Oh, Hong Kong! How the currents of history and culture have conspired to make you the entoxicating urban assemblage that you are. Poised at the foot of Victoria Peak and gracing both shores of a similarly-named harbor, Hong Kong has lost none of her shine after having changed hands from the British colonial power that […]
Hot and Kold, Hong Kong Read More
Dry and monstrously big, India’s capital city houses over twelve million people who, despite sprawling over 570 square miles at the apex of the Indo-Gangetic plain, still seem stacked on top of one another. The New Delhi train depot served as my introduction to the city and my most uncomfortable experience in India: thousands of
Steamy and sensual, a masala of disparate peoples, faiths, and tongues facing the Arabian Sea, Mumbai (still called Bombay by many of its residents) sprawls in languid grandeur like a vine-covered statue of Lakshmi in repose. At once chaotic and laid-back, the city dons the role of its most famous monument as the Gateway of
Mumbai’s da Bom, bay-bay! Read More
Cairo, in a word: golden. In many words: dusty, chaotic, crowded, teeming, wondrous, exhilarating, wild, urbane, sophisticated, whimsical, modern, historic, pious, hedonistic, tumultuous, sprawling, polluted, noisy, friendly, witty, serious, civilized, golden. The seat of one of earth’s oldest civilizations has survived into the modern era as the largest city in Africa and the Arab World.
With a romantically crumbling 19th-century air, the famous Egyptian port city of Alexandria (dubbed Alex by locals and Cairenes) basks in the Mediterranean sun along a narrow strip of land between the sea and the marshy Nile Delta. The wondrous lighthouse may no longer exist, but the renowned library of old lives on in the
The Truth About Alex Read More
The name of Istanbul comes from the Greek for “in or to the city.” Throughout most of its history, Turkey’s largest city and the former capital of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires has been The One and Only City (how ya like them apples, Noo Yawk?). And with over 12 million people within city
A City By Any Other Name Read More
Berlin, baby, I wasn’t ready. I was told by one of the many expat Americans I met living in the German capital that “if New York were a mound of dough, Berlin would be that same dough, only rolled out over the pizza pan.” Translation: lots of shit going on spread out over a larger
“Ich bin ein Berliner” Read More
Who would expect hundreds of yellow-haired Vikings to be bouncing energetically to “Bonita Applebum” and not missing a word of Aretha’s “Think” on a random late-summer’s eve? Sure as hell wasn’t me; seeing a rack of blonde “single ladies” bouncing their Nordic booties on-beat (y’all read right) left me verklempt. I have to give it
Hip-Hop in the ‘Holm Read More
The comparison is overused, but with London and New York City being the pillars of global culture and finance, as well as the launchpad and rocket booster, respectively, of the new millennium’s lingua franca, there’s almost no way to avoid comparing the two cities. Even culture bible Time Out London had to ask if New
My three days in Dublin came and went very quickly, mostly due to a rambunctious weekend in New York and mild jet-lag that turned severe in my case (breakfast at 3pm, anyone?). By the time I got out the door each day, it was already pushing five in the afternoon, so my sightseeing remained regrettably
