Writer. Traveler. Tea Drinker.

Yangshuo is well known for its courses. That is, classes you can take after you’ve enjoyed all the beautiful scenery. There are calligraphy course, language courses, tai chi courses and cooking courses. Guess which one us little piggies took….
Despite not ever cooking at our apartment (it is cheaper to eat out) Ryan has been dying [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

We see lots of funny examples of Chinglish but we keep forgetting to take pictures of it, so this post will be a little shorter than I’d like, but it’s still funny nonetheless.
We saw this sign outside Grandmother’s Kitchen in Hangzhou. It is an upscale small chain restaurant that has a giant menu in both [...]

The first day we arrived at the university we now we live we woke up early and took a walk out the Big West Gate (dà xī mén in Chinese). This is what we saw:

It was a big shock that first day because it seemed so dirty and so foreign. Later, we were told that [...]

There are many strange and exotic things for sale at the local fruit stands. One such item was this strange thing (pictured on the right). We saw it in a number of fruit stores yet we never bought it because…well, we had no idea what it was.
The other day in class one of my students [...]

To know me is to know I love popcorn.
The first 6 years of my working life I worked in a movie theater and there are only two kinds of people that work at a movie theater; those who hate popcorn and those that love it. You can probably guess which category I fall under.
My favorite popcorn is [...]

At the end of class on friday four students stayed behind to talk to me. It is not uncommon for students to hang out for a few minutes, but it is uncommon on a friday afternoon when usually they run out the door.
After they told me they took part in a cake decorating contest last [...]

I love the peanuts here. They taste different then American peanuts, (it’s hard to explain how they taste different, maybe less sugary?) but I keep a bag in the house at all times. (I mean really, for 30 cents a bag how could I not?) And of course, my favorite brand is another opportunity to [...]

When you live in another country, one that you can’t speak or read the language, you notice everything that is in English. I find myself reading people’s English t-shirts, or reading small signs on a bus that happen to be translated such as “no smoking.” It’s like I’ve become hyper aware on English and every [...]