Shanghai

Shanghai was once an international settlement divided between Britain, America and France. Now the beating heart of a booming China its past, present and sense of future have coalesced to make one of the world's best cities to visit.  I wasn't leaving Asia without seeing it. 

Nanjing Road

Strolling out of my hostel on Nanjing Rd, I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of shopping mania. Hawkers everywhere ten steps luring tourists to stalls and the unofficial around-the-corner, back-of-a-car designer gear. There are a few scamsters - I paid well over the odds for a tea ceremony - but nothing harmful. Walk the gauntlet and don't take the hassling too seriously.

The Bund 

At the end of Nanjing Rd is The Bund, a promenade where you can took over the river and the financial services skyline of Pudong. This is the picture everybody takes when in Shanghai. I'd recommend going at night.  The Bund itself is the centre of old world colonial architecture, a complementary image to what's across the river.

Pudong 

There's a Bund Sightseeing Tunnel that goes under the river to Pudong. The tunnel itself is a bit of a tourist trap. There's a ferry at the end of the Bund that goes every ten minutes. I did the tunnel one way and the ferry back. 

In Pudong you can climb the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which is the tallest of its kind in Asia and third in the world, to the revolving restaurant at the top. 

Shopping

Shanghai is shoppers' heaven. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a shopper. My sources tell me that Hui Jin Department Store  is great for clothes and Metro City best for electronics.

Old Town 

There's no bigger indication of Shanghai's international nature than the fact that this feels like a China Town. The Old Town Bazaar or Yu Market is where you can pick up Mao's Little Red Book and other souvenirs. Don't be afraid to bargain on price! It's part of shopping in China.

French Concession

Tree-lined streets, colonial architecture with the convenience of living downtown, it's no wonder this is Shanghai's ex-pat centre. Once the centre of French Shanghai, the European influence extends to its range of cafes and western-style eateries. This isn't somewhere to go and see as much as somewhere to sit, have a coffee and take it in.  

Shanghainese Cuisine

Did somebody mention food?

Caramelised strawberry kebabs mean spring has come to Shanghai. A sugar-laden string of strawberries on a stick is probably the sweetest thing I've ever tasted. Although it took lots of washing to the stickiness off my hands, it was worth it.

Drunken crab - raw crab in alcohol - is one Shanghai speciality I really liked. The food has sweet undertones not present in other Chinese areas. Shanghai is comparable to other big, international cities when it comes to the variety of food - cuisine from all regions of China and all over the world are there. There are also the Chinese staples of dumplings, seafood, chicken and tofu dishes everywhere you go.

Beijing Tourism

In 2008 - four months before the last Olympics - I visited Beijing. News outlets all over the world were discussing human rights abuses in Tibet . Meanwhile CCTV, the Chinese English-language news network, reported that the Dalai Lama was training assassins in Japan. Why slander one enemy when you can target two? 

  Tienanmen Square

Mao's face still looks out over Tiananmen Square from the picture on his tomb where Chinese tour groups queue to see his pickled corpse. 

Monument to the People's Heroes at the centre of the square, an obelisk dedicated to the 'martyrs to the revolutionary struggle' is certainly not a monument to the people killed there in 1989. It's an unfortunate irony for the Chinese authorities that all the tourists taking a picture of it do so with that massacre in mind. Back at my hostel I Googled 'Tiananmen Square 89', just to see the Great Firewall of China.  

Forbidden City

A place that used to be barred to everybody but the nobility during the Ming and Qing dynasties now is criticised for being too open to commerce and tourism with all kinds of tat is sold within its walls. That said, the medieval Forbidden City is a sight to behold and quite rightly a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hutong

A network of hutong or alleyways within central Beijing  formatted in a quadrangle around the Forbidden City are a taste of ancient China but one where people still live. The mix of the ancient and the modern is a boon for tourism. But there are some who see the basic nature of these hutong as an embarrassment. A lot of them were being cleared around the time of the 2008 Olympics. Nevertheless, a third of the city is still hutong.

Great Wall of China 

There are different parts of the Great Wall including some great hiking spots. Not being that hardcore, I did the easy thing and visited the main touristy part where people climb stairs in a line. The wall itself is a remarkable feat of human engineering. My only problem with it was the tour that stopped  on the way to the wall at a jade factory, a tea house and herbal medicine clinic where we were all diagnosed as riddled with disease and given a bill for a prescription. It's hard to make your own way to the Great Wall, leaving the way open for dodgy tour operators. I recommend checking yours is reputable before booking. 

Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is another UNESCO World Heritage Site dating from the same period as the Forbidden City. The magnificent circular building symbolises Heaven in the Taoist tradition.  This and the Great Wall were my favourites in Beijing. 


Having seen China's Washington, I hopped on an internal flight to its New York: Shanghai.

Hack the City

Street art or graffiti? Activism or vandalism? It's an old debate and one that has tipped in the artists' favour in recent years with Banksy and others becoming major players in the art world

Hacking and hacktivism is another recent phenomenon . Anonymous and others like them have become folk heroes to some. Sharing, as they do, a two-fingered defiance of authority it was only a matter of time before some bright spark connected hacking with street art.  

The Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin has just launched Hack the City, a programme of exhibitions and events that, according to the press release, invites Dubliners to take a hacker mindset to bend, tweak and mash-up urban systems. It's a collaboration of artists, scientists, engineers, designer and start-ups attempting to rewire our city.

The hacking anti-Big Brother contingent is served by an exhibit on stealth underwear that cloaks movements (a raunchier version of Harry Potter's invisibility cloak perhaps?) and a workshop on how to hack into wireless surveillance cameras

Other things to look out for out and about are robotic buskers, hijacked billboards by award-winning artist Julian Oliver and French urban hacktivist Florian Rivier who converts the streets into a pop-up playground.  

Hack the City is a summer-long program that began on the 22nd June and finishes on the 8th September at The Science Gallery, Pearse St, Dublin 2. I'm going to check it out.Visit the website for full listing and more info.

City 2.0

The TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Prize is an annual award, usually given to an individual. This year, for the first time in history, it was won by an an idea after my own heart: "City 2.0". Ten projects that are improving city life will share a 1million US Dollar prize. Winners include the designers of an open-sourced "wiki-house" .  

Download plan for a DIY home or 'wiki-house'

The common thread of most of the projects is sustainable development. A more unusual one is Crowdsourcing the Quiet - a smartphone app to locate quiet spaces in a city, created by a self-proclaimed recluse. Its aim is "sonic health" in the city for introverts or people with disabilities like autism and schizophrenia that crave less sensory stimuli. 

What is City 2.0?

TED calls this 'the idea that will change the world'. Urban growth is the story of our century. Just over half of the world's 7bn population now live in cities. This is due to rise to 5bn by 2030. 

I've taken the list below from the TED Prize website:

The City 2.0 is the city of the future… a future in which more than ten billion people on planet Earth must somehow live sustainably.
The City 2.0 is not a sterile utopian dream, but a real-world upgrade tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom.
The City 2.0 promotes innovation, education, culture and economic opportunity.
The City 2.0 reduces the carbon footprint of its occupants, facilitates smaller families and eases the environmental pressure on the world’s rural areas.
The City 2.0 is a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life.
The City 2.0 is the city that works.

All about Seoul

Seoul will go down in memory as the place where I got mobbed like a celebrity. It wouldn't have the same level of tourism as some other parts of Asia and visiting the Changdeokgung Temple a class full of kids on a school tour ran at me waving and snapping their cameras. They were probably from the sticks and not used to foreigners. I don't care - it made my trip.

Seoul has a few attractions such as the Seoul Tower, but I found the cuisine, the markets and the café culture to be the most exciting parts. Everywhere you go there's stuff to buy from street food to designer knock-offs and when it rains the traders jump on the train to flog umbrellas. Namdaemun and Dongdaemun  and Kwangjang Markets are a few famous examples. 

Seoul food is all about kimchi, one of the world's spiciest and healthiest  foods. Korean barbecue - grilled meat or fish with kimchi and hot sauce wrapped in lettuce - is the best and most fun type of group eating. Unfortunately, I was travelling alone (or Seoul-o? Sorry!) on my way home from Japan and reduced to looking at others eat bbq through a window with my mouth watering. But with all the other delicious food options, I didn't go hungry.   

While not strictly in Seoul, one of the world's most unusual yet depressing places to visit is a short trip away: the De-Militarised Zone between South and North Korea. Trips to the DMZ and JSA (Joint Security Area) have to be booked through an official tour agency and tourists are not allowed without a guide. Some tours include a Q & A with a North Korean defector. 

Korea's best travel blog, written by a local, is called Discovering Korea. I'd really recommend it for anybody interested in visiting or learning more about the country. 

Visit Kyoto

The second major stop on most tourists' Japanese itinerary is Kyoto. Where Tokyo brings manga and cosplay to many people's minds, Kyoto means temples and geisha. I don't know Kyoto as well as Tokyo but here are some of my traditional Japanese highlights:

Geishas of Gion

The geisha is a Japanese icon. Before going to Gion in Kyoto many people never think they'll see one in the flesh. By the time you leave Gion, you'll almost sick of the sight of them.  Geisha  - or geiko in Kyoto dialect - and maiko (apprentice geisha) can be seen everywhere in Gion going to appointments or events. The geisha still give performances to businessmen  or tourists with deep pockets. The only place for everyone else to see them in action is Gion Corner, a theatre where they put on daily musical performances. Although many find this show the cultural experience of their holiday, I must admit to nodding off for a while in the middle of it.  I do find the geisha phenomenon a little bit creepy and odd - that's just me.

Golden Pavillion - Kinkakuji

 The story goes that after a monk burned down this temple in the 1950s it was rebuilt even golder. It's a bit of a visual marvel on a clear day when the shape is reflected in the water. There's also a silver temple in Kyoto called Ginkakuji,but gold always beats silver.
  

 

Stay in a Ryokan 

It would be a shame to go to Kyoto and not stay in a ryokan - a traditional Japanese inn. They usually feature tatami-matted rooms, communal baths and other areas where you can lounge around in a robe called a yukata. Despite the luxury it's worth keeping in mind that many are also family homes. The owner of the ryokan I stayed in with friends wasn't best pleased when we came in from a nightclub in the early hours and woke him up. Luckily, there was also a Chinese hotel critic staying there and he was all smiles in front of her when we checked out late the next morning.

Fishimi Inari Shrine

Red or orange torii gates are the most striking of Japanese structures. They mark the entrance to a Shinto shrine and the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto has a walking path formed of thousands of them. Another amazing torii gate I'd recommend , if you like that sort of thing, is in the sea at Miyajima island, which is a nice day trip from Hiroshima. Just watch out for the poor starving deer who chase tourists for food. I had to climb up a statue with an ice cream to escape the attack of the Bambi clones.

Ryoan-ji

Ryoan-ji  is a Buddhist temple with a famous Zen rock garden. The meaning of it is unclear but it was designed so, from any vantage point, one of the 15 rocks is always obscured from view. Although hugely popular, this temple has got mixed reviews - one person's spiritual experience is another's square of stones. 

Nishiki Market 

It's fitting that a list of Japanese highlights finishes with a food market. Nishiki has been called Kyoto's kitchen. A narrow shopping street lined with food stalls, there are too many delicacies to taste in one visit.

Hope that's given a brief taster about what Kyoto has to offer.

Tokyo Highlights

Writing about Japan is a tale of two cities - Tokyo and Kyoto - each showing its own side of the culture.

Having spent a year in Tokyo teaching English when I was younger, I returned this January for a quick visit  to stay with two Japanese friends. As soon as I got off the plane and heard the Japanese announcements I was in a world of memories. I didn't visit Kyoto on this trip but went there twice when I lived there. It has its charms but Tokyo will always my favourite.

There are too many attractions in Tokyo for me to list here. There are plenty of good guidebooks and sites giving that information. I don't pretend to know everybody tastes. These are just my highlights of a city that I love.

Shibuya Crossing

It's rare that a pedestrian crossing is one of a city's top attractions, but anybody who's been to Tokyo will say you have to see this one from above. Starbucks is very strategically placed but you can see it from other buildings including the top floor the Shibuya Tokyo Metro station. A soundless ballet or a human ant colony, depending on your world view. There's also the famous Hachiko dog statue and some people offering free hugs (no, thanks) as you come out of Shibuya station.

Shinjuku

Most people's mental image of Tokyo is hectic streets illuminated by neon. Welcome to Shibuya, the place that makes Time Square look like a village square. Every inch of space is put to use with streets of multistorey buildings full of restaurants, shops, bars, gaming emporiums and karaoke booths all advertising for business with - you guessed it - neon signs!  This is quintessential Tokyo.

New York Bar, Park Hyatt

New York Bar is where Scarlett and Bill met in Lost in Translation. For anybody who isn't a fan of the film, it's still the most glamorous place to have a cocktail overlooking the Tokyo skyline. I brought all my visitors here when I was living in Tokyo and they loved it. It's pricey but not meant to be a regular haunt.  A jazz band plays until late every night.

 Harajuku

 Cosplay is a mixture of fashion and performance art that started in Japan, inspired by manga and anime characters, and become a global trend.  The best examples of it are still to be found in Harajuku. Although it may have lost some of its counter-culture cred when McDonald's moved in, Takeshita Street in Harajuku is still a slice of life with shops you won't see anywhere else. I bought a bumblebee cosplay outfit home for my dog  - he didn't really get the joke. See more ridiculous dog costumes here.

Yoyogi Park

The best place to spend a sunny Sunday in Tokyo is Yoyogi Park. Next to Harajuku, it's where a lot of cosplay girls hang out and pose for tourist photos. There are also a range of performers from bands to hippy drum circles to - best of all - the Dancing Rockabilly Elvises. With quiffs higher than the real Elvis could have dreamed of, they gather every week, just to dance to classic Rock 'n' Roll. It's the mixture of the brilliant and the bizarre that only Tokyo can offer.  If you're crazied-out and in the mood for a bit of traditional culture, the Meiji Jingu Shinto shrine is also in the park.

Tsukiji Fish Market

I couldn't write about Tokyo without mentioning Japanese food, especially sushi. Although getting up (or staying up) for 6am sushi mightn't sound that appetising, I assure you that it is. Tsukiji is the world's largest fish market surrounded by a labyrinth of restaurants serving fresh sushi from newly caught fish. I went with a friend who didn't even eat fish and just loved the buzz of the auction and traders whizzing around on the market floor. Despite the tourists tramping around, there was a rawness about Tsukiji - and it wasn't just the fish. In case you're wondering, the poor unfortunate fish in the picture are tuna. Who'd have guessed they'd be so big?



Let me know if there's anything you think I've got wrong or left out.....

Hong Kong Nights

A genuine Motown artist takes to the stage of the Skylark Lounge in Hong Kong every week. Septugenerian Bobby Taylor is best known for discovering the Jackson 5 and producing the group's first album. He also led  Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers and recorded a solo artist. Although he may never have hit the heights as peers like Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson, hearing the Bobby singing their hits in the Skylark is the closest thing left to seeing them live. He also sings some of his own songs like in the video posted left.

The Skylark Lounge is a wine bar in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's ex-pat playground, and has one of the most multicultural crowds I've ever seen. Outside it's past 11 on a Friday night, the suits are off and revelers fill the street. I'd love to give a list of the other bars I visited in LKF but the memory is a bit fuzzy.

One thing  I won't forget is how the night began with Indian/Pakistani food in Chunking Mansions. Delicious meal aside, the Mansions are an experience. A city within a building, its 17 stories houses apartments, hostels, shops, restaurants, factories and even foreign exchange offices. In a typical year people of  at least 120 nationalities pass through it, leading Time Magazine to call it the world's 'best example of globalisation in action'. Like most cities, it has its social problems but Chunking is worth a visit as long as you're prepared for a bit of grit. It's become so iconic that Hong Kong's greatest filmmaker, Wong Kar Wai, set the award-winning Chunking Express there in 1994. Click here to watch the trailer. The video below gives you a taste of Chunking Mansions.

Hong Kong - Travel Tips

A stop-over in Hong Kong on my way to Australia last September was a great excuse to stay a few nights and see what it had to offer. Asia's World City, as it likes to sell itself, isn't short of attractions to pick up the tourist buck. Some of them, like Disneyland and Ocean Park, are the sort of organised fun for 'kids of all ages' that almost brings me out in hives. Luckily a friend, an Irish ex-pat, met me at the airport and brought me on a whistle-stop tour and advised me on where to avoid. Here are some of my highlights:

Victoria Harbour 

A trip on the Star Ferry is the best introduction to Hong Kong and its harbour.There are tourist cruises during the day and night for those not travelling on a budget, but the commuter boat gives just as good views.

Victoria Peak

 This leafy mountain towers over Hong Kong island and is the best vantage point over the city. We took the Peak Circle Walk, but you can go straight to the Lugard Road Lookout over the harbour. The walk is leafy and feels miles from such a developed city until you reach the top and see it all in front of you. 'The Peak' at the top of the actual peak is a huge shopping centre and attraction. Looking over such a vista, shopping in an almost windowless building was the furthest thing from my mind but I must admit to grabbing an iced drink from the McDonald's cafe. Jet lag and humidity were joining forces against me. There's a cable car to the top but you can beat the queues by getting an ordinary bus that takes the same trip. We chose to walk down - tiring in my jet lagged state but worth it.

Avenue of The Stars & Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade

 I stayed on Kowloon Island, across the harbour from Hong Kong itself, in the Salisbury YMCA. Dreading a dingy budget place, I was delighted to find it beat most three star accommodation and had a pool. Next door to some top notch hotels, I could see the city skyline from my room. The 'Avenue of the Stars' as the Kowloon promenade is known, is the best place to see the Hong Kong skyline. Every night at 8 there's a light show from the buildings across the water to music. It's undeniably tacky but great fun. Pity about the people doing ear-splitting karaoke on a stage set up on the promenade - incomprehensibly - for that very purpose. Look out for the statue of Bruce Lee on the nearby Hollywood-style Walk of Fame.

Temple Street Night Market

This is a huge open air market in the centre of the city, one of the few places in Hong Kong that feels Chinese. Little restaurants have people spilling out of them eating Asian street fare. There's every product you could possibly expect at knockdown prices. T-shirts with Barrack Obama dressed like Chairman Mao seemed to be a great seller, reflecting Hong Kong's peculiar relationship with mainland China and the West.

Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery 

 Lantau Island is home to the world's largest Buddha in bronze and the Po Lin Monastery. The 360 cable car over the island is probably the highlight. The Buddha was only built in 1993, which takes a way a bit of the cultural significance for me.

Hong Kong is worth more than one post. It's a great spot for eating, drinking and general merry making. Watch this space for more on where to go out in Hong Kong. 

If you're tired of London, you're tired of life

I lived in London for three years and feel I might have left too soon. Recently voted the best city in the world to visit by Trip Advisor, there are too many landmarks to mention but it's the unique atmosphere London has as one of the only world cities that always attracted me.  No matter how many polls tell me the world's most livable cities are in Canada, Australia and Scandinavia, I've been to some of these cities and don't feel they're in the same league as London.

Now I return as a visitor along with countless others to see London's first major event of 2012.  What interests me is not  the Queen but the collective experience of over a million people showing up to celebrate.  We tramp through the streets from Green Park tube as security explains the park is closed to a chorus of 'Why? How ridiculous!' from the thousands of others who had the same idea.

The Mall, unsurprisingly, is already full by 2.45 when we pass it. Police try to redirect the crowds toward Hyde Park to see it on a big screen. The thought of hanging around a park in the rain - collective experience aside  - was not as appealing as finding a pub to watch the action on the telly.

The Bag of Nails near Victoria Station festooned with bunting and flags and filled to the brim with people in Union Jack hats, many of them not English and none of them Londoners.  Everybody ran outside for the flyover which passed over us on Buckingham Palace Rd.

After a night out catching up with some friends in Islington and a family visit to St Paul's via Southwark, my short return to London came to an end. Going through the departure gate at Gatwick was heart-wrenching as I vowed to be back as soon as I could.

A Canterbury Tale

In Canterbury for a family wedding, I'm sitting in the hairdresser's making small talk.
"I live in a small village nearby. It's nice to get away from all this at the end of the day!" Nodding and smiling, this women has the fate of my hair in her hands after all, I think - all this(!), this chocolate box town is hardly the mean streets.

Canterbury is, however, overrun by tourists - but only the most polite cathedral touring kind. It may in fact be the oldest tourist attraction of all having attracted pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas Becket since before Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in the 14th Century.

The medieval cathedral is obviously the star of the show, a UNECO World Heritage Site, it is an awe-inspiring structure with some real historical and religious significance. My dad nearly fell over himself laughing when he saw there was a business called Vatican Hair within a stone's throw of the head of the Church of England. The proprietor wasn't so amused by him going in to share the joke. Apparently it was an accident and was only funny the first time someone pointed it out.

What's nice about Canterbury, aside from the picturesque setting, is that it's a student town giving it some all important life and energy. The place is packed full of cafés, bars and restaurants. My recommendation for food would be Trappiste Café with good, Italian-style pizza slices for a student friendly £2 and a hangover cure breakfast menu until 12 daily. I certainly needed that after a whale of time at the wedding. There's also the Chocolate Café at a convenient hop across the road with blue cheese chocolates alongside other creative sweet specials.  My favourite Canterbury pub was The Dolphin on Radigunds St., which mixes the traditional and trendy with good grub and a fabulous beer garden. At The Dolphin, it's always Pimm's O'Clock.


After a great few days in one of the world's first cities, we hop on the high speed train and are in central London after 50 minutes to check out the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.

In a New York state of mind

I've only visited New York once, when I gaped at the skyscrapers like any other out of towner. But I can't deny that it's had a hold on me ever since. The city so good they named it twice has set the scene for countless movies and tv shows. Mad Men, the series about sharp suited Madison Avenue ad men and their long suffering but always glam secretaries, wives and girlfriends, is one of my favourites.

What makes Mad Men interesting is that it's set in the 1960s. This was a time where America's power, wealth and influence were at a high and New York was at the centre of that and the reactionary counterculture it spawned. A recent episode shows a former ad man return as a Hare Krishna in full garb.

Series 5 of Mad Men is set in 1967 when Manhattan wasn't all peace and love - or smoking and scotch in the office - dangerous undertones were also starting to build. New York's crime problem hit its nadir in the 1970s, when my mum lived near Times Square in constant fear of being stabbed on her way home from work. There was no trace of this when I visited the family friendly tourist attraction the square had become in pre-9/11 Guliani's NYC. Many New Yorkers still complain that the city has lost some of its soul since the clean-up.

Until I can make another trip I need my weekly Mad Men fixes to fill that Manhattan-shaped void.

Dancing in the Street

Yesterday I went to the  Dublin City Soul Festivall in the blazing sunshine. It brought to mind this song by Martha and the Vandelles.

An ode to city life

I am an urban dweller at heart. Born in Dublin, I have lived in Tokyo, London, Sydney and Chicago. Unlike many who go away to 'get out of the city', my favourite holidays have been city breaks. This blog is in appreciation of city life - travel tips, best places in the world to live as well as a look at the news, history, books, films and art about cities.

As it's the beginning of summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) I'm going to start by linking to National Geographic's Top 10 Beach Cities: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/beach-cities-photos/#/beach-barcelona-spain_21757_600x450.jpg

I've lived in number 8 and visited a few more, but more on this later!