The vast, impressive, and arid landscapes of Gansu Province in Western China.

The weather here in Suzhou has been much cooler and more humid these past days, so I’m thinking warmer, drier thoughts of our California road trip earlier this year that took us through Joshua Tree.

To prevent overfishing and to improve the quality of the environment, fishing is banned on Lake Tai for 6 months of the year. On 1 September, the first day of the finishing season, I was invited out on one of the boats.

Had fun exploring the less visited, more wild parts of Hangzhou with @lands_remote this weekend.

The different landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park 🌵⛰🌴🏜

As WordPress provides sufficient insight into how visitors use my website through Jetpack, I’ve now removed Google Analytics tracking from [scottmallinson.com](https://scottmallinson.com). Immediately seen an increase in performance.

More from our Southern California roadtrip. We stopped at Salvation Mountain ⛰ to witness one man’s commitment to God.

Trekking the 49 Palms Oasis Trail in Southern California earlier this year

Suzhou, Jiangsu Sheng, China

Already thinking about my next trip 🤔 Somewhere away from the oppressive heat of the city, like the hike we did earlier in the year in Ninghai 🚶🏻‍♂️🏕⛰

Has it been a week already since Tioman Island?! 😯🌴☀️⛰

Gaokao exam results are being released and we’re starting to see spikes of traffic to our admission results system at www.xjtlu.edu.cn/gaokao/. If you’ve applied to @XJTLU, good luck!

Things I love about MacOS… NOT! Hello MacOS, please meet iCloud Drive.

Is it valid to write … enclosing a whole page’s content, navigation etc. within a schema type?

Testing…1…2

Trying to work out a publishing strategy that combines the benefits of POSSE, captures engagement through webmentions, and importantly makes sense.

Back in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 Spent the evening wandering around Kowloon taking in the Blade Runner-esque sights

It’s fascinating to see how Shanghai has changed since its portrayal in 1987’s Empire of the Sun. Whilst the Bund remains largely unchanged, the same can’t be said for the rest of the city. The skyline is quite different!

Hard work but had great fun getting away from the office, and into nature on this trail.

That feeling when the web service you’re pulling data from changes their encoding, doesn’t do any testing nor informs you of the changes 🤦

Finally getting the hang of #webmentions. Managed to successfully poll and retrieve responses for scottmallinson.com and landsremote.co.

The only emails I seem to receive from Apple are either invoices or to sell me a new product. As someone who has invested a lot of 💰 in Apple products, would it hurt to send the occasional email offering advice on how I can get the most out of my purchases?!

There are definitely worse ways to spend your Saturday morning/lunch. Devouring excellent food at The Commune Social in Shanghai.

Excited to see Bill Bailey in Shanghai!! #internationalcomedyfestival

Trying to get my head around microblogging, #IndieWeb, WebMentions, valid RSS feeds, and a #POSSE strategy.

New toy. For work, of course! #raspberrypi

We haven’t quite managed the 50km of the Ninghai Trail we intended to do, but we’re happy with the 35km or so we’ve covered. Resting our feet before catching our train later.

Yesterday we managed between 18 and 21km on the Ninghai Trail (distance varies between GPS watches). Attempting to do another long stint today. Had a cold night camping with a colder one to come.

Breakfast at @McDonalds. On our way to Ninghai for a long weekend of camping and hiking.

Since getting a @Sonos speaker I’ve found I’m listening to a lot more music and, through @Spotify, discovering more artists 🤘🔊 https://www.last.fm/user/boardstupid/library?from=2018-03-01&rangetype=month

Prepping for hiking the Ninghai Trail this weekend. Aiming to complete 50km over three days. Need to test out our tent 🏕️, make sure our packs 🎒 aren’t too heavy, whilst ensuring we’ve enough food and water!

CloudFlare’s new DNS 1.1.1.1 blocked in China 🤷‍♂️

Fun afternoon-into-evening in Shanghai drinking coffee, beers, cocktails meeting up with friends, old and new.

Busy, productive day 👨‍💻😓💪 followed by drinks and food🍹🍔. Hello weekend!

[https://www.wired.com/story/china-megacities-gallery/](Spectacular!)

Had a productive meeting with a local web development agency here in #Suzhou to undertake a priority project 🤞

So I’ve set up a little micro.blog over at [https://scottmallinson.com] as a means of POSSE-ing to Twitter and Facebook. If I’ve set up Webmentions correctly, comments and likes should backfeed to my website 🤞

Let’s see if this works…

This month marks my fifth anniversary of working in China, and it’s time I started to share some of the interesting, wonderful and frustrating things I encounter in the Middle Kingdom.

I will be writing posts documenting insights I’ve gathered over the past few years, as well as observations and findings on society, culture and technology related to my personal and professional life.

Being in China limits my access to social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter (which I’ll cover in time), so if you have any questions, concerns or observations of your own, feel free to comment on any of the posts using the form below.

苏州工业园区直属镇, 苏州工业园区, PRC

Last year was great for traveling. Here are my #2017bestnine. Spot the photo that wasn’t taken in 2017.
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#2017bestnine #2017 #happynewyear #2018 #bestnine2017 #newyear #instagood #photooftheday #instadaily #photography #travelgram #travel #travelphotography #explore #life #wanderlust #travellife #travelpic #best9 #instatravel #trip

Tianjin West Railway Station 🚊throwing some shapes
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#tianjinwestrailwaystation #tianjin #china #railwaystation #reflection #trainstation #train #highspeed #instasize #shotoniphone6 #iphoneography #highspeedrail #architecturephotography #exploretianjin #archilovers #vsco #building #chineseexperience

Minyuan Stadium, Tianjin, built in 1926 and modelled after Stamford Bridge in London. Now home to shops, hair salons, and eateries
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#minyuanstadium #tianjin #china #wudadao #minyuan #vsco #vscocam #minyuanplaza #stadium #daily #architecture #travel #5thavenue #yellow #sunset #oldbuilding #building #fiveavenues #igworldclub #instadaily #agameoftones #weekend #structure #tj #architecturalphotography #nightlights #plaza #arch #dailyphoto #travelphotography

Part of the adventure is the journey ✈️ .
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#adventure #travel #explore #wanderlust #photography #instagood #travelgram #travelphotography #love #photooftheday #instatravel #beautiful #vacation #picoftheday #traveler #traveling #trip #fun #lifestyle #life #instadaily #photo #travelling #holiday

Looking out over the Sea of Clouds 🌊☁️⛰
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#huangshan #china #anhui #travel #mountains #nature #yellowmountain #mountain #hiking #landscape #traveling #travelphotography #asia #yellowmountains #travelgram #huangshanmountain #instatravel #instagood #nationalpark #holiday #clouds #wanderlust #photography #love #adventure #beautiful #explorechina #view

A fun weekend hiking Mount Huangshan with @t.ennis27 and @lands_remote

Ascending Mt. Huangshan

Suzhou’s Panmen Gate looking resplendent in the Autumn sun 🌞

En route to Ningbo