June 2019

The Royal Palace was easily the most attractive sight here; the palace was constructed after King Norodom relocated the royal capital from Oudong to Phnom Penh in the mid-19th century

Set on top of a 27 m high, tree-covered knoll, Wat Phnom is on the only hill in town (that's because the hill was man-made); it is still the Year of the Dog since Cambodia is 2 months behind the Chinese calendar

In 1975, Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and turned into a prison known as Security Prison 21 (S-21); it soon became the largest detention and torture center in the country

Our tour guide, who is Cambodian, had told us that we would see Rolls-Royces and Bentleys in Phnom Penh and he was correct; in this extremely poor country it is appalling to see wealthy, corrupt government officials flaunting their status

This is a famous photograph of the 5 children who survived S-21 Prison when it was liberated by Vietnamese soldiers in 1979; the oldest child in the photo wrote a book about his experience and was autographing copies when we visited

The most notable feature of the Silver Pagoda at the Royal Palace is a small crystal Buddha (the "Emerald Buddha" of Cambodia) — undetermined whether made of Baccarat Crystal in the 19th century or of another kind of crystal in the 17th century

The Sisowath Quay is a 3 km long promenade along the west bank of the Tonle Sap River; I enjoyed the relatively peaceful walk but the smell from the river wasn't pleasant

We stopped at a place that was serving fried tarantulas; our tour guide has had them many times and several brave souls in my group sampled them

The 1917 Throne Hall at the Royal Palace is still in use today as a place for religious and royal ceremonies (such as coronations and royal weddings) as well as a meeting place for guests of the King

This monument at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek contains the bones of some of the 17,000 Cambodians executed here; today, you can still see the clothes of some of the dead buried in mass graves peeking up through the hard dirt

Built in 1958 in celebration of Cambodia's independence from France 5 years earlier, this monument's style is heavily influenced by the great temples of Angkor Wat

A scale model of Angkor Wat in front of the Silver Pagoda; the King's living area, which actually takes up half of the total Royal Palace ground area, is closed to the public

Two of the 18 adults who survived S-21 Prison until it was liberated come to the prison most days to speak with visitors and sell their books; the museum was pretty sterile but hearing a survivor tell his story was powerful

Phnom Penh had many new skyscrapers with more under construction; the cool feature of this one was the outdoor terrace near the top

1932 Railway Station is a white elephant now since there has been no Cambodian rail service since 2009 due to budget issues; the center of Phnom Penh is relatively clean while other parts of the city and rural areas have roads lined with lots of trash

The Cambodia language is impossible to decipher; wisely, Phnom Penh has given numbers to all of their streets in addition to their proper names

Admission to Wat Phnom was $1 for foreigners while locals got in for free; driving through Cambodia, it seemed quite large but is actually about the size of Oklahoma

Our group enjoyed a traditional cyclo tour of the city; we joined the bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, cars and buses all sharing the streets in this city of 3 million

There are so many strange food items here!; most are labelled only in Cambodian so I can't even figure out what they are but they sure look gross

The National Museum of Cambodia is home to the world's finest collection of Khmer sculpture; the US dollar is the unofficial currency here but US coins are not used so your change will be in riel

Locals tend to shop at the Central Market every day to get fresh items; the mini-markets in Phnom Penh were larger and nicer than those in other cities we've visited

Daun Penh was, according to legend, a woman who built a temple at Wat Phnom to house 5 Buddhas that she had discovered; the temple became a famous destination for pilgrims and eventually the city of Phnom Penh resulted

The Silver Pagoda (named for the 5000 inlaid tiles of the floor) at the Royal Palace houses many national treasures such as gold and jeweled Buddha statues and a near-life-size, Maitreya Buddha encrusted with 9,584 diamonds

An enormous mural lines the walls of the building that encloses the Royal Palace's Silver Pagoda; it tells the epic Cambodian poem of Reamker which details the balance between Hinduism and Buddhism as well as good and evil

Many tour boats ply the mighty Mekong River through Phnom Penh but you can't help but notice how the banks of the river are just lined with tons of trash; waste management is a big problem throughout the region since locals can't afford trash service

Our local guide described how Pol Pot's forces would take naked mothers and children to this tree; with the mother forced to watch, the killers would swing the baby against the tree to murder it (the mother would be executed next)

The post office is the oldest example of French colonial architecture (1894) remaining; it was brutally hot during our visit with temps around 100 and humidity close to 80%

This bronze statue of King Father Norodom Sihanouk depicts the leader who brought independence from the French to Cambodia in 1953; his son is the current king

There are so many pedestrians enjoying the art that cars are restricted to local residents only; you can buy the very helpful souvenir map at the information center just to the right of the main village entrance

This cat is so realistic that many visitors thought it was alive; there are plenty of hidden alleys, cute cafes and welcoming galleries that are worth seeing in the village

Becoming One with Gamcheon; this work depicts how visitors are united with the scenery here; the creative vibe truly permeates the entire village and you'll be impressed with the efforts of the residents

The Sound of Gamcheon; the village is sometimes called the Santorini of Korea although I don't see the resemblance since the Greek houses are all painted white

Little Prince and Fennec Fox; photogenic Gamcheon is perfect for those on Instagram with many Koreans dressing in traditional clothes for the many photos they'll be in

People and Birds; the intention of this work is for people to leave everyday concerns behind once in a while; there were hundreds of school kids on field trips enjoying the village

Demonstrating the artistic and creative nature of the village, this shop was selling cotton candy in the shape of famous cartoon characters

The addition of public art has totally transformed what was once one of the poorest villages in Busan into a thriving, desirable neighborhood

Fish Swimming Through the Alley; this work expresses alleys as communication vehicles for villagers; many of the houses aren't on streets and are only reachable by alleys and/or stairs

Scenery of Grapes; this work expresses a village full of abundance and vitality; despite this walk being on city streets, there was virtually no traffic since drivers know how crowded the streets will be with pedestrians

This work expresses the wish for the realization of villagers' hopeful messages, whether inside or outside the village, just like the seeds of dandelions float away and produce flowers in a different place

There were excellent labels on most of the artwork; new additions are made every year with many contributed by local residents

I just loved the whimsical, fun theme found in most of the artwork; the messages were almost always positive and uplifting, certain to bring many smiles

For $2, I bought an excellent map of the village which listed most of the artworks and showed different walking routes; you could also collect stamps which is popular in Asia

Gamcheon is Busan's number one attraction on TripAdvisor; rather than spend an uncomfortable night at a temple with the tour group, I stayed in Buson and walked through this terrific neighborhood

The mural Gifts from Heaven was created so that all residents and visitors of Gamcheon village can enjoy the gift of joy and hope and to feel the festive atmosphere of the village

My walk through the Gamcheon Culture Village was one of the most enjoyable urban walks I've taken; the transformation of this neighborhood through public art was very impressive

In addition to the public art, many businesses made their contributions as well; I stayed at a very nice hotel near the main train station that was only $42 per night

Because it was built on steep mountainside slopes, Gamcheon village has been nicknamed the Machu Picchu of Busan; Gamcheon began as a shanty town built by Korean War refugees in the 1950s

This artwork depicts houses that show harmonious uniformity amid a diverse population; I wondered what effects the neighborhood transformation had on long-time residents and whether they viewed it as positive or not

Dream (Old Boys be Ambitious); the artist says there are still faint glimmers left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity

Stairs to See Stars; this stairway was named because people used to feel dizzy and see stars when they climbed the 148 steps carrying heavy loads

You can buy a heart, write a message on it and have it hung on this rooftop; funds, like these, go to support artistic endeavors in the village such as artist in residence projects

Gamcheon is often cited as a model for urban revitalization; residents designed the pieces of this work which symbolizes the mothers of this village who struggled in the past to feed their families by selling fish

Autumn Journey; these dragonflies lined the wall on the main street leading up to the village entrance; the same public transit pass conveniently works in every Korean city

White Rose; the rose is this district's adopted flower and depicts an area full of vitality

Golden Bandal Pass; this mural features the three mountains of the village with a golden nightscape; reaching Gamcheon was relatively easy and inexpensive from the central station with a short subway ride followed by a short bus ride up the mountain

There was no graffiti in Korea; it was wonderful walking around and seeing how the art made everyone smile and laugh

Wiggly Village; this work depicts the scenery of a densely packed village as a living organism; it also epitomizes the quirky art that makes the village such a fun place to visit

This colorful mosaic at a bus stop illustrates how the ordinary has become extraordinary thanks to community involvement and a little government support; notice how clean Gamcheon is!

The Flower Road We Tend; local students created ceramic flowers to make the concrete wall appear more vital and dynamic; the art transformation of Gamcheon began in 2009

Jellyfish Lake closed in 2016 when drought killed off millions of jellyfish but reopened in January 2019; the jellyfish population now is around a million, down from 30 million in 2005

Imagine having this view every day!; I was ready to buy a houseboat and just ride around the gorgeous islands of Palau

Palau's Natural Arch looked pretty precarious to me; we saw lots of smaller arches and other creative contours that the sea has molded

We stopped at the Milky Way Lagoon where you apply white mud to your body and, supposedly, will look 10 years younger (I don't think it worked!)

Blue-spotted pufferfish; this species is solitary, shy and active during the day (they also have 4 strong teeth)

Gray Norse god nudibranch; these sea slugs get creative names because of their often extraordinary colors and striking forms

Branching whip coral; soft corals are integral members of the reef ecosystem and provide habitat for fish, snails, algae and a diversity of other marine species

Clownfish; Palau is unusual in that there is virtually no shore snorkeling since there are no beaches on the tree-covered islands

The waters off Palau were incredibly pristine with great visibility; there was practically no trash and if we saw plastic or other garbage we would remove it

Oriental sweetlips; this colorful fish is very photogenic but they tend to be very camera shy and hide whenever they see me coming

A tiny slice of beach meant we didn't have to eat lunch on the boat; the few specks of beach tend to be far out in the islands (45+ minute boat ride from town)

Titan triggerfish; the locals on Palau tend to have bad teeth and I only saw one dentist office

Raccoon butterflyfish; since Palau is surrounded by a national park, everyone has to pay $100 for a 10 day pass in order to do any snorkeling or diving

Festive parrotfish; yes, that's actually the name of this colorful species

Feather star crinoid; these animals are related to sea stars and sea cucumbers

Barracudas are ferocious, opportunistic predators, relying on surprise and short bursts of speed, up to 27 mph, to overtake their prey

Giant clam; there is a commercial nursery for giant clams nearby but some have managed to escape their enclosure

Ringed (banded) pipefish; this is the only one I've ever seen and it moves more like an eel or snake but is actually a fish; in this species it's the male that gives birth

Brown curryfish sea cucumber; this sounds more like an item on an Asian restaurant menu rather than a sea animal

Juvenile Oriental Sweetlips; first time I've ever seen one of these before they turn into colorful adults

Mean-looking crab; the Palau population was 50,000 in 1783 but the arrival of Europeans brought epidemics so that by 1901 the population was only 3700

We didn't see many sea stars except in the brackish waters near the main island; Palau is an archipelago of 500+ islands in Micronesia

Gorgeous, large, pink sea fan; Palau has little variation in temperatures throughout the year with average monthly highs of 87 or 88 and average monthly lows of 75 or 76

Crown of thorns sea star; Palau is great but difficult to reach from the US (it's taking me 4 long flights to get back to NC)

The visibility was so good we could see huge schools of big-eyed jacks below; the wall we snorkeled appeared to go straight down

Checkerboard wrasse; there is an annual calendar of underwater activity here so each month you're guaranteed to see something different

Moorish idols with brain coral; Palau is expensive to visit partly because the diving and snorkeling requires a boat rental or organized group trip

Blackeye thicklip; not the most flattering name for such an attractive fish

Juvenile silverlined cardinalfish (?); only 8 of the hundreds of islands that make up Palau are inhabited

Jellyfish Lake is one of the top tourist attractions in Palau; you can swim with millions of non-stinging jellyfish during their daily migration across a 14 acre marine lake

Our snorkeling excursion wasn't much cheaper than diving would have cost; we did the obligatory stops at Milky Way Lagoon, Natural Arch and Jellyfish Lake

Orange-lined triggerfish; this species helps control the burrowing sea urchin which has the ability to degrade coral reef ecosystems

The Atomic Bomb Dome was an arts venue before August 6, 1945 but is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the now thriving city has a population of 1.2 million people

The popular (1+ million visitors a year) Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum displays the human impact of the atomic bomb as well as life in Hiroshima before and after August 6, 1945

The first Hiroshima Castle was built in 1591 but, following the abolition of feudal domains in 1871, the castle came to serve more as a military facility; the castle was destroyed in 1945 but was rebuilt as a history museum

The book Hiroshima by John Hersey was originally featured in article form in the magazine The New Yorker, in August 1946; it is reported to have reached Tokyo, in English, at least by January 1947 and the translated version was released in Japan in 1949

The Children's Peace Monument commemorates Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing; thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument

The bullet train had super sleek designs and some even had trendy themes like the Hello Kitty train; the trains tended to cruise along at about 200 mph and were super smooth and comfy

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is built where the city’s busiest downtown commercial and residential district was before 1945; by 1955, the population of Hiroshima had recovered to pre-war levels

View from the top of Hiroshima Castle; the history museum in the castle was interesting but most of the items were described only in Japanese

Special thought seemed to go into even the tiniest of details; the smallest yen note is 1000 which is about $10 so you end up with a ton of coins

This eucalyptus tree at Hiroshima Castle miraculously survived the bomb despite being only 740 meters from the hypocenter; the Hiroshima Carp is the popular local baseball team

I mistakenly assumed that the bomb exploded when it hit the ground but it detonated 600 meters above this spot; 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed

View from the museum to the Atomic Bomb Dome; in the center is a cenotaph holding the names of all of the people killed by the bomb and the Peace Pond

In February 1981 Pope John Paul II visited Hiroshima and made his world famous Appeal for Peace; a bronze bust of him now stands in front of the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace

The top number on the Peace Watch Tower indicates the number of days since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; the bottom number indicates how many days since the last nuclear test

National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims; the names and photos of victims as well as memoirs to convey the experiences of the bombing to future generations are here

Stone Lantern of Peace; the purpose of the Peace Memorial Park is to not only memorialize the victims, but also to establish the memory of nuclear horrors and advocate world peace

Painting celebrating renovations to Memorial Museum; visitors have included Gen MacArthur, Nehru, Nixon, Sartre, Pope John Paul II, Carter, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Weisel, de Klerk and Gorbachev

Figure of the Merciful Goddess Kannon of Peace; the line to get into the museum was over an hour so I was able to see much of the park while others wanted to avoid the walking

Hondori Avenue shopping arcade; on May 27, 2016, Barack Obama visited Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting president of the United States to visit since the drop of the atomic bomb

Peace Clock Tower; it's amazing that the city was rebuilt given the scale of destruction but the US didn't share info it was gathering on the effects of radioactivity with the Japanese after the bombing

The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound is where the ashes of tens of thousands of victims lie; it's very close to the hypocenter so corpses were gathered and cremated here

Peace Bell; today there are dozens of memorials and monuments, museums, and lecture halls at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, I wish our tour had had more time to explore the city

Monument Dedicated to Korean Victims and Survivors; 45,000+ Koreans were killed in the bomb blast as the Japanese used them as slaves in the war effort

More than 6 million tourists per year visit Gyeongju, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD); a vast number of archaeological sites and cultural properties from this period remain

Cheomseongdae is a 7th century astronomical observation tower; its simplistic form is misleading as there are many layers of complexity and knowledge incorporated in its design

Tumuli Park, right in the center of Gyeongju, is like an open-air museum with 25+ grassy, regal, burial mounds; the city was the capital of the Silla Kingdom which ruled most of the Korean peninsula for 1000 years

You seldom see English signage in South Korea so you have to rely on symbols like this king (or at least I thought it was a king!); luckily, the bathroom only had one other occupant and I let her leave before I sneaked out

Gold and gilt bronze works worn by the ruler buried in the Cheonmachong tomb; it is the only such tomb in Korea you can actually enter and contains an impressive museum

We really didn't have enough time in Gyeongju with just an afternoon available; the city has 31 National Treasures, and Gyeongju National Museum (closed on the day we were there) houses 16,333 artifacts

Green glazed roof tiles with monster masks were designed to repel evil spirits; Gyeongju was the 4th largest city in the world at the end of the first millennium

Wolji Pond had a carnival-like atmosphere with food trucks (corn dogs are popular) and tour buses; Gyeongju is sister cities with Pompeii and Versailles, among others

This mock-up shows how Donggung Palace looked when it was built in 674; it was then that King Munmu unified the Korean peninsula for the first time

Gyeongju was surprisingly enjoyable; there are many historical sites within easy walking distance of each other

Many of Korea's leading families trace their roots back to Gyeongju and the Silla Dynasty; Gyeongju is the birthplace of Cheondoism, an indigenous religion to Korea based on Korean shamanism, Taoism and Korean Buddhism

Wolji Pond is the most popular evening destination in Gyeongju for the beautiful lighting which creates photos perfect for Instagram; the city is 370 km southeast of Seoul

Wolseong Park features colossal burial mounds, some 22m high, the city of 265,000 is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its historical significance

There are 35 royal tombs and 155 tumuli in central Gyeongju, and 421 tumuli in the outskirts of the city; a tumulus (tumuli is plural) is a burial mound

Gilt bronze statue of Buddha among the thousands of relics of the Silla Kingdom that were found when Wolji Pond was dredged; the city's population peaked at roughly a million in the 9th century

The area is known for barley bread which looks like 2 small pancakes with red bean paste inside; I was told it tasted okay

Bronze saddle used by 6th or 7th century king; Cheonmachong, the name of the tomb in which the saddle was found, actually means heavenly horse tomb

The red and blue symbol seen everywhere in Korea reminds me of the Pepsi logo; Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD)

The crape myrtles were pruned like the pines; the tombs in Tumuli Park are scattered through what is now a pine forest

Several of the palace buildings of King Munmu have been reconstructed based on archaeological excavations; the lotus pond was designed by the king and is shaped to match that of his kingdom