Luoyang is an ancient city often called the birthplace of Chinese civilization with a beautifully restored old town and the spectacular Longmen Grottoes.

The grottoes feature over 100,000 Buddhist statues dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries carved straight into the limestone cliffs. Some are so massive you can spot them from across the river!

We also visited 2,500-year-old burial pits of high-ranking royalty, complete with chariots and sacrificial horses carefully arranged as if they were still ready to roll. Ancient afterlife planning was clearly very… thorough 😉 ...

We decided to dodge the selfie-stick swarms and hike the uncrowded Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China. We managed to conquer over a kilometer of it, which, in “ancient, wildly uneven stairs” math, basically counts as a half marathon!

Along the way, we learned the most baffling architectural secret: the Wall is essentially held together by rice! During the Ming Dynasty, builders created a super-mortar by mixing slaked lime with sticky rice soup. One of history’s most formidable military defenses is waterproof, earthquake-resistant, and secretly a giant bowl of soup!

Standing on this marvel of culinary engineering advertised as one of 7 Wonders of the World, I pulled up the list and realized that I had visited all of the 7 wonders over the years. Misspent adulthood I guess 😉 ...

We had to leave Indonesia to renew our visas so we decided to fly to China. In Beijing we visited the famous Tiananmen Square, as well as the palaces of the Ming and Qing dynasties at the Forbidden City and the summer palace.

Legend says the Forbidden city complex has exactly 9,999.5 rooms. The half room because in Chinese mythology, the Emperor of Heaven has exactly 10,000 rooms. The earthly emperor, wanting to show just a smidge of humility so he built half a room less to avoid upstaging the gods 😉 ...

Our North Sulawesi road trip went from National Geographic to Fear Factor real quick! Started off totally wholesome: epic views of Bunaken from Maketete Hills, casually hanging out on the Mahawu volcanic rim, chasing the hidden Kali waterfall, and saying hi to the gigantic Jesus statue in Manado.

Then… we hit the Tomohon traditional market. Let’s just say the “local delicacies” included bats, snakes, and dogs. I’d post the photos, but I’d like to keep my account from getting banned. Consider your eyes spared! ...

Lembeh Strait has a global reputation for being the “muck diving capital of the world”, so we had to give it a shot. Muck diving is basically diving in the “mucky” volcanic seabed looking for rare, small, and camouflaged marine life.

We ended up doing 7 dives including a night dive which was Jessy’s first. Apart from almost being bitten by a black-finned snake eel, we saw lots of amazing creatures, like the tiny pygmy seahorse, thorny seahorse, small cuttlefish, mandarinfish, many nudibranchs, sexy shrimp, snowflake moray, juvenile ribbon eel, blue spotted ray etc etc. That’s us done with muck diving for a while 😉 ...

Day 42 away from civilization: The sailors have discovered the resorts in Bitung. They have adapted by initiating a ‘pool crawl’ and can be seen violently feasting on non-boat food in its natural restaurant habitat. The creatures’ hard-earned waistlines are not expected to survive long. Send help!!! ...

Ventured into the wilds of Tangkoko National Park in North Sulawesi. Since the island sits right on the Wallace Line, acting as a biological border control between Australian and Southeast Asian nature, the wildlife here is quite unique.
Spent the day rubbing elbows with critically endangered Celebes crested macaques. While the adults tried to act like responsible parents, the kids were busy auditioning for Cirque du Soleil 😉
Once dusk hit, we went on a mission to find the spectral tarsier, a tiny primate composed of 90% eyeball. We also ticked off six bear cuscus lounging in the treetops, some kingfishers, golden orb-weavers, and two tarantulas hanging out right at eye level, just to make sure our heart rates stayed elevated! ...