Ice Cream street market! It’s cold enough in Northern China to have you ice cream just laying out 😂❄☃️
Tag Archives: travelling
What’s your go to snack?
9 Oct#Chinese c-store treats include corn on the cob and tea soaked duck eggs. 😃 It’s funny to me how concepts of what constitutes a ‘treat’ changes culture to culture.
WHAT’S YOUR GO TO C-STORE SNACK?
Car Games for Children
7 DecI’m always surprised at the number of people who didn’t play the Alphabet game as children. We always started at least one round while on long trips in the car.
Alphabet Car Game
Tell the kids to watch out for billboards, signs, anything with letters on it – if it has letters, it’s fair game. Then the whole family watches out for the letters of the alphabet, one after another. No two letters from the same sign, and it doesn’t count if you find a letter out of order! So if that Q came while you were looking for C, you’re just out of luck. 😛
Great game that teaches kids the alphabet in order, helps them practice their letters, and brings awareness to beginning readers of the importance that letters and words play in our lives. Doesn’t hurt that it occupies their time and results in fewer “Are we there yets” too. 🙂
Tread Lightly When You Travel: My Reputation Goes With You
7 Aug
A traditional South Korean Band playing at a Red Cross Conference in
It seems counter-intuitive, but the art of being a good traveler is disappearing nearly as fast as globalization increases. Having extensively traveled abroad in recent years, I can safely say that I no long wonder why tourists often rank amongst the most disliked people in the world. But it isn’t just the tourists; it’s the students, the businessmen, the soldiers, and the politicians. There is something about going abroad that causes many people to leave behind all the manners and rules of civilized behavior they would normally adopt at home. And we get it, it’s nice to just abandon all your reservations and let loose once in a while. But people forget that they aren’t just representing themselves abroad; they are representing their entire nation and culture. Even if nothing they do ever comes back to their families, the locals will remember “that idiot from ***** country”. And when the locals have to watch over and over while the travelers repeat the same ignorant, reckless behavior, it becomes a stereotype applied to all traveler’s from that background.
“Oh, stop being such a sourpuss!,” the excuses run. “We’re just having fun.” “We’re paying good money to be here.” “Who cares what they think?” Well, serious travelers care, for one. I personally am sick and tired of being brushed with the “stupid, rude, careless, obnoxious, disrespectful, American tourist” stamp. Over and over, I enter a new country only to find that the travelers before me were wildly and Continue reading
Traveler’s Lodestone
13 AprHello one and all! I am proud to announce that I have officially co-authored a series of three books.
We drew on the idea that people frequently working with different foreign languages (whether talking to ESL speakers at home or when traveling abroad) need some kind of universal guide.
Since I work with a lot of people who don’t necessary speak English (or at least not terribly well), I have frequently found myself needing a quick translator. While I’ve spent time studying Spanish, Arabic, etc., I’m not fluent in every language that’s out there. And no one else is either. So these books are meant to carry you through those times. The times when you are headed to France (where you can know the language), but you have to buy batteries in Germany on the way. Or where you meet up with that nice Vietnamese mother at the office and you want to ask her for her phone number. Or where you know some basic elements of the language, but it isn’t enough to spend an entire summer living there on.
Since you don’t have the words available, these books allow you to use the power of the picture! If you need the train station, just go to the picture and point to the train. Or, if your son is allergic to pork, but they are offering you Hotdogs, go to that section of th,e book. Perhaps you need a car seat for your baby in that rental car?–go to the picture.
So as to keep the book manageable, we ended up splitting it into 3 sections. Volume 1: Go, See, Do covers the things you need to get you where you want to go: Travel Documentation, Means of Transportation, Hotel words, Restaurant words, Bathroom words, etc. Volume 2: Needs Must covers the things you will have to have for critical information: Emergency terms (hospital, police station, blood), General Commonalities (colors, weather, numbers), Medical Information, People (baby, student, etc.). Volume 3: Finishing Touches offers the things that you need to make your trip perfect: Recreation, Shopping (grocery, jewelry, clothing, office store), etc.
You can find out more on the book’s Facebook page here. Please pass it on! We’d really appreciate the encouragement!
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
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Traveler’s Loadstone
Language Translation
Deceptively Blonde 