From Seaworld Station exit B, it was a short walk about 5-10 minutes to the entrance to Nanshan Park. I passed a few nice looking apartment blocks. The walk to the start of the trail wasn't too bad, as it was on a nice gently sloping paved road. There were some pretty trees lining the walk with pretty red flowers. It was nice to look at those and made up for the fact there was no view of the surrounding area. I think I must have walked along the path for about ten to fifteen minutes before I reached Longevity Culture Square. This was a nice little square with some kind of rock feature/waterfall that was missing the water and plenty of exercise equipment in the shade. The trail, the No. 1 Climbing Path, started here. ... read more

Day One: The taxi ride to my new hotel took about 40 minutes and since it was the tail end of rush hour we got stuck in the traffic on the motorway quite a bit. The funniest sight was an ambulance pulled up in the middle by the bollard where the slip road veers off from the main highway. It seemed like a odd place to stop. I just hope he figuring out his journey and nothing more serious was going on. My taxi driver couldn't find my hotel as where his GPS guided him to was a random place. I didn't have the language skills to help him and my phone was out of data. Luckily, there was some kind of policeman (China has a few different types of police/security and I don't know the ... read more

Background When I left China at the end of 2019, I was only meant to be gone for a few months. Do a bit of travelling around Eastern Europe, get a new work visa and then return to start my dream job. Well Covid 19 truly screwed up that plan. At first I wasn't too bothered as it meant I got to stay in Europe for a bit longer and snuck in an extra couple of weeks travelling. Then China and most other sensible countries shut their borders and eventually the UK went into lockdown. When things started to open up in summer 2020, I thought I would get back to China, but the job I was meant to start back in March didn't seem possible as only major companies in major cities could secure the ... read more

A short and only slightly delayed train ride found us in York by lunchtime. The purpose of this visit was to have afternoon tea at Bettys, which is a Yorkshire institution and somewhere I have wanted to visit for years, but haven't got round to it on previous trips to York, and I haven't been to any of the places that have Bettys either. The original Bettys was opened in 1919 in Harrogate and no one knows why it was named Bettys. The story behind this successful small chain is quite interesting. A Swiss orphan, Fritz Bützer, travelled Europe learning his craft and in 1907 arrived in England. He took the wrong train and ended up in Bradford instead of the south coast, his original destination. He found work for a Swiss confectioner and by 1915 ... read more

Another day, another breakfast. I decided to go for the Vegetarian Full Irish and was happy that I didn't have to wait as long as the day before. The breakfast was really nice and there was a lot of choice on it. There were poached eggs, baked beans, veggie sausages, vegan haggis, vegan black pudding, mushroom, spinach, tomato, potato scone, and soda farl. I'm tired just typing it all out. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the vegan haggis, it was utterly delicious and had a tasted of Worcestershire sauce to it, which couldn't have been used as it contains anchovies, so I would love to know what herbs and spices were used. The soda farl was really dense and filling and I enjoyed the potato scone as it was different to ones I've ... read more