A biographical introduction to Best Overend's early architectural training, and an architectural postscript - illustrating his work as a leading Melbourne Modernist - tie together a story of adventure. Here the perceptive eye of an architect captures, in sketches and in words, the ever changing colours and shapes of the sea, Japan and Shanghai.

As a Third Watch Officer, Best Overend describes a steam tramps last voyage, island hoping through the Dutch East Indies, adding pig iron to it's weight for Japanese munitions. Arriving in Shanghai, and joining the Volunteer Police Corps, he portrays everyday life in The International Settlement, where the women, the clubs and the cuisine are the ether. Finally, as a Correspondent for the Melbourne Herald and Sun, he documents the beginning of Sino-Japanese hostilities.