We won’t be going there…

We like to travel, but my husband didn’t want to go to China. The Great Wall was on my life to do list though. Well, when work moved us here that is how I knew I’d definitely be finally seeing it. It is much less commitment to just come on a ten-day tour to China! This portion of the wall is on the border with North Korea. It is in Dandong, China. Most Western tourists will see the wall on their Beijing stop. Beijing is not near here at all. Obviously, I like hiking but some of the stair climbing on this had me scared and breathless. It is not suitable for everyone, but there are portions anyone could do. The stairwells easily rivaled any scary European ones we had climbed up. It took us about 2 hours to do the entire Dandong wall. There was an entry fee of around $10 / 60 RMB per person. It was a really fun day trip from our current home.

“The best hikes…..”

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I was just on booking dot com looking for some future accommodations today and I came across an article that I had to read. The 5 best hikes in the world Wow. What will they include? Five is sure a small number. I go to the list and I have only loosely heard of one particular destination. That isn’t to say that the other ones are not epic, but insert eye roll. I don’t need some list. Is someone going to give me a medal cause I have done their particular list? I want my 5 best readers to know that the hike YOU do is the very best one. You don’t need to go anywhere special to do it. You do it where you are. Disclaimer: if you are from somewhere flat like Kansas where my dad is from, then you may need to actually go somewhere. My general definition of hiking includes a bit of varied terrain and elevation change. Anyway, you can go on a hike NOW. (If not, you can highly likely go on a WALK.) If you want to add some random BEST to a future list, great! But don’t choose only to do something if the circumstances are perfect. Get out and sweat a little or a ton and get some fresh air.

walking is so underrated…..

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I recently read this as a comment somewhere referring to exercise. It caused me to ponder the why…..?…. Maybe because it is something that most everyone does so it is rarely intentional. You join a gym, pay your activation fee, your monthly fees, etc…. Because you have spent A LOT of money, you just know you are FINALLY going to get fit. Those $1000 sign-up fees will guarantee your success. I always thought it would be rather exciting to join a gym. ****I have since joined a few. ***** I came from a small town and the only ones I had used were at my high school (in a scary basement on dirt!!!) or at college in the 90s. Today’s college gyms are a little different. Think: NICER. It was fun at a “real” gym for a few years. I attended lots of dance and yoga classes. I still can’t dance, but I was at the epicenter of the Zumba craze. (In the back looking very dorky!!!!!) After pondering the above question coupled with a book I just read called Predictably Irriational by Dan Ariely I am going to surmise it is because we don’t value what we don’t pay a lot for. In order to make walking cool, it is time to charge people a lot for it. LOL

Singapore

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A few years ago we had a potential opportunity to move to Singapore for work. I wasn’t really compelled to pursue it. We had friends who had lived there, but I didn’t have a ton of interest. We had also just moved and I’m not good at the moving houses thing, although new places and people are always fine by me. Anyway, we ended up there for part of our spring break. Singapore is awesome. I had really no expectations, except for their famous cheap food. Yummy！What we discovered was that it is a very efficient place compared to our current home. Singapore is beautiful. It is a lush green jungle and way too humid for my taste, but a cool place to experience. I can’t say whether we’ll go back, but everyone definitely wants to.

Beware of GURUS.

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A few years ago when I was learning about this new to me blogging world, I wanted to attend a conference that to my surprise was happening in my city. As usual, I was late to the game. To my chagrin, I had no ticket to attend this event where the new age cool people were that week. Even if I had a ticket, would I be comfortable with these cool people? No. Instead, I went to watch what I could with my young children in tow since part of the event was outside in public. It was a hot day. We hung out on the periphery because the cool people didn’t use to have kids. (Now, children are incredibly useful tools for instagram pictures.) We eventually treated ourselves to some great Mexican food and went home. Fast forward, I was recently checking the blog of the GURU who created that event. Though I have read a few of the organizer’s books, I’m not super knowledgable about this person. The blog had turned negative. Every post was now a post about how things were NOT awesome. What a letdown. This person was mortal just like me! J/K ha ha.. Unless your GURU has moved on from this life, (Muhammed, Jesus, Buddha, Insert whoever) then life will always be filled with obstacles and be wary of the guru. (The get rich like me kind, get ~~healthy~~/SKINNY off my product kind, get awesome like me kind…..) I hope things turn around for this blogger. I did learn a lot from the author’s books.

Chinese New Year recap

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Stuff shuts down in China for their new year celebration. We had no idea what to expect. We heard that stores would be shutting down and people would be going home to their hometowns and villages. We figured it was a good idea not to plan on doing much. I tried to get all of my groceries for awhile to avoid holiday shopping. I avoid stores in the USA during holiday times too so I figured it could be a thousand times worse here. My husband worked from home for the first few days of their new year. New Year’s Eve was preceded by random fireworks going off all the time. (Fireworks go off here on any old day too.) We knew it was going to be bad. LIKE A LOT OF FIREWORKS! However, nothing could have prepared us for hearing in one night a total culmination of seeing and hearing more fireworks in one day than in my entire life of +4 decades. AND…. That was just in my neighborhood of about a 10 block radius. We don’t even live in the city center. We worried at times that our house would start on fire and we wouldn’t have anywhere to seek refuge since everyone was literally celebrating. Luckily, we awoke the next day intact. I am very happy all the festivities are over. It was quite the ordeal and the country practically shuts down for a whole month. If you live for fireworks then you may enjoy finding yourself in China for this event, if not, STAY AWAY!!!

Walking with family

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When we arrived in China, we had little to do. We immediately checked things out and walked a lot, but it got hot. I walked the dog at night and it felt like a sauna. We preferred to stay inside with the a/c. Then, school started and family walks took a back seat more often than not, but school is out for Chinese New Year this week.

Walking is free.

Walking is healthy.

Walking gets you outside.

A walked dog is a good dog.

2019 just doesn’t feel like 2019

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Because….. I have not written one single check with 2018 on it. The last check I wrote was in July so that’s why. I was in safe territory for not messing up a check in month 7 of a year. Luckily, I slowly started banking online a few years ago. I just felt as if electronic transactions somehow felt less REAL so I put it off. Would I then fritter away money if it felt less real? I was an early bird onto the internet, but some stuff I just didn’t jump at. However, living in China, I had to fully embrace electronic banking. So, here I have had no constant reminders that oh ya it’s a new year when I have to rewrite a check for the 5th time.

Otherwise, how is everyone’s cleanse going or not going? Eating clean for 2019? That rhymes!!!! A blog name in the making….. Getting super thin for bathing suit season?? I love to see transformations of people who change their lifestyle, but yoyo diets are a joke. Don’t yoyo diet! Eat healthy in MODERATION and MOVE.

twenty18 is over

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I’m not a new year’s resolutions kind of person. It’s a good time for gyms to make a lot of money, but I have no interest in paying for a gym pass and not using it. When I have had a gym pass, I used it regularly. I don’t want to get ripped. I just want to be physically fit every day of my life. When I was on the track team in 1990, I was ripped. I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that all my friends were faster than me and I could not keep up. Do you want to get fit? You don’t need to do something extraordinary. You don’t have to win any races or beat anyone. You just need to move. Walking is a great form of low impact exercise. Hiking is also a great form of low impact exercise. Biking is too!!! If you have weight to lose, it will come off if you stick to it. If you don’t have weight to lose, it will still benefit you. Make 2019 AWESOME!!!!

Christmas time

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78595B75-36AE-4E89-882C-07F90D88BF2B I didn’t really want to spend Christmas in China. You can get cheap flights to Australia from there if you look, but I didn’t want summer for Christmas either. My Christmas dreams include a foot of fresh falling snow so Australia was out. We came to Europe where cold temperatures and Christmas markets would put us in the Christmas spirit. We took some long flights and ended up in Prague. The winter chill was definitely there. Was my coat up for the challenge?

Sausages and meats cooking makes you hungry and yes we enjoyed. The kids couldn’t get enough sausages.

European toy stores are so much more interesting than toys at big box places.

Puppets are huge in Prague

Good King Wenceslas’ memorial

Lots of walking

A building is a piece of art in Europe.