langkawi cable car

I had a fantastic time traveling around China with my brother. I thought it was super interesting and was incredibly lucky to get to go (with a Mandarin speaker, to boot!). But um, the second half of my two-week trip to Asia, the Malaysia part? It blew China out of the water.

Now, let's be fair: In China, it was firmly mid-winter. In Malaysia, it's basically summer all the time. In China, we were in big and often smoggy cities. In Malaysia, I spent about three seconds in Kuala Lumpur (known to everyone who's actually familiar with it as KL), and then Megan and I jetted off to the island of Langkawi, which, from the top of the cable car, looks like this:

  
So, you see, it was hardly a fair fight.

tianjin III: the old & the new

Tianjin might have been my favorite city we visited in China. It was just so fantastically bizarre. I loved the mix of modern Chinese and traditional Western architecture (in the first picture especially), and its "Ancient Culture Street" (pictures 4-5) and "Italian-Style Town" (picture 6) were so strange. Not sure just how long the Ancient Culture Street has been around, though I can say with some certainty that it's not exactly ancient; but I was surprised to learn that the Italian-Style Town has been around for over 100 years. It's gotten a recent facelift, but Tianjin originally brought in an Italian architect to make the dream come alive in the early 1900s. The city isn't any kind of consistently pretty, but it's absolutely got some charm.

tianjin II: in the nighttime

  
At night, Tianjin was a stunner. All those reflections on the (totally not competely frozen) river were gorgeous.

tianjin I: fun with rivers

Until you go to Tianjin, China, you don't even know what all you can do with a river. Things that never would have occurred to me to do on an only partially frozen river: go ice fishing; go ice chairing (you know, like ice skating, but you sit on a tiny chair and propel yourself with poles -- does this exist outside of Tianjin??); set off fireworks; ride a bicycle. (For some reason, it's the last of these that made me gape the most.)

xi'an by night

While the terracotta army was cool and the old city was interesting by day, I most enjoyed Xi'an by night, especially all the crazy lights going on by an exhibition near the South Gate.

palace museum / forbidden city

  
I guess I knew that the Forbidden City (officially known as the Palace Museum) was going to be big, but I didn't have a good idea of how big. Freaking enormous would begin to cover it. We tried to enter from the north but were told we had to go to the main entrance instead (closer to Tiananmen Square), and just walking around the outside at a reasonably brisk pace took solidly fifteen minutes. Big. And also very cool. I loved the details on the outsides of the buildings in particular, and got my first taste of the many wonderful English translations in China. Relic protected, no scratch. Indeed.

chinese eats

Beijing:
1-2. Snickers at the Palace Museum (Forbidden City).
3. Milk tea at a stand across the street from Lama Temple.
4. Amazing dinner not far from the Wiegongcun subway stop (Line 4), at this restaurant, starring the best Chinese cabbage I've ever tasted.
5. Dessert and fantastic jasmine tea at Lao She Teahouse, which we visited for free thanks to a friend of Conor's.
6. Fried scorpions at the Wanfujing Night Market (tourist central, but briefly entertaining).


Xi'an:
7. McDonald's plain cheeseburger. Before you mock me, note two things: 1) We were the only white people in every single fast food restaurant we went to (which also included KFC and Burger King), and Conor always ordered in Chinese ("It's not cheating if you still have to speak Mandarin to get your burger," he said.); and 2) The way they flavor the meat at McDonald's in China is different and AMAZING.
8. Noodle shop dinner (spicy and delicious!).
9. Hot pot, wonderful hot pot.


Tianjin:
10. Dumplings in a mall near Dabeijyuan Temple.
11-12. Chinese crullers, hard-boiled egg, and "warm food" (for dipping the crullers in) at the Muslim restaurant immediately to the left upon entering Zhong Shan Food Court.
13-14. Manto (steamed bread) at the end of Zhong Shan Food Court (near Zhong Shan Park). We waited absolutely ages for these, and lo, they were tasty.