https://www.scmp.com/rss/143735/feed Ed Peters is one of Asia's most experienced travel writers, and has reported for the Post from every continent except Antarctica. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The made-for-Instagram descent into Takamatsu Airport follows the coast of Japan’s Shikoku island for several minutes before dipping down onto the runway and terminal where there is likely to be only a single other aircraft. Immigration is almost spookily free of other passengers, while the drugs detector dog gambolling about baggage reclaim looks as if he would be perfectly content to run and fetch a frisbee. This seems not so much an airport as an aviation-themed de-stress resort. It is just a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3279256/what-do-takamatsu-shopping-art-and-seaside-hotspot-japans-shikoku-island?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3279256/what-do-takamatsu-shopping-art-and-seaside-hotspot-japans-shikoku-island?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Sep 2024 04:45:08 +0000 As Europe braces for an estimated 1.9 billion visitor nights this summer – prompting a clampdown on holiday rentals and riotous stag parties, strict limits on cruise ships, and even an entry fee for cities such as Venice – savvy travellers are seeking out quieter corners of the continent. Tucked into western Belgium, and with nearby Germany and the Netherlands giving it a mildly cosmopolitan air, Limburg province seems to be very much traditional Europe: cobbled streets and low-rise... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3268898/beaten-track-europe-why-belgiums-limburg-province-great-place-visit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3268898/beaten-track-europe-why-belgiums-limburg-province-great-place-visit?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jul 2024 08:15:09 +0000 When New Zealanders take a holiday, many head for the Bay of Plenty. A couple of hours’ drive south of Auckland, the bay – a bight along the northern coast of North Island that stretches for 260km (160 miles) from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaway in the east – seems to combine all the country’s star attributes into a single package. The beaches stretch for 125km, there is surfing, fishing and swimming with dolphins offshore, and plenty of hiking and history on land, where... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3250704/bay-plenty-new-zealand-hiking-beaches-restaurants-champion-local-produce-and-more-await-you-area?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3250704/bay-plenty-new-zealand-hiking-beaches-restaurants-champion-local-produce-and-more-await-you-area?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Feb 2024 23:15:11 +0000 Macau and Shenzhen may be closer to Hong Kong and more linguistically attuned, but for the perfect getaway, Hanoi – just a two-hour flight away – is both satisfyingly “foreign” and quintessentially Asian. True, the Vietnamese capital has got skyscrapers and many of the other accoutrements of globalisation, but the high-rises are mainly confined to the fringes and international brands are conspicuous by their near absence. Life is conducted on the pavements: women sell fresh fruit from bicycles... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3240473/what-do-hanoi-vietnam-shopping-and-hotels-traditional-restaurants-perfect-getaway-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3240473/what-do-hanoi-vietnam-shopping-and-hotels-traditional-restaurants-perfect-getaway-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Nov 2023 10:15:08 +0000 Wanderlust is part of my family inheritance – many of my forebears went to India and other foreign parts – but I was born in not terribly exotic Macclesfield, just south of Manchester, in England, in 1960. My father was a test pilot involved in the development of the Royal Air Force’s Vulcan bomber. By the time I was 10, I was focused on discovering what was going on in the wider world. I was not so interested in toys per se, but I loved hunting for fossils on family holidays along the Jurassic... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3238473/i-had-eat-dog-explorer-benedict-allen-his-adventures-scars-his-chest-and-being-lost-jungle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3238473/i-had-eat-dog-explorer-benedict-allen-his-adventures-scars-his-chest-and-being-lost-jungle?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Oct 2023 08:00:10 +0000 I was born in 1961 and attended Wilmslow Grammar School, in Cheshire, which is pretty much middle Middle England. Needless to say, the careers adviser did not have any pamphlets on setting up a business with North Korea. I left school aged 16 with plans to become a countryside ranger. After agricultural college I ended up in the Medlock Valley, which flowed from the moors of the Peak District into gritty central Manchester. Urban improvements were being carried out by Manchester council and that... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3234557/when-michael-palin-did-north-korea-fixer-and-travel-agency-co-founder-30-years-taking-visitors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3234557/when-michael-palin-did-north-korea-fixer-and-travel-agency-co-founder-30-years-taking-visitors?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Sep 2023 21:45:20 +0000 When the son of the first Nepali woman to climb Everest, a renowned architect and a BBC MasterChef got together to open a hotel high in the Himalayas, the result was a three-way marriage made in Shangri-La. Namgyal Sherpa owned a string of trekking lodges, but wanted to take his hospitality company to the next level, particularly as tourists were starting to return to Nepal after years of civil war, earthquakes and Covid-19. Bill Bensley, whose Capella Ubud in Bali was voted Travel and Leisure’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3233324/bill-bensley-world-leading-hotel-designer-arrives-mustang-nepal-putting-his-seal-luxury-property?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3233324/bill-bensley-world-leading-hotel-designer-arrives-mustang-nepal-putting-his-seal-luxury-property?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Sep 2023 23:15:11 +0000 My father is Austrian and my mother is Cantonese, and their story began when they met on a plane – a love-at-first-flight kind of story. Growing up in a small village outside Innsbruck in Austria with my brother, Oliver, we stood out as the only Asians. We faced some hurtful teasing and discrimination. When out with our mum and speaking Cantonese, people would sometimes try to mimic our conversation – ching, chang, chong and that sort of stuff, but we tried not to let it bother us. In fact, it... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3230761/shes-faced-racism-sexism-now-shes-top-and-helping-other-women-and-girls-climb-ladder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3230761/shes-faced-racism-sexism-now-shes-top-and-helping-other-women-and-girls-climb-ladder?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Aug 2023 23:15:10 +0000 On Wednesday, July 26, given a calm sea and a following wind, the 214,000-tonne container ship MV Milan Maersk is due to dock at Aarhus, on the east coast of Denmark. Hurtling down the gangplank as he returns home will be Torbjørn “Thor” Pedersen, who has achieved the remarkable feat of visiting all 203 countries – both official and less so – in the world without boarding a single aircraft, having set off on his unique odyssey in October 2013. It’s been a long 10 years, two of them spent in Hong... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3228461/why-guinness-world-record-traveller-who-visited-every-country-without-flying-beyond-excited-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3228461/why-guinness-world-record-traveller-who-visited-every-country-without-flying-beyond-excited-be?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:15:11 +0000 When it comes to travel in 2023, freedom is the new luxury. Digital nomads are casting their cares to the winds, cocking a snook at the nine-to-five, and – toting little more than laptop, phone, credit card and a change of underwear – taking a deep dive into their bucket lists while continuing to pursue lucrative careers. Here’s a quintet who have high-fived Wi-fi’d global adventuring: 1. Lawrence Alex Wu Lawrence Alex Wu was destined to become a digital nomad. Born in Singapore, he was brought... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3227839/life-isnt-just-about-money-5-digital-nomads-following-their-dreams-and-liberation-working-where-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3227839/life-isnt-just-about-money-5-digital-nomads-following-their-dreams-and-liberation-working-where-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jul 2023 23:45:09 +0000 I was born in London in 1944 and sent to boarding school at the age of four-and-a-half, which was young even by the exacting standards of the English middle classes in those days. It was a tough regime – there were a lot of beatings and we weren’t addressed by name but by number. I was Number 46. My father had had a tough time of it in the war, and I think he found my presence disruptive when he came home having been interred in a prisoner-of-war camp. They never had any other children. I don’t... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226136/why-british-author-simon-winchester-would-sleep-one-his-critics-wives-his-love-hong-kong-and-why-he?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226136/why-british-author-simon-winchester-would-sleep-one-his-critics-wives-his-love-hong-kong-and-why-he?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Jul 2023 20:15:12 +0000 Hong Kong’s favourite Thai getaway island – three-and-a-half-hours away once Bangkok Airways’ direct flights restart on July 1 – has taken advantage of the tourism hiatus caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to up its game, revamping infrastructure and reimagining its holiday attractions. Samui, in the Gulf of Thailand 80km (50 miles) off the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, is also taking a determined step into the global spotlight. Michelin inspectors are reviewing the island’s top restaurants... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3222704/koh-samui-reinvented-one-thailands-best-holiday-islands-evolves-cater-gen-z-and-digital-nomads-heres?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3222704/koh-samui-reinvented-one-thailands-best-holiday-islands-evolves-cater-gen-z-and-digital-nomads-heres?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Jun 2023 04:45:09 +0000 France generally gets more annual visitors than any other country (80 million-plus, at the last count), followed by Spain and the United States. But what about nations where visitor arrivals barely scrape past four figures? With one exception, the top – or bottom – 10 least-visited nations (excluding those closed to visitors because of conflict or other political ructions) are all on remote islands. And each has something exceptional to offer beyond the obvious bragging rights. 1. Tuvalu Annual... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3221911/10-least-visited-countries-monserrat-micronesia-are-remote-welcoming-and-well-worth-journey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3221911/10-least-visited-countries-monserrat-micronesia-are-remote-welcoming-and-well-worth-journey?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 May 2023 20:15:10 +0000 There are all sorts of ways to get around Hong Kong – trains, trams, automobiles – but none offers as many diversions as the Monopoly board. Frequently cited as the world’s most popular board game, Monopoly’s Hong Kong version debuted in 1965. It’s undergone revisions in subsequent years, with a 1997 handover version to mark the British colony’s return to Chinese rule and the addition of funkier tokens such as a dinosaur and a duck. But the most radical innovation is the latest, the Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3219747/hong-kong-monopoly-board-game-good-guide-exploring-city-its-more-starting-point?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3219747/hong-kong-monopoly-board-game-good-guide-exploring-city-its-more-starting-point?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 May 2023 10:15:09 +0000 I was born into a prosperous upper-middle-class family in Tehran, the capital of Iran, in November 1965. My mother ran a girls’ primary school and my father was an agricultural engineer and entrepreneur. I had what can only be described as an idyllic childhood. Every summer we would spend a couple of months at my grandmother’s house, and sleep on her roof looking up at the stars. In those days Iran was ruled by the shah and there were none of the religious restrictions that are enforced now.... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3219353/macau-casinos-insider-fleeing-ayatollahs-iran-finding-love-and-his-movie-obsession?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3219353/macau-casinos-insider-fleeing-ayatollahs-iran-finding-love-and-his-movie-obsession?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 May 2023 23:15:08 +0000 Apart from the Star Ferry, Victoria Peak and other well-known Hong Kong attractions, there are a host of unsung places to visit in the city that have all sorts of surprises in store. Here are five of the most unusual. 1. O Park1 Visiting O Park1 may feel like a school trip, but it’s presented in a light-hearted, fun manner, and it has the inestimable virtue of being free. At O Park1, opened in 2018 a short hop from Sunny Bay MTR station on Lantau, food waste (176,000 tonnes to date) from... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3216203/5-hong-kongs-most-unusual-tourist-attractions-noahs-ark-sewage-works-spooky-museum?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3216203/5-hong-kongs-most-unusual-tourist-attractions-noahs-ark-sewage-works-spooky-museum?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Apr 2023 08:15:11 +0000 In 2022, when Nell Nelson was told she was suffering from osteoarthritis, she asked what would be the best remedy short of a knee replacement. “Cycling and the Mediterranean diet,” her doctor replied. Which is why the former editor of Hong Kong-based Asian Home Gourmet is currently pedalling her way from Spain to Turkey along EuroVelo 8, one of 17 such routes that thread their way for about 90,000km (56,000 miles) up, down and around the European continent, turning it into a single, expansive,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3215495/cycling-europe-90000km-eurovelo-network-and-its-17-mapped-routes-has-something-satisfy-wide-range?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3215495/cycling-europe-90000km-eurovelo-network-and-its-17-mapped-routes-has-something-satisfy-wide-range?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Apr 2023 23:15:18 +0000 Let’s start with a joke. “How do you spell ‘tourists’?” “T-o-u-r-i-f-t-s.” “Hang on, there ain’t no ‘f’ in tourists.” “That’s right.” Indeed, until very recently, Hong Kong was utterly devoid of effing tourists. However, now that the LeaveHomeSafe contact-tracing app malarkey has been consigned to where it belongs, those little cash cows are starting to come traipsing back. But even with the barnstorming launch of the Tourism Board’s Hello Hong Kong campaign and the willy-nilly handout of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3209989/new-tourist-attractions-hong-kong-consider-bridge-climbs-and-instagrammable-swings-making-better-use?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3209989/new-tourist-attractions-hong-kong-consider-bridge-climbs-and-instagrammable-swings-making-better-use?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Feb 2023 23:45:10 +0000 Ed Peters Ed Peters I was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, but have spent vast swathes of my life riding the crest of a wave in Hong Kong – and what a ride it has been! We – mum, dad and my younger sister – landed there in 1964 after five years in what was then Western Samoa. At first, we lived in the Merlin Hotel (behind The Peninsula, in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon) and then in a government flat at Piper’s Hill just by what is now Lion Rock Country Park – we used to have fun chasing the monkeys that ran wild there,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3208067/being-blonde-was-essential-former-model-pr-and-gossip-columnist-hairy-hong-kong-junk-trip-joan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3208067/being-blonde-was-essential-former-model-pr-and-gossip-columnist-hairy-hong-kong-junk-trip-joan?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Jan 2023 05:15:09 +0000 As a poor teenage art student in the late 1970s, I took a summer job on a building site in Britain. If I was incautious enough to admit what I was studying, I would immediately be asked how much I’d be willing to pay for the nearest pile of rubble. The reason was this: the American minimalist sculptor Carl Andre had just sold Equivalent VIII (1966) – which was nothing more than a stack of 120 firebricks – to the Tate Gallery in London for £2,297, then about eight months’ wages for the average... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3187863/lets-hear-it-king-kowloon-whatever-you-may-have?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3187863/lets-hear-it-king-kowloon-whatever-you-may-have?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Aug 2022 01:45:22 +0000 When Hong Kong does finally open up to tourists it’s going to have to reshoot the postcards – because its world-famous attractions are fast disappearing. Last month we mourned the Star Ferry (it is surviving, barely) and now it’s the turn of flamboyant eatery the Jumbo Floating Restaurant. I had an uneasy feeling watching it being tugged out to sea. After haemorrhaging cash for a couple of years, the owners were moving it to an undisclosed location. They refused to be drawn on where they were... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3182736/sinking-hong-kongs-jumbo-floating-restaurant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3182736/sinking-hong-kongs-jumbo-floating-restaurant?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Jun 2022 03:50:19 +0000 The route from hero to zero is all too often a descent that is as swift as it is shocking, as a touristic must-see one year becomes a has-been the next. And so it has proved with many of Hong Kong’s former top attractions that have been demolished, discontinued or simply overtaken by the passage of time. Here are 10 attractions once sought out by locals and visitors to the city but which no longer grace the pages of guidebooks. 1. Dai Tat Dei / Poor Man’s Nightclub No marketing department came... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3173530/10-hong-kongs-best-attractions-old-star-ferry-pier-and-lai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3173530/10-hong-kongs-best-attractions-old-star-ferry-pier-and-lai?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Apr 2022 05:45:13 +0000 “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you.” So said globe-trotting celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain. As an older saying goes, it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive; the journey is its own reward. So while “Hong Kong” and “brief getaway” remain mutually exclusive terms, it’s no bad time to look back over some of travel’s golden... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3173541/meditation-india-volunteering-peru-post-covid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3173541/meditation-india-volunteering-peru-post-covid?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Apr 2022 00:15:19 +0000 There may well be no such thing as a free lunch, but in Hong Kong there’s the next best thing – a free ride. Lots of free rides. Well, almost free. Under the Fare Concession Scheme for “elderly and eligible persons”, from February 27 onwards residents aged 60 t0 64 (no longer just those 65 and over) can make a journey anywhere in Hong Kong’s 1,110 sq km (429 square miles) and using any means of transport for HK$2 (25 US cents). Just show an Octopus JoyYou stored value card and trips on the MTR... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3168375/make-most-hk2-public-transport-fares-hong-kong-seniors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3168375/make-most-hk2-public-transport-fares-hong-kong-seniors?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Feb 2022 08:15:15 +0000 Hong Kong’s outlying islands have a habit of vanishing. Chek Lap Kok metamorphosed into an airport. Stonecutters Island – which within living memory was favoured for its coral reefs – is now bolted to the Kowloon peninsula and hosts a Chinese People’s Liberation Army naval base and a world-class sewage treatment plant. In the 1950s, naturists made a beeline for Wok Tai Wan on Tsing Yi, an island which at the time barely supported any houses, let alone skyscrapers, malls and one end of a 2km-long... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3167916/hiking-snorkelling-strange-rocks-perhaps-seafood-lunch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3167916/hiking-snorkelling-strange-rocks-perhaps-seafood-lunch?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Feb 2022 04:45:18 +0000 Hong Kong does reclamation better than it handles renovation. It reveres brand-new, glittery structures of steel and glass rather than a centuries-old pile of bricks. Still, here and there across the city can be found more than 120 of what the government’s Antiquities and Monuments Office calls dedicated monuments – but which someone with a more poetic turn of phrase might describe as “treasures of Hong Kong”. These architectural gems have been left standing where dozens of other historic... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3165678/five-historic-hong-kong-buildings-worth-visit-lantau?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3165678/five-historic-hong-kong-buildings-worth-visit-lantau?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Feb 2022 01:15:15 +0000 The inaugural meeting of DADS (Drones Are Despicable Society) was held well away from prying eyes at an underground location in a little-known part of Kowloon last month. The main agenda was dealt with in a matter of moments and members then proceeded to the item marked Any Other Business – namely, smashing a DJI Air 2S to smithereens with lump hammers. Not quite the sort of behaviour to be expected from a group of supposedly full-grown adults who hold down responsible day jobs? Well, you try... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3162767/nowhere-safe-drones-hong-kong-its-time-control?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3162767/nowhere-safe-drones-hong-kong-its-time-control?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Jan 2022 04:15:13 +0000 First the 2019 anti-government protests stymied Hong Kong’s independent tour guides. Then – mother of all double whammies – they were poleaxed by the Covid-19 pandemic. But now some are making a valiant effort to get back on their feet and cope with the new not-really-normal of the tourism industry. In 2019, Hong Kong welcomed more than 55 million visitors, providing a ready market for local residents who could earn a respectable fee from showing tourists where to eat, shop, sightsee and revel... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3162191/hong-kong-tours-how-local-guides-are-adapting-survive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3162191/hong-kong-tours-how-local-guides-are-adapting-survive?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jan 2022 07:15:18 +0000 One year, 11 months, three weeks and a few hours – give-or-take – after Torbjorn “Thor” Pedersen first landed in Hong Kong on his plane-free, round-the-world odyssey, he has finally managed to secure a passage on a ship to the Pacific island of Palau. The 43-year-old Dane set out on his quest to visit every country in the world without flying in October 2013, but was stranded in Hong Kong when Covid-19 struck, throwing global travel patterns, and his own plans, into complete disarray. “I never... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3162401/ill-always-remember-hong-kong-traveller-stuck-103-weeks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3162401/ill-always-remember-hong-kong-traveller-stuck-103-weeks?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Jan 2022 10:50:49 +0000 Raf Ho Man-fung is a Hong Kong celebrity whose name nobody knows. Whether he is driving down the street in the centre of town, hiking up in the hills or striding round one of the city’s parks, it’s not long before people stop to stare, nudge each other and point, and fumble for their smartphones so they can snap a picture. Such is the price of fame when you are Google’s chief Hong Kong camera carrier – or Street View operator, in official parlance – tasked to patrol the territory’s nooks,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3159898/how-google-maps-street-view-operator-hong-kong-tackles?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3159898/how-google-maps-street-view-operator-hong-kong-tackles?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Dec 2021 05:15:17 +0000 Flip through any guidebook to Hong Kong, or online top 10, and it won’t be long before the following words appear: country parks; concrete jungle; 40 per cent; amazing. Or to put it another way, around four-10ths of high-rise, high anxiety Hong Kong’s 1,100 sq km is official and utterly placid green space. It’s one of the city’s glories: hop in a taxi amid the metropolitan grit and grime of Wan Chai, and 10 minutes later you can be stepping out onto a trail that winds downhill through Tai Tam... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3148137/why-are-hong-kongs-country-parks-treated-if-no?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3148137/why-are-hong-kongs-country-parks-treated-if-no?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Sep 2021 00:45:07 +0000 Starting small I was born prematurely, at six-and-a-half months, in the slums of São Paulo, in southeast Brazil, and was extremely lucky to survive. My father was a truck driver, and my mother looked after us six kids – I was the youngest – so with eight mouths to feed there wasn’t a lot of money left over at the end of the week. I grew up small, skinny and extremely helpless in the sort of neighbourhood where I would have been at a disadvantage even if I’d been relatively healthy, but somehow I... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3142108/brazilian-capoeira-master-eddy-murphy-teaching-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3142108/brazilian-capoeira-master-eddy-murphy-teaching-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jul 2021 09:15:16 +0000 Even if your affection for animals is confined to little more than your alimentary canal, you can’t help but mourn the imminent, and shameful, demise of Hong Kong’s not-terribly-feral cow and buffalo herds. History is a bit vague when it comes to exact details, but in the general run of things it’s agreed that they were formerly employed as draught animals, then circa 1970 – when New Territories farmers gave up farming and no longer needed fields ploughed or loads hauled – the animals were let... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3142075/feral-cows-and-buffalo-hong-kong-should-be-left?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3142075/feral-cows-and-buffalo-hong-kong-should-be-left?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jul 2021 02:45:12 +0000 Hong Kong’s most exclusive accommodation has no stars, bars or spas, and nothing at all in the way of valet parking. But for splendid isolation, natural beauty and monarch-of-all-I-survey panoramas, Lantau Mountain Camp has yet to find an equal. Set a short way to the east of 869-metre Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan), and strung out either side of the Lantau Trail, the “camp” is made up of 20 rough-hewn, single-storey stone cabins that are unlikely to grace the pages of Architectural Digest but are... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3140139/stone-cabins-100-years-old-hong-kong-mountain-offer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3140139/stone-cabins-100-years-old-hong-kong-mountain-offer?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Jul 2021 04:15:12 +0000 With travel bubbles proving about as robust as soap bubbles and the thrill of hotel staycations beginning to pall, savvy Hongkongers are taking to holidaying at home. Or rather, at someone else’s home. Relatively simple to organise, almost free and eminently sociable, home swapping could become this summer’s dominant holiday trend. Either by following up on word-of-mouth recommendations or, more usually, browsing online, swappers – families, couples, singletons – match up mutually agreeable... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3136019/home-swapping-and-why-these-people-love-living-others?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3136019/home-swapping-and-why-these-people-love-living-others?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Jun 2021 02:15:08 +0000 Crafty kid: You could trace the point when my life really got started to around my ninth birthday, after my uncle asked me to help him restore a house near the small village where we lived, southeast of Lyons, in France. It was built in 1840, with enough room to accommodate a horse and cart overnight, but when he began it had fallen into ruins and wasn’t much more than four rickety walls. At first I was just fetching and carrying, but then I began to get really enthusiastic. My uncle was so... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3135846/he-quit-9-5-and-followed-his-dream-carpenter-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3135846/he-quit-9-5-and-followed-his-dream-carpenter-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Jun 2021 05:15:17 +0000 When Kai Tak was the site of one of the world’s most fabulous airports – rather than host to a white-elephant cruise terminal – it was easy to slip out of the back door and across the road into Little Bangkok in Kowloon City, a distinctly Thai corner of Hong Kong with restaurants that serve some of the city’s best tom kha gai (coconut chicken soup) and Thai red curry – and at very reasonable prices. Now Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority has got its eye on Sa Po Road and surrounding streets... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3135179/ethnic-enclaves-hong-kong-little-bangkok-kowloon-city?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3135179/ethnic-enclaves-hong-kong-little-bangkok-kowloon-city?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 May 2021 06:15:14 +0000 Last September, the final section of the 60km bike track between Tuen Mun and Ma On Shan – a freewheeling Trans New Territories freeway and cause for celebration – opened with all the fanfare that we’ve come to expect in Hong Kong: marching bands, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a combined helicopter fly-past and fireworks display. Actually, I made all that up. The Civil Engineering and Development Department just put out a press release. And here’s the rub. Cycling – eminently healthy, utterly... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3135009/why-hong-kong-must-embrace-bicycle-provide-more-cycle-lanes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3135009/why-hong-kong-must-embrace-bicycle-provide-more-cycle-lanes?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 May 2021 00:15:11 +0000 For her 10th birthday, Dervla Murphy was given a bicycle and an atlas. While pedalling one and perusing the other, she later wrote, she concluded that if she could just get across the sea to Europe from her native Ireland, she could cycle all the way to India. A little more than two decades later, having spent long years caring for her bedridden mother, she did exactly that. Now approaching her 90th birthday, Murphy – whose first name means “poet’s daughter” – is the uncrowned queen of doughty... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3131790/queen-women-travel-writers-whose-books-continue-inspire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3131790/queen-women-travel-writers-whose-books-continue-inspire?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 May 2021 11:45:06 +0000 Man without a plan: I was born just outside Tokyo in 1987, but mostly grew up in England, as my dad (pioneering motorsports photographer Joe Honda) wanted a European base for his work. I’m an only child, and from the age of three we lived in Eastbourne, on the south coast. My dad was away a lot, especially during the racing season, so my mum, Michiko Kamishima, looked after me but she also helped him with translation and coordination. He’d started photographing motorsports events in Japan in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3129605/cnn-producer-emiko-jozuka-dedicated-preserving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3129605/cnn-producer-emiko-jozuka-dedicated-preserving?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Apr 2021 11:15:14 +0000 Two, sometimes three times a day, Mr Ha calls my smartphone and demands to talk to a Mr Ho. It seems that Mr Ho owes a lot of money to somebody who has tasked Mr Ha with getting it. How Mr Ha got hold of my number is a mystery, and a very annoying one, but you have to admire the man’s persistence. Mr Ha has multiple phone numbers at his disposal. If I block one, he uses another. Sometimes I answer and explain in English and Cantonese words of one syllable that I am not Mr Ho. Mr Ha then rings... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3128794/hong-kongs-spam-callers-are-symbolic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3128794/hong-kongs-spam-callers-are-symbolic?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Apr 2021 03:15:14 +0000 Fancy a round-the-world trip when nobody’s flying anywhere? Then step up for a tour of the hang-outs in Hong Kong where international celebrities and politicians once trod, taking in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the gilded shores of Discovery Bay on Lantau Island. 1. José Rizal  Ophthalmologist, artist, poet, engineer and the Philippines’ biggest national hero, José Rizal lived at Rednaxela Terrace for the first half of 1892 and worked from his clinic in D’Aguilar Street, Central. He was a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3128083/ho-chi-minh-bruce-lee-john-lennon-footsteps-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3128083/ho-chi-minh-bruce-lee-john-lennon-footsteps-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Apr 2021 05:15:06 +0000 Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healingby Horatio ClareChatto & Windus Horatio Clare is by no means the first author to write about what it’s like to go barmy. Evelyn Waugh, propelled into a series of delusions by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, recorded his experiences in The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. More recently, Kingsley Amis – having reluctantly had to give up drink after breaking a leg – suffered multiple hallucinations, which provided material for the chapter A Peep... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3125903/heavy-light-horatio-clare-chronicles-his-journey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3125903/heavy-light-horatio-clare-chronicles-his-journey?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Mar 2021 09:45:16 +0000 Life’s a beach. Except if you happen to live in Hong Kong in the early months of 2021, where life is a right homophone as the beaches that the government has deigned to register are – courtesy of the Covid-19 kerfuffle – corralled behind miles of tape and plastic fencing and festooned with fatuous proclamations such as “Temporary Closure of Venue”. In short: according to a Leisure and Cultural Services Department communique of February 18, we were permitted to sit in the open air in a public... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3123546/beach-please-when-will-tide-turn-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3123546/beach-please-when-will-tide-turn-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:45:15 +0000 Towards the end of last year, the Santella family – two adults, two children, one dog – were searching for a new coronavirus-era time-filler. Then, in what can only be described as a cosmic coincidence, Saturn and Jupiter hit the headlines as the planets spun up close to each other for the first time in decades, on December 21. And inspiration struck. For Christmas, an uncle gave a couple of Gskyer telescopes with 10- and 25-millimetre (0.4 inches and 1 inch) lenses and a three-magnification... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3123052/stargazing-hong-kong-where-view-night-sky-and-how-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3123052/stargazing-hong-kong-where-view-night-sky-and-how-one?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Mar 2021 04:15:09 +0000 In September 1895, a 20-some­thing American mother-of-three named Annie Londonderry became the first woman to ride a bicycle around the world. Except her name was not London­derry and she hadn’t pedalled nearly so far as she’d led everyone to suppose. She was a brilliant – and unabashed – self-publicist, who briefly turned herself into one of the first ersatz celebrities of modern times. Returning to her family in Boston after 15 months in the saddle, she soon faded into obscurity and would have... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3122985/fantastical-adventures-annie-londonderry-first-woman?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3122985/fantastical-adventures-annie-londonderry-first-woman?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Feb 2021 11:15:05 +0000 Disturbed by upheavals in the city in recent years, some young Hongkongers have surrendered to the lure of wanderlust, heading off to pastures new. Here, three “escapees” talk about their experiences. Fiona Leung, Rotterdam: “The pros outweigh the cons” Fiona Leung (not her real name; once politically active, she asks for anonymity) ended up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, by chance. When she and her partner got itchy feet in 2019, they thought that Vietnam – more or less next door to Hong... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3122030/escape-hong-kong-what-three-wanderers-miss-about-city-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3122030/escape-hong-kong-what-three-wanderers-miss-about-city-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Feb 2021 02:15:18 +0000 Few parts of the globe remain untouched by the Chinese diaspora, which has spread not only to the world’s capital cities but also to more remote locales, bringing a distinct influence to bear on culture, cuisine, commerce and many other aspects of daily life. Here are five voices from among the estimated 50 million people of Chinese descent living outside the People’s Republic. Each is a pillar of a Chinese community that is not based in one of the world’s most recognised Chinatowns. Peter Chin:... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3121087/canada-peru-how-chinese-diaspora-has-made-its-mark?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3121087/canada-peru-how-chinese-diaspora-has-made-its-mark?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Feb 2021 18:30:08 +0000 Just under two years ago Ashley Lendrum-Bordoli – newly returned to her native Hong Kong after a stint in New Zealand and looking for a useful way to occupy her time – had a brainwave. Unusually for Hong Kong, it was the opposite of a money-spinner. And like all good ideas, it was startlingly simple. Every couple of months, anyone who wanted could bring their unwanted household bits and pieces to her Freecycle event in Mui Wo, on Lantau Island, and at the same time help themselves to anything... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3120935/freecycle-events-keep-unwanted-items-out-landfills-letting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3120935/freecycle-events-keep-unwanted-items-out-landfills-letting?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Feb 2021 04:15:17 +0000 Just under two years ago Ashley Lendrum-Bordoli – newly returned to her native Hong Kong after a stint in New Zealand and looking for a useful way to occupy her time – had a brainwave. Unusually for Hong Kong, it was the opposite of a money-spinner. And like all good ideas, it was startlingly simple. Every couple of months, anyone who wanted could bring their unwanted household bits and pieces to her Freecycle event in Mui Wo, on Lantau Island, and at the same time help themselves to anything... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3120824/freecycle-events-keep-unwanted-items-out-landfills-letting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3120824/freecycle-events-keep-unwanted-items-out-landfills-letting?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Feb 2021 04:15:14 +0000