LOGAN SQUARE FARMER'S MARKET

Just dropping in to share a few images from my neighborhood farmer's market. I can't believe my good fortune in having moved to Logan Square, whose summertime loveliness almost rivals Southeast Portland's. Right now the Sunday farmer's market is bursting with peonies, Michigan strawberries, and radishes. When I go running through the park in the evenings, it seems as though the whole neighborhood is outside soaking in the summer: quasi-gypsies selling their clothing from blankets, Puerto Rican grandpas chatting on park benches, and slackliners practicing their tightrope act between the trees. Best of all are the lightning bugs, which I'm just now seeing for the first time. Who would have thought you could go 29 years without encountering a lightning bug, only to discover them in the middle of Chicago?

BEHIND THE SCENES IN HSIPAW

If you saw my essay for The Christian Science Monitor a couple weeks ago, you know about my serendipitous encounter with a Burmese bookshop owner in Myanmar's Shan State. But what I didn't share in the article—both to protect the bookseller's identity and for lack of space—is this man's fearless crusade for education in the impoverished countryside.

When we asked if there was anything we could do to assist him, he immediately set to action. With the equivalent of $50, we walked to the market and selected hundreds of school notebooks, pencils, erasers, and pens. It wasn't the first time he had gotten foreigners involved in delivering school supplies, and for this the government had forbidden him to travel outside of town. "But I know how to avoid the checkpoints," he said with a grin.

The next morning we met him and a friend and, with the enormous stacks of notebooks balanced precipitously on their motorbikes, set off around the countryside. We sped along the main road lined with prehistoric-looking shade trees—planted by the former prince of Shan State, he merrily called out—before bouncing our way through the rice paddies to one-room schoolhouses.

Eight elementary schools, two rainstorms, and one flat tire later, we had dispensed of all our supplies. Over curries and flatbread—which our new friend insisted on buying—he rhapsodized over War and Peace. "The way that Natasha and Nicholas grow from children into adults, oh, it is a very good book! My granddaughter is in the seventh grade, and she can't even recite her ABCs. How is she going to read Tolstoy with this kind of education?"

BOSTON IN BLOOM

"Whether it is that the faith which creates has dried up in me, or that reality takes shape in memory alone, the flowers I am shown today for the first time do not seem to me to be real flowers." - Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Some people disparage the smell of "beauty bark," but to me a whiff of mulch is the olfactory equivalent to Proust's tea-soaked madeleine. It summons spring, which in Boston is a surreal explosion of prim whites and dusky pinks. The trees on Commonwealth Avenue fuzz over with apple blossoms, pear blossoms, and magnolia, their petals a collective blur that resembles cotton candy.

Even better are the too-short weeks when the tulips bloom, and the Public Gardens become a riot of fire-engine red, canary yellow, and purple shot through with gold. The best way to experience springtime in Beantown is with lunch at one of Newbury Street's many outdoor patios (I'm a fan of Scoozi), followed by a slow amble down Comm Ave, Marlborough Street, or Beacon Street all the way to Boston Common.

And if you happen to be headed to Sydney, another city steeped in color (mostly shades of blue), be sure to check out my business traveler's guide in this month's issue of Global Traveler Magazine.

A SPACIOUS PLACE

I used to hate Oklahoma's featureless spaces, to find the empty landscape almost maddening. But now that I've lived in a place so choked with concrete apartment towers that I couldn't even glimpse a patch of sky, a place so dark and dank that mold was sprouting from the walls, something about the expansive emptiness of the Oklahoma horizon seems consoling. It reminds me of this verse from Psalm 18: He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Oh, and the elegant creatures above? They live at Silver Wind Stables, a little piece of equine paradise owned by my friend Ashley. Look it up if you're ever in town; there's nothing quite as comforting as a horse's muzzle.

FAREWELL, ASIA!

After two and a half years, we're saying goodbye to Asia for the second time (the first was when we left China in 2008). We've had some wonderful experiences: meeting the courageous women at Remember Nhu; cozying up to Japan's famous snow monkeys; setting foot, albeit briefly, in North Korea. And some terrible ones: living above a karaoke bar; accidentally imbibing "cat poop coffee"; seeing the garbage-strewn state of once-beautiful Bali.

And while I'm sure we'll return—Japan's charms are too alluring to resist—I'm excited to see at last what's in store on other continents. Starting in February, we'll be volunteering at Unidad Academica Campesina, a college for the rural poor in the mountains outside La Paz, Bolivia. The altiplano (high plains of the Andes) is a place I've dreamed about my whole life, so I'm curious whether it will be, as Bruce Chatwin wrote of Patagonia, "as I expected but more so, inspiring violent outbursts of love and hate."

LAO CHOW

I can't speak to the French colonization of Laos during the early 20th century, but they sure left behind some stellar bakeries. Everywhere we turned in Vientiane and Luang Prabang, boulangerie counters were piled high with crusty baguettes, buttery croissants, and flaky pains au chocolat. Traveling from the bread barrens of South Korea (think red bean doughnuts and sugar-coated garlic rolls), I thought I'd landed in a sort of starchy Shangri-La.

But in addition to each perfect bite of pastry, I encountered a strong case for Laos' own cuisine at an innovative Luang Prabang restaurant called Tamarind. We spent a morning wandering the town's vegetable and meat market with Tamarind staff, examining everything from galangal (the gnarly root, which is a relative of ginger) and kaffir lime to shallots and lemongrass. After purchasing a bounty of produce, we returned to the restaurant's cooking school to prepare traditional dishes like roasted eggplant dip and spicy fish steamed in banana leaves.

Chicken feet, fortunately, were not on the menu...but have you ever seen such shapely-looking legs on poultry?

HOI AN LANTERN FESTIVAL

We had the good fortune of arriving in Hoi An, Vietnam during the full moon, which brings with it the celebration of the town's monthly Lantern Festival. As the sun disappeared, hundreds of colorful silk lanterns lit up the streets, and shopkeepers ignited small bonfires of fake Vietnamese currency in the gutters for good luck. Several string bands struck up their traditional instruments, and elderly men gathered on the sidewalk to play chess by candlelight.

We wandered along the riverbank, where impish girls in silk pajamas implored us to buy paper lanterns. Ultimately we gave in and joined the throngs of tourists, both Vietnamese and foreign, in setting a candle afloat on the river. We watched it get caught up in the stream of soft lights, bobbing gently until it collided with a river weed and went out.