The train sped past the sun-drenched landscapes of Andalusia at a jaw-dropping speed of 300 km/h. This was the fastest we had ever travelled on land! Despite the speed, everything was calm and stable inside. We were travelling from Barcelona to Seville in Spain for the next leg of our Western Europe trip.
Getting into the city of Seville
We exited the station (which looked more like an airport) and went on a short side-quest. We had to get our flight tickets printed for the next day and walked into the nearest tabac shop (yup – tobacco shops often function as multi-purpose outlets selling local transport tickets and printouts). Prints in hand, we took a bus to Plaza de Armas – the main bus station of Seville. Some of you may have heard of “Plaza de Armas” in Latin American countries as well. It is a common term used to refer to town squares and literally translates to “Weapons Square” (no weapons kept here in the modern times).
Seville is a very unique city – with architecture and culture that are different from the rest of Europe. Let’s take a quick look at its history.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Chennai for my US Visa interview (I’ve written a blog about that experience which you can read here). After the interview, I had some time before my evening train back to Bangalore. I picked up the phone and called my ever-dependable sources of information – my parents. They recommended the Egmore Museum. And that’s where I stumbled upon something super fascinating – a display showcasing the evolution of the Tamil scripts from 3rd century BC to modern times.
The rapid evolution of the Tamil script
What really caught my eye was the realization that the Tamil script only began to resemble its modern form around the 15th century. Think about that for a moment – a person today who can fluently read Tamil will be completely unable to decipher their own language’s script from just 600 years ago! And this is for a language whose script has been dated back 2500 years and the language itself to roughly 5000 years!
The Tamil script
So this brought me to the question – what is the age or lifespan of a script? I saw a bunch of scripts in the museum that day and none of them exist or even resemble any modern day Indian language – and these were all from the years 800-1500 CE. Let’s try to go a bit deeper.
A global perspective on the evolution of scripts
To understand the lifespan and evolution of scripts, I decided to pick a few popular languages and scripts from modern times and dig deeper into their stories.
English
The Latin alphabet forms the foundation of the modern English script. It originated in Ancient Rome which was itself derived from the Greek alphabet. Some other interesting facts:
One of the most frustrating things for me while applying for the US tourist visa was how little information was available online. There were multiple versions being posted on Reddit threads (often contradicting each other) and the official websites were very ambiguous in their statements. Also, the portal itself had changed recently and most of the content online was relevant for the old portal. So, I’ve decided to pen down my detailed experience of applying for a B2 tourist visa – essentially my personal guide to the US tourist visa process for myself and my 3 year-old son.
The process started in Jan 2024 (remember this for later). I applied for the US Tourist Visa by filling up the DS-160 form and selecting the earliest available appointment date in Chennai – Jan 2025. I was one of the lucky ones – I got back-to-back dates for the biometric and visa interview – both at the same location. There are people who get dates 1 week apart in the same location or even back-to-back dates in different cities. Phew!
Let’s start with the core question of this article – “When was the last time you explored your own city as if you were a tourist?”
This is one thing I’ve noticed very often (and also find funny) – many of us rarely explore our own city like we would a vacation destination. I’ve been a culprit of this as well – I had never been on a houseboat despite being from Alappuzha. My first time exploring the town was with college friends – I was the “local” guiding them!
Same story in Mumbai where I lived for 5 years. The only Mumbai I knew was my home in Chembur, my school in Mankhurd and the few places we used to visit frequently like temples, markets and restaurants. Now I’m looking forward to a Mumbai visit to explore it as a tourist!
To avoid such a thing happening in my current home – Bangalore, we make it a point to explore the city “like a tourist” whenever we get the chance.
Hong Kong is a foodie’s paradise! With various cultures from across the world coming together, it is a true melting pot when it comes to food. While we’ve covered most of the food places in previous blogs, we will summarize all the iconic foods and places we ate them in this blog. This is for the Hong Kong foodie!
Breakfast at Australia Dairy Company
On our last day in Hong Kong, we said goodbye to our friend, Naveen and made our way down the escalators one last time. We headed straight to the Australia Dairy Company for breakfast. There was a long line outside the restaurant but it moved fast. We quickly got a table and ordered Hong Kong style milk tea, mixed coffee and tea with milk, milk pudding, french toast and sandwich with egg and ham. Everything was so fresh and tasty that we ordered another sandwich with eggs and cheese!
It was day 3 of our trip to Hong Kong. Our destination for the day was Macau – we had planned to do a day-trip covering most of the must-visit places in the city.
Starting the day with 3 breakfasts
As you make your way down the Central-Mid-levels escalator in the morning, the smell of freshly baked goodies would drag you into the bakery called Bakehouse. There was a line at 8 am itself! I have a weakness for bakeries and wanted to eat everything! Since that wasn’t possible, we went for the beef rendang pie, vanilla custard doughnut and egg tart. Everything was delicious! The egg tart felt like a warm hug with a crispy flaky outer cover.
Freshly baked goodies at Bakehouse
Next stop was a tiny place called Fineprint. It had a very unique vibe – dimly lit, a long table in the center and people sitting all around. Most of them were occupied with their own laptops or books. We ordered a half and half – avocado toast on one side and tomato with feta on the other. It was too good – I had never tasted avocado like this before – it was the perfect combination with the buttered crispy sourdough bread!
Discovering delicious food in the tiny lanes of HK
Our third breakfast was a small one – pineapple bun with BBQ pork and wife cake (one story goes that a baker loved his wife’s creation of wintermelon pastry so much that he named it “Wife cake”) at Hang Heung bakery. All these places were on our way to the Macau ferry terminal – so we could just keep eating without any deviations.
Pineapple buns and wife cakes
The ferry terminal at Sheung Wan
Google maps showed us that the ferry terminal was right across the road. But there was no way to cross it – and Maps told us to go half a kilometer down the road and then cross. We stood there for a minute eating our pineapple bun – the bun helped slow us down. That’s when we noticed the metro station entrance right there – and it had an exit on the other side!
Pro tip: don’t always be in a rush. Sometimes it helps to slow down – it opens up new options.
As soon as we entered the ferry terminal, we realised that we hadn’t carried our Hong Kong PAR form. But we felt safe as we had the entry slips which we got at immigration. They asked for neither as we exited immigration to board our ferry. They just looked at the passport and let us go. Huge sigh of relief!
We continue on our Hong Kong adventure in this blog. Last time we explored some of the green oases nestled within the skyscraper packed city. We continue down that path and visit some temples and monasteries and also explore Hong Kong’s culture – both traditional and modern.
Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin temple
We exited the metro at Wong Tai Sin station and walked over the temple next to it. There were some cultural programs happening next to it – with songs and dances being performed on a stage. The vibe outside was very similar to an Indian temple – many shops outside selling incense sticks and other offerings to the gods. The architecture was beautiful with arches at the entrance and bright colours everywhere – once again, we felt like we were in a movie.
Wong Tai Sin temple’s entrance to the main hall
This was a Taoist temple dedicated to the deity of healing – Wong Tai Sin. After the first set of steps, we arrived at a landing that had statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. A quick Google search told us that my zodiac was the Horse and Nam’s was the Metal Goat. Parth’s animal was the Metal Ox. People kept rushing around them, some praying to them, others walking into the main hall.
Posing with the Chinese Zodiac
Inside the main temple, there were a lot of lanterns hung up. It was an open air area and the lanterns were rotating automatically, powered by solar cells. In the shrine, there were idols and statues, storks and other animals and scrolls. People were kneeling in front and shaking bamboo containers that had sticks with numbers on them. The entire scene reminded me of the Kung Fu Panda festival scene inside the palace courtyard.
In the previous blog, we explored Lantau island and got a glimpse of Hong Kong at night. Home to the most skyscrapers in the world and with mountain peaks offering amazing bird’s eye views, Hong Kong is indeed a vertical city. In this blog, we discover the green side of the city – nestled in between the tall towers. These gardens and parks create a perfect blend of nature and concrete jungle to make up Hong Kong’s urban oasis and make it a unique place to live in.
Hong Kong has a lot of green spaces in the city
Morning hike to Victoria Peak
We started the day 1.5 hours later than planned. But no regrets – we managed to get a good night of sleep and were well refreshed for the day!
Naveen suggested that we hike all the way up to the Peak from his home on Robinson Road. It was not too steep but quite long and took us 1.5 hours to get there. This is when I truly got a chance to appreciate the city from the ground.
The streets are very well planned with enough space between buildings. There were canals made to allow water to flow downhill without damaging buildings and roads – especially during torrential rains and typhoons.
After 10 mins of walking away from the main road, it felt like we were in a dense forest. There was no clue that a megacity was right below us except the low roaring sound of the city – an amalgamation of cars, buses, planes, chimneys, construction and other sounds. One more thing that amazed me was that there was construction happening all the time but there was no dust anywhere.
We begin our Hong Kong and Macau adventure in this blog. We’ve already covered all the travel essentials in the itinerary blog before this. That contains info about Hong Kong’s history, best time to visit, visa, currency, etc. So let’s get started!
Unique immigration experience
Our trip began in Kochi from where we took Thai Airways via Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport to Hong Kong. We landed in HK at 11:30am and stood in the longest immigration line we’d ever seen. There was only one line leading up to all the counters – like the coiled up queue that you typically see in temples. They had plenty of counters and the line kept moving continuously – there was no bottleneck created at the counters where the official was slow. So, no one complained and everyone kept walking – a brilliant strategy!
Landing at Hong Kong International Airport
We both had made sure our pre-arrival forms matched our passports exactly and it was printed on an A4 sheet – so we had a smooth entry.
Getting the basic supplies
As per our usual process, we converted a minimum amount at the airport to HKD (Hong Kong Dollars), bought an Octopus card – this would give us access to all public transport by topping up the stored value. We looked for SIM cards but couldn’t find any economical options. Our friend had recommended SoSim but we couldn’t find a shop anywhere. So we decided to move ahead to our first stop and look there.
As with all my itinerary blogs, I’ll start this one with the origin story – why did we even make a Hong Kong itinerary?
Nam is a huge fan of Imagine Dragons and she was tracking their latest world tour to see if they would pass by somewhere near India. The closest options were Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore and Bangkok (Thailand). All of these places had one thing in common – we could imagine them as being part of a larger trip. Then we saw Hong Kong – a place I’ve always wanted to visit!
It was small enough to cover in 3-4 days and was far enough away from everywhere else that we wouldn’t club it with anything else. Also, a close friend of mine lived in Hong Kong and I hadn’t met him in some time. Enough reasons to pick that as the destination! We bought tickets on Viagogo and got started with trip planning!
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. In 1997, it was handed over by the UK to China after their 99-year lease expired. Given its strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region, it evolved from a fishing village to one of the financial capitals of the world (like New York and London). It is also blessed with one the deepest natural maritime ports in the world – it ranks among the top ports in the world in terms of activity.
The word Hong Kong means “fragrant harbour” referring to the incense that used to be traded here.
Temples and skyscrapers co-exist in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has the highest number of skyscrapers in the world with the number standing at above 550. The definition of a skyscraper is that the building should be taller than 150 m. The region is also the 4th most densely populated in the world. Enter the contradiction – over 75% of land is not used for development and is covered by dense green cover. This can also be found in the heart of the city – we’ll explore these places in later blogs.
On the north of Hong Kong is the Silicon Valley of China, Shenzhen (the third most populous in China) and Macau which lies to its west in the South China Sea.
Macau is a former Portuguese colony and feels like a bit of Europe planted in China. It is a unique experience as well and something that we were also looking forward to.
Hong Kong and Macau in the South China Sea
I was particularly excited about this trip because of the food and culture. I had never been to China before and Hong Kong would be a perfect fusion of China and a typical global city. This is also the trip where both Nam and I realised that we were both “city-people” – people who are more excited about travelling to cities.
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