Writer. Traveler. Tea Drinker.

We saw a lot of hilarious chinglish signs while on our trip. Here are the funniest ones we saw in public parks…

I have always been curious about Tibetan butter tea. I knew that many people said it was hard to drink and an acquired taste, but it’s just a sort of milk tea, right? How bad could that be?
While in Yunnan Province I had my chance. Yunnan borders Tibet and there are many Tibetan people living there. [...]

Dali, China is a small walled city in Yunnan province. The streets are cobbled and cozy, the air is crisp and clear, and the city is sandwiched between a giant crystal blue lake on one side and looming green mountains on the other. It was love at first sight.
Dali is also home to the Bai [...]

The single greatest thing about Kunming is the weather. It is called the “spring city” and it was easy for us to see why. In the dead of winter the weather was warm and sunny and gave us a chance to avoid our winter coats for a few days.
The second greatest thing about Kunming is [...]

One of the main reasons for going to Chengdu was to see the giant pandas up close and personal. So we made it a priority and on the second day of our trip we went to the Chengdu Research Base for the Giant Panda.
This is where almost all of the captive breeding happens. It is [...]

There are so many famous giant stone statues in the world. The Sphinx in Egypt is one, the carved building front in Petra is another. We hear about all these wonders and marvels as they are featured in movies, documentaries and on the cover of National Geographic.
But there is one stone marvel I had never [...]

I had a few humble goals for this month-long trip and as of today, I have accomplished almost all of them! And it hasn’t even been a week yet! Here’s a quick run down with photographic proof that I have achieved these goals:
Goal #1: Seeing Giant Pandas.
Yep. And they were cuter in real life then [...]

When I first came here, I assumed that all of my students would have no siblings. After all the government one-child policy began in 1979 and most of my students were born in the mid-80’s.
So I was surprised when my students started talking about their brother and sisters.
“You have siblings?” I would ask.
“Yes,” they answered, [...]

This website will be pretty quiet for the next month as we are packing up and heading out while we are on holiday break from school. We’re traveling “old school” style which means that we won’t have a laptop so I don’t expect I’ll be able to do much updating here until we get back. [...]

A week ago, as I was picking up a package at the international office I was told there was “good news.”
“We want to move you to a nicer apartment!”
The thing is we already have the nicest apartment so I was immediately suspicious. “We’ll talk about it later,” I said and ran back home to tell [...]