Journeys with Sonia

My Travels Around the World

Author: Sonia Page 3 of 15

Fukuyama and Hiroshima, Japan 2012

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On September 26, 2020

In Japan

Fukuyama

This was just one day of a business trip to Japan in 2012. But what a day!

Saturday, June 30, 2012

The high point of the trip was today. When we were sitting around in Yokohama with the whole team waiting for my talks, we chatted about where I had already been in Japan. I listed off the cities, and then said that I still wanted to go to Hiroshima to see the Peace Park and museum, but also mostly to see the Holocaust Education Center (HEC) near there. My uncle Benia had been an honored guest at this museum, and I had seen all the pictures and videos and heard all the stories. The director of the museum had treated Benia and his wife, my Aunt Pnina like a king and queen as Benia helped them gather pieces for their exhibit. By that evening, my colleague Kazuko asked me if instead of spending the day in Tokyo and then flying to Matsuyama in the evening as planned, would I like to take the train to Hiroshima and then a boat back to Matsuyama. Would I ever!  I could not believe that they had actually arranged that just because I happened to mention I would someday like to go.

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Colombia Part 11: Medellin Politics and Comuna 13

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On August 12, 2020

In Colombia

July 26, 2018

You can’t talk about Medellin without talking about drug wars and politics. So in this chapter I will describe the history that Medellin, and the rest of Colombia, fought against, and I will tell you about Comuna 13. It is a fascinating story of civil war and survival.

Medellin was once known as the most dangerous city in the world. Why? Because of an urban war begun in the 1980s between the drug cartels. It gets complicated but stay with me and I will try to explain (and hope I get it right). But I will explain it through the eyes and ears of the locals, the people who lived through that frightening time.

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Colombia Part 10: Fernando Botero

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On August 9, 2020

In Colombia

July 2018

Botero

You can’t visit Colombia, especially Medellin, and not run into the works of Fernando Botero. I was first introduced to Botero many years ago as some of my mother’s friends had one of his sculptures (real or replica – I have no idea). And I immediately fell in love with his work. If you had to pick one word to describe it, the word would have to be “round.” Sort of like his name.

Large, curvy, voluptuous

You can’t mistake his work for anyone else’s as his sculptures and figures in his paintings are all large, curvy, voluptuous, plump, fat, and exaggerated (which can be interpreted as criticism – often political – or humorous).  I am not being unkind.  He himself has called his figures, “fat.” In fact, he said, ” An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.”

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Colombia Part 9 – Santa Elena, July 2018

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On July 27, 2020

In Colombia

We visited Santa Elena, Colombia exactly two years ago, but I’m just posting about our wonderful adventures.

July 29, 2018

Santa Elena

As a side trip from Medellin, we visited a flower farm in Santa Elena. .Juan Carlos, our guide, and Guillermo, our driver, picked us up at 9:00 and we headed towards Santa Elena. The ride took about an hour out of Medellin on the same road that heads to the International Airport, and onto the eastern mountain roads. The traffic was light. The roads narrow. Motorcycles were of course everywhere. The mountains were beautiful. Different shades of green. Trees everywhere. Every once in a while, there would be a tree in the distance, what looked like it was covered with white flowers or white birds. But it was a Silver Yarumo tree which close-up looked like silver leaves, but from the distance was white against the green.

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Easter Island – Tapati Festival 2017

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On April 18, 2020

In Chile, Easter Island

Tapati Festival

The reason we came to Easter Island (please see the post on Easter Island) in February (summer) is that the Rapa Nui sponsor an annual festival, the Tapati (which means Rapa Nui Week), held since 1975 around the beginning of the month to celebrate Rapa Nui culture. It is their way of maintaining and promoting their culture, honoring their ancestors, reliving and preserving their cultural identity.

Some more cynical people say the purpose of the festival to bring tourists to the island. It is true that there were about 2000-3000 people at the festival, 50% local and 50% tourists. That’s why we came this time of year. The locals all come out, many to see their kids dancing and performing.  But as explained to us, most importantly the festival is a way to teach their children about their identity and culture.

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Easter Island

February 1-7, 2017

Our trip started in Santiago which we had visited before, so we just spent the one night before leaving for Easter Island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the most remote island on Earth. We flew Latam Airlines on the Dreamliner. We got to sleep some as it is over a 5-hour flight. Easter Island really is in the middle of nowhere. As we approached, we could make out the triangular island that would be our home for the next week. We were traveling with Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) along with our friends Melissa and Michael, Helene and Alan, Sherry, and Phyllis. Note please that a few of the photos are from Helene and Melissa. We had several wonderful guides, including Nune Hucke, Lili Pate (who was the queen of the Tapati in 2012, see more about that in the Tapati post), and others.

Rapa Nui

Easter Island (Rapa Nui), a Chilean territory, is a remote volcanic island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the south-easternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle (the other corners of the triangle are Australia and Hawaii). Easter Island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. The population of Easter Island is about 7000 with  which about 60% are descendants of the original aboriginal Rapa Nui, and the entire island is only about 10 miles long and 63 miles square. It is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world with Chile being 2,182 miles away. The first commercial flight to Easter Island was in 1967, and tourism is now the largest industry with fishing and agriculture as close second and third.

Why is it called Easter Island?

The first question you should ask, as I did, is, “Why is it called Easter Island?” The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen was the first European visitor to the island and he landed on Easter Sunday in 1722. And thus he named it Easter Island. The Polynesian name, Rapa Nui or Big Rapa, was coined after the slave raids in the early 1860s and refers to the topographical resemblance to the island of Rapa. It has also been called “the naval of the world (Te pito o te henua).

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On April 1, 2020

In Chile, Easter Island

The Pantanal, Brazil or…Heaven on Earth

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On August 19, 2019

In Brazil

August 11-19, 2019

Pantanal

Most people have never heard of the Pantanal in Brazil. Some of you may recognize it from John Grisham’s novel, The Testament, which takes place mostly in the Pantanal. When I mentioned I was going to the Pantanal to look for jaguars, I was asked if they were cheaper down there! But no. The Pantanal is known not for the car but for having the largest number of jaguars in the world. So we hoped there would be a good chance of seeing at least one.

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Zadar, Croatia

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On August 3, 2019

In Croatia

Zadar

May 16-17, 2019

I have to admit, I knew nothing about Zadar.  I had never even heard of it. But our travel agent had it on our itinerary for our tour of Slovenia and Croatia, so here we were.  I just thought we were there to break up the drive from Ljubljana to Split.  Boy was I wrong.

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Aarhus, Denmark

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On June 27, 2019

In Denmark

Saturday-Sunday, May 4-5, 2019

I was on my way to Aarhus, for work, but also for play. I landed in Copenhagen, and because of the late arrival time, spent the night at the Clarion Hotel at the Copenhagen airport. I could see the bridge to Malmo, Sweden from my window.  And since I was jet lagged, I got to watch the beautiful sunrise over the water.

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The Murals of Churchill

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On May 8, 2019

In Canada

February 16-24, 2019

We spent 5 days in Churchill in the middle of winter. Yes, it was cold.  Very cold. Most people come to Churchill in October or November to see polar bears. Or in the spring to see beluga whales. We came in February, with Natural Habitat,  to see the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis (please see that post). But of course we also got to know the town of Churchill (please see that post).

For a small town of only about 800 people, Churchill is full of art. On June 16-26, 2017 the Pangea Seed Foundation, an international marine conservation organization, together with Kal Barteski, founder of the Polar Bear Fund, hosted a festival called Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans in Churchill. The idea behind the project was to bring in recognized public artists to learn about how a remote community, like Churchill, faces the many challenges of living on an ocean coast. By creating large murals, they would change the visual landscape and thus inspire conversation about protecting the oceans. But like many projects of this magnitude, it ended up inspiring the devastated small town, here on the edge of the Arctic, to appreciate their own place in the world. This project brought education about environmental issues, but it also brought beauty to the town. I must add that Churchill was already beautiful. The glistening snow. The sunsets. The trees. The wildlife. But the Sea Wall project brought color and meaning to the many empty, large walls of the buildings of Churchill.

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