What did we get ourselves into..
Boiled Brains and other things that no longer frighten me
The hot pot tasted of spoilt milk and grey, maze-like brain bits bobbled among the mushrooms and the red dates of the soup. Our waitress had told us that there would be no meat in the broth we were ordering, but obviously something had…
The beautifully-curated life
Things I’ve thought about this past week: D and I celebrated our second anniversary. To be honest, I’ve spent the past month dreading the day – and for absolutely no good reason. There’s something about being with a person whom…
Snow falling on Shanghai
I haven’t seen snow since I landed in China in July of 2014. It just hit me that I haven’t seen even an inch of snow on the ground in almost three years (D tells me that we saw snow…
I went to Florence to see Renaissance art, but all I got was this lousy pneumonia
I haven’t liked my writing much recently. I feel that I have so much to write about, so much that I have observed around me, so much that I want to put into words. But when I start putting these ideas on…
Christmas in Vietnam
We made our flight by four minutes. We survived death by motorcycle-related homicide in Ho Chi Minh city. And now we’re spending Christmas on the beach. Happy holidays, wherever in the world you may be!
What is a normal Shanghai experience?
I can never really put my finger on what it means to live in Shanghai. And I mean, live in Shanghai, to get the most out of this city, while still remaining honest to my identity outside of it. A few friends came…
The AQI Blues
The air tastes like burned rubber and cellophane. Today is one of those days where as soon as I open my weather app, it tells me the air quality is ‘very unhealthy’, which means that as soon as I step outside, the…
The Chinese man selling popcorn
On Tuesdays, my apartment becomes a Civil War reenactment. From the third floor, we hear the crackling fire of a hand-cranked oven, a voice yelling a signal, and the BOOM of the popcorn machine that follows like clockwork. We’d spent the last few…
What we write about when we can't find the words to write anymore
It happens again. I’ve sat down to start writing this entry several times in the past few weeks, or honestly in the past two months, but everything I’ve written is charged, angry, calamitous, and then resigned. I feel this surge…
What we write about when we write about New York
I used to dream about New York. When I closed my eyes, I dreamed of pillowy snow heaps falling outside my window in Astoria, about the hum of the radiator warming up the apartment. I used to dream about the entire…
When life gives you lemons, make yourself do push-ups
I guess I should take some time to explain what a Tough Mudder is, because it’s one of those things that is also particularly American in a “we’re very macho, but will still sign a dozen safety waivers” kind of a way.