Random scribblings from a man in Asia
Posted in Places on Apr 9th, 2010
Mount Kinabalu is a freakish rock formation rising to over four thousand metres. It stands alone – its neighbours dwarfed by its size, the highest point between the Himalayas and Papua New Guinea. The mountain was such an important symbol in the area that in 1968 the people renamed the nearby state capital Jesselton, Kota [...]
Posted in Places on Feb 13th, 2010
This is the mountain next to the university here in Kaohsiung where I’m studying Chinese. When I get back from my trip to the Himalayas in June, I’m moving into a small place on the side of the hill here, looking out to the ocean. Can’t wait!
The photos below are from a day hiking in [...]
Posted in Places on Nov 9th, 2009
I spent a couple of weeks in the area around Huangshan and delayed climbing for a few days because of rain. By the time the rain cleared, the other backpackers that I’d spent time with in the city had moved on to their next destinations so on my own, early one bitterly cold morning I [...]
Posted in Places on Oct 15th, 2009
I got really lucky in Tai Shan. I registered for Couchsurfing.org when I was back in London but decided to try it out for the first time travelling to Taishan. The host I connected with was an Australian lady called Lynne who had been teaching in Tai’an (the city by the mountain) for the past [...]
Posted in Places on Oct 11th, 2009
Qingdao is a buzzing metropolis by the sea. It was great to escape from the mega-cities of Shanghai and Beijing to the more manageable Qingdao where you could still find heavy traffic and some pollution, but equally totally sidestep them if you wanted. Even though it’s a smaller city by Chinese standards, it is still [...]