I absolutely fell in love with Moscow. It's one of those places where you can't help but trip over history at every turn. It's a city of enormous contradictions. Within a few yards of Lenin's Tomb is some of the most expensive shopping in the world.
There's something comic about the town. You have the spot where the Pilgrims landed -- and right next to it a giant motel. I've always loved that. There's the very spirit of America expressing itself!
Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.
When I went to New York, I was exposed to things I definitely wasn't exposed to in South Jersey and Pitman.
Who'd give up sunny California for the grey old Earls Court Road? I'm looking out at blue skies and the mountains and trees, and it's so beautiful.
I grew up in Hong Kong, and London used to seem very gray: the sky was gray, the buildings were gray, the food was incredibly gray - the food had, like, new kinds of grayness specially invented for it.
I don't want to live in Maine full time, but the physical beauty is very striking. It is the exact opposite of New York. When you walk through my small town to get a cup of coffee, you bump into five people you know.
Johannesburg is weird, because half of it is like Los Angeles. It feels like just wealthy parts of L.A. But half of it is severe slummy, something like Rio De Janiero or something. So it's kind of weird, because it's both happening at the same time.
When I first saw California, it was extraordinary. Because I came from old, black, dark England, still recovering from World War II. I grew up with bomb sites everywhere.
London and L.A. are two opposites - I like the difference.
