Backpacking through Europe and Asia

Date: 2025-07-22

July 22 - Leaving Utah

This morning, I woke up at 6:50, had breakfast, dropped off my apartment keys and hopped on the train north. It always feels strange leaving a place you have lived in for years. I will most likely never live in Utah again so this feels especially odd. Luckily, I was able to spend the last couple of days with friends and family before I go travel and eventually settle somewhere else for work.

It looks like all the missionaries are leaving Utah as well lol

Once the flight lands, I'll be staying in Manhattan. So that's the most info you'll get for now :)

Posting my current location and whereabouts to the open internet is not the safest thing to do while traveling. So these posts will be delayed at times.

New York City, United States

New York is now my favorite city to walk and take public transportation in.

After my plane landed at the Newark airport, I took the subway and other trains to Manhattan. Riding the subway is definitely an experience. The trains themselves are loud, fast, and some trains/stations can get really hot. And they are often packed so people will sit closely together and you need to find a place to squeeze in. The trains come every couple minutes so you are never waiting for very long.

Subway station entrances are often the little staircases you see in movies. After going down one, I was not prepared for how much the station would twist and wind until you get to the platform. And sometimes, you have to follow the signs down the stairs from one platform to another for a different train line. It's a really enjoyable challenge to navigate.

There are also very large subway stations.

After reviewing my pictures, I realized that I only really took them when there was a small amount of foot traffic. This is because walking with a lot of New Yorkers actually takes a decent amount of effort. I'll try to explain it:

New Yorkers tend to speed walk with a set path. By setting that path, they project where they want to go and to expect you to do the same. Because I'm more used to crowds that go with the flow, I would often change my path initially and I could tell this slightly annoyed the people around me.

Disclaimer: These notes are from my observations and I have not actually talked with someone from New York about them yet. So it could be inaccurate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I only really talked to a guy I met from Austria who was also on vacation)

This kind of construction scaffolding seems to be in a lot of places and it's a fun difference in scenery. The buildings themselves are very large and unique designs are common.

One of the first things I did was go to the Chinese Consulate to apply for a tourist visa. The consulate looked like a DMV and the officials were very efficient. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed so I can't put a photo here. [I later got a 10 year China tourist visa so that's exciting!]

After I left, I figured I would walk along the west Manhattan coast down to a ferry. On the way, I passed a lot of piers. Some of them are what you expect a pier to be. Others have helicopter pads. My favorite was this kind of park built on cement pillars.

A while ago, I heard the advice to take the ferry to Staten Island as a free way to see the Statue of Liberty. I may have taken the commuter ferry because the ticket ended up being $4.50.

I was able to get a pretty good look at the Statue of Liberty but I won't include my zoomed in picture because you can see better ones online.

While I was on Staten Island, I saw the NYPD respond to a call. I have seen this police car design so many times in movies that I thought it was fake. But it turns out that this is what real NYPD cars look like.

NYC has a pretty neat ferry system. The main station has 5 docking points and the boats themselves quickly come, unload, load and go. One ferry rider brought her nice road bike to use Manhattan's dedicated bikeways.

Another touristy thing to do in NYC is to tour the United Nations. I'd highly recommend going if you are going to NYC, as it is not something a lot of americans do. The United Nations is not perfect but it does a lot of good for the world.

For those that I played Super Powers 2 with, this is where the guy in the intro declared war! lol

And yes, I went to Times Square. It's at the center of Manhattan so I found myself walking through it many times.

The plays were a little expensive so I only saw the Book of Mormon at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. It was a great comedy and I'd recommend it as long as you don't mind a bit of good spirited blasphemy.

I went on a financial crisis tour that took us through Wall Street and Broad Street. It was really cool to see the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and other buildings that played important roles in American history.

After the tour an Austrian and I were chatting and we ended up getting dinner from street food vendors. We talked about life in Austria compared to the US with things like industry, cultural norms and tour. Apparently, Austria also had a pretty large anti-COVID vaccine movement.

On my way to JFK, I walked through Coney Island and over the Brooklyn Bridge. I came across this cool looking guy at one point.

This list of events is not exhaustive but I'm ending it here because of limited time. I want to spend more of my time exploring and enjoying each place I go to :)

Oslo, Norway

My plane landed at the airport and I got a nice view of the rainy countryside.

There is this feeling of excitement that slowly builds up until I walk off the plane. Then I'm just happy to be there. Enjoying the difference in the people around me, the languages spoken and even the building's subtle details. In the US, nearly all exit signs, turntables, outlets and other things are predictably boring. But when going to another country, your exceptions for all of these things are challenged by doing something as simple as walking through the airport.

After getting off the plane, I headed over to immigration. I was a little surprised that I waited in a line to talk to a person. When I had visited Vancouver, Canada, I scanned my passport, answered some questions and a machine let me through.

When I walked up to the immigration official, she wanted a passport, lodging information and return trip information. I handed my passport over and showed my reservations for Oslo, Norway and Gothenburg, Sweden. And told her that I was planning around backpacking through Europe and Asia.

When she said that I needed a return, my heart sank a little. I would not have a return ticket for a while. And when researching Norway culture, I found that they generally do not like making exceptions to rules. Thankfully, savings/credit is another way I can prove that I can pay for my exit and won't be a monetary burden for the EU. So I frantically logged in to my bank on the spot and she let me through. I really thought that for a second, my trip would start with me being stuck at the Oslo airport 😅

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It took a relatively large amount of effort to find my way from the airport to the hotel I was staying at. Partly because it was my first time in Europe but also because it was raining and I did not have cellular data. So I forgot to take a lot of pictures.

But I did take a picture when I came across the Royal Palace.

And a Crow. Norway has the coolest looking kind of bird.

Another big shock was the major contrast in cities. I had come from New York which is loud, hot, and dirty. Oslo is a polar opposite despite being Norway's largest city.

People talked at a volume I would expect in an American library. The train and cars are nearly all electric so the few vehicles that did pass by were nearly silent.

This is what a semi-busy street in Oslo looks like.

Unfortunately, all of the hostels were booked so I reserved a cheap hotel. The hotel had some neat history as a pensioner's house. But I did not have much time to learn more since I was headed to Sweden the next day.

Oslo has a surprisingly large train station for it's size.

The countryside is so beautiful! And there also seems to be a decent amount of industry.

This was taken somewhere near the Norway/Sweden border.

Gothenburg, Sweden

I absolutely loved visiting Gothenburg. It is a decently large and diverse city that felt peaceful.

Most of the city had multi story residential buildings with shops on the first level. And this layout went on for a while with occasional parks and a street with restaurants. I don't think I saw a single house until I got on the train leaving and was looking at the countryside.

For those that don't know, this is what a hostel looks like. Generally 6-12 people share a room so traveling is cheap. This hostel was around $45 USD per night because it's the time of year when lots of people Europe. Some hostels can be booked for $15 or lower.

This particular hostel was neat and took recycling and composting very seriously.

Most hostels have a kitchen where you can cook food so you can make your trip a little cheaper. Because I was staying in Gothenburg for about a week, I cooked most of my meals.

Because Sweden is more diverse, there is not a lot of traditional Swedish food. The hostel's front desk person recommend going to a place called Ölstugan Tullen for Swedish food. There I had some very good fried flounder and tried a Swedish beer. I'm still not the biggest fan of beer but it was the least bad tasting beer I've ever had lol.

Interestingly enough, there are a lot of Italian restaurants all over Gothenburg. According to the walking tour guide, Swedes have really enjoyed Italian food in recent years.

I ended up going to an italian restaurant with two Swiss guys I met at the hostel. The food was amazing but the food was different from the Italian food I had in the US. The rice was small and more circular? And some kind of butter was used extensively.

Another interesting note is that plumbing seems to be routed outside of the walls here.

Also, garbage containers in Sweden are emptied with a some kind of crane truck. I first saw this from the kitchen window and had to stop what I was doing to watch.

I really liked Gothenburg. It feels like the kind of city you would want to move to for a fresh start. And Swedish seems like it would be a fun language to learn.

Overall, I'm glad I stayed here a little bit longer. The longer stay allowed me to make some friends and to become more comfortable in Europe.

Stockholm, Sweden

It turns out that Stockholm is made up of a bunch of islands. And the name Stockholm translates to English as Log Island.

I took this picture after walking from Gamla stan, the old town, to Södermalm, the cultural/hip part of Stockholm.

I took the second picture from the tower on the left. The first picture was taken along the walkway on the very right of the second picture.

While I was with a walking tour group, we witnessed Swedish military personnel repel from a helicopter onto the Parliament Building. The guide said that the military was more active in exercises because of the current political party/majority in power.

During the tour I befriended a Spanish/Venezuelan who was also on vacation. We explored the island of Djurgården and took some pictures for each other.

We also took the tunnelbana (subway) on the blue line where there is some artwork.

As you can probably tell, I am a fan of colorful wall art.

I went out of my way to visit the memorial of Olof Palme, Sweden's Prime Minister who was assassinated 1986. This murder went unsolved for decades until the Swedish government named Palme's killer in 2020. The BBC reported on this event and explained that many Swedes were dissatisfied the the official explanation.

I was introduced to this historical event in the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo book trilogy by Stieg Larssen. Larssen was a journalist and fictional author who wrote about the failings of the Swedish government and extremist groups. And wrote inspiring fictional characters that overcame these challenges. So it felt a little magical to be traveling around the city where Larssen and his fictional characters existed.

I am not used to living in a place with so much rain. And it turns out that my laptop was damaged by water when it was in my backpack while I was out in the rain. A repair shop called TeknikFix was super awesome and helped me get the laptop working again by discovering the water damage and unplugging the cmos battery so my laptop would boot again. I wanted to pay for their time but they did not accept any payment. So I left a 5 star Google review and I'll tell my two readers how awesome they are lol.

Before leaving on the train to Denmark, I had just enough time to visit the Avicii museum. I'm not someone who really sings but I made an exception for their fun little solo VR singing booth.

Copenhagen, Denmark

When I walked out of Copenhagen Centraal, I got a view of thousands of bicycles. There were multiple spots like this filled with bikes all around the train station and amusement park next door.

Without realizing it, I booked a hostel in the partying part of town. I arrived on a friday night and the place was full and you could hear music from afar. When I checked-in I'm so glad I noticed the free earplugs. There is no way I would have slept with how loud it was without the earplugs.

Copenhagen Suborbitals was the thing I was most excited to see in Denmark. This group was formed in 2008 with the purpose of being the first amateur rocketry group to put a human into space.

Their workshop exists in an old ship building yard and looks like the real world equivalent of Kerbal Space Program. Everything they use is off the shelf. And this includes things like the electronics and metal used for their liquid fuel engine. They ignite the rocket with a wooden stick with a firework attached to it. Other things were creatively re-purposed like a paintball air tanks and race car chairs.

They even have a gimbaling liquid fuel rocket. It's a functional prototype so our group was able to move the motor with a control panel attached to this jig.

They operate entirely on donations so getting things like a CNC lathe and mill proved to be difficult but attainable. To achieve this, they rebuilt an old lathe and mill to have electronics control the movement. Making them CNC!

They used to be alone on this old shipyard but in the last couple of years, many business have opened up. Next door is a food court, neighboring gym and paintball. The food court makes use of a lot of shipping containers for shops and an entrance archway.

Hamburg, Germany

Most of the Trains to Hamburg were booked so I had to wake up early to catch a few trains to end up here.

I had not had breakfast at this point and decided to eat at the station. And I found mexican food! ...served with white rice? What I ordered was like chili with rice. Not really what I would call Mexican food but it tasted great!

The streets of Hamburg are generally dirty, filled with spray paint and empty glass bottles giving the city a rough look. Asking around, I found that people left their bottles in the street for the homeless to collect and take to recycling machine for money.

This is a particularly artistic part of the wall art. The woman's face is repeated all over the city and I'm not sure if there is a meaning behind it.

I booked a walking tour through hamburg learned that this is where the Beatles band became famous. The tour also took us through Germany's biggest red light district. I was unaware about all of these things so it was a very fun tour.

While I was waiting for the tour, I went to find some food and ordered a good looking fish sandwich. It was only when I got the sandwich that I realized it was a raw fish sandwich.

So I had this inner conflict. Should I waste this sandwich? Should I risk getting sick?

I ended up eating it and spent the rest of the day slightly worried. But that did not get in the way of enjoying Hamburg. After the tour, I walked through this old tunnel that goes under a shipping channel.

Here is the tunnel from above. They built it in 1911 so people could commute to work on the docks. Too many people needed to cross that ferries could not fulfill demand and the sailboats were too tall for a bridge.

Thankfully, I did not get sick from the raw fish sandwich. But someone who was also staying at the hostel gave me something else to be worried about lol.

I met a Czech political science student who is convinced that Europe will be at war with Russia in the next couple years. His main argument is the press releases by German military leadership and Russia military buildup towards europe outside of Ukraine.

At this point, I have a cold and booked a hotel to recover. And to be alone. It's a little draining being around people 24/7.

A quick aside (Why this has not been updated in a while)

It is October 4th and I am currently in Türkiye. I have been through 12 cities since my previous update. A lot has happened including a pickpocket stealing my phone.

Traveling feels much different when you are at it long term. I am 74 days into a 104 day trip. I try to learn basic phrases for each city, like hello and thank you. And learn different cultural expectations like if you should say hello when entering a store, or where to return dishes at a restaurant.

To add to this existing mental load, I've been staying in cheap hostels. So that means sharing a bunk bed room with other random people. These hostels are often a little noisy and some are not the cleanest. I have mosquito bites from a messier hostel in the UK. And for all of this, I am spending thousands of dollars. Sometimes I feel like deciding to travel for so long was a mistake.

It's exhausting.

As a result, I prioritized my mental health. While still going out to explore whatever place I am visiting. So updating this blog has not been a priority.

But now, I feel more energetic than the recent past. There is something exciting about booking a return flight to the US after being away for so long. And staying in this Turkish private hostel room helps me feel less tired about being surrounded by random people all the time.

Now, I'm headed to Kazakhstan :D

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bikes and bike lanes are everywhere.

I took the ferry everywhere inside the city. This is what is looks like getting off one of the ferries:

The streets and walkways were super crowded with tourists and food delivery bikes.

For fun, I walked into the red light district at dusk. Lots of little shops sold food, souvenirs and weed. The weed was sold in every form I could imagine including soda, gum and lollipops. These products were even in vending machines which surprised me.

When I saw the women in their neon lit red windows, my mind immediately compared their lingerie to a bikini. And I think that's why their attire did not seem that out of place.

The masses of different kinds of tourists was kind of more interesting to watch. So I bought some french fries and leisurely walked around looking at the tourists and occasionally glancing at the windows.

One of the window girls smiled at me and I smiled back even though I in the process of eating a french fry.

The whole situation felt so absurd yet fun.

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I could not decide where to go after 3 days in Amsterdam. So I booked another hostel 6 minutes north (by train) in Zaandam.

Not much happened in Zaandam. But I did learn that Polish people eat bread with a cream cheese spread. (I would later learn in Poland that this was the culinary ancestor to the bagel with cream cheese)

Berlin, Germany

Expectations are a funny thing. I had high hopes for Berlin but it is really just a bunch of boring stone buildings in a city that has a medium amount of sprawl.

But once I made some friends at the hostel and talked with some locals, I loved it.

I stayed in a hostel in East Berlin called Sandino. It has a strong hippie/stoner/nature lover vibe.

(Image from hostelworld.com) This is the best picture I could find of the hostel on the internet. But this does not do it justice. Every seating area has a lighter, ash tray and bongs are free to use.

The owner (Mikel?) puts a lot of effort into making a social and inclusive environment. Very comfortable couches are placed in a small living room with a mural, books and flags from different countries. Next to that is a compact but fully stocked kitchen with tables scattered around. Outside this little shed, there are many seating areas. At night, a wood fire is lit and people naturally gravitate there to meet each other and compare travel plans.

In the back of the property, there is a grassy area where travelers can stay and pitch a tent. But getting to that is daunting because everyone is told to watch out for the rooster who attacks bright colors unprovoked. The owner gave out little purple hearts to anyone the rooster attacked. (I imagine the rooster attack was more startling than anything else)

You might be wondering why the owner would get rooster that sometimes attacked guests at his hostel. And that's a valid question. The owner explained that he bought a hen. And that, rather inconveniently, that hen had become a rooster. Apparently this happens in nature.

I don't care much for the city "feel" of Berlin but the people who live here and visit seem to be amazing. At the hostel, I got along well with a Russian, German and multiple guys from New Zealand and Australia.

One morning, our little group went out to get some coffee and cigarettes. It was Sunday and even though most stores were closed, we were able to track down an open bakery/coffee shop.

I was trying to decide what pastry to try when one of the guys was trying to buy a cheap bottle of milk. Without English, the baker was somehow able to convey that he could not buy that with a card because the transaction fees were too high. The milk was only a euro or two so I bought it for my friend and bought myself a latte and pastry. I gave the friend the milk and he wanted to repay me but I tried to convince him otherwise. I ended up accepting a 5AUD bill because of his persistence and novelty.

Right as we concluded payment for the milk, we heard the baker yell NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! to one of our friends. So we turned to see what was going on. Our friend had his arm out to give the baker some euros. The baker was not having it and had her arms up/out in defiance.

We were able to piece together what had happened: The baker had given some free cheesecake to our friend. And he wanted to pay for it. The store owner did not want to be paid for the cheesecake.

Our friend, who really wanted to pay for at least part of the cheesecake, placed the euros onto the counter. Through body language, the baker admitted defeat. And she smiled at us. We all split the cheese cake and said our goodbyes to the baker.

Kraków, Poland

Poland is one of the countries I was sure I wanted to visit on this trip. And that's mostly due to this statement by a producer who worked on the Cyberpunk TV show:

This seemed to line up with what other travelers thought when I told them I was planning on traveling to Poland. Even for Europeans, Poland is seen as a place where nothing happens and they don't have much of a reason for wanting to visit.

This could not be farther from my experience with the country. Maybe it's the fact that I visited a particular city when it was not covered in snow. I could have been extremely lucky with timing.

I only spent 2 nights in Kraków. The city was oddly very clean and felt safe at night Which is convenient because I only got back to the hostel after midnight the 3 nights I stayed there.

The whole city is beautiful. According to the walking tour guide, a very small amount of the city was destroyed during WW2. As a result, Krakow has the highest density of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

But by far, my favorite part of the city was Rynek Główny. Imagine a huge city center made of stone bricks surrounded by beautiful churches and restaurants. Running through the center is a hall lined with merchants selling all kinds of touristy goods. I tried to find a picture that would accurately portray the night I saw. But none of the pictures on the internet do it justice. So I leave you with this description I wrote while I was there:

So much happened those two nights in Kraków. I'll try to sum it up briefly in an entertaining way.

On the train to Krakow, I met a Brazilian guy that must have been around 30. Because our common Spanish was very limited, we communicated in with Google Translate with the only languages we were fluent in; Portugese and English. We had agreed to meet up the following day.

This guy's worldview intrigued me. He believes that the bible "tells us that things in the world will only get worse". And I could tell from his facial expression that he could not understand why I wanted to be a journalist (or do another job pushing for positive change).

Because of his nihilist worldview, he seemed to organize his life around chasing women and doing adventurous things. And from the videos he showed of himself clubbing, going on expensive getaways and jet skiing with his son, it seems to work out for him.

While we were walking around the square at dusk, watching the horse drawn carriages, we heard some music and headed in it's direction. When we got to the crowd of 60+ people, we could see one guitarist with an amp in the center. He was playing the instrumental versions of common upbeat songs. The Brazilian loved this. Some brave people stepped in the circle and started dancing. Young and old. A couple brave people danced by themselves. Others tried to drag their shy friends or partner in for a dance. The Brazilian became extremely excited when the guitarist played Latin American songs like Despacito and Rio.

He really wanted to go clubbing that night so I offered to go with and be a sort of translator. (A lot of younger Polish people know English) I thought it would be entertaining to translate for him, see a club and make sure he did not pressure anyone to do anything. So we walked around looking for clubs around the north of Rynek Główny.

The Brazilian became paranoid when we circled past multiple clubs with people outside urging us to enter them. He was pretty worried about being scammed. So we did not end up going to any clubs and I did not mind. Walking through the old city lit by yellow and blue lights with the occasional horse carriage passing by was enough for me.

Zakopane, Poland

While at the Berlin Sandino hostel, I had heard there was an amazing city in nature. So why not check it out? A break from big cities would be nice.

This is the only picture I have of the city itself.

I think of Zakopane as the Eastern Europe equivalent of Park City, Utah. Or Aspen, Colorado.

The city had a ton of short term rentals and was clean and had an expensive feeling.

All of the regular hostels were sold out so I stayed in a little shared vacation house with a private room. This was the first place I went where a lot of people did not speak english.

I hiked on a couple different trails in Tatra National Park to complete this fun loop:

If you are into Skiing, this seems like a very nice place to go. Sadly, they did not have any real mountain biking that did not require a car rental. But it was nice to relax in a private room for a couple days. I ended up celebrating my birthday with a movie and some snacks :)

Vienna, Austria

I did not know what to expect when traveling to Austria. It turns out it's a nice little country with a lot of fun things going on.

The first thing I noticed was that there are a ton of KTMs and other motorcycles in the city. (Which makes sense since KTM is based in Austria) So that makes me instantly like the city more.

And I'm usually not super interested in church architecture. But St. Stephen's Cathedral was an exception. It's this huge gothic cathedral with enormously tall and narrow windows. And a roof with a colorful pattern of stone circles.

I booked a stay in a random hostel without thinking much. But when I got there, I could see that the hostel was inside of an Ikea! The arrangement was very well done with doors that would close off the Ikea portion during non business hours.

This was my first time being in Ikea since I was super young. It was amazing! Seeing all of the furniture and decorations reeeally made me want to stop traveling and move into a cozy apartment.

At this point, I had traveled for 2+ months and felt a little homesick for the first time in my life. To be perfectly honest, I pushed the homesickness feeling down. I would return to the US eventually and that's when I would have stability and consistent friends. But I've got to make the most of my travel time because I'll never have this much free time again.

Zürich, Switzerland

Like most of my travel so far, I took a train to Zürich. This train went through Slovakia and Liechtenstein so that's fun. I'm not sure if this qualifies as me having "been" to these countries.

Zürich is one of those cities I would not want to live in but love to visit. It is relatively small following both sides of a river. The city feels old with brick roads and brick buildings. And the pedestrians feel posh. But maybe that's just because I was staying in a hostel in the center of the downtown that high end fashion brands occupied.

In the weekend mornings I explored, there was a large flea market and some street vendors selling fresh fruits and veggies. I bought some apples, cherry tomatoes, jam and apple juice from one of the vendors. The apple juice was so much better than any kind of juice I had before. It must be due to the fact that it is real apple juice lol.

Back when I was visiting Gothenburg, I befriended two Swiss guys. Even though college classes just started, one was able to meet up and hang out! It was nice walking along the river and chatting with someone I knew. Traveling is a bit lonely at times.

Later that night, that friend invited me to a barbecue with some of his friends. Most of them knew each other from the neighborhood dinners that are common here. It turns out I like Swiss brautwurst! (I'm just not a fan of American sausage)

Once it started to get dark outside, we walked to a bridge over the train station to get a view of the lunar eclipse. Some of the buildings blocked it from that particular spot and I ended up saying goodbye and heading to the hostel where I finally saw the remainder of the eclipse.

Downtown Zürich is relatively small with a distinct feel for each part of the city so I knew how to get back to the hostel. I felt amazing walking back to the hostel in such a beautiful city at night. I knew the winding passageways back where I could see the stone streets and river reflections.

Milan, Italy

The only Italian city I visited was Milan. I have been told that I was missing out on the exciting parts of Italy. And that's probably true. I picked this city because it was fast to get to from Switzerland and cheap to fly into Spain afterwards.

With the exception of how sketchy the city felt, it was nice. The train station I arrived in was bigger and fancier than the stations I had been in before it. And the first thing I did was buy some pizza.

There is not much that was really anything super exciting about Milan. I went on a walking tour, and we learned how Italy was the first to build hospitals and We also went into an extremely old church that was built in the 5th century. And a different church that had the walls decorated with countless human bones. The only thing that is worth writing back about was the statue in front of the Italian Stock Exchange:

Image credit: AMP Global.

The tour guide said that Italy was hit particularly hard by the 2008 financial crisis and has been struggling to recover since then. So you can imagine it's commentary on the stock exchange with the middle finger being pointed at the Italian people with the other fingers cut off. This is the L.O.V.E. sculpture is by Maurizio Cattelan. His art usually has some kind of social commentary. This is the same guy that had that famous banana duct taped the wall as art.

Italy has some pretty neat old buildings. My favorite was a church where the inside was decorated with real human remains. Piles of bones from thousands of people lined the walls in artful patterns. This kind of thing fascinates me because it shows how differently people thought of death in the past.

This church was built next to a hospital. In those times, hospitals were the place where people went to die. It was not until later that some monks realized that it might be worth trying to heal some sicknesses and so healthcare became a thing. This started in Italy! Many other discoveries happened here, like learning that changing sheets between patients would increase the odds of recovery.

I sure am glad to live in the 21st century.

Madrid, Spain

It felt oddly familiar to be hearing Spanish everywhere. From growing up in Arizona, I became familiar to hearing certain words/phrases. But I don't understand enough to know what is being said.

For whatever reason, I thought Spanish culture would be similar to Mexican culture. But other than the love for partying and waking up late, these cultures felt completely different.

I found myself at the Galería de las Colecciones Reales. Everything looked so old and expensive. And there was so much of it. Gold armor, chariots. And priceless statues, paintings and tapestries. And if that did not indicate the difference, there was security everywhere.

Partying is a huge part of Spanish culture. So I joined people from the hostel on my first ever trip to the club. The music was too loud to really talk. So I had a couple shots and tried to dance with the other people from the hostels. And learned that this is not my kind of activity. But it was neat to try since I have heard about family friends who loved going clubbing. So I spend the rest of my time being entertained by games of beer pong.

Madrid was a fun city to visit. It is huge and I had the impression that there was so much to do and see. (There is a place where you can ring a doorbell, be let in, and buy cookies from nuns) Walking and public transportation could get you to anywhere in the city. And if you stayed out late into the night, the streets still felt safe to walk back in.

Paris, France

Paris is an expensive city so I only stayed for 2 nights. I would have stayed for longer if I knew how much I liked it.

The feeling of excitement of arriving in a new city is usually something I would get when traveling. By this time, I had been through so many places and the excitement of arriving in every new place was fading. But this time, I recognized the style of French streets, signs and buildings. (Likely from Rémi Gaillard's videos) At seeing the familiar scenery, I grew excited to be in a new place once again.

My flight from Spain arrived early in the morning so I had plenty of time before I would check in to the hostel. So I found the Eiffel tower in the distance and walked a few kilometers towards it. Once I arrived, I was struck by just how huge the tower was. Now I understand why this thing is known all over the world.

Paris is a great city for walking and finding nice places to sit. I spent much of my time there walking and listening an audio book of The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson. My next city is London and that is where this biography of an economist takes place.

And of course I had croissants and some french cafe food. A really kind Parisian helped me navigate the ordering kiosk in one of these cafes. Thanks!

As a change of pace, I decided to take a fashion walking tour. I really enjoyed learning about the history and getting a glimpse into the "raison d'être" or "reason for being" of fashion. (Am I using this French thing correctly?)

I left Paris on the Nord train. It was neat to arrive in London by taking a train under the English Channel.

London, United Kingdom

It was amazing to get off the train and hear English everywhere. And I could count on having a shared language with everyone again!

I stayed in a hostel located above a pub in Greenwich. The same Greenwich as Greenwich mean time!

The hostel was fine but I got lucky with the surrounding area. I usually take generic walking tours but this time, I took a ghost stories walking tour that started at dusk. The meeting point was at the Cutty Sark, an old haunted ship a few minutes walk from the hostel. The guide was amazing and made me a little afraid even though I don't believe in the supernatural. I would definitely recommend this to anyone traveling to London.

The location was also amazing for reading the economics biography. It was only when I was listening to the audio book that I realized that much of it had taken place in front of me at the Isle of Dogs. This is where London's financial center is including the Citibank building the author worked in! I wandered over walking through the area multiple times while I stayed in Greenwich.

Now that I was in an english speaking country again, I started looking for some journalism books. I had bought the Understanding Media book in Paris but I also wanted a book that was purely theory. This proved difficult to find at random bookstores. So based on a recommendation from bookstore staff, I planned on going to a huge bookstore near the University of London.

So I took the tube, aka subway, to that area. And halfway through my trip, my phone suddenly disappeared! I got on the Central line to go one station. And when I got off, I felt that my phone was no longer in my front pocket. It had been stolen by a pickpocket!

My phone had directions and everything! My mind was racing as soon as I stepped off the train and realizing my phone was gone. In an attempt to find the pickpocket, I hopped back onto the train only to look around and realize my phone was long gone.

Realizing that I was not thinking super clearly, I got off at the next station and found bought a sandwich so I could sit down and think about what to do. I decided that it would be the best use of my time to go back to the hostel and reset passwords. Then shop around for a new phone. Thankfully, I remembered the 2 trains back and was able to navigate to the hostel.

The pickpocket aside, London is another great city to walk around in. Because traffic goes forward on the left side of the road, it was interesting to watch and predict traffic. In my short time there, failed to gain the intuition to be able to predict this kind of traffic.

The image above is from my favorite part of London, Canary Wharf. This exact spot is also a filming location for the ISB HQ in the Andor TV show!

Nearby, there is the financial area of London. I booked a walking tour here and it was neat to learn about.

Oxford, United Kingdom

I had wanted to go to Oxford ever since my study-abroad application for that same city was denied. It would have been so cool to learn about Civic Thought and Leadership over a summer.

Long story short, I met the coordinator for this program who, after talking, encouraged me to apply. So I did. I later found a requirement mandating a GPA threshold so I emailed the coordinator and explained my situation of having a low GPA from over extending myself in extracurriculars. Months passed and my application was then denied without any kind of interview. After I was denied, they extended the application deadline and lowered the GPA requirement. But not low enough for me. -_-

Thankfully, this was the farthest from my mind when I was actually visiting Oxford. It's only the reason I chose to visit Oxford over Cambridge. I was ready to read my new journalism books and visit the place that that inspired Harry Potter.

It turns out a lot of fictional stories were inspired by bits of Oxford. Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and many more.

And I can see why. The buildings are other worldly.

Aside from a walking tour, I really just focused on my personal interests. This included reading journalism and economics books and working on Supermoto, tools and a methodology for building websites in the Go programming language. (The website is out of date) While I was in Oxford, I made a small breakthrough with how the tools should be interacted with. I'll write about it on jaxlo.net once I have a proof of concept.

Oxford is actually pretty small and surrounded with nice trails through nature.

Overall, it was pretty neat. I'm not sure I would ever come back. But it is cool learning about the individual schools and their traditions.

On the way to the airport, the train slowly came to a stop and one of the three guys to me left said "We must have run out of fuel". British humor is great.

Istanbul, Türkiye

I arrived at the hostel 2am after taking an overnight flight from London. It felt oddly safe at night in this part of town.

Istanbul's flag is red and this identity can be seen around the city. The color palate is so good! lol

On the street above, there is a lightrail that drives through. At one point along it's route, it is something like 3 feet from the buildings. It makes for a neat compact market feel. I was only slightly worried about being ran over by one of the trains.

There were many points during my trip where I had the thought: "That's not up to code" lol. (Even though my idea of building code only applies to buildings in the US)

There are also lots of cats everywhere. I even found one inside the mosque I visited.

This is another one of those places where the food was amazing. I loved the chicken kebab and beef donor. And learned that donor kebab was a Berlin thing so I'm glad I had it there.

If you ever visit, beware of the rug salesmen. I went in to see what they looked like and the salesmen managed to warp my reality and I walked out with a $700 rug being my most expensive posession -_-. Have an exit strategy if you ever go into a high pressure sales situation. At least I have something nice for my future self.

The annoyance about the rug aside, Istanbul was a fun place to explore. And the soundscape is like that of a movie. The cars constantly honking, motorcycles accelerating and decelerating and Islamic calls to prayer can be heard 5 times each day.

And here my tour guide is pointing east, explaining that Istanbul is where Europe and Asia meet. I'll be headed that way next. (East to Asia)

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Ever since taking college classes on the history of Russia, I have wanted to visit. And while I can't currently visit the Russian Federation, I can visit Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic.

Walking out of the airport, I was struck by how familiar the city felt. Unlike the European cities I had spent the last few months in, Almaty is more spread out and built for cars. But many of the cars were Chinese! This is not something I am used to seeing because the US banned Chinese car manufacturers. You can see the design inspiration for many of them as they resemble Jeeps, Teslas and Hummers. And others like the white car to the left, have an original design and still look cool.

I ended up taking a bus to a stop near the hostel because walking would have taken hours. This beautiful river walkway was on the route and I can't help but to think Almaty would be a great filming location.

As I'm writing this, I only now realized how amazing the colors are! Early October in Almaty is cold but beautiful.

Once you get out of the main parts of the city, you get an unfinished look. This picture is from a street near my hostel and I imagine this look becomes more and more common the farther outside of the city you get.

This says: не парkobatb! (No parking!)

I am enjoying some home cooked meals now that I am staying at this hostel for longer. The supermarket had a big bag of Pelmeni (Russian dumplings) and they taste amazing. I must have had a kilogram of them in the week I was there.

We in America don't really talk or know much about central Asia. And it's neat to visit. I met a pretty cool Dutch guy at the hostel. And a couple Russians.

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And with that, I'm finally back up to date on posts in this log. My next few cities will combined because I'm headed all over China!

Edit: I have so much to write about China since I have been back. Because of the amount of content, I'll be continuing with writing about each city separately. I'm also writing about sensitive topics so I'm doing my best to represent those fairly. (Feel free to send me feedback)

China

I am fascinated by China. It is not only for being the manufacturing/electronics capital of the world, but also becoming an increasingly powerful country geopolitically. I wanted to make the most of my visit so instead of staying in different hostels, I paid China Educational Tours (CET) for a tour all over China. This included multiple company tours, something I really wanted to see and did not know how to arrange alone.

For whatever reason, I just assumed that the cost of everything in China was on par with the US and northern Europe. This is where I decided to spend $4,973 with a travel agency for a tour of 6 major cities. I know, this is a LOT to spend on 16 days of travel. But I really wanted to learn more about China. Especially since there is the chance I won't be able to visit if some kind of war breaks out.

For the first time in my life, I was one of those people looking for someone at the airport waiting with a sign with my name on it. For this price, each city had a local guide, driver and had the I'm really glad I used their services. There is no way I could have learned so much about China without them. But I don't plan on traveling like this again just because it costs so much.

They put together an itinerary that included Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, Guilin and some small villages near Guilin. They more than fulfilled my desire to see Chinese factories and learn about Chinese history and current culture. I'll write more about CET later. For now, I'm changing the subject to keep the travel log organized chronologically.

Ürümqi, China

On my way to Beijing, I had a layover in Ürümqi (URC), a city in western China. From the air, the city looked like it was a similar climate to where I grew in Phoenix, AZ. But the city planning could not be more different.

As my plane approached the airport, steep mountains gave way to a city. Unlike Arizona's cities in the desert, there were almost no houses to be found. Here in China, clusters of highrises were surrounded by empty desert.

Once the plane was on approach, the city grew more dense and I started noticing nuclear power plants! Palo Verde, the one plant in Arizona, is large and in the middle of nowhere. But here in China, smaller nuclear plants seem to be mixed in with all kinds of other buildings. That's cool... (The most visible nuclear plant is just under the leftmost sun ray)

The plane landed at URC and it was the biggest airport I had ever seen! After going through customs/security I walked at what felt like a mile to the gate for my next flight. I don't have any pictures because I was taking it all in. Looking at kinds of people, shops and hearing very different language. Then I walked part a Tim Hortons with employees wearing bright red flannels. It looked so out of place but was really funny to see that they operated deep within China.

Beijing, China

The Beijing Daxing International Airport (PKX) was also huge and futuristic looking. When walking to the central part of the airport the celaing gradually raises to a massive open space with a huge Chinese flag. It's odd to see. The US is the only country I have been to that I have seen large flags hanging.

I would have taken a picture of the flag and catwalks but this is when I realized my phone camera outer lens was cracked. So I just found the airport exit instead assuming that my phone was broken. But it turned out that the camera worked just fine. So I just kept using my broken phone as is...

It's a bit odd going to a country that I only seem to hear negative news about. I know I'm naive in this aspect but I was genuinely surprised to see that the drive from the airport looked pretty similar to the US and Europe. We passed lots of nice cars, clean streets and many office and apartment buildings.

There are a also number of smaller differences that I found pretty interesting. First was that the airport was massive, futuristic looking and super clean. And seeing this, I assumed that tap water would be drinkable. But that's not the case and instead, there are hot water dispensers in some public places.

Other differences exist like showers being in a corner of bathroom. Not a tub or enclosed shower, just a corner with a drain in the floor. This is the case even in a luxury apartment unit worth more than $1M USD. (Made even more amazing by the fact that the cost of food and other goods is much lower than the US and Europe)

Exploring the culture reveals other interesting parts of Chinese culture. Because the tap water is not potable, tea is extremely common. Many people carry bottles with yellow and green colored tea. And going to tea houses to meet with friends to chat and play games is pretty common as well.

This is what facinates me the most about China. (As you can see from the length of this section lol) China industrialized extremely quickly. You can see the effects unequal development in different parts of the culture and infrastructure. A major theme of Chinese Sci-fi is exploring the human cost of rapid technological advancement.

Nearly all of the cities I went to had some kind of bike lane. But instead of regular bicycles, mopeds were extremely popular. When it was colder or rainy, the mopeds would have blankets or waterproof covers that worked while riding them.

There are so many cameras in some public places. Some of them are for cars and one of my drivers said they will text a warning and later ticket you if you idle for too long in the road.

With a tour guide, I want to the Temple of Heaven and learned about how spirituality used to be much more common. China has a lot of religious history. This includes in Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Christianity and many folk religions. When asked about religion in China today, my guide said that it was becoming less common for younger generations due to the stigma around it. The PRC discourages religion and I was told this was because "religion makes it easier to manipulate people". (source)

When it comes to Chinese identity, China has the workhorse and coal as major themes/inspiration. The acrobatics show I went to had this in one of the background art. It's kind of crazy that this is not really known in the english world even though it's such a major theme throughout China. The only picture I took of the show included a guy balancing on 8 chairs:

I was a little surprised to see Tiananmen Square on the recommended travel itinerary. It took us a fair bit of walking and waiting before we got through security. I should have been able to tell by the name but once we got there, I learned that it's actually a massive town square with government buildings nearby.

The square is huge and has all kinds of flowers/landscaping. The guide explained that the older generation really liked this kind of decoration. The main attraction of the square is the flag raising ceremony. It's patriotic to wake up early and be in the square for this ceremony.

The one person I asked about the Tiananmen Square Massacre told me that they learned about what happened from their parents. But the conversation ended soon after because they were trying to translate with their phone. But the translation app would sometimes refuse to translate because of the content.

The Forbidden City huge. This is just one small part of it:

Another interesting aspect of China is it's security. Nearly every public place we went required a bag check, and a pat down front and back.

Even though high amounts of security felt unnecessary, it was oddly nice because they are also there to help with navigation, tickets or any other problems you have. Most were unarmed and were more approachable than police in the US.

One guard was nice and let me pay her with Alipay so she could pay for my transit card reload with WeChat Pay (The only payment option at that station for some reason). The job market has been extremely competitive since Covid. So the extra security might be one of the ways the government was stimulating the economy.

Many apartment buildings employed security guards. And older buildings also had sturdy jail-like metal bars covering patios and front doors. Seeing these remains from the past makes me wonder what things were like in China's past. New apartments don't have metal barred windows and balconies.

Xi'an, China

I get the impression Xi'an is like Seattle in the US. A tech hub lots of younger people move to. But it's not quite the nation's tech capital compared to Silicon Valley or Shenzhen.

Despite the similarities, Chinese cities are massive.

• Shenzhen: 15 million
• Xi'an: 10 million
• Seattle (metropolitan area): 4 million
• Silicon Valley: 3 million

The first company I visited was Shaanxi Lighte Optoelectronics Material. They research and make materials for OLED displays. They are publicly traded and had a huge complex with multiple buildings.

When I read this description, I imagined they made OLED displays. Displays can't be that complicated of a manufacturing process right? Boy was I wrong.

Going into the gated complex, everything looked so clean and expensive. The business provided an english tour guide and I learned just how specialized this company was. They make OLED terminal materials and intermediates. I still can't wrap my head around this manufacturing process now that I am researching it for this post.

This business is the only one that does this work in China and sells it's products to giants like Samsung and TCL.

I'm having a hard time conveying the sheer scale involved in a business like this. They have multiple buildings with 24 hour manufacturing lines with countless clean rooms and $100M machines making these specialized products. The tour also included a hallway that looked into research clean rooms that looked like they were out of a sci fi movie. I wish I could have taken some pictures.

China is dumping money into developing domestic businesses and I'm sure they would love to fully integrate supply chains within their borders. But it's difficult to fund and operate this kind of specialized business even though it is state sponsored.

My key takeaway from this tour is that the complexity of technologies like displays and semiconductors are incredibly complicated. And their supply chains are also incredibly complex.

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The other two businesses I visited were in the Xi’an National University Science and Technology Park Innovation Incubation Base. For my Utah friends, this is like the UVU Business Resource Center. But instead of housing ~10 businesses, this complex if filled with hundreds of businesses.

Blue Worm was the first business I toured in this complex. They build humanoid robots to compete in Chinese and International competitions. The CEO met with my guide and I and he showed me around. Even though my guide was not trained as a translator, he tried his best and the CEO and I were able to communicate well enough.

Walking into their office, I could see at least 12 people working in a mostly open office plan. They seemed to be working on different aspects of the robot. Some were working on digital models of robots in Autodesk and others seemed to be programming in C++. Some 3D printers were operating in part of a walkway due to the limited space.

I can't describe just how exciting it was to see a small organization that built their own hardware. Every other small hardware business I have toured in the US just buys finished products or nearly finished products from abroad. (Even one that raised $26M in VC funding!!)

I realize that the operating environment is different for a company in China. But it's just so cool when a hardware business actually builds their products.

This is their latest robot (at the time of my visit). They offered to do a demo and I excitedly accepted. When the robot powered on, its posture changed and I was immediately reminded of the eerie human robots of SOMA.

Then, its right arm suddenly started quickly rotating around its elbow. It was clear that something went wrong and the robot was soon shut down. After a quick fix, they powered on the robot again and it started looking around. They showed me that the robot was connected to a VR headset so the operator would have a live feed from the robot.

I asked and it was interesting that they used C++ for interacting with hardware, C# for Unity VR and Python for ROS.

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The other business I visited built software for employers to buy cheap train plane and other transit tickets for their employees. They were also trying to build a business operating air taxis. I would slowly learn this over the next hour.

Like the other tours, I was greeted by a representative. She started telling me about their company in Chinese while gesturing to the wall. It started out simple enough, my guide translated some of what she said and I was able to fill in the gaps when I saw the numbers numbers on the wall representing things like revenue and years.

But then she started talking more and more as we walked around the room. My guide started grunting in discomfort as he tried to translate 4 minutes of speech from Chinese to English.

When we got to the model of the air taxi on the right, she became visibly excited and started talking faster. My guide/translator had an even harder time keeping up. I thought the tour was wrapping up and wanted to be polite so I just tried to guess at what was being said.

I wanted to show some engagement by asking a question and asked "if it was difficult to get approval to fly the air taxis". I tried hard to phrase it in a way that would show that I understand their struggle in a regulated industry (if it was a struggle). My guide translated the question, and she looked slightly offended and started talking quickly. My guide missed a lot of what she said.

I tried to recover by asking if they "would be building their own air taxis". This sounded like a legitimate question to me in the moment. But her response was fast and slightly offended yet again. Hopefully they just thought I was dumb. I really did not mean to offend anyone 😭

We started taking pictures and I think this is when 2 other VPs at the company joined us. I thought the tour was over and did not quite know what to do next. They indicated that there was more to the tour so I followed them into an open space. They showed me cubicles where people were working and led me down a different hallway to another room.

This room looked fancy with white carpet, luxurious, square armchairs and matching artwork on the walls. We sat and she seemed to have even more to explain. My poor guide/translator tried his best to relay the information to me as they handed out bottled tea. I had resolved to leave as soon as a polite opportunity presented itself.

I must have been sitting in the chair oddly because seemingly out of nowhere, she told me to relax. I tried my best to show a realistic confident posture. Looking around for better posture to emulate, I noticed one of the VPs completely checked out slouching in a chair doing something on his phone. I remember being internally amused thinking that "I'm glad I'm not wasting everyone's time". lol

Then an assistant came out with MORE tea and this time it was freshly brewed. By this time, my guide was slurping tea loudly and also looked uncomfortable.

Then the main representative summed up what she was saying and asked if I had any questions. Assuming this was an opportunity to politely leave, I said no. She did not seem to like this answer and launched into more explaining more about the company. I do give her some credit because this is when she started asking about my background. She then started explaining that their business started by building web scrapers that monitored the prices of tickets.

She tapered off again and asked once more if I had any questions. At this point, I felt like I had to ask something so I asked what programming language they built their infrastructure with. They replied directly to me and said Python.

We then were taken to the business entrance, said hurried goodbyes and my guide and I left. I apologized to him at least 3 times before we finished our walk to the car.

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We also visited the Terracotta Warriors in the different dig sites. Like most touristy spots, it was crowded. Likely from people visiting from other parts of China.

This is a picture of the Xi'an street food market that does not do it justice.

I later walked down this street while it was raining at night and it felt so cool. Neon lights were everywhere and people were walking and enjoying their food under lots of umbrellas. The streets were full of mopeds and cars so you had to be aware of where you were stepping. This kind of market would never exist in the US.

And whatever this is, it tasted amazing!

Chengdu, China

Here is the Xi'an train station I went through to get to Chengdu. Chinese high speed rail is really not that far off from Japan's bullet trains.

The guide for this city told me that Chengdu was more of an outdoorsy city. I love the aesthetic of vines on the freeway and some buildings.

The Pandas in Chengdu were fun to see. I asked a couple Chinese people if they liked Kong Fu Panda and they all said they loved the movie lol.

So many resources were put into preventing pandas from becoming extinct. And now there is a massive panda breeding park tourist attraction. I'm not sure if it's state sponsored. There were also some red pandas.

Some of the other tour areas included places from the three kingdoms period. It sounds like it might be worth reading about the power struggle after a unified China fell apart. The stories are full of heroes, strategy and betrayal.

Chongqing, China

I was given a recommendation to check out Chongqing by someone I happened to meet in Salt Lake City. I lost the contact when my phone was stolen. Thanks for the recommendation!

Chongqing is a massive city known for its city lights. Farther from the downtown, there are many vehicle manufacturing facilities. The tour guide said that he thinks Talaria manufacturer here. (Talaria is the brand of my old electric mini motorcycle!)

This particular area is called Hongyadong.

This city is a big tourist destination in large part for its city lights. Someone went viral years ago for calling it a cyberpunk city. One of the malls I walked into seemed to be building something for that audience.

One food everyone recommended throughout China was hotpot. It is often made with extremely spicy broth but this place had a special bowl with spicy and non spicy broth.

I'm not very good at knowing how long to boil meat. What I did make was mostly good. The spicy broth is extremely spicy so I would dip it in the white broth before eating it. Also, they had a whole salad bar with ingredients. I added some chunks of blood and those were surprisingly good. I should have went in starving because this was a lot of food for one person.

Just down the hall from the hotpot restaurant, there was a karaoke bar. But keeping with the cyberpunk theme, it looked like this:

This city has a lot of mountains. There are places where when you walk on flat ground, you get to the end of a walkway where you look down to see drops like this.

This is Ciqikou Old Street. China is so pretty when the sky is overcast and barely raining. This street continue down and ends near the river. My guide said that the river will often flood the lower shops. This is something the shops prepare for but is ultimately the cost of doing business there.

Here are some interesting toys that are not Lego. Converted to usd, the prices are $26 for the space shuttle and $67 for the space station. Quite a bit cheaper than Lego.

This is China's times square.

Chinese cities are so fun to wander around in. There is a whole underground food court when you walk through a narrow stairway from the street.

This city really reminded of Portland with it's river, some elevation and this particular bike path. But I'm surprised by the population differences with 2M portland metro vs 18M Chongqing.

Shanghai, China

Shanghai is an expensive city so I only visited for one day.

This is the financial center of of China. While the guide and I were walking along the sidewalk, I noticed a charging bull just like in NYC.

Here is the view from the Shanghai Tower, 128 stories tall.

A some of the architecture in the old town threw me off because it looked so european. When I asked the guide, she said it was the Opium wars like it was something obvious.

Britain, and later France, attacked China and forced them to open ports to trade opium and other products. After China lost, foreign powers, primarily Britain, France, and the United States, established their own settlements with their own governments and architecture. That's why parts of the city look so European today.

Here is an example of the architecture:

Another culturally important part of Ancient China is their private gardens. I never fully understood the significance of them. Some high ranking officials would use them to entertain guests. The guide told me this one was made by someone to honor their patents by making a garden for them to enjoy in their old age. This particular garden is called the Yu Garden.

On another interesting note, they payment systems in China use QR codes. Busses and cash registers have cameras where you show your Alipay/WeChatPay to a camera. That red box with a white square is an example of that kind of payment system on a bus.

Guilin, China

The tour agency recommended Guilin for it's incredible nature. I went for a hike with my guide through multiple mountain villages. This is where I learned that there are so many different cultural groups and languages.

Chinese people really like fresh food. Here is a corner of a supermarket with fish tanks...

Guilin is also where China Educational Tours is based. I highly recommend them! They were super kind and gifted me a dinner and fan. They told me not to bring a gift but I gave them some sour american Toxic Waste candy lol. We met for dinner and walked around Guilin. It felt peaceful and was fun to talk about cultural differences.

Shenzhen, China

Every Chinese city I visited felt big. But Shenzhen felt like the biggest city in my life. It was pretty crowded and the city was dense even when I took the metro for 40 minutes to a factory.

I stayed in this "hostel" I found on Hostelworld for ~$10/night. It was in a building zoned as residential and commercial. A married couple lived in the apartment with their newborn and grandfather.

I would always say hello and goodbye when anyone was around while I was coming or going. It felt kind of intimate being the only one staying in their spare room.

One day, the grandfather gave me some kind of baked good with a beautifully intricate design. Unfortunately, it tasted kind of terrible. But I was really grateful for the gesture. It's crazy how you can have a heartfelt moment with someone without sharing a spoken language.

They setup the guest area for some extra income and it seems to be good for them. During Covid, they changed the space to do some kind of nail/hair salon. Another day, the husband and I chatted and it turns out, his company was investing in a housing development in Heber. What a small world. That's not far from where I was living in Utah for the last 5 years.

I came to Shenzhen because it is the electronics capital of the world. The easiest way to see all this tech is to visit one of the many malls. This is the HQ-Mart electronics mall early in the morning. It gets busier later in the day.

HQ-Mart in particular has lots of ICs/resistors and other parts for pick and place machines on the lower floors. The middle floors had a lot of LED products and resaleable tech. The upper floors had a mix of everything but you can tell some are struggling.

Another mall had consumer electronics aimed at resellers and arduino things on the upper floors. One mall looked like everyone was moving out with boxes everywhere and nobody around. Another housed hundreds of vendors that bought and sold iPhones and iPhone parts.

One day, I was sitting on a bench trying to come up with a project I could buy things for when another guy started a conversation with me. After at least an hour of conversation, I found that he was from Iran and was interested in buying iPhones from an American who could collect them off the used market. Because of the economic situation in Iran, iPhones cost at least double what they do in the US. And used iPhones in the US are much cheaper than any other market. I told him I needed to do some research that night and that I would get back to him on if I would be able to do business.

He offered to show me where he went to buy iPhones and showed me a huge mall with many stalls selling iPhones and their parts. He also offered to let me join him to tour a flexible display factory that makes the products pictured below.

We took the metro ~30 minutes and walked to some windowless grey buildings. It did not feel unsafe but it was definitely a brutalist looking industrial area.

The Iranian and I met two Chinese men representing the display factory. All of us were in out mid to late 20s. We said hello and the representatives said that they really wanted to buy us lunch as a gift. So we got in their car and drove to a nearby restaurant. I went along thinking that I would not buy anything and just politely chat while they did business things.

When they were ordering, I tried to get it across that I did not need any food. They pushed back and I conceded when the Iranian said that it was bad to refuse a gift in China. When the food finally came, they cam with two sets of spageti and some kind of steak. This was not the cheap dish I showed them.

I begrudgingly started to eat the spaghetti and the representatives were not eating for some reason. They seemed to be preoccupied with taking pictures. It all made sense when I asked the Iranian about the situation and he said that they were TikTok influencers. They advertised factories and I later learned that this is how the Iranian learned about this particular factory.

The representatives filmed the Iranian and I slightly struggling to eat the spaghetti with chopsticks. I no longer felt bad for them buying the food. I'd rather not be on Chinese TikTok but... whatever. At least I don't have to feel bad for them paying for food.

After eating, we waited outside while one representative had a smoke break and the Iranian went to the bathroom. Cigarettes in China are odd. They are tiny and wrapped with a shiny blue outside making them look expensive.

We drove back to the factory and finally went inside. After going up a couple flights of stairs, this is where the tour started.

It was so cool walking through the floors of this factory to see how the displays were made. Throughout the tour, we could see the flexible backing made and dried, PCBs being populated, waterproofing applied and so many other steps. Many of those involved manual work. The workers were typically younger, and ignored our tour group when we passed by. I'd be interested to learn more about what their lives are like. I imagine factory jobs like this don't pay very well.

After the tour, we found ourselves in an impressive showroom with all of this company's display products. The Iranian was interested in buying some of their square displays that could be put together to make one larger display. So they started going over price and quantity.

The Iranian was clever when it came to negotiating. He started out by asking the price for each display. And like most companies, they price their products based on order quantity. When the company asked for his order quantity, he replied that his order quantity would depend on the price. They went back and forth for hours. While I was waiting, I bought one of their larger 32x192 displays. The Iranian ended up walking away from the deal after all that negotiation. He wanted to combine multiple square displays in a way the software would not allow for.

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It was getting late so we parted ways and agreed to meet the next day. That night, I researched the phone reselling business he wanted to do and I realized it would be violating US sanctions. definitely not something I want to do. I told him about my decision and he did not seem to mind. I think he liked the company so he offered to take me to another company tour he had planned.

We took the metro for 30-40 minutes and walked a ways to business complex. This company made flexible LED light strips with a silicone strip to defuse the light. These are often cut and bent for use in LED neon signs.

I watched the back and fourth business conversations again. Throughout the process, the company representative would brew tea on this little table with a bull statue on it. We were there so long that we all must have had 4 or 5 mini cups of tea.

After the Iranian pushed for better and better prices, they finally came to an agreement. The representative's assistant handed the Iranian a notebook page with the agreed quantity and pricing math. Only to sheepishly ask for it back a minute later so that she could document the quote she gave. I think this means the Iranian got a great deal. After that, the representative brewed a different kind of tea and we left soon after.

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This experience felt similar to the in-person sales meetings I have been in the past. Why are there so many half truths? And occasional white lies? Isn't lying wrong? Even if the lie is about little things that don't matter? -- After asking some business people I know, I was pretty much told "that's just how it works."

With the coaching of the Iranian, I decided to buy a couple hundred of ESP32s to sell in the US. I went to the ESP32 sellers in the mall and found quotes and started trying to haggle. But the problem was that nobody would go down AT ALL. There was one seller that I pushed for a lower price a little hard and she just looked particularly disappointed and like I was wasting her time. She explained that they only had one set price for a particular quantity. I apologized and bought around $40 of electronics from her.

I texted the Iranian and he did not know why any of the sellers would not budge in price. I realized that it's likely that you can negotiate with generic products. But with complex products like ESP32, you can't negotiate because the price is practically set by the company manufacturing that product.

This was a good lesson though. I like the idea of being like that electronics distributor and having a fully transparent price for a particular quantity. This kind of setup enables the business to market themselves with the idea of transparency.

Business aside, I really enjoyed just walking around such a foreign place. You can find so many little interesting things going on. Like a Chinese desktop application that shows the stock market. Or seeing a shop with 3 generations of family. The parent is working while a grandparent is taking care of the baby. And a guy in his glass office/showroom on the verge of tears (I hope everything is ok dude). I get the impression these malls used to be bustling all day/night. Some still are. But there are places where you can see struggling businesses. Every floor you go up seems to show a little more hardship.

But then you are at the top floor that smells faintly of cigarette smoke. There are lots of closed shops and cardboard boxes everywhere. And some little kids run by playing and one smiles and says hi. I smile and say hi back and I can tell that little exchange made both of our days.

Hong Kong

Because there was so much to do in Shenzhen, I stayed there for longer. So my trip in Hong Kong really just involved taking a train to a bus to the airport. I only managed to get one lower quality picture of Hong Kong from the metro:

Passing through Hong Kong felt so odd. I took the metro to the border from Shenzhen and there was a huge checkpoint. But so few people were there. And the immigration officials looked like they had been working 14 hour shifts.

Once I got through, I took the Hong Kong metro. The first thing that I noticed was a very different city feel compared to the rest of China. Here, people drove on the left side of the road, and the streets/buildings looked a little more western. And there were bicycles everywhere. Almost no mopeds. The city seemed to be made up of a bunch of mountainous islands too.

When I boarded the airport bus, people trickled in until it was almost full. I made my way to the top of the bus to find a seat and went to the very back. Soon all of the seats were filled. And that's when I realized And that's when I realized why it felt so odd. Everyone was silent. And not many people were on their phones. We were all kind of just there in our own thoughts. I'm hesitant to draw conclusions without asking. But it might be because of the conflict with China's current efforts to integrate Hong Kong.

I do want to properly visit Hong Kong one day. At the time of writing this, I am reading Jimmy Lai's biography and I'm fascinated by the wild west-like picture he paints of what Hong Kong was decades ago.

Seoul, South Korea

I booked these plane tickets months ago with a plan to spend 3 days exploring Seoul before finally heading back to the US. But since then, my mom and her friend really wanted to go somewhere on a vacation. So they got to Seoul a few days before me and we were able to meet up!!

I can say that I am not a fan of red bean paste based things after trying it in so many forms lol.

The 3 days in Seoul were awesome. I got to meet up with my mom and her energetic friend. We made the most of those couple days by seeing the DMZ, going to an island and eating out a whole lot. All of the leaves were turning colors and that was fun to experience.

And now I'm back in the US. I have a lot of thoughts on my home country after having visited other countries. This post is long enough so I'll end with one key takeaway:

I highly recommend traveling. There is so much we can learn from one another. And so many small but fascinating differences between people and cultures. It's possible to travel cheaply with hostels but if that's not an option, try reading. And if you want a recommendation to start, try Maxim Gorky's My Childhood.