Uber Uber has been such a lifesaver. On the grand scale of things, I really don’t think much has changed since I’ve left the States (Kombucha is still a thing. Everybody, calm down; there’s no need to panic). But the one thing…
Reverse cultural shock or my first hours back in the U.S.
“For those of you coming home tonight, welcome home”. I had told myself I would be emotional during my ‘grand’ return home, but somewhere along the way, I started chocking back tears when my flight took off from Pudong airport (those being tears…
Climbing the Great Wall and other things that make you a man.
The smell of Beijing is unmistakable. It’s the smell of resin, cigarettes, and motor exhaust, and it hits you, hard, as soon as you step into the Beijing Capital Airport. It’s been more than a year since I’ve last been to China’s…
Life Abroad: What I expected and what really happened
Living in a foreign place never turns out the way you would have thought it to have turned out. And right now, I’m panicking. Hard. In about two weeks, I’m flying back to the U.S. for the first time in almost a year. It’s…
The one where I take on Huashan Hospital (once more) and live to tell the tale
Walking into a Chinese hospital is never a pleasant experience. There’s always something to throw you off – whether it’s the process of sardine-squeezing into at least three elevators before your find one without an overload sign, or being asked to carry…
Springtime in Shanghai, or arbitrary questions without easy answers
We’ve finally reached the Shanghai Spring (and, I guess, the month of April) last week, and although it was short-lived and the weather is once more back to a 50ºF hazy and rainy mess, the past week brought me back to the temperatures…
What exactly would be an “authentic Shanghai experience” be?
My Dad left this past Saturday. Since he’s flown back, I’ve just regained my sense of a routine (if being trapped in bed for two straight days hopped up on all the DayQuil that he had brought from the U.S. could count…
The 30-day Countdown: One year later
In June 2014, a few days after coming back from Russia and just a month before departing for Shanghai, I wrote a blog post about counting down the days in the last month, but I decided against publishing it. I’m not…
Redefining 'my' Shanghai
I’ve been feeling slightly out of place the past week. More than before, I’ve been on edge, and people around must be starting to pick up on it. My mind is all sorts of scatterbrained and I can’t help but feel disconnected to the…
Cooking Chinese Food is all about the oil
My (very basic) understanding of Chinese Cooking goes like this: Always make sure the wok is already smoking before you add oil. When you think you’ve added enough oil, add two more teaspoons. Or heck, a ladleful while you’re at it….
Massachusetts-Shanghai: An Interview
Look ma! I’m Internet-famous! Ok, so not really, and this isn’t quite the piece I talked about earlier (that’ll get published in April), but I’ve been lucky enough to get interviewed by BlogExpat about my time in Shanghai. Check out…
Twilight bike rides and countless other reasons to go to Guilin
I’ve never seen a place quite as picturesque as Guilin before in my life. I don’t say things like that often, because, let’s face it, those ugly deciduous forests that I pass while going into a new city are pretty much the same whether…