Attractions

The first time I really understood Wuzhen, I wasn’t looking at it — I was listening. I’d stepped off the bus from Hangzhou around nine in the morning, still half-asleep,…

I almost skipped the Big Wild Goose Pagoda on my first trip to Xi’an. I’d come for the Terracotta Army, the city wall, the noodles — and a 1,300-year-old brick…

The first time I stood on top of the Xi’an City Wall, I had just come down from the Terracotta Army and expected another dusty tourist stop. Instead I found…

I still remember the moment my knees started to shake on the Plank Walk. There is no “path” in the ordinary sense — just a two-foot-wide wooden board bolted to…

The first time I walked into the Xi’an Muslim Quarter, it was around 9 p.m. and the alley was already thick with smoke, sizzling oil, and the kind of noise…

The first time I got properly lost in Beijing, it wasn’t in a museum or subway — it was down a grey-brick alley barely wide enough for two bicycles. A…

I almost skipped the Beijing Lama Temple. It wasn’t on my original list — I’d come for the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, the obvious hits — and a…

I’ll be honest: the first time I walked into Nanluoguxiang, I thought I’d made a mistake. It was a Saturday afternoon, the main alley was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with tour groups…

I still remember the moment I stepped through the moon-gate entrance of Shanghai Yu Garden on a foggy spring morning. One second I was in the chaos of the Old…

The first time I really understood the Shanghai French Concession, I wasn’t looking at a map or a museum — I was lost. It was a damp April evening, I’d…