After a week of grey skies threatening then granting pouring rain, much of which Beijing thirsts for, eyes of both weather and work storms find me on a train to Qingdao of Shandong region. I pack three-day essentials except my laptop; it’s bad enough I can’t break from my iPhone or a wifi connection.
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Jining, Inner-Mongolia, China — After nine hours by train from Beijing to Jining, I’m happy to say I’ve arrived. Given we left at 9:32am, I thought we wouldn’t need a hard-sleeper and opted for the hard seat. My bottom is still zinging from the pain. We arrived at 6:15pm, on time!
As [...]
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Before embarking on our trip to Jiangsu and Shanghai, I take TJ and my friend Tranh (tagging along while I borrow her food styling skills) to Noodle Bar.
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Train from Changsha to Shimen, Hunan, CHINA — It’s Friday and the start of Qingmingjie (清明节, Tomb Sweeping weekend). We’ve boarded a train, bum-rushed by university students who have cut classes and made a sport of finding the [...]
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Train K578, CHINA — On a train to Changsha in Hunan region eating a peanut butter-orange marmalade sandwich on wheat, hand crafted by my husband, Peikwen, just before we [...]
Continue Reading →I’ve arrived in Chengdu after a 25-hour train ride, winding through fields crossing village and city borders blanketed with yellow flowers trumping the sunshine’s flare. Adeline and I have managed to bunk with four dudes taking full advantage of common space; Yanjing beer cans, peanut shells, [...]
Continue Reading →When is the largest yearly human migration in the world? Chūnjié (春节, Chinese New Year).
For the year of the Tiger, Adeline traveled by train 13 hours (hard sleeper), then three hours by bus to arrive home where her mother and father waited anxiously [...]
Continue Reading →Beijing to Chengdu, CHINA – Last night Mianzhu in Sichuan province shook from an earthquake of 5.2 on the Richter scale. Because of the earthquake, our train stops often and we are told the railroads are damaged. Thirty minutes outside of Mianyang we stall for over an hour and some passengers complain we should at [...]
Continue Reading →Train No. K117 Beijing to Chengdu, CHINA – My search for tasty family recipes is indeed a journey and any meal I have along the way is part of the process. I’ve just twisted several plastic forks of instant noodles for lunch while watching sunflower patches and boxy brick homes whiz by [...]
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