Joe Slater

After a month near Suwon studying the language, I felt ready for the road. I didn’t really have a travel plan. I just wanted to see as much of the country as I could over [more…]

In early 2014, I was living in Taiwan. The year is remembered there (and nowhere else) for the so-called “Sunflower” upheaval, an ultimately unsuccessful student protest that was in many ways a precursor to the [more…]

In spring 2013, I travelled by train across China from Guangzhou to Qingdao in the north via Wuhan. Here, the journey resumes with an unintended stopover in the crappy end of Dezhou, an obscure industrial [more…]

In spring 2013, I travelled by train across China from Guangzhou to Qingdao in the north via Wuhan. This leg starts at Shijiazhuang, where I discovered the hard way why most Chinese plan their journeys [more…]

In spring 2013, I travelled by train across China from Guangzhou to Qingdao in the north via Wuhan. This part starts in Wuhan, from where the high-speed rails led northward from Hubei Province and across [more…]

This is NOT about the Wuhan virus, but it is about Wuhan. In spring 2013, I travelled by train across China from Guangzhou to Qingdao in the north. Wuhan was more or less the middle [more…]

First a caveat. In the following, there are no commando raids, aristocratic murders, medieval siege engines or scenes of hot sex on a Makati pool table. If that’s you want, scroll straight down to the [more…]

Lausanne, 2014 Back in the 1980s, I had been in Switzerland mainly to make a bit of money and “have an experience.” I hadn’t really been too concerned with the politics or culture of what [more…]