Feb 20
Saigon is a pleasant enough place to idle in for a few days… It is very agreeable to sit under the awning on the terrace of the Hotel Continental, an electric fan just above your head, and with an innocent drink before you to read in the local paper heated controversies upon the affairs of the Colony and the faits divers of the neighbourhood. Read more
Feb 12
The Boeing 777-300 makes its final descent through the afternoon haze, over rice paddies and a jigsaw of narrow buildings like slices of layer cake. We are just a stone’s throw from the delta of the mighty Mekong, whose brown waters I had seen eight months earlier in Laos. Read more
Feb 9
Tomorrow marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, without a doubt the biggest festival of the Hong Kong calendar. Families gather together for days of feasting, exchanging well-wishes and red packets of lucky money – lai see. Read more
Jan 27
Stretching 800 metres uphill from the financial district, the Central – Mid-levels Escalator snakes through one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most fascinating neighbourhoods. Conceived by engineers in the late 80s as a creative solution to solve the area’s traffic woes, it is billed as the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. Read more
Jan 13
It seems like a glaring paradox. What could a laidback seaside village – fronted by an inviting stretch of soft powder sand – have in common with an endless procession of towering skyscrapers, buzzing markets and neon-soaked streets? But Hong Kong proves that both these worlds can comfortably coexist on a small, hilly island, just eight miles across at its widest point. Read more
Jan 2
Hong Kong has a penchant for weird and wonderful superlatives, including the largest origami mosaic, most expensive bathroom, loudest scream by an indoor crowd, and tallest revolving door.
On the first day of the New Year I went down to see the lion and dragon dances on the waterfront. Now a well-established annual parade, this year’s edition was also a bid to break the world record for the longest parade of Chinese unicorn (Qilin in Mandarin, Keilun in Cantonese). Read more
Dec 28
Vientiane, May 2012
2012 has been a bumper year for the blog. While Plus Ultra was previously focused on Spain, I have since turned my attention to exploring places a little closer to home. There are clear downsides to living in a frenetic, stressful city like Hong Kong but its location is not one of them – destinations such as India, Indonesia and Japan are all within five hours’ flying time. In a big way, 2012 has been about grabbing hold of opportunities – stepping out and making decisions without any regrets. I’ll remember this year as one of breakthrough, when writing turned from a hobby to a serious vocation. So far editorial work for a regional adventure travel mag has proven to be a dream job, especially when fellow colleagues share the same passion for exploring our planet. Read more
Nov 22
I have always loved maps. During my childhood summers in Canada I collected illustrated maps of major North American cities, meticulously hand-drawn and painted by the aptly named company Unique Media. Somewhere stashed away in my cupboards are aerial depictions of Toronto, Vancouver, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with more general maps of the US and Canada. Unique Media also did a fabulous world map, which graced the wall of my bedroom in the days before Plus Ultra. Read more
Nov 9
The heron stands at rest, perched on a branch half-submerged in the calm, flat waters of Starling Inlet. Across the bay is Mainland China, marked by a proliferation of tower blocks, scaffolding, and off in the distance, Minsk World, a theme park based around a retired Russian aircraft carrier. Read more
Nov 6
Place names in Hong Kong often have poetic, almost legendary origins. Kowloon, the peninsula of ‘nine dragons’, actually has a backdrop of eight peaks, but the extra dragon denotes a Song emperor, who took refuge here with his entourage to escape the Mongol invasion. Read more
