Traveling Expat Family

Kuala Lumpur is such a cool city, it is a blend of three different cultures and people. The architecture and the general vibe around the city reflect that.

To start our trip off, I dragged them to central market- it’s on everyone’s list of things to do. To be perfectly honest… I thought it was a little overrated. While the outside of the market is iconic with it’s beautiful tile, the inside is mostly the same type of tchotchkes that markets in Thailand and China have. Which is not to say that it’s bad, but I think we’ve become a bit jaded to that now.

The classic image you see on everyone’s instagram of KL (which is what the cool kids call Kuala Lumpur, or so I’ve been told)

I loved the tile on the floor and steps, the colors are lovely and the design is great. The whole trip to Malaysia I found myself noticing the little details added to buildings like this.

My guys are so patient about getting their picture taken… sometimes.

After we checked out the market, we went to an Indian restaurant that had all kinds of great reviews… that ended up being so-so. I didn’t take pictures of that one- it didn’t really deserve them. But walking distance from there was a Hindu temple I had on my list to see.

This was our first trip to a Hindu temple, but I had looked up in advance what the requirements were so we were prepared with appropriate clothes. This is the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur.

These garlands are available to purchase to bring into the temple. I’m unfortunately not completely sure of the purpose, except I think to offer to the deities.

The main entrance of the temple, this is in a very busy section of the city, and then BAM there is this great beautiful temple! There are 228 gods depicted in statues on the tower.

At this temple, and on this trip as a whole, I’m glad I live in an age of digital photography, because I would have run out of film trying to capture all the amazing artwork surrounding the building.

Ganesh has taken a new special place in my heart as he is the god of scholars and intellectuals in Hinduism, as well as the remover of obstacles. I currently have a Ganesh statue that sits on my desk while I work on my thesis.

While we were looking at this statue, a man came up to pray and he started a conversation with us to explain who this was and why they were important. It was so friendly and not an attempt at conversion, but just a genuine interest sharing with us.

Everyone we met at this temple was welcoming, I think in part due to the fact that we tend to err on the side of caution when in temples and not join in on religious activities. As opposed to some of the other visitors to the temple, who pushed past devotees to film the ceremony. We were encouraged to come closer and see what was happening. I took one picture before I realized that this probably not the best time to be snapping away.

We were lucky to be there during prayer time to watch the devotees pouring milk and water over the statue of Ganesh and two other deities that I’m not familiar with. It was really interesting to be welcomed in to experience this with the people in the temple, there was music being played on an instrument I didn’t know.

Artwork like this surrounded the building, each section telling a story of the gods. I don’t know what story this is telling, I’m only really familiar with the story of Rama and Sita (not depicted here).

We stayed in a nice Airbnb, not too far from the action, and it had a nice swimming pool, an essential for any trip with Alex.

He has always been a water baby, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. It was on this trip that we discovered something wasn’t right with his ears- he kept complaining about it hurting to go to the bottom of the pool… which was only about 5 feet deep.

This kid is such a ham, he was pretending the jet in the hot tub (more like lukewarm tub) was eating his hand.

That night we wanted to go to the famous street vendor area for dinner, there was such a crowd that you would really have to push past people to keep walking down the aisle. There were so many options, and so we decided to walk all the way down and then make our choice. We made it to the end and found a Thai restaurant just around the corner. It wasn’t the best thai food ever, but it was very good!

Yes this picture ^^ is blurry, but I was trying to show scale… those are prawns, giant man eating prawns. They are lobster sized!

This place is famous for it’s chicken wings, so we had to try them on our way out of the food street.

My two guys with their nescafes- Alex tried it and loved it, he had one at every meal for the rest of the trip.

It was very hot chicken! It was pretty good, but we found someone who really loved it.

He wouldn’t sit still long enough for a good picture, but this cat clearly knew where the best meal in town was. He cried at our feet and we ended up giving him quite a bit of chicken, but he’s also so spoiled that when we gave him a grisly bit he ignored it and cried for more meat.

Mark and Alex find cats, dogs, birds, fish– any animal really, to be friends with- this trip was no different. If someone wanted to kidnap Mark, all they would need is a cat, he follows them down dark alleys to try to pet them.

This was another very local Indian place we went to, the food was good the guys running the shop were very nice and despite a language barrier were really invested in making sure we enjoyed ourselves.

The view of KL tower, which was near our airbnb too.

The sign says “Ladies of KL” and I just really liked it, it was fitting of the three main cultures all living there.

I don’t know what kind of flower this is, but it smelled nice and was beautiful.

View of the Patronas Twin Towers-

The next day we went to the National Mosque, and to enter you have to be properly dressed. Being the person and traveler that I am, I did some research before we left and came prepared with my own outfit. I had two very nice ladies help me wrap the hijab because I couldn’t get it to stay on right.

I was really blown away by the beauty of the mosque, I loved the aesthetic of the building and all the stained glass. At this mosque there wasn’t as much to see as I had hoped, the building you can see from the road is actually the museum nearby and not the mosque. But we met some nice people and got to see some beautiful artwork.

Kids get it the best, Alex got to go in just the way he was, while Mark got to sport the nice robe they provided.

This was the domed building I thought we were heading to, I loved the design on it.

These two ladies were in charge of making sure everyone was dressed appropriately, and they were the ones who helped me with my hijab. They seemed surprised but happy that I came with my own gear, and thought it was funny that I wanted their picture.

And then Mark found another cat. You thought I was kidding right? He can find them anywhere! This cat was very chill, the little girl in the picture was pulling on her tail and leaning on here and the cat just laid there.

Like Father like son.

As has become our tradition, we sought out an escape room while we were in KL. We’ve done two in Japan, two in Thailand and one in KL. This one was interesting, not the best one we’ve done but not the worst either. Without giving anything away, there was one clue that didn’t work, and one direction that made us avoid moving something that needed to be moved. We finished with extra time, but had the clue worked I think we would have beaten it on time.

Some of you have already heard this story in embarrassing detail…. for those that haven’t, sit back and enjoy a very Caitlin experience.

We were trying to figure out where we wanted to go this summer, and we were waiting to hear from the University if our trip to the US would be approved, so we waited until the last minute to book anything. We talked about Singapore, but the flights were really expensive, and talked about going back to Japan, but we wanted some where new. Finally we settled on Malaysia – but since our time was limited we would spend one week in Kuala Lampur, and save visiting different parts of Malaysia for a different trip. While we were deciding this, we got the approval and trip plans for the US had to be made too.

Now that the scene is set… I’m working on my first journal article, trying to find flights and hotels in KL and in the US and keep my soon to be home for the summer son on track for the last couple of days of school. I found decently priced tickets, go to buy them and they have sold out, go back and pick new tickets, ok crisis averted. I book a great airbnb, set up one of our excursions to pick us up there, and move on to planning the US trip before it gets any more expensive. I’ve never booked travel two weeks out, I’m more of an eight week planner, so this whole process was extremely stressful for me while I was trying to revise my paper.

Fast forward and it’s 4 days before we are set to leave for Malaysia, and I’m starting to pull things together that need to get packed (but in a very lazy and relaxed way), when an email pops up on my computer… saying that we can check in for our flight to Guangzhou tomorrow. I looked at it and thought, Mark just got back from Guangzhou, and why are they sending this to me anyway?? So I ignored it and went back to working. After about 30 minutes of it rattling around in my brain, I decided I should go back and read that more carefully. And yes, in fact, our flight to KL was the next morning really early in the morning, so we needed to get to the airport area that night to get to the airport on time.

I did not handle this with grace, I called Mark up freaking out because we couldn’t change the tickets, and the air bnb is now for the wrong days, and she won’t let us change them, so I cancelled it because she was so rude, and now we don’t have anywhere to stay plus we still had to pay the rude airbnb lady because you can’t cancel it for free. He came home from his meeting, ready to go, and like the amazing husband he is, telling me that at least I had caught the email and saved the trip.

I threw all our stuff together into suitcases and we decided that at least if we’re going to be in Shanghai overnight we could go get some good food before we take off. So we hop in a Didi and ride out to our favorite sesame noodle place in the city. From there we had another 45 minutes in another Didi to get to the hotel with an airport shuttle we could take early in the morning. It’s now about 9:45 and the plan is that we will watch a nova together and then go to bed, and we’re all pretty tired from an emotional day. As we check into the hotel, I ask about the shuttle, and the front desk lady asks me which terminal we need… I can’t remember and pull out my phone to check (have you guessed where this is going?) OH THAT’S RIGHT, TERMINAL 2 AT THE OTHER AIRPORT, TWO AND A HALF HOURS AWAY… THE ONE THAT IS CLOSER TO OUR APARTMENT IN HAINING!

It’s now so late, but we can’t wait until the morning to go because our flight left too early. So we try to get a cab to take us to Hangzhou, and we get one and he just keeps questioning “Hangzhou?!?” over and over. Turns out he can’t actually take us to Hangzhou because the license on his cab isn’t allowed, but he has a friend who can take us. While we’re driving, I try to book a hotel in Hangzhou for the night, but given that it’s now 10:30, rooms are limited, and I book the first one that is available and not too far from the airport.

We arrived at the Hangzhou Marriott at 12:45 in the morning, and it was such a nice room…. that we got to sleep in for 4 hours before getting up to head to the airport. I was such a nervous wreck that I couldn’t sleep because I was so afraid that the alarm wouldn’t go off and we’d miss the flight after all this. Again, despite being mad, my amazing husband told me that at least I caught it when I did instead of in the morning when it would be too late to fix. (Unsolicited advice– find a partner who can still find the best when things are so awful you just want to curl up and quit)

At least there is a happy ending, we got on the plane in the morning, flights were uneventful and we got to Kuala Lumpur. Our flight came in around 5, so we got to the new airbnb and dropped our things off and headed to our first food destination.

I don’t know how Mark found this place, but it was the first we went to and we all loved it. Alex has never been a big fan of Indian food, but with this place he finally tried some. His favorite was lamb Masala with double cheese naan and a pineapple lassi. The tandoori chicken was great, the nescafe was cold, and the dal was to die for!

As happens with me,I forgot to take pictures of the food until we were almost done

WE actually liked it so much here we went another time later in the trip. Some of these pictures are from the second trip.

It was a thrilling beginning to what ended up being a very relaxing trip.

For the second time this year, we were so lucky to have family come and visit us here in China. Mark’s parents made their 2nd trip to China, and his sister Sharon and her two girls made their first trip. They all stayed at the hotel on campus and Mark got them from the airport this time.

We wanted to give them a bigger sample of China (last time his parents stayed in Haining the whole visit) so we took them into Shanghai and Mark took Sharon and the girls to Wuzhen.

While everyone was together in Haining, we took them to our favorite restaurant and the surprise for me was that my favorite dish was one of everyone’s favorites, a spicy cucumber salad. They also enjoyed dumplings and eggplant stuffed with pork and then fried.

There was an excursion to the water town area of Haining, Nanguanxiang, so they could go to our tea shop and see some local culture. Unfortunately that was during the big remodel and moving, so the shop was closed and no tea was had, but Mark’s Mom and Dad got to watch Alex rocking his Chinese with the locals and what a regular day for him is like being a little famous in our town.

What trip to Haining would be complete without a trip to the mall? Our two teenage nieces loved UniQlo, a Japanese chain that is very popular here in China- I think they may have some in the US as well. The clothes are cute and well made.

This group just leaned into everything, my oldest niece Kimberly drove one of our ebikes, and so did Sharon (with Jillian the youngest as a passenger, that’s not easy for a new rider), and even Bob took a ride around campus on the ebike. Mark rode with Alex and he lead an expedition to the pagoda in town, which is a ebike ride and small hike away. I wasn’t there… but I’ve been told by two reliable sources (Alex and Jillian) that the coldest drink they’ve ever had was sold at the top of the hill next to the pagoda- which is a valuable thing to know on a hot and humid June afternoon.

We decided to split the group up as there were different interests, so Mark took Sharon and the girls to Wuzhen for a night while I stayed in Haining with Pat and Bob.

We took a bullet train into Shanghai because it was on Bob’s china bucket list, and quite frankly I think it’s the easiest way to move this many people across our area.

We had to break up into groups because those were the only tickets available. Alex’s, Jillian’s and my tickets didn’t have seat numbers on them, and we asked a guard what that meant, and he said just sit wherever, so we did. Those seats belonged to someone else, and we had to stand for the trip. Next time I will ask when we buy the tickets.

We took the Butala clan to our favorite Indian Restaurant (Lotus Land) in our favorite unique part of town- Tian zi Fang. Everyone enjoyed picking out souvenirs for themselves and friends back at home. And I think everyone really enjoyed the dinner. It wasn’t too much walking, but enough that you could get a feel for the neighborhood and market.

Our nieces had never been to Disney, so we planned a day to take them to Shanghai Disney. Mark is not a Disney person, so he hung out with his parents while Alex and I went to Disney again.

Without meaning to, we ended up going on the busiest day, they had just started some summer program and the announcers were saying if you hadn’t already bought a ticket you wouldn’t be allowed in. So everything was incredibly busy, slinky dog had an hour long wait, and it was extremely hot. But everyone was still smiling!

Waiting for the Tron ride. I don’t ride Tron, so I was down at the rave for children in Tomorrowland, eating a dole whip cone while they waited 2 hours for the ride.

The three cousins in front of the castle, I think a good time was had by all.

Mark took his parents to one of our favorite noodle places in Shanghai, and while they were a little dubious at first, I think they really enjoyed it.

The next day we had rain the whole day (at least it didn’t rain at Disney), so we took them to Yu Yuan Gardens, again there was more souvenir shopping, but also covered places to sit. We split off into different groups to explore in the time we had left before they closed. We actually ended up closing them down and getting gently kicked out.

Many of you have heard me talk about Mark and Alex (but mostly Mark) and their ability to find and befriend stray cats the world over. This is one of several cat friends that Mark made on this trip…. and he even got his pants all wet so he could sit and make friends with the cat.

Overall, we had a great visit with our family, and I genuinely hope they did too. They were adventurous, and despite being tired, just kept trucking along.

I think I may have more pictures to add, I will add them if I find them.

This is actually a couple different weekends in Hangzhou combined into one post.

Hangzhou is the bigish city neighbor that competes with Shanghai for local excitement. Now, I use bigish in Chinese terms, Haining is a small town of just under a million people, and Hangzhou is medium at 8 million people. By comparison, the small town in Illinois we lived in before this had roughly 130,000 people (if you count the neighboring town that is connected, and I think the student population too). So I always laugh a little to myself about the medium town with 8 million people.

While Hangzhou is nearby, we really hadn’t gone in for fun since our original visit to China before our move; we’ve been there for meetings at the main campus, or to turn in paperwork. We had a long weekend for tomb sweeping holiday, and decided to spend it in Hangzhou.

There are several professors at our university who live full time in Hangzhou and commute into Haining for teaching, so when we said we’d be in Hangzhou for the weekend we received several offers to hang out.

One of those offers was from our friends Simon and Lily, and while she wasn’t here this day, they also have an adorable little girl Electra. They met us in Hangzhou and took us to the local tea plantation, where the famous green tea Longjin is grown and produced. I will admit, I’m not a huge green tea person, but Mark loves this green tea- and it smelled lovely.

This was such a beautiful area, there was a walking path nearby- Alex and Lily took a walk and found fencing sticks for everyone while Mark, Simon and I stayed back to drink tea.

Uncle Simon is the best, he bought Alex ice cream and a giant cotton candy! They also bought him a balloon (and one to take home to Electra).

That night, they took us to a fantastic restaurant, which has since become a favorite for our group. It’s an all you can eat sushi place, and at the one in Hangzhou Alex is free, at least for another 5 cm or so. There is a similar place close to our house that we have been going to, but he isn’t free there (which is kind of ok because this kid can eat his weight in salmon sushi). I didn’t take any pictures here because I was focused on good food and great company (and fighting Alex for salmon and tuna). Two of the really cool things we had never had before were a lobster sashimi and scallop sashimi. This has become Mark’s favorite thing now, and isn’t available at the one closer to our house, so we may have to head back into Hangzhou just for that.

The next day we were on our own, and we went to a famous place for Baozi,the breakfast bun. Baozi are one of Alex and my favorite foods in china, it’s a steamed bun that can be filled with lots of things, but our favorite is pork. While the pork cooks and the bun steams, a lovely gravy is created and it’s define. Another popular version of this that you may see in Chinese restaurants is one with barbeque pork inside, this is fantastic too if you ever have the option to try it.

At the place we went in Hangzhou, there are only two options, pork or black sesame- and each bun is 2RMB or roughly $0.28. We get two each, and head for a nice spot to sit.

You’ll notice in the picture above, Mark is leaning way over…. it’s because we’ve learned our lesson on the first buns. The baozi are so juicy, that they overflow and the juice is hot!! It was a bit of a wait for the baozi, but definitely worth it.

From the baozi place, it is a short walk to get to West Lake, one of Hangzhou’s most famous locations. Alex and I went there on our first visit to China (which I just realized was before the blog, so I will add some pictures from that first trip here too)

This trip to Hangzhou was during a national holiday, so West Lake was packed! We didn’t stay long because it was too hot and too crowded, but we did see some interesting things. The gold dragon boat above was a way to travel across the lake, but in style! I just really liked this boat, I feel like it just fits this area of China well.

West Lake has different people playing music, doing dance routines, working out, just enjoying the outside. As far as we can tell, this people don’t get paid for what they’re doing, they just genuinely enjoy and want to share that with other people. The people above were very nice, and Alex loved hearing them, I don’t know the name of the instrument that the man is playing, but it is a traditional Chinese instrument that is popular in the older generation. I don’t think we’ve seen anyone under 50 playing it.

This picture above was to show the crowds…. but also, every one is crowded around this tree because it has 3 squirrels in it. There aren’t really squirrels here, so everyone gets really excited to see them.

The lady statue is a famous spot in Hangzhou, at one of the oldest pharmacies.

At a famous West Lake restaurant, Grandma’s House. This was while we were waiting for our food to come out, when it did come, I was too excited to remember to take pictures- but we had a dish of beggar’s chicken, which was hands down one of the best chickens I’ve ever eaten. It’s braised for a long time with spices and cooking wine, wrapped in a lotus leaf and then presented. The chicken falls off the bone, it’s so juicy and lovely, and while all the dishes we got there were excellent, this one we enjoyed so much that Mark has been trying to perfect it at home. We’ve had two successes and one didn’t taste at all like beggar’s chicken but was still fantastic.

A big draw to West Lake in the late spring early summer are the lotuses, which while there is no scale here, the flowers are as big as dinner plates or larger. The leaves can be worn as hats, (a la Swiss Family Robinson) and it would cover your whole head and shoulders. The lotuses are such a beautiful motivation to make it all the way around the lake!

This is our friend Candice, she worked at the University in Mark’s institute and recently left to start a job at a different university in Hangzhou. While we were sad to see her go, we can absolutely understand because her home is in Hangzhou and she was commuting 3 hours everyday. We met up with her in Hangzhou and had a nice dinner and a lovely visit with her. This is her and Alex doing a picture app on her phone, and some of the highlights of the many that they took.

These pictures are from our visit 2 years ago. The day we went was very rainy, but it gave everything a beautiful atmosphere. It felt like China that you see in the movies.

June is a good time to see the lotuses on West Lake, these are relatively small, there are some as big as your head!

7 year old Alex, not amused with taking pictures, and the lovely grad student showing us around didn’t want him to get wet.

A view across the lake, this is really just one half of the lake as well, it’s much bigger than I thought it would be.

I can’t remember her name (although I’ve seen her since then too) but she was a wonderful host, and we rode the boat back across the lake because Alex wanted to (and I was developing a giant blister)

We were riding a boat just like this when I took the picture. While the gold dragon boat is cool, these are the more common way to get around the lake.

Alex was taking a mental picture because I wouldn’t let him use the camera– he wanted to hang it out the window.

Nothing really to do with Hangzhou in particular, but Alex thought the hotel robe was hysterical and that it was like tae kwan do clothes. So he was practicing in the hotel every time we were there.

Spring Festival in China is a time where everyone goes home to be with their families and Celebrate the New Year. This year, we got to do the same thing. Mark and I had a month off of school (similar to the winter break colleges take in the US) but Alex’s school only gave them one week off. So being the terribly responsible parents we are… we said nah bro, he’ll be back in three weeks. The Chinese parents were pretty upset about only getting one week off too and most of Alex’s classmates missed at least two weeks. It was our own private mutiny, and this upcoming year they’ve given us two weeks off on the calendar, so I think it was a successful mutiny.

I didn’t take any pictures of the beginning of our trip, and I’m so very sad about that because my grandmother came out from New Jersey to spend time with us. I didn’t get any pictures of Alex playing with his great grandma, but we did make lots of memories. When we arrived in Chicago, it was during the polar vortex, so we went from about 45F degrees to -40F. I had forgotten what it was like to have it be so cold it hurts to breathe, and Alex had never really been anywhere that cold.

We went shopping with my mom to the Premium Outlet Mall, which happens to be close to her house (but outside!) where she decked him out in a new warmer coat and waterproof hiking boots. She also went wild at target and bought him snowboots, and practically a whole new wardrobe. Newly armed for the snow that was too cold to play in, we went back to her house and decided to make snow.

I don’t know where Mark got the idea, but he was telling us about making snow by boiling water and throwing it into the air- and when it’s that cold outside the water will turn to snow before it hits the ground. So being a group of scientists, we had to experiment to see if it was true. And we had a blast doing it, we tried 3 times with more and more water each time, and every time, Mark made snow. It was fun to do, but Mark was also careful, 8 people in Chicago went to the hospital for burns trying the same thing. Good thing he’s a scientist.

The polar vortex affected every aspect of our trip to Chicago, Oma(my grandma) couldn’t take her nightly walks, we made polar vortex root beer floats. Let me back up, I love root beer- I’m even a bit of a root beer snob, but it is not a thing in China, or most of southeast Asia. I can get coke, sprite, fanta (yuck),pepsi, but I can’t get root beer. Ok, I can order it on Taobao, but it is over $10 for a 6 pack and that is a bit too steep for me. Thailand has root beer, although it tastes a bit different and so I mostly drink that and thai iced tea exclusively when we are there. My amazing husband, who knows me so well, went on a grocery run while we were at my mom’s and bought root beer and ice cream. This isn’t an altogether altruistic move on his part as he also loves root beer floats, but he gets all the credit for thinking of it!

But, we didn’t have every day root beer floats, we made them polar vortex style, which is to pour the root beer into the cups, and put them out on the porch to get almost frozen before bringing them back inside and adding the ice cream. It was a great idea, and we all enjoyed that!

Our second leg of the trip was to fly to Miami to see my Dad and stepMom, but it was so cold that our flight got delayed two days because it was too cold for the ground crews to get the planes ready. Oma’s flight got pushed back 4 or 5 days I think. When we finally got to head out, we went from -40F to 75F, it was delightful.

Miami is always fun, not just because it’s a great area, but the company is top notch! I think I got the order of events all out of whack, but the boy had immense amounts of fun, whatever order they came in. I’d also like to point out that the pool in Miami was cold, maybe 60F? and Alex still went in almost every day and stayed in until we made him get out for shivering or blue lips.

My dad comes up with some really neat ideas for Alex to do every time we go down there, the previous time it was renting a boat, going fishing on a big boat, snorkeling. This time, it was indoor skydiving and go-karting. Because we didn’t know you should get a reservation, only Alex got to try indoor skydiving, I think that Mark and my parents would have liked to do it too. While we were waiting for Alex’s time to fly, we ran over and had lunch at a cute little diner, it felt like it was trying to be a New Jersey diner, but it was the best patty melt I’ve had in ages, so I’m not complaining!

Alex gearing up for his flight. I have to say, this kid is nothing if not dedicated when he is interested in something. I think he was the only person in his group that actually listened to every word the instructor was saying. Laser focused.

He was so excited he was dancing around, I couldn’t get him to stand still for many pictures.

All geared up and ready to Fly! He has his suit, his ear plugs, his goggles, and his helmet. Check!

The grandparents and the fly boy. I think he’s a pretty lucky kid.

Alex was the youngest and smallest person in his group, but he watched every other person, he sat in the waiting area and studied what they were doing how they were moving, what the instructor did. He was so focused, I’ve only seen him get that way about legos before this.

Waiting for his 2nd turn to fly!

After he was done flying, Grandma and Grandpa took him go-karting. As an avid Mario Kart player, Alex was expecting this to be much easier to master than it was really.

This poor kid, you had to wear clothes toed shoes, but we only brought sandals and then the snow boots he had for when we got to Minnesota and back to Illinois. So it’s 75 or so degrees out and he’s wearing snowboots with no socks to drive go karts. Here we’re sitting with Grandpa Hof watching the group before us do motocross.

Alex is geared up and ready to go! He had a blast, although he had a hard time with some of the turns- he would break and gas at the same time. He loved it though and definitely wants to go again!

Alex had such a good time, that my dad and Mark wanted to give it a go.

Although it was a close race, Grandpa Hof won. I think the grownups would be happy to go again as well!

Another day we drove down to the Florida Keys, and when in the keys, you have to stop by the Giant Lobster! The lobster is in the parking lot of a collection of artsy stores, with all kinds of kitschy souvenirs and beach home decor.

Hopefully my parents can remind me the name of this restaurant, we went here for lunch and it was wonderful. We were right on the water, watching pelicans, and the food was excellent.

We stopped off to see the African Queen, it still runs and goes out on tours daily.

We have to show Alex the movie now, because he couldn’t understand why we thought seeing the boat was cool.

Out of our group, Alex was the only one willing to go in the water, it was just too cold. He eventually convinced Mark to walk into the water, but Mark never got more than his feet wet.

This bird was just strolling along the beach, relatively fearless.

After this it was back to the cold, we left warm, sunny Miami for polar vortex cold Minneapolis. We always enjoy our trips to Miami, and not just for the weather!

We got to Minneapolis, and stayed with Mark’s parents like we usually do. It wasn’t really as cold as it had been in Chicago, although it was still pretty cold. Alex got to play outside in the snow for a little bit, but he didn’t really care for being cold and wet.

We went to Mall of America, Target (I stocked up on a variety of things to bring back to China), and spent most of our time hanging out with the family. We got to see our niece Bergen, who was due with her little girl, and another niece Elaine, who recently got engaged.

We also got to have lunch with the Wisconsin side of the family, Joe who came to China to visit with Mark’s parents in October, and his wife Becky. We also got to see and love on our Great Nephew Vince, who is the sweetest little boy, and so calm. I got to hold him, and even Alex held him. I wish I had gotten a picture of Alex holding Vince, because I have a really nice picture of Vince’s dad Jim holding Alex when he was a little baby.

We had planned to make a side trip back to Urbana before heading back to Chicago, but the weather was so bad on our trip down, that we had to stop. It was snowing, and the highway shut down, which took us onto little country side roads. It’s normally a 4ish hour drive, but it took us over 8 hours to get to Madison Wisconsin, so we had to stop. So we missed out on seeing our friends in Urbana, and missed a get together dinner that our friend Liz had organized for us. The good news is that we will be heading to Urbana this summer for most of August, so we will be able to catch up and see friends then.

It was a whirlwind trip to the US, three cities, three families in three weeks. We had a good but tiring trip, we’re looking forward to going back in August.

After I posted this, I found the pictures I was looking for on my phone, so I am adding them here at the bottom with captions!

Nothing makes me want to blog more than a looming deadline for school! Somehow I can write plenty on here, but ask me to write a 2500 word paper for school and I just stare at a blank screen. So I am taking a break to write this 1) so that it gets written, I have been terrible about keeping up with this, and 2) I am hoping that the act of writing anything will be a reset for my brain and I will be able to finish my paper after this.

The first week of April Alex had a whole week off for Tomb Sweeping Day (QingMing). Since we don’t have any ancestral tombs to take care of, we decided a quick trip into Shanghai would be a nice change of pace, unfortunately Mark and I still had classes, so big trips were out . This semster has been really long and we don’t get a break at the university until the first week of May.

We got a little spoiled this trip into the city because my advisor was driving into the city too, and we got to tag along with her instead of taking the train. I don’t mind taking the train into the city, but it’s nice not to have to drive out to the train station, then the train, then the metro, especially with a suitcase.

We went directly to the hotel, and it was in a great spot. Right next to the metro, attached to a nice mall (which also happened to have an expat friendly lots of western foods grocery store attached). Everytime we stay in Shanghai, I try to put us in a different neighborhood so we can see more of the city and not get into a rut- but I liked this hotel’s area so much we will probably try to stay there again!

It has become our custom to try to visit our Jianbing lady whenever we go into Shanghai, so our first morning was spent treking over to her street. And we don’t know if it’s our bad luck, or if she’s gone for good, but the last three times we’ve gone…. she’s closed. The second half of our custom is to then go a couple streets over and have bagels instead. The bagels are pretty good, the atmosphere is way to hipstery for me… and the entitled whiny attitude of most the expats who eat there is overwhelming, but it’s the best bet for bagels in Shanghai.

After bagels, we went back to the YuYuan garden area (mentioned in a previous post) and while it wasn’t as crowded as the spring festival when we went last, it was pretty packed. We didn’t make it into the actual garden this time, because the line to get in was unbelievably long. We got there relatively early in the day, but by the time we were leaving it had really started to fill in and for every person leaving, at least ten were coming in.

That night we went to get dan dan mian noodles, and I got zero pictures of any of it. The noodles were good, it took a while to get everything, but it was worth the wait.

So it might seem a little silly to you all, but one thing we were craving was a big steak, and potatoes. There aren’t many places to do that in Haining, and certainly none of them are american style. I happened to stumble on a tripadvisor review for Texas Roadhouse in Shanghai- and we made reservations (although that was completely overkill!) Alex’s school in the US used to have PTA fundraisers at Texas Roadhouse, and we spent the whole ride over to the mall wondering if it would be just like it was at home, or if it would lose something in the translation.

Same menu, same bucket of peanuts on the table… things are looking good. The staff there was so wonderful too, really welcoming, and the manager even came over to introduce herself and check in on us.

Sports on every tv, baseball and hockey if I remember correctly.

That ^^ is the face of a happy man! He had a steak, just the way he wanted, a potato just right, a real Caesar salad and a beer… what else could you ask for?

This kid ate all his kid’s steak, and a decent portion of my steak… and because he asked nicely, they even gave him dessert for free. He’s going to hate living anywhere else now, where he’s just a regular kid!

The next morning, as we were getting ready, we noticed something in the sky- and I really wish I had thought to get pictures because it is truly hard to believe. Mark called me into the bathroom joking about alien invasions, because level with our room, or even a bit higher, on the 37th floor, there was something hovering in the sky. It wasn’t a plane, or a helicopter, or a bird… and as we were watching, another one showed up, flying the same height and then there were four or five. And it took us a solid five minutes or so to figure out that they were kites. I’ve never in my life seen kites flying at 37 stories up… and that led us to a park next to the hotel that we wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Just about a block away from our hotel was Zhongshan Park, a large local park that was just bustling with activity. As soon as we entered the park, we saw two people doing a traditional top with whips to keep it spinning, someone was setting up for inline skating lessons for kids, and a lady with caligraphy brushes in tea writing on the sidewalk. She was encouraging people to grab a brush and try writing, so we had Alex go write a message. At first, I think the people watching were expecting him to write in English, or just draw a picture, but he started writing his hanzi.

He drew in a crowd once they realized he was writing in Chinese, he went on to write that we live in Haining .

This older man was one of the people organizing the calligraphy area, and he was showing Alex how to hold the brush better. Alex hasn’t really learned calligraphy, he’s only learned to do the hanzi with a pen, and a using a brush is a lot different.

After Alex’s calligraphy lesson, we moved on into the main section of the park, which was so much larger than we would have guessed from the outside. There were tons of people there, different dance groups, and families everywhere, people playing soccer.

This lady was awesome! She is doing diablo sticks, but the sticks are more like fishing poles, long and bendy at the ends, at the same time, she is doing one diablo top around her hips like a hula hoop. We stood and watched her for a long time.

She even taught Alex how to do diablo! He thought this was great fun and really enjoyed chatting with her.

In the middle of park there is a huge statue to Chopin… we have no idea why.

There was a large group of people doing Tai Chi, and they looked so graceful it was hard to walk away and stop watching.

And this park was the location of the high flying kites. I still don’t know how they got them to fly that high, but it was really cool to see. One of the high flyers even let Alex hold on to the kite for a little bit as he was pulling it down to land.

After all this adventure at the park, we had to leave to meet up with another professor from the university, his family lives in Shanghai and he commutes into campus during the week for work. They are a super nice family and have a son (Erick) the same age as Alex. We met them at another park in Shanghai, and at the center of the park is a lovely Thai restaurant. As soon as they were done eating, the boys started playing Roblox… which is a minecraft-esque type game.

I think Erick and Alex will make great friends and it will be nice to have another boy his age to play with! They also took us walking around the Jingan Temple… and to a famous breakfast spot, for even more food!

These are my two ridiculous guys, and what they won’t do to make each other laugh. Starbucks in the Hongqiao train station, waiting for our train back to Haining… the starbucks in China (and maybe else where, I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else though) have these green carrying bags for your cups of coffee… useful when carrying one back to campus or on a scooter. So the boys put them on their heads… and I was shocked, but no one even noticed, it was like, look crazy foreigners gonna crazy and just ignore them.

Thanks for hanging in for a long post, it’s coming to the end of my semester and I’m hoping to get more writing done on here over the summer.

This was one of the best family vacations we have ever taken, and while I wasn’t sure how we would handle 7 days on a beach, I think we would all jump at the chance to go back. This post is all going to be pictures and stories that didn’t fit into a separate post but that I still want to share with you.

By this time, Alex had figured out the magic of “add it to our room bill” So before he laid down here, he had ordered me a cha yen and himself a coke. He got very spoiled by the staff here, they all took such good care of him, even offering to watch him so Mark and I could go out on our own.

The hotel next to us was supposed to have really amazing food, and since it was right next door we decided to save that for our last night. The view was fantastic, the food was good- I don’t even really remember what we had though, so it can’t have been that good.

Alex is such a great kid that no matter where we take him, he will get along and have a good time. Here, it was hanging out on the rocking horses while we waited. He was enjoying the driftwood and looking out at the ocean.

Ice and Mo (the ladies in the pictures above) were so sweet to Alex I think they would have kept him if we had let them and Alex would have stayed! They even sat with him and let him show them his Mario game – even when he wouldn’t let them have a turn!

He had a giant chocolate smoothie, it’s really a milkshake, and he was thrilled because it was so tall. Since it was our last night, it was special and totally worth the splurge.

This was our settling up trip to the dive shop, in the end, Alex had done 3 bubblemaker dives, Mark had done two dives and I did one “just trying not to panic and drown myself” refresher dive during the week. I think we may have created a monster in Alex as he talks about diving all the time now.

French toast became his jam during this trip, he had never really been that into it before, but everyday on this trip, he ate french toast for breakfast and would have eaten more if we let him. Breakfast here was always a good time, because we got to chat with our new staff friends, sit next to the ocean, and plan our relaxed days.

Mariya was another staff friend, we saw her every morning at breakfast, and she told us all about her home area, and her family.

Mo and Ice even gave Alex a special treat, they made him extra french toast and packed it up so he would have a snack to have on the long trip back to Bangkok. Alex was promising to come back to visit every vacation we have, he really enjoyed this vacation. Everyone who works for Ten Moons is wonderful, we couldn’t have asked for a more friendly, helpful, and fun group to hang out with.

They walked over with us to the long boat that would take us out to the big dock to get on the speed boat. Alex was so sad to leave that he cried the whole long boat ride back. It is definitely a trip he will remember when he is older.

The speed boat ride back was the worst. We hit some bad weather and the boat would ride up on a wave and slam back down on the other side. Since my bruise was still very new, every time the boat would come back down, I would cry, it was so painful. But the good news is that I didn’t really get seasick… so maybe pain deferment works. Alex again sat up in the front of the boat, and while adults were whining and complaining about the trip, he just enjoyed the ride.

Once we had gotten off at the main pier in Hat Yai, two gentlemen from our boat stopped me, one told me that Alex was destined to be a Navy Seal the way he took the waves in stride, the other one gave Alex a chocolate bar from his home country of Spain and commented that Alex was such a brave kid and very polite…. all the things a mother wants to hear!

I think we all slept on the van ride back to the airport, and the flight back was pretty uneventful too. The surprise on the way back to Bangkok was at the security checkpoint. I had forgotten that I had drinks in my purse, and normally at least at US airports, we would get pulled aside, the drinks would be thrown out and there would be some embarrassment about the whole thing. This time though, they just asked us to open and drink some of the drinks to show that they weren’t anything illicit and off we went through the gate.

When we got back to Bangkok, we ended up driving over to the other side of the city to stay near the airport we would leave from the next day. It wasn’t a fancy hotel, but it worked. Not far from the hotel there was a large shopping area with an open market and lots of restaurants. We trekked over there and ended up going to a sushi place that made Alex really happy. He’s come a far way from the kid who wouldn’t eat raw fish (or really any fish). Early the next day we hopped on a flight back to Hangzhou and came home. While it’s taken me over 6 months to write this blog because of the variety of weird things that happen day to day, the memories of the trip are still very clear and collectively as a family, we have told anyone who would listen about this amazing island, with its lovely people.

While we enjoyed this vacation a lot, there were a few bumps and bruises along the way. The first day we were there, Mark stepped on a sharp rock in the water and cut his foot pretty good, one night on the way to the main strip to get dinner- Alex and Mark stopped to pet a stray cat and Alex tripped and fell hard on a stick, giving himself a nice bruise. The piece de resistance was me- I fell terrifically in the hotel.

The showers in the hotel had a hot water setting that was too high for Alex to reach, so he asked me to come in and turn it up for him so he could shower after a day at the beach. So of course, being the wonderful mom I am, I did. As I went into the shower, I fell- banging my ankle and cutting it, but worse, landing on the metal rail that meets the door to keep the water off the floor. It hurt and honestly I was a little worried I had broken something on the way down- so I was crying pretty hard and loud- which scared Alex and he was naked and crying in the shower and blaming himself that I had fallen. Mark had to come help me up from the floor, and then go down to the front desk to get help. I’m pretty sure that anyone staying the hotel that night heard me fall and then start wailing!

One of our new friends of the hotel staff (Ice) came up and had to check out my leg to see what the damage was, and she jumped into action. Ice pack was brought up, we were told we’d be moving into a lower room with less stairs to walk up and that someone would be coming to help move all of our stuff to the new room.

The hotel staff was absolutely amazing at handling this minor injury. They came and helped me move into a lower room, and almost as soon as I was settled on that bed with an ice pack, I was told that we were moving to a different room even lower.

This bruise is on the back of my thigh and took almost a month to go away completely- this was taken about 6 hours after the fall happened. It got as big as a large hand over the course of the next day or two. I had never had a bruise that had a lump in the middle of it, and it really did hurt to walk up and down stairs for a day or two, walking flat was mostly ok.

I said I would gladly take one for the team and fall on every trip to get this kind of an upgrade. We ended up in a beach front bungalow with about 6 stairs to get to the beach. It was very nice of them to help us out with everything, even making sure Alex was doing ok because he had been so upset.

So, that whole thing was a giant embarrassing fiasco- but we made it through it all. The next day I was supposed to join the boys diving, but honestly it hurt too much to walk all the way to the dive shop and then swimming- so I stayed home and rested while they went adventuring. After they got back, we decided to head to a restaurant that the dive shop folks recommended.

You can pick out your individual fish if you’re into that sort of thing, we let them pick because… I don’t really know what a good fish is.

Your fish is then cooked on the grill, or fried, or whatever way you’ve chosen.

This is the owner and chef of Nee Papaya, she moves so fast it’s hard to get a good non blurry picture of her. She was very nice to us, and really liked Alex. We picked a few items and couldn’t have been happier!

I don’t know what kind of fish these were, but they were tasty! Even though they were a little spicy (for Alex, we thought they were perfect) Alex ate a ton of each fish.

This was a lime fish, I’ve always had fish with lemon, but lime is a great change! Both types of fish were white fish, and very flaky and fresh- it really was a wonderful dinner after a hard day of diving and recovering.

The waitstaff of the restaurant are these friendly and happy ladies pictured above and below. They really got a kick out of the fact I was taking pictures of everything and hammed it up for the camera. They were very nice to Alex( but who isn’t) and made the meal even more special.

Alex went to thank the owner for a really delicious meal, and she stopped to take a nice picture with him. He also got a beautiful keychain with Nee Papaya on it as a souvenir.

One of the cool things about Koh Lipe, that we had noticed but really got to experience after the upgrade, is the abundance of hermit crabs running around. I had never seen a hermit crab not at a pet store before this trip.

I kind of got obsessed with finding the biggest hermit crab and spent the evenings following them around trying to get good pictures of them. Mark was a good sport, but I think Alex thought I had lost my mind.

Our group tends to be a very active see-as-many-things-as-possible in one day type of vacationers. Since Alex was born we’ve never really taken a beach vacation, it’s either been visiting family, or a whirlwind quick trip to a new place. Our honeymoon was the last beach vacation we really had, and even then was 5 days in Cairo and 4 days at a beach resort. I really didn’t know how our group would handle 7 days on a beach island with little to no activities or sights to see. I like the beach and am usually content to sit in the sand and read all day- and Alex used to love going to the beach when we lived in California.

This island was great for our group, tons of snorkeling- and we booked a scuba trip for Mark right away. Because it was low season, not all the restaurants on the island were open but it also wasn’t as crowded.

Mark found this bigish lizard climbing on the rocks by our hotel, we don’t know what kind of lizard it was, and we only saw it the once, but it was really cool.

We discovered that Alex didn’t know how to sit in a hammock, clearly we have neglected his relaxation education.

The 2nd night we were in the hotel, the shower wasn’t draining quite right and the staff moved us to another room that didn’t have that problem. It was slightly lower down on the hillside, so a few less stairs to walk up.

One of the highlights for Alex on this trip, was that he is finally old enough to do a bubblemaker scuba dive adventure. While we prepped Mark to go out diving, Alex learned how to dive too. With a Bubblemaker dive, kids from 8 and up can go diving with an instructor, no deeper than 2 meters. We went to Adang Sea Divers dive shop, www.adangseadivers.com and Kris was the instructor who helped Alex out. Couldn’t have asked for a better person to go with Alex, he had a ton of patience, good sense of humor and really seemed to enjoy his job.

These local kids got a kick out of watching Alex practice dive, I don’t think they ever really saw someone as young as them going diving.

While Alex went diving, Mark went snorkeling in the same area. I stayed on the boat, and took pictures- I hadn’t dived since before Alex was born so I didn’t feel comfortable going in just yet.

This dive spot was at the island next to ours and while the boys worked on their water adventures I relaxed on the boat. In the beginning they were alone on this particular reef, about 10 minutes in a huge boatload of tourists snorkeling came to the same spot.

Alex came back with such a grin on his face telling me all about the fish and clams and corals he had seen. I’ve been told since then that these videos sparked a lot of debate around the dive shop that my parents work/hang out at- Whether or not Alex should have been allowed to go into the water on his own before the instructor. Most of the dive instructors have said no students get in the water without an instructor already in. I wasn’t too worried about it at the time, but next time we will think about that before letting him jump in.

Diving was pretty much the whole day that day, it was exhausting for Mark and Alex- but a really good time was had. We walked to a local famous restaurant the Elephant Bar. It was ok, but we weren’t impressed with the overall experience. I think this was the night that we showed Alex Arachnophobia, that was a scary but good movie- Alex says it’s in his top 5 movies ever!

Tangential to the main story of our day of traveling… Mark recently showed Alex the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles- I had never actually seen the movie but it’s not exactly what I expected. Nor is it exactly a great movie for kids – unless you want your 8 year old rolling around telling jokes about playing with your balls, which he will, to anyone who will listen!

The day started out with a very early wake up and ride to the airport. There are two airports in Bangkok, but only one has daily flights to Hai yat So we had to drive to the other side of Bangkok and because there are only two vans at the next stop (one at 11:30 and one at 3:30) and only two boat departure times- everything had to go smoothly.

I apparently didn’t think that getting pictures of anything up until the boat ride was important. After arriving at a very small airport, we wandered around trying to find anything to eat (the airport was that small) we found a Dunkin Donuts and grabbed a few donuts and Thai ice tea to go and wait for the van to pick us up.

I arranged with a travel company that picks you up at the airport in a party van, they bring you to the pier and get you on a big speedboat to take you to the island we were visiting. It was relatively expensive, but not having to worry about or negotiate any other trips or travel plans was worth it to me! The company is called Cathay Tours Hat Yai, and there is a link to their facebook page under one of the pictures. 

The Van was full on the way to the pier, we had 8 people plus the driver. Alex played games most the ride which made it easier on everyone! It was an hour and a half drive from the airport to the pier, and most of it was the same as anywhere in Thailand- beautiful trees, lots of plants, tree farms (may have been rubber? they were being harvested for sap of some kind, but I couldn’t tell what). But half way to the pier we saw a couple of monkeys just sitting by the road. That was a highlight for me!

We got to the pier around lunch time, but again, not really anywhere to eat. Alex and Mark split a bag of salt and vinegar chips and some water. Next time I will plan all of this better and grab sandwiches in Bangkok before we leave.

Now for me, the boat was going to be the scariest part of the whole adventure. Last summer before we left for China, we visited my Dad and stepmom in Florida and we went on a fishing boat (which was great and we all really enjoyed), but I got really sea sick for the first time in my life. So I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, it was an hour and a half on a big speed boat. But if you want to go to this island, this is your only choice.

Alex and Mark picked the seats up at the front of the boat, right across from the captain’s station. They were raised up and facing forward and Alex was a champ the whole time, he loved going on the boat!

Because the bench that Mark and Alex were on was only for two people, I sat behind them on the long bench that lines the side of the boat. This was a bad choice… for me at least. Despite it not being bad weather, the chop of the waves was pretty high, and every time the boat would ride up a wave and slam back down. Now this was no fault of the crew- it’s a product of us going during low season and the crew tried to steer out of it as much as possible. I managed not to be sick, but only barely- and I had a few bruises from holding on so tight. And I was lucky, there was another lady on our boat throwing up for most of the ride.

Now, I’ve not mentioned the name of the island until this point… we were arriving on the picturesque shore of Koh Lipe. It’s a little island, not well known like Krabi or Pattaya and I selfishly want to keep it that way. We had wanted a beautiful place, with snorkeling and scuba, and white sand beaches- We got all that and more at Koh Lipe.

When we got to shore, there was a representative from our hotel, waiting to take us in a long boat to our hotel. I felt bad for the poor guy because he carried our heaviest suitcase across the sand to the smaller boat.

And I’m going to share with you all, my most prized secret…. Ten Moons Hotel. This place, there aren’t words- it’s got an almost private beach (they share with another hotel next door), you have a bungalow to yourself…. the staff is so wonderful, by the time you leave you feel like family. There will be lots of pictures and stories of the staff in upcoming posts.

It was about 4pm when we got to the hotel and settled in, so we got Alex suited up and into the water for a bit before dinner. We ate at the hotel that night since we were all a little tired from the trip (and we had 7 days on the island to explore). Mark had a few movies downloaded to share with Alex and at night after a day of beaching, or snorkeling, we’d watch some classics together. Notably on this trip was Arachnophobia, Minority Report, Ready Player One, Mission Impossible… and a few others I can’t remember now.