Explore the great cities of the world!
[Don’t be alarmed! I’m not going to present an entire series on Indian history like I did for China. Just this one post will be the extent of if.]
As with most other places, understanding India’s history allows for a better appreciation of its historical sights. To me, this is particularly true for India. North India was much more Islamic than I [Read more…]
Well this is interesting. According to my notes, the first thing I had to eat on Day 10 was garlic bread. You would think I would remember having garlic bread in China. But I don’t. (It must have been overshadowed by the fantastic Italian meal I had the previous evening in Tianjin. Also, it probably wasn’t all that memorable.) I very much recall the fried squid rings I had while exploring in the Houhai area in the afternoon. Hot and tasty!
For dinner, I was excited to go to Crescent Moon, a Uyghur Muslim restaurant. There were 2 waitresses. One was clearly Asian-looking, probably Han Chinese. The other wasn’t Asian looking at all. My guess would have been Greek. Most likely, this waitress was Uyghur, an ethnicity related to Turks. I needed to use the restroom after wandering all day. I went through the door labeled for the restroom. I found myself in the frigid outdoors. I found the (very dark) men’s room up a cold, dark alley. Weird. But this is why we leave our own world to explore others. Right? Right!
After a day in Tianjin, I was on the homestretch of my trip with 2 final days in Beijing. On these 2 days, the weather warmed up enough that I felt comfortable unzipping my jacket and leaving off the hat and [Read more…]
It was such a relief to stay in Shanghai for the day rather than taking another day trip. Because my arrival in Shanghai was delayed a day and I was departing for Beijing the next afternoon, this was my [Read more…]
1279 marks the start of the Yuan Dynasty, declared by Kublai Khan of the Mongols. It was the first time China was ruled by foreigners. By this point, the Song Dynasty only had rule over southern [Read more…]
