typhoon season Who Calls the Day Off? How Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo Each Stop a City for a Typhoon Hong Kong runs on numbered signals, Taipei leaves the call to a mayor, and Tokyo's railways decide for everyone. Here is how each city stops for a typhoon, and what to do if one arrives this October.
Rooftop Bars How Rooftop Bars Turned Asia's Fire-Escape Helipads Into a Skyline Economy The fire-safety rule that forced Bangkok's tallest towers to keep a helipad free is the same rule that gave the city its most photographed bars. Here's how three cities built an entire night-out economy on top of their own building codes.
Urban Transit The Escalator That Became a Street: How Hong Kong, Chongqing and Yokohama Move People Up a Hillside Hong Kong's Central-Mid-Levels Escalator carries roughly 85,000 people a day up a slope no bus could climb. It is not a novelty. It is a street that happens to be tilted.
Asia Asian city life dispatch 24 May 2026: Tokyo's pre-tsuyu window, Bangkok's hottest week, Dragon Boat training in Hong Kong Late May across five Asian capitals — the calm before Tokyo's rainy season, Bangkok at 38°C, Dragon Boat training in Stanley Bay, the durian season opener in Singapore, and Seoul's bingsu shops reopening.
wet markets The Disappearing Asian Wet Market: Why Hong Kong, Taipei and Bangkok Are Quietly Losing the Stalls That Defined Their Cities Wet markets shaped how Asian cities cooked, ate and met each other for a hundred years. They are closing faster than most residents realise, and the replacements feel different.
Music Jazz Clubs in Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong: The Late-Night Pilgrimage Tokyo has more jazz clubs than New York. Seoul is building a scene from scratch. Hong Kong is holding on. Here's where to sit, listen, and forget what time it is.
Hong Kong Sheung Wan: Hong Kong's Most Layered Neighborhood Walk three blocks in Sheung Wan and you'll pass a dried seafood shop that's been open since 1952, a specialty coffee roaster, a temple wreathed in coil incense, and a gallery showing video art. No other neighborhood in Hong Kong compresses so much time into so little space.
nightlife Rooftop Bars in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore: An Honest Ranking Most rooftop bar guides are sponsored content in disguise. This one isn't. Some of these bars are genuinely magical, and some are overpriced elevators to disappointment.
