Author: Ms. R.

The hospital at the University of Porto has operated for more than 200 years. After the recent addition of a modern medical facility, part of the hospital has been turned into a museum celebrating and exploring the history of health and medicine in Portugal. Its earliest iteration was an isolation hospital, which housed patients in temporary wooden huts that were burned down when the epidemic was over. For many years it was used for the treatment of tuberculosis. Much……

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The small town of Yoshimi, Saitama, is known mostly for the Hundred Caves, the largest grave cluster in Japan. A few minutes away from the caves, however, lies another strange cave that was once just as popular. Gankutsu Hotel (“cave hotel”) is a strange structure dug out of a sandstone cliff overlooking the Ichino River. It’s enclosed by fences today and unauthorized entry is prohibited as it is private property.  It was constructed by Minekichi Takahashi, a local strawberry……

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Rocks in space collide with things—Earth included—all the time, but in human history these collisions have mostly been small events that make little lasting impact. Go back long enough, and massive impacts start to appear in the geological record. And the solar system’s youth was downright barbaric: momentous impacts left, right, and center. While the scars of impacts on Mercury, the Moon, and Mars have more or less been preserved over billions of years in their pockmarked surfaces, Earth……

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Food is never simple. Take what is known as a cookie in America and a biscuit in the United Kingdom—two small, usually sweet treat concepts that sometimes overlap and sometimes don’t. However humble, these foods are inextricably tied to gigantic ideas in the history of both countries: the expansion of empire, the Industrial Revolution, waves of immigration, slavery, labor, nationalism. It’s honestly not that insane to say that the cookie/biscuit, if you include its predecessors, is one of the……

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Deep in the Big Thicket of East Texas, a former railroad spur affords visitors a glimpse of the bobbing, shimmering Light of Saratoga, which seems to approach, bounce, and change color before disappearing. It’s one of several “ghost lights” or “spooklights,” lights that appear without an obvious source or explanation, often surrounded by a unique regional mythology involving ghosts, extraterrestrials, or Native American folklore. According to local legend, the light on Bragg Road is the ghostly lantern of an……

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When leaving the metro at Slussen train station, perhaps to see the Katarinahissen, Sweden‘s oldest animated sign, or taking in the Gamla Stan, visitors will find that part of the square is corded off for some apparent maintenance. Most people pass by the area without giving a second glance, but those who do will notice a hidden piece of art.  The sculpture, called “Humor,” is of an old-styled man with a flat cap coming out of a manhole behind a cordoned-off……

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An ancient ceremonial site, the Hill of Uisneach is considered by some to be Ireland‘s most sacred site, as it is regarded as the symbolic center of the Emerald Isle. Primarily associated with druids and the Celtic Festival of Bealtaine, the Hill of Uisneach is located at the center of the ancient highway of Slighe Assail and is technically a part of four neighboring towns, Ushnagh Hill, Mweelra, Rathnew, and Kellybrook. A protected national monument, this location is home to numerous prehistoric and……

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On a charming residential street in Nob Hill, an otherworldly structure arises from a corner lot. Slightly obscured by mature trees, indigenous flora, and corrugated metal fences, the locally-dubbed Spaceship House is actually the home and studio of eclectic architect Bart Prince. Born in New Mexico, Prince was the protégé of famed architect Bruce Goff, with whom he worked on the stunning Pavilion for Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Though deeply inspired by his……

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Last December, it felt like every day was a banquet at the sharehouse where I live in Tokyo. On the Sunday before Christmas, we snacked on snow crab shabu-shabu. On Christmas Eve, we sliced up a whole smoked chicken. On New Year’s Day, we savored wagyu sirloin steaks. And throughout, we savored top-quality shochu and shockingly sweet mikan, a clementine-like fruit beloved throughout Japan. The kicker? All of this was effectively free. It may sound too good to be……

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If “Harriet” could hear, she might pick up the sound of ping-pong balls skittering across a table. If she could smell, she might detect a range of lunches being reheated in a nearby microwave. If her eyes could see, she might let them wander a busted Pac-Man machine, a TV, and a campus bookstore, decorated with a swooping, celebratory paper chain, like an elementary-school version of DNA’s double helix. She might even catch a glimpse of herself in a……

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