by Simon Moran | Jul 4, 2025 | Uncategorized
Twenty–five years ago, I wrote ‘Glimpse Back at a Future City’, a 30-year look at Expo 70. Now, at the 55-year mark, that event still crackles with relevance. In 1970, under the banner ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’, 64 million people streamed into Suita to...
by Simon Moran | Apr 30, 2025 | Uncategorized
Bilingual Edition おいしい紅茶はいかが？カッパ：バイリンガル版 Originally published in Kansai Time Out, February 1999. Shortened for 2025. Contact information, prices and statistics may be out of date. This bilingual edition contains the full English article first. Please scroll down...
by Simon Moran | Nov 26, 2024 | Personal, Travel
It’s been a year of travel, in- and outbound, and a couple of years of cutting ties, letting bad blood and re-connecting with those and that important. Waking up properly after hibernation a couple of years ago, we realised some were still sleeping, or were...
by Simon Moran | Nov 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
My writing career began in December 1998 with this piece in the monthly English-language features and listing magazine, Kansai Time Out. At the time, there was also a weekly free, A5, black-and-white, classified ads paper, Kansai Flea Market. It listed jobs,...
by Simon Moran | Sep 3, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Spanish City and Whitley Bay Pleasure Gardens opened in May 1910. Recently refurbished into bars and restaurants, it has also previously housed amusement arcades, a ballroom, the Starlight Rooms bar, and of course the famous rides and sideshows. Immortalised in...
