Category: Beijing, China

Our last weekend in China we went to Shi Du with a coworker, his friend, and our favorite local guide, Catherine Lu. It was beautiful, HOT, and filled with locals just getting away for a day & brides having their wedding portraits taken. Wanna see photos? Here ya go!

So, in case you couldn’t tell, I am way better at posting well-captioned photo albums on picasaweb than I am at blogging. So get thee to my albums and check out the new stuff: Visiting Di Yin and Mark in Shanghai Leslie Comes to Visit Checking out the Olympic Park We Learn to Make Dumplings […]

I just got back from a weekend trip to Xi’an, and my brain is full. (Bao la!) I was ben-less, alas, as he was finishing up his trip to the Apple WWDC in SF…but I got to meet up with our friend Mark instead! So I did have company, and met some interesting people, learned […]

Ben and I just spent the Dragon Boat Festival (no more zong zi, please) holiday weekend in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia! Check out the photo album for way too many photos of dunes, camels and rock carvings. More descriptive post coming soon, after I get all the sand out of my shoes…and backpack…and pockets…and hair…

Thanks to my co-worker (and general emergency translation contact) Susy, we found dancing in Beijing!     It was basically like the Pavillion (older asian couples doing ballroom and hustle), but outside and by a lake…and with occasional bollywood songs. And line dancing! No line of dance, though. (Makes for chaotic waltzes and very compressed […]

About a week after arriving here in Beijing, we got a call from Deb’s coworker Susy that our extra luggage had arrived. We had given her number to the baggage people since we didn’t have Chinese cell phone numbers yet when sending our bags. This delay was actually by design. Asian airlines seem to have […]

I must be slacking. It’s been a week and a half and I haven’t commented on footwear in Beijing. Ok, so if there is a theme shoe, it’s sneakers. In particular, converse-style canvas low tops, both name-brand and knockoff. The daily commute is definitely dominated by all-things-sneakered (plus loafers for the guys), from bland & boring […]

After our pollution-fraught wander around the 798 Art District on Saturday, we escaped to the mountains on Sunday. The three of us crammed into a hired car with a paid guide and schlepped to the Huanghuacheng section of the Great Wall! It was pretty luxurious to have a guide, I have to say. We were essentially […]

China likes its patterns.  China likes repeating those patterns.  Often this makes for some pleasing landscaping and architecture.  It also makes for some disappointing touring.  Here are two examples. Suzhou Street in the Summer Palace.  A replication of a canal city, this tourist trap (one entrance, one exit, one way walking) had 5 stores repeated […]