“Where are you going?” “Lebanon.” “What? Why? What are there to see? Where will you stay?” “I want to see Beirut and …” “Oh, Beirut!” It appeared that to one of my friends, the Lebanese capital has a much more positive reputation than the country […]
It is an unseasonably warm winter morning in Hong Kong, and as opposed to the thick coats the locals are usually spotted wearing around this time of the year (as though the city were located at a much higher latitude), T-shirts and shorts are still […]
Companies build factories to mass-produce goods. They utilize them until they reach their maximum capacity, and then they build newer and bigger facilities to keep up with increasing demand. Or they cut down on the production capacity if they can’t stay ahead of their competitors. […]
Hong Kong is a fast-paced city – no doubt about it. Those who have been there must have come across and seen firsthand how fast the people walk, how efficient and punctual the MTR trains are, and how quick the service at restaurants is, to name […]
How much can a city change in ten years? If it’s physical appearance we’re talking about, unless it is Dubai, Singapore or places in China, the changes – notably the skyline – in most cities are usually not too palpable. But how much can a […]
Once upon a time in the 12th century, a Javanese oracle foresaw an epic fight between a giant shark and a giant crocodile in the Brantas River in eastern Java. About a century later, an event interpreted as the manifestation of this prophecy occurred: the […]
Since I started the post series on Australia in this blog eight months ago, some of you have been wondering which city I like better: Sydney or Melbourne. For those who are puzzled about why one should even bother to pick a side, all I […]
It was supposed to be an easy trip. Back in November last year when my perennial travel buddy, James, and I were planning a short escape from Jakarta in April, we were sorting through places that neither of us had ever been to and would […]
Rivalries among kingdoms, empires and modern-day republics have profoundly shaped humanity in many ways. In the process of outdoing each other – through the economy, military, or culture – monumental edifices were often erected to symbolize a country’s prominence on the world stage. Not only […]
One Thursday night during rush hour in Jakarta, the city’s notorious traffic became an even bigger nightmare as construction sites all over the metropolis forced all sorts of vehicles to crawl even more slowly than a snail would. The city’s streets were practically one big […]
A Vietnamese restaurant located in a once-lively mall in a gentrified neighborhood of Jakarta has for years become my choice whenever I crave food from the Southeast Asian country. It was where my parents tried their first pho several years ago (which my father, unsurprisingly, […]
These days, reading about the resurgence of racism in many parts of world often makes me wonder what went wrong since the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the election of the first African-American president in U.S. history, and other milestones which showed that more […]
What an Amazing World! 