Our own Jiaojiehe House:

• Home page

• From the west

• From the north-west

• From the south-east

• Interior shell

• Breakfast room

• Master bedroom

• Wooden heart

• More of the interior

• The garden
  (updated 6th Sep 2009)

• The original house

• Adding the personal touch

Jiaojiehe environs:

• Jiaojiehe valley and the Great Wall

• More local views

• Winter to summer 2006

• Dream Village House
  (updated 6th Sep 2009)

• The Phoenix
  (updated 6th Sep 2009)

• Paradise Lost
  (10th Sep 2007)

• Money talks (2007)
  (30th Nov 2007)

• Beauty and the Beast
  (26th Oct 2007)

• Blot on the Landscape (updated 30th May 2009)

• Money talks (2008)
  (20th Nov 2008)

• Jiaojiehe Awards 2009
  (30th May 2009)

• Private Great Wall Hike
  (9th Aug 2009)

When does a house become a home? When you add the little bits and pieces, of course. Thai temple bells line the roof and tinkle sweetly in the wind. Here, the upper plate is the symbol of the forestry railways as carried by C2 steam locomotives and below is a worksplate from the main workshop for the Heilongjiang systems at  Chaihe, both gifts from our good guide friend, Mike Ma.

Recent souvenirs from Java going into the living room:

The plates in the central column are from Malaysia, I lived in Penang from 1972 and my children (from my first marriage) were born there. The two columns flanking it on each side contain worksplates from steam locomotives of the former PNKA/PJKA, most of which I saw at work in the 1970s although I did not start the collection until much later.

Wayang kulit figures from East Java

The study is now cluttered:

And inside the master bedroom, 'his and hers' Batik paintings from Pekalongan in Central Java.

I think it fair to say that Yuehong knew very little of Java. Now after 6 visits in 3 years, she shares my enthusiasm for the place. This is definitely not Jiaojiehe....