Things of beauty A Chinese bride to be, contemplating the colour green That on the day I tell the man that I most want to be with that I am leaving, he declares he wants to know me Two friends biking in the early autumn breeze A death wreath pinned to the bed of the dead man The sound of rain on my Chinese roof tiles and no other sound - nothing The bridal veil placed in position A cat when it paws the air in pleasure A tear from a tiny dog’s eye Hearing Lao Wang explain that I am [View Full Entry]

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Amanda and I went to Nanjing for a couple of days - particularly to see the Massacre Museum and a place that I could not remember. Nanjing is an absolutely huge city and being the National Holiday meant that everyone was out enjoying the sun and the sights. During the last year and half that I have been in China, I have Never seen so many people in one city at any one time as I did in Nanjing - not in Guangzhou or in Shanghai. Traveling around was pretty crushing. Yesterday, we went to the Massacre museum. It left us [View Full Entry]

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Seven hours walking around the old lanes in what is left of the old town in Shanghai, poking inside the antique markets and feeling the fabric in the cloth market wasn't enough to really get to the bottom of the people living here. I saw real beauty. In the women's faces, the old traditional skills mending shoes and tailoring, the old houses divided up in 1949 to house 4 or 5 families, all higledy pigledy with additions that made my heart sink but beatiful in their chinese recourseful way, the tea house, temple, food market and the bustle, and lanes so [View Full Entry]

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After catching the train from Suzhou to Shanghai on probably one of the busiest days in the year - National Day - 60 years on. And, after sitting with thousands in the station watching on plasma screens, Hu JinTao drive through the barren avenues of Beijing except for the a million army soldiers lining it for miles and miles along with military tanks and war fare for the National Day Parade - and I was just a little scared, I decided to walk behind The Bund, where you can find many beautiful buildings, windows, details and stories both past and present. [View Full Entry]

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I’ve long wanted to visit M50 and I wasn’t’ disappointed and not only because of the art or the buildings and location. Instantly, the environment feels good, creative, trendy and alive coupled with the added bonus of fantastic old warehouse buildings housing art in the most light beaming, lightful way. but when you dig a little deeper, the veneer of galleries becomes a little samey and only when you walk deeper into the back of M50 do you actually find a few real artist studios dotted in between the last few remaining living spaces of local residents. M50 is a clutch [View Full Entry]

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Many articles blogs and papers have been written on the disappearing hutongs in China - mainly in Beijing and Shanghai. But when you see it for yourself, the words that you can write and have read become useless as you are faced with the reality of the uprooting of lives in the name of progress. The demolishing of the old hutong houses is also happening in the city I live in and I’ve walked around the areas at length trying to understand the fight between ‘progress and preservation’ On Friday, after spending 3 hours at M50 in Shanghai, I noticed that [View Full Entry]

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If you don't understand my love for dogs or if you don't like them yourself - don't bother reading any further. On thursday, I was walking with Amanda and came across a little dog. He was all wonky and rickety and so ugly that he was cute. So I asked around and the bike mender and the shoe man said he didn't belong to anyone so I took him because he was too lovely to just leave. The second dog I picked up. It could have been my tenth. They get offered to me like old shoes. Something free, something someone [View Full Entry]

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People have started emailing me because they're worried because I'm not updating my blog so much. Dun worry, I just don't have much to say. My contract is almost up at Web and I'm considering my next steps after it became impossible for me to go on the trek around the Kora at the end of this month with the guys from Hong Kong. So, next year, I can do that one. For now, I'm planning to go home for winter - I've not seen my family and friends for too long now. When I go, there will also be people [View Full Entry]

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I nipped to Shanghai on Thursday and met Tracey straight off the train. Firstly, I wanted to put my 120 roll film in at snaps on Huai Hai Lu but it wasn’t open so we went to H&M and tried loads of clothes on - some whilst standing on the shop floor. We ran back to snaps in the biggest thunder storm I’ve witnessed yet in China and we’ve had some ‘belters’. Fish could swim in the street this time all the way from Huai Hai Lu to the other side of Shanghai. Drenched we went home to Ted’s. Ted lives [View Full Entry]

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If you one day decide to pack your bags and leave your country, home, family and friends and catch a train to another city then another country then another continent and you keep catching trains through unknown cities and towns into new places until eventually you find a small city to live in, then you have traveled. But if you move through these lands and meet the people, learn to speak a little of the language, lose a person and a dog then find people who become friends, meet many new faces, eat and drink and smell different flavours and feel [View Full Entry]

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