While I’ve had some wonderful trips that have pivoted me around and changed my perspective, what truly stick with me most are the singular sensory experiences – the utterly unique tastes or sounds that I never encountered back home. These are the things that have expanded my palette and my mind, teaching me that human experience, whether exquisite or terrifying, is both infinite and unimaginably specific. These are the moments that my senses can still call up in crystalline perfection even decades later, and transporting me instantly to a different world.

1. Peering at the seemingly physically impossible, Magritte-like architecture of La Defense, in Paris.

2. Tasting the dust of Dachau on my lips.

3. Rejoicing in the tones of in Inari.

4. Holding perfectly still as a monkey’s snow-covered fur brushed the back of my neck, just above the water line of the hot spring pool outside Jigokudani.

5. Inhaling the scent of chicory and yeast at Café du Monde in New Orleans.

6. Emerging from gray darkness into light and the blue sky at the exit from Yad Vashem.

7. Wiping my watering eyes as the intense tang of chili fills my sinuses at my first meal in Seoul.

8. Listening intently for the whispered tread of the Emperor’s entourage in the hush of the Imperial Palace.

9. Marveling at the utter, dizzying, belly to belly crush of Nanjing.

10. Getting the first whiff of bisque and beer, sitting on the creaky benches at Quincy Market with my father.

Banner image, "Still Life With Musical Istruments," by Pieter Claesz, 1623, is understood as a visual allegory of the five senses. In the public domain.