Supersized Painting

Large Scale Painting Project As the Middle School art teacher, each year I am charged with producing the ‘backdrop’ for our Middle School Production.  The Backdrop is a huge canvas that…

Travelling Across Generations: Egypt

As part of the Empress of Britain world cruise, my grandmother stopped in Egypt in late 1932.  Together with her sister and mother they rode camels around the great pyramids…

Travelling Across Generations: Introduction

My Travelling Heritage On a recent visit to HK, my parents brought with them (at my request) two of my grandmother’s photo albums.  My father’s mother, whom I called Granny,…

How do you count countries…?

How many countries have you been to?  A common question among travellers and one that friends and I have amicably argued about for several years. But before you begin counting…

Reflections on being a teacher

“Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach”.  This was once said to me shortly after I had announced my decision to become a teacher.  Thirteen years later and having…

Hong Kong Reading: Getting to know HK through books

A lovely way to get greater insight into a place is to read about it.  Non-fiction books can certainly give you the details, the history and the facts.  However, biographies,…

Hong Kong Food Tour

When A & I returned to Hong Kong in 2007 we tried our hand at tourism and set up a company with the view to taking people on walking tours…

Destination: Chengdu

I spent 5 days in Chengdu recently.  To be honest you could see all the sites in 4 or even 3 days, but as we wanted to take it easy…

It’s China, but not as I knew it

I just got back from 9 days in China.  I spent 3 days in Shanghai at a teachers conference followed by 5 1/2 days in Chengdu, Sichuan Province on holiday….

Chinglish Signs

English signs in foreign countries are a huge source of entertainment, but nowhere does them quite like China.  On my recent short visit which included 3 days in Shanghai and…