Mike Smith (Illustrator)

Category Archives: Uncategorized

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China

Here are some pictures from our trip through China, from 14th-24th October. We stopped at Beijing, Yangshuo and Nanning. I’d learned some Mandarin from CDs before we came, which meant that on the Chinese trains, instead of being completely misunderstood, I could be a comedy feature and be completely misunderstood. Special memories: seeing someone flying [...]

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Mongolia

On the train to Mongolia we met a Russian man who said he was a lama. He took an unhealthy interest in whether we had children, and told us we ought to. To help us along he drew me a picture of the sun and told me I must keep it close to my heart. [...]

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Olkhon Island

We spent 4th-7th October on this island, which was a detour off the train line. It’s in the middle of Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world and supposedly contains 20% of the world’s freshwater. (I decided to crop out the text on grounds of pointlessness, and just put some of the [...]

Taiga Forest

In Tomsk we met someone called Gregory who got together some of his mates with carrier bags full of vodka bottles, and took us into the Taiga Forest to murder us for a barbecue. Gregory turned out to be the perfect host, guiding us back out of the forest in the small hours. The trouble [...]

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Omsk and Tomsk

When Caz was little there was a world map their kitchen wall, and she found it hilarious that there was a place called Omsk and a place called Tomsk. Her Dad said they must go there one day, so we took a diversion to Tomsk, which is a small branch line (ie several hours in [...]

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London to Singapore

Posting the sketchbook images from Beijing the other day made me realise it’s exactly four years since Caz and I made the trip from London to Singapore by train. We left on 17th September, arrived on 13th November, then spent 6 weeks in New Zealand. I thought it would be nice to post each page [...]

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