aka jamesobrien.id.au : A fifty-something, originally from "the country", now living in Sydney, working in radio, and with many interests.
Have visited China twice now (2010 and 2014) but there is so much more to discover. I’ll be back.
Sadly, my “Swedish” is not sophisticated enough to understand the complexities of some of the discussions you might encounter at an event like Stockholm Pride. While it won’t be too much of an issue at events like the Schlagerkväll (the pop music night), I’m still very interested in going to talks and events, especially since […]
I think pretty much everyone in the room laughed in recognition, as Gene Sherman told the story about the promise she and her husband had made to each other. As she noted they had been married forty-seven years, and were a family that “kept promises”, she went on to say they had agreed and promised […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
