Happy New Year, everyone! My New Year’s Eve was spent working, but I did spend New Year’s Day with friends. Yesterday my coworkers and I had a team building exercise. In China, it's important to foster friendships with one's coworkers, so several times throughout the year a company will release a small budget for the employees to get together and do something fun. Our 'team building exercise' included a stop at a, well, I don't know what to call it. It's a place where you can reserve a table to play board games. In the city, apartments are too tiny for large groups to hang out so most people do everything 'out.' This particular place was a converted apartment. We had what had formerly been a bedroom fitted out with a table and chairs. The employee ... read more

Well, where to start? I returned to the U.S. in 2010 to find a lagging economy that just didn't have room for me. Fortunately for me, my parents did. It was an eventful couple of years. Loved ones were added (two friends gave birth to two baby girls) and others were taken away (my grandmother, a family friend, and two of our canine companions). There were surgeries, long recoveries, and an even longer bathroom renovation. And the story of how I finally got my Z visa could fill a book but I won't waste time with it here. It was with mixed feelings that I bid farewell to my family yet again and boarded a plane bound for China. My reintegration into Shenzhen hasn't gone as smoothly as I would have liked. I'm working in Nanshan, ... read more

Tuesday, 02/02/10 We got up very early to have breakfast then returned to the hostel to wait for our van. There was a tiny black puppy living at the hostel named Tommy and we had fun playing with him while we waited. The people in Laos really seem to love their dogs. In Shenzhen, dogs are either food or a status symbol. Our van arrived on time and it was a bumpy, hot, yet mercifully short three hours to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It was so oppressively hot in the city that we thought longingly of the cool breezes in Luang Prabang as we lumbered up and down the streets with our packs looking for the hostel we had found in a book. We couldn’t find it. And although we had the address no one ... read more

And now for a long overdue completion of blog entries for my winter break trip to Laos. I still haven’t gotten that stupid disposable camera developed, so there won’t be any water pictures. But I suppose there’s no guarantee that any of those pictures are any good. So here we go… Saturday, 01/30/10 It was time to get on the road again. We got up early and ate at the cleverly named Craters which was decorated with bomb shells and various other weapons. Then we boarded a van for Vang Vieng. This van wasn’t as plush as the last, but Kim managed to snap up the coveted front seat and I jumped into the very back. It was slightly better than the completely restless trip from Luang Prabang to Phonsovan, but it was still very uncomfortable. ... read more

As the end of June approached, Kim prepared to go home. Her sister, Lisa came to spend a month with her, first working then traveling. For the past year it was our tradition to have dinner every Sunday night. Before Kim and Lisa left for their trip we decided to have one last tadoo at one of our regular haunts, the Doublestar Café and we capped it off with a trip two floors down to Coldstone Creamery. Last Wednesday Kim and Lisa departed for the U.S. Now, if I see a hilarious chinglish t-shirt or experience a particularly frustrating ‘china’ moment, I can’t just send her a quick text. We both arrived in August of 2008 and we both returned in June of 2009. Then we returned to China within a week of each other a ... read more