Definitely Closed

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us - Alexander Graham Bell.

The Bicycle

The return of the bicycle to the modern urban transport paradigm continues unabated. However, all over the world, citizens are rediscovering the benefits of cycling. Cities are responding by building the infrastructure to serve and keep them safe. This rush to increase cycling levels and improve the quality of city life is the greatest movement in global urbanism. Of course, not all cities are equal. Some charge ahead, while others lag.

Ta Prohm: A Timeless Beauty

Built from 1186 and originally known as Rajavihara (Monastery of the King), Ta Prohm was a Buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII. It is one of the few temples in the Angkor region where an inscription provides information about the temple’s dependents and inhabitants. Almost 80,000 people were required to maintain or attend at the temple, among them more than 2700 officials and 615 dancers.

The Great Wall Of China

China's Great Wall is one of the world's great feats of engineering and an enduring monument to the strength of an ancient civilization. This network of fortifications is the product of countless labors over a period of some two thousand years. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, took the remnants of truly ancient fortifications, walls, and earthworks begun in the fifth century B.C. and linked them into a unified wall circa 220 B.C. as part of a massive project to protect China against marauding barbarians from the north. By the time construction on most of the stone-and-brick Great Wall, with its turrets and watchtowers, was completed during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the Ming Wall had become the world’s largest human-made object. At its peak, this amazing the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall. The Mutianyu Great Wall served as the northern protective screen, guarding the capital and imperial mausoleums for generations.

Shower Of Colour

Colour is all. When colour is right, form is right. Colour is everything, colour is vibration like music; everything is vibration - Marc Chagall. Suspended from mid air by wires between buildings in Siem Reap, stunning colourful umbrellas put other art installations in the shade. Walking under that sky is magical.

Long Way To The Light

Not knowing where somebody is going is what should inspire him to travel to it.

A Tale By Light: Hong Kong

Shaped by some of the world’s greatest architects, Hong Kong‘s iconic skyline symbolizes the city’s status as one of the greatest commercial and business centers in the world. With soaring skyscrapers that glisten against the horizon, the breathtaking grandeur of the skyline inspires all who lay eyes on it.

An Afternoon In Zerhoun

The whitewashed town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun sits astride two green hills in a cradle of mountains approximately 3.5 km miles from Volubilis, and is one of the country’s most important pilgrimage sites. It was settled by Idris I, founder of the Idrisid dynasty when he came to Morocco in 789 AD.

Walkers In The Street

Walking in the city is as old as cities themselves. Most of the world's urban inhabitants have usually gotten around on foot and, consequently, have mainly experienced their cities as pedestrians. What a famous architect notes of classical Greek cities has been true of most urban life until well into the industrial era: Man was compelled to walk through a whole complex of buildings and live within them in order to achieve his end. This end has traditionally included not merely physical mobility but also social and cultural goals; as observed, traditional streets tend to act both literally and metaphorically as exterior rooms in the city. They function as places as well as links. No matter what the image of the street, it has always included a set of assumptions about who should own and control it, who would live on it and use it, the purposes for which it was built, and the activities appropriate to it. Walking in the city has thus been from the start a complex human act.

Masjid Jamek

Masjid Jamek is situated where both rivers the Sungei Klang and the Sungei Gombak meet. Right at this very place has the history of Kuala Lumpur started. This is the very spot for KL's history, where the early settlers built their shacks. In the 1850s, early miners would unload here their equipment and provisions. They would then trek up the jungle path to Ampang, where they would dig for tin. This graceful, onion-domed mosque, designed by British architect Arthur Benison Hubback, borrows Mogul and Moorish styles with its brick-and-plaster banded minarets and three shapely domes. It was built in 1907 and officially opened by the Sultan of Selangor on 23rd of December in 1909. It remained the city's centre of Islamic worship until the opening of the National Mosque in 1965.

The Restaurant

The Houhai Bar Street, in the famous Shichahai area of Beijing, is a place where traditional Chinese and western culture hits. When the first bar opened at a common Siheyuan (四合院, quadrangle courtyard) in the area in 2000, there were only approximately a dozen of bars in the Shichahai area. Three years later, a cluster of bars, restaurants and cafes surged in the area within half a year and now over 120 ones welcome visitors from all corners of the world every evening.

Maitreya: Buddha Of A Future Age

The Yonghe Temple is a glittering attraction in Beijing Buddhist firmament. It's the place where riveting roofs, fabulous frescoes, magnificent decorative arches, tapestries, eye-popping carpentry, Tibetan prayer wheels, tantric statues and a superb pair of Chinese lions mingle with dense clouds of incense. However, the pinnacle of the complex is inside the fifth hall: a magnificent 18m-high statue of the Maitreya Buddha, a messianic Buddhist figure, in his Tibetan form, clothed in yellow satin and reputedly sculpted from a single block of sandalwood.

Unreachable Legacy

The Clock Exhibition Hall is one of the unmissable highlights of the Forbidden City. Located in the Hall for Ancestral Worship (Fèngxiàn Diàn), the exhibition hall houses about 200 clocks and watches of different kinds, both domestic and foreign from the 18th century. Time pieces in China have a long history. Before the Qing Dynasty, sundials and clepsydras were the main timepieces. At the end of the Ming Dynasty or the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, mechanical clocks began to be introduced into China. In the eighteenth century, mechanical clocks were widely used in the imperial palaces. While reckoning time, these clocks brought motion to their decorative people, birds, and flowers. Those clocks and watches were not only useful timekeepers, but also pleasing entertainment and exquisite craftsmanship

A Table Apart

The past few years have seen Malacca evolve from a sleepy Malaysian coastal town into a bustling, world-class UNESCO World Heritage site. Someone who strolls by the Malacca River will find its banks lined with 17th century shophouses painted with trendy colourful murals — an example of the city’s perfect blend of the old and new. Along with its evolution comes a thriving café and bar scene. While Malacca has always been known for its delicious cuisine, where the visitor will find a mix of Peranakan, Kristang and Malaysian food, the scene has really taken off over the past few years — with themed cafés, hip bars and stylish restaurants sprouting up all over the seaside city.

House Of Stone

We can choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them - William Arthur Ward. Country life offers so much beauty that people always tend to forget about the hardships and problems that hide beneath that beauty. Country life is simple, but not always easy. The rose-colored glasses might make us forget that, once we want to embrace the beauty of country life, we also must embrace its roughness.

Earthbound

Had Ta Prohm been diligently maintained from its construction in 1186 to the present day, it would be just a footnote to the larger Angkor Wat temple. But while Ta Prohm lay forgotten and neglected by men, the Cambodian jungle wasted no time in devouring it. Silk-cotton and strangler fig trees took root in the loosened stones of the temple, which was built entirely without mortar. Their roots wound through the structure, creating an astonishing merger of nature and architecture. Though Ta Prohm may look like nature unfettered, the appearance of neglect is in fact fastidiously maintained.

The North-Eastern Library

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library - Albert Einstein. This separate elongated building is one of those structures usually called “libraries” in descriptions of Khmer art. Normally, they are placed south-east of the temple proper and large temples have many libraries. Their purpose is unclear, but the term library may be appropriate: modern monastery compounds in Southeast Asia have a separate building within the temple courtyard for safekeeping of Holy Scriptures or liturgical divices. Beng Mealea has two library buildings in the courtyards between exterior (third) and second enclosing galleries.

Forgotten Sacred Stones

Beng Mealea is a large, unrestored temple surrounded and partly overgrown by jungle near Phnom Kulen National Park at considerable distance from Siem Reap and the main Angkor temples. The temple built out of large sandstone blocks adorned with both Hindu and Buddhist depictions is oriented towards the East. As no foundation stele has been found, the temple’s founding date is not known with certainty. Judging from its style, archaeologists believe that Beng Mealea was built by King Suryavarman II during the first half of the 12th century, just before or around the same time as Angkor Wat.

Postcard From Burgge

Little Brugge, the perfect pocket-sized medieval city, was a Sleeping Beauty. Laced with canals, it was once a major nexus of trade in medieval Europe, and of art and architecture during the Renaissance. Then, it fell rapidly into decline and slept until rediscovered and restored to glory in the 19th century. Today its new riches are in tourism, carefully managed and constantly refreshed by year-round cultural events, so that it retains the dynamism of a living city.

Fast Car

The Formula E car is an open-wheel auto racing car, powered by an electric motor. The Formula E car is designed to take part in the FIA Formula E Championship.

Lantern Show

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself - Desiderius Erasmus. Lit candles give a nice look to mundane lanterns at Jemaa el-Fnaa square, Marrakech.

The Poorterslodge

Built at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, The Poortersloge (Burgher's Lodge) was the meeting place for the richer and more important members of the Brugge society. This side of the city was the area where the international trade took place, ships were loaded and unloaded. In the immediate vicinity were the nation-houses of the most important trading partners and next door was the toll house, where goods had to cleared and tax levied.

Colours Of China

Built in 1847 during the Qing dynasty by wealthy Chinese merchants and located in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan district, atmospheric Man Mo Temple (文武廟) is a Taoist temple dedicated to the gods of literature (‘Man’), holding a writing brush, and of war (‘Mo’), wielding a sword. It was, besides a place of worship, a court of arbitration for local disputes when trust was thin between Chinese and British settlers. Man Mo Temple stands as a guardian of permanence against Hong Kong’s ever-changing urban landscape.

Cooking In The Moment

Cooking is an expression of the land where you are and the culture of that place - Wolfgang Puck. Kralan, a cheap Cambodian delicious snack, comprises of sticky rice cooked in coconut milk black eyed peas or bean stuffed in bamboo. Legend has it that the soldiers of the Angkor kings would take kralan on their journeys for rations, and it is popular as an offering to monks on their alms rounds or at festivals and celebrations. The dish is famous all over the Kingdom and Cambodians argue endlessly about which village makes the tastiest kralan. The cooking of Kralan is an extensive and charcoal or wood devouring operation.

Kiss Of Death

Poblenou cemetery in Barcelona was originally created in 1775 due to space issues caused by the growing population within the old walls of the city. Destroyed by Napolean’s troops in 1808, it was later reconstructed in a neoclassical style with the aid of Italian architect Antonio Ginesi. Peaceful but macabre, the cemetery of Poblenou is an intriguing place to visit and is in itself a museum, home to some incredible sculptures, haunting, yet beautiful none the less. One of the most curious pieces in the cemetery of Poblenou is known as the ‘Kiss of Death’. Constructed in 1930, this strange, mystifying, marble sculpture is both eerie and captivating, and produces varying reactions from passers by. The sculpture depicts a winged personification of Death kissing the forehead of a young man, and thus taking him away to another world. Written beneath the sculpture are the chilling words: “His young heart is thus extinguished. The blood in his veins grows cold. And all strength has gone. Faith has been extolled by his fall into the arms of death. Amen.”

Xingping: Witness To The Past

Once, in ancient times, Xingping Town was the largest town along the Li River. It is 63 km from Guilin and 25 km from Yangshuo, on the east bank of the river. Xinping's historical and cultural relics remain intact. They include slab-stone streets, the ruins of Xingping County of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the buildings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and so on. The old street is a one-kilometer long stone street lined with old brick buildings and assembly halls like those of many different provinces. Xingping Town is one of the most renowned ancient towns in Guangxi.

Parked II

A remorque in a street of Siem Reap.

The Warden

In his role as warden of Ta Kou Entrance of Angkor Wat, a man has the responsibility to keep incense burning and to maintain the cleanliness of the premises. Incense burning is an ancient religious ritual common to Egypt, India and East Asia. It is steeped in symbolism. In Buddhism, it is a sacred offering, a way to honor the Triple Gem of the Buddha, his Dharma and the Sangha.

Morning Mystery

Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety - René Daumal. Ta Kou Entrance of Angkor Wat at dawn is a hidden realm of mystery, magic and wonder.

Parked I

A remorque in a street of Siem Reap. In Cambodia, the term tuk-tuk refers to a passenger-carrying remorque pulled by a motorcycle. It is a widely used form of transportation in the capital of Phnom Penh and for visitors touring the Angkor temples in Siem Reap.