Category: A Totally Impractical Guide to…
-
Leicester is For Food Nerds: A Tangentially Culinary Introduction to an Unlikely Place
Leicester (lɛstər/ les-tər) isn’t exactly on the global culinary map. It’s barely on any map at all, except perhaps one detailing manufacturers of, say, sturdy meat pies or Indian sweets. Rumour has it that people have traveled vast distances to get a big box of Burfi from one of the sweet shops in…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to Camping in England With a 4 Month Old Baby
Last weekend, we borrowed a car from our crunchy granola car-share group in Leicester and drove to somewhere in Derbyshire (pronounced, approximately, Darbəshr, in case you aren’t intuitively British*) in the cold, grey rain, for a fine weekend of family camping, frantic trail cycling (which we hiked at a leisurely pace) and multi-roomed tents more elaborate…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to Roughing it in the Wilds of Vancouver Island
For those of you used to my usual summer missives replete with food porn photos and freshly gleaned insights and wild tales from exotic locales such as Morocco or Sri Lanka or Myanmar or Indonesia, I fear I am letting you down. And for those of you who rely on me (desperately, I hope) for…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to an Out of Body Weekend in Jǐnán
After a few months’ hiatus from my ongoing whirlwind Tour de Chine (the Academic Route), I’m back on the road, hopping trains like a nerdy hobo and wearing butt-shaped grooves into creaky university chairs all over this fine nation. This past weekend, I went to Jǐnán. Have you ever heard of Jǐnán? No? That’s…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to a Sudden Jaunt to Liuzhou, Guangxi
Over the past decade or two, I’ve become quite adept at rolling with the punches. Most of my jobs have called for finely tuned improvisational skills and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to hone them. The other night, I dreamed that I was told I had ten minutes to prepare a 4 hour intensive workshop…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to 6 Underachieving Nights in Hong Kong and Macau
This is one of those times when I have, in theory, at least 4 blog posts worth of things to write about but haven’t the wherewithal to even try to shove it all into one, much less 4. Bear with me then, as I attempt to guide you through a fabulously exciting week in Hong…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to an Emotionally Stunted Weekend in Hefei
The first time I went to Hefei, the glorious provincial capital of ayi-central Anhui, about 3 or 4 years ago, I stepped off the D-train after four squishy hours onto the platform and was carried along in the swarm (because really, in China, in the train stations, it is inevitably a swarm that carries you out) through clapboard…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to an Intellectually Dirty Weekend in Nanjing
I often (well, once every few months, which is technically often in geological terms) get emails from people asking me for advice on what to do in, say, Random Chinese City I Mentioned Once In a Post. Although I feel slightly honoured that someone actually thought I might have a clue, I usually have to…
-
A Totally Impractical Guide to Morocco: Casablanca!
I’m not just here to give you completely useless information about China, no. Every so often, I do get out and go to other countries. Today, I’m in Morocco. Yes, just like that. I’m sneaky that way. Ladies and gents, I give you the most useless guide to Casablanca, ever. (NOTE: Wanna see my etchings?…
-
2nd Tier City, 1st Class Hotel: A Totally Impractical Review of Hangzhou Oakwood Residence
As you may know, my Super Secret job with the linguistic CIA sends me all over China to do covert linguistic operations. If I told you more about what I do for a living, they’ll kill Noam Chomsky. We can’t have that. What I can do, however, is to use my extensive experience and critical…
-
Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou
I’ve been on a bit of a ‘zhou bender in the past month, flitting around the Eastern seaboard of China with two 4-day stints in Hangzhou and one down in Fuzhou. Given this, I should be writing a top ten list of places to visit, delightful things to see, local delicacies to sample, cultural curiosities…
-
Hello, Dalian! A Totally Impractical Guide to That City up by Korea
And by impractical, I really mean it this time. I have absolutely no information that might be of use to you here, unless you get sent up for work at the very last minute, as I did, and need to know where you can get really good sushi (*hint hint* the Grande Teda Mercure hotel…