Parched in Portugal
We spent the last week town-hopping through Portugal, from Lisbon up to Porto. ๐๐ต๐น And of course we spent our time taking as many goofy videos as possible. ๐ฌ๐คก
There were only so many quaint town squares and steep cobbled alleyways we wanted to see, especially in temperatures hitting 39ยฐC (102ยฐF). ๐ฅ๐ฅต So we decided to shake things up by spending one night within the medieval castle of รbidos, and one night in a countryside villa outside of Leiria. ๐ฐ๐ฆ
A big thanks to Denny for being the perfect partner in adventure and silliness over the last 4 weeks. Itโs time to pack up and return to Shanghai: to the gym, the hairdresser, and the couch. ๐๏ธ๐
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A Compact Tour of Malta & Gozo
Our Maltese adventure is at an end. Malta is the worldโs 10th smallest country, and everything about it is compact: compact land-mass; compact streets; compact cars. We hired one of them and zipped around from place to place, and all on one tank of petrol. ๐
Itโs convenient that English is one of the official languages of Malta, because the Maltese language is pretty impenetrable. Everyone, donโt forget to dot your ฤ s and cross your ฤฆsโฆ ๐คทโโ๏ธ There are more than 360 churches here, which means thereโs one church for every 1,000 residents. โช๏ธ But youโll be happy to know that I didnโt include too many of them in this video compilation.
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Bohemia & Vienna
I couldnโt have hoped for a better birthday, at the end of a great week that family Fuchs/Fox/Lindsey/Newell will remember for many years to come.
We were expecting the discomfort of an August heatwave, and hordes of tourists. Instead we had a surprising amount of rain, but relatively empty streets. So I guess it worked out OK on balance..? โ๏ธโ๏ธ๐คทโโ๏ธ Maybe the proof is in the video watching.
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London Homecoming
Donโt wait until the next wedding, or the next funeral. We can always make the effort to meet each other, simply to show that we value the connection we have with one another. ๐ซ
After four years away, this was by far the best of all London homecomings. Iโm sure I wasnโt the only person in these photos who had been feeling nervous about seeing each other again. Weโve all become so adult, so independent. So concerned with our own family units, our own problems. But in the end it took just one afternoon to forget about the years apart, and to get back to making new memories together. ๐ฅฐ
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Touchdown Tokyo!
ๆฑไบฌใซใฟใใใใฆใณ๐ผโผ๏ธ
Touchdown Tokyo!
Iโm back in the country where my love affair with Asia first started back in 1999. ๐ณ
And what better way to spend the day than people-watching in Shinagawa, kaiten-sushi in Shinjuku, scramble-crossing in Shibuya, and a coffee date in Akasaka with the beautiful Sonya Ito. ๐๐ซ๐
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Eighteen Days in California
The theme of our California trip has been: over-stimulation.
We spent most of 2022 under a bit of a cloud. Despite everything, weโve managed to keep happy for the most part. But maybe itโs been the kind of happiness that requires a lot of effort, and a sprinkling of self-delusion. So to be thrust out into the elements of California has been an assault to the senses. Speaking for myself, people would have either met an excited bouncing clown (usually soaked in gin, letโs be honest), or a confused mole-man who has recently been introduced to society and clearly needs to do more work on their social skills. But it has been our mission to jam in as much into the last three weeks as we have lacked these last three years. Mission accomplished.
We now begin our return to Shanghai. And we have been re-introduced to a feeling that we have missed these last few years: being happy to come back to our home. We live a comfortable, privileged life and we enjoy the adventure of being in a place that challenges us every single day. But we also know what we are missing by living on the other side of the world to so many family and friends. So a massive thank you to everyone who we met for a brief time on this trip. I am one happy clown/mole-man. ๐คก๐
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Iโm So Sorry, Bugs Bunny
As part of a Mosaic of China podcast recording in Chengdu back in early March 2022, I was told by my delightful guest that 300 million rabbit heads are eaten in Sichuan Province every year. So I figuredโฆ I should at least try it once.
Iโm so sorry, Bugs Bunny. ๐ต๐ฐ
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An Unexplored Corner of Yunnan Province
We explored a part of Yunnan Province thatโs not often visited by international tourists. In all eight years of living in mainland China, weโve never heard stunned exclamations of โ่ๅค! [lวowร i - foreigner]โ as often as in the last six days. ๐ฎ๐ฏ
Things to watch out for in the vid:
๐จโ๐ณ Sexy butcher
๐ชท Lotus season in Yunnan
๐ซ๐ท French Indochina railway architecture
๐งบ Massive fishing basket
๐ Chinaโs answer to Gaudi
๐ด Working horses, in a village without cars
โฉ The 2nd-largest Confucian temple in China
๐ Red rice, which is only grown in this region
๐ฒ๐ณ Mongolian village 2000km south of Mongolia
๐จโโ๏ธ Communist cosplay
๐ โElephant Tuskโ local vegetable
๐ฉโ๐พ The Hani, one of 25 Yunnan ethnic minorities
๐ฆ Slow-motion splashing
๐จโ๐ณ Did I mention the sexy butcher?
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All the Feline Feels
You may have heard reports that Shanghai has โopened upโ following its harsh citywide lockdown. Let me quickly explain what this means.
There is a patchwork quilt of realities. Some lucky people have indeed already received ไธดๆถๅบๅ
ฅ่ฏ (temporary exit/entry passes), allowing them to leave their compounds, usually for a short time once a day. Others have been allowed out, only for that permission to be immediately revoked once some unknown local official begins to feel nervous about the optics of people exercising their right to freedom. And for residents whose compounds remain in total lockdown, they have the exotic torture of being congratulated on their freedom while sitting under continued house arrest.
In our case, the local neighbourhood committee has opened the lock on our gate, but has not removed it. So it continues to hang ominously, silently proclaiming: โWe can easily lock you up again, whenever we wantโ. We havenโt received any official passes, so our notion of freedom is entirely synthetic. But we took the chance to take an unofficial walk around the block, and the cat in the window of this local pet-shop sums up our emotional longing all too accurately.
The logical interpretation of an open lock is that itโs a โhopeful signโ. Maybe it is, and maybe we will receive our official ไธดๆถๅบๅ
ฅ่ฏ soon. With no residents in our compound testing positive for COVID-19 in all 64 days of lockdown, weโve been conditioned to not seeing any correlation between hopeful signs and happy outcomes. And for the time being, shops, restaurants, and even parks all remain closed. So the best case scenario is that we can visit this cat through the glass again tomorrow. ๐๐ช
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Inner Mongolia & Ningxia
I would just like to say something categorical. Iโm D.O.N.E. with this whole โliving through historyโ nonsense. "May you live in interesting times"? May you kiss my sweaty ass.
Iโm sorry, I know there are many people who have had a truly awful time. Which is why I have allowed myself just this one privileged tantrum in 18 months.
I still canโt re-enter China on my visa if I leave, and thereโs no end in sight. So we escaped Shanghai again to give me another sanity reset. Normal service will resume shortly.
Inner Mongolia ๅ
่ๅค and Ningxia ๅฎๅค are both areas of China where minority cultures struggle for authentic representation. But we did our best to find it!
Hope you like the compilation video.
โ๏ธ๐ ๐๐ด๐ท
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Minority Report
6 Days in Guizhou Province. ๐๐ฆ๐พ
Note 1: We did a village-hopping tour in the ethnically diverse region of South-East Guizhou ่ดตๅท.
Note 2: This area is one of the wettest and hilliest parts of China. The geology is mostly porous limestone karst, so landslides are common. It was hot and humid, but we were incredibly lucky not to encounter much rain.
Note 3: There are very few young adults in this video, because many of them have left to become migrant workers in bigger cities around China.
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