As I type this post, I am sitting in a bustling coffee/teahouse.  There are people all around me consuming all types and varieties of colorful beverages.  Outside, window shoppers are meandering along the fairly crowded street, with bikes and mopeds jostling for real estate.  The weather is reasonably nice (we always have gray skies, but today is a brighter, clearer version of gray than usual). I love the hustle and bustle of Asia!

There are times when I struggle with living in Asia.  The cultural stresses, climate challenges, and culinary differences just kind of pile up and weigh me down.  Today is not one of those days.  As a matter of fact, this week has been a kind of personal “Asian renaissance” for me.  I have been all over the city for the past week with visitors from Atlanta.  It has been a time where I have been able to simple enjoy some of the quirky, fun, and different aspects of living in Asia.  Here are a few:

• Big, goofy billboards (and bright, city lights) – Don’t know why, but I love gigantic, even obnoxious, billboards.  Throw in high-rise buildings lined with bright, gaudy lights everywhere, and you have a visual buffet around every corner.  This is the case with most sections of this city.  Definitely one of the distinctive characteristics of cities in Asia and it is a fun aspect which I like.
• Lack of a fashion standard – We in America tend to care much about outward [Read more…]

Last night, I had dinner with a group that was visiting my city from Atlanta. Though I only passingly knew two of them prior to this week, I had a great time with the entire group. As always, it is fun to see Asia through the eyes of those who visit here for the first time.

We had a meal, I showed them around some of the city, helped communicate with their hotel regarding their check out plans this morning, bid them farewell, and then drove back to my apartment 45 minutes away.

On the drive back, things seemed to be in slow motion as I thought about and processed my life here. I live in a massive Asian mega-city. There are more than 2,000 buildings over 20 stories high. I can’t even imagine how many buildings over 5 stories high there are here.

As I drove, it hit me that I had been driving all day in this city (which dwarfs New York in many ways) and I had not looked at a map all day. Not once.

Bottom line. . . I have been here a long, long time. This morning, [Read more…]

It is Sunday and the sun is shining.  THE SUN IS SHINING! I hate when people complain about living over here, I really do.  However, I am about to do just that for a bit.  The sun rarely shines here.  We often go 20-30 days between sightings of our big burning friend in the sky.  There are a lot of theories as to why this is the case. . . cloud cover from the mountains, pollution, even the outlandish one that the people running the country in from the capital controls the weather and doesn’t like this city.  As for me, I have no idea.  I just no know that we RARELY have days like this.

In light of the unusual sighting of, um well, light, I thought I would tell of two other “different” things that I/we have noticed here the past few weeks.

The first one was at the airport a few weeks ago while picking up our friends, the Littlepages.  Ever wonder what the airport does with the lighters they confiscate from people whom futilely try to take them onto planes?  Well, here they simply place them in a container where arriving passengers exit the airport.  You can fill your pockets with free lighters if you like.  I guess if you MUST have a quick smoke from your air travel, this is great!

I don’t know why this struck me as so funny, but it did.  It is actually a fairly stand up thing to do.  However, in a world where smokers are increasingly ostracized and marginalized, here they are still encouraged in many, many ways, like free lighters at the airport.  As I type this, I am in one of the only “non-smoking” coffee houses in this area.  There are signs [Read more…]