Walking In The Rain and Reminiscing
It’s become a common occurrence these days in Singapore to be rained upon. Without fail, every late afternoon, just as the crows are getting ready to curl up to sleep, the skies will open up and kaboom, buckets of water will pour from the sky.
(Picture: Clouds build up in the Singapore [...]
Trilogy of cities, Pt 3: Belfast in context and sheep as neighbours
Belfast is one of those places that gets in the news a lot – unfortunately for the wrong reasons. IRA, bombs, police clashes. Movies made about Northern Ireland reinforce the idea that it’s a divided city, full of hate and violence, neighbor against neighbor …And so as I was being driven from [...]
Trilogy of cities, Pt 2: Chasing the Guinness story and the perfect pint
Growing up, I’d always heard that “Guinness is good for you”. Dang it, I can still sing the jingle although I now learn that it was created in 1929.
Even though I wasn’t their target customer (at least I hope I wasn’t), I found myself humming along whenever I saw big, burly, bea [...]
Letter from Dublin: The best lessons are from taxi drivers and digital players
In the 20 minutes it took me to get from airport to hotel, I got an instant crash course on the state of things in Dublin (left).
The economy’s still bad, there’s a homelessness crisis, as a result of the severe property bust, which has gripped Ireland the last couple of years, and ther [...]
Letter from Singapore: Excuse me, do you grab a lot?
“Do you grab a lot?” the taxi driver asked me as I got into his taxi.
It was a rainy Tuesday morning, a bad time for taxis in Singapore, and I had used GrabTaxi, the new app that’s been grabbing attention in this tiny city state that still manages to chalk up 700,000 taxi trips a da [...]
We couldn’t tow an A380 so a Heritage Race it became
I am one of those people that if you throw me a challenge, I will worry away at it until I come up with something.
So when I was first challenged by Abacus International – about 18 months ago now – to come up with a travel industry-led fun event to raise funds for a good cause, I though [...]
Trilogy of Cities, Pt 1: Tokyo rises to the global challenge and call of a new generation
In Tokyo, I had my fill of sake. In Dublin, I had more Guinness than I’ve ever had in my life. And in Belfast, I learnt about the history of a city that’s always in the news for the wrong reasons.
Covering these three cities in a span of two weeks, I found interesting parallels in a w [...]
Stiff upper lip maybe but Olympic excitement is palpable
Waking up every morning at the Royal Garden Hotel to the sun rising over Kensington Gardens is glorious. At first, a pale glow tinges the dawn sky and then like one of those slow switches, it turns orange, throwing the blueness of the sky into stark relief.
I’ve been incredibly lucky with the [...]
So who’s sleeping with you tonight?
Other than the fact that not much went right upon my arrival in Heathrow – mix-up with transfer and booking – it’s been a good first day in London.
I have a room overlooking Kensington Gardens and as I write this, the sun (a very weak version of the one I left behind in Singapore) is vali [...]
Ancillaries. Anchovies. We asked for choice and we got it
I was having champagne pork ribs at Por Kee Restaurant, Tiong Bahru, with friends one cool, balmy evening in Singapore when a friend started venting his anger at AirAsia.
“I used to like them, always fly with them,” he said, sputtering over the ribs which by the way are juicy and tender [...]
