4/12/2020 I’ve been wanting to write something about our experience with jet lag, but my head has been so muddled that I haven’t been able to put my thoughts together. Our two weeks of self-quarantine after our flight home from China was over yesterday. We’re hoping that the effects of jet lag are gone as…
Category: China
Little Things
When you travel to another culture as a tourist there are some little things you notice that are different in your hotel room. Its a little different when you stay long enough to move in. The little differences soon become normal. At first some of them may have been irritating, but over time you might…
Green
I came prepared for cold and today I’m sitting in the apartment in rolled up shirt sleeves. It is supposed to reach 75 degrees outside today. My son and I went to another apartment for lunch and I didn’t have any need for a flannel to walk outside. Spring has arrived and the park grows…
Birthday Party
How do you celebrate a birthday with COVID-19 restrictions in place? What does a birthday party look like for foreign kids in China? We were fortunate to find out. One of our grandsons turned twelve last Sunday. The party was on Saturday and did require some extra planning. The first thing was identifying a location. …
Movement
Friday night is pizza night here in Beijing for our family. Pizza is “buy one get one” free at Papa John’s, but only if you pick it up in the restaurant. We hadn’t been out in a while so we decided we would walk to the shopping center where the restaurant is located. The last…
Walking
Spring has arrived. It is much warmer outside and the March breezes are keeping the air quality in the healthy range. With the grandkids in school our normal pattern is to feed them lunch, watch a MacGyver episode, and then go for a walk. Most days we take the dog for a walk in the…
Breaking Free
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…twenty one thousand. I lose count of how many times I count through this sequence every day. The best defense against the Covid-19 is to wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds: when entering a residence, after using the toilet, after touching and animal,…
Unpredictable
It is impossible to know how windy a day it is if we remain within the apartment complex. The gaps between buildings create wind tunnels that intensify any wind there is. When we exit the gate and walk across the street the wind dies down, the sun appears, and the walk becomes quite pleasant. The…
Sights and Sounds
The above video contains sounds from our apartment complex in Beijing. The first set of sounds are what we hear when we leave our apartment to go see the grandkids. The second set of sounds are of the subway train going by. A train goes by every few minutes. For some reason I can’t get…
Hot Water
Well, the heater flame is coming on, but we still have some adjustments to make to be comfortable taking a shower. The repair experience was very interesting from many perspectives. The first thing was that the repairman showed up exactly on time. He said he would be there at 2P and there was a knock…
