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A year on: Tourism shudders in quake-hit Japan
Boing! Singapore Takeout pops up in Sydney
Be a Taipei Sweet Potato Mama for a day

A year on: Tourism shudders in quake-hit Japan

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 08:55 AM PST

by Jessica Ocheltree

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011 killed almost 20,000 people and laid waste vast tracts of land and property. Yet that disaster pales in comparison with the fact that Tokyo is long overdue for a massive earthquake of its own.

With upward of 35 million residents in the metropolitan area, Tokyo is both the financial and the political capital of Japan, as well as the home of the Imperial family. A mega earthquake would not just level the metropolis, but cripple the country for decades to come.

The last time Tokyo was hit by a major earthquake was in 1923, when more than 100,000 died in the Great Kanto Earthquake.

The government's Earthquake Research Promotion agency has revised the likelihood of a magnitude-7.0 or higher quake hitting the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo to 70 percent over the next 30 years.

Now, though, researchers at Tokyo University are saying we could well see that large a temblor in the next four years -- startling numbers that were picked up by a number of major news outlets, both in Japan and out.

Boing! Singapore Takeout pops up in Sydney

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 07:33 PM PST

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but at least the Sydney leg of the Singapore Takeout world food tour has a rather splendid gourmet dinner up for grabs this March.

Some 30 locals will get the chance to win a visit to the itinerant pop-up restaurant at Campbell's Cove on March 14 and tuck into the culinary creations of Ignatius Chan from Singapore's acclaimed Iggy's restaurant.

Competition details are on the globetrotting venture's Facebook page and the deadline for throwing your hat into the ring is March 4.

Out to impress

The usual superb array of Singaporean dishes that has already tickled the taste buds of London, Paris and New York -- to name but three stops since the juicy juggernaut started rolling last summer -- will be on the menu.

Winners making the trip to the shipping-container-turned-kitchen and its attached 30-seat restaurant will find some of the best regional cuisine served up by the team from one of the Republic's best-loved restaurants.

Be a Taipei Sweet Potato Mama for a day

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 01:57 PM PST

by Zoe Li, Hong Kong Editor

A volunteer vacation like no other in Taiwan comes in the form of "Live As a Local" tours. The free day-tour allows visitors to experience a day in the life of a street vendor in Taipei.

Topology Travel takes visitors to meet single mothers who have been taught by the Genesis Social Welfare Foundation to cook sweet potatoes in mobile oil drums and sell them to make a living.

Visitors hang out with these "Sweet Potato Mamas," as Taiwanese like to call them, and get to know a side of Taiwan that isn't promoted in glossy travel ads.

"It isn't just an interesting activity for the visitors," says Peter Lin, the 30-year-old founder of Topology Travel.

"Sweet Potato Mamas also get to meet people from around the world. They want to travel but don't have the opportunity."