Tag: Street Photos
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Hey, Shanghai, I missed you, y’know?
I wasn’t sure if China wanted me back. The fact that I managed to set the Contagious Disease Carrier detector off at immigration at Pudong Airport was a moment of concern. I had casually strolled through, feeling robust and healthy, albeit tired from having left the flat at 6am, and I set it pinging…
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Time Travelling Postcards: Cairo, in the Mad Summer of 2006
In the summer of 2006, I decided to take the train from Istanbul to Damascus, leaving from Haydarpasa station on the Asian side of the city and ending up in Aleppo some days later. I was totally going to do it. All my friends were doing it. Syrians were lovely people. Aleppo was lovely.…
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Time Travelling Postcards: Anatolian Road Trip, 2003
I didn’t always live in Shanghai. Or Hanoi. Although this blog places my online identity firmly in heart of east Asia, I have actually spent more time living in Turkey, both in European Istanbul and Asian Anatolia- 6 years in total. Sometimes even I forget what a huge chunk of my formative adult years that…
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Time Travelling Postcards From: Christmas in New York, 2002
It’s damp season here in Hanoi. The moldy months are in full swing and I’m feeling super protective of my electronics and my reams of ephemeral life data. Hanoi, like Shanghai before it, kills electronics. I’m quietly doing multiple back ups, fully aware of the three external hard drives and two laptops that Shanghai’s humidity…
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Notes From Hanoi: Post-Tet Bling, Wise Men and Orion Pies For the Gods
I’m surprisingly comfortable with having no clue what’s going on around me. I’ve spent most of my adult life in countries where I’m not only far from fluent in the language but am also illiterate and still learning the cultural ropes. Vietnam- and specifically here in Hanoi because I can’t really speak for the rest…
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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: Everything is Amazing When You Leave Your Phone at Home
Yesterday I left my phone in the hotel room when I went out with Thwack strapped to my front. We were just popping out for a moment to hunt and gather some sort of lunch for me before I had to take a cranky, snoozy baby back to the room for a midday nap.…
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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: A Home, a Banh Mi and Thou
Welcome to Day 2 in my return to blogging, miniature stylee. Today we went and visited our new house. It isn’t ours yet- there is a lovely Danish family still living in it- but we got to have a second look around it for the first time since we paid four months’ rent up front…
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Tiny Notes From Hanoi: It’s Kinda Different With a Kid
Welcome to this exciting new series of (hopefully) near daily updates on our very recent move to Hanoi (like, last Friday)! Between living in a compact little hotel room in an area without walkable sidewalks (but with a fine cacophany of scooters roaring at all hours) and having Thwack full time and having two separate…
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Here Be Dragons: Laser Cat Goes to Pudong to Renew Her Visa (Comic Book Edition)
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I’ll Be Lucky to Escape With My Waistline Intact: My Last Month of Eating Everything in Shanghai
This is going to be a major food porn post. I just realized that after over four years in this city, I’ve really never delved into all things foodie on this blog. Mops, cats, pollution, water monsters, bad maps– sure. Food, not so much. Or if I did write about it, it was…
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These Were The People In My Neighbourhood: Notes on Istanbul, Tear Gas, Riot Police, Memory, Identity and Stuff
About four and a half years ago, I left Turkey. I had been living there for six years at that point, mostly in Istanbul. I was both very ready to leave and not at all ready. I spent the next several years feeling quietly sick with grief and regret, snarling irrationally at Shanghai and building…
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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…