Travel: Wellington’s Chinese New Year Lantern Festival

#Wellington’s annual #Chinese New Year Festival went ahead in early 2020 despite COVID-19. The waterfront became a sea of dancing colours with luminous koi fish, red dragons dancing, and illuminated Māori wahine and much more #travel #NewZealand

Book Review: The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing is a mixture of reportage, biography and creative non-fiction. Weaving together strands of history, philosophy and art, Laing explores one of the last taboos of humanity which is loneliness. This is an alarming and at times uncomfortable book to read if you have been or are now lonely. Yet loneliness is common to all of us at some point in our lives. It’s what we seek at all costs to avoid and hide under the rug.

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #107

Haere mai and welcome to edition #107 of the ever-lasting gobstopper that is 10 Interesthing Things I Found on the Internet just when you thought all weird things have been exhausted…here comes a few more to tickle your fancy and light up your nether-regions. Let me know what you think below in the comments…Ciao for now.

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #67

Roll-up, roll-up for another big top edition of 10 Interesting Things I Found, edition number 67, it’s a strange world we live in filled with strange, half-human half-creature beings that inhabit positions of power. Needless to say all we can do is escape into a world of our own making, so here it is… ElegantContinue reading “10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #67”

Travel: Arashiyama boat ride, Kyoto

This is a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me and the Polish Bear, we went on a boat tour in Arashiyama in Kyoto in 2019, it was unforgettable. I took a lot of footage from my Canon and used a gimbal to smooth out the rocking on the boat and put it together asContinue reading “Travel: Arashiyama boat ride, Kyoto”

Travel: The Beautiful Terrace Windows of Triana, Sevilla

Back in 2010 during a particularly sweltering summer, I visited Andalucia and soaked in the beautiful architecture in Sevilla. The best way to see all of the charming neighbourhoods and historic monuments was going the tourist routes with an open-top bus. This also afforded me excellent views onto all of the terrace houses with theirContinue reading “Travel: The Beautiful Terrace Windows of Triana, Sevilla”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #44

Roll-up, roll-up to the bizarre three-ringed circus of 10 Interesting Things, where acrobats breathe fire and things go bump in the night. I hope you enjoy this carnival of weekly delights…. Fairytale images from Yakutia, Siberia by Alexeï Vassiliev I love the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ vibes of these places and the combination ofContinue reading “10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #44”

Celestial ceilings and soaring skies in Poland

Poland in the summer is filled with enveloping sunlight, as bright and life affirming as a hug. Vibrant life, bees and flies take a circuitous route through fields of barley, poppies and wheat in the countryside. The air filled with drifting dandelion and pollen. A cacophany of bird song fills the countryside accompanied by aContinue reading “Celestial ceilings and soaring skies in Poland”

Japan’s 72 gossamer-light and poetic microseasons

The traditional seasons in Japan are marked out by impercetibly small changes in nature across 72 miniature seasons in a year, each lasting 5 days and reflecting the fleeting, impermanent and diaphanous beauty of nature and all of its wonders. There are 24 divisions or sekki in the calendar that are split into 72 kōContinue reading “Japan’s 72 gossamer-light and poetic microseasons”