Bob_Shan's VirtualTourist Home Page

Born in 1970's, China, I belong to a rapid changing world.

I once lived in different parts of China as my parents constantly move home because of their jobs. Places I have lived include coastal cities, rural areas and inland middle sized cities. Originally from Shanghai, it has been a dream for my parents to return to this city, and they finally made it in 1994.
1994 was also the year that I entered university, and the beginning of my independent life. It was then, that I decided traveling around the world being a major life achievement for me.

See my China pages

The biggest Chinese city, more than 16 million permanent residence, 20 million if includes domestic and foreign immigrants.
Over the last 20 years, Shanghai evolves itself from a massive old-fashion communism city to a modern internationalized metropolitan. Any local citizen would feel excited, however, extremely struggled about describing what have been changed over time. Almost every corner in the city is now looked completely different from what it was before.

After university and a few years of hasty work, I left Shanghai and officially kicked off my first round of global journey in 2004 from a Mediterranean city called Montpelier in South France.

Great sunshine, crystal water and air, expensive however relaxing lifestyle, and, the most important, variety of people's choices for their lives, featured my experience at that time.

Besides that, the little "internationalization" of my diet has added another layer of fun to my life: Milk and corn flask for breakfast, French bread welcome all the time, red wine twice a week... sorry for my wife that she gets a longer menu to prepare now.
The downside is the development of my desire for "Bourgeois": hunting luxury brands, skiing in Alps, picking restaurants' decoration, etc.

Paris

I moved to Frankfurt from Paris after MBA, worked as a consultant and opened up more opportunities of adding visas/stamps to my passport thanks to the nature of my busy work.

During this 1.5 years, I spent 4 months in London, 4 month in the Netherlands, and 8 months in Germany, plus total 2 month vacations all over the mid-western Europe.

In the beginning of 2007, my journey turned towards the world's largest economy - the United Sates of America. It is an almost 5 month stay and, of course, besides working as a slave, I traveled.

Although the best part of the US is those national wonders, I was trapped by not able to drive and ended up spending most weekends touring major North American cities: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Toronto. Still a lot of fun!

Tip in the end: check out my restaurant tips, for those who travel with lonely planet, take my advise instead of the books if you know how to enjoy Chinese food. :)

Washington DC,
San Francisco,
Toronto,
NYC,
Chicago,

The beautiful and legendary Bavaria area is a must see experience, even in Winter, the Germany version of fairy castle is just as fantastic as those in the Disney stories.