city memories in photos 2023
I traveled to a lot of cities this year. I thought I could be actively writing traveling journals for each city in separate posts, but my self-doubt about writing in a language that is not my first language has led to my frustrating procrastination.
Before my city memories start fading away, I'd like to keep them through photos. No filters, no photoshop editing. All taken with my iPhone XS Max.
北京
I traveled to Beijing twice this year. I'm too familiar with the city, so I didn't really take a ton of photos.
But I did capture some street art (?) outside Communication University of China.
My friend and I went to hang out at Tiantan Park (Temple of Heaven, according to Google), where we came across a VERY CUTE band 🥺.
Most of them were playing traditional Chinese instruments.
There are ancient imperial elements everywhere.
My friend also took me to eat burgers. People said that the restaurant has won the championship of the Beijing Burger Festival several years in a row?? (There's a festival for burgers, literally.)
And the burger was indeed really GOOD.
Outside the burger place, I took a picture of the road and the pretty flowers 🌼🌸🌺😊.
The second time that I went to Beijing, I took a picture at the subway and did a black-and-white filter.
The city is just so busy, as always.
苏州
Suzhou is a beautiful southeastern city 🥺. What impressed me most is that the city seemed to strike a perfect balance between the hustle and bustle of a modern city and tranquility.
The city felt very quiet and slow. Compared to Beijing, it seemed to have a more peaceful temperament...
My friend and I visited gardens, museums, temples, and parks too.
Baby goldfish being petted by a human 😊.
I adored how fresh and light the local food tasted.
We also went to listen to a traditional concert but didn't take photos. The songs were all in the local dialect of the city and a Shanghainese dialect too. People call these dialects 吴侬软语 because they sound a lot softer than Northern Mandarin 🥺.
While exploring the city, the biggest thought that kept running through my head was that it seemed to be a good place for introverts to live in. (Or people who just want to stay away from the hullabaloo of larger cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, probably?)
沈阳
Shenyang is a northeastern city. Last time I visited here it was ~ten years ago.
I don't know what to write about this city, but the taxis here were all in bright yellow.
I grew up in the same province, so I'm pretty familiar with the culture here too. There really wasn't much to see about this city, so I offer you… doggos!!
And piggies!!
Just kidding. The doggos were actually guests of a local gallery, and the piggies were exhibits in it.
After the gallery, we visited the imperial palace, a place where emperors of the Qing dynasty lived around 400 years ago. They lived here for only ~20 years before moving to Beijing.
I'm particularly fond of this picture. I guess this is what stereotypical Chinese style aesthetics like?? ?
People say that Manchu people ruled this land in the Qing dynasty. The Manchu language can be seen everywhere in this palace.
And today, the Written Chinese has been simplified, and the foreign languages that can be seen here now are English, Japanese, Korean, and Russian.
It's really amazing to see how the language landscape has changed throughout history, and how it connects the past and the present 🥹.
As for the food, we went to a Thai & Indian restaurant (?)
Is this really authentic Thai and Indian food????
This picture was the hightlight of my Shenyang visit 🥺🥺🥺.
Makes my heart melt 😊.
大连
Dalian is actually the city that I grew up in, a northeastern city too. But growing up here doesn't mean that I know much about the city. I went for a walk to see if I could find my own connection with this city (???)
But since it's a coastal city, the culture here is almost all about the sea and seafood.
Things made of shells.
The street planning of this city gives me a very different impression than Beijing and Suzhou did. In other cities most of the roads are straight. But the roads here always wind their way 😵💫.
Another big part of the local culture is that the city was once governed(?) ruled(?) colonized(?) by the Russian and the Japanese people, so there're a lot of Russian and Japanese elements.
If I remember correctly, the red building on the right was designed by the Japanese.
Russian-style buildings.
A Russian-themed park!!
An online friend from Kazakhstan told me the building in this picture looks very Russian.
Chances are the old buildings were all designed by Russians.
成都
Chengdu was the last city that I visited this year 🥺. It was the first time that I'd ever been to the southwest part of my country. And first time in a city that's (geographically) in UTC +7 time zone.
But honestly, it's just only 1 hour, how could I even tell the difference?? I went to hang around alone at the shopping malls at 10 of the night, still got lost in the excitement and lost track of time.
Sichuan is home to 🐼. I saw pandas literally everywhere in the city (not the real ones).
Pandas,
More pandas,
Lots of pandas!!
It was such a pity that I was too busy to go to the zoo to see real pandas.
The local food tasted, not surprisingly, bold and spicy 😵💫. Typical Sichuan cuisine 😵💫.
The city has pretty roads 🥺.
But the traffic here was a bit confusing for me. For example, there are no traffic lights on smaller roads like this. How do I even know when to cross the road, without traffic lights??
Also I saw a lot of people ride their bikes and scooters on the wrong side of the street. It's really dangerous and scary 😕. In Beijing people never do that.
I'm always obsessed with taking photos of the language of the city.
The art at the subway reminded me of the stories that happened around 2000 years ago. At that time this city was the capital city of some ancient kingdoms of Han people. (?)
I saw a lot of shops that displayed the Tibetan/Xizang language. I really love to see the cultural part of a city. There were a lot of Indian shops too.
I went to a local commercial street. A stranger talked to me, and asked if I was Beijingnese. It was really funny that I, quite unknowingly, switched to a Beijing accent. I think I was just in defensive mode when talking to strangers.
For me, Beijing accents have more SAVAGE energy.
I felt like people in Chengdu seemed to be more reserved and shy. That actually meets the stereotype that people in the south of my country are generally more introverted than people in the north.
Like even though I'm pretty introverted, as a Dongbei native, I could even be able to bargain with the local vendors, using Beijing accents 😂.
I loved Chengdu a lot. Everything except the bike and scooter riders.
People say that traveling is about leaving the place where you've stayed for a long time and have grown tired of, and going to the places, of which other people feel the same. I have to admit that I've been pretty tired of the city that I grew up in. How could I even be able to have a special connection to this place, when I spent most of my youth staying at home and dealing with math? 😭😂 (I mean I do find math gorgeous, but it doesn't really care to reciprocate this feeling.)
As a child I desired to go to Beijing, probably because I wanted to go somewhere more… Creative? Now that I attended college there and have made friends with a lot of Beijing locals, most of whom were musicians that I met at my school's music club, I think I feel a closer connection with this city than with my hometown. But Beijing, this megacity, scares me with its high living costs. I used the same money to stay in a much better hotel in Chengdu than I could in Beijing. Am I just too spoiled to stay in those smaller rooms in Beijing? 😖 (I don't mind living in small rooms, on second thought, but I really don't like it when I have to share a bathroom with stranger roommates 😖)
I've been thinking a lot about my own livable city—the city that I want to settle down in. The two northeastern cities might be the last choices that I'd like to make. Chengdu impressed me with its vigor and vitality. Suzhou seemed to be a nice city to live in after retirement. I loved the old parks and gardens there, and more importantly the culture and history that they convey. But how do I know if I was just judging a city by its cover? After traveling to all those cities I miss Chengdu the most, maybe because I was there with a lot of local musicians, while back in Suzhou and Shenyang, I was only with a high school friend. So I guess what truly matters is not about the city, but the people that I spend time with.
Thanks for reading! Leave a comment. 😊