

Island tales #2: East meets West in beautiful beachscapes, remote villages, church ruins and Hakka clans
One of the most astounding things about this ultra-urban city of Hong Kong is that there are still some tiny and remote villages that are not accessible by vehicles, are mainly populated by village houses, and rather untouched by urbanism, and many of these are in Sai Kung, a large area in the Northeastern part Read more

Keep calm and learn some history: portrait of a city under siege
[An early April update: Hong Kong Museum of Art has opened up some of its multimedia collections online in its virtually@HKMoA initiative while the museum is itself still closed to public access.] We at Madeleine’s have been spending time in a city where there is definitely a siege-like feel: shops have shorter hours, office-workers are working Read more

Island tales #1: celebrating culture on a small island in an island country
Madeleine is in Asia for Christmas and there’s an arts festival taking place on a tiny island in this island-based place called Hong Kong. It’s called the Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, taking place on the tiny island of Yim Tin Tsai, and it has caught the eye of us and our friends. What do Read more

In London this winter
Having been in London earlier in November, we are looking forward to being back in London in 2 weeks which would be mid-December. Here’s our 5 favourites for this winter in this cool city: Theatre. OK, even our London insider who isn’t that into theatre was urging us to go see this production: Translations at Read more

A small London obsession: sofas and cushions, high windows, and 3 billion-lettered science
We wanted to share our small obsession about London’s Wellcome Collection including its library with comfy sofas and cushions as well as tall windows with lots of light and space and its “Bookshelf of the Human Genome”. Really, it is one of the coolest places in London. It is a “library” with cushions scattered over Read more

Urban re-inventions #2: London’s Coal Drops Yard hits its one-year-old mark
Hello Coal Drops! Earlier in November, we at Madeleine’s finally made it to Coal Drops Yard. And yes, it’s about 5 mins’ walk from London’s Kings Cross station. The area around Kings Cross used to be quite seedy (and was certainly the dodgiest bit of the city that was inside Zone 1), but it has Read more

Urban re-inventions #1: Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun hits its 1.5-year-old mark
We at Madeleine’s recently had the opportunity to do a “revisit” to a big urban renewal and revitalisation project: Tai Kwun, which celebrates its second Christmas (and hits the first-year-and-a-half anniversary of its opening). This is a complex sitting almost in the middle of Central, just 100 steps up the hill from Queens Road Central Read more

Summer thoughts: in search of your home-away-from-home wherever you are
It’s summer and it’s time for a holiday. But with crowds everywhere especially at airports, have you considered taking a “vacation” but staying home? Well, we at Madeleine’s have been seriously thinking about it! Are you surprised for never having seriously considered how much fun it is to not to have to drag bags around, Read more

Hong Kong – the in-between city in this in-between month of May, and the very present existential threat this June
When we decided to spend May in Hong Kong and China and shared our reflections about May being the month in between 2 very important historical anniversaries (“It’s the month of May … in a Year of Political Anniversaries”), we could never have imagined that a mass protest in Hong Kong would make the top Read more

Madeleine the travelista’s favourite travel quotes
Are you doing any travels for spring? Or, are you making travels plans for later in the year? Do you have restless feet or an incurable desire for adventures? We love travel because it exposes us to new ideas, new cultures, and new people …. We hope to inspire a sense of belonging to this place Read more