As Singapore celebrates its 45th birthday today, I thought it would be a good occasion to post a few photos from my corner of the world.

Slogging away on my China pictures. Slow progress. Lots to learn about my editing programs. Two steps forward...Next challenge will be Flickr. Here's a nice one of the group. The memory and thoughts of China and the trip are beginning to blur with my normal life back home.

I hate it when that happens!

Beijing New York

Back in the City and lunch with Shannon. Szechuan style in midtown.

How many ways is this wrong?

Food arrives individual plates. Too salty. Too bland. Cai xin (aka bok choy) has to be special requested. No tea. All around us Americans drink Coke.

I'm back and not back, as always.

If you're wondering, yes, it's a common question, at least for me: why'd you go to China? What was it like? And, yes, nearly impossible to answer in a word or two.

I'd love to hear what you think of your first Chinese meal back in America.

How to answer the question that I’m often asked now that I’ve returned, “What was my favorite thing about China?” Wish I had a short answer for that.

After all the buddhas and temples and palaces, after the myriad of lazy susans filled with noodles and soup and fish and hot and spicy foods, after the heat and the beer, and the air conditioning and the crowds and the haze and the people, so real and engaged in their lives, after the camaraderie of the group, and the laughter and smiles that kept us going, after the conversations of art, and time, and individuality, and purpose, after the walking and climbing and moving moments confronted by a history so long that it is almost incomprehensible, and a recent history so fluid that everything seems to change every decade, and where commercialism is alive and well and available for all, and Mao statues are thankfully a part of the past, and the distance between Three Shadows and ICP does not seem so vast…. I am left with the haunting feeling that it was all an illusion.

The sinking image of the beautiful Three Shadows complex threatened to be destroyed on an invisible whim with no reason or recourse.It doesn’t make sense to me and blows the wind right out of my China sails.

I think I know less now about China than ever before.

drumming video

passing through
Just a few days ago we were all in China.

Up and Down!