Dad & Elaine have taken high-speed trains across China again and again. And one thing kept striking Dad. The trains can be packed. The stations can be enormous. Waiting halls fill with people. Then hundreds of passengers board one train while another few hundred are waiting for the next. Dad started wondering: “Where is everybody GOING? 😂” 🥟 The Quick Bite China doesn’t only have an enormous population. It has an enormous...
Before your first China trip, your mental map may look something like: Beijing. Shanghai. Xi’an. Chengdu. Maybe Zhangjiajie. Then Dad & Elaine started travelling farther. And suddenly our China map exploded. 😂 🥟 The Quick Bite China is enormous. Yet international tourism concentrates our attention on a surprisingly small number of famous destinations. That can create a very misleading equation: I’ve heard of it = important I’ve never heard of it =...
Dad & Elaine arrive in another Chinese city. Hotel reception? Maybe some English. Major attraction? Possibly. Then we walk into a small restaurant. Dad speaks English. They speak Chinese. Everyone smiles. Now what? 😂 Yet somehow: we order dinner. we find the train. we get the DiDi. we reach the hotel. And after travelling through city after city, Dad realized: “We actually CAN travel China without being fluent in Chinese.” 🥟 The...
Dad & Elaine have travelled across China on many different trips. Chengdu (成都, Chéngdū) → Xi’an (西安, Xī’ān). Beijing (北京, Běijīng) → Hong Kong (香港, Xiānggǎng). Hong Kong → Shenzhen (深圳, Shēnzhèn). Hong Kong → Macao (澳门, Àomén). And through cities across Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan. Again and again, Dad noticed something strange: the China outside the window kept changing. But after a while… travelling through it started feeling strangely familiar....
Dad & Elaine have travelled beyond China’s internationally famous tourist circuit to: Linfen (临汾, Línfén). Anyang (安阳, Ānyáng). Yuncheng (运城, Yùnchéng). Baoji (宝鸡, Bǎojī). Zibo (淄博, Zībó). Dezhou (德州, Dézhōu). Taiyuan (太原, Tàiyuán). Jinan (济南, Jǐnán). Tianjin (天津, Tiānjīn). Some Dad barely knew before planning our journeys. Then we arrived. China completely broke Dad’s definition of a “lesser-known city.” 😂 🥟 The Quick Bite In China: Lesser-known internationally does NOT mean small....
Look at China on a map. Beijing (北京, Běijīng). Shanghai (上海, Shànghǎi). Xi’an (西安, Xī’ān). Chengdu (成都, Chéngdū). These places are seriously far apart. Then you get on China’s high-speed rail. A few hours later… you’re there. 😳 🥟 The Quick Bite China is enormous. High-speed rail doesn’t change that. What 高铁 (gāotiě) — high-speed rail — changes is your idea of what counts as “too far.” A journey that looks intimidating...
You look at your map in China. Your hotel is here. The attraction is over there. They both look like they’re in roughly the same part of the city. “Shouldn’t take long.” Then the app says: 47 minutes. 😳 Dad & Elaine learned this lesson particularly well in Beijing: same city does NOT mean nearby. 😂 🥟 The Quick Bite Some major Chinese cities cover enormous urban areas. Two places can both...
After travelling through more than a dozen Chinese cities, Dad & Elaine started noticing something repeatedly: many were greener than we expected. Huge cities. Dense apartment developments. Busy roads. Millions of people. Yet there were trees, parks, flowers and landscaped green spaces woven through much of what we saw. “Wait… we weren’t expecting THIS much green.” 🥟 The Quick Bite Many Chinese cities have invested significantly in urban greening (城市绿化, chéngshì lǜhuà)...
Travelling around China, Dad & Elaine sometimes found ourselves thinking: “Wow… this is much cleaner than we expected.” Busy streets. Huge metro stations. Public squares filled with people. Yet some places looked remarkably clean and well maintained. But let’s be clear: not everywhere. 😂 We’ve also walked through Chinese streets where there was rather more rubbish than Dad & Elaine would have liked. 🥟 The Quick Bite China is far too large...
You arrive at one of China’s famous attractions. You expected tourists. You did not expect: THIS MANY TOURISTS. 😳 Tour groups. Families. Queues. Phones in the air. And most of the visitors around you aren’t international tourists at all. They’re Chinese travelers exploring their own country. 🥟 The Quick Bite China has an enormous domestic tourism market (国内旅游, guónèi lǚyóu). With such a huge population, famous attractions can attract very large numbers...
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