A few months ago, I posted pictures of my Beijing commute from home to my language school. Since then, I have moved from my old apartment in Beijing’s northwestern university area to an apartment within the city’s Second Ring Road. The Second Ring traces the line once drawn by the imperial moat and city walls, […]

Photos from a ride out to the Fragrant Hills (香山) area in the Northwest of Beijing.

An early morning ride to the Summer Palace was marred by the remnants of the worst sandstorm I’ve seen in a year and half. I felt particular sympathy for the men engaged in the largely futile task of sweeping sand off the streets with large brooms. Their work succeeded in liberating the sand for a […]

I’ve seen photos of bicycle commutes from around the world, and felt that it was time to make my contribution. My commute is a short one — 15 minutes each way on a normal day. The pollution today was terrible, so I decided to take it very slowly. That had the advantage of making it […]

If second-tier Asian tourist attractions are sometimes creepy and forlorn, China’s contributions excel in creating a mood of melancholy creakiness. I think I first became aware of this when visiting the original site of the Harbin Ice Festival, a small park in the city centre. The bulk of the festival has moved across the river […]

What better way to ring in the New Year than with a tall glass of the year’s first batch of the official milk of the Great Hall of the People?

(click to enlarge)

It’s just after Christmas in Beijing, which puts us firmly in the middle of Coal and Cabbage season. Oddly enough, the huge piles of cabbage that overtook the sidewalks at my university last year do not seem to have materialised again.
Coal, on the other hand, is still abundant. While the use of coal for household […]

A few days ago, I was walking down Wangfujing Dajie, Beijing’s main shopping street, when I came across a public sculpture exhibition dedicated to world peace. Clearly, the standard olive branches and children-holding-doves material, while represented, wasn’t enough for the organisers of this exhibition. The vast majority of the pieces were instead of […]

A friend told me last night that he believes people move and travel overseas because they like to have to struggle for things - staying in one place is too easy. I’m not sure I entirely agree, but maybe I am blinded by my own masochism. I do know that China has put […]