The West Coast Trail, Birthday Cake and Jazz in China

This fall has been jam-packed with fun.  In September, Grant and I hiked the West Coast Trail!  It was challenging and beautiful.  We'd like to do it again right away, now that we know what to expect.  It was a completely different experience from any back-country stuff I've done in the Yukon, totally different climate and terrain.  There was a tonne of mud, ladders, cable cars, ferries, river crossings, old growth trees to climb under and over....  it was a full body experience.  After the hike, we headed to the Yukon for some rehearsals and cake and then..... off to China!

I am just starting to recover from the jet lag.  I spent the past few weeks in China, performing at the Nanjing Jazz and World Music Festival with the Grant Simpson Quintet (Keitha Clark, Rob Bergman, Duncan Sinclair).  We had a total blast.  This was my second time performing a the festival. We spent most of the festival in Nanjing, which is a city of over 7 million people, located in eastern China.  Bands from around the world come to play at the festival.  We were able to hear a few of them when we played at the opening ceremonies.  We all learned a Chinese tune called "Happy Chinese Song" and played it together.

It was a pretty exciting experience to play to packed theatres, see our name on banners and receive flowers at the end of the concerts.  We worked up a few of Grant's originals that he wrote about China, as well as some well known tunes like Blue Bossa and Honey Suckle Rose.  Here is a shot of the band being interviewed for a Chinese TV station, and then me with my flower after one of the shows.

We had some time to wander about Nanjing and check out some of the sights.  Nanjing has an interesting history, it used to be the capital of China.  Nanjing means "southern capital" and Beijing means "northern capital".  The old city wall is still mostly in-tact, and we were able to stroll along part of it one morning.

There are numerous Buddhist temples in Nanjing.  We went to the Jiming Temple and (as far as we could figure) followed the ritual of making a prayer and then throwing a coin into a big metal.... thing.

At the end of the festival, we ended up in a city called Ningbo performing at an outdoor venue.  We wrapped up the trip with 4 days in Shanghai, eating street food, wandering the market near our hotel and visiting the french concession.  On our last night, we went to the Fairmont Hotel and watched a Chinese group play traditional jazz and I sipped on a very pricey cup of Earl Grey tea.  The presentation was lovely.
Here are a few pooches I saw on a back alley stroll, my last morning in Shanghai.

I'm back in Ontario now and just played a show in MacDonald's Corners with Grant Simpson.  We have a few songwriting workshops coming up this week, and then we head to the East Coast for a Home Routes house concert tour.  Be sure to check out the calendar page on my website for our tour dates in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI.

See you down the road!

Kate