2011 Tokyo: This was a quick visit to a small private university known mainly for its departments of music. I remember this meeting now as a time when I caught up with old friends, and made some new ones.

2012 Hong Kong: We planned this long lay over so that we could make a short trip into the city, look at the main sights, eat in one of the small but brilliant places in TST, and scope it out for a longer visit. We still haven’t made the return trip.

2013 Mumbai: I don’t remember why we didn’t travel that year. Perhaps we put off the planning for too long.

2014 Germany: A last minute trip to celebrate the 65th birthday of a colleague. I remember meeting up with so many friend; it was such a pleasant trip. Diwali should be a time like this.

2015 Germany
The featured photo is from that year’s trip. Another trip for a friend’s birthday. Again a lovely meeting with many people, but it rained all the time.
2016 Bangkok: We’d thought it would be a relaxed weekend, but it turned out to be hectic. We did enjoy this ice cream which looked like a plate of katsu.

2017 Mumbai: I remember this year quite definitely. We stayed home because we had traveled in October and we had a family trip planned for December. It is good to stay home for Diwali now and then.

2018 Guangzhou: One of the most charming cities that I have been to. The Family and I sat by the Pearl river on the evening of Diwali and had a long dinner.

2019 Wuhan: I wasn’t to know it for another three months, but the flu that I caught was to lay the world low the next year. Apart from that, I enjoyed this trip. Wuhan normally is a lively town.

2020 Mumbai: Like everyone else, we spent the year at home. We met family in fits and starts. A few people came home over the month, and the day after we had our first large family gathering, risky, of the year.

There’s a bit of contrast between previous years and now, but we are not doing things we’ve never done before. Its just that we’ve never done so much of the same thing before.
A wonderful chronicle!
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Thanks. It was wonderful to look back through those years
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I can imagine:)
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Most of the years you’ve traveled, not surprising. Good that you had a family get-together this time. And, I recall reading the Pearl River Diwali – that beautifully lit up boat.
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Yes, I’d written about that, and the boat.
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Quite a travel list, and this year is a
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* rare travel off Diwali for you 🙂 and 2019 in Wuhan … Nice to know that it’s a lively place, otherwise now-a-days it is associated only with much else…
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I didn’t mind staying at home this Diwali. It wasn’t noisy and polluted like most other years.
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So you were patient zero in Wuhan? :O
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It is speculation, because this was before the earliest identified infection. Of course, it is now said to be possible that it could have been circulating in Europe at the end of last summer.
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I agree that this was a wonderful chronicle. It one of those posts you want to pin to the top of your FB page so you can refer back to it when you’re trying to remember what you did. All of your places seem so exotic to me. The boat in Wuhan, the statue in Hong Kong, the exotic food. Wow! What a pictorial delight.
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Thank you. It was fun to live through those moments again
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I can imagine. When we make lists we realize how much we have done. That list is a keeper!
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Thanks. Yes, it was fun to look back at those years.
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I enjoy reading your travels. Wonderful photos. I remember the posts of your Wuhan.
Hope we’ll be back to travel soon…
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For some values of soon 🙂
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Wow IJ, you actually caught COVID where and when it started! Amazing. Was your recovery a difficult one? As for your post, wonderful images and quite a world tour! Perhaps for you staying put for the holiday was a nice change of pace😀
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I’m guessing post facto, because of the symptoms. The “official” first case was in late December, six weeks after the end of my visit. My case was not severe, but it took me several weeks to recover.
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Wonderful memories. Thanks for sharing.
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A pleasure
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Great photos, great memories. Well done.
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Thank you
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