Bumbling Brits are full of Beans

LONDON: Mr Bean is one of the most successful British cultural exports ever. Since the first Bean TV show was broadcast in 1990, its 14 half-hour programs have been sold to more than 200 TV territories worldwide and shown on more than 50 airlines. The latest Bean film, Mr Bean's Holiday, is a global smash hit, No 1 in 21 countries and top of the international box office.

Much ado about Maggie

Award-winning Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle believes it is impossible to make Maggie Cheung look unattractive on the wide screen. The 43-year-old actress is a visual delight off-screen too.

Life Expat

Home away from home

The excitement of change and a yearning for the exotic is what brings many people to China. But even the most worldly wanderers can be overwhelmed by the smorgasbord of new experiences, and this is when a little creature comfort comes to the rescue.

Traditional Tom in touch with city's hutong heritage

Tom Luckock's beautifully restored Qing Dynasty courtyard home instantly betrays his passion for siheyuan, the disappearing style of traditional housing symbolic of Beijing's heritage.

Global village

Beijing

Mixing Ming furniture with Siri's Norwegian wood

SHANGHAI: You can meet people from all corners of the earth in Shanghai, but when you meet an interior designer who was born in the United States, raised in Norway, trained in Switzerland, worked in London, and who also had a full-blooded Cherokee Indian for a great grandmother, you know you have met someone against the grain.

Life Travel

Getting there

There are flights from Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, to Lijiang many times a day. A return ticket from Beijing with connecting flight cost 3,200 yuan ($418), but was in high season. A discounted low-season return airfare costs 2,500 yuan ($327), with accommodation.

Tourists flock to the temple of boom

Sitting outside the Tanzhe Temple under a 1,000-year old tree, Shun Xin feels a vibration in his pocket as his new mobile phone registers a text message.

Dude, where's my hotel?

The old town of Lijiang and its surrounds is paradise in anybody's tour book and for this reason attracts more than 50 million visitors a year. The 850-year-old World Heritage-listed place is a maze of charming cobbled streets and serene lakes. Gushing rivers and snow-capped mountains are within close driving distance.

Here's the real Jurassic Park

YANTAI: When we arrived at the Dinosaur Museum of Zhucheng - also known as "Dinosaur City" - in East China's Shandong Province, the sky was drizzling.