A Load-Shedding Mystery
After three solid days of bureaucracy, with at least two more to come, a woman’s fancy lightly turns to facials. Well, mine does, anyway. Even...
Tagged: shopping
A Very Merry Christmas at the Chinese Embassy
If there’s ever a way to get your Christmas off to more of a flying start than a trip to the visa section of the...
Important Projects in Kathmandu
Among my social circle, I am famous for my financial providence, frugality and forward planning, so it will surprise absolutely no one that, when we...
The Other Side of Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar
One of remarkably few downsides to travelling with my son is, well, markets. I like nothing better than wandering around local markets looking at what’s...
Oh James! I'm Sorry About the Jade!
James is bookish, bespectacled, educated in Kunming and Chiang Mai, a walking encyclopedia of Chinese history and culture. He’s thirty, with a three-year-old son, yet...
Anyone for Chicken Claw?
Wandering around Kunming, our “home” for the past week, I sometimes feel a little like those British journalists inspecting America during the Gilded Age, marvelling...
Solo in Sydney* or: Getting My Groove Back
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a pulse will not be in want of attention in a cocktail...
Shopping Mission — Hanoi
It was S’s (the nine-year-old’s father’s) last day with us today. And we spent it in Hanoi. The bulk of it, in fact… drum roll…...
Short Trousers…
Why is it that someone capable of the Wildean (or Timmy Timpson-esque) remark — “I’ve just been stung by an aquatic delicacy; I am hardly...
Mega-Malls
Yesterday we said goodbye to Granny and Grandpa, who are off to Hong Kong for a week of sybaritic luxury with an old friend, then...