Beijing, where tradition meets innovation

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One of my favourite city sights of Beijing, China, the CCTV Headquaters. Located in the Beijing Central Business District, this stunning 51 storied skysraper on East Third Ring Road was awarded the 2013 Best Tall Building Worldwide from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & E Sindhöj 2023

My last visit to China was in 2019, to the cities of Shanghai, and Chengdu. Shanghai, located on the eastern coast of China, is the country’s largest city and a global financial hub and easily one of my favourite cities in China to visit. The city has a modern, cosmopolitan vibe, with glass walled skyscrapers, luxury shopping malls, and a trendy nightlife. Evening walks along the Bund and day time walks around the French Concession, offer glimpses into the city’s colonial past. Chengdu, located in southwest China, is memorable for its more relaxed city vibes and lifestyle, spicy cuisine, and adorable giant pandas. I have written about dining at its many traditional tea houses, meandering through its parks, and contemplating the symbolic architecture of its temples.

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Tjolöholms Slott Julbord SE 2022

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By the fireplace in the main hall of Tjolöholm Castle for this year’s Christmas table sitting, in Halland, Sweden 2022.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

Tjolöholm Slott, video compilation.

It began to thaw a little in the west coast of Sweden about a week before Christmas. But it’s always a pleasure to walk the expansive grounds of Tjolöholm Castle, witnessing the last gold rays of the sun dive below horizon.

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Jul i Haga Göteborg SE 2022

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The beginning of the festive winter season at Haga, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2022
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

The plan was to head to the Design Christmas Market happening at the Culture Arena in Gothenburg, but as plans go these days, we found ourselves walking the nearby cobbled streets of the oldest quarters of the city, at Haga. We had a window of fair weather under a clear blue sky in the morning, which promised sunshine and crisp winter for the whole day.

Having lived in Tromsø for the past four years, with snow on the beach, I haven’t had the opportunity to walk these streets in a long while. So, I was totally happy to be peering through the various café windows. In the background was the soft murmur of crowds and the symphony of clunking boots on stone.

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In celebration of All Saints’ Day in Sweden

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At Kungstorget, Gothenburg, Sweden, for the Ghost Parade or Spökparaden 2022 for the Feast of All Hallows.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

The Feast of All Hallows of alla helgons dag, is always celebrated in Sweden on the Saturday between 31 Oct. and 6 Nov. This year, the celebration was in the form of a ghost parade. I first saw the invite on Facebook with a modest note of 3 interested persons curious to attend. The organizers were attempting for a Guinness World Records for largest spook parade. The instructions attached to the event invite were, “Come dressed as a ghost”. That didn’t sound too demanding at all, and being inner witches and warlords, we thought it fun to impersonate a relative.

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Summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day 2022 Styrsö

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The Midsummer Pole at Styrsö Bratten, Swedish west coast, Sweden 2022.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

The summer solstice on 21 June marked the day of maximum sunlight in the northern hemisphere. In Gothenburg, Sweden, these are the days when you can see the rim of the sun lightly touch the horizon and then rise again.

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Sjømatfestivalen 2022, Tromsø, Norway

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Grilled salmon at the Tromsø Seafood Festival / Sjømatfestivalen 2022, Norway.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

It has been some years since the Arctic City, Tromsø, saw such a great buzz of activities that appealed to people of all age groups. It seemed like the majority of city folk and its suburbs were out on the streets this morning with the Seafood Festival weekend for 2022.

There were several activities on-going simultaneously, and I was eager to catch them all in action at the same time. In Tromsø harbour, at one pier, starter guns and flares were up in the air at regular intervals for a rowboat race. The participating crowd dressed in festive costumes for the race. Two teams caught my eye, the first was a group of women who wore black t-shirts and gym tights, paired with colourful tutus, and the second team who had beautiful costumes chose the more elegant bunad or Norwegian folk dress.

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Flickorna på Färjenäs, Karl IX:s Göteborg

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At Flickorna på Färjenäs Café, Karl IX:s väg 1, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

Karl IX:s Göteborg is the city of Gothenburg before present day Gothenburg. It was founded in 1603 by Karl IX at Färjestaden on Hisingen with the intention of creating a trading post and an enclave for Dutch naturalized foreigners to the Swedish west coast. The Danes weren’t happy about the idea of a thriving and competing trading post near Denmark, so Karl IX:s Gothenburg was burnt to the ground in 1611. What to do? Well, move the city upstream and build fortresses with as many cannons Denmark facing as possible. That new city upstream is now present day Gothenburg. Power of attorney was given to Dutchman Cornelius Corneliusson on November 9, 1603, to construct the new city of Gothenburg.

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Passau, Lower Bavaria, Germany 202205

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It could have been a Prinzregententorte, a Kaiserschmarrn or an Apfelstrudel. But when in Passau, in Lower Bavaria, in Germany, I of course just had to go for a homemade chocolate gelato. I attribute this choice to identifying with the Boii tribe who technically came from northern Italy in 2 BC?
Text & Photo © Angeline Lim, CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022

There is something about the heavy historical presence and influences of the monastery founded by Severinus of Noricum (c. 410 – 8 January 482), and the confluence of the three rivers Danube, the Inn (river from the south) and the Ilz (river from the north) that made me feel at home walking the narrow cobbled streets of the city of Passau in Lower Bavaria, Germany. I went to school in a Convent run by French missionary nuns in Singapore. The Convent was the next best choice as I understood from my parents, after failing the criteria of being a silent child and one who would do well in a life of prayer and solitude for the Carmelite order.

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New Year’s Eve 2022

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New Year’s Eve 2022, postcard.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

This New Year’s Eve, I’m revisiting some pages of my own copy of Ken Wilber’s 2014 book, The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development.

I totally enjoy reading books written by Wilber. He is a brilliant mind, and a brilliant scholar with a wonderful sense of humour. He is also superb at synthesizing theories and thought models of transpersonal psychology, human knowledge and behaviour.

So instead of the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, of Everything being 42. I would just as well go for turtles.

The answer (in part and in whole) are holons. Turtles all the way up, turtles all the way down.