Booking Flights and Hotels the China Way

on September 8, 2012
Guest post by Tanya today. Check out some of her other posts here and here.  Arranging travel in China has changed a lot during my 8+ years in China. It used to be that everyone in China had a travel agent – if you knew the right person, you got better (cheaper) flights. Hotels were booked [...]

China: Best If Escaped From By 03/05/2012

on March 7, 2012
For most expats living in China, there is a clock that starts ticking the moment you land on the tarmac at Terminal 3 (or T2 if you fly Skyteam). That clock measures how long you can stay in China before you have to get away. It’s like an expiration date on a carton of milk. [...]

Travel Hacking: How to book Delta rewards flights from Beijing

on October 18, 2011
One of the ways that Kara and I stretch our dollars (and RMB) a little further is by participating in travel hacking. Travel hacking for us is all about being very intentional about racking up frequent flyer miles getting the most value out of our miles by booking good value rewards tickets. We’re both ‘rule follower’ [...]

Expat or Tourist?

on August 6, 2010
There is a ridiculous arrogance that we expats tend to develop. You know what I’m talking about: the arrogance that makes you scoff at the excited tourists in line for the same tourist attraction as you. Their amazement is silly, immature, totally uncool. My arrogance was exposed this week in Hong Kong, though I too [...]

Riding Buses in Beijing

on July 16, 2010
Matt’s mom and younger brothers love to take a day and do “bus day.” They pick a route, ride it to the end in one direction, get off, and explore the area until they find lunch. Then they get back on the bus going the opposite direction and ride it to the other end, explore [...]

The only 3 phrases you need for traveling in China

on May 22, 2010
Chinese is a complicated and difficult language. If you plan on living in China or spending significant time here, it’s really worth studying the language. If you’re visiting for a couple days or you just arrived, you can communicate very effectively through hand gestures and by reading the context of a situation when you need [...]

Welcome!

on May 18, 2010
My wife tells me that I’m only allowed three exclamation points in my entire writing career, and I’ve already gone and used one of them. I hope I don’t live to regret that down the line (it looks like the births of two kids is going to be our max). We are embarking on a [...]
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