The World According to Mitch

I arrived in Sweden on Tuesday on a Lufthanza plane filled with a Canadian hockey team coming to play a tournament here.  Good luck Canada! Getting to my hotel was a little tricky.  Fortunately there is a great tourist information counter at Stockholm/Arlanda airport which pointed me in the...

Theresa and I had a conversation in November that basically went like this: 'What are we doing for New Year's Eve?' 'I dunno... want to get a babysitter?' 'Sure... I'll see if she's free.' ' Wait, I have a better idea... why don't we drive 650 kilometres to...

I suppose the first day of the week - whether it is Monday or Sunday - is not too different wherever you go.  Having arrived in India late Saturday night to teach a class on Monday I had to come into the office on Sunday to prepare, as did a local vendor.  I did not ask him if he was happy...

Note From Mitch: You may have noticed a drastic shift in my blogging from Hong Kong to Malaysia.  Arriving in Malaysia and especially outside the relative safety of Kuala Lampur I realized that there were real issues that I had to concern myself with - as a Jew and an Israeli (though traveling on...

I had been prepared for the abject poverty rampant throughout India because people had warned me about it, and because I have seen the scenes on television, in movies, in journals. It was impossible to miss the signs as soon as I left the airport. As I waited for my luggage at the airport it might have...

There was a time when I would have been paying closer attention to these things... but not only did I have more time, the world - my world - was a much smaller place. In 1983 my parents took me to Chicago to an event, and I got to see the Sears Tower, since 1974 the tallest building in the world. It...

When I look back on my week in Hong Kong - I was here for work after all - it is hard to imagine anyone accusing me of not taking full advantage of my time here.  In most of the cities I have visited this past year I have effectively gone from the airport to the hotel, the office (or training centre...

In case it wasn't cool enough that I am in Hong Kong for the week, Earlier in the week I applied for a visa to visit Mainland China.  Today was the big day. In preparation for my trip I took a number of precautions, both against crime and against myself.  I left all of my jewelry in the...

Of course you know that I am no dummy, but when I walked into a restaurant for lunch (I believe it was called Choi Fook Seafood Restaurant) that is not used to nor equipped to serve foreigners, I might as well have been. The restaurant was on the third floor of a building not far from where I am teaching...

Today was the first day of my course in Hong Kong, but first and foremost it was the first light of Channukah. There was an interesting story in the South China Morning News on Monday about the Jewish community in Hong Kong, which somewhat ironically is about double that of my home town of Mississauga...