BACKGROUND: When my friend Sue first spotted the “Nexus Holidays China Sampler” late last year, we both thought it sounded “too good to be true”. For about the cost of a return flight from Sydney to Beijing (about $1200-$1300), the sampler price also included an internal flight from Beijing to Shanghai, accommodation in “five star hotels”, about three quarters of
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There was a moment today when the guy sitting behind me, Paul, said “You know I think I wouldn’t mind living in Shanghai for a year of two”. Without hesitation, I told him I’d thought the same thing earlier in the day. It’s odd, of course, because we’d only been in the city for less than twenty-four hours. Thinking logically
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I learned more today about green tea than I have my entire life. Our day started with a visit to a nearby village of Mei Jia Wu, where they seem to grow nothing but tea. Amongst the things I learned included: how the different size of tea leaves produce different flavours; how the spring harvest is considered the best; how
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Earlier in the trip I wrote about how the “shopping parts” of the tour were the ones most likely to divide the men and the women of our group, including the jade factory, the silk factory, and the copper art works. But even if the blokes weren’t all that interested in the finished product, there was still something about manufacturing
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Partly by design, and partly by chance, this ended up as a “shopping day”. The planned part was a visit to a “silk worm factory” in Suzhou. And when I say “factory”, I really mean showroom. The unexpected shopping expedition was when we went looking later in the afternoon for somewhere to have my haircut and my beard trimmed. The
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I never thought I’d ever find much interest in silk embroidery images of the Mona Lisa and Chairman Mao, but somehow today I did. We’re spending the night in Suzhou, the silk capital of China (apparently) located about ninety minutes by bus from the centre of Shanghai. The day started early. Really early. A four-thirty wake-up call for a five-thirty
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Today was a definitely a day of contrasts. We started the day off at a medical clinic where we learned a little about the principles of Chinese Medicine. Minutes later, a group of doctors and medical students made their way around our group. While the doctors free advice to the tour group about a range of ailments, the medical students
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Sue and I went out for a meal tonight at a nearby Chinese restaurant where the food was a little more spicy than what we’ve been experiencing over the last couple of days. I like spicy food, I like challenging food, I like to try new things. In contrast, the food in the last few days have been a little
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“When we’re old”, I said to Sue, “I think we should move to Beijing and just hang out in the park”. Sue laughed in agreement, as we made our way out of the Temple Of Heaven. The last time I was in China (I mean, the first time I was in China, which was in 2010) I don’t recall visiting
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At first I thought I thought it was a simple check of the numbers. But when I saw virtually every flight attendant walking up and down the aisles with clicker counters I became curious and then worried. “Oh my goodness, they don’t have enough food”, I thought to myself. There has already been quite a while since the vegetarian meals
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“That’s fantastic! Do you mind if I take a photograph of your shoes?”, I said to the woman nearby as I noticed her taking off her high-heeled shoes only to replace them with some similarly glamorous flats. At first, she seemed a little reluctant. As far as she was concerned I could have been some weird bloke with a foot-fetish.
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“I have this feeling we’ve met each other before”, the young woman said to me tonight at Sydney’s 4A Gallery. We had been introduced by my friend Kate at the annual Members Exhibition of the Sydney gallery which specialises in Asian-Australian Art. It’s a gallery which I like very much, and which I support through their Edition Series, and through
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