In the summer of 2018, I moved to Shanghai and back then I only planned to stay maybe two years in China, so I didn’t consider it necessary to learn Chinese. In Shanghai, it’s OK to get by without speaking Mandarin. You either point at pictures or show the translated sentence on your phone. For […]

We’re in a little town in Shanghai’s Pudong district, named 新港集镇 — which translates to something like New Harbor Market Town. It’s just a collection of houses, but this — and the 28°C weather — is all we need. It’s so quiet here, a rare thing in Shanghai. It’s as if everybody whispers, not to […]

The best thing to come out of Shanghai’s coffee boom is 一尺花园 (One Step Garden). Their restaurants/coffee stores are always housed in well-preserved old buildings with fantastic interior design, like this old kiln in Nanhui (南汇). (The weather doesn’t help taking pictures.) Or this one in Gaoqiao (高桥古镇): This one in Qingxi Ancient Town (青溪古镇): […]

We ask for the old city wall, and the shushu points to the back: “It’s raining, take this way.” And so we go through a garage, kitchen, and up the stairs — and suddenly we’re looking out over a canal and realize we’re on the old wall. It’s in the back of a huge temple […]

During every holiday trip, my mom and dad will light a candle in some church they encounter. A few days ago, they lit a candle in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland, New Zealand. To be grateful for our family and everything we have. So why a church? It’s hard to say how religious they (or […]

My parents usually buy a travel book or borrow one from the library, but I typically read up on Reddit and Google. While Google is all ‘pristine white beaches’, Reddit had me kinda pessimistic about going to Vietnam. Beaches were supposed be littered in plastic, some villages full of Korean or Russian tourists, and traffic […]

We depart from Los Angeles for a five-hour drive. The desert we’re crossing slowly turns to night — and as we near the city, the glow from Las Vegas draws out the silhouette of the mountains in front of it. We’re driving underneath the stars and among other cars, and it feels like we’re going […]

I never made a good foodie, because I feel memories of places or people last longer than those of any meal. When traveling to a new country, it feels like a waste of time to spend it on food — because food isn’t fully tied to a place: you can eat sushi in Shanghai — […]

I have no ambitions to become a travel advisor or anything, but here I’m sharing some of my experiences of hikes and mountains (or mere hills) around Shanghai. Also the ones I heard about but did not go to yet. I’ve also added some 古道’s: Ancient (Merchant) Roads. These seem to become more & more […]

Today we visited the Former Site of Songhu Garrison Command (淞沪警备司令部旧址) — or in the words of Ash who gave the tip “the former police building”. The place is around a hundred years old and recently renovated. There’s a gatehouse, an office, an interrogation/torture room, and places for guards and inmates to sleep. It’s part […]