There is a certain style to the public announcements when you travel in Turkey. On Turkish airlines, as you taxi to the runway, the safety briefing intones that in the event of an emergency, before the assuming of the brace position, you should loosen your collar and tie. It’s said without satire. The undertone being that, emergency excepted, collar and tie are not only required, […]
They say we dream every night. Most mornings though, as we wake, our dreams are quickly cast aside as we re-enter the real world. To save our sanity, our brains quickly discard what couldn’t, shouldn’t – and indeed didn’t happen during the night. Sometimes though, you wake from a deep sleep and for a few fleeting moments you are simultaneously in the dream and awake. […]
The years seem to have flown by. I first touched down in Tokyo a little over a decade ago. Back then, having spent relatively little time in the Far-East, everything seemed new and delightfully foreign. I was wowed by the towering heights, bright lights and narrow alleys of Shinjuku and nishi-Shinjuku. But on returning to Tokyo this week – my third trip to the city […]
It’s late. And you’re lost. You’ve been driving for the best part of 10 hours. So you’re quite tired. It’s dark but you think you might recognise this part of the motorway from about 20 minutes ago. You scrunch up the map and throw it onto the back seat. You need a hotel. And a shower. Your standards are now pretty low. Freed from the […]
The first experience many people have of China’s rapidly expanding railway network is ironically not on the railway itself but hovering some three inches above it. The Maglev – or magnetic levitation train – whisks you the 30kms from Pudong International airport to a metro station a stones throw from the city in just eight minutes flat. As the train breathlessly accelerates to 430kms per […]
During my last few trips to Shanghai, something strange always starts happening around day three. I start to crave greenery. By day four or five, I’m starting to feel rather uncomfortable. When I’m whisking my way back to the airport – gazing out from the elevated highway or from the maglev on the urban sprawl – I realise what I’ve been missing. Nature. Sure there […]
Every sport has its own set of rules and traditions. Some are formally written down. Others simply passed on as a sort of etiquette, refined over the years. Take Golf for example. We’ll leave aside that it’s technically a game and not a sport. Much like tiddlywinks. Though clearly less physically demanding. Golfers, seemingly without fail, wear those ugly Argyle patterned jumpers. To the best […]
Save for a few miles on the shores of the Baltic, the Germanophone world is sadly lacking much in the way of coastline. What they lack in beaches, both Germany and Austria more than make up for with a thriving network of big resort hotels nestled in the mountains. Hotel culture in France has been largely ruined by the rise of now ubiquitous Accor Hotels. Ibis, Mercure, Novotel […]