Gān bēi is what the Chinese say during a toast instead of "cheers". The literal translation is dry glass, but as I've learned, it's not about the literal translation to English. It's about the meaning in Chinese. Totally not the point of this blog, but I was trying to think of a catchy title and felt the need to explain myself a bit. In this case I am toasting myself when I drink these thick, brown glasses of herbs. Let's get on with the story. When I went home late last year, I had some blood work done. My doctor tested my thryoid levels, and long story short, diagnosed me with Hoshimoto's Disease--which is a type of hypothyroidism. It's common, it's treatable, and causes many unpleasant symptoms including fatigue, vision issues, and weight gain. This is ... read more

The kids and I went to She Shan on Wednesday. It was about an hour twenty minute journey via 2 subways and a taxi on the way there (door to door) and a little less than an hour on the way back by taxi. I thought the subway would be more adventurous but it turned to just be more difficult. I had to lug a suitcase up and down many flights of stairs--where there were no escalators. Emily was immediately unable to carry her own bag so I had to carry hers and mine. Plus, when we arrived at the stop near the hotel, it turned the hotel was too far from the metro station to walk there and we had to take a taxi. Not a big deal, but the only taxis were gypsy ones ... read more

This post is basically all about food. I had started with a mix of stories, but as in recent posts, I'm trying to be more thematic in my storytelling...so here we go. I went to lunch with the other students in my new Mandarin class on Wednesday and had a fantastic meal. They knew this place--it's a small, sit with strangers midway through their meal type of place with almost entirely Chinese clientele. Before being invited, I had planned to go to a boring and easy Western place and have a sandwich and read my book alone. I very enthusiastically accepted the invitation. Before we ordered, they asked if I ate everything. Having glanced at the English titles on the menu I said "I like most things, but I am not a big fan of mutton." ... read more

Why the title you ask? Well, I will tell you why. We had yak for dinner on Friday night. It was good. I have since Googled the yak and I'm not sure that was wise--seeing the before picture. We went to a fantastic Tibetan restaurant with Jiyi and his girlfriend Melody. Jiyi works with Mark. The waiters there are all Tibetan and wear elaborate costumes and put on a great performance with singing and dancing. Before we ordered, Jiyi and Melody gave the kids their first Hong Bao (red envelope). They were thrilled. Traditionally, Chinese give children (and children includes young adults from my understanding) these envelopes in celebration of the Chinese New Year. The envelopes contained brand new bills in consecutive serial number order...part of the tradition. Apparently, you aren't supposed to spend the money ... read more

I went to the gym a couple days ago and got a new schedule for classes. I have not taken any classes yet because the idea of having a Chinese speaking instructor intimidated me when I first joined. It's still pretty intimidating but I figured I'm more ready to try than I was before. The class started at 10am so I had the ayi come to watch the kids at 9. I didn't get out of here until about 9:45am due to various needs and wants of the kids. I made it across the street with only one car honking at me and raced through the mall and out another exit on the other side of the mall to stay nice and warm en route to the gym. When I arrived I hurried downstairs to where ... read more