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The opening of Port Cities: Multicultural Emporiums of Asia, 1500 – 1900 at the Asian Civilisations Museum was tremendously successful, with more than 300 guests attending and having a whale of a time. Thank you very much everyone who was … Continue reading
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Dear armchair time-travellers, here’s a clip featuring highlights from my talk at the Woodlands Regional Library, Singapore on 18 October 2015. A link to entire talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYa3SA8_7HY Be sure to come for my next talk on 25th Oct… details … Continue reading
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The first talk of the Tales of Asia series journeys to Malacca and Manila, two of the oldest port cities in Southeast Asia, established by the Portuguese and Spanish respectively in the 1500s. The cities were mediaeval fortress towns complete … Continue reading
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I’ve been silent for some time now… That’s because I’ve been preparing for an epic series of 5 talks on 10 historic port cities in Southeast Asia. The talks shall feature histories and images from my book, The Romance of the … Continue reading
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The Church of San Agustin (St Augustine), located within Intramuros, is the oldest standing church in the Philippines. Erected in 1607, it managed to survive eight major earthquakes in Manila over the course of three centuries, and was the only … Continue reading
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Intramuros… The name itself conjures up these visions of sequestered splendour; of Spanish doñas in their black silk shawls slipping into their spectacular horse-driven calesas; of the plaintive strains of a distant guitar as a caballero picks out an old … Continue reading
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A Grand American Hotel Manila features on my Grand Tour because of the Manila Hotel, which, in its heyday in the early 19th century, was considered one of the three best hotels in the East, together with the Raffles in … Continue reading
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“It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.” Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere Of Martyrdom and Making-Do It was … Continue reading
Dream Of A City 