The Golden-Marx Family Go To Beijing & Shanghai!!

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back to my Astronomer in Beijing blog! I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying either the start to summer, the end of the school year, or some combination of the two. For all of the fathers reading this, including my own Dad, I hope you’re having a Happy Father’s Day! Here in Beijing, we just had Dragon Boat Festival, so I was able to check out some races, even as I pack up and get ready to move to Italy this coming Saturday. As the title of this post goes, this will be a bit of a different blog post since it will focus on my family’s visit (and definitely a long one – we did a lot of sightseeing). However, I will talk about what I was up to in my last month in China in next month’s post (in case any of you are wondering, this will be the last post I write in Beijing, but I do plan to have at least two more posts about my time in China). I’ll start by saying that it was an amazing trip and so wonderful to see my family. Jesse and my parents arrived on Wednesday, May 22 and were here until Monday, June 3. We saw so many sights in Beijing & Shanghai and I can’t wait to tell you about it (also, for structural purposes, I’ll include food photos on each day since we went out to eat for most meals since my apartment isn’t really big enough for all of us to eat in)! Also, a big thank you for the photos from Jesse, my Mom, and my Dad. While most of these photos are mine, not all of them are, so thank you!

May 22 – My Family Arrives and We Visit the Lama Temple!

On Wednesday around noon, my parents and Jesse finally made it to my hutong apartment (because Jesse was with them and I live over an hour from the Airport, it was easier to have them meet me at my apartment)! Although their cab driver got a bit lost in the maze of my hutong, it was so wonderful to be surrounded by family! Goldie was also very excited to meet new people! While she spent most of the first afternoon burrowed under the covers, my Mom was able to snuggle with her and Goldie seemed to really like her! They also got to meet some of my local hutong cats & dogs, too! After getting everyone popsicles to cool off (Beijing has been in a heat wave, so it’s been really warm), I wanted to make sure that we did something fun during the day, but also make sure that everyone didn’t just pass out from jet lag since we had a very packed schedule in Beijing! So we ventured out into the hutongs on the way to lunch and then the Lama Temple!

Since everyone was really hungry, we went to have a delicious lunch at Yebozai, a vegetarian restaurant near the Lama Temple (aka Yonghegong). Since the restaurant is only approximately 30 minutes from my apartment, my parents got to see a bit of Beijing’s famous hutong apartments and get a taste of Beijing! Because we had a late lunch, the menu was limited at Yebozai, but that didn’t prevent the meal from being amazing! We got kaofu (traditional spongy seitan – one of the dishes my Mom really wanted to try), an assortment of Chinese mushrooms (which reminded my Mom of mushrooms on toast), crispy tofu skin rolls, vegetable baozi (another dish my Mom really wanted to try), and traditional sour plum soup (a juice drink). It was all quite tasty and certainly set the stage for some amazing meals in Beijing!

After lunch, we made our way to the Lama Temple (Yonghegong). I’ve visited the Lama Temple twice before (once with Richard and Tom and once with Jesse), so I won’t go into too much detail now, but for those of you who don’t remember, the Lama Temple is one of the few active Tibetan Buddhist temples in Beijing. The grounds date back to the late 1600s when they were built as an imperial residence, before becoming the home of the Yongzhen Emperor (before he was the Emperor). As such, the buildings are built in the imperial style similar to the Forbidden City. However, one of the cool things about this visit is that we saw a number of monks and even could hear and peak in on their prayer activities! Usually when I’ve visited temples, I’ve seen many people praying and lighting incense, but it was also really cool to hear the monks do their chanting! Of all of the places we visited in Beijing, the Lama Temple is one of the smaller ones, but it’s also full of some amazing architecture and beautiful Buddha statues (note, because people are actively praying, I don’t take photos of the Buddha statues). The highlight is the amazing 18m tall wooden Buddha, which was apparently carved from a single piece of Sandalwood and brought from Tibet to Beijing in the 1700s!

After seeing the Lama Temple, we did some window shopping in Wudaying Hutong (including going into the super cute cat store) and then I was finally able to take my parents to their lovely hutong hotel (though it was a bit of a maze to find it)! I’m really glad they could stay in a hutong to get a bit more of an authentic Beijing experience! While modern hotels are nice, they’ll likely only be in Beijing once, so it was great to have them see a traditional courtyard (and even get to meet some hutong cats)!

After a short rest, we made our way to Ori Sake, a Sichuan-style vegetarian restaurant for another great meal! Ori is a bit more modern (it definitely has a bit of a hipster vibe) and the food is delicious! We got Yuzu soda, yuba (tofu skins) with Sichuan pickles, fried tofu with chili oil, tofu skewers, spring mushrooms, fried mantou (a Chinese bread), spicy peanut noodles (a big hit, their noodles are amazing), grilled zucchini, crispy veggie balls, and Sichuan jiaozi (dumplings, another dish my Mom really wanted to try)! It was definitely a great meal!

To cap off the evening, we went to Shichahai to see the dragon lit up at night! And we got the delicious sugar covered strawberries (which were on the top of my Mom’s list)! The dragon is still breathtaking when it’s lit up and it’s so fun to walk around the lakes and enjoy a sugary strawberry! My Mom even got to join in some dancing! It capped off a long, but totally fun day with my family and a great start to our time in Beijing!

In lieu of my traditional “Animals of Beijing section (that’ll be abbreviated), we did see a number of street cats and dogs around Beijing, so I’ll highlight what we saw each day!

May 23 – A Visit The Forbidden City and Jingshan Park!

After a quick breakfast at my apartment (and more snuggles with Goldie – she definitely got used to my parents pretty quickly and immediately wanted to be the center of attention), we headed off to the Forbidden City! Unlike all of the other destinations, where I bought tickets in advance, but could have bought them day of, the Forbidden City is one of the few places were you NEED to buy them ahead of time and really, you have to buy them when they go on sale at 8pm one week before. Thankfully I had no issues getting tickets! Although we didn’t want to deal with the lines at Tian’anmen Square, I did make sure to point it out to my parents, too. I think we were all pretty excited to see the Forbidden City!

Although this is the third time I’ve visited the Forbidden City, it is also the first time I’ve gone during the summer, so you can see the river that runs through the city was actually running! (it’s iced over in the winter). Every time I go, I’m blown away by the sheer scale of the city! The Palace was completed in 1421 (almost all of the imperial sites – The Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, and a few others are dated to 1421 when the capital was officially moved to Beijing) and stands as a triumph of man over nature. The doors are massive! The stairways are ornate! And everything is full of decoration! Although I usually follow the standard route of perusing through the Forbidden City from South-to-North, we did visit one of the side gardens in the front of the palace, which was quite nice! Outside of the ornate, you can also see some aspects of Ancient Imperial Chinese Life, including sun dials & water collecting jars.

One of the coolest exhibits that my Mom (rightfully so) insisted we visit was the Gallery of Timepieces. While much of what we see of the Forbidden City is ancient, it did house the Emperor until the early 1900s. As such, many imperial jewels, relics, and gifts are housed in the Forbidden City. This was a unique exhibit as it represented clocks given as gifts to the Chinese Emperor from the French, British, Americans, and other European Countries. They also had some Chinese clocks, too. Everything was insanely ornate and definitely looked like something I’d expect to see in Versailles instead of at the Forbidden City! My favorite is the orrery/Astronomy clock!

After that, we continued on throughout the Forbidden City and got to see a number of different Imperial Thrones, as well as getting to see into one of the Empress’s quarters. While most of the rooms are closed, it is cool to see inside and get a feel of what the layout must have been. I will say that while the front of the Forbidden City has large, open expanses for all of the tourists, it was really apparent just how crowded it was in the Northern half of the Forbidden City! While that didn’t impact our enjoyment there were just SO MANY PEOPLE!

However, one of the major highlights is the rock gardens at the end of the Forbidden City! While it was a bit weird to see the trees in those gardens alive and sporting leaves (everything is a bit more desolate in the winter months), the beauty of the rock faces is amazing! All of the stone work is a true contrast to the perfection and opulence of the palaces at the Forbidden City!

After the Forbidden City, we crossed the street and entered Jingshan Park. Originally part of the Forbidden City complex, Jingshan Park is part of the former Imperial Gardens and now home to its own park. As it was quite hot (90+ degrees), we used this as a chance to get some cold water & ice cream. After a rest, we explored the park and were really impressed! While the Forbidden City is amazing, Jingshan Park is home to multiple 17th/18th Century Palaces (built after the Forbidden City) and there were NO crowds. Everything is built in the Imperial style, so it was really cool to see after seeing the Forbidden City.

Additionally Jingshan Park is home to the highest point in Beijing (a manmade hill/mountain – Jingshan – meaning prospect hill), which was constructed with the leftover land from creating the Shichahai lakes and the Forbidden City moat! The hill is home to some beautiful temples/buildings (as well as lots of pretty flowers), and even a few cats (we saw a lot of cats in Beijing and Shanghai – we started carrying cat treats around to feed all of the cats)! From Jingshan Park, you can see all the way to the Drum Tower where I live! While the highlight of the Day was definitely the Forbidden City, I’m so glad we got to see this, too!

We capped off the day with a lovely meal at Fuhui Ciyuan, my favorite Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant here in Beijing, and my friend Richard joined us! It was so nice to introduce him to Jesse in person (he’d been out of town when Jesse had visited previously) and my parents. We got to hear a bit about Richard’s then-upcoming wedding (more on that below) and share a delicious meal! We got lotus tea, a fruit platter, orange juice, eggplant & green beans, spinach & toon “pie”, stir fried bamboo, fried eggplant, stir fried tofu skins, fried mushrooms (one of my favorite bites in Beijing), mustard mushrooms, & tofu with a spicy relish! It was a delicious meal!

We capped off the night by walking around Wangfujing, one of the fancier and VERY modern/Western areas of the city and seeing all of the large neon lights and fun signs! It was a bit of a precursor to what we saw in Shanghai the next week!

May 24 – A Visit to Tsinghua, Jesse Gives a Lunch Talk, 798, and Shabbat!

After an amazing day at the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park, the plan was that Friday would be a bit more of a relaxing day (we still ended up walking a ton). We had a bit of an earlier start as I wanted to be able to show my parents around Tsinghua before Jesse’s lunch talk (though my Mom did enjoy playing with Goldie in the morning – she really liked her new cat toy!) And we saw some other street cats!

It was really nice to show my parents Tsinghua’s campus! Although almost all of my time has been spent in the Weiqing Building and MongManWai Building, I have really enjoyed walking through the campus and being at Tsinghua! They were both really taken by the campus, especially the traditional parts with the lakes! However, a highlight was that there were hundreds of high schoolers visiting campus who seemed to get a real kick out of saying “Hi” to us. While it can be a bit tiresome at times, it’s always nice to see people being friendly with foreigners. We even had a few people ask to take pictures with us! For those of you wondering, we also had a few people ask to take photos with us at the Forbidden City and at other sites in Beijing and Shanghai (I think we got up to 13 or 14 people).

After showing my parents the campus, Jesse went to meet with his former grad school classmate Hui Li (Hui is a professor at Tsinghua) and I took my parents to the Tsinghua Art Museum. You may remember that I went to an excellent exhibit on the Arts & Crafts Movement on my Birthday and my Mom was very excited to see it! After making sure they could get in, I met up with Jesse and Hui before Jesse’s lunch talk. Jesse did a great job highlighting his recent work with the Euclid Space Observatory, a European Space Agency led survey telescope that will be instrumental for studying early universe galaxy clusters. Jesse had a great attendance (~ 15-20 people) and got tons of questions! I’m glad that his talk was a success!

After Jesse’s talk, we made our way off campus to 798, the Beijing art district! I’ve been to 798 a lot of times (the giant mecha panda near the Wangjing South subway station is always a highlight), but it was cool to show my parents around. I think they were taken aback a bit at how different it is from basically everything else they’d seen at this point. It really is quite a unique venue in Beijing! We wandered through 798 seeing tons of street art and did a lot of shopping, too! We also had a nice small lunch (I made PB&J sandwiches) and my Dad got to try his first Chinese iced lemon tea (I think he was a fan)! We also saw a very cute cat with kittens!

The highlight for me was going to the HIVE art gallery and seeing the two new exhibits! As I mentioned before, my friend Sarah from Kehillat Beijing works there, so checking out their exhibits has been on my radar. They had two really distinct shows. One, an almost impressionistic display of modern Chinese art inspired by traditional Chinese lacquerware. It was really cool how the farther you got from the pieces, the more the image appeared! The second exhibit featured very different art and included some western and religious motifs, as well as a bit of science! I’m really glad my parents got to see such a cool exhibit!

We concluded the evening with a wonderful Kehillat Beijing Shabbat at Roberta & Ted’s home! It was so wonderful to finally introduce my parents to Roberta & Ted (they had a long conversation with them at dinner and really enjoyed meeting them) and have them meet some of my friends here including Mich, Kevin, and Sam. I co-led the service with Sam & Kevin and everyone had a great time. And, because Ted has a guitar, my Dad was able to accompany us and join in on a few different songs! In honor of Bob Dylan, it was Robert Zimmerman Shabbat, so Ted went all out with the food puns (my Dad really enjoyed that, the food was equally delicious, too!). And my Mom loved Roberta’s Challah and was also super excited to eat bread! As always, Roberta & Ted do so much to foster and strengthen this community and I’m so happy that my parents (and Jesse, but he’ been there before) could take part in another amazing Kehillat Beijing Shabbat and better understand the community that has been my home for nearly 3 years!

May 25 – A Rainy Day at the Temple of Heaven and a Visit to the Drum and Bell Towers!

Heading into Saturday, we knew that we were going to be going to the Temple of Heaven, but we also knew that there was a very high chance of rain. Unfortunately, the rain did win out, so we had a rainy day Saturday. However, this didn’t prevent us from enjoying, albeit a bit wet, the Temple of Heaven! In case you’re wondering, this is not a Buddhist temple, but rather an ancient Chinese Temple where the Emperor would pray for a good harvest. We started our trip to the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) visiting a few of the different smaller side buildings and gardens (the weather wasn’t terrible when we arrived). I’d seen some of these when I went with Richard two years ago, but definitely hadn’t seen them all. Some of the highlights were that one housed some of the original wood pillars (many of the buildings – like most Chinese historical sites – have been restored). As the rain came down, we walked under a nice covered walkway and stopped by two museum exhibits filled with different antiques from Ancient China. This included tons of small, ornate statues, vases, and potentially musical instruments! It was amazing just how ornate everything was!

After that, we made our way to the Hall for the Prayer of Good Harvests, the main (and largest) temple at the Temple of Heaven. Although (as you can see from the photos), the rain was coming down, it doesn’t make the magnitude and scale of the Temple any less breathtaking. One of the cool things is that you can get really close to the interior of the temple. While the light didn’t make it easy to see in, with the right camera setting, you can see the inside! You can see that the circular temple is constructed using square crossbeams. This was done for symbolism as Heaven is represented by a circle and the Earth a square, highlighting the connection between the two. We then waited for the rain to lighten up a bit before venturing out to the remaining two temples at the Temple of Heaven.

One of the cool things about the Temple of Heaven is that all three main temples are elevated above the grounds, so you can imagine the Emperor looking down on the gardens as he walked from temple to temple. The next temple we visited is the Imperial Vault of Heaven. While the rain prevented us from experiencing the iconic echoing, we all were again impressed with the architecture. Lastly, we wrapped up our rainy day tour with the Circular Mound Altar, which is where the Emperor would actually pray for a good harvest (you can see my Mom spinning around here). Although it is difficult to capture, but the number 9 appears throughout the altar, as a representation of the 9 layers of Heaven, as well as Chinese dragons and the Emperor.

Following our tour of the Temple of Heaven, we went to a delicious meal at Gongdelin, a vegetarian restaurant that is actually part of the same restaurant chain as Godly, one of Jesse’s favorite restaurants in Shanghai. We got a poached pear juice (really more of a dessert), kaofu, sauteed mushrooms (everyone really liked this, but we had to make sure to remind my Mom & Dad that the peppers here are generally not bell peppers, but chilis), vegetable baozi, sauted eggplant, Sichuan green chili vegetarian mock fish, and Beijing style crispy vegetarian duck (this was a big hit as my Mom loved getting to make little pancakes – akin to Peking duck, and we all loved the crispy tofu skins)! It was another great meal and also a great way to dry off!

After lunch, we changed our plans a bit. Originally, we were going to go to Behai Park, but since it was still raining, we decided to visit the Drum Tower (Gulou) and Bell Tower (Zhonglou) as they are covered and we wouldn’t get too soaked! But first, we stopped by my apartment to say hi to Goldie! She definitely really liked being the center of attention and seeing all of us and my Mom really bonded with her!

Visiting the Drum Tower was definitely the right call as it did not disappoint! Since Jesse had been here before, he wasn’t surprised, but my parents were shocked by how steep the steps to the top of the tower are and that they just go straight up! However, once we made it to the top, we were treated to an excellent drumming performance as well as amazing views of the city! From an Astronomy perspective, the Drum Tower is also super cool as it features a number of different traditional Chinese time pieces, as well as a cool mini museum on the history of the Drum Tower. Additionally, I finally got to see their interior light show! While it was all in Mandarin, it did look really cool!

We then made our way across the square to the Bell Tower! Although the Bell Tower isn’t active and to my knowledge they don’t ring the bell, it does have a grandeur to it! It definitely doesn’t disappoint and is such a cool historical artifact, especially as Beijing’s Bell Tower is home to the largest cast iron bell in China!

After a brief respite, we made our way to Bestease (also called Bai Yishushi Lanzhou Su Stretched Noodles), a delicious vegetarian restaurant and noodle house. Of course, we had to get some noodles (we got a traditional noodle soup with seitan and some greens) ! But we also got mushroom & seitan skewers, stir fried potato shreds, fried cumin mushrooms (another amazing bite), sizzling tofu (this was also when my Mom realized that almost all of the tofu in China is softer tofu. Generally people don’t press/use extra firm tofu here), apricot tea, and pear soup (again, like it’s plum cousin, this is juice). It was another delicious meal!

Also, here are some cool pictures of my parent’s hotel, some of my neighborhood hutong cats, and other fun things! My favorite is that there is a “pop-up” Pop Mart store in the square between the Drum Tower and Bell Tower and that it is located exactly where I used to get COVID tests. COVID test stations get to grow up to be Pop Marts!

May 26 – A Visit to the Summer Palace and Beihai Park!

While it may have been rainy on Saturday, Sunday was a perfect day (ok, maybe it was a bit too hot). After stopping over for some breakfast and to spend time with Goldie, we headed off to the Summer Palace (Yiheyuan). The Summer Palace is where the Emperors, starting in the Qing dynasty, would summer as it was closer to water and mountains, allowing them to escape some of the brutal heat of Beijing in the summer. One of my favorite things about the Summer Palace is the entrance! You cross a river (so you get a bit of a water town vibe) and get to see the amazing palace right from the start as you climb the steps to the top of the hill! This allowed us to walk right up to some of the cool statues/carvings on the roofing of the buildings and we were able to peer into the insides of some of the temples and see some Buddhas (note, these are not active temple sights).

While the Palace is the first thing you see, much of the grounds are dominated by Kunming Lake, a giant manmade reservoir constructed by Guo Shuojing (noted Chinese Astronomer and waterway expert) as a way to maintain a stable water supply for the palace. But while the Lake is ever present, the gardens are also intricately designed with more beautiful architecture, as well as a number of large rock statues (much like in the gardens of the Forbidden City). Also, as it is still an Imperial site, there are tons of dragon motifs all throughout the Palace!

One of the coolest parts of Kunming Lake are the small manmade islands and the intricate stone bridges built to connect them to land. As these bridges needed to allow boats to pass under them, some are quite arching, to get high very quickly! The longest bridge was full of small stone lions and allowed us to walk and explore the island. It’s really easy to imagine how serene a palace this must have been, especially as the grounds were not open to the public. While we weren’t able to see the entirety of the grounds (it was getting late, we were hungry, and still wanted to go to Beihai Park), what we saw of the Summer Palace was fantastic and we all really enjoyed it!

After going to the Summer Palace, we made our way to Wutai Yun, a neighborhood Buddhist vegetarian restaurant and hotpot (it was too hot for hotpot) for a delicious meal. We got Kung Pao “chik’n”, Sichuan style sword beans (the first of many, and one of my Mother’s favorite dishes – she was super excited to try these), sauteed potato shreds, crispy fried mushrooms (there were so many amazing mushroom dishes), a sauteed cauliflower! We also had a delicious (though not pictured) barley tea. Everyone at the restaurant was super warm and welcoming (it’s a bit removed from the more touristy areas, so I don’t think they get as many foreigners as some of the others) and they also have a great little vegan shop (we got some delicious rice snacks and I got some chili oil and sesame paste to take with me to Italy).

After lunch, we made our way to Beihai Park! Like Jingshan Park, Beihai Park was part of the Imperial Gardens and is thus styled in the same manner as the Forbidden City. It actually created a really nice parallel as both Beihai Park and the Summer Palace are dominated by large lakes! We started our time off with some ice cream before visiting the White Pagoda! As you can see from a lot of the photos of the lake, the Pagoda dominates the skyline in Beihai Park! We trekked up to the top, before making our way down through the temple portion, letting us see even more Buddhist temples and statues! It’s really amazing how all of this is right in the center of the city!

After the Pagoda, we enjoyed a leisurely stroll through the rest of the park. We got to see some more imperial style palaces and lots of pretty gardens. As we were all getting a bit tired, I wanted to make sure we all saw one of my favorite parts of the park, the Nine dragon scroll! Although they call it a scroll, it’s really a giant wall of a statue and one of the most amazing things I’ve seen here! Everyone was really amazed by the detail in the dragons and how they are carved into the stone in 3D, so it is not a painting! It was definitely a highlight!

After a rest and some sugar covered strawberries, we all got together for dinner. As I had a hunch my Mom was missing western food a bit, we went to Toast by the Orchid, an Israeli restaurant right by the Drum Tower. We had a delicious meal and my Mom was super excited to eat bread! We got passion fruit soda, quinoa tabouleh, roasted eggplant hummus, muhammara, pita bread, falafel, roasted cauliflower, and another roasted eggplant dish! It was a delicious meal and a really nice change of pace. Although I love Chinese food, sometimes it is nice to try something different! And afterward, my parents got to pop into a Chinese grocery store to see all of the different fruits and vegetables.

During our downtime, we also got to spend some time hanging out with Goldie!!

We also walked by the Shichahai dragon again, saw some more hutong cats, and saw some other fun things!

May 27 – Exploring the Mutianyu Great Wall and Walking around Shichahai!

Going into Monday, I think we were all collectively the most excited! We were heading to the Great Wall of China! Specifically, the Mutianyu Great Wall! This is the nearest restored section of the Great Wall to central Beijing in the Beijing district of Huairou. To get to the Great Wall, I reserved a taxi for us so that we would leave at 8:30am and arrive around 10am (and then leave for Central Beijing at 3pm). This gave us ample time at the Wall, but also plenty of time to explore Shichahai later. While the drive out to the Wall was pretty dry, it was so exciting once we got to the Wall Site. Unlike previous times I’ve been to wild portions of the Wall, we had to take a bus from the tourist center to the Wall site (which, given how much walking we did on the wall, was greatly appreciated). Once we got to the Wall, it all becomes pretty amazing. While I had thought I booked us tickets for the ski lift (which has a slide down, shucks!), I actually booked us tickets for the gondola – My Dad was definitely relieved as heights are not his favorite.

After scanning our passports multiple times (all our tickets were linked to passports), we made our way to the Wall! And it was amazing! While it was far more crowded than when I previously went, since we got there early in the day, we got to hike from tower 14 to tower 21 of Mutianyu (and back!). In case you’re wondering, the portion of the Wall we were on has steps, so when you see the crazy steep slope, don’t think we were somehow walking sideways! I’m so impressed that we all could do it! While it was definitely a bit exhausting, it was really amazing to climb through different towers and peak out and see the landscape. And when we got to the top of Tower 21, wow, just wow! It was incredible! As you can see from the photos, the Wall hugs the mountains, so we were really at the whims of nature.

In case you’re wondering, there’s no gondola exit at the top of that tower, so we had to hike all the way back where we entered (going down those stairs is not really any easier than going up – ok, maybe a bit easier, but it’s still tough). And I want to say that I’m saying hike because the walking is HARD! The steps are not even and it really is a workout! While The Great Wall is amazing, one unexpected thing was just how many foreigners we’d see! We met a couple who were NC State Alumni (Phil, if you’re reading this, I thought you’d like that), multiple couples from Russia, and a couple from Spain! It really felt like all of the foreigners were on the wall! Everyone was very friendly and there were lots of pictures being taken (I think it helped that most of us could speak more English than Mandarin).

The other amazing thing was that there were cats on the wall! I expected seeing them at the base and even where we got off the gondola (there were), but we saw two very curious cats on the actual wall! Now we weren’t at a cliff, so the cats likely were wild and just hopped onto the wall, but it was pretty unexpected! Like the cats, there were also vendors on the wall selling cold beer and cold water (every time they saw a white person they tried to get us to buy beer – who buys beer at 10am, I’ll never know). It’s sort of amazing and a bit depressing that it is quite commercial – but at least the Wild Wall still exists! As a wrapper on the Great Wall, if you remember my early blog posts, this is actually where Roberta took me when I stayed at her home for Sukkot)! After 2.5 years, I can say that it really looked so much different. Possibly because I last visited it was during COVID-Zero, but also possibly because it was a rainy day, there were so many more shops and businesses at the base of the mountain before the Wall – though last time Roberta and I hiked from Huairou, so it’s possible all of that was there and I just didn’t see it. On the plus side, it meant there were tons of cats when we had our picnic lunch!

Once we got back to Beijing, we wanted to stretch our legs, so I got to show my family the rest of Shichahai! We saw Qianhai on the 22nd & 26th, so this time I wanted to show my parents Houhai & Xihai (and Jesse hadn’t seen Xihai). It was a lovely afternoon to stroll around the lakes and there was a lot going on – lots of people doing water activities! My Mom & Dad especially loved the west side of Houhai (the non-commercial part) and Xihai, since they are a bit quieter and less commercial. They also really liked the little memorial to Guo Shuojing and the replica of the ancient astronomy instruments! I’m so glad they got to see one of my favorite places in Beijing! And we got to cap it off with sugar covered blueberries!

For dinner on Monday, we went to Blosson (or Huaikai) Vegetarian, another great vegetarian restaurant here in Beijing! Because my Mom really loved the the wrappers with the vegetarian duck, we got another dish where we made little pancakes, but this time with a delicious soft tofu! We also got orange juice, bamboo with Thai basil, xianbing (which I learned to make in April!), sauteed lotus root, a mushroom & bamboo dish, and a slightly spicy tofu (ok, this one was too spicy for my parents). It was another delicious meal and a marvelous way to cap off such a memorable day!

Also, in between going to the Great Wall and walking around Shichahai, we got to hang out with Goldie! She loved getting all of the attention! We also saw a few other hutong cats, some seemingly domesticated ducks, and some other fun things, too!

May 28 – A Visit to the Old Summer Palace (and my friend Lu joins us!)!

Our last day in Beijing was a bit different than the previous days. Because we were only going to the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan), we got off to a less rushed start in the morning (I also wanted to make sure everyone had time to pack since our train was pretty early in the morning on Wednesday). We started the day with a bit of shopping in the hutongs after some snuggles with Goldie.

Around 11, we made our way to another one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Beijing, Woye Oii. Unlike most of the other Buddhist Vegetarian restaurants, Woye Oii is a Japanese/Korean/Chinese fusion restaurant, so the food is pretty unique! Because we hadn’t tried hot pot and Woye Oii does small, individual hot pots, we got a small soy milk & tofu hot pot (my parents really liked it, but agreed it’s definitely a winter dish), a delicious sun dried tomato rice dish, a Japanese style lentil curry, a Korean fried rice, and delicious hawthorne juice! It was all delicious!

After lunch, we made our way to the Old Summer Palace! While we’d done all of the other sightseeing by ourselves, this time, my friend and colleague Lu joined us! Lu is a postdoc at Texas A&M, but she was back in Beijing to get her US visa renewed, so we were able to hang out and she got to meet my family! For those of you who might be thinking what’s the difference between the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace, the answer is quite a lot! For starters, during the Opium Wars, the Old Summer Palace was ransacked and destroyed by British and French troops, so much of what you see is ruins. Furthermore, the main palaces were built in a Western style, so the ruins look far more like what you’d see in Europe (with large swaths of marble and stone, rather than traditional wooden Chinese architecture). However, like the Summer Palace, the Old Summer Palace also has sprawling grounds that make it quite easy to spend the day exploring!

As I mentioned previously, you can see that the ruins do look quite different. While most of the ancient sites we’ve visited have been reconstructed/refurbished, I’m glad that the Old Summer Palace is kept as a reminder of the brutality of colonialism (though maybe from a Chinese perspective, it’s a bit different). You can see the majesty of the large estates that no longer remain. And yes, that is a bust for Victor Hugo, who not only wrote Les Miserables, but was also an outspoken critic of the French during the Opium Wars.

Outside of the ruins, we had a really fun day exploring the grounds, seeing lots of swans and ducks and hanging out and hearing about Lu’s upcoming JWST work (some of which I’ll be working with her on) and her recent trip to Spain! Since it was such a nice day, we also got to rent a boat and I got to be the boat captain! While not a full motor boat, I did navigate us safely around the lake and I think I did a pretty good job (hey, nobody got wet). It was a bit like driving a bumper car, I could drive forward, reverse, and that’s it. Only one speed, so I was at the whims of nature. It was a magnificent day and (despite the heat) a lot of fun! We even got to try a baked sweet potato (a traditional Chinese snack) out of a vending machine!

Since we were so close to Tsinghua’s campus, we got dinner at Tianchun Miaoxiang, the vegetarian restaurant near campus. While Lu couldn’t join us, we were joined by my friends and fellow postdocs Pablo, Daniele, and Josh and my friend Miriam and her husband James! So we were a really large group (thank you Lu for calling and making us a reservation as there was no way I could have done that). I don’t think I’ve ever ordered so many dishes at once! We got passion fruit juice, cold “military tofu”, flame tofu (see the video below), bamboo with okra (surprisingly common in Chinese cuisine), mushrooms with okra, jiaozi (dumplings), karameshi (mapo) tofu, wheat grass juice (Pablo really wanted to try it), stir fried tofu skins, stir fried cauliflower, fried lotus root, stir fried spicy mock meat, stir fried mushrooms, mushrooms + chestnuts + lotus root, tofu skin rolls, stir fried eggplant, and plum soup (plum juice)! It was a delicious meal and my parents really enjoyed getting to meet all of my friends! I’m so glad we could cap off our time in Beijing with such a fun evening!

We also saw a few cats during the day! Including some at the Old Summer Palace and a very small (and hungry) hutong cat (I hope she’s ok – I gave her a lot of food) when I went to my parent’s hotel. Also, a big congrats to Jesse, who capped off the day giving a virtual talk at the DES meeting (and Goldie only interrupted once!)

May 29 – Heading to Shanghai and Visiting the Jing’An Sculpture Garden!

On Wednesday morning we got up bright and early for our train to Shanghai (but not before my Mom got some last snuggles with Goldie)!

While we hit a ton of traffic getting to the Beijing South Railway Station, once we made it, everything went smoothly (because Jesse & my parents were each taking a suitcase of mine, we had to reserve a minivan to make sure there was enough space for all of us). If you’ve never had the opportunity to take a “fast train” or a “bullet train”, I highly recommend it. In China, it’s a super relaxing and convenient mode of travel. You don’t have to get there hours ahead of time, if you travel first class (similar in price to a plane ticket), you get a large, comfortable seat, and you even get snacks!

Despite the fast train going ~ 330km/hr, it still takes ~ 4.5 hours to get to Shanghai from Beijing (they really aren’t that close). Once we got to Shanghai, it was nice that a little bit of the pressure of being in charge was off me. While I was still organizing everything, since Jesse lived in Shanghai for 4 years, I let him plan everything and he did a fantastic job! Since we arrived in Shanghai around 2, we went straight to our hotel, the Fenyang Garden hotel, which is right around the corner from where Jesse used to live. After dropping off our things, we got a jianbang as a snack! Jianbang were the last of the foods on my Mom’s list to try and are a Chinese style crepe/burrito. Like a crepe, the dough is made directly in front of you, but then it’s filled with a variety of savory ingredients (usually egg, but I go without egg, a cracker, lettuce, veggies, and pickles). It’s super tasty and we all really enjoyed them!

After getting jianbing, we made our way to the Jing’An Sculpture Garden by way of walking around Jesse’s old stomping grounds. It’s sort of amazing how some things have changed (obviously Jesse doesn’t live there anymore), but even some of the neighborhood cats were around and things still looked pretty familiar (and IAPM mall still looks like the future)! Also, if the photos don’t make it pretty obvious, Shanghai and Beijing have TOTALLY different vibes. Shanghai definitely is a bit more hipster-y and ultra modern with quirky signs and posters that make it equally fun to walk around, while Beijing is a city of order and history.

Unlike many of the parks we visited in Beijing, which are traditional Chinese gardens, this is a modern park! It’s filled with amazingly unique sculptures that make it so fun to walk around. While the beautiful fields of tulips that I saw the last time I was there in March 2023 weren’t there, the park is still stunning in the summer! Also, I don’t know if it’s just because it’s warmer or if it was a quieter day, but we saw so many cats in the park. Some were really friendly, and I’m really glad we brought the cat treats with us and could give them all a snack!

After the Jing’An Sculpture Garden, we capped off the day with a delicious meal at Vegetarian Lifestyle (which was the second Vegetarian restaurant I went to in China, and Jesse’s first)! We started with tea, and then got crispy fried mushrooms, grapefruit juice, a delicious stir fried eggplant, traditional homestyle braised tofu, pan fried jiaozi (I love the crispiness), lotus root “meat”balls with bok choy, kung pao chik’n, sword beans (my Mother’s favorite), and lion’s man mushroom bao! It was all delicious and although there are a lot of similarities between Beijing and Shanghai vegetarian food, it’s nice to see some of the different dishes, too!

We wrapped up the night with a fun walk back to our hotel through Jing’an and Xuhui! I love how Shanghai lights up at night!

May 30 – An Amazing Tour of Jewish Shanghai and a Visit to the Yu Gardens!

On Thursday, we kickstarted our time in Shanghai with a dose of Shanghai Jewish history. When Jesse was in Shanghai, he had the opportunity to take a number of tours of historic Shanghai and once we had scheduled this trip, he reached out to Patrick Cranley, one of the organizers of Historic Shanghai to see if we could get a tour of Jewish Shanghai. Thankfully, we were able to book a private tour and it was pretty amazing! We started the tour at the Bund, the iconic river-side area of Shanghai (if you’ve ever seen the Shanghai skyline, it’s the Bund). For those of you who don’t equate Judaism with China, there is actually a surprisingly long connection between the two dating back to the 1800s (ok, not Beijing old, but still old). The two prominent Jewish families in Shanghai (the Kadhooris & the Sassoons), as well as other Jewish families (all of whom were primarily immigrants from the Middle East) helped to develop the Bund and create many of Shanghai’s iconic art deco-style buildings. We even were able to go in and see one of the most famous buildings, the Peace Hotel, one of the original hotels on the Bund, and also a hotel originally owned by the Sassoons (it was also one of the few hotels in Shanghai that allowed foreigners when China allowed for relations with the US in the 1970s – interestingly, China just passed a bill encouraging ALL hotels to accept foreigners). Patrick told us some pretty incredible history about the Peace Hotel and a number of other amazing buildings by the Bund. We also got to venture into one of the older Shanghai style row houses that was the home to former New Yorker columnist Emily Hahn.

That history then continued into the 1940s when Shanghai was a visa free city and thus was one of the few cities that was a safe haven for Jews during the Holocaust. While I’d been to the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum before, it was pretty fantastic to have a tour. Patrick was keen to highlight some of the narratives of the museum and how the assimiliation of Jews into Chinese society (or at least a few Jews that the museum highlights) might’ve been a bit of an overstatement. I hadn’t made a lot of the connections that the buildings from that era are still around and it was so cool to talk to someone who’s met so many 1940s Shanghai Jews and had the chance to take them back to Shanghai. Additionally, one of the cool things at the museum is that it’s always growing. They are always looking for new materials from former Shanghai-ers and even though I was there last August, there were definitely some things I didn’t recognize! In terms of the museum itself, they do an excellent job weaving a narrative of the daily life of Shanghai Jews. In particular the schools and social clubs that the Jews made for themselves (although there were a number of other foreigners, the Jews were discriminated against – ironically, the Jewish Social Club was across the street from the hotel we stayed at). They also highlight so many interesting stories including a story about Peter Max and his search for his childhood “ama” who taught him to paint, various stories of Jewish weddings in Shanghai, and a story of refugees who left their library to Chinese neighbors (who kept the books until donating them to the museum, always hoping their neighbors would return).

After seeing the museum, we walked to the synagogue. Although we couldn’t go in because it is under renovation, it is still cool to see. Additionally, Patrick took us around the area in the immediate vicinity of the Ohel Moishe Synagogue (including walking by the childhood home of former US Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal) and one of the few parks the Jewish children could play in when the Japanese created the Shanghai ghetto. Again, it’s amazing to see a history that is a bit more tangible to me and really understand more about Jewish life in Shanghai!

After the tour, we returned to the Bund to walk around a bit and enjoy the iconic skyline! Although I’ve seen it multiple times, it always feels like something out of the future! It’s so cool!

After that, we walked to lunch at Huiyuan Vegetarian, one of the first vegetarian restaurants that Jesse went to in Shanghai! We had another delicious meal! We got orange juice, cauliflower dry pot, kaofu, sword beans, stir fried noodles, and seitan bao buns!

We followed that up by making our way to the Yu Gardens. For those of you who don’t remember my early blogs, the Yu Gardens are a traditional Chinese style garden right in the heart of Shanghai. Surrounded by large walls, when you’re inside the gardens, you’re transported to another world (similar to the Forbidden City). While you can see the large buildings of the Shanghai skyline, you really do feel like you’re in the past. Additionally, I noticed a bat motif for good luck outside the gardens – just like at Prince Chun’s Mansion in Beijing (and in my apartment) and a very cute cat!

For a bit of a history lesson, the Yu Gardens date back to the 16th Century, though they didn’t become open to the public until the 18th Century and they took their current form in the 19th Century. Unlike the sprawling grounds of the Summer Palaces in Beijing, this is a much smaller gardens, so it was packed with tourists (it was a little too crowded for my Dad)! However, it still is breathtaking, especially the small ponds (and the goldfish), with the intricate bridges and pathways! One cool thing that neither Jesse nor I had noticed previously is that their are large stone dragons throughout the gardens (I’d seen the one at the back, but not the other ones).

Upon exiting the gardens, we entered the Yuyuan Bazaar, where we saw tons of cool gifts (and picked up a few for ourselves and others), as well as the outer edge of the gardens (where the cover photo from Jesse’s blog was taken). We had perfect timing as it starting raining just as we got to this part (the shops are covered). You can see that there are a ton of fun shops all around and we even got some more sugar covered strawberries!

We capped off a great day in Shanghai by going to Jesse’s favorite Taco Bar, Tacolicious. For those of you who didn’t read Jesse’s blog, Jesse hosted a monthly Kehilat Shanghai trivia at Tacolicious and Kehilat Shanghai hosted many a Channukkah and Purim party there (Logan, the owner, is a friend of Jesse’s and a Kehilat Shanghai community member). We also met up with another one of Jesse’s friends from Kehilat Shanghai (Judith). I must thank Logan for an excellent meal (and lots of complementary appetizers and limeade). We had some delicious vegan tacos – the harissa mushroom is amazing (as were the zrou and black bean tacos)! It was so fun to hear about whats been going on in the Jewish community in Shanghai and catch up with Logan and Judith! My parents also really enjoyed the meal and ambiance and meeting some of Jesse’s friends!

We also saw some fun things throughout the day that I wanted to share!

May 31 – Exploring People’s Square, The Jing’An Temple, and Tianzifang!

On Friday, we started off the day a bit differently because Jesse was giving a talk at the TD Lee Institute at SJTU and visiting his former supervisor, Ying Zu. Instead of getting up and going, we had a bit more of a leisurely morning. We started off by getting another jianbing for breakfast (they are so good) as we waited for the rain to stop (if you can see, we also found out that our hotel was across the street from the historic Jewish social club – Patrick told us about that!).

Around 10:30, my parents and I went to People’s Square/People’s Park. Although I had no issues navigating in Beijing, it was definitely a bit tougher navigating by myself in Shanghai, especially when we got to the park! It took me forever to find the underground sidewalks since you can’t cross the immediate street! Thankfully, by the time we actually got to the Square, the worst of the rain had stopped. While it was a rainy day, one of the best things was that People’s Square wasn’t too crowded and we saw a TON of cats! I’m so glad that I brought all of the cat treats with me and could give a snack to some lovely cats. While some were skittish around humans (we had a few fight over the treats we were giving them), others were super friendly! We also saw an amazing flock of birds basically take over an entire walkway in the park! I’ve never seen so many birds in one place before!

After walking around People’s Square, we headed to People’s Park! While the last time I was there was during cherry blossom season in March 2023, the Park is still quite pretty and even features a small Chinese amusement park! You can see the Journey to the West and the Monkey King feature prominently in the motif! We also saw a beautiful lake at the center of the Park!

After our morning walk, we met Jesse at LN Fortunate Vegan Cafe, a Hong Kong style vegan restaurant featuring Chinese fusion cuisine. We had another amazing meal and even got to try a vegan berry cheesecake (one of the benefits of Shanghai’s vegan scene is there are a bit more vegan desserts on menus)! We got watermelon juice, a peanut satay noodle curry (with seitan and tofu), raspberry & strawberry tea, an avocado salad (my Mom was quite excited to see salad on the menu – it’s pretty uncommon in China), tofu & nori rolls, , stir fried Singapore noodles, and a tofu & eggplant clay pot!

After lunch, we decided to stroll through the Former French Concession and walk to the Jing’An Temple. The Jing’An Temple is one of the iconic Shanghai landmarks as it is a large Buddhist temple directly in the middle of the city! Unlike the Lama Temple (and most of the other temples we saw in Shanghai), the Jing’An Temple is more vertical than horizontal, with a number of small prayer halls connected along a rectangular courtyard, and then a second and third story featuring an amazing, large, ornate Buddha! Although the site featured temples as early as the 3rd century, the current version of the Jing’An Temple dates only to 1983. One of the most distinctive aspects of the temple are the incredibly ornate gold ornaments, including an amazing three pronged lion!

You can see all of the architecture as we walked through the temple. You can see how people crammed coins into the mouths of wooden lions (I believe for good luck), as well as some fish symbolism, which I believe dates to an early native-Chinese religion. The entire temple is pretty amazing! Additionally, we got to do our best and try to toss coins into the relic for good luck! The Jing’An Temple also looks amazing at night when we drove by, too!

After the Jing’An Temple, we went to explore Tianzifang, an amazing neighborhood that’s a fusion of 798 with the shops near Shichahai in Beijing. Jesse was happily surprised to see that the neighborhood had grown back to its former glory and had so many more shops than when he left (post-COVID hurt Tianzifang a lot). It’s also just a really fun area filled with lots of cool shops!

We concluded the evening with an amazing vegan dinner at DULI. You may remember that they did a pop-up in Beijing, and while the restaurant had to move locations in Shanghai (it’s not around the corner from Jesse’s old apartment), the food is still amazingly delicious! DULI is another Chinese fusion restaurant, and we got blueberry smoothies, a delicious avocado and yuba salad, mapo tofu hummus (I will definitely attempt to recreate this is Italy), a roasted cauliflower curry, tom yum wonton soup, cripsy cauliflower bao fritters (an amazing bite), and a delicious homemade tofu rice bowl!

And because Shanghai is such a unique city, we also saw some more fun things, too!

June 1 – Visiting the Jade Buddha Temple and Richard Gets Married!

We started off a very fun Saturday with a trip to the Jade Buddha Temple. Unlike the Jing’An Temple, here the temple grounds are a bit more sprawling (similar to the Lama Temple in Beijing) and we saw multiple monks praying. The temple grounds are pretty immaculate! It’s such a cool array of rooms with different Buddha statues in each prayer hall.

However, one of the unexpected parts of the Jade Buddha temple is that there is a Buddhist art gallery! This wasn’t traditional Buddhist artifacts on display, but rather paintings either done or inspired by Buddhist philosophy. There were many interesting depictions of monks, temples, and everything in between. Jesse hadn’t seen it before, so it was nice to all get to experience something new!

The interesting counterpoint to the majesty of the Jade Buddha Temple is that while there is a large, ornate main temple, neither of the Jade Buddhas are in that temple! In fact, Jesse said that the first time he visited he only saw one of the Jade Buddhas (the second one is a bit hidden)! Although I didn’t take photos, the two Jade Buddhas are really different, but also amazingly beautiful! I usually think of jade statues being in various shades of green, so the colors are quite unique and quite different!

Additionally, as we were leaving, we saw two adorable cats who were putting on a show for all the patrons!

After going to the temple, we walked around Jesse’s first apartment in Xin’tiandl before meeting his friends Heather & Shimi (and their 2 year old daughter Rae). However, on the way, Jesse ran into one of his old neighbors from when he lived in Xintiandi! Though there was definitely a language barrier, the older man was so excited to see Jesse! It’s nice to be missed! While I don’t anticipate any of my neighbors missing me in Beijing when I leave next Saturday, I’m glad Jesse made such a positive impression. We also stopped by Fuxing Park, another lovely neighborhood park!

Although I like all of the parks, Fuxing Park is special since it features a statue of Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Jesse and I have taken many a photo with “Uncle” Karl, so it was nice to take one with our Dad, too!

For lunch, we met up with Heather, Shimi, and Rae and had a wonderful meal at VegeGood! We got cold bamboo & mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, orange juice, passion fruit lime soda, an avocado salad, sweet & sour chik’n, noodles with mushrooms, tofu, crispy tofu skins, vegan “egg” (tofu), mushroom & seitan skewers, crispy fried tofu, and tofu skin rolls!

After lunch, we walked around Xintiandi. This area is unique as it is super famous for being the home to the foundation of the CCP, and is thus very popular, but is also a modern shopping district! It was really cool to see anther fun area of Shanghai and since the heat had set in, we got some ice cream, too!

Around 2pm, I had to excuse myself because I needed to get to Richard’s wedding! For those of you who might not remember, Richard is my good friend and fellow Tsinghua postdoc and he married his wife, Serena (that’s her English name), in Shanghai (Serena’s dad is a professor at SJTU – where Jesse worked). While I won’t got into too much detail about the wedding, I will say that it was a lovely time! And it was so nice that the majority of the foreign postdoc crew could make it (it was me, Richard, Paulo, Pablo, Daniele, Tom, and Josh!). The ceremony was quite nice, with a lot of honoring family, but also a very fun exchange of vows! Richard had to promise not to eat durian near Serena and Serena promised to watch the Lord of the Rings with Richard.

Also (and I know Richard was a bit worried at times about this), the vegetarian food was delicious! Really, it was one of the best wedding meals I’ve had! Unlike western weddings that are either sit down or buffet style, Chinese weddings are banquet style, so all of the dishes are brought to all of the tables! So my table was the vegetarian table! There were lots of mushroom dishes and some other delicious dishes too!

To cap off the night, after a great wedding, the party migrated to KTV (or karaoke)! This was my first time doing karaoke in such a large group, but it was so much fun! I love to sing and if you ask Pablo, I was holding the fort down making sure singing got done! It was a lot of songs from the 90s and 2000s (Evanescence, Maroon 5), but also everything from the Beatles, to Ed Sheeren, to Taylor Swift, and more! Definitely a highlight and a great way to celebrate Richard & Serena (though it was also a VERY late night)!

In case you’re wondering, my parents & Jesse didn’t just go back to the hotel and sit on their thumbs. They had a lovely afternoon going to People’s Square, People’s Park, and back to the Bund and Peace Hotel with Heather! I’m glad we each could have such a lovely afternoon/evening!

June 2 – Walking Through the French Concession and Visiting the Longhua Temple!

Sunday was our final full day in Shanghai, so there were still a few things we wanted to do! We started by going taking a relaxing walk through the Former French Concession so that we could see a bit more of Jesse’s experience in Shanghai! In particular, we stopped by Xujiahui Park (anther Park where Jesse used to run) and see the pretty flowers and a few more cats! Although Beijing does have parks, in the part of the city I live in, it’s mostly historical parks, so I’m a bit envious of all of the green! Additionally, I’m always taken by the unique trees in this part of Shanghai and the architecture of the buildings is really unique (they have a miniature version of the Flat Iron building, which appears to be one of the most popular tourist picture destinations). Although we couldn’t go in, we also got to walk by SJTU’s original campus (Jesse worked at the new campus) and see the main gate! It definitely has traditional Chinese gate vibes.

Our walk culminated in an amazing lunch at Godly, one of Jesse & my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai (and a fitting place to have our final Chinese meals in Shanghai). We had a delicious lunch! We got flower tea and a whole slew of our favorites including kaofu, seitan “balls”, crispy vegetarian duck, sword beans, sauteed eggplant, jiaozi with peanut sauce, and mapo tofu! It was a delicious meal and a lovely capper for the Chinese food we got to eat together!

Afterwards, we went to the Longhua Temple, another large Buddhist temple (this time a bit farther from the center of Shanghai). The Longhua Temple is defined by it’s towering pagoda – the pagoda was traditionally used for storing sacred relics, unfortunately, you can’t go in, but it still looks amazing! It’s so interesting that all three Buddhist temples have so many similarities and differences! I love (really in all of the Shanghai Buddhist Temples) the stark contrast of the yellow exterior with the exposed stone. Longhua Temple featured multiple amazingly ornate prayer halls filled with large depictions of multiple Buddhas and Bodhisattvas! Its a visual feast! We also got to see even more temple cats (it was a hot day and these cats looked to be enjoying the heat for a nice nap!).

After going to the Temple, we walked to the Longhua Gardens, which features various western-style statues dedicated to the martyrs who lost their lives during the Communist revolution. It’s another beautiful park and was a great way to cap off our explorations of Shanghai!

We concluded the evening with a lovely meal at Eli Falafel with Jesse’s friends Kitty & Mat and their sons Lucas and Daniel. I’d met Kitty once in person (and a few times on zoom) and Matt and one of their sons at Trivia when Jesse hosted, so it was nice to see them again and for Jesse to catch up with everyone. While I know that he’s said a lot of his friends have left Shanghai, I’m glad a few are still around! We had a lovely feast filled with Middle Eastern delights including babganoush, grape leaves, muhammara, hummus, salad, pita, falafel, eggplant, tabouleh, cripy fritters, za’atar pizza, an eggplant & onion dish, and mint lemonade!

And we concluded the evening with watching the Bund from the other side of the river! I’m so used to seeing it from the side Jesse lived on, but seeing the historic building lit up is still really amazing!

And of course, we also saw some other fun things throughout the day!

June 3 – Au Revoir Shanghai, Jesse, Mom & Dad!

On June 3, we woke up bright and early to head to the airport. Even though I wasn’t flying back to Beijing, I wanted to make sure my parents and Jesse got checked in safely and that there were no hiccups at the airport. We reserved a van to take all of our stuff (thank you to Jesse for taking so much stuff for me and for my parents for taking another suitcase of mine, too!). Thankfully everything went smoothly at the airport. It was definitely sad to see them off, but it’s nice to know I’ll see them in a few weeks at my cousin Robbie’s wedding! Once they went through customs, I took a cab to the Shanghai Railway Station so I could begin my 4.5 hour trek back to Beijing.

Thankfully, the fast train is really comfortable and it allowed me to get a lot of work done on my “postdoctoral thesis!” (It’s done, but more on that next time). After five days away, Goldie was certainly excited to have me home!

All in all, this was an amazing trip and I’m so glad that I got to show my parents even a sliver of my China experience – even though I leave in less than a week (that still feels weird writing).

Guest Spot – Jesse’s Thoughts on Returning to China!

First, thanks Emmet for organizing and facilitating this excellent trip and for writing such a fantastic summary! Prior to returning to China, I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t as excited as my parents. While I was very excited to see Emmet, having seen some of these things before and having had many of my friends leave, I wasn’t sure what to expect and how much I would enjoy returning. However, having the opportunity to share my experiences in China (especially Shanghai) was very special and really made the trip for me! I also really enjoyed getting to see new things in Beijing like the Temple of Heaven and Summer palaces, while also visiting favorites (the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Longhua Temple, Jewish Refuge Museum, …). Moreover, both Beijing and Shanghai felt much closer to the China I arrived in in 2019 than the one I left. Although my Mandarin is still poor, I was able to fall back into rhythm for some of my old activities (especially in Shanghai, where I still know my way around quite well)! Overall, I had a wonderful time. While some things, like my lack of Mandarin still make things hard, there were so many special highlights that made the trip worth it! Some highlights included enjoying all the foods I’ve missed, seeing Goldie, visiting anime stores with Emmet, getting to see my close friends from Kehilat Shanghai (Heather & Shimi, Kitty, Mat & Family, Judith, Logan), visiting Ying and SJTU, and the surprise highlight of running into my old neighbor from Xintiandi! While I don’t have any plans to visit China in the near future, this was a wonderful and meaningful coda to my time in China and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to do this trip!

What Am I Reading / Watching?

On the reading front, I’ve been so stressed with packing, postdoctoral thesis writing, and getting all of the paperwork in order that I haven’t had a chance to finish reading Artemis yet (I will though!). On the tv front, I have finished a couple of shows. Specifically, I watched Silo on Apple TV+. It’s a really intriguing post-Apocalyptic drama about a society that has survived on earth living in a silo (similar in premise to Snowpiercer, basically all of society exists in this hundreds of stories underground silo). The mystery of the show is that you (and the characters) do not know what happened to the world to make it this way and they don’t know anything about the history of the world either. Rachel Ferguson is terrific as the lead and it’s a really well-paced and exciting show! I can’t wait for Season 2. I also finished watching the anime Trigun Stampede! Unlike most anime that are direct adaptations of manga, this is a reimagining of the class Trigun manga and while some of the changes were confusing at first, it was quite fun! I loved the animation and really enjoyed the show!

East Meets West

Although I won’t have the usual sections of the blog, I did want to highlight some of the Western influences that we saw in Beijing & Shanghai! As you can see, American pop culture has a way of appearing everywhere! Here are some of the sights in Beijing!

And of course, given its cosmopolitan nature, here’s what we saw in Shanghai!

Anime & Comics

Similarly, no Astronomer in Beijing post is complete without me highlighting all of the manga, anime, and comics paraphernalia that I’ve seen! As you can see, we saw a lot! Loads of Haikyu, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Naruto, and more! I will really miss seeing this everywhere, but I’ll keep an eye out in Padova! I’ll especially miss both the small and large anime stores. I love window shopping in them! Here’s what we saw in Beijing!

And not to be outdone, here’s what we saw in Shanghai! There were a few larger anime store, particularly in the area near the Yu Gardens!

As always, if you made it this far, thank you so much! I know this was a bit of a different blog and quite long, but I hope you enjoyed hearing and seeing all of the sights from my family’s trip to Beijing & Shanghai! As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out via e-mail or comment below! It’d be great to hear from you. As I said, I leave Beijing on June 22, so this next week will be filled with a lot of last minute things to wrap up my time here (and a couple of fun things, too). I hope that June is a fun, safe, happy, and healthy month for you all! While the next week will bring an exciting new step to my journey, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this last hurrah in China!

In Peace,

Emmet