Explore China Without Leaving Beijing Weekend Escape to Pingyao Learning What the Future Holds eGuidebooks: A Review How to Survive the Holidays Abroad

Explore China Without Leaving Beijing

June 6, 2011
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Afraid you’ll miss out on sampling China’s regional specialties because you only have time to visit Beijing? Worry no more. Each of the provinces and many of China’s larger cities have offices in Beijing, complete with restaurants to cater to homesick officials. Tucked in nondescript hotels all around Beijing, these government-run restaurants offer reasonably-priced tastes of [...]

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Weekend Escape to Pingyao

May 31, 2011
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Following up on the success of last semester’s trip to Chengde, this month my language program whisked us off to Pingyao for a quick early-summer cultural excursion. Pingyao is perhaps the most famous of China’s “ancient cities,” and it is known in particular for having a remarkably well-preserved set of city walls. Unfortunately, we discovered [...]

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Let the Spring Migration Commence

January 29, 2011

China’s annual Spring Migration, when millions of workers head back to their hometowns for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), has been in full force for about a week now. While we have continued to go to school, Tsinghua’s campus has been emptying out of students, teachers and cafeteria workers. The loss of the hustle [...]

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In Search of African Guangzhou

January 10, 2011

Guangzhou’s “Little Africa” — a stretch of trading markets near the Xiaobei (小北) metro stop — first came to my attention last year via an article in the New Yorker (subscribers only). I was intrigued by the notion of a different expat community from Beijing’s Sanlitun playground for the young-and-overpaid. So when Christmas weekend found [...]

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Learning What the Future Holds

December 31, 2010
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In the spirit of bringing the travel spirit home, a couple of weeks ago my friend Jane and I headed over to the Lama Temple neighborhood in search of 算命. Literally “counting a life,” this is the Chinese term for fortune-telling. My friend is about to leave China, and getting her fortune told was one [...]

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eGuidebooks: A Review

December 13, 2010
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In the weeks leading up to my trip to Taiwan, our paper copy of the Taiwan Lonely Planet was lost in the mail. And no Beijing bookstore carries it, probably because it doesn’t lump Taiwan in with the rest of China. Since I’m not yet the kind of traveler who goes guidebook-less, I decided the [...]

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A Taiwanese Complete Breakfast

November 30, 2010

I wasn’t sure what to expect food-wise when I arrived in Taiwan. I knew whatever we found would be delicious — but what would we find? I’ve already regaled you with our day of eating in Tainan, but I left out the most intriguing part — breakfast! Naturally, it came in two stages, starting with [...]

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How to Survive the Holidays Abroad

November 23, 2010
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This week marks the beginning of what is probably the roughest six weeks out of any expat or long-term traveler’s year: the holidays. If you’re not lucky enough to have a long vacation and the cash for a plane fare, making it through the holiday season can be an emotional challenge. This will be my [...]

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Snapshot: Autumn in Beijing

November 20, 2010

Amid a week of “crazy bad” air pollution here in Beijing, the one saving grace has been the beautiful fall colors that can be seen around the city. Once known for being treeless, a pre-Olympics tree-planting campaign has introduced a fair amount of greenery to Beijing’s streets. And the parks and university campuses have always [...]

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A Tainan Feast (Or Two… Or Three)

November 16, 2010

In Tainan, our last stop in Taiwan, we had the luckiest break of our trip: My roommate’s dad’s coworker’s brother (convoluted much?) is a Tainan native and quite a foodie, and he gave us an amazing 24-hour tour of the city’s cuisine. To give you a sense of the variety of food on offer in [...]

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