Author: karl

Wild peach blossoms blanketing a Nyingchi valley with snow peaks behind I still remember the morning I first stepped out of the car near the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Nyingchi,…

I still remember the first morning I woke up in Kashgar. I had arrived on the overnight train from Urumqi, groggy and unsure what to expect, and stepped out into…

The first time I stood on the Hulunbuir Grassland, I stopped talking. There was simply nothing to say. A wind rolled in from somewhere past the horizon, bent the grass…

I still remember the first time I stood at the foot of the Helan Mountains, squinting into the low northern sun. I had come to Ningxia expecting little more than…

I still remember the moment the bus rounded the last bend and the mountain simply appeared. There it was — a solitary, rounded peak rising out of the green folds…

The towering west gate tower of Jiayuguan Fort against a vast blue Gobi sky I still remember the moment I first stepped through the arched gateway of Jiayuguan Fort. The…

I still remember the first time I stepped off the train in Qingdao. The sea air smelled of salt and something else—something malty and warm that I couldn’t quite place….

I still remember the first time I stepped off the high-speed train in Tianjin, luggage in hand, with no real plan beyond one thing on my list: the Tianjin Eye….

I still remember the moment I stepped through the first gate of Prince Gong’s Mansion and the noise of Beijing seemed to switch off. One second I was on a…

Standing on the east side of Tiananmen Square, the National Museum of China is the kind of place that humbles you the moment you walk in. I had been to…