I finished writing my exam papers today, and emailed them off to the University. The temperature climbed to over thirty, and the air looked thick enough to chew. The tower of the Park Metropolitan, not five minutes' walk up the road, threatened to haze into the chalky sky and get lost all together. Students have been streaming out of the campus all weekend, loaded down like ants with improbably bundles, going home for Dragon Boat festival. This evening we decided to bar the door and turn on the air-con in the bedroom. We carried in the dining room table and the [View Full Entry]

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Where we went on our trip. [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone Just a quick blog to confirm we are all safe, alive and well. We only found out about the earthquakes when we looked on the. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those stuck in the Earthquake zone and we hope rescue comes to them soon. Chris and Amy [View Full Entry]

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I've asked round my students, and they all seem to be of the opinion that Chinese opera is about as meaningful and relevant to their lives as... well, they have pretty much the same opinion that your average engineering student has of Western opera in the UK, I suppose. But they all tell me that their grandparents are really into it. Certainly there's a whole state TV channel- CCTV 11- devoted to Chinese opera in its many forms, and when we were once shown around a community centre (we were part of a tour swarm of about 200 foreign 'experts' being [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately we have got a bit behind with our posts but we have arrived safe in Nanjing and Amicu has started teaching. Our postal address in Nanjing is; Amy and Chris C/o 南京航空航天大学 国际合作交流处 南京市御道街29号 邮编：210016 International Cooperation Office Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing China Postal Code: 210016 If your browser can't handle the Chinese characters drop us an email and we will send you a picture of it. [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was back into normal China again. We reentred China via Hong Kong and Shenzhen , where there were possibly the busiest customs we've ever seen. Once through the checkpoint we visited the public toilets, and by golly knew we were back in China now. Our next destination was Guilin, quite a way across the country, and we'd decided to make the journey by sleeper train. We booked cushy soft seats, which got us bunks with tassles on and our own kettle to use. We travelled through the night and got off the train just after dawn. We definately [View Full Entry]

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This old Portuguese settlement about 60km, and one very rough boat trip, west of Hong Kong is the Las Vegas of China. Originally a Portuguese trading concession and the first trading area between Europeans and Chinese, the settlement is the only place in China where gambling is legal and it dedicated to fulfilling this Chinese passion. There are at least 17 major Casinos and almost every hotel has a small Casino of its own. Each casino is themed with pseudo Egyptian, Medieval or Venetian architecture. Wondering round the casino area is a bit like some kind of giant theme park. More [View Full Entry]

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We took a plane from Kunming to Shenzhen, the city in China nearest to the boarder with Hong Kong and a whose main purpose seems to be a low-cost base from which to interact with it. Our friend Emanuel, who we'd taught with in Tai'an and who was in the area with his family over the spring festival, had emailed us very kind and extremely detailed instructions about how to get from Shenzhen to Hong Kong, and we followed his advice by ignoring the taxi touts clustering around the airport doors (and they really did take some ignoring) and instead booking [View Full Entry]

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Osaka immediately felt more real than Kyoto and Tokyo. The pursuit of perfection has been made subordinate to the pursuit of doing business and making money. The people on the streets are just a little less rarefied and cool, and dirt- actual dirt- can occasionally be seen outside agricultural areas. But not very often. This is Japan, after all. We stayed in the rather characterless Hearton hotel near the railway station, which did have the advantage of being near the station’s boggling array of techy stores and cheap eating places. Just wandering around the computer stores together after dinner (and possibly [View Full Entry]

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The next leg of our trip was to Nara, where Buddhism first came to Japan. This small city SW of Kyoto was the capital when Buddhist missionaries brought Buddhism to Japan and it has lots and lots of fine temples. We stayed in a Ryokan (not a Rokugan as I kept calling them), which is a traditional Japanese inn with tatami floors and futons for beds. There was rather more luxury here as we got three futons rather than the one supplied at the previous place, and this was much more comfortable. The two main attractions of the ryokan are the [View Full Entry]

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