Chengdu

Chengdu was the final new city on our three-week journey. Although our stay was brief, we hoped to make the most of it by basing ourselves in Yulin, a subdistrict…

From Wartime Capital to Modern Metropolis: Chongqing

As a kid, I remember watching a Top Gear episode set in what they called “the largest city you’ve never heard of.” That city was Chongqing. The episode stuck with…

Phoenix City

Rain. Rain. Rain. The weather ruined our plans for visiting Zhangjiajie — the rain and fog were so dense that we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Instead, we…

A Living Painting: Hangzhou

Before visiting Hangzhou, I had often heard about the beauty of its tea fields and West Lake. There is a well-known Chinese proverb—“Above there is heaven; below there is Suzhou…

Where the Water Never Hurries: Nanxun

I had never heard of Nanxun before planning this trip to China. But when I discovered that there were numerous ancient water towns between Suzhou and Hangzhou—two of our main…

The Quiet Beauty of Suzhou

Our time in Suzhou felt like two completely different trips. There was the ancient city, with its canals, classical gardens, and traditional architecture, and then there was the modern city,…