China is so big. Even though we’re just traveling in one corner of Zhejiang, new cities I’ve never heard of keep popping up on the map. It’s as if you could use A.I. to generate cities, and they keep appearing in a ton of variety. Today, Tiantai (天台), which is part of Taizhou (台州). And […]
Quotations of Chairman Mao on a door in Shengkeng (胜坑村), about the Japanese enemy. It’s a pretty village, with flowers and stepping stones everywhere. Some houses are beyond repair, others maintained well. Mostly inhabited by seniors and swallows.
Near Linhai (临海), whole fields with rice noodles drying (小芝米面).
At first, I thought they were flowers on the trees, but it’s loquat fruit (枇杷), wrapped with tiny bags to protect against birds and insects. You see these trees like this all over Xiangshan County. In Suzhou, people use huge nets for the loquat trees.
Shepan (蛇蟠乡) is so small that even though it’s next to a highway, its exit is named after the service station — not the town itself. There are some boats, plenty of fantastic seafood restaurants, and a muddy shore full of tiny crabs, razor shells, and mudfish. I somehow love this place.
Wushan Grottoes (伍山石窟) on the border of Ninghai (宁海), a recommendation from Ash. It feels like I’m walking in some kind of MacOS wallpaper. Some of these quarries were dug over a millennium ago, and people worked here to mine stone slaps even some 70 years ago. It’s crazy the work that has gone into […]
We’ve been to Zhejiang so many times, but always inland. So whatever Zhejiang means in my head — mountains, tunnels, water reservoirs and more — it feels similar here but different. We’re in Xiangshan (象山县), a peninsula east of the province, bordering the East China Sea. As soon as we cross the bridge onto the […]
Today in Nanhui (南汇), a town in the far southeast of Shanghai. The outline of the old city center (and streets named after gates) still exists on the map, but we could find no sign of old city walls anymore. We did come across a great park though, 古钟园 (Age-old Bell Garden). And this is […]
Bugs fly around my head and in front of my phone, disrupting its auto-focus function. To get a sharp picture, I need to wave my hand to chase them away, then quickly take a shot before they return. With Harry den Hartog, I’m walking the Pingwang Line (平王线), a 45-minute drive out of Shaoxing. It’s a […]