Photo Friday #29 Harbin, China. 14 February 2010 Daytime Temp: -12°C (Warm!) China’s Dongbei, or northeast, has a long history of Russian “influence.” (Whether the locals wanted it or not.) This influence began with the construction of the China Eastern Railway, an extension of the famed Trans-Siberian Railway and can still be seen today in [...]
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七九八 The 798 Art District in Beijing Just a few decades ago, this industrial district on the northeast corner of Beijing was home to a high security factory producing “secret” components for the Chinese military. The bauhaus-style complex was designed and built by the East Germans in the 1950s-1960s, in cooperation with the Soviet Union. [...]
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reading/thinking about today: Here’s an update on the company dinner last night: two words – warm beer. Enough said. In other randomness: The pneumonic plague has struck China, and as alarming as that might seem, I could barely be bothered to keep up with the news. I know it is isolated to some village in [...]
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First a little mythbusting – you can’t actually see the Great Wall from space. Second – if you have the chance to visit Beijing, you might want to see both the old and new wall. The contrast: A section of the Great Wall – reconstructed for tourists, at Badaling, June 2006 A section of the [...]
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It really feels like a Friday today. If I were 3 feet tall and male you could call me Grumpy. This is probably the last Photo Friday that I am going to focus on Spain for a while. I’m getting too homesick! Here is a looong photo essay. (I think next week I will also [...]
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I just can’t get enough of Spain, so I am featuring it again this week on Photo Friday! There were also way too many photos to choose just one, so you get a little photo essay. Roman Theater circa 18 BC They say the sun never set on the Roman empire and one could certainly [...]
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When the DH and I went to canoe on the Sella River, we chose to stay in the city of Ribadesella, which is the terminus of the river. We could have stayed in the mountain town closer to the river, Arriondas, but we wanted to enjoy both river and beach. Well, it ended up raining [...]
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I love this house. Many times when we drive past there are a few elderly gentlemen sitting outside playing cards or just watching the world go by. It is the entrance to a traditional courtyard style house and is probably home to many families. There is no telling how much longer these buildings will stand. [...]
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You never know what you’re gonna get behind a set of doors. Interior life is often hidden behind great big doors. In China, you really can’t judge a book by its cover. A ritzy entrance can hide a shabby interior, while a humble door can open up to a beautiful courtyard. Sometimes the outside and inside [...]
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Or why we never bothered to go in… Giant Spider at the Guggenheim Museum This spider is the sole reason my friend, arachnophobe and Bilbao native Marta, cannot visit the museum. In August we drove from Madrid to Asturias, passing through Guadalajara, Medinacelli, Logroño and the Basque Country. We stopped for a few hours in [...]
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I'm an American expat living on the fringe of Chinese society. Thanks to a lifetime spent moving around, I often feel like an outsider. This blog explores life in Beijing, China, the occasional aviation topic, expat issues, random travel experiences and interesting things I see, read and hear. If you want to know more about my latest hobby, visit Sewing on the Fringe, where I blog about learning to sew in Beijing. And for daily documentation of Beijing's ever changing air quality, visit My Beijing Window. And, yes, I do wear my santa hat year-round. ;)
