Chongqing is not exactly the tourism darling of China. This immense, aggressively vertical city lies in what looks to me like a wholly impractical place – wedged between the confluence of two massive rivers, stacked into the side of regularly shifting cliffs. An industrial and financial powerhouse, Chongqing doesn’t boast pandas, ancient Chinese historical sites, […]
If you’ve visited Kangding, you’ve likely noticed the little necklace of red gondola cars heading up the cliffs that skirt town. If you are somewhat familiar with Sichuan’s exuberant seismic history and Chinese construction norms, you may have concluded no earthly force can compel you to get on said gondolas. I am here to tell […]
Kangding does not exactly get a glowing reception in the major guidebooks, which describe this Chinese-Tibetan border city as “uninspiring,” maybe even “boring.” I am here to say that they are wrong, and that I am happy to defend Kangding’s honor – this pleasant little city with crisp mornings, a remarkable vegetable market, and a […]
I woke up in Chengdu and immediately realized I should get a Chinese SIM card, as well as a bus ticket to Kangding. The SIM card seemed more immediately approachable, and I walked out the door in search of one of Asia’s ubiquitous, usually slightly cleverly-concealed cellphone shops. 100 RMB later, I had a SIM […]
Chengdu falls neatly into the orbit of massive, bustling Chinese cities that the West has given almost no thought to. Certainly I hadn’t, beyond a vague sense that it was in Sichuan and was where people went if they wanted to go see pandas. I was not expecting an immense, modern metropolis with a Metro […]
I arrived in Shanghai at the totally uncivilized hour of 5:00 AM – and, unsurprisingly, saw that the airport area was surrounded in a thick bank of typically Chinese-style haze. (For a moment, I convinced myself it was fog. Lies). Going through customs proved painless enough, and I spent a while wandering the airport […]
Taiwan’s tourism board is very intent on getting you to go try out the Maokong Gondola. A gondola system imported from France, Taipei hails it as one of its top tourist destinations, allowing visitors to be conveniently ferried from the Taipei Zoo to the Zhinan Temple without having to clog up the roads or hail […]
Night markets are likely Taipei’s most iconic attraction, and probably the one most visible to those who have never visited the country before. Food Adventurers like Anthony Bourdain regularly traipse through them with a camera crew following behind, sampling this and that from different carts, beneath a canopy of red-and-yellow lights. Not that I’m going […]
On Tuesday, I went to the Mengjia Longshan Temple, one of Taipei’s largest and most long-standing places of worship. It’s been around since 1738, albeit in different incarnations, and was last extensively rebuilt in World War II following bombardment by Americans. On a Tuesday morning, the place is choked with worshipers lighting incense and candles […]
On Monday, I arrived in Taipei. I have gone through the airport in Taiwan many times on the way to Phnom Penh, because it’s a convenient Eva air hub and a nice place to get noodles and beer as you await onward transit. But I had always wanted to properly visit Taiwan, bolstered as I […]