With a two-week hotel quarantine starting on arrival, I’m going to need a little quality liquid sustenance to help sustain the website that never sleeps. Jihwaja!
Blog
Airports
Hamad International, hotspot of travel retail
In the world of international airports, you could make a very good case that this is the leading hotspot in our business.
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Travel
Breaking into a gentle Trot on a road trip in Busan
Trot is a popular, highly sentimental form of Korean music, sometimes described as the unofficial soundtrack of road trips because the upbeat tempo and repetitive rhythm can get stuck inside your head. It certainly has in mine.
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Miscellaneous
Rain and shine, a room indoors and edging towards a revival
Our gathering evoked the value of the relationships that so many of us in the industry have forged over many years, and the trust and friendship that underpins them.
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Wellness
How Simone Biles faced – and defeated – the kaiju once more
This was a gold medal-wining display of courage from a brilliant athlete, a role model to millions of young women, a global superstar who made a choice about her destiny, and who confronted – and defeated – the kaiju of mental illness.
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Lifestyle
Kicking Hexapentakis Truncated Icosahedron where it deserves to be kicked
While the team the Kiwis have curiously dubbed the OlyWhites has made the front pages of the New Zealand media today, they’ll disappear just as soon as news breaks of what an All Black star had for breakfast.
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Lifestyle
Cheered up by Writers’ Tears and a visit to the D’oC
We may have become the first people in the world to drink Writers’ Tears accompanied by peanut butter on snack biscuits. But no feast prepared for a King could match the magic, nor the moment, of this combination.
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Lifestyle
Out in the jungle while a mad Zookeeper runs amok
“We did our makeup to hang out and did not want to ruin it. Sweat and makeup is not a good combination, and it can be dangerous to sit in a hot mask on a long journey like we had.” Dangerous… yeah, right.
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Travel
A free man in Busan but staying away from trains
We’re all on a kind of Train to Busan. That foul spreading monster called COVID-19 is of course the zombies and we, as individuals, companies and societies are all doing our best to survive the menace.
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Travel
Maintaining caution in Korea, becoming dumb & dumber in the UK
I’ve had so many sticks poked up my nostrils in recent weeks I’m starting to feel like Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) after getting his nose plugged by Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) to stop his snoring in that priceless scene from ‘Dumb & Dumber’.
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Airports
Passion, pride and purpose at Hamad International Airport
Visiting Hamad International Airport and Qatar Duty Free is like taking an elixir for those COVID blues.
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Airlines
From inconclusively negative in London to conclusively upbeat in Qatar
Checking in is not as simple a process at it was in those halcyon pre-COVID days. PCR test results need to be checked along with all other details. Do NOT – as we had been forced to – turn up at the last minute.
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Events
A heavenly view in Ystradgynlais and a 365 view of TFWA
This is just about as quiet an interim bureau as I have ever inhabited during the past 19 years, especially as it is one of those rare places in the UK that has no wi-fi signal, perhaps a sign from someone on high telling me I need to slow down.


