The International Manga Museum in Kyoto is a must-visit for anybody with an interest in comics and graphic novels – and even if you’re not a fan, it’s still worth spending time there.

It is a mid-winter evening at Eaglehawk Neck, the sliver of sand and scrub that connects the Tasman Peninsula to the rest of Tasmania. A solitary dog walker haunts the beach. All life appears as silhouettes in the creeping blue gloom.

It’s a problem faced by many home decorators: how to fill those awkward wall spaces on either side of the fireplace.

I’m not the first traveller to spot the similarities between Lisbon and San Francisco but, by coincidence, I visited both places in the space of a month so, for myself, the sense of a double-take was even more pronounced.

Why New York? Why Manhattan? What is it that makes this place the metropolis?

Underneath the MONAS tower there is a huge hall called the National History Museum. It’s very much of its time, all shining marble and bright lights.

Earlier this year I visited MONA in Hobart, and more recently MONAS (Monumen Nasional) in Jakarta – very different, culturally, but similar in the way they both tell a story about our times through the medium of art.

On the first day I visited the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, the fire alarm went off. Visitors were forced to congregate outside in the drizzle while the building was evacuated.