Attractions

The first time I saw them from the back of a scooter bumping along a muddy Fujian lane, I thought I had stumbled onto a set of giant prehistoric doughnuts…

I met the best Tai Chi teacher of my life at 5:40 a.m. on a stone terrace 1,600 meters up Wudang Mountain, half-blind with altitude and jet lag, watching a…

I arrived in Hongcun before sunrise, and the only sound was a wooden ladle dipping into still water. A woman in a blue apron was washing leafy greens at the…

The first time I rode up to Victoria Peak Hong Kong, I made the classic rookie mistake: I pressed my face to the wrong window of the tram and watched…

The first time I saw the Oriental Pearl Tower, I laughed out loud. Not because it’s silly — though a 468-meter tower dressed in pink-and-purple spheres and a needle does…

I’ll never forget the moment I stepped off the shuttle bus and turned the corner onto the riverside path. There it was: a sheer limestone cliff, honeycombed with tens of…

I was standing ankle-deep in spray on a narrow wooden causeway when a Chinese tour guide next to me turned to her group and said, “There is no dam.” She…

The first thing you notice about Yellow Crane Tower isn’t the tower at all. It’s the wind. Standing on Snake Hill above the Yangtze, I watched a cargo ship the…

The first thing you notice when the ferry’s engines cut out and the gangway drops is the silence. No horns, no engine hum, no scooter buzz — just the clack…

I’ll never forget the first time I walked into the Sanxingdui Museum and locked eyes with a 3,200-year-old bronze face that stared back with eyes bulging like a startled owl…