It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve returned from Taiwan, and I still have no appetite! I don’t want to eat anything, except for a shaobing youtiao or lo bo gao or dan bing or o-ah jian. Or anything made in Taiwan. It’s so depressing and well, unappetizing, in Beijing. Why do they eat such […]
A few things that surprised me about Tokyo, besides how different it is from China and how much more similar it felt to the West. People drive on the left side of the road. This one girl I was walking behind after the U.S. lost to Slovenia was, by all indications, drunk off her ass. […]
I’ve made my way from the North ‘jing to the East ‘jing, which is in a whole other country, so that probably explains most of the differences. It’s the battle of the two giant Asian capitals: Beijing versus Tokyo. Which is better? Cleanliness: The Japanese may have borrowed a lot from the Chinese, but they stopped […]
Taking a surprise trip to Shanghai this weekend. It’s a surprise because I didn’t really plan on it. Evan Osnos over at the New Yorker also got a surprise. Hongqiao’s giant new terminal opened Tuesday, which somehow — despite being grand and extraordinary and (presumably) for the Expo — escaped the major news of the […]
I’m off to Israel for the next 12 days. Coincidentally, there is a huge issue tying all three countries — the U.S., China and Israel — together: Iran’s nuclear program. Israel will be sending a delegation to China later this month to persuade China to sanction Iran so that Iran might decide it’s against their […]
The Chinese are so different so often that sometimes it’s easy to forget they still are fundamentally like the rest of us.* Enter the Lunar New Year. The atmosphere leading up to the big day is something akin to the end of the year for us Christians/Westerners. The warm holiday spirit infuses everybody and everything. […]
Spring Festival is still three days away and there is an official week-long holiday for it, but people are already starting to celebrate. The city is clearing out. Every morning, there has been fewer and fewer people on the streets and bus to work. I like it! Someone somewhere is setting off fireworks right now. I’ve […]
In preparation for an upcoming trip, I’ve joined CouchSurfing.org, a project that puts travelers in touch with local hosts for a free place to crash or just a friendly meet-up. Call it a grassroots diplomacy. Hoping some valuable experiences and unforgettable people will come out of this.
I wasn’t planning on writing anything for work about my mini-holidays, but I had such an adventure in Datong that I thought it’d be a pity to leave it all out. It turned out to be a little info guide for would-be visitors to Hengshan and the Hanging Monastery.
After coming back from our big adventure to the Hanging Monastery, we rested for a bit at our hotel. We decided we weren’t very hungry but should eat anyway around 8 p.m., so we went to the hotel next door. It had a pretty nice restaurant (we had eaten there the night before). We ordered […]