Firstly I should probably clarify that this is not really a travel blog, merely that many interesting subjects have come up in the course of my travels. I was lucky enough to make a journey earlier this year, post Fukishima, by boat from Shanghai to Osaka. I have been to Shanghai a number of times, and I was looking forward to leaving by boat to see a very different side of Shanghai, leaving first along the Huangpu river, and then into the Yangtze briefly before heading off to Japan via Fukuoka and then up the Inland sea to Osaka.

There has been much written about the rampant pace of change in China, and in fact preceding that in Japan. What amazed me as I left Shanghai was the scale of the dockyards and the shipping.

It was hardly surprising really given the scale of China's industry, although in the centre of Shanghai I had often seen much smaller boats so overloaded they looked very close to sinking.

As we got to the edges of Shanghai there were massive dockyards building ships that were extremely significant in size within larger superstructures to accommodate the scale of the ship being built. 

What was also extraordinary was that as a dense city, these yards were still fringed by residential towers, which the boats and constructions dwarfed. The city was building large pieces of itself- larger than many of those that sheltered it's inhabitants and is sending them off around the world, new mini cities, made in China, like much of their transported cargoes.

I recommend the journey to anyone- The boat goes once a week both ways, and for a full seventies experience has onboard Karaoke and a mini japanese bath house!

The serenity of travelling by boat, totally outside communications was extremely refreshing, and an incredibly beautiful if generally grey journey.

Very soon, I will start posting all manner of inspiring and stimulating things here- but for now and just to say hello, here is a shot taken a while ago on 3200 speed film on an old school camera of the moment of a plane landing in NY. A paused moment touching down from air to land, the friction... View full entry