Category: China

Dispatches from Abroad: Green Spaces of Xi’an

~ amellison17 ~ 2 Comments

For a rapidly expanding city of 9 million people, Xi’an is fortunate to have a number of temples, parks, and gardens that provide islands of green space an places for enjoyment, exercise, and contemplation. Spending day in and day out in a hotel, in an office, and in the midst of Xi’an’s sidewalks, streets, and traffic, I longed for a bit of green and a bit of quietude. So I avidly scanned my otherwise incomprehensible city map (it’s in Chinese, of course) for green spaces and made it a point to visit four of them during my two weeks in the city: the Xing Qing gardens, the Xi’an Botanic Garden, the Green Dragon Temple, and the Ba Qiao wetland reserve.

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Dispatches from Abroad: Walking around Xi’an – literally!

~ amellison17 ~ 2 Comments

There are apparently two things that one must do when in Xi’an. One is to see the city wall. The other is to eat a bowl of yáng ròu pào mó (羊肉泡馍).1 Yesterday, post-doc Liu Wan-gang2 and I had the soup with the requisite pickled garlic and chili for lunch, (top left click for larger image) and then in late afternoon after a visit to the central tea market (top right and bottom row; click for larger image),


we walked around the city wall of Xi’an. Actually, on top of it. And if you visit and don’t want to walk, you can rent a bike or hop on an electric open-sided bus-let.

Xian south gate by day-20160825-AME-7294-small

We  walked across the drawbridge around 6pm, entered through the South Gate (above), and headed east.

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Dispatches from Abroad: The Dumpling Feast

~ amellison17 ~ 3 Comments

I knew I needed some photos of dumplings, and a dumpling extravaganza at the De Fa Chang (aka Da Fa Zheng) restaurant in between the Two Towers of Xi’an (which could be a title for an updated Tolkein novel) not only provided many photogenic opportunities but also enough food to set me on the path to becoming a dumpling myself.

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Dispatches from Abroad: Eating across Xi’an

~ amellison17 ~ 3 Comments

On August 21, 2016, I flew from Singapore to Xi’an, China, to begin a two-month research, teaching, and travel fellowship awarded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This exciting opportunity is allowing me to visit and work with colleagues and their students at the Institute of Earth Environment in Xi’an, the Institute for Tibetan Plateau Research in Beijing, the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences in Beijing, and the Computational and Medical Ecology Laboratory in Kunming.

It’s also providing an incredible opportunity to eat!

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