What We Loved This Week: Amadou & Mariam, the Washington Nationals and Iced Coffee in Shanghai

Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days:

Kellie Schmitt
This week, I researched an article about Shanghai’s best coffee. In the process, I came across a tiny neighborhood nook that slow-brews its iced coffee—drop by icy drop over the course of eight hours. The Chinese owner said he loves the self-cultivation that comes from taking things slow. I loved the clean flavor with no bitter aftertaste, and the fact that the café is just two blocks from my house. Here’s a shot of the slow-brewing contraption:

Eva Holland
I picked up a copy of The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years and have spent the week working my way through it. It’s a wonderful collection—I think my favorite essays so far are Edward Abbey’s “The Last Pork Chop,” about an Alaskan rafting trip, and Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air,” the article that preceded the book of the same name.

Jim Benning
The Magic Couple, a new release collecting some of the best of Amadou & Mariam, the French-singing duo from Mali. I find this song, for example, utterly addictive:

Alicia Imbody
I loved finally going to a Nationals Game at their new stadium in Washington, D.C. I spend most of my free time getting out of the city, so it was a nice change of pace to spend an evening in the heart of town and soak up some rare local pride in an area of mostly transplants like myself. Another nice change of pace: they actually won!

Michael Yessis
I spent part of my last evening in Chicago at Hala Kahiki, a tiki bar just outside the city. It’s a tiki bar for tiki bar connoisseurs. I had the Preachers Panic Punch, which delivered on the menu’s promise. It not only tasted good, but it made me feel at peace with the world.

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