The commute to and from work (7KM) is a bit boring, but today on the bike everything looked different, magical, soft.
Fog
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In Nanhui
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 […]
To walk is to learn
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 […]
Watermelon on the way, and scorched rice on arrival
To Qingxi (青溪古镇) and back again today. Watermelon on the way and scorched rice (锅巴) on arrival.
The end is at the Bund
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 […]
Live animals and cheap haircuts
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.
Mia’s Forbidden City
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 […]
China’s Great Wall
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, […]
Getting to know Beijing
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, […]
Circe review
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 […]