In the pink at the Royal Hawaiian
I’m in the pink. Literally. Wrapped in a soft cotton candy-striped bathrobe, sitting on a pink-flowered chair in a hotel room with a feature wall of…
Christmas comes to Hawaii
One minute, I was photographing a white heron perched on a bush on Kalakaua Avenue in downtown Waikiki. The next, the air was filled with the…
Flying high with chef Chai
Airline food. We love to hate it. And let’s be honest, it can range from non-existent to downright awful or not-too-bad-at-all…usually depending if you are at…
A tourist in my own town
Can a Canadian tell me anything I don’t already know about the Australian city I’ve called home for nearly 20 years? The answer is yes…if he’s…
Slipping into a swimsuit for summer
Buying a new swimsuit strikes dread into the heart of a woman. Or at least of those women who are past a certain age, and a…
The meaningful month of Mo
My waitress has a moustache. It’s black and pencil-thin, curling up at the ends; the kind of moustache that a vaudevillian villain would twirl while pondering…
The barmaid who bought the pub
Who remembers those classic commercials in which Remington shavers were spruiked by Victor Kiam, the man who famously “loved them so much I bought the company”?…
A taste of Indonesia
The contents of a beautiful wooden bowl on the table of my hotel room in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta had me intrigued. What are those…
Responsible tourism: making a difference
Today is World Responsible Tourism Day. To mark the occasion, here is a story I wrote last year after travelling in Laos. This story, of which…
More than a souvenir
Audience participation is not really my thing. So it was that when a strange musical instrument was thrust into my hand on a beach in Indonesia…
A Glass Half Full 