“Guess how many casinos are in Sihanoukville”, my taxi driver asked as we drove from the train station. “20”, I said with confidence. I had read a news report about it recently and I felt certain with my answer, even though it seemed like a ridiculously high number. “55”, he said. I don’t know if […]
Crazy Jump Macau Tower: Bungy jumpers in costume at the highest commercial skyjump in the world
Sometimes the word crazy is overused, but in the case of the Macau Tower Crazy Jump the use of crazy is warranted. The Macau Tower is 338 metres high and was completed in 2001. Bungee jumping from the tower began in 2006. The jump is 233 metres, making it the highest commercial skyjump in the […]
Green spaces of Tokyo
As the biggest city in the world (by most definitions), Tokyo is not exactly famous for its greenery. Concrete jungle, sure. Actual jungle, not so much. [Tokyo – it’s a jungle out there.] I was a guest of the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau, and I spent a day visiting gardens and green spaces of […]
Visiting Aomori Prefecture in Japan
Aomori Prefecture is at the northern tip of Honshu (the largest island of Japan). Like many casual visitors to Japan with no ties to the country, I had never heard of Aomori. There are 47 prefectures (like a province or state) in Japan, and Aomori is one of the lesser visited of Japan. [Map of […]
Visiting Minsk on the free 5-day visa for Belarus
Borders have a magnetic pull for me, which gets stronger the closer I get. Belarus wasn’t in my travel plans until I looked at a map of the Baltic states. Minsk is practically just down the road from Vilnius, so it seemed logical to visit after my visit to Lithuania. Initially I wasn’t going to […]
Notes on Tallinn
Visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old Town, old warehouses, hipster area, and the E-Residency program. I last visited Tallinn in 2000 on a whirlwind tour of Scandinavia. Seeing that Tallinn was a short ferry trip from Helsinki I couldn’t resist paying a visit. I didn’t get to visit the rest of the Baltic nations […]
Bangkok vs Ho Chi Minh City – population size and other comparisons
Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City are two of the largest cities in Southeast Asia (the largest being Jakarta). It was recently reported that Saigon now has up to 13 million people living in the city. No one really knows the exact amount, but it was thought that there were 8 million, with the city […]
Cafe Saigon 1975 – a war memorabilia cafe in Ho Chi Minh City
[Edit: This cafe has since closed.] In my quest to visit different cafes in Saigon, I’m always looking out for new places in my wanders. One day I found a sign pointing down an alley that stopped me in my tracks. It was for Cafe Saigon 1975. There are some years in history that are […]
Dusit Thani Bangkok – The iconic modernist hotel that will soon be demolished
One of the most iconic hotels in Southeast Asia will soon be no more. The Dusit Thani is a landmark of the Silom area, but it now has a date with the wrecking ball to make way for a new mall and hotel development. The hotel was founded by Bangkok-born businesswoman Chanut Piyaoui, who brought […]
Notes on Seoul – the orderly megacity of South Korea
Seoul was a glaring omission in my visited cities of Asia list. I had long been saving Seoul as a stop-over city as Incheon Airport is a popular hub between Asia and North America. I wasn’t planning to go until I found a good flight deal from Hanoi, which coincided with a visa run from […]
