I have been back to China for almost a week now and have pretty much settled in. Thankfully, due to iron willpower, I managed to overcome my yet-lag quite quickly by trying my very hardest to adapt to the local time as soon as I arrived. I am now back to my usual 6am to 11pm days of work, reading, running and yoga.
After a string of fairly lengthy posts, I thought I’d mix things up slightly and just post several of my latest pictures, documenting: the view from my office window at home during the day and in the evening – we had a particularly spectacular sun set the other day… my stint in the ‘good life’ (see my previous post here), the white garden, which was magnificent yesterday, whilst it was misty in the morning, and finally my new bee hive and my raspberry swiss roll, decorated with raspberries from the garden.
In light of my new found ‘holiday‘ state and a friend’s 30th birthday, I traveled to Trier on Friday. I vaguely remember visiting there with school once, as part of an outing with my latin class, but it’s always different when you go somewhere out of your on free will.
Having spent the last few weeks traveling, attending conferences, working on papers and answering student emails, I have found myself enjoying a bit of a holiday over the last few days. It wasn’t really planned and actually crept up on me rather unexpectedly: my work email is refusing to grant me access!
Can we survive without communication technology?
A good friend of mine has recently found himself without an internet connection, a mobile telephone or a land line. In essence he’s been transported back into the middle of the 19th century…
No room for chaos in ‘Pleasantville’
Been back in Europe for about 3 weeks now and just thought I’d write down a few of my thoughts and impressions since returning.
Left Ningbo on Wednesday morning, via Hangzhou Bay Bridge, to head up to Shanghai for a 48 hour indulgence.
Real life insights and reflections
Had an invitation in Shanghai last night to go and attend a screening of a documentary shot in Guilin, in the area of the three gorges, on the relocation and hardship of the locals as a result of the three gorges dam.
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Over the last few months I have been documenting some of the flora on campus – and as the semester draws to a close, the floral display on campus is reaching its zenith. So last weekend I took a few hours off work to try and re-generate from my marking marathon and bring you some more of the sublime floral fireworks that are exploding all over campus.