Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
I’m in Copenhagen for a few days and thought I’d go see the the Little Mermaid (“den lille Havfrue”, originally created by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen). Ok, so the statue is actually currently in Shanghai for the Expo, but I was curious what would be in its place. So after walking through a beautiful park (filled with runners and … Read More
…is a Canadian dude from Ottawa?! His name in Chinese is 大山 (‘dashan’ or big mountain), and he’s crazy famous. Hilarious because I would never have heard of him in Canada–but Chinese people tell me he’s more famous than Mao. (How’s that for a benchmark?) So I guess it’s no surprise that the Canadian embassy in Beijing now has his … Read More
Liang pi literally means ‘cold skin’ in Chinese, and is a lovely cold snack served in the summer. This dish comes originally from Shaanxi province but you can pretty much find it everywhere in northern China, and in Beijing it is common to find liang pi stands on the street, like so: It’s basically a cold noodle dish, but the … Read More
so far my favourite foodstuff in Norway has been… jam! it’s more fruity and has less of that artificial gelatin consistency than what I’m used to, which means it’s easier to use a spoon with this stuff than a knife. our cupboard is currently stocked with apricot, strawberry, raspberry, and (deliciously chunky) apple jam–and with a higher turnover rate than … Read More
Trains are a great way to travel within China. There are several different categories of train, as identified through the route number. Routes consisting only of digits (no letters) are the regular, cheapest (and slowest) trains. Train numbers starting with ‘K’ are fast trains (kuai literally means fast), T trains are te-kuai (especially fast), and Z trains are zui kuai … Read More
There is a section of the Great Wall just outside of Dandong called 虎山长城 (Tiger Mountain Great Wall), again along the border with North Korea. The wall itself is not all that remarkable if you’ve been to other sections: it looks way too new & reconstructed, with the site obviously renovated to herd tourists. But I must admit the view … Read More
This is my second time facing North Korea–the first time being a tour of the DMZ organized by the USO–but this time it’s from China. I’m now in Dandong, a very industrial looking city with 600,000 inhabitants. 查看大图 As you can see, the Yalu (“duck green”) river separates China from North Korea–the Chinese side looks rather raucous and full of … Read More
Stavanger is Norway’s oil city, and so naturally I had to visit the oil museum. Norway was apparently a poor country less than two generations ago, but in 1969 oil was discovered in the North Sea. Since then, the government has been careful about limiting foreign rights to the oil. In 1972, Statoil was founded (though it was later partially … Read More
Photos from the city tour organized by the Oslo International Summer School during my first weekend in town: Vigeland’s Park (filled with statues created by a single artist), the Viking Museum, City Hall (where the Nobel Peace Prize is presented each year), and the wonderful Oslo Opera House (designed to look like an iceberg from the outside).
While Oslo is technically in a fjord (as defined by wikipedia), the Oslofjord is not all that impressive. But after this weekend, I can finally say that I have been to a real movie-worthy Norwegian fjord! A couple of hours away from Stavanger (on the southwest coast of Norway) is Lysefjord: View Larger Map To get to the start-off point … Read More