Tomorrow, Sam and I will be leaving Balikpapan, Indonesia, and I don’t think that fact has fully settled in. After living here for two years, I guess that is understandable. Packing up our things has made me think of our time spent in this “oil town” of approximately 700,000 souls, and the kind of questions…
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Having lived in Balikpapan, Kalimantan for nearly two years now, Sam and I have racked up some interesting experiences as foreigners/corporate expats in Indonesia. This, despite the fact that, if I’m being totally honest, I don’t feel as if I can really say we’ve fully “lived” in Indonesia. Perhaps my perspective is due to the…
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Sam and I have been dying to visit Lombok — the most westerly island in the Nusa Tenggara island group of Indonesia — since before we came to live in Indonesia. We never had the chance, though, until this Easter weekend in late March. Otherwise known as Bali’s “sister island,” Lombok has really taken off in…
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Here’s what happened when I made a DIY Solar Camera Filter out of used X-Ray film to photograph a Total Solar Eclipse. Longing To See A Total Solar Eclipse Way back when, on May 30, 1984, there was a (nearly) Total Eclipse of the Sun visible in my neck of the woods (Stone County, Mississippi),…
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My previous post on the Jatiluwih rice fields and their interlinking water temples made me think of all the beautiful Bali temples and holy sites Sam and I have visited over the past few years — some before we ever came to live in Indonesia. Our list is still super sparse when compared to the huge…
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The Jatiluwih rice fields of central Bali are a stunning destination, and a wonderful reminder that there is more to the Island of the Gods than parties, shopping and beaches. Jatiluwih Rice Fields UNESCO Designation The Jatiluwih rice fields also happen to be part of a UNESCO World Heritage designation celebrating the Balinese Subak System….
Read More![The [Great] Wall Less Traveled ... Hiking the Huangya Pass in Tianjin's Ji County](https://tongatime.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Huangya-Pass-Ji-Country-58.jpg)
If you happen to be visiting the Beijing area, you probably don’t have the Huangya Pass on your to-do list, but you probably do have The Great Wall of China. Of course you do. It’s THE Great Wall! The trouble is, which wall do you see? People don’t talk about that so much. In fact,…
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