Category Archives: Asia

The Star Ferry Of Hong Kong

June 8, 2024 – 1:57 am

The Star Ferry has traversed the harbor between Kowloon and Hong Kong for well over a hundred years. The owner took the name from Tennyson’s CROSSING THE BAR, “Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!” Two weeks I stood on the decks of the Celestial Star, the oldest ship in the fleet. […]

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Snow Beer, Benny Hill, Lhasa 1995

March 1, 2024 – 2:58 pm

In 1995 Tim Challen a 20 year old Briton wandered the world bound for Tibet. Chengdu, China was the airport of departure to Lhasa. Arranging visas et al he explored the Szechuan capitol arriving at a riverside cafe with two young female Dutch travelers for an afternoon tea. Surrounded by hibiscus flowers calm reigned along […]

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Girls Will Be Boys – 2010

February 22, 2024 – 3:49 am

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stone.” There are no glass houses in Afghanistan, but there are stonings for a wide variety of social offenses. Adultery is the most common, however woman are under constant threat for such trivial trespasses as leaving the house without a male family member or showing their face or attending […]

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January 5, 1979 – East Village – Journal

February 13, 2024 – 11:08 am

The Kinks are on the radio. YOU REALLY GOT ME. A British Invasion festival from 1963 to 1966 marking an unexpected musical explosion from Great Britain. Many of the bands had been condemned by the Pat Boone loving conservatives. Few of those groups survived the Sixties. THe Beatles are dead, but the Rolling Stones survive. […]

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THE BLESSING OF THE LIZARD KING by Peter Nolan Smith

February 12, 2024 – 3:44 am

Monitor lizards are native to Southeast Asia. These carnivorous predators are related to the famous Komodo Dragon and varanid lizards are cooperative hunters like raptors in JURASSIC PARK. According to the Bangkok Post monitor lizards are known to cluster in the city’s secluded water pipes and up to two hundred of the two-meter long beasts […]

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