Prolific Living

travel

10 Smart Tips for the Savvy World Traveler in You

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Tokyo Harajuku Crowds travel memories

Being a savvy traveler is an exceptionally smart skill to have, easy to develop and hard to do without once you firmly establish the habit. When I look back at our initial travels, I shudder at the immature ways I went about them. I can almost pinpoint the day that my husband read an article on becoming a minimalist traveler, and overnight, forbid me from checking in luggage, regardless of our destination! (You bet I put up a fight!) Around the same time, he decided that if we were going to be traveling the world, it is imperative for both our sanity and our budget that we become expert travelers.

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Indulging in the Louvre: Excerpts from the Paris Journals

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Louvre glowing triangle at night in Paris

Paris means something different to everyone. Everyone who has walked the streets of this immutable city knows and loves a Paris all their own. For that reason alone, it is impossible to create a universal guide for enjoying Paris. And an even more daunting task would be to claim to have such a guide for the most magnificent museum in the world, the Louvre. Perhaps the only thing we may agree on is this: That Paris is elusive and eternal, and the Louvre is the heart of this jeweled city, a mystery as deep as the brilliance of a diamond, and no less beautiful than the gemstone itself. The Louvre which cannot be contained, consumed, or covered in two dozen visits or more. The Louvre which I long for in the months after leaving Paris, and anticipate with baited breath in those leading up to it. The Louvre mementos through my eyes and heart which I impart to you here. Repeat it, build on it, shake it up, erase it and create your own experience. Do what you will so long as it gets you to the Louvre. [Read more…] about Indulging in the Louvre: Excerpts from the Paris Journals

Memories of a Thanksgiving in Hong Kong

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HongKong-from-Victoria-Peak

This Thanksgiving was with family and friends. Last Thanksgiving, Hawaii. But I will never forget that in 2007, after a trying year with career and other challenges, we decided in a moment’s notice to pack up and go to Hong Kong for Thanksgiving. Traveling there from East Coast of United States is not exactly a short plane hop, and disappointing not one but two families took heaps of courage. But as my husband said, in a quote that has become a motto when we plan serious travel in our lives, “If not us, who? If not now, when?“ And that is how we approach our life’s travels, because we have but one lifetime to live and one fantastic globe to discover in the process. It is best to ditch the reasons that keep you at home, to pack light and travel far and make memories that in your old age will warm your heart, and bring you a quiet satisfaction knowing that while you could, you traveled. You explored. You went away from home to see the world. [Read more…] about Memories of a Thanksgiving in Hong Kong

8 Reasons to Experience the World’s Best Kept Secret: Tokyo’s Depachikas

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If you desire it, they will have it, in the world’s best kept and most delicious secret: the Depachika, the food havens in the heart of underground malls of Tokyo.

Japanese-watermelon

A depachika is a contraction of depato (department store) and chika (underground mall), a place of endless wonder and marvel producing a feast for the eyes, the mind and the belly. [Read more…] about 8 Reasons to Experience the World’s Best Kept Secret: Tokyo’s Depachikas

A Sampling of Espresso at 7 of Seattle’s Coffee Shops

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Espresso

Why I love Espresso and What Really Happened in Seattle

I cannot remember my first cup of espresso but I have had countless sweet memories of delicious coffee over the years.

When in 2007 I decided to give up my daily coffee, I missed more than anything the idea of having a cup of espresso, the preparation, and the aroma. It takes great courage to break an addiction, and greater risk still to return to it on occasion. While I have ditched the daily habit, I slightly bend the rules when visiting cities which take local pride in their delicious local beans. Besides, what fun is life if we don’t sometimes throw caution to the wind and indulge on our most sinful cravings, and live to write a post about it? And so it is with that determination that we set out to thoroughly delight in the Emerald city’s coffee shop downtown haven. Here is an account of the 7 memorable stops on our path in a mid-October visit to Seattle. [Read more…] about A Sampling of Espresso at 7 of Seattle’s Coffee Shops

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