After a mere four months living in Shanghai, it's time to move on again. The reasons for our departure are not going to be publicised on the internet but for any of you who gave us advice on moving here, it isn't because we don't like Shanghai or China. However, a new job awaits us in a whole new country and it's time to say goodbye to Shanghai. Here are your best bits...... motorbikes held together with sellotape..... brown furry dogs (are they poodles?)....... *hurrrrockkk......* (the noise and pregnant pause before someone spits in the street)....... several small toffee apples on sticks....... babies in split crotch trousers so they can pee on the floor...... brown furry dogs in clothes...... old people shoving you out of the way on the metro...... electric bikes silently appearing behind you ... read more

Having spent the last 4 months in Shanghai, it seems an appropriate time to write a general blog on the city and how we found it. This isn't a chronological 'and then we went here and did this' blog. It's just a look at some characteristics of the city of Shanghai, both positive and negative, from the perspective of 2 English people who like wandering around cities in various countries. Look below and marvel at some of Shanghai's standout features. According to us.... 1. There are lots of people (and models of people) Shanghai is a big city. Like, really big. See the title of this blog for one estimate of the population - though these numbers vary depending on how you measure it, it gives you some idea as to the sheer numbers of people ... read more

If you've been paying a attention, you'll remember that one of the bucket list reasons for coming to South Africa was to go on safari. I'm pretty sure it's the dream of anyone who's studied zoology or ecology and I spent many years drooling over photos and presentations by fellow PhDers and academics who studied baboons in Ethiopia or merecats in the Kalahari while I spent cold winter months watching goats in Scotland. Since I studied ungulates (mammals with hooves for those of you not in the know) I had stacks of papers on kudu and impala and other strange named species, and while I knew a lot about their mating behaviour and who they liked to hang out with, I couldn't have recognised one if it had wandered across the road. We had a taster ... read more

Cage diving with sharks - check Whale watching - check = two bucket list items ticked off. Now what else was there.... Ah yes, the road trip. Hire car - check Kate's parents with us - check Let's go..... On Kris' 34th birthday, we set off on our road trip along the Garden Route. This stretch of road goes along the south coast of South Africa and is a very popular trip. It's about 600km long, and you can do it in a couple of days, or a couple of weeks. We chose five days - which wasn't long enough in the end, but you live and learn. While my mum and I were planning this part of the holiday, we used all kinds of websites and guidebooks to try and find the best routes and ... read more

Bucket ListA while ago, inspired by a forum post on here, Kris and I wrote a bucket list. Not in a morbid ‘I’m going to die soon’ Morgan Freedman and that other bloke movie-sense, but in the sense of ‘these are things we’d like to do in our hopefully long lives’. We travel a lot and have what we believe to be interesting lives, but recently we had been traveling to places in and around Asia that were easily accessible and which people recommended to us. That’s great, but we still had a long list of places we’ve always wanted to see. Now, admittedly, we were consuming alcohol at the time of writing, and the next morning when we woke up, those items near to the bottom of the list were pretty unintelligible (although I’m sure ... read more