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 […]
To Qingxi (青溪古镇) and back again today. Watermelon on the way and scorched rice (锅巴) on arrival.
My sister’s China visit has come to an end. We went to Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai. In Shanghai we only had two days without pouring rain, but we saw went through a range from old markets with live animals, rich shopping malls (IAMP), as well as the 119th floor of the Shanghai Tower. According to […]
Lady laughing: “You take a photo? What is interesting about this place?” A market in Chuansha (川沙十八铺农产品批发市场). 10 RMB haircut on the bridge. “High or not?” And yeah it’s the highest baozi-tower I’ve ever seen.
We’re in the Forbidden City, and everything means something. Nails on the door in rows of nine by nine, two lions at the gate, water wells, a phoenix and a dragon, marble slabs, numbers, hierarchy, symmetry, symbolism. Getting in wasn’t easy. Each day only 40.000 tickets sell. We tried for Saturday, and the ticket sales […]
I must have seen the Great Wall a thousand times. In school books, Mulan, Age of Empires, Discovery Channel, murals, and cheap reproduction paintings. But now that I’m actually here (Jinshanling 金山岭), I can barely believe this has actually been built. The wall, despite being so massive, feels like a part of nature as well, […]
I visited Beijing before, but never got to know it. In 2019, I hastily went to the Forbidden City, a hutong, and the 798 Art Zone, and it reinforced my idea of Beijing as a historic city, housing the government and tons of museums and landmarks. It’s to Shanghai what Washington is to New York, […]
There’s a timelessness to ancient texts such as the Odyssey and Greek mythology, with the themes and lessons in them still being stimulating even today. Icarus who flies too close to the sun, Odysseus who has to resist temptations, the gift of fire from Prometheus. And Madeline Miller gives a modern spin to this bundle of […]
Just some random pictures from a sunny Saturday and Sunday in Zhangjiang (张江) and Chuansha (川沙), and why I love this area so much more than downtown Shanghai. A 15-minute wait for the crispiest scallion pancake (葱油饼) I’ve ever had. More hole-in-the-wall food. (I trust my stomach is strong enough for the food from these […]
We can finally call it a spring and as such these street vendors’ clientele has also improved. Kinda basic but it’s on the edge of Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park (张江高科技园区). Cycling to work I come across several of these. (When people say Shanghai has no more street food, they just mean the city center.)