Welcome to Singapore. Now, don’t pee, spit, pick the flowers, feed the birds, smoke, jaywalk, eat on the train, or even think about chewing gum.

This is certainly not a good market for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum.

Phnomh Penh was a dusty and extremely hot city with the same Southeast Asian mix of tuk tuk and motorbike drivers competing for my rear end. The city has come a long way since Pol Pot and had a lovely riverfront lined with many European alfresco cafes where you could sit under a refreshing fan and sip an iced latte.

But the primary tourist stop on most travelers’ agendas in Cambodia is Siem Reap, home to some of the world’s most amazing and best preserved temples some that are nearly one thousand years old.

The middle of Missouri would fall fairly low on anyone’s list of places to go searching for a 12th-century church.

Yet in the city of Fulton, on the campus of Westminster College, stands the rebuilt church of St. Mary Aldermanbury, late of London, the very campus where Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Cutain” speech in 1946.

Although the economic downturn may have ushered in the end of an era in architecture, significant museum projects were completed in the past year in Athens and Chicago, New York City transformed an old elevated rail line into a park, and additions to the remarkable Dallas arts neighbourhood were well under way.

Here with a recap …

When thoughts of Russian architecture come to mind, either the traditional images of colorful swirling turrets or the drab, austere buildings of Cold War communism come to mind.

But a Renaissance of modernist design is taking place in Moscow today. This documentary takes us around the city to view various completed and emerging projects, in addition to historical sketches and Russia’s love affair with Constructivism.

The video concludes with interviews from that culture’s next generation of design innovators at one of Moscow’s schools of architecture.

Here’s information on the “Do-It-Yourself window farming” movement in New York City.

Just days before I arrived in Hong Kong, the locals were celebrating the Chinese New Year.

It is the most important holiday of the Chinese year and pretty, colorful decorations cover the city—from peach and plum blossoms symbolizing the return of spring and “immortality” to small orange fruited kumquat trees in doorways which bring “good fortune.”

It was a fun and colorful time to visit Hong Kong, but I’m guessing by the little I’d seen there, really anytime of year you won’t be disappointed.

In Chicago, a furious but unresponsive effort has been underway to save some historically significant structures: Gropius-designed buildings on the former campus of Michael Reese Hospital. Sadly, only one building among several is slated for saving at this time.

It’s possible that a lack of public knowledge about the man and the Bauhaus movement he led is responsible for the general indifference.

This clip on Gropius is lengthy, but it held my interest throughout.

Artists, architects, historians and oh yes, plant lovers of all variegated stripes will be mesmerized by “Holiday Magic,” this year’s holiday show at the U.S. Botanic Garden, a living plant museum nestled majestically next to the U.S. Capitol.

Here some of Washington, D.C.’s most famous landmarks are amazingly recreated entirely out of plant material …

Sydney is a great city — clean and friendly, shiny and new. The harbour is stunning with the majestic Harbour Bridge on one side and one of the most recognizable images of the modern world, the Sydney Opera House, on the other.

But besides the funny accent, insane obsession with Aussie Rules Football (footie), and cars driving on the ‘wrong’ (sorry mates, left) side of the road, Sydney can easily feel to Americans like ‘any big city, USA.’ It’s big, clean, and could be Chicago or Toronto. It doesn’t have the old historical feel of most European cities, and certainly doesn’t have the ‘foreign’ feel of a city with a different native tongue.