Walking back home through the tree-lined streets of the French Concession is a joy especially if it’ not cold and raining. I enjoy the lights from street lights making pools of yellow on the roads and the lights from bedrooms and TV still on, flashing into the darkness as I walk home. However, I often… Read More »
I had never seen a clock which also measures the sound of the traffic. I am used to spending my time worrying about the air quality but now I have noise pollution on my mind. It was a very quiet day when I walked past the sign and I didn’t have any idea of what… Read More »
It’s one thing to dress your dog up in clothes and die its ears and tail pink but at least those ridiculous dogs area allowed to walk. And those dogs who travel in the basket on front of bicycles or in the footwell of motorbikes, are just travelling from one place to another. This poor… Read More »
It doesn’t matter how many times I see girls/women in ‘cosplay’ (portmanteau words meaning costume play), it still amazes me that they can go about their daily life dressed in such ridiculous costumes. I could understand it if they were 10 years old but these are young women. There are a couple of girls at… Read More »
It has been very cold recently so I haven’t drawn up the blind in my sitting room. However this evening, it was a bit milder and I fancied seeing some daylight so I pulled the blind up and low and behold, what was behind it but a pile of bamboo scaffolding. Oh fabulous! How long… Read More »
The market on Fuxing Lu is close and supplies everything you need in the way of fruit and veg and meat. And there are numerous street sellers in the area selling all manner of fresh vegetables and living creatures and exploding rice but in the run up to Spring Festival there have been more meat… Read More »
There’s a reason my house is quite cheap. Many of my friends say to me that I am lucky to have such a cheap but well located house. The rooms are a good size, the metro and restaurants and cafes are close by and I am the envy of many. But there are serious shortcomings… Read More »
It’s freezing – literally. It has been sub-zero all day and the streets have been relatively quiet. I have persuaded my adopted Chinese parents that they needed new chairs. He was sitting in a collapsible garden deck chair and she was sitting on a plastic stool even though they had a perfectly serviceable sofa. However,… Read More »
In a couple of weeks millions of Chinese will go back to their home village to see their parents and grandparents. It’s a huge migration and the train stations and bus stations are even more packed than usual with people struggling under the weight of bags stuffed full of gifts and supplies. Often this is… Read More »
It was dismal day in Shanghai and options to stay warm and dry beyond walking around a shopping mall are few. So it was that we ended up at the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. Now if ever there was a way of putting people off going to a museum it would be to call it… Read More »