I still remember Tommy and Øyvind, at least their names. My brother and I were dipping our toes into Norwegian meltwater and decided it was too cold to go in, then those two local boys showed up and jumped in without even testing the water, Øyvind wearing yellow swim fins. When we saw them we […]
In Anhui, leave a city, drive for half an hour, and leave the highway. Then drive half an hour on a long and narrow road into the mountains through tiny villages. You’ll encounter a dozen grey Wulin mini-vans. No restaurants, two tiny supermarkets. Park your car. Then walk two hours alongside creeks and waterfalls, and […]
Lower-tier cities in China always fascinate me, because they’re so anonymous and unknown, yet house hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. (I wrote more about this phenomenon in an article about Danyang.) Anyway, today we’re in Ningguo (宁国) in Anhui, where 400,000 people live, and while Eva still sleeps I’m taking a quick […]
Thursday 28th of September, off work and leaving the house at 18:43: The holiday starts! Train tickets are all sold out, so first leg of the trip is 100 km cycling to Suzhou through the night. Crossing the river. Oh Shanghai, you’re such a great city to arrive in, and such a great city […]
125km ride in drizzle today, one unwary moment, and my front wheel slipped. Scratched ankle, knee, hip & elbow. Across the road sat a shushu in his tiny wooden chair, he saw me go down but not a single reaction — not even a raised eyebrow. In the convenience store next to this I was […]
This was a pure coincidence but near Haining (海宁) we went to the riverside & saw people waiting. A shushu said the tide is coming in. Ten mins later we saw the Qiantang River colliding with the tide from the East China Sea. Sure there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere. The 观潮-crowd: And […]
Shops! Food! Animals! All of it in and around ‘Little Shanghai Pedestrian Street’ (小上海步行街), in Zhoupu (周浦镇). One ‘layer’ outside of the street you’ll find cheap hotels and family-owned businesses, like clothing, make-up, and tattoo parlors. One more layer out and it’s an old suburb, absorbed into the shopping area. The houses are so close […]
I moved to China in 2018 and have integrated pretty well, I think? But especially the 90s and 00s are a mystery to me, while my Chinese friends & colleagues did live through that period, grew up in it, shaped by it (as I was by the 90s and 00s in the Netherlands). It’s very […]
Cycled to Tongli and stopped by the ruins of an old bunker/tower. Built by the Japanese during WW2 to have a good look at the rail- and waterway. Inside the bunkers, someone graffitied the words 肾 (kidney) and 根治 (cure) — I’m not sure why, not even sure if it’s metaphorical in meaning or anything […]
Xinchang (新场) is Shanghai’s best old town. Second time there, back for some 蟹壳黄(Crab shell yellow). It’s hot, it’s packed, and shops are doing well — which is great to see.
