Texas & Louisiana Road Trip
One weekend in Austin, TX; one weekend in New Orleans, LA; and a whole lot of road in between.
I tried to keep the travel video compilation short, but I’ve failed miserably. So it’s an embarrassing indulgence to post it. If you watch only one bit, please let it be the swamps of Louisiana (around the 11-minute mark), they were an unexpected highlight. Of course the *expected* highlights were the family wedding in Austin, and the party in New Orleans.
00:00 Austin, Johnson City & Elgin (TX)
04:46 New Braunfels (TX)
04:54 San Antonio (TX)
05:08 Luling (TX)
05:23 Schulenburg (TX)
05:44 Houston (TX)
06:51 Beaumont (TX)
07:47 Lake Charles (LA)
08:20 Lafayette, Avery Island & Breaux Bridge (LA)
11:41 Baton Rouge (LA)
12:13: Laura Plantation (LA)
12:40 New Orleans (LA)
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Ten Years of One Seconds
I’m just about to reach the ten-year anniversary of moving to mainland China. The realisation that I’ve lived over a fifth of my life here is… sobering. But what it also means is that there’s another milestone to record: ten whole years of daily one-second videos. That’s 3,653 seconds, over an hour of one-second diary entries. (And yes, that means there were three leap years: 2016, 2020 and 2024). I Benjamin Button-ed it and put the whole thing in reverse (and on speed). It’s impossible to watch, I’m just posting it here for posterity.
It started on a solitary walk in Hong Kong, I listened to a podcast interview with the founder of an app called 1 Second Everyday and decided to download it and record my first video. That was 10th October 2015.
2015
I thought I would use the app simply to record my gradual transition between living in Hong Kong and Shanghai. According to the paperwork, my residency in Shanghai officially started in October, but I counted my flight from Hong Kong on 13th Dec 2015 as my first day in Shanghai. (That’s why these annual compilations always start on Dec 13th).
2016-2017
For these next couple of years, I continued using the app, capturing my life as an international headhunter. My life was in Shanghai, but I spent over a third of my time overseas.
2018-2019
After stepping back from my company, I started studying Chinese and also launched a podcast. I see these as the years during which I finally integrated properly into life in Shanghai.
2020-2022
The COVID years were sometimes tough, but you couldn’t ask for a better education about how China works. The podcast continued, and I also completed a Masters in Chinese Philosophy.
2023-2024
The post-COVID “PTSD years”. Still enjoying life in Shanghai, but now with a slight sense of dislocation, and with eyes to setting plans for the future.
Of these 3,653 seconds, 2,902 were in my home city (the first 40 while home was Hong Kong, then 2,862 in Shanghai), and 751 were from travels. So a fifth of my time - or, a full two years out of ten - were spent traveling away from home. That’s a bit of a shock. 3,004 seconds were in mainland China, and the next five places were USA (157), Hong Kong (95), Japan (62), UK (52) and Singapore (49). There are altogether 42 territories represented, in this order: 🇭🇰🇨🇳🇬🇧🇸🇬🇺🇸🇲🇽🇰🇷🇮🇳🇯🇵🇦🇹🇬🇷🇵🇷🇻🇮🇰🇳🇦🇼🇨🇼🇻🇬🇨🇦🇹🇭🇦🇪🇧🇭🇰🇼🇶🇦🇴🇲🇪🇸🇮🇩🇱🇧🇹🇷🇬🇪🇦🇲🇲🇲🇧🇩🇫🇮🇪🇪🇦🇺🇨🇿🇲🇹🇵🇹🇲🇻🇳🇱🇸🇦🇮🇹.
But my favourite seconds are not the ones from traveling, they’re the ones that capture life’s daily contrasts. Frenetic activity and blissful inactivity; loud celebration and quiet mourning; illnesses and accidents; adventures and misadventures… just the regular cycle of life, in tiny snapshots. They also chart the relationships: old relationships, new relationships, and now disappeared relationships. Social media has become more vile over these last ten years, but I have made an effort to continue using it for conscious connectivity. I hope the reason you’re reading this is that you feel the same.
It’s not just a video diary, the project now helps shape my lifestyle. I try to live life in the moment, waking up to the promise of a new adventure. Getting out of my own head, and continuing to keep curious about the world. Saying yes to experiences out of the house, even when my happy place is sitting on the couch next to my husband.
But more than that, it has become a gratitude project. I often take the time to look back at these compilations, to appreciate what I’ve done rather than constantly trying to chase the next novelty. I will always be that chaser. But I’ve realised through this project that happiness isn’t in the pursuit of the next glass of wine. Happiness is in the realisation that your glass is already full. 🍷
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Sixty in Sicily
I will never tire of seeing how people react when they learn of my husband's age. There's usually a mixture of shock, confusion, joy and jealousy. And now the game just got even better...
We concluded our epic two-week Italian trip with a 'Sixty in Sicily' celebration. Happy birthday Denny, and a massive thanks to everyone who could share the occasion with us. 🫶🥰
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Lakes and Mistakes in Lombardy
Our two full days at Lake Como were not without drama. Severe weather warnings (which luckily didn’t transpire); severe traffic snarls (which sadly did); a severe tyre puncture (which sadly did involve us); and a severe bike crash (which luckily didn’t). But we made it out in one piece, and the weight we put on through eating too much pasta 🍝 was offset by the weight we lost from our wallets. 💸
We needed to catch a flight from Milan, so we spent a half-day shopping in the city, and an evening meeting with a fantastic group of people. It’s a city that represents the commercial capital of Italy, so in that respect it reminds me of my home city of Shanghai. But that’s where the resemblance ends. There’s a much greater emphasis on lifestyle here, where slow food and quality time is prized higher than making money. And there’s a greater reverence for tradition… for good and bad. Heaven help you if you try to change the recipe for carbonara, or if you match the wrong condiment to a beloved regional dish. But that’s all part of the fun of Italy, and behind these little inflexibilities lies a lot of flair, imagination and warmth. 🫶🇮🇹
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Two Gentlemen of (Venice And) Verona
When we booked our weekend in Venice over six months ago, we had no idea that it would coincide with the annual Regata Storica (Venice Regatta). So having spent day one walking over 30,000 steps, it worked out perfectly to spend the second day mainly watching ornate boats go past us while sitting on our butts.
Since our onward journey had us traveling westwards, we took the opportunity to make a stop in Verona. It’s a beautiful UNESCO-listed city with Roman, medieval, and Renaissance architecture, and is famous as the romantic setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. But the main reason we stopped off there was so that we could use the caption: “Two Gentleman of Verona”. 🇮🇹👬🇮🇹
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Hong Kong is Still Badass
Comparing my previous home of Hong Kong to my current home of Shanghai is fairly straightforward. Both are sophisticated international Asian cities with vibrant culture, arts and food scenes. If anything they’re becoming even more similar, with comparatively less Cantonese and Shanghainese being spoken on their respective streets these days. Those businesses that didn’t learn how to pivot away from international consumers and cater more towards mainland Chinese tastes… are the ones that simply aren’t around these days. And the effect is arguably more noticeable in Hong Kong because of the high proportion of frugal day-trippers from across the border.
Having said that, on my recent visit back to Hong Kong I still heard lots of reassuring sing-song Cantonese amidst the argy-bargy Mandarin. And some things will always distinguish Hong Kong from everywhere else. Of course the city’s access to nature is unparalleled, I’ve personally only seen something similar in Vancouver and Zurich, but both are tame in comparison. The Chinese antiques for sale on Hollywood Road are the best and most plentiful you can find anywhere, there’s just no point mentioning any other city because nowhere comes close. And finally there’s that feeling you get when you learn how to navigate the maze of overhead walkways in Central, where your feet don’t need to touch the ground for miles. I’ve seen something similar in Minneapolis, which is both impressive and highly functional - it keeps you warm in the winter and gets you to where you parked your car. But Hong Kong’s human-centric city planning goes much further in making the little pedestrian feel like the king of the urban jungle, cowed neither by traffic nor topography. And that feeling is simply badass.
A big thank you to all the people who made time to meet up during my short visit, some of whom may not have described themselves as badass until now. And perhaps some who are shaking their head as they anticipate me writing the word badass for a third time, and for absolutely no reason.
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Why Visit Saudi Arabia?
I never imagined I would step foot in Saudi Arabia. But a decade in China has taught me that sometimes the challenges of living in a country with a certain reputation are maybe a little different than you might expect. And as someone who wants to remain open and curious about the world - a world which, let’s face it, might not remain open and peaceful forever - I wanted to see this place for myself.
What I learnt is that Saudi Arabia is undergoing an economic and social revolution that reminds me very much of China. Neither are democracies, and neither have planned their development based on models borrowed wholesale from the West. This engenders an inherent discomfort and distrust from many onlookers. Furthermore, the outside world judges them based on a certain basket of baked-in perceptions. Yet both have managed so much change - and in such incredibly short timeframes - that many of these perceptions are increasingly outdated. Not all… but many. I thought that China changed fast in the 2000s and 2010s, but Saudi Arabia of the 2020s makes this all look rather tame. It’s no wonder that many of the young and hungry international entrepreneur-types that used to be such a common sight in Shanghai and Beijing are now popping up in Riyadh and Jeddah.
I’m no deluded apologist about either system, both countries have myriad issues and it’s important to be critical when it comes to seeing what they can deliver over the coming decade. But “seeing” is indeed the first step, and I’m glad that I took a week to do so for myself. And speaking just as a visitor, I would also say that because the tourism industry here is so brand new, the Saudi sense of hospitality feels totally genuine, and not yet jaded by years of mutual ambivalence. So for that reason alone, it was well worth the trip.
I spent 6 days in Saudi Arabia: 3 days in Riyadh, followed by a flight to AlUla, a car to Medina, and a train to Jeddah. To summarise:
🌆 Riyadh seemed to me like one of those capitals where you’re always aware of your proximity to power. It’s this proximity that has afforded it lots of new trinkets and lavish infrastructure, but in exchange it feels a little... tightly-wound. People here know how to blow off steam, but they do so mainly within the perimeters of their private residences.
🛕 AlUla is being carefully and authentically developed as *the* premium tourist destination of Saudi Arabia. A blend of geological wonder and ancient civilisation, with a unique ambience and a modern eye for detail. The tourism industry is so new that the Saudi sense of hospitality feels totally genuine, and not yet jaded by years of mutual ambivalence.
🕌 Medina is the second holiest city in Islam after Mecca, and they’ve just started allowing non-Muslims to visit. (Mecca remains strictly off-limits). There are something like 20 popular mosques to visit, I ended up getting driven to five of them by an eccentric Yemeni taxi driver called Habib before heading to the train station.
🏖️ Jeddah is the Red Sea port city with a history of migration and openness. If Riyadh is the Beijing then Jeddah is for sure the Shanghai, albeit with better seafood. And if Medina represents the sacred, then Jeddah represents the swagger. Case in point: as I’m writing this on my flight out of Saudi Arabia, the Formula One weekend is kicking off on the Corniche.
Top 3 fun facts:
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia imports sand. The country is literally covered in it, but it’s the wrong kind for making concrete.
🇸🇦 The King Fahd International Airport is the largest in the world. At 9,080 acres, it’s bigger than the neighbouring country of Bahrain.
🇸🇦 There are no rivers in the whole of Saudi Arabia. It gets its water through desalination, wadis, and groundwater.
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A Spontaneous Trip to Qiandaohu
We didn’t plan anything for the Chinese New Year holiday, we figured we would be lazy. But then on Wednesday morning we made the spontaneous decision to head to Qiandaohu for two nights. Within ten minutes the hotel room and high speed train tickets were booked, and we were off later that afternoon.
Qiandaohu was created in 1959 when the completion of the Xin’anjiang Dam formed a reservoir that turned mountaintops into little islands. Around 1,000 islands in fact, hence the name 千岛湖, meaning “Thousand Island Lake”. It’s just a 2-hour train ride from Shanghai, but a very nice change of pace from the city.
For the three years of COVID, we had no choice but to travel within the borders of China, and we’ve been prioritising overseas travel since then. So this was a nice and simple destination to dip our toes back in: our first time traveling within China since July 2022, and our first time on a Chinese high-speed train since July 2021. We’re already on the way back home to Shanghai, where the laziness can resume once again.
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New Year House-Hunting in Bangkok
Bangkok is not only a great city, in a beautiful country, with excellent travel connections to the rest of Asia… It also recently joined the small group of places in the continent where marriage equality has been recognised. So it’s a no-brainer that we should want to research it as a potential base for future retirement. 🤷♂️💡
Thailand is on the one hand deeply conservative and traditional. But on the other hand remarkably open and permissive. So while the world continues to grapple with these sparring ideologies, I hope that Thailand can offer another example of how to thread the needle and keep both sides at peace.
We spent the week viewing apartments during the day, and sampling the F&B scene at night. No conclusive favourites so far, but we had a damn good time stuffing both our brains and our stomachs with all the evidence we need to make an educated decision in the future. Let’s see what happens!
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Shameless in Seattle
It’s been seven years since we were last in Seattle together with our families. So it’s been great to be back again to spend Christmas with our adoptive family, as well as a bunch of other new PNW pals. And a quick detour through San Diego beforehand made the trip complete.
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World-Class New York
As holiday destinations go, you can’t get more mainstream than New York. But it’s mainstream for a reason. It has an energy that comes close to our home city of Shanghai: the pace, the scale, the over-commercialism, the overstimulation, the glitz/grime, the impatience, and the surprise encounters with people you pass on the street. But more than that, New York has the kind of diversity that other places simply cannot match. The locals complain that it’s changing too fast, becoming too homogenised. They’re probably right. But it’s still got way more going for it than most other places that impudently call themselves world-class global cities.
New York is THE global city, so it’s only natural that so many of my global community are either based here, or have recently gravitated here from Asia. I only realised exactly how many this was when they all agreed to drop in to a small bar in Hell’s Kitchen. The evening was a timely reminder that those reports of New York’s demise are wildly overblown. And that those of New York’s high cost of living… are not. 💸😬
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Eight Shows in Eight Days
As part of Denny’s job, he really should be keeping abreast of what’s happening on Broadway. So after eight years away from New York, it was only fair that he got to fill his birthday week with eight (yes, EIGHT) Broadway shows. We did four plays, and four musicals. My only request in return was that he did eight ridiculous videos, one outside of each venue. You’re welcome.
Also, here are my ill-informed reviews of each show, listed from my least to most favourite. You’re also welcome.
LEAST FAVOURITE
8 - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Play)
Some mesmerising stagecraft, but otherwise just a cynical money-grab with a tiresome storyline and all the spiritual edification of a wet Big Mac. And DO NOT get me started on the excruciating British accents of literally every cast member, I will punch a wall.
GOOD
7 - Hold on to me Darling (Play)
My first time seeing a preview show, so it was interesting seeing the actors still a little shaky with their lines, especially when one of them was Adam Driver. But it was a good play about a man with an over-inflated sense of self-importance who makes a string of questionable life decisions. RELATABLE. Plus we got to see Adam Driver practically naked in his panties.
6 - Oh, Mary! (Play)
Farcical, deranged and silly, this play was the perfect antidote to all the lavish high-production musicals on this list. Personally, I found the general gist of high-status-people-saying-low-status-things a little predictable. But there’s no denying that it was an absolute joy to watch the comedy timing of Cole Escola and the rest of the cast.
5 - Water for Elephants (Musical)
Because it’s not enough for Broadway actors to just act, sing and dance, this show has acrobatics and puppetry too. Can’t help but be enchanted by the whole thing. It’s not higher on my list because while the music and lyrics were OK, they weren’t as inventive or memorable as other musicals.
4 - Suffs (Musical)
If you’re going to put on a conventional musical without too many flashy gimmicks, it had better be pretty much perfect. And this was. Great music, simple yet vibrant scenery, and a story based on women’s suffragists which could be applied to any multi-generational liberal movement.
BEST
3 - Stereophonic (Play, with music)
Yes, it’s a freakishly immersive portrayal of a band trying to record an album in the 70s. But what it’s really about is the frustration, claustrophobia, perfectionism, insanity, tension, euphoria, jealousy, futility and all-round relentlessness of any small-group endeavour. I know that’s too many words, but it was a three-hour play with all those things. And I HARD RELATE.
2 - The Outsiders (Musical)
Visceral and violent, with stunning lighting effects. Then poignant and heartbreakingly beautiful. Transported me straight back to the confused and slightly tormented 13 year-old boy who studied the book in Mr Cliff-Hodges’ English class. Stay gold, Ponyboy…
1 - Hadestown (Musical)
Intimate, so so intimate. Also clever, sexy, funny, the whole spectrum of human emotion that you would expect from a 2,000-year old classical Greek tragedy brought to life. And performed with the kind of talent that can touch your soul with the raise of an eyebrow. Just wow.
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Unassuming Amsterdam
If you’re in need of a little burst of positivity, I can recommend a trip to Amsterdam. It rains here pretty much every day, but no-one complains. (Well, unless they’re British of course…) The national cuisine is delightfully stodgy, but people still manage to keep in shape. (Bitterballen, anyone?) And contrary to its modest nature, Amsterdam has had a massive influence on the world, arguably birthing the very notions of global capitalism, modern liberalism, and personal privacy. Indrukwekkend.
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Two Observations about Dubai
Two quick observations from two days in Dubai.
It was my first time back to Dubai in many years, but luckily I still know some great people here. And it was fascinating to take the temperature on how things have been changing. Sure, everywhere has its downsides, and Dubai is no exception. But in a world where openness and diversity seem to be in retreat, Dubai has clearly been steadily moving in a progressive direction. Perhaps until now I’ve been guilty of only noticing all the glitz and the silliness of Dubai, and overlooking the fact that maybe its heart is in the right place…
While I enjoy taking the temperature figuratively, I’m not quite so keen on the literal version when the answer is 45°C. You might think that July is a crazy time to visit Dubai, and you’d be absolutely correct. But at the same time there are fewer people here in the summer, so crowds are thinner, queues are shorter, and traffic is lighter. Having largely stuck to indoor activities, I feel better off coming now rather than contending with the masses in February. So I’ve been one happy traveler, and especially grateful to everyone who went out of their way to say hello in person.
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My Love Letter to Southern California
My 5-minute little love letter to Southern California.
Highlights!
00:24 🌅 Classic Californian Sunset
00:29 🌴 Classic Californian Sunrise
00:49 🤸🏿♀️ Unofficial SuperBowl Show
01:13 🐦 The World’s Cutest Bird?
01:26 🦍 One Silverback Greets Another
01:58 🌮 The World’s Tastiest Tacos?
02:43 🥂A Gaggle of Angelinos
02:58 🍳 Olde American Diner
03:21 🏙️ The LA Skyline
03:48 😍 James being James
03:56 🏫 Abbott Elementary
04:21 🧙♂️ Middle-aged Wizardry
04:46 🏆 Lunch with an Emmy Winner
04:55 🪞 Artistic Mirror Shot
05:08 😎 House-wives/husbands of the OC
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Christmas in the Maldives
It’s not that easy to island-hop through the Maldives, because all the seaplanes fan out from the capital city, Malé. So once you’re at your resort island, you’re pretty much stuck there. As a restless traveler who bores easily, this was a bit of a concern. But as a restless traveler who also a) dislikes sand, lotion, and the mixture of sand and lotion; b) burns to a crisp after five minutes in the sun; c) usually avoids being in and out of water because of the constant juggle between contact lenses, glasses, sunglasses and prescription sunglasses; d) has yet to find a flip-flop that doesn’t chafe; e) has yet to find a swimming trunk that doesn’t chafe; f) is terrified of the open sea; and g) is even more terrified of spending money indulgently, I didn’t know which concern concerned me the most. So in the end, I decided not to worry about any of them.
🤓 Maldives Facts 🤓
🇲🇻 It’s the world’s flattest and lowest-lying country. 80% is only 1 metre above sea level, and the highest point stands at a whopping… 2 metres.
🇲🇻 It has the world’s highest national divorce rate. On average, a woman in the Maldives has divorced three times before the age of 30.
🇲🇻 The word ‘atoll’ comes from the Maldives. An atoll is a ring-shaped series of islands or reefs surrounding a lagoon. The Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls.
🇲🇻 Many of the smaller islands have a single purpose. For example one is a trash dump; another is for oil storage; another holds the prison.
🇲🇻 The alphabet used in the Maldives is called Dhivehi, and it’s unique. It looks like this: .ދިވެހި އަކުރު ތަފާތު ވެއެވެ. ހީވަނީ މިހެންނެވެ
🇲🇻 The Maldives is one of the world's most geographically dispersed countries. Many inhabitants on the very smallest islands have little contact with the outside world.
🇲🇻 All the famous white-sand beaches in the Maldives are the result of undigested reef material eaten by parrotfish.
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