I felt like we experienced the “real” China for the first time Monday evening when we took a taxi through hutongs narrow streets and alleys that form neighborhoods in Beijing’s center to Tiananmen Square.
Thousands and thousands of people, mostly Chinese, converge on the massive square in the evening to watch the Chinese flag be lowered. [...]
Living or travelling as a vegetarian is easy on the west coast of North America — which is where I’m used to doing it. But venture out of this well-defined comfort zone, and it gets a trifle less easy to manage.
The most challenging situation as a vegetarian is trying to explain — without the benefit [...]
The days of Russian hotels that featured surprise cold showers, burned-out light bulbs and mysterious-smelling blankets are slowly passing into the realm of funny memories.
“Right at the end of the Soviet Union, everything was still Soviet standard. There was only one model bed that was approved for use in hotels for foreigners. If you’re 6-foot-2 [...]
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Adem Dogan, a Turkish-born used-car salesman from Leverkusen, Germany, never thought much about chicken farming until he got to Turkmenistan 10 years ago. Then, while visiting a customer who bought secondhand Mercedes sedans for resale in the country, he stumbled across an opportunity he couldn’t resist.
Nearly all of the eggs sold in [...]
ONE HAS broken a wrist, another fell so heavily he split his
helmet. Yet another was recently treated in hospital for fractured
ribs. And the rest? Bruises, cuts and enough muscle soreness to
know that this is serious training.
This eclectic confederation of amateur cyclists has until June
to get fit enough to spend just over a week riding hundreds [...]
ONE HAS broken a wrist, another fell so heavily he split his
helmet. Yet another was recently treated in hospital for fractured
ribs. And the rest? Bruises, cuts and enough muscle soreness to
know that this is serious training.
This eclectic confederation of amateur cyclists has until June
to get fit enough to spend just over a week riding hundreds [...]
The Shanghai-based New Zealander travelled the world for more than 15 years, eventually returning home as a salesman for an electronics company.
A job offer five years ago to establish the Asian regional headquarters of a big European multinational lured the 45-year-old to the Chinese financial centre.
I have always been good at setting stuff up.
But after [...]
But its not just the lush landscape or proximity to one of the worlds best surf breaks that lured Cowen to the village of Canggu three years ago.
As the owner of Australian leather accessories company Mogil, Cowen also sees Bali as an ideal manufacturing base for her handbags, belts and shoes.
The labour is very cheap [...]
We met James in a Lonely Planet-approved place called Dicke Wirtin, in Berlin, after a day spent looking at the graves of Bertolt Brecht, Fichte and Hegel in the rain, and feeling very profound.
James was a big fat man in his 40s. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat, a sort of Driza-Bone coat and a [...]
A politically connected association promoting links between
China and Australia - what could be wrong with that? Plenty.
William Birnbauer reports.
FOR retired police superintendent Peter Magerl, it all started
to unravel when he and two Australian women working in Beijing
confronted their employer, Michael Guo, over irregularities in
their visas and contracts.
Screaming profanities and abuse, Guo ordered them out of [...]
