Will life be fundamentally changed after this? In old age, will we look back on our lives and describe all of our major life events as pre-covid and post-covid? On 30 January 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and on 11 February named the disease COVID-19 because it is a form of coronavirus and was first reported to the WHO country office in China on 31 December 2019. »
Japan has long been on the bucket list. On this trip we decided just to visit Tokyo. We stayed in Shinjuku City, one of Tokyo’s 23 city wards located to the west of Tokyo City. It is known for its karaoke rooms, nightlife, neon-lit red light district and Japan’s busiest train station. Despite this, like the rest of Tokyo, it is extremely safe and clean. Tokyo is like no other major city in the world: organised and tidy, the people are extremely polite and there is a seamless fusion of traditional and contemporary life. »
I arrived in the US to meet Dylan after leaving Cuba. What a contrast to arrive in New York City. The next day was my 30th birthday, and what a great city to celebrate in. We had bagels for breakfast and spent the day shopping - exploring East Village, Soho and Chelsea. We had an amazing dinner at a French restaurant and cocktails at The Dead Rabbit cocktail bar - rated as the best bar in the world in 2016. »
About six months into this trip I was having a video call with my sister just after I had posted the blog post about Romania. We got talking about the apartment Dylan and I had in Romania and I explained how it was located in a bit of a shit hole and the problems I was having in Bucharest in general. She asked why I hadn’t written about all those things in the blog post (in the spirit of full disclosure that I had promised in one of my early blog posts). »
Cuba is interesting and infuriating. Being in Cuba necessarily involves giving way to a simpler existence. But the apparent simplicity is in fact just the result of existing in a socialist state under a planned economy. The economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee and nickel. And apart from rum and pineapples, not much else is easy to come by. Cuba’s rum — Havana Club Cuba imports nearly all of its food and of that, about 80% is rationed for the population. »