The marbled beef cheeks and uni spaghettini did me no favors. Last night was the worst yet as my body struggled to fight off whatever it is I’ve been battling over the past couple of days. It’s easy to blame the snake soup but, truth is, it could just as easily been the in-flight meal…

As I mentioned in Part I of today’s blog, we went to the Tapas Molecular Bar in the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo for our first foray into “molecular gastronomy”. The Oriental Lounge seats seven at a long bar behind which Chef Jeff Ramsey and his assistant Tomoyuki work their magic with such atypical kitchen tools as…

Two years ago, on our last trip to Asia, I brought along a jar of vanilla hand cream. Long after we’d returned, whenever I used that particular hand cream my mind would drift back to the time we spent in Hong Kong and Tokyo. I could close my eyes and instantly be transported back. I’ve…

I worked on my blog well into the night, trying to get the damn photos to upload without much success, so I ended up turning in a little after 1 a.m., so wound up that I was unable to fall asleep for another hour. The worst was yet to come.I woke up at 7:15 a.m.…

The conversation goes something like this:Her: Visa credit card services, how may I help you?Me: To be perfectly honest, I don’t think you can. But I’d like you to try anyway. This is the sixth time I’m calling VISA in as many days. Since I’m calling from Asia, these calls are prohibitively expensive. I know…

The response to this travel blog has been overwhelming. Over seven comments and counting! I thought it might be a good idea to take the time to answer some of the questions that have been sent my way. For clarity’s sake, I’ve taken the liberty to paraphrase –Q: Al from South Africa writes: “Given your…