2009 was a busy year for travel in the To China… and Beyond! household-of-one. As I embark on myfirst big trip of 2010, I’ve been thinking about the best trips I took in 2009.
5. Xi’an: My December trip to Xi’an was actually my second visit to the city. I went there on my first trip [...]
I’m pretty sure everyone who knows me in real life is tired of hearing me talk about how wonderful Malaysia is. I first visited in October, for a whirlwind tour of KL, Kota Bharu, the Perhentians and Penang. I had a marvelous time eating street food, snorkeling and learning how to batik. Such a good [...]
On my October trip to Malaysia, we had scheduled a mere 24 hours in Kuala Lumpur — hardly enough time to get one’s bearings, much less see all that the city has to offer. So we had to pick and choose. We skipped a few of the biggest attractions, including the Petronas Towers. (Vertigo makes [...]
Each morning, Malaysia’s kopitiams — coffee shops — are abuzz with clinking cups, rustling newspapers and the hum of voices speaking Malaysian and Chinese. Just one or two ringgit buys a small mug of rich, strong kopi, which comes with a healthy dose of condensed milk. (If you don’t want the milk, ask for a [...]
In the late 1860s, a poor teenager from Guangdong Province named Cheong Fatt Tze fled the Opium Wars and escaped to Dutch-controlled Jakarta, then called Batavia. From his beginnings in a sundries shop, he grew into the head of a major trading company with stores across southeast Asia. One of those stores was in Penang, [...]
This evening, I will be en route to Malaysia for China’s eight-day National Day holiday. But the trip didn’t come together without difficulty, thanks to Air Asia’s obscure ticketing rules. The following is a cautionary tale for the southeast-Asia bound:
I began shopping for flights in August, and my first stop was the Air Asia web [...]
