PocketCultures

An American expat blogging from Necochea

Katie Alley is a Philadelphia native who moved to the seaside town of Necochea –Argentina- after maintaining a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Daniel for over two years. For both personal and work-related reasons, they decided that it would be more feasible for her to make the move to Argentina instead of Daniel moving to the United States.

Katie started her blog Seashells and Sunflowers as a way to chronicle her adventures and experiences in Argentina and as a means of connecting with other expats. It’s also been a great way to keep friends and family back in the United States up to date.

Katie’s passion for photography shows in her photos. She also loves cooking and writing about recipes and ingredients that are unique to Argentina, like cornalitos fritos or locro.

Katie also writes about cultural differences and how she has adapted to life in a new country, like the time she joined a choir or was “rechristened” at the immigrations office.

Not only is Seashells and Sunflowers a treasure trove of information about Argentina; its blogrolls are extensive and cover diverse topics from food to news to links for expats.

Ana July 15, 2010 2 comments

Blogs of the World / Chile

Little spots of great beauty

Paulina describes her blog Santiago Open City as “a digital map of my footsteps and existence”.

Santiago is Paulina’s hometown and she has been blogging about it for almost a year. Posts consist of photos with short descriptions (in English and Spanish) and I enjoy the way you can see the small details of life in the city of Santiago through her blog.

Singing in the rain, by Paulina Millaman

I asked Paulina what she likes best about living in Santiago:

“Santiago is gigantic and cold sometimes, but it has little spots of great beauty and sometimes twilights are marvellous and magic (maybe these phenomena were caused by air pollution, who knows)”

Why not take a look at Paulina’s blog and discover some of Santiago’s little spots of beauty for yourself?

Lucy July 13, 2010 0 comments

Blogs of the World / Uruguay

Uruguay’s school bloggers

Uruguay is one of the pioneering countries in the one laptop per child project. By the end of 2009 every child attending a state primary school had been provided with one of the famous green and white laptops.

Rising Voices wrote about Uruguay’s efforts to educate teachers about the benefits of teaching children to blog, through a project called Blogging since Infancy.

Reading about this project, I learnt that each school in Uruguay has a number. School number 24, in Villa Cardal, started an experimental blog which links individual blogs from each class in the school. If you read Spanish you can take a look here, and if you don’t, have a go at reading it with Google Translate.

School number 153, in Canelones, have been using their colourful blog to give homework, among other things. Spanish version is here, translated version here.

Lucy July 8, 2010 0 comments

Blogs of the World / Libya

Libyan summer

KhadijaTeri is an American who has been living in Libya since 1989 with her Libyan husband and their six children.

Her blog, which is also called KhadijaTeri, is about daily life with her family in Tripoli, the capital city of this North African country. Over in Libya the countdown to Ramadan has already started and families are starting to stock up with food and other provisions.

Tripoli’s old city. Credit.

The weather in Tripoli is very hot at this time of year, and KhadijaTeri writes that her children make the most of the cool part of the day by going outside to play between 5:30am and 8am.

I could only give you a taste in this post, but Khadija has been blogging since 2004 so there’s plenty to go at if you want to read more about life in Libya.

Lucy July 1, 2010 2 comments

Australia / Blogs of the World

Everyday Melbourne

Everyday Melbourne is a daily photography blog by Nisanart. She has lived in Melbourne for the last 10 years, working both full-time and as a freelance artist. As the tag line indicates, her blog offers a perspective of the city “by Asian eyes”. Nisanart’s says:

“I confessed, I walked on Burke street Mall so many times, I’ve never notice there is Union Lane runs between Bourke Street and Little Collins Street…since I started this blog, I learn more about Melbourne.”

From graffitied lane ways to grocery stalls, her photos reflect how the people of Melbourne continue to influence the city’s appearance. And her passion for exploring the inner city suburbs really resonated with me as I prepare to return home to Melbourne.

During our email chat, Nisanart highlighted Melbourne’s multicultural population as an aspect that enhances her life in the city. She described Australia as “a society of people from a rich variety of cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds”.

A typical day for her is “unexpected” so she carries her camera at all times to capture moments like her favourite photo below – St Kilda pier after sunrise.

When asked about the best parts of living in Australia she chose the “great sport and great coffee”, and provided these local recommendations on the city of Melbourne:

1. Federation Squarewhere “something is going on almost every weekend;

2. St Kilda because it’s a “cosmopolitan, cool beachside suburb”; and

3. Brunswick Street, Fitzroy which “best reflects Melbourne’s bohemian culture”.

Although this blog began as a way to record her personal journey before moving to Thailand to retire, she also provides links and historical facts on the city. Check out her blog and explore Melbourne through Asian eyes.

All photos in this post are by Nisanart.

rebecca June 25, 2010 2 comments

Blogs of the World / Japan

Konichiwa! Kyoto blog with an American accent

Konichiwa! Alive in Kyoto is written from Kyoto, Japan, by Nils Ferry who is originally from California. He’s a Kyotophile and he offers a good insight to Kyoto through his posts and his amazing pictures.

My favourite section is the Japan/Kyoto category for its beautiful photos and/or descriptions of very Japanese elements such as sakura, the Shichi-Go-San ceremony or the Fire Festival.

This is a great blog to do a little bit of research before a trip, but also to enjoy learning about Kyoto from wherever you are, for example, your comfortable armchair.

Read more:
More blogs froom Japan on Blogs of the World
Okinawa, the far South in Japan
Tempura is Japanese… or is it?

marta June 17, 2010 1 comment