La Boqueria, Barcelona, Spain
The last time I was in Florence, in the summer of 2011, I hoped to visit the San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale, a famous food market in the heart of the city. I love food, I love markets, and it sounded like a treasure trove of exciting new discoveries. Alas, I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to check if the market had different opening hours during the month of August when I was there, and assumed I still had a couple of hours left to see it on my last day. Everyone warns a
Recipe: Parmesan Biscuits
Let me put this right out there from the start: This is not a "low-cal, healthy, light" recipe. While I do cook healthy most of the time, I also believe in the importance of balance, and I don't tend to eat a lot butter, flour, and so on on a regular basis - but when the occasion calls for it (or the food is good enough), then hell yes. And these biscuits certainly are. I first learned the recipe for them years ago when I worked on Good Housekeeping magazine as a Deputy Edito
Prep School
As anyone who lives a busy lifestyle but still strives to eat healthily knows, sticking to a good nutrition plan can be tough, especially when you're short on time and shorter on sleep. When you're spending most days eating at your desk (if that - I've known many a time where even eating in my car, while driving, wouldn't be an option because I was too busy running from place to place and trying to listen to my GPS at the same time) it can be all too easy to just grab whatev
The Inspiration: Thais Kelly
Thais Kelly is a familiar face to many in Dubai's fitness scene. Through her work as a Relationships Manager for GuavaPass Middle East, not only is she responsible for creating, building, and maintaining relationships with the enormous network of gyms that are part of its network, but she also works with its various ambassadors, and is an indispensable cog in the well-oiled machine that forms their countless events held across the city and beyond. She's also a passionate jour
Gym Bag Beauty Essentials
When you work out so much that sometimes it feels like you shower more in your gym's locker room than your own bathroom at home (admit it, you've been there - I know I can't be the only one that feels like this!) it's really important to have a good gym shower system in place, and by that, I mean the right products. After all, your skin is your biggest organ, and you do need to look after it. I'm on an everlasting quest to find the best solutions for this situation, and in or
Work and Play
Back in the day - and by that, I mean even just 7-10 years ago - the culture of people working from cafes was mainly reserved for freelancers, entrepreneurs and startup junkies. I still remember when MAKE Business Hub was launched in Dubai Marina's Al Fattan Towers - this workspace that boasted plenty of meeting-friendly tables where you could spread a whole load of papers out, while also boasting lots of little desks and cubicles for the more antisocial worker, along with ta
Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, Kyoto, Japan
The scene at the end of Memoirs of a Geisha (the film, not the book) where we see a flashback of Sayuri, the main character, when she was still a little girl known as Chiyo, running through hundreds and thousands of stunning vermilion gateways is one of my favourite movie scenes of all time. I loved the book, but to be able to see it come to life, visually it was stunning and a really beautiful ending to a powerful movie. So when I took a trip to Japan with Kyoto as one of ou
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