Taipei is a fantastic city, and one that deserves to be explored to its fullest. However, part of the beauty of Taipei is its proximity to a range of other amazing locations that will suit every kind of traveller. For day trips in Taiwan, I highly recommend getting an Easycard because you’ll get discounts on your trip – like...
Time to Explore Singapore Singapore is often thought to be part of Malaysia, but it has been an independent city-state and island country for 53 years following its liberation from Britain. With four official languages – English, Malay, Tamil and Chinese – and a predominantly Islamic religion, it makes for a very unique and interesting...
Eight chapbooks, each containing a tale (or tales) of around thirty or forty pages, all by Japanese authors of varying successes that you may not have heard of. If you have, here is more of what you already love. If you have not, these books are a wonderful treat indeed: a glimpse into the styles, themes, and stories that these writers’...
24 Hours in Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and is a unique city to visit in South East Asia. At first glance it is a modern city like any other, filled with many skyscrapers and modern buildings. However, look closer and you will find that it is also home to fascinating colonial architecture and natural parks. If...
Killing Commendatore | Haruki Murakami | Translated by Philip Gabriel Most established authors become known for their tropes, be they genre, theme, character type, or writing style. For Murakami, his tropes are his events. Read enough of his works (whilst listening to a few old jazz records) and the lines between them start to blur. You...
Some of the best films (certainly some of the best horror) have been coming out of South Korea for years now. A lot of people I’ve spoken to don’t know where to start and The Vengeance Trilogy (although excellent) isn’t to everyone’s tastes. Here are some of my favourite South Korean films, in no particular order...
Writing a memoir is, I imagine, the most daunting kind of writing we could dare ourselves to undertake. Opening your heart and your memories to countless faceless readers, to have them judge your life with complete freedom, leaves me with enough imagined anxiety just to consider it. And this is only half the fear. The other half skips...
Since reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, I’ve been a big fan of the graphic memoir. Using drawing as a medium to deliver a message isn’t a new concept but I’m so grateful for the slew of comics in the last couple of years that deal with the more difficult concepts in life. From the simply drawn three panel...
Bad Friends | Ancco | Translated by Janet Hong They say a picture speaks a thousand words, and yet even as a fan of comics and manga I’ve always placed more value in a thousand well-chosen words than a single image. But Bad Friends has taught me that, perhaps, the meaning of the phrase is that sometimes a picture, in complete silence...
In 2017 the Nobel Prize for Literature was won by the illustrious Kazuo Ishiguro, and though he is a British citizen and writes exclusively in English, he is of Japanese birth and his first two books were set in the land he first called home. Ishiguro is my favourite author, and his win had me soaring (though I am hoping for a female...
