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 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.
Home to some incredible sculptures, haunting, yet beautiful none the less, the Poblenou Cemetry in Barcelona is an atypical place to visit. 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.”
