So, I write this blog on a day where the weather was a low of 7′c and a high of 18′c… In England; that’d be a pretty good day, break out the T-shirt kinda weather. However, just over 2 weeks ago, when I took this photos, it was a very different story…

So, way back on the 21st of January myself and B headed to Xi’an to visit her Auntie, Uncle and little cousin. While we were there we decided to check out the Wild Goose Pagoda. The park it’s in also features a huge water fountain, the largest in Asia I believe, and at night they throw in some lights and music and put on a show. Anyway, I grabbed the camera, and B grabbed her cousin, and we headed to check it out…

Just returned from climbing Hua Shan, again. It was good fun, and very tiring. This time I went to all 5 peaks. Full write-up coming soon. I have 750 photos to edit, and about another 3-4 blog posts I need to do about other things that have happened. Let alone the fact that spring festival / Chinese new year is fast approaching. Ahhhh, busy, busy, busy!

“Random Snap” is a new category/feature on the blog for when I just have one thing I want to share, and doesn’t quite merit it’s own blog post. The quality of the photography may also be lacking and even from *gasp* a camera-phone!

So, a few weeks ago now we were warmly invited to Peggy’s wedding. Peggy is one of the Chinese Teachers at Aston, so we gracefully accepted and went along, this time armed with B’s compact camera.

So, in my last post I alluded to this. On the way home from Fuping, I was looking at the sun and thinking “that looks a bit strange.” at first I shrugged it off as my eyes going a bit funny… but then it started to look more and more odd, until I realised… it’s an eclipse

A few weeks ago I took a trip to Fuping county with some Chinese friends. One of my friends has a business exporting dried persimmon to Korea. In fact, I had no idea what a persimmon was, so I was quite intrigued…

Say ‘hello’ to the latest iteration of the QQ. This is where normally I’d tell you if it’s the QQ2, or the QQ3 or the QQ4…but, the internet isn’t even able to clairfy. Probably because I search in English, and this car is pretty much unknown in the English-speaking world. Well, apart from it’s original ancestor. There’s an interesting tale behind the original Chery QQ, it’s basically a carbon copy of the Cheverolet Spark (The Daewoo Matiz) to Europeans, but with zero agreement or royalties to Cheverolet. Welcome to the land of copying…

So, it’s somewhat of a tradition that I spend every Christmas holiday in the garage working on some sort of car-related project. I think it’s a great tradition, and there’s nothing like sitting at the Christmas dinner table with your hands and even your face covered in oil. So, I wasn’t going to let being in China stop me…

In fact, I can’t take credit for this one. This was snapped by Beryl, on her new Canon Digital IXUS 95 IS. (Which I adore by the way! haha.) You see lots of kids going around like this, I think they look adorable!

“Random Snap” is a new category/feature on the blog for when I just have one thing I want to share, and doesn’t quite merit it’s own blog post. The quality of the photography may also be lacking and even from *gasp* a camera-phone!

So, in addition to my previous comments about Christmas in China, one other random aspect of a Chinese Christmas was in the evening, when everybody was setting off Chinese wish lanterns. They’re like mini hot-air-balloons, but powered by candle. You make a wish, then set it off. Here you can see some floating away high in the sky from a window in my apartment building. (Not the local prison, honest!)

“Random Snap” is a new category/feature on the blog for when I just have one thing I want to share, and doesn’t quite merit it’s own blog post. The quality of the photography may also be lacking and even from *gasp* a camera-phone!