Back on the 8th July I published a blog post about the Travel Writing Competition: ‘Tales of Two Cities’ run by the luxury travel experts at Black Tomato. It was a competition that absolutely anyone could enter, as long as they had an interesting journey in mind and a couple of minutes to jot down 500 words.

          I am so so pleased to be able to say that my lovely reader Katie MacLeod (of the travel blog Stories My Suitcase Could Tell and in the photo to the right) entered the competition after seeing it here on The Well-Travelled Postcard and is the lucky winner who’ll be sent on a luxury weekend to Paris! Check out my original blog post to see photos of the divine 5* hotel she’ll be staying in (Le Royal Monceau Paris) and of the Michelin-starred restaurant where she’ll be treated to a divine meal. Well done Katie, your entry must have really impressed them! I loved reading it, especially as it features Shanghai, a city I was similarly in awe of.

         Here’s a snippet of Katie’s journey ‘From Tianjin to Tokyo’ that won her this fantastic weekend away. To read the whole piece head over to this page.

It started at a street food stall.

We didn’t know then that a journey was about to begin, but it did, right there at 4am one October morning in Tianjin, China.  There were laughs, smiles, and drunken deliberations over mantou, kou rou, and other undistinguishable local delicacies.

That street food stall saw the start of a personal journey inseparable from the travels that helped sustain it.  I was a Brit teaching English to teenagers; he was an American interning on the outskirts of the city.  Two ex-pats in town for a temporary time only.  After that first food-infused encounter, we spent every spare minute of six weeks together exploring our small corner of Asia.

We engaged in non-stop conversation as we got to know each other over hot pot in the centre of the city.  By the banks of the Hai He river, we lit a traditional Chinese lantern for luck, watching as it disappeared into the smoggy night sky.

         Very excitingly for me, Black Tomato have also given me a prize for telling the very talented Katie (& all my other readers) about the competition, and they’re giving me a luxury weekend up in Edinburgh for 2! I’ll be staying in the 5* boutique hotel, the Nira Caledonia, and exploring the Scottish capital, which I have never properly visited. In fact I’ve only spent 24 hours in Scotland in my entire life so I think it’s about time I headed up north!

Here are photos of the Nira Caledonia hotel and a view of Edinburgh Castle at night.