zuccotto (desert). Since there was no how-to (just "do!) I joined the desert group. My task was to chop the candy fruit. I did so enthusiastically.

The best part about the class wasn’t the cooking or the eating (delicious!) but the social component. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a group conversation over a meal with English speaking friends. It made me jovial.

Some good brain food came out of it, too. I met a senior at Tulane double majoring in communications and visual arts (visual literacy — what an important skill) and a senior at George Washington U who’s studying journalism and communications in a desire to go into public relations. Some bloggy-like issues there. Also met a Swedish couple who, after a few cooking classes, were going on a "cooking utensils" trip/class. I didn’t probe, but I wish I had. What exactly does that entail? Examining all different kinds of knives? "Ooh, I can really see that knife shearing a chicken breast well," one might say. Who knows.

In any event, a delightful last evening in Florence: some practice cutting candy fruit, fun socializing, and brain food to boot. Thanks Mom for the birthday present!