OUT THERE: Travelogue as Self(e)scape

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT xi

PROLOGUE
In Here Now 13
Go Out There 19
Roaming Free 25

TRAVELOGUE I
Journey Is Long, Money Short 28
The-Sun-Usually-Doesn’t-Rise-on the Kingdom 31
Landscape and Peoplescape in Highlands 35
A Don Quixote in Turmoil-ridden Belfast 39
A Literary Excursion around Dublin 44
Two Titans with Too-Close-but-also-Too-Distant Links Between 51
As the “Inscrutable One” 65
Holy Island with the Tremendous Traces 68
Edinburgh and the University 74
Patient and Permissive 78
Where Dead Things Are Alive 83
Literary Sons of Scotland 86

TRAVELOGUE II
To Brussels via the English Channel 90
The Land of Nature and Artifact 93
The Mecca of All Art Lovers 96
My Idol Simply as a Human Being 99
All Roads Lead to Tourism in Rome 102
To Assisi, Home of St. Francis 105
San Marino, the Smallest Republic in the World 108
Where Dante Finished His Divine Work and Earthy Life in Exile 111
My Message Reads “The City Full of Water, Please Save” 115
The Alps in the Italian Sun 118
Alps, a Wake and the Hangover 121
Joan, an Off-duty Tour Guide 125
Down the Long Rhine 129
Streets, Canals and Museums in Amsterdam 133
Everything New on the Road 136

TRAVELOGUE III
A Wanderer’s Freedom in New York 139
Where the Top of the Capitol Is the Loftiest 142
Passing Moments in Pictures Through the Window 145
A Pebble out of Grand Canyon 148
Along the Pacific Coast 151
Charlie and the First Americans I met 154
A Journey into the Past 157
Edinburgh Revisited 160
Stonehenge, Dartmoor and Land’s End 163
Ahmad, Evan, Mario and John 166

TRAVELOGUE IV
A Pair of Big Babies in Alien Places 169
The Cubistic Landscape of Cervantes Country 171
New Madrid and Old Madrid 174
The Past Well-preserved in the Iberian Peninsula 177
Crossing Gibraltar Strait to Africa 180
Moorish Marks in Southern Spain 183
Where Gods and Humans Live, Play and Compete Together 186
The Silvery Sea-sheen in the Moonlight 189
Ancient Olympia, the Myths and History 192
Colossal Columns Still Stand on Cape Sounion 195

TRAVELOGUE V
West Side of Manhattan Revisited 198
“You see, I am from Hawaii” 203
Korean Traces in Hawaii 210
Diamond Head to Marblehead 216
Englewood Cliffs upon Hudson 224
iPad - a White Elephant to Me? 238

EPILOGUE
Living as if Passing by My True Life Lane 242
A Gang of Four Oldie Rascals 247