Beijing, China: a place where yesterday’s icons - dragons, Mao, pagodas, drum towers and the Great Wall - meet today’s urge to modernize and build to the sky.

Last winter, we captured a few images that defined our glimpse of Beijing in full-tilt transformation. Continue Reading »

Spilling more ink about Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin would be akin to spitting into the ocean. But that won’t stop us, particularly since we noticed coverage of the event was delivered mainly from the perspective of the speaker’s podium.

We bring you the other perspective from where we were: in the in the midst of the 200,000 people gathered in Berlin’s Tiergarten.

We traveled by car four hours each way from our current post in Prague, Czech Republic to Berlin, Germany. A significant time investment considering Obama’s speech would be drowned in a sea of punditry worldwide, but - like everything else on this journey - we wanted our own glimpse. Continue Reading »

Ah, Austria. We could wax artistic about Vienna’s museums, poke fun at the people in period outfits selling classical music concert tickets, tell stories about Euro 2008, or tempt you with impressions of Viennese coffee houses and flaky apple strudel.

But what fun would that be? You can read about that in the New York Times Travel Section, Conde Naste Traveler or any other travel magazine.

Instead we’ll share how, with the help of an Austrian friend and an unplanned turn of events, we discovered the real Austria in the country’s Weinviertel (Wine Quarter) about an hour outside of Vienna. Continue Reading »

We have been in Prague – our previous home – for a little over a week now. We’ve noticed our friends’ questions regarding our journey and current state huddling around certain themes.

Although we can’t succinctly recreate online the atmosphere of a Pilsner beer-driven discussion in a Czech pub, we can attempt to answer these questions with astounding brevity in case you’re also curious. [Twitter’s limit is 140 characters.]

1a. How do you stay sane while being together 24 hours a day? (Politically Correct Version)
Continue Reading »

We were on another long-distance bus in the middle of nowhere, this time in heart of China’s Yunnan province. Heavy, sporadic rains danced on rice terraces whose luxuriant greens complemented the surrounding hills of red clay. It was just another iconic, beautiful moment on our journey through China.

Then came the symphony of throat-clearing and phlegm-dredging; pools of mucous-laden saliva slowly crept along the metal crevices in the aisle. Continue Reading »

Imagine hiking with a Vogue cover girl and not realizing it.

As if our trek around the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal wasn’t interesting enough, we accomplished it with Australian supermodel Gemma Ward close at hand most of the way.

Unfortunately, the rumors regarding Gemma’s identity didn’t begin circulating until the final days of the trek. “I think she’s a model. I’m sure I’ve seen her on Fashion TV,” echoed among the young Israelis - fresh from military service - trekking with us. [Aside: Fashion TV piped into Israeli military barracks?!]

And we only truly believed them when we connected to the internet and found the photo above. By then it was too late to play alpine paparazzi. But we did get a peek. Continue Reading »