The Can & Cannot’s of Train Travel – Part II

It was a big NO, for the Nozomi... From the positively ‘cannot’ to the ‘maybe can’, train travel can be a fun, scenic and enjoyable way to get around. But it can also be awful – having talked about the two absolute worst-case scenarios yesterday, here we look at things that aren’t as bad…although still frequently unfortunate.   Savings, what savings? Across the world, I’ve paid a wide variety of prices for train travel. In Ireland... Read More

Drunk on a Junk – Part 2

The HSBC building, still looking good, in downtown Hong Kong... Following on from my somewhat debilitating trip up and down the side of Victoria Peak, I more or less stumbled off the tram and rolled my way down the hill back into the skyscraper central. And, though I did mean to find the building sometime during my stay, I incidentally ended up at the front of the HSBC headquarters building. Along with Kansai International Airport, built 100% on a... Read More

Beijing – City of a Million Scams…

I’m a bit like a dog trying to find a spot to sleep walking around beside the river here in Frankfurt, trying to find a perfect place to sit and type, because I’m fairly sure that I’m going to need a comfortable spot for the length of time unravelling the abnormal events of my 48 hour trip to China is going to take. Theoretically, had all gone according to plan in fact, I’d be sitting on a plane heading for Kuala Lumpur right... Read More

There’s No Shame in being a UFO Enthusiast…

**Many of you will be aware by now that I’ve actually had a major change of plans and am now in Frankfurt, Germany. I’ll write more about the atypical series of events that unfolded in the 48 hours or so I was in China by tomorrow but I thought in the meantime I’d post what I had already written and planned to post about my trip to Japan. It’s amazing in hindsight how you can fly for just 3 hours from Japan to another Asian... Read More