October 2016 – GringoPotpourri

Photo Locale of the Month – October 2016

China. Legendary setting for the adventures of Marco Polo, Genghis Khan, and other larger-than-life historical figures. This “Far East” country, at press time the most populous in the world, is the starting point for the Silk Road, watercourse for the Yangtze River, site of the Great Wall and of vertiginous karst hills that doubled as Wookiee land in the Star Wars films, and location of what is currently the largest city in the world (Shanghai).

China features more points of touristic interest than perhaps any other place on earth. Most travelers make it to Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, and Hong Kong. Fewer, though, make it to Shanxi Province. Datong, an industrial city of 3.3 million people, is the gateway to Inner Mongolia. It is an overnight train ride (or one-hour flight) from Beijing. The city’s western outskirts are home to one of the country’s most remarkable sites: the Yunggang Caves.

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Even More Great Horror Movies (#21-30)

I love top ten lists! I have, in fact, already published two top ten lists related to scary movies. “Psycho,” “Halloween,” “The Shining,” “Friday the 13^th,” and “The Sixth Sense” are just five of my favorites, and they each appeared somewhere in the (thus far) Top 20. My original lists are here and here.

It is a funny thing about horror movies, though. They seem rife not just for sequels but for remakes as well. Four of the five films mentioned above have been remade (with the original remaining superior in each instance). As I continued the list for this Halloween season with ten more scary movies, I noticed that four of those films have also been, or are currently being, remade. Additionally, one of them is the sequel to a film that was remade, while another one is a remake!

What else can be said, except to remark about the genre’s durability and profitability…and for me to share my list of ten more great scary movies:

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Cemeteries around the World

Fall is my second favorite season. Autumn leaves, crisp morning air, cool, foggy nights, haunted houses, S’mores, the list goes on….

During my travels I grew to love cemeteries. Sounds morbid, yes? But hear me out. There is a sort of peace in these places, walking amongst the tombstones, alone with your thoughts. Fall is an especially great time of year to visit cemeteries. For one thing, fallen leaves will crunch beneath your feet (hopefully the only sound you’ll hear besides, perhaps, the hoot of a screech owl). For another, your imagination gets carried away with memories of a gazillion horror movies come to life. (Especially if you visit after dark.)

Here is a collection of images from some of the more interesting cemeteries I’ve come across during my travels. Not all pictures were taken during fall, but the season, along with my mother’s recent passing, has found me reflecting on life…and death.

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Portrait of a Neighborhood: Pedregal

The next Mexico City neighborhood that I have decided to profile lies in the south of the city, beyond the reach of the subway. It is a ritzy area of palacial homes, double-decker shopping malls, Aztec ruins, desert gardens, and some of the worst traffic in the city.

Pedregal (full name: Jardines del Pedregal – “Rocky Gardens” en inglés) is an urbanization of land that sits immediately north of Periférico Sur and west of Avenida de los Insurgentes, in the shadow of Picacho Ajusco, the city’s 3,986-meter (13,077-foot) mountain. Although I have grown to not just like but love Pedregal, its sprawling, plus-sized colonia, filled with diesel-belching buses that drive past gated private residences is not for everyone.

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