Tag: architecture

  • A Canadian flag hangs from the side of an Ottawa building.

    Canada Day Greetings from Ottawa

    Greetings from Toronto, where it’s Canada Day. Informally speaking, you can say that it’s Canada’s birthday. Technically, July 1st is the anniversary of the country’s creation back on July 1, 1867. Two days ago, Shawn and I explored Ottawa on foot. In preparation for Canada’s birthday celebrations, the capital city was getting dressed in an…

  • The Gateway to the American West: The St. Louis Arch

    “To the question, what is the purpose of architecture, I would answer: To shelter and enhance man’s life on earth, and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.” Eero Saarinen, architect, the Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. We have hopped the Atlantic for the summer, and are now exploring our home…

  • Strolling New Delhi’s Lodi Gardens: Sun Salutations, Water Lilies, & Tombs

    I hopped out of the rumbling auto rickshaw and stepped onto the quiet New Delhi street. Much of the city was still in a deep slumber in the leafy district, not far from the Lodi Gardens. It was my first full morning in India. I felt a strange blend of timidness and Indiana Jones-like curiosity brewing as…

  • Love for La Tour Eiffel

    I’ve long been a francophile. When I first visited Paris at the age of 16, my father snapped an image of me pretending to hold up the legendary structure. Thereafter, miniature versions of engineer Gustave Eiffel’s masterpiece cropped up in my home – from an Eiffel Tower retro lamp base to a silver pendant on…

  • The Taj Mahal: A Monument to Love… Or Corn?

    You’ve undoubtedly seen images of the Taj Mahal many, many times. Still, nothing can quite compare you for your first glimpse of this marvelous mausoleum. On the morning I planned to visit, I woke up with the roosters. It was my first time in India and I was determined to arrive before thousands of additional…