As I wrote in a previous post, our travels in Southeast Asia took us to the Yangshuo countryside in Southern China’s Guangxi Province, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and finally to Krabi, on the Andaman Coast in Southern Thailand (plus a
Olympic Update: Volleyball
Tuesday, August 19 The Event: Women’s Volleyball Quarterfinal The Competitors: China vs. Russia, USA vs. Italy The Venue: Capital Gymnasium, an older stadium very close to where we’re staying, which has been nicely remodeled for the Olympics. What we knew:
Where to Watch the Olympics (plus Event Notes)
So if you only have tickets to five Olympic events, where do you watch all the other ones? Before the Games started, I didn’t spend much time thinking about how we’d watch all those events that we didn’t have tickets
Olympic Update: Gymnastics
Sunday, August 17 The Event: Gymnastics – Men’s Floor Finals, Women’s Vault Finals, Men’s Pommel Horse Finals, and Women’s Floor Finals The Competitors: There were no US men in the floor finals, but the vault and pommel horse each featured
Olympic Update: Soccer
Saturday, August 16 The Event: Football (Soccer) Quarterfinal The Competitors: Belgium vs. Italy The Venue: Beijing Worker’s Stadium is an older stadium, not in the same part of town as the new Olympic area. Still, it felt like everything the
August: The Grand Finale
It’s our last week in Qingdao, but with our goodbyes nicely spaced out and our final classes practically teaching themselves, we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. It’s hard not to, with the most travel-intensive month of our lives
Suibian (随便)
“Suibian” is a popular Chinese word meaning something like “anything, random, whatever.” For me, it’s also a convenient cover-up for my inability to thematically tie the following items of interest together. So instead, I present you with a series of
Brides and Bugs
Travel in general, and China in particular, is all about surprises. And surprise was the common thread between witnessing hundreds of brides being photographed on a single beach one day here in Qingdao and finding ourselves eating bugs for dinner
The Biggest Family in the World
When I walked out the door of the school building after my morning class I was greeted by a long line of somber-looking students and teachers, ranged beneath a red banner stamped with stark white characters. The banner hung over
Qufu
Our memorable travels in local Shandong Province, accompanied by my parents, began in this ancient and revered Chinese town, birthplace of Confucius over 2,500 years ago. We are big fans of round doorways. A side gate of the ancient