↗A Table at the Port
A bowl of bouillabaisse in Marseille becomes an encounter with another way of living. A waiter’s explanation, Sharon’s hands, and the knowledge carried through an everyday meal matter as much as the destination.
FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY · 36 POSTS
Travel & place
Looking outward, getting a little lost, and learning from the places we visit.
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↗The Room Was Small. The Work Was Not
In the reconstructed bedroom at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a quiet window onto the garden creates an unexpected sense of spaciousness. A visiting tour group changes that feeling without changing the room.
↗You Can’t Enter a Moving Glacier Through the Same Entrance Forever
At the Mer de Glace, the ice cave’s apparent permanence gives way to a different reality: a moving glacier requires a newly carved entrance each season. Machinery and protective coverings become part of the story.
↗My France Road Trip Began When the City Booted Up at 9 P.M.
A transfer day becomes an unexpected invitation into Toulouse’s evening life. Music, runners, volunteers, and a cheering crowd interrupt a carefully planned route back to the hotel.
↗This Has Very Little to Do with France
A road trip through France begins in Barcelona, inspired by the Tour de France’s Grand Départ. The changed route brings practical complications and a more meaningful kind of preparation.
↗Before Departure: When Travel Becomes Practice
After nearly six months away from publishing, Kefei prepares to return through travel. Family rhythms have shifted, a new journey is approaching, and ideas developed in quiet now need to meet everyday decisions.
↗Doors, Bridges, and Voices: Eight Days in the Heart of Germany
A conversation with a friend prompts Kefei to revisit eight days of travel through eastern Germany. The resulting account follows places, music, history, and the thoughts that become clearer after a journey.
↗A Travel Symphony – Romantic Memory & Celebration
Kefei arranges a journey through Germany as four musical movements, from an outdoor concert in Berlin to opera in Bayreuth, an intimate piano performance in Bonn, and a return to Koblenz. Music provides a language for the trip’s changing emotional pace.
↗Crossing Oceans: Why I Chose Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen to Celebrate 35 Years in the USA
The fairy tale of the Bremen Town Musicians gives Kefei a way to reflect on second chances and belonging. Its aging animals discover companionship before reaching their intended destination, a story that resonates during his anniversary journey through northern Germany.
↗Encounters in the East: Eight Days Across Time, Thought, and Transformation
Eight days of travel become a series of imagined conversations with figures including Luther, Gropius, Wagner, Bach, and Goethe. Kefei explicitly presents these AI-assisted passages as literary reflections, using the journey’s places to explore courage, clarity, silence, and change.
↗The Journey Back to Where It All Began
Before a fifteen-day journey through Germany, Kefei tells his mother in Shanghai about the trip and recalls how her wish to keep him nearby led him to Tongji University. Studying German there unexpectedly opened a wider cultural horizon.
↗The Slippers of Surrender, Being Bold
The Egypt series closes with an undignified travel mishap: stomach trouble, an urgent restroom visit, and a pair of communal slippers near Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque. Kefei finds himself laughing at an experience far removed from the grandeur of temples and monuments.
↗My Year of Bold Transition: A Story from East to West
A visit to Taipei after Shanghai prompts Kefei to compare his impressions of movement and stagnation with his first year in New York. The anniversary of his transition becomes a chance to ask how much reflection has turned into action.
↗Same Longitude, Missing Spine
Tea, humid air, and a view from Jiufen slow Kefei into a different way of inhabiting the present. Comparing that experience with Shanghai, he uses geography as a metaphor for the difference between familiar roots and a changed inner posture.
↗Connection Isn’t Always Smooth Water — But It’s What Builds the Boat
Different preferences and energy levels complicate a group journey through Egypt. Optional excursions and changing schedules reveal the patient negotiation behind companionship, while guides and group leaders work to keep trust intact.
↗Being Bold in Egypt: Awakening 3
Kefei arrives in Egypt with familiar images and an implicit checklist, then finds those expectations complicated by his guide’s layered stories. The idea of a palimpsest gives him a way to understand a place whose earlier traces remain within later chapters.
↗Being Bold in Egypt: Awakening 2
A crowded Egypt itinerary leaves Kefei moving through extraordinary places without always feeling that he has arrived. At Karnak and in the Valley of the Kings, pausing changes his relationship with the journey.
↗Being Bold in Egypt: Awakening 1
Egypt gives Kefei a way to deepen the encore chapter that began after retirement and continued through his move to New York. He describes the journey as an invitation to renew curiosity and reconsider what matters in later life.
↗Being Bold: 10 Awakenings in Egypt
This NotebookLM discussion transcript revisits the ten themes of Kefei’s Egypt reflections in a conversational format. It moves through renewal, presence, curiosity, legacy, resilience, relationships, self-reflection, individuality, physical well-being, and play.
↗Not a vacation, but a pilgrimage: 10 Awakenings in Egypt
After an exhausting journey through Cairo, Aswan, and Luxor, Kefei considers why a trip can matter even when it offers little rest. Early departures, ancient monuments, and shared moments along the Nile become ten reflections on curiosity, legacy, connection, and renewal.
↗At the Gate of Glory: Who Owns the Suez Canal
A visit to the Suez Canal Museum prompts Kefei to examine who receives credit for an ambitious undertaking. The missing statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps and a curator's passionate account bring labor, national identity, and competing historical narratives into view.
↗Build for Eternity: Reflections from Day 2
Standing before the Great Pyramid, Kefei reads its geometry through both engineering and mortality. The monument becomes a way to consider why people devote finite lives to work they hope will outlast them.
↗Celebrating the Finale in New York City
Reaching New York, Kefei gathers the lessons of his cross-country drive into a closing reflection. The recap moves through friendship, career changes, natural landscapes, education, sports, and family, showing how each stop contributed to his thinking about retirement.
↗Day 12: Journey to Philadelphia – Revisiting Memories at UPenn
A stop at the University of Pennsylvania brings Kefei back to his daughter's college years and graduation. Walking the campus revives memories of visiting her, sharing university life, and celebrating a milestone that mattered to the whole family.
↗Day 11: Exploring Racing History and Academic Excellence
Kefei begins the day with a tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before driving to Columbus and exploring Ohio State University. The itinerary places racing history beside campus life, athletic facilities, and the quieter pace of a summer visit.
↗Day 10: Having the Miller Time without Beer
After a long drive to Indianapolis, Kefei and his wife explore downtown landmarks and enjoy a familiar Chinese meal. The city's sporting associations bring back memories of Reggie Miller and the professional chapter Kefei was living during those basketball years.
↗Day 9: Being Humble in a Friend's Garage
Visiting his wife's longtime friend in Des Moines, Kefei hears a story of movement from scientific work into business and adventurous travel. The friend's current project is rebuilding a travel van with detailed improvements for future journeys.
↗Day 8: Reflecting on My Career Transformation to Cloud and Beyond
Independence Day celebrations in Omaha prompt Kefei to reflect on the choices behind his transition into cloud engineering. He connects his interest in Warren Buffett's investing approach with the time he committed to understanding technologies he believed would matter.
↗Day 7: Reflecting on the Power of Education
Visiting the University of Colorado Boulder, Kefei remembers an unsuccessful doctoral application and briefly imagines the life an acceptance might have opened. An unexpected conversation with an older electrical engineering graduate student redirects that backward glance toward present possibilities.
↗Day 6: Growing with Greatness - Journey through Strong Associations
At Mount Rushmore, Kefei focuses on sculptor Gutzon Borglum's relationship to his subjects and uses it to consider the influence of people he has admired. The visit recalls an encouraging exchange from his years working as a tour guide in Shanghai.
↗Day 5: Embracing the Canyon's True Essence
Returning to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone beneath an overcast sky, Kefei notices a quieter landscape than the dramatic scene he saw at sunset. Diffused light draws his attention toward rock colors, formations, and the stillness surrounding the viewpoints.
↗Day 4: Having a Disconnected Moments Along the Way
Entering Yellowstone from the south, Kefei and his wife move from a missed Old Faithful eruption to the colors of Grand Prismatic Spring and an evening at the canyon. The account follows the small decisions and changing scenes of a day spent exploring.
↗Day 3: Taking a Detour in Journey
A deliberate detour from Salt Lake City toward Jackson and Yellowstone recalls Kefei's departure from structural engineering for a new career in Silicon Valley. He describes that earlier change as a difficult reset after years of specialized education and practice.
↗Day 2: Reliving the Journey in Time and Space
Driving east from Reno to Salt Lake City, Kefei revisits a route associated with his move west after completing his doctorate in 1994. The landscape brings back the anticipation and uncertainty surrounding his first engineering job in the United States.
↗Day 1: Setting a Reflective Tone in New Journey
The first day of Kefei's drive from Pleasanton to New York ends in Reno, a place tied to family ski trips. Reconnecting with old friends adds another layer of memory, while dinner and a neighborhood walk open a conversation about retirement choices.
↗Starting Point: A Journey of Reflection
Announcing his June–July 2024 drive from Pleasanton to New York, Kefei frames the trip as a reflection on purpose after early retirement. His engineering career supplies images of foundations, preparation, and choosing opportunities that help carry a life forward.