Check out one of my photos from Scotland in an online guide to Edinburgh. The photo is of Holyrood Park.

Why, how unlikely!

Thanks to Aubrey for TEN new pairs of Unlikely Animal Friends!

Yesterday Dev and I took a three-and-a-half hour train trip to Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, about two hundred miles south of Shanghai. Yiwu is the capital of China's export market. Our hotel was next door to the International Trade City, a ten-million-square-foot center with more than 30,000 stalls displaying wholesale trade samples of almost every imaginable consumer good. The Trade City, in turn, anchors a wider selection of smaller markets and stalls, plus freight companies, customs consults, and other affiliated businesses.

This is the place to find Indian mehndi (henna tattoo) patterns, scissors, inflatable novelty hammers, flashlights, plastic back braces, statues of the Virgin Mary, rain coats, LED signs, hookah pipes, Native American handicrafts, push brooms, fake flowers, Christmas wreaths, and children's backpacks. Yes, and more.

Then we spent a romantic Saturday night at the Aegean Sea Bar in the lobby of the Best Western Hotel in Yiwu, China. Classy.

Check out our photos here.

On our trip to Yiwu this weekend, Dev enjoyed a refreshing beer, now "Free From Formaldehyde"!

Dino Pillows

I just finished this embroidered pillow for my sister Gillian, an homage to the excellent Dinosaur Comics.

Well, this is great

Found here, with thanks to Grant!

Also, stay tuned for some reworking of this blog and a lot of new content soon.

Snow in Shanghai

Presenting, the baby squid hat. As worn by Rosemary Spindler.

(Courtesy of Rosemary's blog. Inspired by this knit version.)

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season is upon us! Just a few blocks from Yuyuan Gardens we went strolling in a Christmas wonderland of cheap Chinese holiday decorations. Why are all the Santas playing the saxophone?

"Execution in Progress"

(Aijima Island)

Friends and well-wishers may enjoy these photos from our recent trip to Japan - I've highlighted the best with a tag of the same name. My husband (here looking rather nautical) took the bulk of the photos, and all the good ones.

Japan was a joy despite the many privations of backpacking. Anyone who knows me - and many who do not - can guess I do not care for backpacking. It was my husband's idea, and he's been roundly excoriated since. It's not that I am addicted to fine food and first-class travel - I can and do enjoy low-budget fare, cozy hostels, and public transport. What I do not enjoy is looking like a damn fool. Backpacking is all fine and good in the great outdoors, where tramping around with all your belongings strapped to your being is a necessity. There is nothing more ludicrous than seeing a 30-year-old man amble through the Tokyo subways as though he's mistaken it all for Yosemite.

What troubles me about backpacking - a point I took pains to explicate clearly and repeatedly while wringing out my underlinen in the hostel sink - is that it's entirely artificial. There was no reason at all we had to carry one bag to Tokyo, and no reason to carry that one bag on our backs. It's as utterly arbitrary as deciding we're only allowed to bring things that are red. But having accepted this dubious premise, we were then bound to suffer for it. Intentionally bringing four pairs of socks on a ten-day trip is unforgivable. There I was in one of the world's most fashionable cities looking like it was laundry day at forestry school. I may have been wearing brown hiking boots with black track pants - but as all those photos have been destroyed, we'll never know, will we?

And yet, as I said, we had a wonderful time. We started off in Tokyo, which was every bit as elegant and sophisticated as I'd hoped, and then on to Kyoto and Himeji before we skipped over to Shikoku island. From there, we went to Matsuyama, Hojo, the islands of Kashima and Aijima, and the Kazura Bashi bridge. Shikoku was lovely - it reminded me in many ways of the Pacific Northwest, only even more cool, fresh, and green. True, Aijima Island was full of centipedes - but then, that's what you get when you navigate entirely on a series of cartoon novelty maps.

We hit many of the prime Japan sights, including fish markets, cuteness emporiums, noodle shops, and Harajuku street kids. And, of course, we stayed in a capsule hotel - much more comfortable and pleasant than I would have expected. I'd like to install some sort of space capsule into my apartment. Trip highlights included the incomparable Meiji shrine, the dry garden at Konchi-in, and Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera temple (a candidate for one of the new seven wonders of the world). And the contraption Dev build to dry our clothes.

Perhaps the thing that most impressed me about Japan was how many extraordinarily kind and helpful people we met in every city and town. No sooner did we open a guide book or look quizzically at a road sign than someone would appear to give directions, offer suggestions, or draw out minutely detailed maps. One old woman even made me some origami animals while we rode the train together - a rabbit and a dachshund.

I am back from India, with 771 photographs posted here. For those not inclined to view 771 photographs, I have around 40 tagged as "best."

I will also try to write up the trip on this blog soon, but I have a lot of work this week, including writing four or five commercial articles on the same trip. Why give away the cow when you can sell the milk for.... well, you get the idea.

Tomorrow Dev and I head off for India. By the time we return, it will be March and, we expect, the end of winter in Shanghai. I have posted a new selection of winter photos on our Flickr page under the heading "Shanghai (Winter 2006)." Highlights include our abusive neighborhood flower vendor, "psychos or drunkards", dueling DVD stores, New Year's decorations for the year of the pig, dog pelts for sale, fireworks, styrofoam transport, brunch, and Dev's back after undergoing cupping.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, full of Gaelic football, wedding magazines, unexplained wounds, Christmas shopping, and a daring kayak self-rescue.

I'm leaving for the U.S. on Wednesday and taking three weeks off work, which means I have three weeks of work to get done in the next two days. However, I did find time to post our Thailand vacation photos at last - enjoy!

I just posted some photos from my wonderful trip to Vietnam. If you don't have the time or inclination to sort through all 250+ shots, I particularly recommend the ones tagged "mekong."

I intended to write up a travel story to go with the photos, but sadly I've left the expansive leisure of travel for the endless toil of Shanghai, and therefore I don't have time right now.

More soon?

We also made Shanghaiist - more beer festival coverage, our photos are prominently featured in the German tent crowd.

We've added new photos taken with Mina and James, and Andy on their recent visits. More to follow.

Our friend Andy just set off from Shanghai after a four-day visit on the way to Beijing as part of his round the world (twice) tour. He took some great photos of Shanghai which I will soon add to my own Flickr site, tagged as "andy."

In the spirit of these photos, I present a list of photos I wish I had taken:

• A man bicycling while pulling a 9x9x9 foot cube of styrofoam;
  
• A dog pelt vendor selling a row of furs on a bamboo stand, each so complete that you could still easily guess the breed;
  
• Six women lined up in a row on the sidewalk, washing their hair in plastic buckets in perfect unison, their hair one sudsy black curtain;
  
• And today, a domestic duck standing perfectly still in the middle of a warm, dirty rain in the middle of a ramshackle apartment complex garden in the middle of a dense, urban section of the city.
  

I absolutely must start carrying a camera at all times.

The Way Forward

"Construct a consumer environment of rest assured is a common duty of whole society."

- Banner over the entrance to Shanghai's Xiang Yang market, home to thousands of fake designer bags, watches, shoes, and jackets

Striding Resolutely Into the Abyss