Every hike is its own little story. Today, Luyu Ancient Road (陆羽古道) in Huzhou (湖州) with friends & ten thousand mosquitoes. A two-hour drive from Shanghai and you’re in a totally different scenery. (Two hours back and you’re surrounded by glass, concrete & coffee stores again.) We only took the 6KM trail but with a […]

We went to see 长安三万里 (Chang’An), a movie about Li Bai and other poets, as well as a part of Chinese history. The movie is a beautiful animation though I’m not sure who it’s made for. I guess the cartoonish looks made many parents believe this is for kids, but the dialogue, story & three-hour […]

Songxicun (嵩溪村) today, with buildings from different centuries. Lots of history here, but we didn’t really study all the plaques or Baidu, we just had a quiet day in between the rain showers. Amazing woodwork here in this temple. No visitors around, just corn left to dry. The village has two creeks coming together, one […]

Cooling down near Yiwu (义乌) today, at Songpushan (松瀑山). It’s a tiny mountain with a waterfall. It has only 58 reviews on Dianping so I didn’t expect lots of people, but actually it was crowded, in a good way. Everyone’s sweaty faces full of smiles. Also watermelons are hot. Yiwu in the distance.

This tiny museum has stones with markings on them that look like Chinese characters (or animals). Eighteenth National Congress (十八大): Shanghai (上海):   Divide the world into three parts (三分天下):   Also animals and the Chinese zodiac: Horse (马): I asked the baoan where these stones were found: “Just in the direct area here.” Either […]

(New photos from 2025 beneath.) We visited the Old Baoshan (老宝山) in the north of Pudong, after a tip of Historic Pudong. Baoshan is also a district on the other side of the river. It has the same Chinese characters, but there’s no proof that the names are related to each other. (It’s not too […]

We accidentally stumbled on what might be the area with the most preserved old buildings in Shanghai: Gaoqiao (高桥古镇), in the far north of Pudong. Gaoqiao is pretty unknown and has a pretty unimpressive Dianping page: just over 1000 reviews, and a really badly picked photo on the top. The buildings (perhaps a hundred of […]

The harbor in Pinghu (平湖市), with self-made cargo boats being assembled and entering the water continuously. “This type of boat is the only way”, but later I’m not sure if the shifu meant the costs or technical specs. (I regret not asking them whether they can swim! Most people in China cannot swim, unlike in […]

“Our neighbors left, the house next to theirs burned down and it also ruined their roof.” Had he not told me this, I might have not noticed the charred beams. We’re in Pinghu (平湖市钟埭老街) and the man lives in a house alongside the Corridor Shed (廊棚), which was built about a century ago when China […]

A trip to a deserted old movie set today, in the far southeast of Shanghai. Dongxu Village (东旭村) will probably soon be wiped off the map, but movies like Green Snake (青蛇) were filmed here, over 30 years ago. I found it when looking for old towns on Xiaohongshu, including a tip to find the […]

Wanghong hell at floor 52 (out of 128). Taitai really wants to see this bookstore, but the reservation spots (all free) were already gone. So we pick a date next week, take a screenshot, and in Photoshop change the date to today, and mess a bit with the QR code so it’s unreadable. The guard […]