Articles from this Category
29 October 2025
Temple Dennis, Swee and Chen came to our accommodation for breakfast at 0700 and we set off at 0830 to the temple the pretty village near the entrance to the Nanjing Scenic Area. Text continues after this gallery. My tentative plan for the remainder of the day was to call into another tulou […]
28 October 2025
Dennis bought us breakfast at 0700 and left to borrow the car and bring it back. We got going at 0930, picking Swee and Chen before leaving town heading towards Daoyun Lao in the Raoping area. Dayun Lao We arrived at Daoyun Lao around 1040. This huge octagonal 1587 tulou was once home to 600 […]
27 October 2025
Breakfast I’m nearly on local time after three nights and we didn’t head out for breakfast till after 0830. With some items not ready yet, I happily chose a pork and century egg congee. Teochew congee is meant to be like rice in hot water and that’s the origin of the Thai rice soup. Today’s […]
26 October 2025
Swatow’s old centre Dennis left around 0530 today to catch the train to Guangzhou for some errands. Kim and I, Swee and Chen had booked to go to Swatow (Shantou) for an overnight stay to explore a different part of the region. At around 0900 Kim and I walked to the Vienna hotel where Swee […]
25 October 2025
Breakfast and wet market I woke around 0600 with only one interruption around 0130. We left home around 0700 to go to Dennis’ aunt’s place. Aunt took us for a little walk to a local eatery for breakfast. The local specialty here was the Tenghun (which is literally the same words as the Cantonese Cheongfan). […]
24 October 2025
Arriving and transit in Bejing With one sleeping pill, I slept soundly for about 4h30. With about 3h remaining till the breakfast service, I reluctantly popped another half a pill which gave me another 2h. Magic! We landed in Beijing Capital about 1h before the scheduled arrival time of 0530. It was quite cool as […]
1 August 2025
Even though we landed in Sydney in the land down under on time at 0750, the previous aircraft at the gate hadn’t pushed back, so we had to wait a little before we could park and disembark. For my two-night stay in Sydney, I’m staying with a friend, Henry. He kindly picked me up from […]
30 July 2025
A bit of a fright I had a bit of a fright this morning with my flight departure time to Kuala Lumpur which I had thought was at 1320. I had thought of going to the airport at 0945 to have brunch at the lounge but didn’t think I could last till then without […]
25 July 2025
No jetlag Three nights after landing from Europe, I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any jetlag. That’s quite unheard of, for me, especially flying towards the east. I’ve had not trouble falling asleep and have been OK to wake with the alarm at 0715 each morning. And my nature calls were nearly on […]
20 July 2025
Today is about enjoying the atmosphere (which I already was), seeing life in a different country, living my day-to-day in a different environment and escaping the New Zealand winter. I spent the morning at the gym then ate a sandwich seated in the pedestrian mall which I had missed yesterday. After a rest in the […]