The empty road around Shaoxing

A good hike is like a good meal, as in that you can still recall most of it, and you’re just grateful you’ve witnessed it. Maling Ancient Road on Tuesday (alone) was like that, and today as well (with Eva).

Shangqing Ancient Road in the Keqiao district of Shaoxing (绍兴柯桥区) is a more widely covered hike around Shanghai, so I imagined it’d be crowded this weekend — but in four hours we only saw three other hikers. We took a 15-kilometer loop, along creeks, a temple, a water reservoir, two steep climbs, garden plots, and several villages in which seniors hang sausages and fish to dry. But the thing I liked the most was to share the empty road with Eva and the little space in between us.

 

Latest

Goodbye to Guanyin

Goodbye to Guanyin

It’s a Saturday morning, and we’re in a taxi on the way to the airport. My clothes cling to my body and already reek of sweat, and that’s even before our 12-hour flight has started. Today I woke up at 5:30 to get up early and throw away the last furniture and items we used […]
June 30, 2026
Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Learning Chinese, or any language, makes you more aware of language in general. And one thing that surprised me is that, despite Mandarin being so different from my mother tongue (Dutch), both languages reach for the same units when weighing things: the kilogram (公斤, gōngjīn) and the half-kilogram (斤, jīn). It’s a small thing, but […]
June 24, 2026
Cake and Timepieces

Cake and Timepieces

There are multiple ways to define Shanghai. There’s the more modern version, with beautiful lanes full of expensive yoga studios or artisan coffee shops, lined with the London Plane Tree (法国梧桐) and the Wukang Mansion (武康大楼), and renovated parks like the North Bund (北外滩) and West Bund (西岸). There’s also the Shanghai as the international […]
June 23, 2026
A candle in Minnesota

A candle in Minnesota

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota, attending the morning mass at St. Bernard’s church. It’s about twenty years since I last attended a mass, and the first time I’ve ever done so voluntarily. I’m sure I’m drawn to this church near my Airbnb, compelled to go in, but I find it hard […]
June 14, 2026