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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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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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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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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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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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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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In my new busy-student lifestyle, any trip downtown must be made the most of! So when we planned to go downtown for an event at a new bar two weeks ago, we knew we wanted to seize the opportunity to have a delicious meal, too. A bit of Internet research led me to Da Gui, [...]
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My recent trip to Chengde, like last month’s excursion to the Marco Polo Bridge, was organized by the intensive Mandarin program where I’m currently studying. They understandably turned to the services of a Chinese travel agency to coordinate the trip, so I finally had a chance to experience a Chinese tour group from the inside. If [...]
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As I explained in my previous post on Chengde, the town grew to prominence when the Qing emperors established their summer resort in the mountains here. Naturally, that resort — a World Heritage Site along with the surrounding temples — was a key stop on our two-day itinerary. We lucked out with autumn weather that [...]
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No, I didn’t take a surprise trip to Lhasa over the weekend! This replica of the world-famous Potala Palace sits in the hills of Chengde, about four hours northeast of Beijing. Chengde was home to the Qing emperors’ Summer Mountain Resort (which you’ll see in a few days), which meant that the town was also [...]
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Travel stories and advice from an independent traveler and expat in China. Full bio
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