I’ve been to good museums and bad, but among the best have been the ones that reveal what life was like for the poorest of the poor back when the Georgian and Victorian rich were living the high life. There’s the excellent Tenement Museum in New York, for example, which offers a compelling account of how poor…
Category: Asia
Singapore’s glorious gardens and luxury hotels
We could never be accused of taking it easy. On just one sweaty Singapore day we visited the Botanic Gardens, tucked into a fine afternoon tea at the legendary Raffles Hotel and spent an evening gambling at one of the city’s most extravagant new destinations, the Marina Bay Sands. It was another hot and humid day so it was a…
Singapore’s National Museum and Fort Canning Park
There’s variety in Singapore’s weather. One minute it’s hot and sunny, the next there are downpours and crashes of thunder. On the day we were planning to visit the Botanic Gardens, it chucked it down and the buildings we’d got used to seeing from our bedroom window were lost in the murk. So we opted for the National…
Exploring Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore
There’s something ridiculous about going for a walk in a hilly Singapore nature reserve when the weather is so hot and humid. But we were never going to find out much about the country jumping from one air-conditioned building to another. So visiting the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve stayed on our list of things to do. However, our planned trip to…
Singapore’s stunning Gardens by the Bay
Singapore has spent a fortune making itself a city in a garden rather than a city with gardens. And one of the stars of the transformation is the amazing Gardens by the Bay. It’s the city-state’s answer to the Eden Project in Cornwall, but on an even grander scale, and it was top of my list…
First class to Singapore and Little India
As upgrades go, it couldn’t be better. Arriving at Heathrow for our business class flights to Singapore, we were told by the check-in assistant that we were going to be enjoying the 13-hour flight in First instead. I could hardly believe our luck! With better food, better champagne and a better bed, it was going to…
Japan: From Kyoto to London
The long journey home is invariably the worst part of any holiday. But this particular one promised to be more arduous than most, in part because we really didn’t want to leave Japan. With a planned morning departure from Narita Airport – situated well to the east of Tokyo – there was no way we’d…
Japan: A day of temples in Kyoto
Kyoto is a city bursting with history, glorious temples and gardens of exquisite beauty. The challenge for visitors is to narrow down this embarrassment of riches, to select the handful of attractions to visit during a short visit. We’d already visited some of Arashiyama’s great draws but with just one day left in the city it was…
Japan: Geishas, a market and a birthday in Kyoto
What a way to spend a birthday. I woke in our Kyoto hotel with dreadful back pain, aching legs and dodgy guts. Poor Graham – his big day and I was going to be no fun at all. I somehow managed to get to breakfast, ate lightly and swallowed ibuprofen. Outside it looked gloomy and rain…
Japan: A visit to James Bond’s castle at Himeji
As a long-time James Bond fan, I couldn’t go all the way to Japan without paying homage to a castle that 007 himself visited back in the 1960s. The film was You Only Live Twice, Bond was Sean Connery and Himeji Castle was a ninja training school he visited with the boss of the Japanese…
Japan: A beautiful garden in Kyoto’s Arashiyama district
It’s not easy to escape the overwhelming crowds in Kyoto. As the historic heart of Japan, it’s top of the list for tourists and residents but would the attractions on the edge of the city, in Arashiyama, be less busy? Not really as it turned out because, let’s face it, it’s a district that boasts…
Japan: Crowds in Kyoto
Our stay in Takayama was over and it was time to head to Kyoto, the historic heart of Japan and the climax of our fortnight-long trip. Takayama had made for an interesting diversion, offered a taste of a smaller Japanese city, but three days was enough. Indeed, people we’d met there were surprised we’d stopped for so…
Japan: A traditional folk village
It was our last day in the Gifu city of Takayama, and we decided to go traditional. Or rather to spend a few hours in a tourist attraction that recreates the past. The Hida Folk Village is some way out of town, hidden by trees and a bit of a trek away from our hotel through the…
Japan: The mountains, an onsen and a dramatic waterfall
Japan is famously a nation of contrasts, as a visit to one of the country’s traditional, steamy onsens illustrates. These are the famous public baths fed by sulphurous hot springs where getting naked is mandatory, something the locals go for with the type of enthusiasm I’d normally associate with outgoing, uninhibited Scandinavians. It’s not the…
Japan: A tour of historic Takayama
At first sight Takayama looks much like any other Japanese town or city, with lots of post-war development that lacks any real charm or character. Perhaps understandably, the priority after the devastation of the Second World War was putting roofs over heads rather than architectural quality. Perhaps too, the Japanese prefer practicality and resilience rather than…