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We are at Invincible Ramen which may be the best ramen house in Beijing. It’s a small place and without fanfare. Up a flight of stairs, no English signs or menus, simply tables on a wood floor. We are in the back section, a table for six including the Allio Beijing five and the ubiquitous mother in law. Having placed our order I take Elisa out to explore the restaurant. We look at the fish of course and the sushi chef. Then Elisa notices balloons lying in a corner so I give her one only to be told a minute later that the balloons are “taken” or so said a middle age woman on behalf of the too well behaved children with her party. So we smile and put the balloon down (later, typically, it dawns on me what the appropriate response would be). ...

A few months back Aidan asked for a Yo-Yo so we bought him a cheap little one costing 15 RMB. I expected him to try it a few times and then put it down and go onto the next thing. A week later he was still playing for it and asking for a better yo-yo. I then spotted him watching a cartoon where the hero is a boy who uses the yo-yo as some kind of weapon. At least that was my impression for the 10 seconds I looked at the screen before the epiphany of why Aidan wanted the yo-yo sank in. ...

We had come to Lijiang with only a loose understanding of what there was to do here. I knew it was named a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997 and that led to a flood of tourists. I knew that there was a famous snow mountain where you could see a glacier. I knew there was a city nearby called Shangri-La not because it was the setting of the famous novel Lost Horizon but because the townsfolk had renamed it to take advantage of the fame the name enjoyed. I knew there was a hiking trail along the tiger river gorge. So on our first night here when we walked into one of the ubiquitous tour operator’s stores and looked at options my first choice was the hiking. It was a reasonable 160 RMB ($25 USD) per person for a two hour drive up to the river, then four hours of hiking, and then a two hour drive back down. Before booking Yang quickly stepped outside and called the taxi driver from earlier in the day to see if he could beat the price. He could not so we booked it. ...

We are flying into Lijiang and experiencing some turbulence. The plane drops, then sways to the right, then to the left, then drops again. It has my full attention now. Yang is next to me trying to finish off a nap. The passengers next to us are making noises like they are on a roller coaster. Not the I’m scared to death type noises but rather I am having the time of my life noises. “Wheeew…. Wheeee… haaaaaaa…. wooooo”. The main cheer leader was a woman who looked 60 but was probably my age dressed in the local naxi style. Which is a bit hard for me to describe, not because it’s hard to describe in an absolute sense but I’m just not very good at describing what people wear. The best I can do is say she looked like a waitress but that would not be fair to her. Even less fair is that on the way out I noticed she was wearing a towel on her head. I don’t mean that in some horribly offensive way like an ignorant American would say about a turban. I just mean she really had a towel on her head. A nice one. I found myself thinking it was a very clever way to travel. ...

I am a fan of unstructured time. Unstructured time is notable for that feeling in the morning that you have a clean slate. It is also notable for the sheer lack of pressure, of stress, of conformance. I had a fair amount of unstructured time when we first moved to Beijing nearly six years ago. In fact, I had so much of it that I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. By the time I had started to figure it out, it was time to start working again and enter the daily grind. ...

The first night I am back from my two weeks in the states Elisa walks towards the front door and asks our ayi to put on her jacket. She says she wants to go to “jenny lous” the small expat grocery store located on the first floor of our complex. Yang tells me this is my fault, that Elisa has been wanting to go to Jenny Lous every night. So I volunteer to take her and we have a nice father/two year old moment on that walk to the store. When we get there it turns out she wanted some candy, I of course oblige and she is happy. ...

Last Friday I stayed home from work because of a pretty severe cold. As the day progressed it got worse and I was feeling lethargic. When I finally lied down to rest for the night my stomach made a gurgling sound. Diarrhea came soon afterward and lasted through the night. Well, actually, it lasted through the next night. And the next. I decided to power through work on Monday and put in my typical 10 hour day only to find myself bottomed out on Tuesday morning. So I went to the hospital Tuesday morning and got some meds to treat the symptoms. It was some kind of virus which western medicine can’t do a lot about but let it run its course. My mother-in-law keeps reminding me that Chinese medicine can help with virus. I stayed home the rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday, feeling at my weakest point on Wednesday afternoon. When I woke up on Thursday and stepped on the scale I learned I had lost 11 pounds in six days. Thursday has been a much better day, small meals taste good and are no longer making my stomach churn. Some of my energy is coming back. Tomorrow I board a plane for a short 11 hour flight to San Francisco. ...

A friend is driving me home after a dinner at one of our favorite hangouts, a Beijing Bar Pub called The Den. We are passing under and overpass and there is a white banner running across it’s length with some kind of slogan in Chinese. I know it is a slogan because next to it is the English translation, “ To be civilized citizen in Chaoyang to build civilization ”. Now, I’m not one to point out all the mistranslations around town but this one strikes me a particularly odd. Odd enough that I take out my phone and snap a picture. ...

Aidan, Lydia, and Elisa all make friends in different ways. Elisa is at the age where you can’t quite tell if she is going to be outgoing and crazy like her mom or reserved and crazy like her dad. With adults, she definitely has her pecking order. When Yang is around, and an adult tries to do take care of her in some way – say push a stroller – she will adamantly call for Yang. If Yang doesn’t jump in, the voice gets loader and loader and then she begins to revolt by squiggling her body. If Yang is not around, then Cui Ayi gets the call, followed by dozens of others and then eventually her father. With kids, Elisa of course has Aidan and Lydia and they can be found playing together on what feels and sounds like a constant basis. Aidan in particular is good at taking care and entertaining his younger sister. As far as kids her own age, Elisa does not lack for friends, however she has one main friend Weili. Last week, I stayed home from work a couple of mornings in order to watch the Giant’s playoff games. Which means I got to observe the household pattern in the morning. It went like this – Yang left for tennis, xiao ayi arrived at 9:15am and starting cleaning. Elisa went to the down stairs playground to play with cui ayi. An hour later Elisa returned with Weili and Weili’s ayi. Weili greats me with “aisha baba, aisha baba”. ”Weili’s ayi watched Weili ayi while the two ayis I employee cooked lunch and continued to clean the apartment. ...

I first visited Qingdao with my wife and parents back in the fall of 2002. I remember the date and time because the Giants were making their world series playoff run and we were able to catch parts of the national league playoff games on what passes for ESPN here. Qingdao, as a second tier China city wasn’t super impressive at that time and while it attracted its fair share of domestic tourist, very few international tourist went there. (the foreigners in town consisted largely of Korean and Japanese business folks and the ever present Russians). Over the years, we’ve visited Qingdao maybe three times and each time it gets a bit better in my estimation. Or maybe I am just getting used to it. ...