The light isn't hitting the polished aluminum of the airplane just right. So, everyone who turned up at this Air Canada news conference a little early, myself included, is asked to put a shoulder into the wing and push the aircraft. When the 38-foot-long and 6,454-pound 1937 Lockheed L-10A plane reaches the middle of the Air Canada hangar at Vancou...

​The Japanese may have coined the term, but one of the best places to forest bathe is on the West Coast's Salt Spring Island. In the mood for a little forest bathing, my wife, Kerry, and I make a beeline for Mount Erskine Provincial Park. Truth be told, we really didn't even know what forest bathing was until five minutes earlier. That's when Janet...

Not a religious nor superstitious man, Ilija Pajovic nevertheless puts his hand on the Madonna rock behind the church's altar and makes a wish. Two months later, his wife is pregnant with the son they've longed for eight years. "I'm just saying, it seems like a miracle to me," said Pajovic. "You can see for yourself." So, my wife, Kerry, and I pile...

Having your fortune told by a white java sparrow is the thing to do in Taiwan's capital. Big Luck Master flits out of his cage toward me so I can lean in to whisper in his ear. I feel ridiculous communicating with a white java sparrow this way. But, if I'm to have my fortune told Taipei-style I have to make a feathered friend. We'd been told by Dav...

Head tilted skyward, the rim of the glass hits my lips and the Malort slams into my mouth in one violent shot. I grimace, my eyes water slightly and I finally gag a bit. The disgusting taste lingers. Malort, a Chicago invention of vodka-meets-wormwoodto create a foul- beyond-belief liqueur, has been described alternately as tasting like distilled b...

OK, I know this is going to sound pretentious. But, wine tasting at 39,000 feet really is the best. You see, on a recent Taipei-to-Vancouver flight on Air Canada's new Dreamliner 787-9, my wife, Kerry, and I were fortuitously upgraded to business class. Besides flying in your own pod with a seat that folds down into a completely lie-flat bed for in...