This is a 3-part series showcasing the travel albums that are currently on exhibit at the Shanghai Mass Art Gallery (上海群众艺术馆) in Shanghai. You can also read more about this event at the Postcrossing blog. Finally, the last installment is a very mini travel journal. This was documenting our trip to the Silk Road, specifically Dunhuang. This destination has been in my bucket list for almost 20 years! Yes, I have been dreaming of visiting Dunhuang ever since I started studying Traditional Chinese Painting in Tianjin’s Nankai University back in 1994. My classmates showed me photos of when they went, the paintings on the caves, what they had painted and…
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This is a 3-part series showcasing the travel albums that are currently on exhibit at the Shanghai Mass Art Gallery (上海群众艺术馆) in Shanghai. You can also read more about this event at the Postcrossing blog. This second post is about the our trip to the Philippines. Originally we were to go to my hometown Tacloban City, but Typhoon Haiyan/ Yolanda happened and we could only get to Manila. So this travel journal documents what we ended up doing during that year’s Winter Break during the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year. This cover is made from acrylic which I ordered from a local online store, cut to a 6×6 inch…
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This is a 3-part series showcasing the travel albums that are currently on exhibit at the Shanghai Mass Art Gallery (上海群众艺术馆) in Shanghai. You can also read more about this event at the Postcrossing blog. This travel album (I can’t exactly call it a journal anymore as it’s so so so thick that I had to make and customize a new album as soon as we returned from the trip!) commemorates our – me and my 2 kids – first big trip together. Yes, this was made back in 2013 but still love leafing thru these pages every time I get a chance. I also just realized that I did…
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Last April 3 and 4 was a long holiday weekend celebrating the Chinese tradition called Tomb Sweeping Day. We were fortunate to have found an excuse to get out of the city (something I do not typically do especially during holidays in China) at the last minute. We registered and booked our train tickets to Hangzhou with the help to my colleague, Yolanda, whom I’ve also invited along with her daughter to go along on this unique educational trip. This whole trip was organised by a couple teachers from in and around Hangzhou as well as one from Xi’an. I am so very in awe at how we were welcomed warmly and the teachers…
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After a hiccup with our visas in August 2016, kids and I were so excited we finally made it to Australia. It has been my dream to take them to places I have been and then take them to new places that we all can explore and experience. It is interesting to see these places through their eyes as well as experiences new things with them. And for me, this is the most rewarding part of the whole trip. We flew in to Melbourne from Shanghai via Hong Kong. My good friend Mick and his family were so kindly enough to let us crash at his place for a couple…
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This travel journal has taken the longest to complete I think, out of the travel journals I’ve made. One of the reasons was I did not do any of the pages while on this trip because I ran out of batteries on my Instax Share just as I was about to start on it. And by the time we found the batteries, we were nearly at the end of our trip! So I only did this entire journal after returning to Shanghai in between the crazy work schedule. But it is finally done and glad to be sharing some of the pages. This notebook was actually done last year when…
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Here is a look at the second and last instalment of my December Daily 2016 album. A few parting notes about my experiences with the 9 albums I’ve made so far… I try to just go with the flow and not overthink or otherwise I won’t be able to finish the album(s) within December or early January. I struggled with the 12-pocket 6×8 pages but I was able to fill them with photos from 1 event to make it look cohesive. Not sure if I will use the same pockets next year though I still have a couple packs in my stash that I want to use up. I managed to…
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So happy to share the quilt I finished up for my friend, Patricia, last August. This took too long to get started and finished but it when I did finish, I couldn’t help from feeling oh so giddy! Patricia is a very dear friend, our friendship is one I cherish a lot. Her son was in the same class as my kids in a local kindergarten. Somehow the only foreign kids in the class gravitated towards each other! (Don’t know how that happened at their young age!) After her family moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai, we have managed to keep in touch and feel lucky that we still got the chance to have…
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A few days before our last trip to Japan, I managed to cram some time into finishing this book that has been in my to-list since last year! Somehow I started it but never managed to finish it. So I made sure that this was finished and sent to the printer before we went on the Tokyo trip. When we got back, this was delivered and I couldn’t stop flipping through the pages over and over again. It is part reminiscing about that trip and also just seeing photos in a physical form is so gratifying. In this modern digital age, most photos just get tucked away in our hard drives. I love…
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Welcoming the month of May with open arms. Full of possibilities and finding inspirations. Unfortunately we have been experiencing a lot of rainy days in Shanghai. Location: office // 10:30am Doing: hitting the gym for 1 hr after I drop kids off and before I go to work Watching: Arrow (with the kids), (just finished) Game of Thrones (season 5) Reading: The Sins of the Mother – Danielle Steele (still) Listening: The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting by Brené Brown, which I am enjoying very much! Eating: lots of vegetables and spicy food Drinking: 3-4 cups of coffee during the day Enjoying: the watercolour challenge, GetMessy Messy Lists season and #ifdrawaweek challenge Thinking: about the trip to Taipei next week and what I can accomplish…
