We stayed at a 500-year-old temple that has been converted to a hotel. It is on the edge of the old city and was quite convenient for our treks into the old city. We had the courtyard nearly to ourselves. Note: This is Char's account of our anniversary trip to Beijing. June has been busy for us. Before school ended for me in mid-month, we made several weekend trips to nearby cities, met friends for dinner and did a ... Read More
China
The Daily Grind
HANGZHOU, CHINA--July 8, 2014--In case those of you out there who are following our Asian escapades think that my wife and I are off on a non-stop adventure, I just want you to know that our lives still have more than a modicum of the daily grind. Our lives are still full of the normal administrative tasks to which we all must attend. Bus Passes For instance, on our return from our travels through Vietnam and ... Read More
Not Your Everyday Chinese Fare
Located on Píngjiāng Lù, one of the old streets in Suzhou, Mike's Hot Dogs is an unlikely find. Opened in May, 2014, Danish expatriate Mike Matthiesen and his wife, Xiapeng Zhu, are counting on the novelty and good taste of a German hot dog recipe to bring a different snack food to both Chinese and western foodies. Probably the last thing I expected to see while strolling along one of the old streets in Suzhou, China, ... Read More
A Story About Getting Home
It’s better to miss a train by an hour than by two minutes. On our return trip from Hong Kong we missed the train from Shanghai to Hangzhou by two crummy minutes. The level of frustration in missing a train is inversely proportional to the amount of time by which it is missed: miss it by an hour and you will shrug your shoulders; miss it by two minutes and you will summon every word of street language and invective and ... Read More
The Mother Of All Bus Rides
Joe and Char board the 25, the first step to embarking on The Mother Of All Bus Rides, aka, The Bus Ride From Hell. Our bus experience on a recent Saturday in Hangzhou, China, clearly sets it apart from all other experiences of the week and lands it squarely in the I-can’t-believe-I-lived-through-that category. In thinking back on it, I’m a little undecided whether to call it “The Bus Ride From Hell,” or, “The Mother ... Read More
Hangzhou Routine
This is a rather long and somewhat uninteresting review of our week written to give you some idea of what life is like in Hangzhou. Just like your lives, much of what we do is routine and every so often something different or fun comes along. --jk Sometime during the night on Monday I awoke to make what has become for some number of years now the nightly trip to the bathroom. I noticed that my ankle was sore, as ... Read More
A Bout With Gout
Chinese cuisine is wonderful. I love going out to eat in Hangzhou. Why it makes me more susceptible to gout here than at home, I cannot say. I'm not going to stop eating Chinese food, so I'll just have to be careful. This is a problem I don’t want. Two years ago when I was in Hangzhou, I had a couple of bouts of gout. This is the condition known as “the disease of kings” or “the rich man’s disease.” It was so called ... Read More
Getting Settled in Hangzhou
Our first week in Hangzhou found us reestablishing our life in a much different way than we are accustomed to living in Minnesota. We met with some old friends, did some basic grocery shopping, signed up with a Chinese telecom provider for Chinese phones, took a tour to the nearby canal town of Wuzhen, enjoyed three wonderful Chinese dining experiences, and quickly remembered how to cross a Hangzhou intersection without ... Read More
Return To China, the Silk Road, and More
RETURN TO CHINA (Feb 17 - Jun 30) We're headed back to China! In February, 2012, my wife, Char, and I spent five months in China. Char taught English in a school in Hangzhou and I worked remotely for my company. What an experience! Now we will return. Char will again be teaching in Hangzhou. But this time, I will be freelancing. I’m planning to write about the rich experiences we are bound to have during our time there. ... Read More
Last hours in Hangzhou
During our Sunday walk around West Lake, we got a text from our student-interpreter (also our new Chinese granddaughter), Eryi (are-ee'), asking when we were leaving. She wanted to visit one more time. So we met her at Pacific Coffee this morning and chatted for a couple of hours--about school, about going off to college, about China and the United States and the difference in our populations and cultures. ... Read More
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