China

Shanghai hit differently at night. I was on a boat on the Huangpu and I just put my feet up and stared — the Oriental Pearl glowing pink, the Shanghai Tower punching into low cloud, the whole Pudong skyline reflecting off the water in broken strips of colour. I'd seen this skyline in photographs a hundred times, but nothing quite prepares you for how loud it is visually, even in silence.

During the day the city felt almost matter-of-fact about itself. Standing on the Bund, that overcast Shanghai sky flattened everything into cool greys and silvers, and the towers across the river looked almost sculptural against the white. The Lujiazui cluster — the bottle-opener SWFC, the twisted spire of Shanghai Tower, the IFC slabs — from street level they just make you feel very small in a way that is not unpleasant.

The food was the other thing I kept coming back to. A bamboo steamer of xiaolongbao in a quiet marble-tabled restaurant, braised pork mince over rice, bright green bok choy with garlic. Simple, honest, exactly right. That meal cost almost nothing and I still think about it.