Multi-tiered pastel-colored shophouses lined the narrow alleys of Singapore’s Chinatown. Every turn revealed a lively street culinary scene with food carts and restaurants serving a wide array of Chinese dishes, occupying the muggy pedestrian-only walkways crisscrossing under bright red and yellow lanterns. Curiously, at one turn […]
From Hong Kong Island’s heavily-indented southern coastline a sleepy town called us in on a chilly winter night. The double-decker bus that we took meandered through winding, narrow roads, dimly lit by street lamps, while houses and apartments were occasionally sighted from the bus’ window. […]
A woman with long black hair wearing plain, white long cloth appeared, but her eyes looked menacing, her skin so pale, and her feet not visible. A man waved to the infrared camera, signaling his defeat to the challenge and a call for help. A […]
A whitewashed spire emerged from the greenery amid a bevy of sleek and modern skyscrapers. Its Gothic-inspired windows were each fitted with wooden shutters, letting just enough tropical sun light penetrate into its nave. As the church of the Anglican Diocese of Singapore, also the […]
China, 1946. The World War II ended just a few months earlier, ending the brutal Japanese occupation on China. For decades the armed forces of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party fought against a common enemy. But as soon as the Japanese […]
The grand monument stood before us, awe-inspiring in a bright white-washed facade with touches of light grey under the midday sun. The mid-19th century British colonial building was capped with a silverish tiles-clad dome, accentuating its regal appearance. The National Museum of Singapore was our […]
The MTR train moved at a steady pace leaving the ever-bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district in Kowloon. On the ground above the train station dozens of skyscrapers scrambled for space in this constantly developing part of Hong Kong, just across the harbor where one of […]
With an area sprawling as far as 5,200 km (more than 3,200 miles) from east to west, dotted with more than 17,000 islands – including some of the world’s biggest, inhabited by more than 300 ethnic groups speaking some 700 languages and following six official […]
Dino skillfully drove the minivan through impossibly narrow roads, sandwiched between steep slopes and the southern beaches of eastern Flores, with patches of renovation work along the way to our destination. Sikka Natar was a sleepy beachfront village where only a little remained from the […]
Bli Komang took us along the main coastal road in eastern Bali where earlier that day he introduced us to what is now my favorite place on the island: Taman Ujung Sukasada. Passing by trucks loaded with high quality sand from the slopes of Mount […]
Set against the rocky coast of western Bali lies a sacred rock topped by a Hindu temple, a creation of the Majapahit priest, Nirartha, who fled Java to Bali in the 16th century. Known as the reformer of Balinese Hinduism concept of deity, among other […]
A girl in Balinese traditional sarung for woman puts canang sari – a small basket of woven palm leaves filled with colorful petals and shredded pandan leaves – on the ground, then sprinkles holy water on it, puts some incense sticks made from the fragrant […]
What an Amazing World! 