Yearly Archives: 2015 新年快樂 ~ Gōng xǐ fā cái ~ Happy New Year. It is Chinese New Year today – a perfect time to visit a Chinese Temple. Last spring I got to explore Xiamen in Fujian Province, Southeast China, while my husband was busy with meetings. I spent a few delightful days wandering around the coastal city – mostly on foot – with a crumpled map in hand. One of […]  Once upon a time, if you came upon Hot Springs Cove very quietly, “hippies” could be spotted under the full-moon, frolicking nude, like faeries in the woods. Isolated and wild, the cove shelters geothermal hot springs, where the waters – naturally heated to a glorious 50°C – are pumped out at a rate of over five-litres-per-second. These hot springs, at […]  It’s a different world out there… In this day and age where travel is relatively quick and easy, and when communication is virtually instantaneous, it is amazing to me how much diversity still exists. Some ethnic groups have managed to resist the influences around them and to preserve their age-old traditions. Sumatra is just one of the […]  They say you are a long time dead and buried – Well, unless you are buried in Switzerland, where your plot is reclaimed after 25 years to recycle available land. Or, unless you are in a traditional Chinese cemetery, where your bones should be taken out and washed annually… In India, honouring the dead can take many varied […]  “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” – John Dryden, The Spanish Friar (1681) “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” That is the Dryden quote that opens Gerald Durrell’s first book: My Family and Other Animals. And an apposite quote it is! When I first read the book as a young adult, I remember […] |
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