Traveller

My sister is like these daisies. Sweet and happy looking, with bright open faces.  With her first big trip out of the country almost here, we spent one more day together for final purchases. She has been told that she can take jeans now so she wants a new pair. I thought of steering her in the direction of those Not My Daughters Jeans at Nordstrom .  With her figure they might be the most flattering.  I want to minimize her "freshman traveler" look.  However she could not be convinced.  Instead she got two pairs of Style&Co jeans at Macys, a brand she currently was wearing. Fine, I gave up.  What I did convince her to buy was a pair of socks for the plane.  They are the therapeutic socks that will keep her blood from pooling in her ankles during the long flight.  She doesn't know where she is sitting so she could be stuck in the middle of a row for hours at a time. We also decided that she should get a neck pillow. REI had one for $20 that wa...

  Relaxing Home Retreats Staycations have become more popular as vacation savings shrink or dry up completely like so many have over the past few years. Granted for some of us travel that involves a plane ticket is a luxury any year.  The high price of gas might also mean this summer we stay even closer to home. One alternative to feeling like a prisoner is to choose how you spend your vacation.  You can put all the same time and attention to detail, as you would a trip to London.  My sister has maps and books galore to look through before her European trip with my brother and mother.  Why not apply the same excited attention to your staycation? Consider these tips: Decide on a theme: you go to Paris and your time there is all things French.  Maybe you want a spa vacation at home.  Prepare your home: you make a packing list for your suitcase, do the same at home. Plan what you want to have around you and clear out the clutter. Unplug!  When you ...

Riding the subways and trains in Tokyo can not only get you from point A to point B but they also provide you with time to learn.  The few years we spent living in Tokyo, we did everything but drive.  We walked, rode our bikes, Rollerbladed, took taxis, rode the bus, subway, train and Shinkansen. We also rode in other peoples cars as passengers. As you can see here, I collected many of the subway passes.  This one for about $10 was typical Japanese - cute and adorable image of a puppy. I can't tell you how many of these I brought home as keepsakes. Usually my time spent on a train was trying to read the posters and listening to the announcements. As I studied Japanese, one of my favorite study tools was to read the movie posters on the train. I learned that all foreign words are spelled in katakana.  Once I started to learn katakana it was fun to translate popular movie titles like Eyes Wide Shut. The worst time I had was with the movie poster for What Lies Beneath ....

Photo by Sharon Castellanos

One of my travel destinations that is near the top of my list is China, all of China. My Labor Day weekend spent in Hong Kong years ago only whet my appetite for more. Living in San Francisco, with our huge Chinatown and all of its people, restaurants and shops, keeps me thinking about planning a trip back too. Today I just found out that the International Expo in Shanghai has begun. The newspapers and internet have in-depth coverage of the city and the Expo 2010 . All I can is WOW, now I really need to plan a trip. I've always been interested in seeing Shanghai and its old neighborhoods. Remember the Spielberg movie, Empire of the Sun ? It was so dramatic and captured my imagination forever! It wasn't set in Shanghai but Bertolucci's The Last Emperor was the other huge movie (9 Oscars!) that made me want to know more about China and its history. There is a lot to learn about this city. I can see why it has been the setting for lots of well-known novels and movies. D...