Blogs from Prescott, Arizona, United States, North America
January 30th 2012
Someone asked me why I haven't written about any of the places that I eat at when I'm in AZ. I guess I do write about food a lot. My reasoning has always been that the majority of my readers are from the US, so I don't think what I eat when I'm there is particularly interesting to read about. I eat fabulous meals on a regular basis. But writing about it doesn't introduce anyone to anything culturally new. Then I started thinking. This, in and of itself, is culturally interesting. Allow me to explain. In China, where I live, one of the biggest gripes foreigners have is what we feel is a lack of diversity of food. Nationals will proudly tell us that China has a wide variety of food. In a sense, they're right. ... read more
A special dinner with my neighbors
Published: March 10th 2012North America » United States » Arizona » Prescott
January 21st 2012
My parents have a neighbor who is a remarkable man. I'm not going to get into why he's remarkable, other than to say he's a man of many talents and has a heart of gold. One of the many things he likes to do is cook. Curry is a specialty of his, but it's a time-consuming endeavor. He says he only makes it once a year. Luckily for me, this always seems to coinside with when I happen to be visiting. This year we invited some other neighbors from across the way to join us. We started out by snacking away on a delicious, creamy, cheesy dip with crackers and opening a few bottles of wine. The smell of curry teased our noses. When it was announced that the curry was ready, I led the way, ... read more
January 16th 2012
I'm back in Arizona visiting my parents for three weeks. Within two days of my arrival, my best friend from high school, who I haven't seen since 2009, came down to visit for five days. We didn't do as much as I suspect we would have liked; but then, we were both more tired than we'd planned. Friday and Saturday were spent chatting and shopping, and evenings were spent watching Harry Potter movies with my parents. Sunday my parents went to a concert downtown and Minerva and I went to the Sharlot Hall Museum. Sharlot Hall was a pioneer woman who took it upon herself to make all the town's historical landmarks into a museum. Since Prescott was the original capital of Arizona, these sites include former governors mansions, an old school house, cars and wagons, ... read more
August 14th 2010
Oh, where does the time go? Not so long ago I was writing about Shanghai, then I fell off the blogging planet, and now I'm back. After Shanghai I took a 6 week trip to Arizona's mountains to visit my parents. The majority of my days were pretty normal days, no matter where you are in the world, no matter who you are. So I didn't see much point in writing about it. Most of my time was spent on the following activities: Sleeping Eating Cooking and baking Reading novels Studying Chinese Watching my fill of TV crime dramas Not to say that those aren't valuable uses of my time (like eating Mexican food every chance I got) but they're not exactly blog material. But there were two significant points of interest on my trip, and ... read more
Arizona will never be the same!!
Published: May 19th 2009North America » United States » Arizona » Prescott
May 19th 2009
We have arrived and Sue is trying to type this on a computer in the lobby of the courtyard marriot near the Phoenix airport. Sarah, originally from Belfast Ireland, is telling us all about what we need to see on our way to Sedona and back. I know it is the funny little keyboard I am using, not the Blue Moon beer we are drining that makes typing difficult. It is over 100 degrees F or 40 degrees C in Phoenix...hot, hot, hot. Gail knows how to travel and knowing we would be tired when we got here, she had wheelchair service from the plane to the luggage carousel to the taxi that brought us to the hotel. I don't know where Gail's wheelchair had been stored but the metal sides of her wheelchair were 150 ... read more
Prescott, Sedona, Show Low, Petrified Forest National Park
Published: September 8th 2009North America » United States » Arizona » Prescott
November 30th 2008
Prescott is pretty cool. The weather generally is nice. It rains a lot, but that's what you get for living in Arizona and being there during monsoon season. Overall, it's just a nice town to stop through if it's on your way somewhere. You don't have to go out of your way to go and visit though. Show Low is near Pine Top. It's most known for being near the Sunrise Ski Park. If you go in winter you'll definitely see snow. That's great for me because you hardly get snow in Tucson. The town is nice. The area is a reservation. The ski resort is run by the people who live on the reservation. I'll give Sunrise credit. They do have good skiing. The Petrified Forest is nice. It's cool to look at all the ... read more
August 20th 2008
I can't believe I board the plane in 36 hours. I'll arrive in Hong Kong at about 3am PDT, which is when I normall go to bed. So that will work out well. It's odd to realize that this is my second to last night on the continent. I feel like I should be out whooping it up, going crazy, making a little trouble (and not getting caught, of course). But I'm here, packing, sipping a beer, and contemplating what the meaning of it all is and how I should feel about this last night at "home." Bittersweet? I'm currently somewhere between giddy and scared to death. I think that's a good thing. It's still hard to believe that the day I've dreamed about for a year and a half is here. It always seemed so ... read more
the countdown continues
Published: August 19th 2008North America » United States » Arizona » PrescottAugust 19th 2008
Not much to report. I slept, I ate, I made many, many phone calls and got a lot of last minute things done. Whew. I still have to pack though. details... On a bright note, I am extremely excited because I finally figured out how to do one thing: type in Chinese in any program. Like email. Or google. 这个。 My nerdy self is going to go and study my flash cards some more. And then maybe I'll sleep early. Big day ahead of me tomorrow! (not to mention more Olympics!!) ... read more
August 18th 2008
Well, after much tweaking, the previous entry is now up in its entirety. I had problems with the pics, and then there was a huge lightning storm (sorry, no pics this time), so thank you loyal subscribers for your patience. And I'm most pleased to see that I have more than one! I feel wildly popular! I'm in the process of adjusting my sleep schedule. Since I essentially need to move it back 9 hours from AZ time, it seemed like a good idea to lob off about half of that so that I'm only moving it 4-5 when I get there. I figure that there will be enough other things throwing me off (food, culture, illiteracy...) that if I can reduce the stress of one thing, it will make it that much easier. So last ... read more
August 15th 2008
For once, I am feeling unverbose. If that's a word. Spell check says, "no," but I say to heck with that. I'll probably use this opportunity to post way too many pictures of sunsets, walking tours, and my favorite: lightning (taken tonight). My arrival in Phoenix was hot. Shocking, I know. First I was warm. Then I felt like all my nose hairs had been singed off and it burned to breath. Then I wondered why anyone in their right mind would pay a fortune to live there year-round. I have a new-found appreciation for humidity. Prescott is like Eau Claire, WI (where I graduated college) in that it's bigger than smaller, smaller than big, things are still reasonably priced and everyone is nice. Genuinely nice. Not Minnesota Nice (which I still think is a crock ... read more
