Author: Ms. R.

Stroll along Queen’s Road Central, in Hong Kong, a wide avenue of modern skyscrapers, hotels, restaurants and malls, turn into Graham Street, and you may feel like you’ve time-travelled. The narrow, sloping street smells like drying fish, and is home to an open-air produce stall and a shopfront that’s changed little since the ‘70s. The latter is the remaining commercial outlet of Kowloon Soy Co. Ltd. The company was founded in 1917 by the grandfather of the current owner…….

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Independently owned single-screen cinemas are a dying breed, increasingly scarce in this age of cineplexes and streaming services. Even in Los Angeles, they are not exactly common these days. In fact, there’s only one family-owned single-screen cinema left in the county. Originally known as the Park Theatre, the Gardena Cinema opened on December 11, 1946, and has been owned by the Kim family, immigrants from South Korea, since they purchased it in 1976. It boasts an 800-seat single screen,……

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This building in Bad Blankenburg, Germany, held the first kindergarten in the world. Now called the Friedrich Fröbel Museum, it celebrates the vision of the founder of kindergarten. When it was founded in 1837, it marked the inception of a revolutionary education concept that would go on to be replicated around the globe. Fröbel’s kindergarten was established with the vision of providing a nurturing environment for young children to live and grow. He believed that children should be allowed……

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Pop into any local-style bakery or cha chaan teng (a local-style diner) in Hong Kong, and you’re likely to encounter a fist-sized bun with a scored top. This is the pineapple bun, named not for any tropical ingredient, but rather for that surface, which is thought to resemble that of the eponymous fruit.  These days, the pineapple bun is found at Chinese bakeries across the world, but it got its start in Hong Kong. It was possibly first made……

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About a 30-minute drive north of Cincinnati proper is the rural village of Pleasant Plain, Ohio. It’s a classic small town with a tiny population and farms sprawling in most directions. Despite its distance from the city, however, many make the trip to visit the old village schoolhouse, now home to the Plain Folk Live Music Cafe. Plain Folk is part cafe, part performance venue built inside a historic 1913 school building. Several of the schoolhouse’s original features remain,……

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Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. What happened next should be a familiar story by now: The iceberg ripped open the hull of the ship’s starboard side, flooding the compartments with the icy waters of the North Atlantic. The closest ship was hours away, and there weren’t enough lifeboats to accommodate all the passengers. Of the 2,224 people estimated to be on board, more than 1,500 died. The disaster has been the……

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The infamous James gang stole $60,000 dollars from this bank. Two of the gang entered casually when they knew only a father and son would be working. After asking for change of a $10 bill, the robbers held the teller and his son at gunpoint, forcing them into the safe. After the gang took their fill, they shot wildly into the air in celebration, killing a local college student. The museum features a back room with photos and sparse memorabilia……

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When it comes to points of nature around the world, sometimes it’s difficult to find truth on what site truly earns an honorific. There are numerous claims by local tour guides and on the Internet about the “smallest” volcano in the world. Volcán Pabellones, about 26 feet (8 meters) high and approximately 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter, just might take the crown. The tiny volcano sits behind small houses off a through road hours south of Cusco. Surrounded……

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