“So it goes” recurs like a refrain throughout this collection of essays, and I found myself wishing it would go on and on. Nicolas Bouvier is one of those legendary writers whose name circulates among travelers, but few of my North American road friends had ever heard of him. It was European friends who told me about his classic road trip book, The Way of the World. The twenty-four year old Swiss...
To journey back to Athens was to exit mythological time and step into the historical. We walked the winding streets of the Plaka in silence, as though on pilgrimage to a sacred place. As narrow-alley Antifioki wound ever upward, I reflected on my first visit to the Acropolis: eagerly awaited and long overdue. I’d read so much about ancient Greece, from Classics lectures in university to a...
The road to Epidaurus passed through ancient groves and valleys which induced a sense of stillness the nearer we got to our destination. This entire territory was considered sacred to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing. Injured or sick pilgrims in search of a cure would make their way here to a vast ritual site known as the Asclepieion, where they would first go through a stage of...
Standing atop the citadel, it was easy to see how the rulers of Mycenae could command the surrounding Argive plain, a self-contained world of rich agriculture and high pasturelands, walled off by mountains and easily defended passes. Their city dominated the overland routes from the southern Peloponnese to the Isthmus of Corinth and the rest of the Greek mainland. Well-fortified dependencies of...
I was in Rome a few weeks ago playing tour guide. Now, I won’t play tour guide for very many people, but one of my oldest friends was visiting. It was her first trip to Europe, and Rome was the city at the top of her list. We did the usual rounds, paying our respects at the Colosseum and Forum, and all those essential buildings, shops and squares that crowd into the ancient centre. But I’d been...
I want to tell you about an area of Tokyo I discovered on my last trip to Japan. It may not be of interest to you on a first visit to this massive city. But if you’re a repeat visitor, you’ll want to check it out. When most foreigners think of Tokyo, they think hyper-modern: nighttime scenes of flashing neon, electronic noise, giant screens and outlandish characters — a less dystopian version of...
Something I read in a novel once has always stuck with me. I don’t even remember what the book was, but I remember this scene very clearly. The characters are sitting on a terrace high above the sea, sipping wine. It’s late evening and the chairs have been pushed back from a table filled with emptied plates. The main character suggests a game. He asks each person around the table to describe in...
I hate my phone. Well, not just my phone, but all phones that fit in one’s pocket. There’s a direct correlation between the portability of one’s devices and the sense of obligation other people have for your attention. For brevity’s sake, let’s just refer to this as Murd’s Law. You’ve all heard of Moore’s Law, right? It states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles...
I want to share a few Tokyo discoveries with you as I catch up on the year’s travels by posting long overdue blogs. It’s a city I know well. I lived there from 2000 to 2002, and I go back nearly every year for a visit. For the past several years, we’ve found a flat in Minato ward, a nice leafy residential neighbourhood just off the embassy district. But this time we decided to look a little...
Local festivals are big in Japan. It’s one of the great things about Japanese summer. There’s the food, of course. My favourite festival foods include yakisoba (fried noodles), yakitori (grilled chicken on skewers), okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes), and of course gallons of draft beer. But there are also a bewildering variety of performances, from traditional theatre to giant pink penises. I was in...