After visiting the Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge by car, I ditched my wheels and connected the two sites on foot with a 13-mile trek along the Causeway Coast Trail. I couldn’t have asked for better weather. Ireland gifted me with a warm, breezy, bluebird sunny day!

The Causeway Coast Trail runs through farmland, fishing harbors, seaside villages, across the stunning white sand expanse of Whitepark Bay (check tidecharts for this section- only accessible at low tide), to Ireland’s smallest chapel, past castle ruins and along cliff tops to the Giants Causeway and on to Bushmills, home of the world’s oldest distillery. I’ve hiked a lot of miles on a lot of trails in my life, and this trek definitely deserves to be called one of the best hikes on Earth!

Stay tuned for more from the Emerald Isle and then I’m on to Scotland! For more…

How large do you think this penjing is? Scroll to bottom to find out!

The day after the successful WBFF World Convention I was flown to Guangdong and then took another two hour car ride to Zhongshan City for the First 2013 China (Guzhen) National Penjing Exhibition. It is quite warm here and the airport roads were lined with stately Royal palm trees with colorful red poinsettias used as bedding plants. Penjing from the entire country were gathered for this premier exhibition which was held in a huge new exhibition building. It needed to be large because of the great size of nearly every penjing.

Just over 100 large penjing, and you can’t appreciate their size unless you see them in person. I had to stand in several of the trees for proportion. The layout was unique and each tree was displayed in a special area with spotlights aimed to…

The 7th World Bonsai Friendship Federation Convention has been combined with the 12th Asia Pacific Bonsai And Suiseki Convention this year in Jin Tan, China and will take place on September 24-28, 2013. I’m part of a six man team from the United States and am joined by fellow bonsai artists and friends, Bjorn Bjorholm, Randy Clark, Brussel Martin and Suthin Sukosolvisit.

Yesterday I arrived in China after a long 15 hour direct flight from Newark, originating in Rochester. The convention committee met us and led us to an air conditioned bus where we had to wait for THREE hours for other foreigners to arrive. Then they told us the bus trip would be another FOUR hours to the hotel. That’s like me flying into Rochester, NY and driving to Pittsburgh, PA for a hotel!

Today we are boarding buses to the convention venue, which is another…