I have to admit that even though Suzhou is just a 30 minute train ride away, I haven’t made it there until recently! A little knackered from the previous long day at Hangzhou’s Xixi Wetland Park and Lonjing tea fields at the West Lake (catch up on my previous blog entry here), my friend – who…
Category: Shanghai
Xixi Wetland Park, Hangzhou
In late October, one of my best friends from Germany came to visit us in Shanghai and apart from showing him all the main sights, rooftop bars and top restaurants in Shanghai, we took the train to discover Hangzhou and Suzhou. As I’ve seen quite a bit of the West Lake for my birthday weekend…
The top 5 things to do in Kuala Lumpur
This year we sucked it up and paid a bit more for our flights to be able to escape Shanghai for Golden Week. Last year, we’ve spent the national holiday in Shanghai as we didn’t know we had to book long in advance to be able to afford anything and also as we were new…
How to find the right apartment in Shanghai
Many new expats are put off by the thought of having to find an apartment or house by themselves, often in a very short time frame. Finding an apartment can be fairly easy, as there’s a lot of choice, but you need to decide quickly as new apartments on the market could go within days or even hours. This is my guideline based on personal experience to help you find the right apartment or house in Shanghai –
My birthday weekend in Hangzhou
Having talked about going to Hangzhou for easily a year, my birthday weekend seemed like the perfect occasion for a short getaway. Together with friends, we booked rooms at the Wyndham Grand Plaza Royale (sounds fancy, right?) which is situated at the top of Hangzhou’s main attraction and UNESCO world heritage sight: the West Lake….
Shanghai’s immaculate roads
With temperatures dropping to low twenties, Shanghai is finally getting ready for autumn. And that means, it’s so much more pleasant now to roam the streets. When we moved house in June from a big compound in a very local and pretty distant district to an old colonial French building on a quiet street in…
Your checklist for moving to China
Now that we’ve lived for almost a year in Shanghai, I would like to share my knowledge with newbies who are about to move to China. Especially all those things I wanted to know and couldn’t find out before we left! Apps to download for China Translator, Pleco & Google Translate It’s extremely important…
Beijing’s blossoms in April
With the weather getting hotter and more humid every day, I thought it’s time to finally write about our 5-day spring holiday with his parents in Beijing. We were lucky as it was sunny with low pollution levels on most days and the Tomb Sweeping Holiday had just ended, so the sightseeing places were not…
Wicked!
Last night, I went to Shanghai Culture Square on South Shaanxi Road to see Wicked, the musical. As many friends have recommended it to me, I had bought the tickets with colleagues ages ago (just after we went to the Christmas fair!). What can I say – it was the best musical I’ve ever seen!…
Kyoto Fairytales
We absolutely love Japan. Our holiday in Kyoto just exceeded all our expectations! Just as we landed and the Chinese tourists pushed us off the plane, I was overwhelmed with the friendliness of the Japanese airport and train station staff…
Jitensha Adventure 