Travels with Zen-Aida

Malaysia: Blue Mansion Hotel in Penang (6)

Stepping inside the cool front hall of the Cheong Fatt Tze Blue Mansion is like stepping into a bygone era. It is easy to imagine the soft padded footsteps of wives, concubines, children, relatives, servants, and hangers-on scurrying in long silk gowns through the high-ceilinged rooms, most likely whispering intrigues behind intricately carved ivory fans.

The [...]

South Africa: Addo National Elephant Park (6)

It is 5:15 a.m. when I get in my little grey Micra Nissan rental car.  The pre-dawn sky is laced with clouds showing just a pale tinge of pink around the edges.  The weather forecast said it will be 32 degrees today.  I set off on the dusty dirt track from my guest house, direction [...]

China: “Turandot” revisited in Beijing (2)

Not planned, but welcome nonetheless:  A quick week in Beijing, my old stomping ground.  The occasion was a visit to a new production of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot” by the same directing/designing team that I had worked with in 1997/98 for “Turandot in the Forbidden City”:  Zhang Yimou, Chen Weiya, Zeng Li and Gao Guangjian. [...]

Australia: Delights of “the Hunter” (2)

The northern Hemisphere is getting ready for the golden colors of Autumn, but in Australia, Spring is being welcomed with open arms.  So, too, at the Hunter Valley Gardens.  This 25 ha. (60 acre) privately owned, themed garden was created from scratch in 1998 and opened to the public in 2003.  By far the most [...]

China: Great crowds at the Great Wall (1)

No matter what one is going to say about the Great Wall, it all sounds like a cliché and the facts are so easily researched that it would be stating the obvious. So what is there left to say?

At Badaling, the most popular of the Great Wall stretches for tourists, there is a gondola that [...]

Auckland: City of Views (1)

While not the capital of New Zealand, it is the country’s largest city with 1.4 million inhabitants (roughly 31% of the entire country’s population).  The central city area is located on an isthmus between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea, boasting two harbours on two separate major bodies of water.
I had been told [...]

Where did the day go? (7)

Crossing the date-line doesn’t hurt, in fact, you don’t feel it at all.  It’s all just on paper and in your head:  taking off from Santiago de Chile at 22:50 on Monday and arriving in Auckland, New Zealand at 4 in the morning on Wednesday.  Actual flying time:  13.5 hours, roughly the same as Frankfurt [...]