News & Topics

By Seigo Kijima
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As the second largest city in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto (or “Oporto,” as the English call it) is sometimes lovingly referred to as the capital’s step-sibling, a nickname referring only to its size because though Porto’s beginnings may be humble and the facades decaying, it holds a colorful and gastronomic charm that its Romanesque walls can barely contain… Read More »

The history of New York City is written in its streets but sometimes, that history is meant to remain covered. This is what construction workers discovered last October during renovations to Washington Square Park that turned-up a disturbing surprise, a tombstone. There is a reason why digging in the park is allowed only to go as deep as three feet ... Read More »

  Reads: The New York Times gives us a run down of swashbuckling reads that tell true tales of famous art and lost antiquities, perfect for summer beach reading. The best of the lot is The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasures by London paintings dealer Philip Mould, telling a dozen tales of mislabeled, ... Read More »

By Jun Ichihara
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Food, Art and Literature in France
By John Baxter
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“Let us go on again, and … plunge into the Five Points….We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day, but of other kinds of strollers plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice are rife enough where we are going now.” – Charles Dickens, American Notes  Never has a slum been so notorious as that of Five Points. So ... Read More »

Furtado’s, a Western style music shop in the heart of Mumbai is not only the oldest purveyor or instruments in the southern part of the city, opening in 1865, it is also the only place in the country to buy a genuine Steinway piano.   A haven for music afficianados, stocking hundreds of instruments sprawled over two stores, you’ll find ... Read More »