With a lot more free time on my hands than before, I thought it would resume the blog as a way of getting me regularly writing as I'm hoping to get into better academic writing habits. Without the pressure of a deadline, however distant, it's hard to finish anything. I've got a paper that I've been tinkering with for about 2 years, and it's only 3000 words long. That's an average of about 5 words per day (although I have been doing other things). I've decided ...

Whenever you talk to somebody here, you will be asked why you came to Chengdu and if you like it. Any negative comments will be met with incredulity as they assume that you have misunderstood the question. Or, you will give a token “Yeah, it’s great”. If they hear you over the sound of beeping horns and people hocking up to spit at your feet, then the logic begins to show. Sichuan people are proud of two things, beautiful women and delicious food. I don’t...

Du Fu lived from 712-770 and is, apparently, a key poet in the history of China. He moved to Chengdu as a political exile, where he spent 5 years living in a thatched cottage and writing about how happy he was, despite being destitute. Coming to China to see a thatched cottage seemed a little odd considering where Claire lives in the UK is full of them (in fact we had our goodbye to England meal in a thatched pub), it would be like going all the way to Beijing ...

I remember after bagging a ten pound flight from Bradford to Alicante thinking how far I would be willing to travel on a budget airline. If Ryanair did London to Bangkok (or Oxford to Pattaya, more likely) for a hundred quid, would you? Two weeks ago we sort of answered that question, flying to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia. At 200 GBP each for a flight with just one week's notice, it was almost half the price of any competitors. Bags and food were extras, as wa...

The next 2 weeks are public holidays in China, which means the language school only has a few classes. We're in this week, mainly afternoons, and have 9 days off from Saturday which means only one thing for me - it's panda time! There are 3-4 ways to see pandas around here. There is a 'nursery' where baby pandas are bred and kept, and this is probably all artificial. I really think this is where pandas are sadly heading - they're like living museum curiousi...