It’s been an extremely busy few months!
At the beginning of October, Lucas and I took a trip back to the US for a green card renewal appointment. While we were there, we visited my family and Lucas visited a knee expert. He injured his second knee playing football (soccer) a month earlier, but the doctors [...]
It’s finally official! I received (and accepted) a job offer for my next assignment, which will be in Oslo, Norway! We hope to move from Beijing to Oslo in early January.
My assignment here in Beijing was intended to be only for one year, which ended in October. I agreed to stay a few extra months [...]
I just saw a somewhat amusing article on CNN about how troops in Afghanistan are having problems with the Taliban hiding under cover of large marijuana forests. Apparently giant marijuana plants are very difficult to penetrate with heat sensors, and due to the plants’ moisture, they’re having trouble burning it off to clear the area.
This [...]
Like many big cities, Beijing is plastered with billboards advertising computers, mobile phones, soft drinks, etc., and along the ring roads, giant advertisements tout the city’s latest upscale housing developments and apartment buildings. While all of these places try to appear upscale and chic, targeting an appearance-conscience population, I always end up amused by their [...]
With a few gourmet food shops and import groceries in town, one of the things a lot of people miss most is their junk food of choice from back home. One of the things I usually take for granted, is potato chips. There are millions of chips here, and Lays has built itself a large [...]
For the first time in weeks, I can finally start getting back to my normal sleeping schedule. Since the World Cup started last month, it’s been an endless stream of late nights as we tried to take in as many games as possible. Unfortunately, due to those troublesome time zone issues, the final matches all [...]
This morning’s (or possibly yesterday’s, since it’s a US source) news headlines included an article from Motley Fool announcing that “Google” has been added to The Oxford English Dictionary as a verb. The article goes on to discuss whether becoming a verb is a good thing, and it reminded me of an amusing problem I’ve [...]
Every so often I still notice little differences and little similarities between living here and living back in the US. Hopefully I’ll start remembering them long enough to post them!
Last weekend we had to stop by a Jingkelong supermarket on Saturday, and I was amused to find the aisles lined with ladies handing out [...]
I want to write a quick note to apologize for the lack of recent posts. Since we got back from India last month, we’ve been incredibly busy. Samantha and Rick were here for three weeks, and after a week of recuperation, the World Cup started! And unfortunately, due to the time difference, the games air [...]
Spring has always been my favorite season, probably because I really hate the cold weather and the first warm day of the year is made that much better after months of sub-zero winter. I’m used to spring arriving in April, but the weather had just started to turn when we left for our May holiday [...]