Thanks for the Spam!
Like most bloggers, I get two, sometimes three times as many spam as I do relevant comments. Spam is so annoying, I usually hit delete without even a second look. But late last year one caught my eye. The phrasing made me smile and I decided to keep it. And as I gathered more, I tried to imagine the individuals behind these comments. I mean, even if the spam is left by spambots, there's a person somewhere along the food…
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A Photo Review of 2013
Like a lot of people, I can't believe 2013 is over. While it wasn't a bad year overall, it presented a major personal challenge that forced me to change course, literally and figuratively, early in the year. As many of my regular readers know, I've been exploring Jamaica, my home country, since late 2011. I'd hit most of the places I wanted to see but there are still more that I haven't touched. 2013 was the year I had planned…
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Documentary on Queen Nanny, Jamaica’s National Hero, on Indiegogo
Following in the footsteps of acclaimed filmmakers like Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese, movie stuntman turned director, Roy T. Anderson has decided to go the crowdfunding route to help finance his latest project: a one-hour documentary film, Queen Nanny: Legendary Maroon Chieftainess. Queen Nanny was the indomitable leader of the Jamaican Maroons, and Jamaica's only female National Hero. [caption id="attachment_7443" align="aligncenter" width="644"] Jamaican $500 note with likeness of Nanny of the Maroons[/caption] Anderson’s impressive début film Akwantu: the Journey, on…
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Sorrel, a Popular Jamaican Christmas Drink
There’s no Christmas in Jamaica without sorrel, a drink that is infused with ginger, sweetened with sugar and spiked with white overproof rum. It is as ubiquitous at Christmas time as rum cake, curried goat, and rice with pigeon (gungo) peas. A hibiscus variety, sorrel came to Jamaica from West Africa. According to the National Library of Jamaica website, references to Jamaican sorrel date to the 1700s. [caption id="attachment_13570" align="aligncenter" width="635"] Sorrel plant[/caption] Sorrel is an excellent source of Vitamin…
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Jamaica Travel News
The following is a round-up of travel news culled from the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaican Observer newspapers. Make the historic Cuba Cruise Five days after the winter tourist season commences, Jamaica will be part of history when Louis Critsal Cruises sails out of Montego Freeport en route to Cuba. This is the first time that a cruise line will operate ships between the two neighbouring countries. During an interview on Monday, Cuba Cruise's marketing and media coordinator, Melissa Medeiros,…
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Nelson Mandela Walks with the Angels Now
Nelson Mandela was laid to rest today in Qunu, the village in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province where he was born 95 years ago. Even though he’d been ailing for several months and we knew it was a matter of time, the news of his death knocked me back unexpectedly. I thought I was ready when I wrote earlier that it was time to let him go but I feel his loss as acutely as if he were a family…
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Carrying on a Tradition of Making Jamaican Christmas Cake
Just before Christmas 2000, I walked into the Korean grocery store in my neighborhood, like I’d done many times before. But seeing the packages of raisins, currants, mixed fruits, cherries and brown sugar stacked in neat piles in the store that day, momentarily transported me back to the days when I used to help my mother bake. Before I knew it, I was walking home with a bag full of baking ingredients. In the years after I left home, I…
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Our 3rd Blogiversary – in 3 Takes, Take III and a Giveaway
My visit to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Lesotho starting me blogging, but Jamaica was my inspiration to get in to travel. Though I was born in Jamaica, I don't know it as well as I think I should. When I got laid off from my job in November 2003, I was excited. For several months prior, two friends and I had been planning our next professional moves. Mine was to start a tour company that would showcase Jamaica the way…
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Our 3rd Blogiversary – in 3 Takes, Take II
In the Take I on InsideJourneys' 3rd blogiversary, we looked back at the trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, that inspired me to start blogging. The year following that momentous trip, I visited London, Paris and Toronto. Here are some of the photos I took: [caption id="attachment_12060" align="aligncenter" width="653"] London Eye[/caption] Usually, I stay clear of tourist traps but on this, my third trip to London, I decided to do some touristy things, like stand on line to see…
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Our 3rd Blogiversary – in 3 Takes
The date of my 3rd blogiversary hit me by surprise this year. (Honestly, I'd totally forgotten about it!) I was doing a little site maintenance last week and noticed the date of my first post - November 29th. Right away, I knew what I wanted to do - show some of my favorite photos of the last three years but there was no way to weed through more than 2,500 images in two days and decide which ones to use.…
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