The Alley That Asked Us to Leave
A residential lane put up a sign in four languages. I was one of the people it was written for.
Photograph — to be supplied
The breakfast shop on the corner, shot from across the road at about seven in the morning
3:2
The Breakfast Shop I Walked Past for Nineteen Years
I never once went in. Then I moved to Switzerland, and it became the only thing I wanted.
Specimen figure Source: PaidNT$45, September 2026
Why Taiwan, and why now
Twenty-six new international hotels are opening in Taipei over three years — a 15% rise in luxury supply, in a country whose tourism strategy has pivoted to fewer visitors, higher spending.Source: From dataTaiwan Business TOPICS, 2026
Almost none of it is being written about in English. That is the whole reason Taipei, Reconsidered exists — and the reason its first piece is about a breakfast shop rather than a hotel.
Out of Frame
All pieces
Photograph — to be supplied
A field outside Lausanne shot from a moving train, early evening, slight motion blur
4:5
The Man Who Was Not in the Photograph
One frame, taken from a train window outside Lausanne. The story is standing a metre to the left of it.
Also here
Newest first
Can I Just Eat at the Hotel Bar?
The best-value seat in an expensive hotel is almost always the one nobody books.
The MRT Map I Could Not Read
Four years away and I got off at the wrong station in the city I grew up in. That turned out to be the useful part.
Lausanne at Nineteen
Seven days, one suitcase, and the particular loneliness of a town that is beautiful and not yours.
Five departments
Taipei, Reconsidered
Home seen differently after leaving it.
Can I Just…?
A practical uncertainty, answered from both sides of the counter.
Too Many of Us
Overtourism from inside the problem. Confession, not reporting.
Out of Frame
One photograph, and the story standing just outside it.
The First Week
Arriving somewhere to live, not to visit.