If you are like me and planning a trip to Paris in August you might feel pretty dejected. The constant advice you will hear from source after source is DO NOT GO to Paris in August. There are two reasons for that: Hot and too many tourists The city shuts
Following Hemingway in Paris
So I’m back from my 2+ week holiday in Paris where I wandered the streets, sat in cafes, ate as much bread, cheese and meat as a human possibly can (and cakes and ice cream) and even saw a few friends. Basically, my summer traveling was a total success. As
Writer’s Summer Holiday in Paris
Thanks to my super amazing job, I have 11 (paid) weeks of holiday this summer. Most of it I spent here, in Xiamen, as I organized and finished a badminton training camp for foreigners. (You can read a blog post–and watch a video–about it over here.) But I haven’t had
Young Tibetan Artists Need Your Help!
Western Women who date and marry asian men stick together. I’ve mentioned it a few times but I’m a member of a group called WWAM and I have met many, many amazing women over the years from it. Since becoming online friends I have met several in real life and
Featured on NPR!
If you don’t follow my badminton blog then you haven’t heard the good news yet! I was featured on NPR’s Only a Game this month! Listen to the 8-minute interview here! For those of you that don’t know what NPR is it stands for National Public Radio in America. It’s
Walking 10,000 Steps Everyday for a Year
I can’t believe I forgot to write this post. Way back in March of 2016 I wrote about walking 10,000 steps everyday for six-months and how I was really going for a year. I wrote about the hardships, getting my steps in while I was sick and how I had
Summer Holiday Time Again
A few blog posts ago I was talking about the semester beginning, and now here I am talking about the ending. For the past month I have been free, with more than 2 months left in my holiday. (Usually my holiday is 2 months but this summer it’s freakishly long.)
When You’re Really, Truly, “The Foreigner”
Let’s talk about speaking Chinese. These days about 70% of my life is lived totally in Chinese with people that can’t speak English. (Take my classes out of the equation and you get closer to 90%.) I am not a natural language learner. In fact, I would say I was
Parsley & Coriander — Italians in China
So I just finished reading the newly released English translation of Parsley & Coriander written by Antonella Moretti and wanted to recommend it to you, my dear readers. While fictional, the story will ring true with many expats in China as Antonella drew from her real life experience of quitting
You Know You’ve Been in China A Long Time When…..
Three years ago I wrote a post called 10 Signs You’ve Lived in China a Long Time. It was a post about all the culture differences I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. At this point I’m so used to China I’m not really sure what I do differently anymore.