Category Archives: Traveling

Learning on Diversity from Rainbow Country Mauritius

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Oh, you lived in a resort country!

That was the typical misunderstanding I kept hearing when I said I lived in Mauritania since 2018, as many people thought it was MAURItius, a country also known as “rainbow country” for its diversity.

And after years of this MAURI*** dichotomy in mind, I finally visited Mauritius, which was truly amazing. “God created Mauritius first, and then created heaven in imitation of Mauritius” as Mark Twain, author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, put it, Mauritius is full of charm. It was not only nice resort, but it also lived with diversity which I believe is a key to the better world to embrace the difference (without that, we might keep having wars and conflicts).

In this post, I would like to share some of the tastes of Mauritius through online info and what I experienced (not available online and several highlight collage photos!), hoping this can contribute to promoting Mauritius and diversity.

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Achieving a Ten-Year-long Dream and Language Learning at Lençóis in Brazil

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-One day, I will definitely go to this place-

More than 10 years ago, I saw a picture of Lençóis in Brazil, and I promised myself to see it in my eyes one day. It has been “one day” for long time as it was not easy to make it happen due to its limited season (June-Aug) and access (far from all the places I was based in).

This year, I had a chance to visit Chile in June, and despite remaining COVID-19 restriction, I decided to travel there. It was also for brushing up my language skill before landing at a new duty station (Mozambique, Portuguese speaking country just like Brazil). In this post, I would like to share my experience from traveler and language learner’s point of view.

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Ferry trip between Finland and Sweden and cost saving tips

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-Nordic countries are very similar?

This was the question I had out of curiosity. To my little knowledge, many people (including myself) have tendency to group nordic countries as rich countries with good social welfare (and high tax rate for that!).

Since I came to live in Denmark, one of the nordic countries, I decided to take this opportunity to travel neighboring countries – Finland and Sweden. In addition, I learned that there is daily ferry to connect those two countries, so gave it a try for the first international ferry experience.

In this entry, I will share some of highlights and learnings in Finland, Sweden and some experience of international Ferry travel and some tips to reduce your travel cost (!)

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5 Reasons and 10 ways to learn English

English, Español, Français, 日本語

Language is one of the finest products of human beings, and because of the globalization, need to understand other languages is increasing more than ever.

This is a series of language learning entries, which tackles several languages I learned/am learning (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.). I will be sharing very lough characteristics and origin, reasons I learned, and how I learned/am learning.

Let me start off with the most useful one, English.

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Kenya 6ー Learning from COVID-19 charter flight to leave Africa

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Since ever I made a critical life decision to leave Kenya, I have been waiting for an opportunity to leave Kenya for a long time when the airport has been closed due to COVID-19, just like many other countries (in fact it was just 1-2 month, but it psychologically it felt like much longer).

Some governments/embassies made efforts to arrange a chartered flight to send their citizens back home, but the announcement comes with very short notice (e.g. 3 days – 1 week, which is hard for someone like me without a willingness to come back).

Although I have taken the UN humanitarian flight for my work, I have never taken a one-shot emergency flight before. Given that not many people have a chance to take a chartered flight, I would like to share some learning from taking emergency chartered flight in the context of COVID-19.

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Kenya 3 ー 5 things I learned from going out on the street 6 times during COVID-19 pandemic

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It’s been almost 2 months since I started tele-working in Nairobi, Kenya where there is a curfew between 7pm-5am (semi-lockdown). During this time, I had to go out on the street.

Honestly I didn’t want to, but I had to. So I did it, not once but six days in a row.

As not many people (even residences in Nariobi, let alone people outside Africa) can see what is going on on the street of Narirobi, let me share my experience and learning in this entry.

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Kenya 1 ー 7 learnings from another life turning point in Africa

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Life is full of new encounter and departure, be it with people, items, jobs or places to live.

The reason I said good-bye to Mauritania (Nouakchott) was to say Hello to the new destination, Kenya (Nairobi). This is quite a big move, mentally (change of my work) and physically (west to east of this big African continent).

Since then, more than a month has passed and I already learned some important life lessons, which I would like to share hoping they can be informative and applicable to other situation.