Posts tagged as:
On Wednesday, I announced that I was leaving Changsha for good. Can you guess where I’m headed? L to R: Panda at the Zoo, Tiananmen, the Bird’s Nest, Temple of Heaven, Drum Tower, Lama Temple As you probably figured out, I’m heading back to Beijing. Come September, I’ll be a student once again, this time [...]
{ 1 comment }
Tonight, I’ll leave Changsha for the last time — at least until I return to visit. After two years teaching at Hunan University, I’m moving on to my next adventure. I’m excited for where I’m heading, but of course I’ll also miss Changsha. In addition to friends, both Chinese and American, I’ll miss: Lushan Nanlu: [...]
{ 2 comments }
Fenghuang’s old town wall glows a warm pink when it is bathed in the evening sun. All day long, tourists meander its length, admiring the small carvings that adorn the roofs above. I find its structure a little confusing — were the houses on the other side of the wall once not a part of [...]
{ 3 comments }
Spend much time traveling in China and you will eventually find yourself drawn to a 古城, or “old town.” These are neighborhoods — usually surrounded by a completely modern city — that somehow survived the wrecking ball of modern economic development. Instead of identical white-tile buildings, old town homes have curvy roof corners and carved [...]
{ 1 comment }
Over the weekend, I had a chance to revisit one of my favorite places in China. Unless you’re an extra-avid reader of this blog, you’ve read your Lonely Planet cover-to-cover (welcome to the club!), or you know me in real life, you’ve probably never heard of Dehang. It’s village in western Hunan that is surrounded [...]
{ 6 comments }
In December, a new Chinese rail line claimed the title of fastest train in the world — and it just so happens to run right through Changsha, where I live. So when a work conference was scheduled for Guangzhou, the southern terminus for the line, it was the perfect excuse to test out the new [...]
{ 3 comments }
On the advice of a Chinese friend, a friend and I headed out to the Hunan Provincial Botanical Garden last Saturday to check out the spring flowers. Two crowded bus rides later, we were deposited at the garden, far in Changsha’s southern end. On this sunny, warm and clear-skied day, the Botanical Garden was not [...]
{ 1 comment }
In China, food is a serious affair, and one that is best enjoyed with as many people as possible. In the States, if you show up to a restaurant with a party of 12 and no reservation, you’re likely to set the staff into a frenzy of table-rearranging — and that’s if you’re not turned [...]
{ 1 comment }
Shaoshan’s kitsch magnificence is almost too much for words, so I turned to a traveling companion who is never short for them for this guest post about our recent trip. In early 1990, in the days before he was himself the subject of fulsome leftist hagiographies, New York Times Beijing Correspondent Nicholas Kristof visited Shaoshan [...]
{ 2 comments }
After two months on the road, even two weeks at home in Changsha was too much for some of us. So we hit the road this weekend for a quick daylong pilgrimage to Shaoshan, the birthplace of Mao Zedong. The town generally gets mediocre reviews, which is why it took me two years to get [...]
{ 0 comments }
Travel stories and advice from an independent traveler and expat in China. Full bio
This site has been selected for Lonely Planet's blogsherpa program.
Recommended Reading
Add to your RSS Reader
Subscribe by e-mail
Follow me on Twitter
Flickr photostream