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MikePole
Travelling to understand time and place

Autobiography & Travel

This category brings together autobiographical writing and travel as a form of fieldwork. I have spent much of my life moving through landscapes—sometimes briefly, sometimes for many months at a time—and many of the ideas explored elsewhere on this site have their origins in these encounters.

The posts here range from the usual traveler’s-yarn, to more reflective pieces about place and work. Some are about particular locations, such as New Zealand, Ukraine, or Spain; while others are concerned with the act of travelling itself, and with what prolonged exposure to unfamiliar environments reveals over time.

These essays don’t offer practical travel advice, but focus on attention: noticing landscapes, people, vegetation, and everyday practices. It’s me, trying to get my head around Time and Place – trying to figure out something about the World. Travel, in this sense, becomes a way of learning—sometimes informally, sometimes uncomfortably, but always cumulatively.

Together, these posts form an autobiographical thread running through my broader site, providing a personal context for the scientific, historical, and cultural topics explored elsewhere.

  • Autobiography & Travel

    When Frequent-Flying Becomes Insane-Flying

    by Mike Pole April 30, 2017
    by Mike Pole April 30, 2017

    I loved my Singapore Airlines ‘Elite Gold’ card. Suddenly, International airports transitioned from being places where food and drink were wildly overpriced, …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    St Petersburg – 200 years of Russian Chick Selfies

    by Mike Pole December 26, 2016
    by Mike Pole December 26, 2016

    Women, so I’ve read (and seem to observe), are significantly more likely to take ‘selfies’ than men. It doesn’t seem to matter …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    In Mongolia any fool can drive, but…

    by Mike Pole December 24, 2016
    by Mike Pole December 24, 2016

    In five years or so  in and out of Mongolia, I’ve criss-crossed thousands of kilometres by 4WD Landcruiser. But I’ve only taken …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    Cheap Eats Nanjing 24 – the Mysterious Vanishing Sushi Shop

    by Mike Pole December 6, 2016
    by Mike Pole December 6, 2016

    It happens so often. I chance across a place in a city – then fruitlessly search high and low for it again. …

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    Cheap Eats Nanjing 23 – Curry at Miss Tasha

    by Mike Pole December 6, 2016
    by Mike Pole December 6, 2016

    I noticed Miss Tasha when it opened. But for quite a while I kept walking past – I wasn’t sure what it …

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    Cheap Eats Nanjing 22 – Danfeng St Bakery

    by Mike Pole December 5, 2016
    by Mike Pole December 5, 2016

    Boring weekends, I’d sometimes head around the block to a little bakery in Danfeng St. I’d pick up a little selection of …

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    Cheap Eats Nanjing 21 – Cheese Time

    by Mike Pole October 3, 2016
    by Mike Pole October 3, 2016

    Ah, the eternal quest for a kiwi in China to find …. cheese. I foraged far and wide, and finally, one evening, …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    Cheap Eats Nanjing 20 – Yonheking Chicken and Rice

    by Mike Pole May 27, 2016
    by Mike Pole May 27, 2016

    Everyone warned me about Chinese New Year in Nanjing. I listened, sure, but I guess I couldn’t believe that it would be …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    Cheap Eats Nanjing 18 – noodles below the supermarket

    by Mike Pole April 25, 2016
    by Mike Pole April 25, 2016

    I have an innate hatred of supermarkets. The faster I can get in and out of them, the better. But the big …

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  • Autobiography & Travel

    Cheap Eats Nanjing 19 – vegetarian at the Jiming Temple

    by Mike Pole April 23, 2016
    by Mike Pole April 23, 2016

    The Jiming temple is our neighbour at NIGPAS ( the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology). I can see them out my …

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MikePole
  • Home
  • About me
  • Contact me
  • Categories
    • Curio Bay – New Zealand’s Jurassic Fossil Forest
    • New Zealand Geology
    • Supernatural
  • Places
    • Australia
    • Armenia
    • Bosnia
    • Brazil
    • Canary Island
    • China
    • Indonesia
    • Turkey
    • Estonia
    • France
    • Georgia
    • Germany
    • Lebanon
    • Mexico
    • Mongolia
    • Kazakhstan
    • Russia
    • Uganda
    • New Zealand
    • India
    • South Africa
 

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