May 28
Race 65 at the Stanley warm-up event, and we have landed ourselves in the mixed division’s bronze cup final. “Focus!” The captain on the adjacent boat hollers over his anxious team. Our vessel is parked in lane two of the starting line, protected from the incoming waves by an orange pontoon. This year, instead of watching from the relative comfort of the beach, I am right in the thick of the action. Read more
May 21
Separated from central Guangzhou by the still waters of a canal, and cut off on two sides by an elevated six-lane highway, Shamian Island is an anomaly in the chaos of China’s third-largest city. Read more
May 17
Ringed by seven lanes of traffic, the East Gate of Taipei stands alone, a small, ceremonial structure under the watchful gaze of a pink monolith dotted with tinted green windows, the former headquarters of the Kuomintang. A band of red columns support palace eaves seemingly too large for the humble stone base, giving the gate a non-defensive, almost gaudy appearance. Mounted on the crenellations, a decorative plaque proclaims its name as Jingfumen, ‘Gate of the view of good fortune’. Read more
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