By Dina, on August 24th, 2010  New Zealand is not only full of natural beauty, but it’s also home to some of the biggest carrots and gumboots in the world. Or, at least that’s what they claim. It seems that Kiwis (and Aussies too) love to create gigantic statues of things to serve as a landmark of their city. It’s fun to check out the object they selected to represent their city – maybe it tells you something about the image they want their town to project. Or maybe they just picked something wacky. So, here are two of my favourite ones: The largest carrot in the world, Ohakune, and Gumboot capital of the world, Taihape. [read more...]
By Dina, on August 17th, 2010  Today, the 17th of August, is the Independence Day of Indonesia, my beloved country where I was born. My beautiful country that I left 7 years ago to pursue a new life with Ryan in Canada. To celebrate, I’d like to give a special mention to a time in my travels that reminded me of Indonesia the most. It’s Monaco. Monaco shares an identical flag with Indonesia, except for the width:height ratio. It somehow brought a huge smile to me when I saw this familiar flag [read more...]
By Dina, on August 16th, 2010  Game objective: Make a list of the name of towns/cities/regions you’ve been to, from A to Z (one each). To make the game more interesting, you can only list 1 town/city/region from each country. The list should not include the places that you’ve been just for a short transit. There must be a sense of exploration/experience to those cities. This game depends on your honesty. Try it out! It’s not as easy as you might think! [read more...]
By Dina, on August 11th, 2010  Last year Ryan and I were so fortunate to have his brothers come and and join us in Europe for an Eastern Mediterranean expedition by sea. Of course we couldn’t miss out on Santorini, once a victim of one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in human history, the Minoan eruption. Prior to this mega eruption around the 16th century BC, there had been a thriving ancient Minoan civilization living on this island. Back then, the caldera island still retained its ring shape, almost entirely continuous except for one opening to the sea. [read more...]
By Dina, on August 5th, 2010  I first heard about the Monastery of Montserrat, home of the mystical Black Madonna since the 12th century, from my cousin-in-law. She described this place as an unusual church, sitting on an unusual looking mountain, with unusual Mother Mary statue in it. I was intrigued.
Because of its close proximity to Barcelona, only 50 km away, and the convenient transportation options that are available, the Monastery of Montserrat is a popular day trip destination from Barcelona. We decided to take a train ride there, from the station at the end of the famous street La Rambla.
I slept [read more...]
By Dina, on July 28th, 2010  The first time I went to Canada, I thought the yellow street signs with a deer picture on it, warning you that a deer might cross the road, were very cute. Coming from Indonesia, I’d never seen street sign bearing an animal picture before.
To most people, kangaroos and penguins are not everyday sights. Unless you live in Australia and New Zealand the chance to meet them in the wild is slim to none (maybe if one escapes from the zoo?) In the past few months as we’ve traveled around Australia and New Zealand, I’ve been very excited [read more...]
By Dina, on July 26th, 2010  Two weeks ago we asked our readers what most important travel advice they would like to share to their fellow travelers. Things that make their travel more enjoyable, more meaningful, and more memorable. I was very pleased with the great responses I received. Some of the most popular advice were things that most long-term travelers would probably agree on: pack light, and travel slow. Then there were lots other great tips that I hadn’t heard before, or at least hadn’t really focused on. In putting this list together I’ve learned a lot, and I hope it gives you some [read more...]
By Dina, on July 23rd, 2010 
When I think about a mother kangaroo and her baby joey, I always think of a cute head poking out neatly out from the mommy’s pouch. But as I’ve learned, the truth is not always as pretty as that. This one seems to have stuffed itself in headfirst, and decided that it was cozy enough that way, with the head inside and feet and tail poking out. And this is pretty common among the kangaroos and wallabies we’ve seen.
We were wondering whether the joey was going to stay upside down or somehow flip itself over but it [read more...]
By Dina, on July 8th, 2010  New Zealand’s South Island is full of some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. As we planned our road trip, we struggled with the question: How are we going to fit it all into two weeks? It’s really impossible to do it all, as the South Island of New Zealand has so many amazing places, you would need months or years to really explore it fully. But you still can try to see as much as possible if, like us, two weeks is all you have. During our trip we experienced some of New Zealand’s worst weather in [read more...]
By Dina, on July 5th, 2010  Whether you are a religious person or not, temples and other religious structures are often some of the most interesting places to visit while you are traveling. Not only that they are beautiful and architecturally incredible, but they also can tell a story about the local history and culture.
Many thanks to our fellow traveling bloggers for participating in this post. We gave them difficult task to choose only 3 from so many wonderful temples from around the world! As we received the emails, we saw one by one our favourite temples were taken, for example La Sagrada Familia [read more...]
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I helped  people get clean water
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