One window, one wall, one very long climb
The flat was on the seventh floor of a tong lau in Sham Shui Po, and by the time we…
East Asia
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One Nod and a Wok
The last of the neon signs dimmed around 1:30 AM. Temple Street was still slick with the night’s runoff —…
The curry that comes when it’s ready
The first thing you notice isn’t the smell of curry, though that arrives soon enough. It’s the sound of cleavers…
The last fire in Kowloon
The smoke hit us first, about twenty metres before we reached the corner. Not the acrid, petroleum-heavy exhaust of the…
The oil stain on the pavement is how you find it
The oil stain on the pavement is how you find it. Not a sign, not a queue that snakes around…
The third-floor hallway where the flour still smells like morning
The lift doors opened onto a corridor that looked like somebody’s storage floor. Cardboard boxes stacked against a wall. A…
The woman with the cleaver and the half-eaten mango
We were standing in the middle of Temple Street, somewhere between the fortune tellers and the counterfeit handbags, when we…
Seoul to Busan via Ancient Capitals & Southern Coast: Day 11 to 14
The rain started near Gongju, not hard but persistent, the kind that makes you reconsider whether the drive is worth…
Seoul to Busan via Ancient Capitals & Southern Coast: Day 6 to 10
The road from Busan curves southwest along the coast like it’s in no hurry to get anywhere, and I wasn’t…
Seoul to Busan via Ancient Capitals & Southern Coast: Day 1 to 5
I picked up the campervan from a lot near Seoul Station on a Tuesday that felt more like early spring…