see there was these rickshaw drivers right! and they were hassling us ok so we give them the slip and as we do this smiling man sympathizes with us, he's a local so we walk and he tells us he's a calligrapher and he's all about helping us, and tells us sure i'll show you to the forbidden city....... oh! here is my teacher's studio please meet master chang the famous beijing calligrapher, his father was national calligrapher for chairman mao! chang appears humble and speaks not a word of english, but no matter, our charismatic persuader friend will translate for [View Full Entry]

---

---

Moscow. Day 0. We move into our sardine can with an Irishman we call Dave and a Chinaman smuggler who crams bags and boxes of rowanberry vodka, cigarettes and bric-a-brac liberally about our cabin, and then disappears for three days. Our Chinese conductor speaks zero English (and we speak .0002% Chinese) and sports only one nametag: Conductor no. 186. He cooks himself delicious dinners of dumplings each day over a coal fire. Moscow slides far behind us. Novgorod, Russia. Day 1. Ramshackle tumbledown wooden cabins and newly plowed fields amongst fir forests. Pushups and situps daily in the train hallway. We [View Full Entry]

---

---

Rain puddles on ancient stones where emperors trod. Curling dragons’ talons, silk wings and sparrows make M twirl and fly. So much space, and after the rain we suddenly see the sky! [View Full Entry]

---

---

Red square, dancing aware. Pigeons hunt, policemen stare. Horse chestnut moment Slows down the flow of business people busying by. Small trees will grow Golden eagles, captive, will cry Monkeys, in diapers and on leads are not shy; Would you like your photo taken? ...with the captive cathedral? (the editors apologize for the poorer photo quality this time around, including the Warsaw entry... we are experimenting with faster upload times, alas, technology...) This evening we board a train for six days straight. We'll pass through Russia, Mongolia, and be reborn in Beijing on June 12. Talk to you then. Lots [View Full Entry]

---

---

Thank you Gidget, and our Warsaw hosts; We loved collaborative gardening and the view. Geraniums red and a box of herbs Are happily blooming on your porch anew. This dance M gave for your orange tree Was full of zest and citrus zip... The city winked its dark sunset song To carry us through on our train journey so hip. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Luck has landed us into the middle of a handsome spring quilt: green wheat fields, blooming yellow acres of rapeseed, clean lakes and the neat gardens of Rugzenice, our home for the week. The Wienscy family knows about radishes, family, and real food. Grandma piles the plates high with potatoes and fresh chopped dill, and insists you have second helpings of dumplings. And with the imminence of a summer storm, Grandfather insisted we bring our tent in from the yard and into the woodfire-heated house, where Rich and I spent the next night before our whirlwind celebrity tour. Coming to Poland [View Full Entry]

---

---

One moment Rich and I were standing in the train station at Iwava in central Poland feeling lost, and only hours later we were sitting down to a three course dinner cooked by a polish Grandma, full of garden-grown ingredients: potatoes with chives, dill and cucumber salad, and homegrown cherry juice to name just a few. We are currently being lovingly hosted by the family of Ursula, Carolina, and Natalia, with Grandmother and Grandfather Wienska, the unparalleled chef and gardener respectively. We are in a village just west of Iwava, halfway between the Baltic coast and Warsaw, where Ursula and Carolina [View Full Entry]

---

---

(Note: This entry should have been posted before 'Would you like some tea?') G'dancing from South Brent to Kazoo Tczew is to kazoo as Gdansk is to prancing-you! I am cuddling a cup of tea and listening to eighties pop music (bless him, ol' Rod Stewart) behind the front desk of our fleabag hotel in Gdansk, Poland. Last night we slept in Tczew, (which in Polish is pronounced 'tuh-chev', rather than 'to kazoo' as it looks) and now we're go-go dancers in Gdansk. What a wide week it's been. Rich is snoring sound asleep upstairs in one of the beds in [View Full Entry]

---

---

...by Richard Bear barks in the night, pigs trumpet, deers mew. Malaika in a fright -me brave and strong- she phew. Food in a tree after a scramble and a poo, Too tired to stay awake and worry or woo. So the bag bugs bite and burrow, Ew. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Greetings, all! Ten days until liftoff, planned for May 20, and we've created a rough map of our intended destinations, available at the following site: http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/map_1a8.html Meanwhile we are making art in Devon, having created a Living Sofa out of turf grass and dandelions, and installed a Living Room for Birds, during a treeclimbing performance by Richard. Malaika danced solo with houseplants during her performance of Living Plants, all in collaboration with visiting Chinese artist Liu Ding, who curated an gallery exhibit called "Noah's Living Room" at Dartington. Images of these will hopefully follow soon. Our Living Sofa is catching sunshine [View Full Entry]

---

---