travel
Beyond Yangon!
I hadn’t realized until the night before we left for Myanmar how traumatic it had been when I’d dislocated my elbow a little under a year ago in Guilin. I couldn’t sleep the night before and it wasn’t because I was excited. I tossed and turned all night, was sick to my stomach and I … Continue reading
Inle Lake
Inle Lake is south east of Mandalay and is fairly high at 3000 feet above sea level. The lake is large, around 13 miles long with a surface area of around 45 square miles. Â The lake is fairly shallow, around 7 feet and is long and narrow. Â There aren’t really defined shores to the lake … Continue reading
Bagan
The next morning our flight left Yangon at 6:05 am; another 4:15 am wakeup and another early morning flight. The weather outside was 60 and it was funny to see all the guys outside our hotel dressed in hats, gloves and coats while I walked around in my short sleeve shirt and thin hiking pants. … Continue reading
Chinese New Year In Myanmar
This is the first in a series of blogs about our trip to Myanmar (Burma) over Chinese New Year in January 2012. Our first interaction with Myamar began our trip back to the US in December for our daughters wedding. We landed in San Francisco and spent the night there before flying on to Salt … Continue reading
JianKou – The Middle Path
I returned to Jiankou for my fifth visit in October with Miles and some workmates John Rodgers and John Darrow, who were visiting from Seattle. We stayed at the Zhao’s Hostel and arose in the dark. We took the main concrete path past the parking lot heading south to the Wall just to the east … Continue reading
Vietnam
The first week in October China celebrates National Day, the anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. Â Their equivalent of our 4th of July, except where the US only gets one day they get an entire week. Â We planned to visit Vietnam as a family, we had some old friends from Cache … Continue reading
Kiah
Kiah has been in Beijing with us for almost 4 months and when she returns to the states with us this month she will be going back to school and not returning to China with us. Lucky for us BYU-I only allows the students to go to two semesters and the University chooses. Some kids … Continue reading
Turning a corner, 6 months later
I just had my usual “loud” conversation with my mom on the phone this morning. I say loud because the connection is lousy in our apartment and because she is losing her hearing, two bad combinations make for a very long and comical conversation. I shouldn’t complain though because I really do value the time … Continue reading
Driving to Mongolia
I have friends who used to work in Alaska fish factories in the summers.  They would drive from Utah to Anchorage and we used to joke it was like Driving to Russia. It seemed an impossibly long distance to drive.  The phrase “Driving to Mongolia” conjures up similar notions and even though it’s a scant 450 … Continue reading
Tips for the Forbidden City
I’ve visited the Forbidden City over a half dozen times in the course of my visits and sojourn in Beijing. Here are a few ideas to make your visit more enjoyable. Start your visit by going to JinShan Park on the northern side of the Forbidden City.  You can hike up to the top of the man made hill … Continue reading