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Places to Go
I was a list-maker as a kid. Books I had read, books I wanted to read, clothes and accessories I planned to buy for my American Girl doll, itinerary items for our annual vacation to Bethany Beach, Delaware—I always had a few lists going. My eco-minded mother often finds them now as she works her…
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Weekly Wanderings: September 9, 2016
I decided to start a new feature here at the blog, as I often find myself holding on to little thoughts that are too long for tweets but not big enough to become blog posts of their own. “Weekly Wanderings [of my brain]” will appear here on Fridays and serve as a catch-all for stuff…
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Bookshelf: My Mini-Course on Detroit
When I decided to move to southeastern Michigan—a place I had never been before—I realized I needed to learn more about the region, especially its history. I live in Ann Arbor, but there aren’t too many books written about Ann Arbor (I checked). Detroit, on the other hand, has long been an object of authorial…
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Well, it wasn’t exactly a “vacation,” although I have few complaints about how I’ve spent my time since last posting here the day before leaving my job in New York on June 30. So, after hitting “publish” on that post, I finished up what I needed to do at work, cleaned out my desk, shared…
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New Opportunities, New Adventures
I’m writing this on board a Northeast Regional train speeding (as much as American trains can speed) from Washington, D.C. to New York on Tuesday morning. Whenever the Amtrak wifi slows or I need a moment to collect my thoughts, I glance out the window next to my seat and watch the scenery for a…
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Three Weeks in China: The Dining Highlights
Almost as soon as I have a trip to China planned, I start plotting out my food agenda—old favorites I want to revisit and new places/things I want to try. Since this was a work trip, I spent a lot of meals sitting around banquet tables, eating dishes that were generally delicious but not necessarily…
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Taipei: I Want a Do-Over
I was so excited to go to Taiwan. I’ve only been there once before—for two wonderful weeks back in 2014, right after I finished my dissertation—and was thrilled that my Asia trip this year would conclude in Taipei. I added on a couple of vacation days after the work portion of the trip was schedule…
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Liaoning: Dancing Cabbage, North Korea, and Plenty of History
After a Beijing–Shanghai-Beijing sequence during the first ten days of my China trip, I was off to a new (to me, that is) province: Liaoning (pronounced Lee-OW-ning).* Liaoning is up in China’s industrial northeast, part of the region known as Dongbei described in Michael Meyer’s In Manchuria [affiliate link]. Once the country’s center of heavy…
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A Short Interlude in Swampy Shanghai
After five days of enjoying the beautiful Beijing spring, I headed out to the airport one evening and boarded a flight to Shanghai. As I stood on the tarmac waiting to ascend the plane’s steps, I looked around and thought to myself how absolutely perfect the weather was. Two hours later, I de-planed into the…
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Beijing: Brilliant and Beautiful
I’ve just returned from a three-week work trip to Mainland China and Taiwan, which involved visits to six cities and twenty-two days of hotel breakfast buffets. (I was rather surprised when I woke up in New Jersey this morning and my only choices were oatmeal with peanut butter or toast with peanut butter—and that I’d…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 