Your no‑BS checklist for traveling China. Visa tips, Alipay setup, train ticket booking, packing for all seasons, and safety hacks. Don’t leave home without these essentials.
I walked out of the bar in Chengdu at 1:17am. I’d been in the city for exactly two days. The bar was on a side street near Chunxi Road, and my hotel was a 25-minute walk north, past the main…
The queue outside the Chinese Visa Application Service Centre in London already stretched to the corner of the building when I arrived at 7:45am. I was holding a coffee I didn’t want, wearing a jacket that was too thin for…
Lost in Shanghai with Google Maps Showing a Blank Screen I landed at Shanghai Hongqiao at 9pm, tired, carrying a backpack, and confident that Google Maps would get me to my hotel the same way it had gotten me through…
The Ticket Counter Where Nobody Spoke English and Neither Did I I stood at the Chengdu East Railway Station ticket counter at 7:15am, trying to buy a ticket to Jiuzhaigou. The woman behind the glass looked at me, I looked…
The Moment My Phone Died and So Did My Entire Trip I landed at Beijing Capital at 6am on a January morning, switched on my phone, and watched the signal bars cycle through every carrier on the planet before settling…
The Night I Could Not Pay for Noodles It was 10pm in Chengdu and I was standing at a street stall with a bowl of dan dan noodles in one hand and my Visa card in the other, watching the…
