Just in time for Easter eggs… we’re back!
We’ve spent the last two weeks enjoying an amazing time in China. As you might expect, I took copious notes for this blog, starting with our first stop in Beijing. But before starting with our day-by-day itinerary, I wanted to try and capture my overall impressions of China as a tourist: some things I was expecting, and some things which surprised me.
- WeChat & Alipay are a way of life. I knew this already, but it’s hard to capture just how much China exists in its own technological world. It’s not just about payment – almost all of our restaurant meals began by scanning a QR code with one of these apps and using the restaurant’s mini program to translate the menu and submit our order. Public transport is almost completely tied to these apps too: I was able to use Apple Pay for the Beijing Subway, but not for the buses and not in Chengdu or Chongqing.
Thankfully it’s pretty seamless as long as you get fully set-up – including mobile number verification – before you arrive in China. Our only hiccough was that occasionally my Natwest Mastercard card couldn’t be used through these apps, but thankfully Randi’s HSBC Visa was always accepted. We also relied heavily on the English version of Gaode Maps, known as ‘Amap’ for navigation. Although we had no problem bypassing the Great Firewall through our eSIMs, the reality is that Google Maps is functionally useless in China. You just have to switch your habits entirely.
- You’ll see very few Western tourists, and you’re not special. To be clear, I mean that in a good way. We’ve been to lots of places where the local economy is geared around international tourists, but China is not that place. While there’s a surprising amount of English signage (plus voice announcements on all the metros we used) you only had to look around to see that even the big tourist attractions are geared for domestic tourism first, and anything else is a nice bonus. And while people were kind and patient if we needed help, with very few exceptions nobody gave us a second glance, although Randi wondered if things might be a bit different if we were blonde!
A lovely side-effect here is that we felt very unhassled. Nobody is trying to rip you off. There was no equivalent of the mysteriously broken taxi meter, or gouge pricing at tourist sites. I typed 30¥ rather than 3¥ into Alipay by mistake to buy a bottle of water once (divide by 10 to get pounds – everything was very cheap) and the guy looked horrified.
- The vibe is surprisingly quiet and relaxed. I had expected a lot of noise and bustle, but actually things felt pretty chilled and calm even when there were crowds of people. Chengdu is known for being laidback, but I felt this in Beijing too: a city which I found unexpectedly low-rise (at least by Chinese standards!). We learnt on our food tour that cars are forbidden to use their horns in central Beijing, and we also wondered whether not speaking any of the language caused us to tune more background noise out. Sure, compared to any European city the roads are much wider and everything is at a much bigger scale. But it’s nothing like Thailand or Vietnam for making simple things like ‘crossing the road’ feel slightly perilous at times.
- Things just work. Yes, we were wealthy tourists in big cities. But it’s a very easy place to be a tourist, because things just work. The trains all run. Everything is digitised. Streets are clean. There are free public toilets everywhere, which you really start taking for granted. And because the scale is so vast, there were times where it felt like I was strolling through an Asimov city from the future. At the same time, it also felt very insular. Beijing is nothing like London or Paris or New York: there’s very obviously no culture of immigration from overseas. The same forces which allow this vast country to power ahead with incredible momentum also make it feel a little remote from the rest of us. But perhaps that’s less true for its nearer neighbours.
OK, on with our trip!
Day 1: Arrival
After much deliberation, we had chosen a boutique hotel in one of Beijing’s hutongs. The hutongs are the narrow lanes, alleyways and courtyards found in the older, more historic areas of the city, as opposed to the modernised areas. Our hotel was in the Nanluoguxiang area, and it was obvious just from the walk from the subway that we’d made a great decision! The narrower streets had so much character, the main pedestrianised road was jam-packed with food and people in a market-like atmosphere.
Amusingly, the only way to reach our first floor room – which had its own locked door – was to walk through someone else’s room on the ground floor first. As it happened, nobody occupied it while we were there, but we always opened the door with some trepidation. After crashing a little bit, we had the huge thrill and relief of successfully paying for our first meal over WeChat, followed by a celebratory peanut-butter flavoured soft serve ice cream from the market.
Day 2: Summer Palace & Food Tour
The next day we got up early and headed off to the meeting point for our pre-booked Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City walking tour. Only problem: the tour didn’t exist. (In case you’re wondering how I can square this with the ‘nobody is trying to rip you off’ statement above – the company were extremely apologetic when Randi contacted them, and refunded us immediately.) So, we punted this for another day and headed instead to the Summer Palace. This is a large imperial site from the Qing dynasty, but unfortunately the only history which really stuck with me was the repetition of the phrase “…until it was burnt down by British and French forces” at every information board.
Afterwards, we walked to an outdoor food mall by a nearby transport hub for lunch, and Randi felt a little pang of suburban delight.
In the evening we took a superb Lost Plate food tour with Zoey, who guided our group through hot pot, traditional Beijing noodles, giant meatball dumplings (one of Randi’s favourites from our trip!) and a final feast of many dishes which left us all stuffed. (We were pretty smug that our hotel was on the same street as where the food tour ended, so we could just roll into bed.)
One very sweet moment was Zoey’s genuine incomprehension about why so many of her foreign tourists are so excited to bring up the Chinese high-speed trains they’ve booked as part of their travels in the country. “It’s because we’re jealous and we all want them!” we told her, in a chorus of pain.
Day 3: Olympic Forest Park & Wangfujing Street
Talking of trains: yes, Beijing’s subway is as good as you would expect, although (in common with Chengdu and Chongqing) you do have to pass through security when entering any station. (“This wasn’t built by rival Victorian railway companies, was it?” asked Randi pointedly, after we felt how smooth the rides were.)
One especially nice touch is the unique artwork and designs of each station, and my favourite is can be found at the station closest to the Olympic Forest Park which we visited on our third day in Beijing. Built specifically for the 2008 Olympic Games, the park is beautifully landscaped and provides a great view of the Olympic Tower and Bird’s Nest stadium from the top of a hill. (Well, I say ‘a great view’ – the element in the room are the pollution levels, which did not massively affect me but Randi felt more viceraly off-and-on during our trip. You certainly could see further with less pollution, in any case.)
Afterwards we strolled down towards the Olympic buildings themselves, and I persuaded Randi that we should definitely pay to enter the lonely looking ‘flying cinema’ tent for a 10 minute virtual ride over China. In my defence, this was actually quite fun (even if we were the only customers!) and did help to orient me with major Chinese cities and landmarks. Even if the the detour over Taiwan was a little awkward *cough*.
That evening we visited Wangfujing Street, Beijing’s main shopping street (and Oxford Street equivalent) near the centre of town. I don’t have much to say about this. It was fine, but since we didn’t have any interest in going shopping it absolutely reinforced our decision to have booked a hotel in the hutongs instead!
Day 4: Great Wall & Livehouse
I was fully expecting the Great Wall of China to be one of the absolute highlights of our trip, and it didn’t disappoint. Following advice we chose to visit the Mutianyu section of the wall in a tour bus, which handled all of the entry logistics but then left us alone to tackle both the East and West sections in our own time. The East section is shorter, reached by chairlift and notable for having the option to toboggan down again once you’re done! Meanwhile, the West section concludes with a steep ascent which provides breathtaking views over the whole area. Do them both!
I don’t think I’m going to be able to write anything original about the Great Wall, but it was a great experience and felt like a great time of year to be doing it. The toboggan was a lot of fun (even if we ended up forming a queue behind a very slow rider!) and we very much appreciated the giant buffet lunch afterwards. (Side-note: I have to imagine that the Oba-Mao mashup t-shirts which are still on sale in the tourist areas did double duty at Republican conventions in the US, back in the day.)
Back in Beijing, we found a Peking duck restaurant for dinner. Despite being on the fancy side (at least compared to most of our meals) the owner turned to be a delightfully chatty guy from Singapore who spent his time wandering between tables talking about everything from his music selection (“music should be fun!” he cried, as Boney M’s Rasputin played in the background) to his haul of medals from cooking competitions (“in my younger days”) to how nervous he was for a potential job interview tomorrow morning with a big hotel chain. We wished him luck, although naturally he was doubly nervous as Trump’s idiotic tariff war was reaching full market meltdown as we ate. (And yes, it wasn’t lost on us that we were living through a world historical attempted severing between the US and China while we were there.)
Oh, and the duck was delicious too!
Before heading home for the night we decided to walk around the nearby Houhai Lakes, and quite by chance we ended up rounding the day by discovering an incredibly fun music scene! We think – but are open to correction – that these qualify as ‘livehouse’ venues, since they’re definitely more public venues than private KTV karaoke. We had a lot of fun sampling the competing performers along the stretch, before plumping for our chosen venue and waving our foam accessories in the air with enthusuiasm.
Our band (unclear if they are actually a band or a random assemblage of people) was particularly notable for featuring one girl who put in absolutely zero effort unless it was her solo (to the point of yawning or staring at her phone while on stage) being perfectly balanced at the other end by someone dancing in a fascinator hat who was game for anything that came on. We loved them.
Other livehouse notes:
- While I was drinking by far the most expensive beer of the entire trip, this wasn’t an alcohol-soaked atmosphere by any means. In fact, the unimpressed-looking guys which can be seen sitting next to Randi in the second video were drinking tea out of a fancy tea set.
- The banger in the last video is 化蝶飞 (The Flowers). Yes, part of it is a shameless rip-off from Dragostea Din Tei. I know this because I messaged my tour guide for Chongqing on WeChat with the video asking him to identify it for me…
Day 5: Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City
And so, with catchy livehouse tunes still running through our heads, we spent our final day in Beijing seeing the tourist hotspots we’d been thwarted from seeing on our first day: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
The main thing to say about Tiananmen Square is that it’s absolutely huge. As in, it’s just much, much bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in any other country. Our guide have us 10 minutes to explore and I used most of this time just walking over to the ‘parliament’ building on the other side. (The National People’s Congress is the largest legislature in the world, but it only meets once a year for about two weeks.)
Of course, as you go through three separate passport checks to enter it (!) it’s also impossible not to be thinking about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, although I was a little surprised that our Chinese guide chose to bring this up of his own volition while pointing out the sights. Then again, this was very much in keeping with the self-confidence which we found everywhere in China. Who cares, I suppose, what English-speaking tourists think?
As for the Forbidden City: I confess I didn’t really know what this was beforehand, but was surprised to find that this old centre of Imperial governance – which backs onto another side of Tiananmen Square – is almost entirely open-air. There’s such an obvious continuity between these vast spaces, from where China’s emperors once ruled, and Mao’s own expansion of Tiananmen Square itself: made all the more obvious by the giant portrait of Mao which now sits forbiddingly over the entrance.
Our guide took us on a potted tour through imperial Chinese history (including the plot of the Last Emperor) before we emerged at the Forbidden City’s north exit, grabbed lunch and then enjoyed a “Hawthorne in the alley”-flavoured ice cream, at least per Google Translate. (Make of that what you will, but it was the clear winner from Beijing!) Finally, we climbed the hill in nearby Jingshan Park for the panoramic views over the Forbidden City – and the rest of Beijing – before collapsing home after all of this patient sightseeing.
That just about wraps it up for our Beijing section, although I’m sure I’ve forgotten things, and I kinda missed having my laptop (as I had on our world travels) and being able to blog each destination as I went.
I should confess that on our final night we did venture into Pizza Hut – one of the big Western brands which you see dotted around – for a quick break from Chinese meals. But this was a bit of a letdown, as Pizza Hut in China has strayed pretty far from its pizza-based roots!
This aside, Beijing was an incredible city and a perfect start to our holiday in China.
We’re going to China!
This has been at the top of our travel list for a long time, but we finally booked flights in January after iterating through upteen potential itineraries. At one point we’d put together a totally mad plan for our 2 week trip including (I kid you not) 6 separate destinations linked by 5 long-distance trains, but slowly we came back to sanity and now have a sane itinerary with time to actually enjoy where we’re going.
And there certainly is more planning required than a normal holiday. Not only are there visa forms to print and sign and take to the Chinese visa application centre – where, I must say, everyone was incredibly helpful – but also just figuring out questions like “wait, how will we pay for things?” or “is this really how booking trains works in China?!” and then working through the signups on WeChat and AliPay and hoping that these things really do work for us once we arrive. (Answers to follow in the next post, I suppose…) But I’m excited for the adventure!
Side-note: the reason I’m illustrating this planning with 368chickens.com is because I became very addicted to this game during this process. (Indeed, one of my best attempts was in the basement of the Chinese visa application centre, which is one of reasons for my fondness of it.) Randi was incredibly relieved when I finally completed it.
When not rescuing chickens or trying to reassure one of our tour guides over WeChat (Me: “if it’s possible, we would prefer to try and get a train/metro instead of a taxi” Him: “Ahh some tourists just cannot walk too much, and then they propose to grab a taxi half way 🤭🤭”) we’ve been continuing to edge slowly and cautiously into spring. One of my favourite weekend days was an afternoon with Josh, Anna and Cora walking around Fryent Country Park, where we met a family of friendly horses, jumped off logs and enjoyed a delicious picnic of samosas from Kingsbury Road.
Randi and I also really enjoyed our couple-date with Steven and Sadie. This originally came about because Steven recognised me as a fellow QPCS kid back in November, when we just so happened to be sitting at the next table over from him and some friends one night at the (very tasty) Miss Margherita pizza restaurant in Honor Oak. But since this turned out to be the night before his wedding, Randi wisely suggested we postpone our catch-up to a later date, which is how we all ended up together back at Miss Margherita (where the pizza is still very tasty) earlier this month. Anyway, it turns out we have a bunch of common interests (“wait… you like walking and theatres too?”) and a second date is already on the cards for May.
Talking of theatre: my mum was staying with us that weekend, and on Friday night she treated us to The Score in the West End. This is a play about the composer Bach and his clash with Frederick II of Prussia in 1747, and based on a real meeting between the two men. Bach, from Leipzig, is growing old but remains an undisputed musical genius with an incredible memory combined with fierce moral and religious convictions. King Frederick is about as moral as you’d expect the King of Prussia to be. So, the meeting doesn’t go well.
Of course, there’s no getting around that this play is really “the one with Brian Cox”, and he completely dominates the stage. The other performers aren’t bad at all – in fact, the actor playing Frederick II does a great turn from frivolous fop to steely militarist over the second act – but when Cox is performing, he’s the one you’re looking at. The play also has a bit of an odd structure, with nothing much happening in the first half, but it all works because of its star and I was really glad I got a chance to see him perform.
In other news: I dropped in on Lea’s birthday party on Saturday night, and had the unexpected bonus of seeing Troy, Bill and Katie there as well as Lea and Abi themselves! Apologies for any offence caused re. lino or flax. Randi and I got great enjoyment from the BBC’s two-part Thames Water: Inside the Crisis documentary – an excellent throwback to the golden era of the BBC inexplicably being allowed to film inside clearly dysfunctional workplaces. We also loved the season 2 finale of Severance, as well as being curiously smug that for once we’re actually up-to-date with an ongoing hit show. (And yes, if you’re wondering, I would rather work for Thames Water than Lumon.)
I also added a Twilio developer meetup for work purposes at a pub near London Bridge (despite not actually being a developer) which was fun, especially after the sessions were over and I persuaded someone at our table to show off his Farsi calligraphy. Randi and I also had drinks with our new downstairs neighbours, who are no longer locked inside their flat, and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon out with Alix, Austin, Tash and mum at the Museum of Childhood (apparently now the Young V&A) in Bethnal Green.
And finally: over the last few days we’ve had the pleasure of hosting Randi’s school friend Phoenix and her partner Marcos. Phoenix and Marcos are New Yorkers, and I’m always a little bit nervous of showing New Yorkers around London because, y’know, aren’t we rivals? What if they laugh at our transport and our parks?
But, thankfully, they didn’t – and we had a great time on Sunday roaming from Hampstead Heath (where I peppered Marcos with questions about his job at Air Traffic Control) to the Mayflower pub. Randi also threw in another Strangers’ Dining Room experience in Parliament – and you can’t do that in New York – and we all nerded out with a tense game of Dominion and, believe it or not, Jay Foreman’s history of the Tube Map after Phoenix had some serious concerns about its layout and design. (Spookily, the very next day New York announced that they were finally ditching their own long-standing messy and confusing map and returning an updated version of their 70s London-style classic design. Please file this under “some good news coming out of the States right now”.)
OK, I think that’s pretty much everything. Hopefully, I’ll be back in a few weeks with all of our China adventures. Including some Chinese subways which should put all of our transport maps to shame 😉
Some things I have seen recently, with increasing levels of Randi participation:
- 12 Monkeys
Randi Participation Level: 0/12 monkeys
Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi film, starring Bruce Willis as Cole, plucked from Katie’s recommendation list while Randi was away in South Africa. It’s a nice twist on the “send someone back in time from the post-apocalyptic future” genre in that Cole is openly disdainful about the idea that he might actually change the past. His job is solely to do research; if he can uncover the true origins of the mysterious killer virus which exploded across the globe in 1996, it might speed up the research for a cure in his present. Of course, he gets distracted by being detained in a mental hospital, falling in love (albeit with a woman he kidnaps) and hearing voices in his head… and naturally we end up in a causality loop of sorts. A fun watch, but my god the mid-90s were a long time ago. - Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Randi Participation Level: 1/10 gnomes
A holdover from Christmas time. I thought the latest outing from Wallace and Gromit, facing off against the devious Feathers McGraw and his hacked robotic gnomes, was clever and well-done! Randi did not. But then I have (a) fonder childhood associations, (b) infinitely more appetite for animation. Basically, deep down I would just enjoy having some of Wallace’s time-saving inventions and his Wensleydale cheese. - Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew
Randi Participation Level: 2/2 tables (although we were both exhausted)
Our latest play at the Bush Theatre, about a non-binary person’s struggle for self-expression getting all tangled up with their parents’ latent grief over a close friend’s death to AIDS in the 1990s. Also, a lot about flowers and gardening. This had definite pros and cons! The acting was generally excellent, and the script thankfully avoided the cliché of setting up the parents as reactionary foils. The main problem is that I’m old now, so whilst I agree the dad in particular could have dealt with his buried feelings better (and to be honest, a quick chat down the allotment might have done the trick) my instinct is that the parents are perfectly nice people, and don’t need so much eye-rolling.
Unexpected bonus slapstick: the unplanned snapping of a table leg as it was being wheeled across the stage. Cue emergency hunt for a replacement table.
Oh, and we’re also deep into the second season of Severance. So much so that at one point we caught up, and were able to have a conversation with Katie and James without awkwardly filtering for spoilers on either side. Just like the old days!
This all sounds very passive so far, but actually we’ve been running around a lot in the last month. The more bloggable destinations include the Horniman Museum with Kirsty and Roger (but sadly no walrus), a wonderful (and incredibly helpful) Saturday lunch at Matt and Laura’s and – immediately afterwards – a Hidden London tour of Green Park station. This was Randi’s amazing Christmas present to me, and is sold as Dover Street as a nod to the station’s original name when it opened in 1906.
Today Green Park serves three lines, and the tour moves from the abandoned Piccadilly line lift entrance – later repurposed as an underground war office – to the construction of the Victoria line in the 60s and Jubilee line in the 70s. It’s probably just my bias in terms of the actual lines involved, but to me this was a progression from least to most interesting, culminating in us standing at the bottom of a giant ventilation tunnel just off the Jubilee line platform which really could be from a Terry Gilliam film. (I know “giant ventilation tunnel” is hard to make sound exciting, but trust me, it’s sorta awe-inspiring to actually stand in.)
Also in the last few weeks: Randi generously ran a 10k purely to acquire another medal we can use to cover up a hole in our wall, I saw my mum and grandma on a flying visit, and on the Otford Circular Walk I completely lost a shoe to the impressive suction power of mud.
Mud aside, it was incredibly uplifting to get a properly sunny day for a nice countryside walk, and Randi was especially delighted when we stepped off the train at Shoreham and she saw just what a small, picturesque village it is. All you have to do is tap on the Thameslink at Catford, and suddenly you’re in another world…
I’d never seen or read Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice before, but I did know about its central character: Shylock, the Jewish moneylender. And I had some notion in my head that the play was ‘ambiguous’ on where it really stood: anti-semitic tropes and prejudices, but somehow combined with Shylock’s famous insistence on our common humanity. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
Thanks to Alix’s generous gifting of tickets for us to see The Merchant of Venice 1936 last month (thank you!) I now have a much better handle on these questions, and such a good reminder that the past is a strange, distant place. The production itself was extraordinarily good – I’ll get to that in a moment. But the play itself is nothing like an ‘ambiguous’ play you might imagine today. That play would be full of characters voicing unacceptable things, and the ‘controversy’ would be: is the character channelling the playwright, or not? Does that matter? Are we being primed to agree or made to feel uncomfortable? What’s acceptable to give voice to?
The Merchant of Venice is nothing like that, because it’s unashamedly antisemitic. If William Shakespeare was on social media, he wouldn’t post a screenshot from the Notes app explaining that he was “very sorry for any offence caused” but “wanted to provoke a discussion about the discrimination faced by Jewish communities in urban Italy”. He would be baffled that you were baffled. His depiction of Jews is like his depiction of witches in Macbeth. It’s a common reference point shared with his audience, not a point of controversy.
So why is Shylock given such a humanising speech? How could someone write the words, and not be moved by them? Well – shocker -because Shakespeare was an amazing playwright! A world historical artist doesn’t write a whole script around a pantomime villain with no depth. And besides, antisemitism is not the point of the play any more than ‘witches are bad’ is the point of Macbeth. It’s much more about the hypocrisy of the Christian characters: how they fail to live up to the virtues and ethics which ‘should’ (not my framing) make them ‘better’ than the Jews.
This is obviously not a critique of William Shakespeare, the person. I’m not cancelling people from the 16th century. Yet it has unsettling conclusions. The Merchant of Venice is a great play, but I think it’s unarguable that it would have been ‘better’ for human history had it never been written. Shylock had a huge influence on depictions of Jewish people for centuries, and not in a good way. The turn towards a more sympathetic portrayal on stage only took place at the beginning of the 19th century. But now we’ve passed through the valley of time, and all the damage has already done, so what to do now?
I think the answer is exactly The Merchant of Venice 1936. Tracy Ann-Oberman is electrifying as a female Shylock, living amidst the rising tide of British fascism in London’s East End. The words are the same, but the production is a tour de force of acting and direction, and of how much power they have to cast the same words in a different light. There’s a famous scene where Shylock discovers his/her daughter Jessica has run off to elope with a Christian, stealing a load of coins and jewellery in the process. On the page, it seems very clear that he’s more upset about the money. On stage, Shylock’s despair is more of a mental breakdown, her words unmoored from the real grief underneath. And so on and so on.
I loved it, and I loved watching something with an audience struggling with an alien culture. (There was a literal gasp at Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity, which makes me laugh because this provokes a much stronger and more visceral reaction today than the threat of death!) And what I’m not saying is “oh, what a timely reminder of the evils of prejudice”, as if somehow we were at 95% racism in 1596 and then maybe we dropped to 50% by 1996 but now we’re back up to 65% so it’s a good moment for an intervention. Of course, at some very reductionist level there are endemic human evils – like group hatred and dehumanisation – which always reoccur, and should always be resisted and fought. But at a less abstract level, in specific cultural norms, you can really feel the tectonic plates shift over time.
Also in January, Randi and I went to see Conclave at The Ritzy in Brixton, after my mum took pity on me for having managed 0 cinema outings last year and suggested this to start 2025 on a better footing. I have to say, it didn’t make me feel optimistic about the format: the cinema was nice, and our screen was surprisingly full, but I was shocked at how cheap and terrible the trailers have become. It felt like we were huddled together for a final communion before our church was shut down. Fortunately, Conclave itself was immensely enjoyable. It might not be very deep – and we’re unsure whether the filmmakers know that – but it’s a rollicking adaption of Robert Harris’s (presumably!) page-turning novel about the election of a new pope, and the performances are excellent.
A few days later I could thank my mum for her recommendation in person at Strangers’ Dining Room in Parliament, which Randi organised as a suitable august venue for a family dinner with Tash and Cormac. Outside we also had a quick catch-up with Tash’s friend Sarah, who – weirdly – is now an MP. (To be clear, it’s not weird that she’s an MP. It’s just weird that my younger sister’s friend from school is an MP.)
I’m also pleased to say that my mum and I are now laptop twinsies (RIP old laptop, lost too soon to water damage) so we had a quick handover session at the weekend with her new baby. Otherwise, Randi and I have been doing lots of planning for the year, interspersed with occasional games of Carcassonne – it’s been a while! – and trying out new expansions with various levels of success. (Capturing meeples via The Tower was not a hit.) We also finished the first season of Severance – what an amazing finale! – and saw Joshua Radin and Ellen Krauss perform one night in Camden. Joshua was very popular with teenage Randi and he does have an infectious American optimism. Plus Ellen Krauss was very good too!
Happy 2025!
We had always planned to spend Christmas with Randi’s family this year, so it was both good and bad timing for us to land in Vegas barely a day after her uncle died. “We managed to take the shortest day of the year and make it the longest”, noted Randi sometime during the flight, which I was touched to see included Christmas cracker hats as part of the onboard meal.
The night before we got a chance to hang out with Tash, Cormac and Katie at our place – which was really lovely – and play dual variants of the “secret rating out of 10” game. We also ate a lot of cheese and exchanged our Secret Santas, wrapping up our final night with this year’s beloved Christmas tree.
Back in Vegas, the closest we got to the Strip was spotting the giant illuminated Sphere as we landed. In fairness this is not exactly hard to spot, and while it’s a cool thing to exist in Vegas, I’m sure the residents of Stratford are grateful for Sadiq Khan blocking a London version descending in the middle of Stratford. To be clear, neither of us had any desire for tourist Vegas. Instead, we were very happy to be able to (finally!) redeem our last wedding gift voucher from Toggolyn – don’t worry, $25 still goes very far at In-N-Out – and then taking it back to Randi’s uncle Ron and aunt Stacy for some much-needed family time.
Finally, before our drive back to California, Randi led me on an early morning walk at the edge of the city, where we could look back just as the sun was coming up and see a much more beautiful place than I typically imagine Vegas to be.
Christmas in California might lack a Dickensian winter atmosphere, but Randi and I went on a lot of local walks on this trip and we still appreciated everyone who made an effort with their lights. (Partly we just needed the walks to offset the effects of Yorba Linda’s finest eateries: Wise Guys Pizzeria, Burrito Brothers and the majestic YLS Bakery & Cafe, whose croissants alone could be wrapped for a stocking filler.) The festive spirit really ramped up on Christmas Eve when Alex and Randi rescued a stray husky from having to spend the night alone on the streets, and at the mercy of the local coyotes.
Thankfully, Dakota was reunited with her owners on Christmas Day, which also featured a Trader Joe’s cinnamon bake, Randi’s incredible strata, mimosas, a sunny walk with a view, unnecessary fear of hibernating snakes, Beth and Stewart’s legendary chicken dish, a trip to East Lake to see the seriously impressive Christmas lights, some all-important hot tub time and, of course, Doctor Who!
For Boxing Day, the traditional rainy walk was swapped for Laguna Beach, one of Randi’s favourite places and boasting a chilled linear park alongside the beach. Over the next few days we also spent some time with the Shelanksys, Elana and Alex’s friend Brian before Jeff’s funeral was arranged for New Year’s Eve. I also used this time to help digitise a bunch of old family videos, which (a) is basically my dream project, and (b) taught me that at least some families made sure to set the time and date stamp on their cameras correctly.
In all seriousness – this had actually been on my mind for a little while since Randi mentioned that she knew there was some video footage of her childhood lying around somewhere, and the subsequent wildfires in LA have been a sad reminder of how vulnerable these things can be. PSA: Backups are great.
As 2025 approached, we repeated our trick from several years ago by using London’s fireworks as a convenient 4pm midnight. In our defence, we had a rescheduled 8am flight to Chicago the next day. And then hello again, Chicago! Happily, we made it to Catherine and AJ’s in time for a timeshifted New Year’s Eve celebration featuring 100% perfectly made dumplings and lots of toddler playtime.
At times when said toddler was in bed – or at least supposed to be – Catherine and AJ introduced us to the first season of Severance, which (as promised) is excellent and I’m excited to finish with Randi when she’s back from her bonus week in Chicago. We didn’t venture out very much, but we did enjoy a wonderful afternoon with Jason and Carrie followed by a delicious dinner at Mano a Mano (it’s not a restaurant, it’s a “neighborhood pasta project”) with Toggolyn.
Finally, just before leaving for my flight home, it was really nice to see Catherine’s cousins again, even if I did feel under some pressure when I was made to place all of the US state names into the correct boxes on the giant floor mat. (Honestly? I’m pleased with my performance, and perhaps some of those states would be happier in their new locations anyhow.)
After a week back at work, many thanks to Andrew and Bonnie for plying me with wine last night for a fun Friday unwinding, and then staying up to 3am to comb through our own family’s tapes! For tonight – my last night before Randi returns from Chicago – I am reminded of Catherine’s young cousin suggesting thoughtfully that maybe I could “host a boys’ night” in her absence. I’m sorry to say that I did not do this. For partial credit, though, I did watch Katie’s latest “break glass in case of Randi absence” film: Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, an hour-long Japanese comedy from 2020 about some very limited (and not particularly useful!) time travelling hijinks, which was short and sweet. (Probably short enough for Randi, in fact…)
Helen on Getting ready for some adventures in China: “Enjoy China! Look forward to hearing all about it. A young woman who worked on our ‘casuals’ staff whilst going…” Apr 4, 12:34
