Branching Out

My radio silence is inexcusable, but here are my excuses for not blogging lately: a work trip to India and my newfound love, binge watching The Americans. Yes, feel free to judge. But I've also been on some new excursions.

Found at a pop-up food fair in Beijing. An old-school boom box. 

Silver Mountain Pagoda Forest

Atop Silver Mountain. 

For a Spring Festival outing, Scott and I went with our friends Te-Ping and Ben to see the pagodas about an hour outside of Beijing. This is one of the few ruin sites that hasn't been destroyed in China and used to be a sacred Buddhist shrine/scene spot during the Ming and Qing dynasties. There are a handful of pagodas/stupas still standing, which are gorgeous.

Happy Year of the SheepGoat!

Today officially marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year, the week-long celebration where basically all of China shuts down and the greatest human migration happens, as everyone who moved from the countryside to the cities returns home for the Spring Festival. On Monday alone, 850,000 people left Beijing. That's a lot of people.

View from our bedroom window on the eve of Lunar New Year. BOOM! 

Pucks on Ponds in Beijing

A couple weekends ago, Scott played in a pond hockey tournament at Houhai, which is a huge lake in the middle of Beijing. In the winter, the lake becomes an outdoor playground, with speed skaters mingling with teenagers zipping by on ice sleds and children playing in bouncy castles put up on the ice.

Pond hockey + cold weather = Wings hat all day.

Thanksgiving in Thailand (I know, it's belated)

As an early birthday present for Scott, and a much-needed vacation, we went to Thailand for six days at the end of November. We started out in Bangkok and then made our way to the island of Koh Lanta.

The beaches of Thailand. Can it be any prettier? I think not.

The Three-Week Tour

I'm taking advantage of my jet lag to catch up on blogging. Scott and I just returned from a three-week tour of the U.S., going from Chicago to Detroit to Denver to New York. It was the longest stint we've had back in America since moving abroad.

It's things like this -- iPads for ordering and browsing the web, leading to no socialization whatsoever at meal time and waiters wanting tips for not doing anything -- that make me disillusioned with America.

The Land Down Under

The past four weeks have been nuts with travel to Australia, Hong Kong and Thailand, plus a slew of assignments, so I've been a VERY tardy blogger. I'm trying to play catch up now.

Hiking in Australia.