We Were Almost Entirely Wrong About China

We thought we had a reasonable picture of China. We were wrong — not a little wrong. Almost entirely wrong.

This is the first video in our series documenting 22 days of private travel through 11 Chinese cities. No tour buses. No group schedules. Just the two of us, with a different local guide in each city, trying to understand one of the most extraordinary countries on Earth.

What we found: streets cleaner than most European capitals. A Maglev train from the airport. Drone food delivery in 12 minutes. A supermarket that is also a fulfillment center. Retired people dancing in the park at 7:30 in the morning. And a question that followed us for the entire trip — how did a country that experienced one of the worst famines in human history in the 1950s become the world’s second-largest economy within two generations?

We bring two very different perspectives. Tressa is American, born and raised in the US, with all the Cold War assumptions that came with it. Zarko grew up under communism in Bulgaria, left as a political refugee at 25, and built a business in Seattle before we retired to Burgas on the Black Sea. When he looks at China, he is looking through the eyes of someone who actually lived inside a communist system. Our questions are completely different — and together, we get a little closer to something real.

In this episode: landing at Shanghai Pudong, riding the Maglev, exploring Nanjing Road and the Bund, visiting the Huawei and Xiaomi flagship stores, discovering HEMA Fresh (Alibaba’s hybrid supermarket-fulfillment center), watching drone delivery in the financial district, and spending a remarkable morning at Fuxing Park with retirees who made us completely rethink what retirement should look like.

We flew business class on Turkish Airlines via Istanbul — a natural hub from Burgas, with fares a fraction of European carriers on a 10-hour flight.

✈️ How we traveled: Private guides in each city. Business class via Turkish Airlines. Hotel on Nanjing Road, Shanghai.

🇨🇳 Cities in this series: Shanghai · Guilin · Longji · [more coming]

▶️ This is Episode 1. New episodes published regularly — subscribe so you don’t miss the series.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BZ Travel & Filter Journeys is hosted by Zarko and Tressa. We travel privately and comfortably, targeting authentic experiences over tourist checklists. Our audience is 55+, curious, and done with group tours.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📍 Chapters
00:00 We were almost entirely wrong
01:10 Who we are — two very different perspectives
03:47 The question we couldn’t answer: how?
04:48 Flying business class via Istanbul
05:14 Arriving at Shanghai Pudong — the Maglev
06:11 Nanjing Road: first impressions
07:48 The Bund at sunset
08:00 China’s internal tourism surprise
08:40 Tech day: Huawei flagship store
10:23 Xiaomi SU7 and DJI — Chinese innovation up close
12:05 HEMA Fresh: the supermarket that’s also a fulfillment center
13:59 Drone delivery in 12 minutes — financial district at lunch
15:24 BYD, Nio, and China’s EV revolution
17:22 Fuxing Park: what retirement should look like
19:55 How did this happen? China’s modern history explained
23:50 From Shanghai to Guilin — what’s coming in the series
#China #ChinaTravel #Shanghai #PrivateTravel #SeniorTravel #BZTravel

Share on: