This gallery contains 16 photos.
Last Tuesday (5 March), I did my first-ever Media Conference in Mandarin in the Chinese capital, Beijing, with China’s foremost couturière, Guo Pei, or 郭培老师，as I call her. Yes indeed, the news is out that Asian Civilisations Museum is partnering … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
I have found that when one is at a turning point – floating in that uncertain space between what has come and what will be – the best consolation, indeed the best panacea, is travel. Particularly if it is travel … Continue reading
This gallery contains 13 photos.
So inevitably, I have arrived at the epilogue to Part II of my Grand Tour, on the Treaty Ports and Imperial Cities of China, Korea and Japan. 15 glittering cities of the Far East – Hong Kong, Macao, Canton, Amoy, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 12 photos.
The grande dame of Dairen’s hospitality scene was the Yamato Hotel 大和旅館, built in 1914 by the occupying Japanese on Nicholas Square. It was the equivalent of the Astor House Hotel in Shanghai, and the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, hosting … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
In the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War in 1907, Russia surrendered the city of Dalny to the Japanese, who renamed it Dairen, and would rule it for the next 38 years. The city of Dalian today still retains significant vestiges … Continue reading
This gallery contains 15 photos.
The city of Dalian was established by Imperial Russia in 1898 as Dalny, within the larger Guandong Leased Territories. They would hold it for only seven years before relinquishing it to Imperial Japan. That said, they managed to stamp their own … Continue reading
This gallery contains 12 photos.
The most important landmark in present-day Dalian is Nicholas Square, called the Ohiroba 大広場 in the Japanese era, and Zhongshan Square 中山广场 today. It is the equivalent of Shanghai and Hankow’s Bund, in terms of the number of monumental concession-era architecture still … Continue reading
This gallery contains 13 photos.
Past Peking, we leave China proper and enter the realms of Imperial Japan. In this new year, our Grand Tour will take us first to 2 former Japanese colonial treaty ports (exploring how Japan itself became an imperial and colonial … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
Le Grand Hôtel de Pékin was Peking’s oldest and most splendid hotel establishment, situated just north of the Foreign Legation Quarter and offering the Grand Tourist panoramic views of the Quarter and of the Forbidden City to the west of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 12 photos.
If the epicentre of the First Opium War was the port of Canton, the stage for the Second Opium War was here at the Summer Palace in Peking. The Palace was first constructed in 1707 during the reign of Kangxi, … Continue reading
Dream Of A City 