After this many trips with my three, I’ve long known that Niu-ba and the girls are not “special forces” travelers — that internet-famous breed of tourist who storms eight landmarks a day on four hours of sleep. Not marines, not paratroopers, not any kind of soldier at all.
On the road, make them get up a little early, eat a little late, or pack the schedule a little full, and the whining starts: they miss home, they go limp. At best, they qualify as deserters.
Deserter-style travel doesn’t leave much room for meticulous itineraries. So on this China trip, Niu-ma barely planned a thing. Beyond eating well and sleeping plenty, we went wherever moods and the phone’s “recommended for you” feed pointed.
But that’s the thing about bumbling around with zero plan: the surprises find you.
Surprise No. 1: I have eyebrows now!
My mental file for “tattooed eyebrows” sat right next to “stirrup leggings” and “qigong weight-loss classes” — relics of a bygone era. Say the words and I’d picture aunties with squiggly caterpillar brows, like a three-year-old’s crayon work, iron-gray ink bleeding into sallow skin.
As a kid I could not fathom how anyone found that pretty, and I swore I would never, ever tattoo my brows.
Then in my youth the fashion was skinny, squeaky-clean brows, and I plucked like a maniac. Now I regret it bitterly: with age, the brows thin out right along with the hairline. These days I have to pencil them in even when I skip the rest of my makeup, or I look vaguely ill. And penciling goes wrong constantly — asymmetric, or smudged off with one careless touch. Exhausting.
My poor eyebrows.
Every so often I’d see online that brow-tattoo technology had been completely reborn — natural, genuinely pretty results. I was quietly tempted, and quietly suspicious. Seller’s photos, surely? Could the real thing look that good?
Then this trip, I saw a friend’s brows in person: gorgeous. Symmetrical, refined, the shading graded soft and even.
I want in!
No time like the present — it’s not like we had plans. Right near our hotel was a brow studio called Siqi Aesthetics, with great reviews and branches all over the country. I booked for first thing the next morning.
Niu-ba heard the news and panicked: sweetheart, your brows are lovely as they are…… honestly, sometimes you draw them a bit too dark and it looks a little odd……
What do you know! The shaky too-dark hand is exactly WHY I’m getting them tattooed!
In the morning I dumped the three of them at a mall and ran off. When I collected them an hour and change later, Niu-ba didn’t even notice my brows.
Because they looked that natural!
I could not be happier with how this turned out.
First, the consultation was absurdly thorough. Before anything happened, the brow artist sat with me to pin down exactly what I wanted, then drew version after version of different brow shapes for me to choose from.
I’d come in wanting feathered “wild brows,” but the artist said I didn’t have enough natural hair to pull them off. Seeing I wasn’t letting it go, she drew a set on me anyway. One look and I got it: without real brow hairs for cover, her strokes — graceful as they were — stuck out like little steel wires planted in my brow. On someone with full brows, that style would look fantastic. On my face, powder-mist brows were the answer: a complete, natural shape, and no upkeep to fuss over afterward.
Misty brow on the left, wild brow on the right.
Then came the fine-tuning — shape, length, where the arch peaks…… When I wasn’t satisfied they didn’t rush me; they just kept drawing until I nodded: “Yes. That one.”
Second: completely painless! Pain was my biggest fear. The artist promised it wouldn’t hurt — first, a soothing balm. Once it was on, she started working on my brows, and the whole time it felt like she was gently petting me. Eventually I couldn’t stand it: “When does the tattooing start?” She laughed: “We’re already halfway done!”
What is IN that balm? Miracle stuff.
Total pain through the whole thing: zero. The only hazard was the bed being so comfortable I nearly fell asleep.
Mid-procedure, with the soothing balm still on one side.
Third, the work is genuinely natural: when it was done I looked in the mirror and the shape matched the draft to the millimeter. The color depth was just right, the gradient smooth — frankly better than I’ve ever drawn them myself.
Day three after tattooing, dressed up for a costume photo.
And the aftercare is solid. Since it was my first time, the artist deliberately went light for the sake of naturalness. After a few days of healing I felt they were a touch faint. Once I’m back in America there’d be no fixing it, so I messaged their customer service to ask about options. No fuss at all — they booked me a color touch-up on the spot.
So on our last day in Shanghai I went in for the touch-up. It came out on the dark side at first, but now that it’s healed, the shade is exactly what I used to pencil on.
Straight out of bed, zero makeup — this is how natural they look.
This kind isn’t permanent — if you get tired of the shape someday, changing it is no problem. The color fades over time and lasts about a year; they include one free touch-up within the year, which stretches it to a year and a half or two.
I am LIVING for this no-brow-pencil life. Especially first thing in the morning, or right after a shower — I glance in the mirror and discover I have eyebrows! I look awake at all hours! Maximum emotional return on investment!
If you’re headed back to China, I strongly recommend getting yours done. Siqi Aesthetics is the real deal — and if you message their customer service, you can even enter a drawing for a free brow tattoo.
Surprise No. 2: We wandered into “Squid Game”
This trip, I wanted my three foreign deserters to take in some of China’s natural scenery, so I hauled them to Shenxianju — a mountain park whose entire advertised selling point is “pain-free hiking.”
Sure enough, getting up the mountain is all cable cars and escalators. But once you’re up there, sightseeing still runs on legs, and in ninety-degree heat our knees turned to noodles the moment the sun came out. I was also nursing a cold and a slight fever, so we admired one peak and called it a day. Under two hours, total. Genuinely pain-free.
The day was still young. How to kill the rest of it? A scorcher in the countryside doesn’t offer much, and then I remembered a strange place we’d driven past: a brand-new, enormous white building shaped like an ocean liner, trimmed with castle turrets — obviously some kind of kids’ wonderland. Out in remote farmland, parked among the little mountain-village houses, it looked about as much at home as a crashed UFO.
Not a soul around the building, no signs of life inside; we figured it just wasn’t finished yet. But idle is idle, so I looked it up: it really was an indoor amusement park, called Yalecheng Happy World — and it was already open! I didn’t believe for a second the place would be any fun, but I bought 5 p.m. tickets, sent Niu-ba in with both kids to burn off some battery, and retreated to the hotel to lie very flat.
Seeing them off, I figured they’d do one lap, get bored, and be back within the hour. But an hour passed. Two hours. Two and a half…… No sign of them, no reply to my messages. Now I was the one who couldn’t lie flat, cycling through a hundred grim scenarios…… Just as I was debating whether to mount a rescue mission, Niu-ba’s video call came in. Two little faces on the screen, flushed scarlet with excitement: Mama! This place is SO fun! We rode the Ferris wheel! And there are fighter jets! And bumper cars……
Okay. Nobody kidnapped by child traffickers. Heart rate restored. “Wow, that great, huh? How much longer do you want to stay?” “Until closing! Gotta go, there’s so much left! Byeee!”…… Niu-ba took the phone: “You will not believe this. It’s real-life Squid Game in here.” “What?” “The vibe is genuinely eerie. Half of it’s unfinished, but it’s all new, it’s enormous, it’s candy-colored, there are staff everywhere — and no guests. You’d have to see it yourself……”
It was pushing 9:30 when the three of them finally rolled in, windblown and glowing. The girls pounced before the door even shut: Mama, Mama! Can we go again tomorrow, please? The two of them talked over each other painting the scene: it’s stories and stories tall, everything inside is brand new, there are so many rides, and good snacks……
Huh. He had a point. A building that size, fully air-conditioned, plus rides and payroll…… imagine the foot traffic you’d need just to break even. And it’s parked in a tiny town — scenic-area tourists or not, nowhere near enough to feed a park that big. Their private-kingdom evening was the proof. Hearing us say so, the girls deflated. Niuniu asked: Mama, can you write about it on your blog so everyone goes? Then it won’t close down.
Kid, you wildly overestimate your mother’s reach. But fine. This one’s on me!
Why pay Disney prices when this place exists? Below is Niuniu’s own play-by-play of the visit — her first-hand account:
In the Chinese countryside, we drove past a building that looked really strange, and decided to look up what it was. We searched “weird white castle” online and found out it was actually an amusement park — a Disney-ish kind of place.
It’s all indoors, and it was really hot outside anyway, so we booked tickets and got there around five.
The moment you walk in, everything is dinosaur-themed, with realistic dinosaur murals everywhere.
Farther in we saw some rides — not huge Disney-style rides, more like the small ones you’d find at a pop-up carnival. But there were absolutely no lines! (Yay!) After a few rides we realized the place had almost no visitors at all.
Next we found another area that was climbing-themed, with lots of really tall climbing structures. It looked like construction wasn’t finished, so you couldn’t actually climb. (Not that we were going to. I am NOT dangling forty feet up on a bunch of tiny climbing holds.)
Then we found a really fun ride — one that swings back and forth, shaped like an orca. Very thrilling. My little sister was terrified.
We wandered some more and got hungry, and found a corner selling fried chicken and boba — dinosaur murals on those walls too, of course. We ordered some, and compared to the hotel food it wasn’t bad. The chicken was okay, kind of like KFC, and the boba was nothing special.
After eating we rode the orca again.
Then we took the elevator to other floors and found that most of them didn’t seem finished — the whole building still feels under construction. When we got to the basement level, the doors opened onto pitch black, and we slammed the close button immediately in case some monster came out.
After that little scare we found a really fun go-kart track. I’d always wanted to try go-karts, so I had a great time, even though I drove terribly and my kart was sort of broken. Still loved it!
Then we went up to the roof. It was getting dark by then, and we rode the Ferris wheel. It took so long that near the end we got a little bored of the view. There was a walkie-talkie taped to the cabin wall, supposedly for emergencies — no idea how reliable that was. But overall I was happy. We hung around the roof a while longer, and there were actual fighter jets parked up there!
Near nine o’clock (closing time), my dad talked us into the giant version of the orca ride. This one went way higher and even swung sideways. I barely made myself get on, kept my eyes shut the whole time, found it absolutely terrifying, and got let off early (yay!).
I wanted to keep playing but we were out of time. We finally dragged ourselves out of the park — still deserted as ever — and Dad called a taxi back to the hotel. A really happy, really special experience!
Surprise No. 3: An accidental trip through time
Twenty years ago, Niu-ba and I lived in Shanghai near Changshu Road station — an old Western-style house deep in a narrow longtang alley, its interior long since carved into several households. Our landlord had renovated his unit with real taste: black window frames, dark wood floors, a claw-foot tub in a mosaic-tiled bathroom, a big terrace opening onto a little courtyard.
City center, but tucked into its own pocket of quiet, full of everyday life. We lived there two years — worked, lived, made friends, got married…… That house holds a lot of happy memories.
This time in Shanghai, after dinner on Huaihai Road one evening, Niu-ba said: want to go look at the old place?
We opened the map and triangulated the house’s rough location from memory. On the way over, watching unfamiliar streets slide past, I muttered to myself: forget twenty years — Shanghai reinvents itself every five. Would the house even still be there?
It was dark when we arrived. Niu-ba, the human compass, stepped out of the car, pointed ahead and announced: there’s that weird triangular intersection! — and strode off.
I, whose sense of direction is purely decorative, scurried after him with zero idea which way was north.
As we walked, he kept up an excited mutter: we crossed this street every single day going to work — it hasn’t changed at all! Over there was the stray-cat colony, and there was a little corner store, gone now……
At the corner store’s old spot, memory came flooding up, and all at once the streets turned familiar.
Past the store, past a few snack shops, a longtang entrance opened on the right. This one? Doesn’t look right — should be the next one over. At the next one stood a big iron gate. Locked? Never — the small door in it doesn’t lock. One gentle push. Open.
Through the gate, the time machine switched on. The downtown bustle sealed itself off in another world; in here, time had simply stopped. Everything was exactly as it had been. We were back in the quiet, plain old alley of twenty years ago.
On the right, the old compound wall, stray cats stationed on top per tradition. On the left, a row of old houses, their low doors casually ajar; in the dim yellow light you could see bicycles and clutter parked inside, and the narrow lightwells beyond.
No streetlights. The deeper in we went, the darker it got. Niuniu and Niumei were getting spooked: are you SURE this is the place?
No chance of a mistake. I’ve walked this lane hundreds of times. At the end, the old house’s silhouette rose out of the dark; turn right, up a few stone steps, and its entrance stood in front of us.
Niu-ba got cold feet: maybe we shouldn’t go in? Looking from outside is fine.
It’s fine — several families always lived here; the hallway is common space. I waved him off and led everyone in. Patterned mosaic tile underfoot, a marble fireplace on the left wall, the grand but worn marble staircase on the right — not one thing had changed.
We tiptoed up to the second floor. The first door facing the stairs: our old home.
The four of us were as giddy as burglars. I hurried Niu-ba into taking my photo at the door.
The shutter had barely clicked when a voice barked from downstairs: Who’s up there? Come down!
Niuniu and Niumei bolted like rabbits. Niu-ba stood on the staircase making awkward apologetic gestures and unintelligible sounds at the darkness below. I peeked over the railing: an auntie stood at the bottom, shouting up at us:
Down, down — people LIVE here. If you want to look, come back in daylight.
She’d taken us for uninvited tourists. I came downstairs and explained: we used to rent here, years ago — we brought the kids to see the old place.
Her face relaxed a notch, but the suspicion stayed: I’ve lived here for decades, and I’ve never seen you.
We were here in ’04, ’05 — you may not remember. The landlord was a slight little Shanghainese man, surname Zhou.
The auntie scratched her head: oh, ’04…… I was still working then, out early and home late, too busy. We probably never crossed paths.
Just then a young woman came home. The auntie fired off a burst of Shanghainese at her, then turned to me: she’s the one living in that unit now — I’m asking whether it was her father who rented it to you.
We compared notes; it wasn’t. Her mother bought the unit in ’06, and she herself had moved in only two years ago. So not long after we left, our landlord sold the place.
Nothing had changed — and everything had.
Then the young woman suddenly asked: want to come in and look around? Nobody’s home right now.
And so, like walking through a dream, we stepped back into our home of twenty years ago.
It had been renovated again — new kitchen, new bathroom, new floors. But the black window frames and white walls were still there, and the big terrace. We walked the rooms pointing things out to the kids: our sofa sat here, the projector went there, that was the office, and here we rigged up a wardrobe out of bamboo poles……
The one thing I never expected: in memory, this house was spacious. In person, it turned out to be so small. The exact same feeling as going back to a childhood home.
Maybe people never stop growing, and the world never stops shrinking.
On the way out, walking the pitch-dark alley, I asked the kids: so, what do you think of where Mom and Dad used to live?
Niuniu said: it’s nice. A lovable little house.
Niumei said: it’s okay. The hotel’s better.
Niu-ba laughed and sighed: you two have no idea how magical this all is!
I don’t remember the day I last left this place. But the me of that day could never have guessed that, all these years later, I’d step through this lane and that door again — with Niu-ba, and two lovely kids in tow.
A hot Shanghai summer night — and out of nowhere, a cool breeze swept through, and everything felt gentle.