“Short stories and travel reports from my life adventures around the globe”.
Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong. May 2010. I had high hopes for Hong Kong. Partly because—well, it’s Hong Kong. But also because I knew this would be the last hurrah of my 2009-2010 travels around China. Over the preceding year, I’d crisscrossed the country and battled my way through what can only be […]
Read MoreHuangluo Yao Village & the Longji Rice Terraces. Guangxi Autonomous Region, China. May 2010. Cover photo courtesy of xiquinhosilva. After my cycling and cooking adventures in Yangshuo, I returned to Guilin by bus, where—reluctantly—I boarded a large coach for my day trip into the mountains. I had hoped to avoid a group tour, but with […]
Read MoreExploring Misty Yangshuo, Guangxi Autonomous Province, China. May 2010. Cover photo courtesy of Chensiyuan. As I arrived in Yangshuo—so often described as the most beautiful place in China—I carried a quiet caveat with me. It was something I’d read in a travel guide months earlier: this might be the most spectacular thing you see in […]
Read MoreSnippets of Guilin, Guangxi autonomous region, China. May 2010. Cover photo courtesy of Shujianyang. Looking back, I do wish I’d spent more time in Guangxi—China’s impossibly beautiful, storybook province. But by then, my trip was already beginning to wind down, and I had just a week left to take in a handful of highlights before […]
Read MoreWarriors and Walls: Exploring Xi’an. May 2010. I arrived in Xi’an by train from Pingyao, the journey gliding by in a smooth, slightly hypnotic two hours and forty-five minutes — another quiet triumph for China’s high-speed rail. One moment I was watching Shanxi’s muted landscapes flicker past; the next I was stepping out onto the […]
Read MoreA Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao. Shanxi Province, China. May 2010. After a year teaching English in a small language school on Beijing’s northeastern fringe, the simple act of leaving the capital felt like letting out a long, deep breath. China’s roads were calling again, thus I answered with an inventive route […]
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