I have never fallen for a place as rapidly or as irrevocably as I have fallen for Hong Kong. This past weekend was electrifying, rapid, exhilarating. And it terrifies me just how much I want to uproot the life I have created in China and move to…
My Morning Commute or "Ten Minutes on the Shanghai Subway"
42 minutes. That’s the exact length of my work commute (that is, if don’t count stopping at the milk coffee-tea stall along the way). Of those forty-two minutes, less than ten are spent underground, passing two subway stops on Line 11 of the Shanghai Metro –…
Bags of Beer and Skewers of Squid
Last weekend, for the first time in nearly four months, I saw a sky teeming with stars. Shivering and wrapping myself tighter in my plaid scarf – the one that so closely resembles an afghan – rapidly losing feeling my fingers (and for…
Bags of Beer and Skewers of Squid
Last weekend, for the first time in nearly four months, I saw a sky teeming with stars. Shivering and wrapping myself tighter in my plaid scarf – the one that so closely resembles an afghan – rapidly losing feeling my fingers (and for…
Why we become expats
Encounters with strangers in Shanghai always come with difficult questions. For one, ‘why did you come to China?’ is one that has been asked each time I have met someone new and over time, it’s become more and more of…
4 reasons it hurts to sit down and other ways to get fit in Shanghai
Picture this: you’re in a dimly-lit room and German techno is thumping through the speakers. There is a woman in spandex in front of you and she’s illuminated by a lone floodlight (eerie and unnecessarily dramatic). Her shadow is almost…