Jet Lagged

“Biju, I’m going to show you some place hardcore. Some place really Chinese.” We had already spent a late night at our local hangout and I am more than ready to go to bed. It’s late, but my friend cannot be denied. Grabbing my hand and shoving me into a taxi, I assume that we [...]

We’ve finally taken the plunge and upgraded from point-and-shoots to a real, grown up DSLR.  After much scouring of the internet for reviews and recommendations, we decided on the new entry level Nikon model D3100, and so far we couldn’t be happier.  Here are a few of our favorite shots so far. Bikes for rent [...]

Yeah, I know the moniker of that Wall they have close to Beijing, but I didn’t think one small section would take hours and hours to climb. I also knew the Forbidden home of the emperor was a palace, but I didn’t really understand why they called it a City, until hours of trekking got [...]

Happy mid-autumn festival, or Zhongquijie in Mandarin!  The annual festival, dates back to the Shang dynasty over 3000 years ago, and celebrates autumnal equinox when the moon is at its fullest.  While not as popular in the west as the Chinese new year, the festival is known for its customary pastries: mooncakes. One of my [...]

The first six months in a new country always fly by.  So much happens in the first six months abroad: finding a place to live, learning where to buy toilet paper, figuring out how to properly pronounce “turn right” in a new language…it’s sometimes difficult to find time to reflect.  Here are a few of [...]

I was personally very shocked at Beijing. What I knew about the city was from documentaries and National Geographic Mags I had read as a child, so I was expecting a small area of traditional buildings  overfilled with people bicycling to work on cluttered streets. What I saw was a city that dwarfed almost any [...]

Typhoon Lion Rock has has past Xiamen, marking my first typhoon! My suspicions that something were amiss were quite indirect, since I can’t get my TV to work and in any case the weather would probably be in Chinese. Some friends in Korea mentioned that typhoon Kompasa was about to hit there. Someone else mentioned [...]

Late post, but heres a pic of our 4th of July in China. Bought a small grill, grilled the world, and had Team America playing on repeat. Had a bunch of friends and couchsurfers over.

I recently had the opportunity to meet a very interesting individual who couchsurfed with us.  Pablo is bicycling across the world, and has been doing it for the past 9 years – he’s traveled through South America, the length of Africa (from Capetown to Cairo), Europe, the Middle East, India, and China. Needless to say, [...]