Inside Ho Chi Minh City’s Reunification Palace
Ho Chi Minh City’s Reunification Palace is of full of grand rooms, dark bunkers, soviet-era furniture and military gadgets. Come and have a look inside.
City
Ho Chi Minh: City of Beautiful Madness
45,000 Dong – that’s just under a couple of British pounds – will buy you entry to the South Saigon Pools: a secluded oasis in hot suburban district 7. Kids play in the sand-filled shallow water, and in the adult pool a middle-aged Australian is teaching his Vietnamese companion to swim. She paddles with her […]
Brick Lane and Shoreditch: Sunday
Every time I go to Shoreditch I see evidence of the City’s encroaching wealth. The signs of creeping gentrification are everywhere: from boutique fashion shops to gleaming luxury apartments, through carefully staged pop-up venues and finally to Microsoft ads posing as street art. Still, amongst the trendy cocktail bars and chic hotels a lot of […]
Dash for gold: Stratford 5 weeks before London 2012
Today I took a walk around the new Olympic Park’s perimeter, starting at Hackney Wick, passing through the flashy new Westfield shopping centre and ending up in Stratford’s original high street. The area’s seen some major changes, but will the Games realise its promise of economic regeneration?
Street View: Barcelona & Madrid
I have always suffered some subconsciously-held prejudices about Spain, based on rather clichéd images of package holidays, an overdeveloped coastline, British people insisting on being served real ale and full English breakfasts in their mother tongue, stag weekends and general loutishness.