The Tilsons

By Kari Ann Despite the tranquil setting at the Park Hyatt, I could not fall asleep.  At 3am, I could not fall asleep and at 5am, I still couldn’t.  So when we got on the plane to head back to Oregon, I was almost positive I wouldn’t be able to follow through with our plan [...]

By Kari Ann Day 8 After a late night out on Thursday, we took the opportunity to sleep in a bit on Friday morning.  We spent some time updating our blog and reading the paper over coffee at our neighborhood Wagas. Lunchtime soon rolled around so we picked Sichuan Citizen off the extensive list of [...]

By Bryan and Kari Ann We’ve come a long way in our short relationship with China. When we arrived, we were rudely greeted by the worst of urbanity: choking smog, swindling citizens and soulless concrete sprawling as far as the eye can see. On top of that, we were unprepared for the mind-numbing scale of [...]

We closed out our trip in Beijing, trudging through the sludge of melting snow to see the Lama Temple and the Temple of Heaven.  We spent the better part of Tuesday afternoon at the Lama Temple watching Buddhist worshippers light incense in order to approach decadent Buddha statues to offer up prayer.  It was an [...]

By Kari Ann & Bryan As time has gone by in Beijing, our experience has gotten better.  I remember reading on a travel blog that you should only attempt 1-2 outings each day in Beijing as it can be overwhelming.  Following that advice has made quite a difference in our experience the last two days.  [...]

By Bryan As Kari Ann said in the last blog, traveling in China has been difficult. It’s never easy to travel in a country where they don’t speak your language, but China is doubly difficult because of the whole tonal language thing (pronouncing the same word slightly differently can lead to a lot of confusion [...]

By Kari Ann We are two days into our visit to Beijing.  There’s no sugar coating this trip – it has not been an easy one.  So far we’ve experienced extreme highs and lows which seems representative of life as a Beijinger. Extreme highs include the tasty street food.  We are quite literally eating our [...]