I'm not sure whether you'll find it as hard to believe as I do, but a year ago - on December 28, 2012 - I arrived in Hangzhou. This year came to a tumultuous close, ripe with insane new schedules, projects, personal strife and triumph alike, homesickness, future plans and, generally, the most difficult month I've faced to date. The great thing about writing about all of these things here, though, is that I can do so with a "hindsight is 20/20" twist that helps me to appreciate my journey as a reader, rather than a soldier powering through. So, as it has been a month since I've written and a year since I arrived, here is my tale of December 2013: My take on petty theft is this: objects are material things that can always ... read more

Thursday, October 10 - Sunday, October 13 Zhejiang, Hangzhou and Shanghai, China Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. I can't tell you how excited and proud I was to present Hangzhou to Rachael. If nothing else can be said of her visit here, it is that the weather managed to cooperate completely over the course of the entire thing. Following a 2-days typhoon, Hangzhou was a sunny and beautiful 18°C/65°F both days, allowing for very successful traipsing. It was dried up and clear, and the air felt incredibly clean and fresh in our Beijing-ed throats and lungs. Hangzhou turned out to be quite possibly the best part of the entire expedition. Hangzhou, I've learned, is really unlike any other major city in all of China. Nothing has made me appreciate this place ... read more

Friday, October 4 - Tuesday, October 8 Tianjin and Beijing, China Following our epic adventure on the Grasslands and in the Desert of Inner Mongolia, my friends and I decided to cut short and return to civilization a little early. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trek. It was a royal pain in the neck trying to coordinate five last-minute plane tickets... but air travel being as exceptionally affordable as it is in China, we made do with what we had available. By 5pm on Friday, the lot of us were comfortably situated in Annie's new apartment in Tianjin. Tianjin City One thing that surprisingly lacked over our couple of days in Inner Mongolia was meat. Believe it! In the land of a million sheep, we didn't eat more ... read more

As predicted, Fall is turning out to be a significant season for travel in this chapter book. Last week was Annie's last week in Hangzhou. On Tuesday, she packed up and moved North for the winter (dummy!) to Tianjin -- not far from Beijing. So, to send her off on a nice farewell, we headed off on a fantastic retreat to nearby Huangshan - Yellow Mountain. Not entirely surprisingly, Huangshan is like any typical mountain town in a Western country. There are small shops and restaurants, cable cars and bus shuttles to the hiking areas, and little bed-n-breakfast style hotels dotting the landscape. The mountain itself is incredibly majestic, and its name is not ironic... the rock is extremely yellow, especially in the morning light. I butted out of work a few hours early on Tuesday ... read more

Holy cow how the months do fly!! I hate to talk about the weather... but seriously! It has been the center of our worlds in Hangzhou for a month, because it has been insane. Shortly after my last post, we had a week-long stretch of over-100 weather coupled with 80% (I kid you not) humidity. That, my friends, is disgusting. Downright disgusting. There isn't another word for it. This week? We're in the 50s and raining. Suddenly winter is here, and our bodies don't know what to do with it. Most of us are quite ill, actually. I'm finally getting over my crud, but this weather has been weighing on all of our bodies quite heavily. In other areas, though, August has been incredible!!! Annie, Taryn and I continue our shenanigans every week. This past week ... read more