East Asia

This summer I had the privilege to travel around the east of Asia. I spent 3 weeks travelling starting from Hong Kong, a day trip to Shenzhen, to Taipei, to Shanghai and finally to Beijing. I thought I’d do some reflection and talk about my experiences, some of the highlights, lessons I learnt and all that good stuff.

Hong Kong

First I touched down in Hong Kong, immediately I got hit with the mugginess and humidity of monsoon Asia. Hong Kong was a cultural melting pot and a blend of eastern and western architecture. The density of Hong Kong gives the urban jungle vibe and the backstreets matched that energy.

When I travel, I always try to keep 2 things at the top of my priorities, the first is food, the second is activities. During my time in HK, Kowloon specifically, I travelled to (a very foggy) Victoria Peak, hiked up to the Big Buddha statue through Lantau Island (taking the ferry to the island), this was a lot tougher than it seems as it’s all uphill and was chucking it down in 27 degree heat with monsoon rain, I’d suggest anyone getting the coach to go straight to the top unless you want a challenge! The final activity I did was taking an easy stroll through the beautiful Nan Lian Garden.

For those unaware, Hong Kong has a massive culture of dim sum, to the point where a pub crawl in the UK is the equivalent of a dim sum crawl in HK. I made the most of this by eating plenty of dim sum, most notably visiting the mosque with a dim sum canteen and ordering a variety of dishes, before hiking up to the Buddha statue, highly recommend!

Shenzhen

I also spent a day visiting Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley. I visited the tech mall, although I found the items sold to be mostly all the same thing - cheap fans, massagers, hair dryers, portable batteries and such. I visited the high-end luxury mall and picked up Molly Tea, which actually originated out of Shenzhen. Luxury branded items are actually more expensive in mainland China than Europe for the most part due to import taxes.

This is also where I learnt that food in mainland China is very cheap, I ended up going to a Western Chinese food (a trend you’ll see throughout my trip) stall and each added dish was only 2 to 5 British pounds, which was a steal!

Taipei

Taipei was probably my favourite of all the cities I visited, the hikes and views were gorgeous, and there was enough western familiarity (7-Eleven, Uber, Costco) to make this city easy to navigate and one to remember.

In terms of tourist attractions, I visited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, Dihua Street, Houtong Cat Village, Shifen Waterfall and Jiufen Market. If you Google the top 5 touristy things to do in Taiwan I basically did those.

I had the chance to pray Jummah at the Grand Taipei Mosque (Taipei has a heavy Indonesian Muslim population) and went up Taipei 101 tower. Din Tai Fung (DTF) is also inside the mall of the Taipei 101, although the wait times are always crazy high. So long that I had time to get my waiting ticket for DTF and go up the tower to the viewpoint, back down, taxi to Elephant Mountain and hike it, and still had 15 minutes left over when I came back! The view of the city is so pretty, as can be seen below.

I ate some Indonesian food for the first time in my life and picked up some iconic pineapple cakes in cat form from Cat Village, which is a village with a bunch of cats… so I was living out my cat dream! I finished Taipei by having some lovely beef noodle soup and dim sum at Lao Chang Muslim Beef Noodle Restaurant.

Shanghai

Landing in mainland China was a rocky experience, as you really experience the internet restrictions quickly. Even with an eSIM it seems the built-in Google Translate was rate limited on both Amap (China’s version of Google Maps) and Alipay after even minor usage. This meant that at 1 AM when I finally landed and got to the hotel, it became impossible to order food - as I didn’t have a Chinese phone number and my reading skills of Chinese are pretty poor to non-existent, on top of that I was starving. I ended up having to call my Chinese friend who kindly stayed up till 2 AM to ensure I had food delivered to my doorstep. I also managed to forget my AirPods in the taxi, and the hotel service helped me call back the taxi driver for a small fee, even though the British in me was convinced I’d never get them back and they’d be stolen.

The Bund, or as locals call it Waitan (外滩), is iconic to Shanghai, it’s an embankment that was built after the Opium Wars and has lots of impressive western architecture on display. Basically everyone takes the chance to stroll across the Bund in the evening when they reach Shanghai, rightfully so as it’s stunning. I don’t think pictures do it justice. Oh, and more Western Chinese food at Yershari! I also left the restaurant much richer in mints! As I left, I went to take some from the mint basket, and a Chinese grandma who worked there was kind enough to hand me 3 handfuls of mints with a smile (probably a few too many!), kind of transcending the language barrier for a minute whilst we exchanged smiles and gratitude.

Taxis in China are cheap, and I ordered all my rides through DiDi. However, traffic in downtown Shanghai was even worse than in Los Angeles, we’re talking if I walked it would have been 30 minutes faster. That said, it was pissing it down with rain, so I guess it wasn’t the end of the world to be in a borderline stationary vehicle. During my trip to one of the malls, I also managed to try durian pizza, for those who don’t know, durian is the fruit known for its pungent smell, but if you can get past the smell and the breath it leaves you with, it does taste great!

Beijing

The final destination, which was a banger, was Beijing. As soon as I landed, I felt nostalgic for when I landed in Pakistan: the desert-like feeling, the empty sky and the strong sun beating down on the city during summer. It’s almost how I’d imagine Dune to feel in real life. It’s more spacious than Shanghai, and feels more “Eastern”, having its own unique charm.

Now, there are a couple of must-do things in Beijing: Peking duck and hiking (a section of) the Great Wall of China. For Peking duck, I had it at HongBinLou and they were nice enough to show me how to make a Peking duck wrap with hoisin sauce, which slaps. I could talk all day about hiking the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, the views were gorgeous and you feel so free whilst simultaneously wondering the whole time how soldiers would move heavy objects across a large stretch of the wall. I pushed myself to pace up the stairs to Niujiaobian, which was no easy feat! By the time I reached the top my heart was beating out of my chest, I had to do it for good dad lore!

The next day I visited the famous Tiananmen Square and had authentic Chinese hotpot at Donglaishun. I also spent the day doing touristy things such as visiting various street markets and exploring the city. I was lucky enough to pray Jummah in Beijing, where the prayer was led by an Indonesian imam. Standard tourist day really.

Finally, on the last day I met up with my Chinese friend I studied at university with and we had more Western Chinese food (surprise!) and visited Beijing Zoo, where we got to see the (sad-looking) pandas and elephants. We ended the trip by going to the famous Hai Di Lao! Some trivia: the O2 Hai Di Lao in London is the only all-you-can-eat Hai Di Lao in the world. Although customer service wise, it didn’t even come close to the Beijing branch we went to, they even offered to clean my glasses whilst I ate hotpot!

Finishing Notes

The last thing I learnt more about was payment systems. When I interned at Thought Machine, I learnt a lot more about just how important the flow of money is to every big financial entity, hence they each make their own payment system to keep control of it. Hong Kong has the (awfully slow) Octopus card, mainland China has WeChat Pay/Alipay and in Taiwan’s case you have LINE Pay, although cash is still king there. South Korea also has KakaoPay. Also note that East Asia tends to have super apps, meaning not only do they handle payments, but you can also talk to your friends, order a ride or even order food all from one app.

If you do want to visit East Asia, I’d suggest going with someone who speaks the language. I understand this is a privilege, but if you don’t have this luxury, I’d still suggest visiting any part of East Asia if given the chance! If you’re like me and have lived the majority of your life in the West, the concept of going to the East can be quite foreign. By never visiting, you’d be missing out on a whole different part of the planet with rich culture, great food, and lovely people. I really believe systems of this scale and in such contrast to the West need to be experienced, not learnt about in a textbook. So, thank you East Asia, until next time.