“Bees are dying everywhere but in cities …. The bees are speaking to us.”
- Olivier Darne
There are more than 300 known colonies in the French capital, up from about 250 five years ago, according to the National Beekeepers’ Association. Hives have appeared on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, on balconies and in parks.
Bees are [...]
After traveling in Europe for two months, I was worried that I might come home to San Francisco and find it rather sad and small, and unlovely. I wondered how my homely little town–my village, really–could compare to Rome, London, Paris, or even Brussels.
And I arrived back at the end of summer, our season of [...]
My first encounter with “kimchi” was when my brother-in-law brought three containers of this dish from Manila ten years ago. Kimchi is actually this traditional Korean dish made of vegetables, like cabbage, that was fermented with a variety of seasoning. So the moment my brother-in-law opened the plastic containers, it nearly knocked me out [...]
Do you have a favorite food in your hometown that you just can’t get–or doesn’t taste the same–when you travel?
I just got back to San Francisco after 2 months traveling in Europe, mostly living in Brussels, and I indulged myself in a Mission style chile relleno super burrito. The Mission District is a mostly Mexican [...]
So when my wife and I were driving from Tiffin to Fremont, watching mile after mile of corn, wheat, and soy fields, it made perfect sense that my wife would turn to me and say, “You’re going to lose your mind before I do.”
Maybe I already have!
July 5th, 2008 Brussels
My Brussel’s host, Alvilda, through some odd connection, was invited to the US Embassy’s “U.S. Independence Day 2008” part on Friday, July 4th. The invitation read:
Sam Fox
Ambassador of the United States of America to Belgium,
and
Christopher W. Murray
Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to the European Union
invite you
to celebrate the 232nd Anniversary [...]
Ulzii has sold two yurts already–real, whole room, boiled wool felt yurts–for only 3000 Euros each. The full sized yurts are advertized by a much smaller table-top model that looks like an interesting child’s toy.
Ulzii, who is Mongolian and was trained as a water engineer, has the most lovely cashmere shop–which is the most dangerous [...]
Alvilda was a little concerned that Ivana, her friend from her studies at Fletcher over a decade ago who now also lives in Brussels, and I might be two too many alpha females to get along well, but that worry proved unfounded. Ivana is Croatian, and like Alvilda, is interested in international social justice [...]
Growing up in San Francisco, and having (collectively) traveled to Thailand, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Sudan, etc. my best friend, Alvilda, and I have both seen a LOT of ethnic stuff. So, normally, seeing a shop displaying more of the same doesn’t excite us in the least. However, we’d been walking all day, and it thus being [...]
On a whim today, after exploring the storybook cuteness of Brussel’s Grand Place (various winding cobblestone side streets, delightfully whimsical facades, etc.), I happened by the Royal Museums of the Beaux-Arts.
I was thinking more about eating lunch at the Museum Cafe than anything else, but I was drawn in by the Rubens Room. It is [...]
“[Slums] are generating wealth the way cities have always done.”
Stewart Brand — lifelong activist, optimist, and gadfly — recently addressed the problem of urban poverty:
The mindset must shift from “city as problem to city as solution,” said Stewart Brand, president of the Long Now Foundation, which aims to raise awareness on solving long-term problems.
Historically, [...]
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