Expat Richie

Coron is a beautiful place with lots of water, tree covered hills, and very friendly people. Scuba diving is the main reason for tourists to go there as there’s not much of a beach scene to be had, at least not in the downtown proper; you could take a boat ride out to some secluded beaches if so desired.

The town is rustic quaint. Don’t expect much in the way of luxury but do expect friendly and fantastic hospitality. The food, whether it was western dishes or local Filipino fare was beyond comparison and tasted extremely fresh.

Getting around Coron is easy: Just flag down a “tricycle” (a motorcycle with a seating contraption built on to it to carry passengers) and pay 15 Pisos (just under $0.30 USD) to go anywhere. (Technically you pay when you get off so do verify when you get on the cost for the trip.) The one bad thing about the tricycle is that they do let out a lot of fumes, so during rush hour the cramped streets are not so lung-friendly to be on.

Coron became a diving destination for a number of reasons. Chiefly the warm water and sunken ships from the WWII era makes for a great combination. My friends and I booked a boat, dive instructors (for those in our group like me who never went diving before), and dive guides through Fun & Sun Dive & Travel. What a fantastic outfit that place is! Bea was our first time dive instructor and taught three n00bs how to do everything safely and in a manner which I’m unlikely to forget. If you’ve never been diving before and want to try, book some time with her!

I was able to get two dives under my belt the first day and sadly none for the second. But I did enjoy a lot of time swimming and relaxing in the sunshine, breathing clean air. CLEAN AIR! Such a treat from what I’m now used to in China.

We stayed at the Two Seasons Resort, affectionately referred to by the staff as the younger brother of the Four Seasons, was a very nice place. It featured an infinity swimming pool overlooking the water, a nice restaurant where breakfast was provided free everyday, well appointed guest rooms, and extremely friendly staff who spoke both official languages of the Philippines: Tagalog and English. The hotel also provides transportation to and from the airport (at a small cost), which is a nice touch. Best yet, as my flight leaving USU at 8:15am and the restaurant would not be open for breakfast before I had to depart for the airport, they provided a “packed breakfast” of my choosing! Omlettes, pancakes, waffles, some Filipino food, or a fruit platter were all options along with coffee, tea, and fruit juices. Very nice touch!

In short I would definitely come back to Coron for another diving trip, but likely not until I’m dive certified as it will mean I can go deeper in the water, for longer periods of time, and get to see more of the interesting sunken ships, coral reefs, and sea creatures. However, if I head back to the Philippines for another small holiday, I think it’ll be to Cebu as apparently one can go swimming with the gentle giants of the sea — the whale sharks!

The high-speed trains in China are amazing for how many kilometers they cover (25,000km or 16,000mi), how often they run, how fast they travel (300kmph, 185mph), and how inexpensive they are to take (Suzhou to Shanghai is 100km/60mi apart and cost is just under $7).

Unlike the JR lines in Japan, which will apologize profusely if a train leaves a station 20 seconds early, the China ones don’t really seem to care about being punctual. Sure, most the time you’ll leave the station near/at the posted time of departure but lately, two out of my last three trips, they’ve been late.

Today my train is late in arriving at my departure station. I found out about the delay while looking at the big departure board in the main hall.

The board has some English on it to tell you the departure gate (technically 检票口, or “ticket check entrance”) and departure time (开点) which is very helpful. However, when your train is delayed the only information provided is in Chinese… And the text scrolls!

Scrolling text is such a bad design in so many ways. It is difficult to read and nearly impossible to translate if the text is in a language you aren’t very familiar with. Heck, the marquee tag was even removed from the HTML standards a number of years ago along with the blink tag.

It took me a while but I was finally able to write out the Chinese characters that were scrolling on the departure board to determine my train was in fact delayed: 晚点12分钟. A twelve minute delay isn’t too bad, but it is annoying when trains depart Suzhou for Shanghai every ten minutes and you just chose wrong!

Have you figured out that encoded blog post title yet? I’m traveling on Cebu Pacific from Manila to Busuanga. New airport and airline codes are fun!

After a good night’s rest it’s time to head to the airport for the next flight. While the hotel was right across the street from the airport — and there’s even a connection bridge — I’d be flying out of T4, aka “the domestic terminal”, and it was suggested to take a taxi to get there.

Generally I don’t like taxis as exact change is required and the ride is usually not as comfortable as other cars. So I fired up the Uber app and was annoyed it kept thinking I was in mainland China where Uber doesn’t work even though the map was clearly showing me being in Manila! Uber, I swear, if you disappoint me again I’m switching to Lyft, and that’s no shallow threat!

The hotel called a car for me and PHP140 later (ummm … Less than $3USD I think) I was at the airport terminal 4.

T4 is the domestic terminal and is *very* packed full of passengers, so if you ever have the pleasure of flying through MNL and using this terminal do keep your level of patience up high.

Entering the airport there was a security checkpoint — for the car! A bit weird, but I get it. There was also the Chinese-style pre-ticket counter x-ray and metal detector screening, but this time with sperate lines for males and females. Crazy! Maybe it’s the Muslim community influence here? I don’t know.

Cebu Pacific had only a baggage drop area and a self check-in kiosk, no actual ticketing agents from what I could tell. Since I needed a boarding pass I used the kiosk and printed my boarding pass then proceeded to drop my bag off. I only have a carry-on bag with me but knowing this was a small plane (ATR 72-500/600; yep dual-turbo prop plane) I paid in advance for my bag to be checked.

Richie’s Travel Tip of the Day #4: Check with your airline about checked baggage fees well before you arrive at the airport as it may cost you a lot more to pay the day of your flight than it would if you paid in advance.

Richie’s Travel Tip of the Day #5: When flying on a new airline always download their app and join their frequent flyer program (if it’s free). The app is important for checking in for your flight, ensuring it’s till on-time, and keeping your travel arrangements easily organized. And you never know when you’ll be flying that airline again, so why not earning some miles!

Next it was time to go through security and make my way to the waiting area. Oh yeah, another round of x-rays and metal detection with separate lines for guys and gals.

The waiting area is a zoo. Tons of people waiting for flights, a few small food shops and shopping options, and lots of children. It felt like a Greyhound bus station. The saddest part of all, there was not airport club lounge to use! I’m not sure which rung of Dante’s Inferno this place belongs, but it’s surely on the list!

All kidding aside the terminal was functional, mostly clean, and served it’s purpose well. After an hour of so of waiting it was time to board. From the rear of the plane!

I’ve only boarded from the rear of a plane a handful of times and it’s always an experience. This was the first time I saw cargo being loaded into the front of the plane.

The flight to Busuanga was a mostly smooth one and short, which is good because I didn’t exactly fit within the given space between my seat and the one in front of me. The nice gentleman sitting in seat 6C enjoyed a free hour-long kidney massage, compliments of my knees.

The Busuanga airport is anything but large, to the the least.

It seems only two airlines fly there, Cebu Pacific and Philippines Airlines, and it’s all turbo prop service. Don’t expect a baggage claim belt; bags are driven from the plane and places on a counter! It’s a pretty smooth operation.

The resort where my friends and I are staying, the Two Seasons resort, is a good 45 minute drive from the airport through beauiful and lush countryside. There’s basically one road to Coron from the airport and once you get to the downtown area it’s very packed with motorbikes, tuktuk type cabs, and a few cars.

The resort seems pretty nice so far, even if it’s a bit rainy/drizzly today!

Today I’m taking my first real trip within Asia since moving to China a year ago. Previously my trips were short weekend/evening adventures in Shanghai or work-related outings. This one is different as it’s all personal and leisure oriented!

This posts is titled appropriately as I’ll be flying out of a new airport (SHA/Shanghai Hongqiao), flying a new airline (Cathay Pacific), sitting on two new plane types (A330, A350), and entering a new country (the Philippines), not to mention this will be my first trip to Manila. Manila will be a short stay as tomorrow morning I’m hopping on another new airline for me (Cebu Pacific) to fly into another new airport (USU/Busuanga) on the way to the final destination: Coron.

Coron will be a few days spent snorkeling, diving, and enjoying some beautiful beaches and – most likely – cleaner air than what I get at home in Suzhou. I’ll post some pictures over the next coming few weeks.

The rest of this post is going to focus on getting to Manila, so if you don’t like reading about China/Asian travel adventures, no need to read any further and check back in a few days for my thoughts on the Philippines!

As I’m meeting some friends from the USA on this trip, booking airfare was a bit tricky as I wanted to arrive around the same time they did. Since I’m a status flyer on United Airlines (1K this year!) I first looked at Star Alliance partners to get me there. Choices were plentiful but only one airline (Taiwan-based EVA Air) had reasonable flight times with minimal connections but was quite pricey. ANA and Asiana wanted to route me through Osaka and Seoul, respectively, which just seemed way out of the way. Likewise Singapore Airlines wanted to route me through Singapore, which just seemed a bit crazy. After doing some searching, my choices came down to Cathay Pacific, Cebu Pacific, and Philippines Airlines. Having heard some great stuff about Cathay and not wanting to trek all the way across Shanghai to get to Pudong where Cebu Pacific flies from, I opted for a non-direct flight on Cathay out of Hongqiao. Why Hongqiao? Easy: it’s a 25 minute high-speed train ride to the airport, more or less. That’s much better than the four hours it takes to from Suzhou to Pudong airport via public transportation and much less costly than the 400rmb a private driver would charge. So Cathay and Hongqiao it is!

Being a Wednesday morning I figured the Suzhou rail station wouldn’t be too busy so I took my time getting ready and felt like I got to the subway station a bit late. It’s easy taking the subway in Suzhou to either the main Suzhou Station or the Suzhou North Station; the Suzhou Industrial Park station is accessible currently by bus and in a few more years it’ll be connected to the subway system. After exiting the subway and walking towards the South entrance where the ticket lines are usually short, my blood pressure went up when I saw the line to get train tickets was about 30 people deep for all the windows. At this point my train was departing in 30 minutes. Ugggh. (Foreigners can book train tickets in advance but need to pick them up from a ticketing agent at the station or an authorized ticket seller. Booking tickets in advance is easy through Trip.com or WeChat.)

With 7 minutes to spare I had my ticket in hand and now it was time to run to the security checkpoint, which fortunately was not backed up more than a couple of people. With 5 minutes to spare, I was inside the rail station and running to my boarding gate. Now really, do you think I’d be writing the calmly if I missed the train? Yep, I didn’t think so either. And if I did miss it, there are trains leaving every 10 minutes to get to Hongqiao so I wasn’t worried that much. But if I did miss it, I’d not likely be able to share with you what a business class seat on one of the trains looks like!

The seat is adequately comfortable in terms of padding but definitely generous with legroom and privacy. With only six seats in this portion of the train and it being located at the front it felt very similar to being in the nose of a 747 or even the upstairs cabin of that plane. The only difference is that apart from a box of prepackaged cookies and some weird lemonade like drink there was no service to speak of – not that I was expecting any service! The business class seat does recline into a nice flatbed position so it could be ideal for taking long trips or even overnight ones, but it’ll likely cost a small fortune. For example, this trip cost 120rmb if I remember correctly, the same price as dinner and a beer at any of the expat restaurants in Suzhou.

Anyway, enough about that seat. The ride was comfortable and since we had a stop in Kunshan South, we never quite made it up to the top speed of 300km/hr. So sad!

Arriving at the Hongqiao rail station I easily found my way walking towards the airport. As there were signs pointing to Terminal 2 I followed them thinking I could walk from there to Terminal 1; no dice! There wasn’t really an airport map and both Google Maps and Baidu Maps were of no help. I found a nice lady at an information booth and asked her “Terminal 1?” to which she replied with only a quizzical look. Could this be the first time in China someone actually expected me to speak Chinese?! Alas, no. Her pause and interestingly furrowed brow was for trying to remember the English word for 地铁: subway, which is one of the words I understand! 我知道地铁！ I thanked her and made my way towards Shanghai Subway Line 10.

Richie’s Travel Tip of the Day #1: Always check which terminal you’re flying out of ahead of time if departing from Shanghai Hongqiao. If it’s T2, you can walk from the rail station no problem. If it’s T1, best hop on the subway at the first possible location. T2 is also accessible via subway if you’re not inclined to burning off a few calories.

T1 is only one stop away so I didn’t lose much time. And fortunately I always have my Shanghai Metro card on me so I didn’t need to queue up and buy a ticket.

Richie’s Travel Tip of the Day #2: Always buy a refillable metro card (for the subway or bus) for various cities when you visit them. You never know when you’ll be back for a visit and why would you want to wait in lines to buy tickets or even carry exact change?! Also keep those cards in a travel wallet. You do have one of those, right? You know, the kind that holds your passport, airline loyalty cards and drink certificates, emergency phone numbers, and city subway cards.

When arriving at the T1 subway stop I quickly learned that Exit #1 is also the exit for accessing T1. Finally, someone was thinking ahead! It also became obvious that T1 is in need of a good modernization upgrade as it felt built and stuck in the 1980s, at least the pre-security section felt that way.

When using airports in China it’s always weird for how many security lines you go through. Even before getting to the check-in counter your bags are x-rayed and sometimes swabbed for various chemicals. At this checkpoint you also get to go through a metal detector. After checking your bags and obtaining your boarding pass you pass through a health/quarantine checkpoint, customs checkpoint, immigration control, and finally another round of bag x-raying and metal detector. Oh, have I forgotten to mention how you’ll get wanded and patted down even if you don’t set off any of the metal detectors? More frequently than not the person who’s wanding and patting you down gets a bit too friendly and personal. It’s one of my favorite parts of the journey! **Eyes rolling**

One really nice thing about the airport security at Hongqiao T1 is the VERY short line I encountered for the immigration processing. There were maybe 5 people ahead of me. I was able to breeze on through in just about 5 minutes. There is E-Channel available but as I just got me resident permit renewed I need to sign up for it again next time I land at Pudong – which will be this coming Sunday.

Before talking about more of my airport experience, I do have to say how nice it was to be handed a paper boarding pass printed on heavy card stock and be given a jacket for the tickets! I’ve not seen those in at least 8 years. The ticket jacket I was handed has on the inside instructions for transiting once landing at Hong Kong International Airport, which I felt was a really nice touch. Well done, Cathay, well done indeed!

With about an hour to spare I made my way to a rather unforgettable business class lounge to grab a bite to eat before boarding. So far my experiences in China with airport lounges is rather … forgettable. There are usually hot and cold dishes available, but everything seems to be the same shade of beige or brown, is heavy on the oily sauces, and generally not terribly tasty. Oh well, it was free so I’m not going to complain *too* much.

I left the lounge a bit early to go and explore T1 a bit, but there wasn’t much to see. Taking a few laps around the terminal hall, I found a seat to sit in for a few minutes before it was time to board.

This being my first flight on Cathay Pacific I wanted to sit in business class to experience the airline at it’s best, and Cathay did not disappoint! My first flight was on an A330 “Cathay Dragon” which, I guess, is a bit of a low-cost airline connected with the main Cathay Pacific airline. But trust me, there was nothing low-cost about this flight! From the cozy angle-flat seat to the full meal service (appetizer, main dish, dessert) to the Tattinger champagne that was served, I was quite happy! Oh, and the flight was just over two hours in length to Hong Kong where I had a connection.

I’ve been to the new Hong Kong airport once before and sad that I never made it to the old airport before it closed in 1994. Why’s that? Well, let’s just say the old airport made for some interesting landings!

The last time I was in the Hong Kong airport it was on a trip from the USA to Singapore. That time I was flying United and quite enjoyed their airport lounge. This time I opted to use one of Cathay’s Lounges called The Pier. Ho-lee-cow was that place nice! Apart from the main food hall there was a barista making espresso drinks, a noodle shop, a tea house, lots of seating everywhere, a full bar, and even showers if needed. This place was huge, well decorated, and definitely lived up to it’s reputation as one of the best airport lounges around. I only had time for a glass of champagne (Mumm this time) and a small helping of Thai green curry chicken before it was time to board my next flight. Next time I find myself in this lounge I’m hitting up that noodle shop! Sadly I didn’t take any pictures, but will try and remember for my connection on the way home.

With my next flight boarding soon I headed out of the lounge and to the gate. Sitting outside was an A350-900, a new-ish plane from AirBus. Never been on this one before so I was excited to try it out. My seat, 16K, was in business class and it was a bit of overkill for a two hour flight, being a completely lay-flat seat and all – but I didn’t mind!

One really neat thing about this plane is that it has two live cameras you can watch throughout the flight, one is on the bottom of the plane and the other on the top.

The service and food we’re top-notch as now expected from Cathay so I won’t bore you with any write-ups about it. And with the quick hop from HKG to MNL we we’re landing before I knew it.

I’ve heard the MNL airport is a zoo, but I didn’t have that experience at all. Disembarking the plane and entering the immigration hall was a breeze, especially as Cathay’s flight attendants held back the economy passengers until the business class ones were off the plane and no one was in the queue to get passports stamped.

On my way to the Hongqiao airport I realized I never checked to see if I needed a travel visa for the Philippines and started to freak out a bit. Fortunately after a quick search online I learned I don’t need one in advance thanks to my citizenship.

Richie’s Travel Tip of the Day #3: Always check visa requirements for your travel when booking your plane or sea travel fares. Even better, do it in advance in case you actually need one!

Now that I’m through customs and immigration, it’s time to head to the hotel, meet my friends, and get some sleep as tomorrow starts another day of firsts as I’m flying on Cebu Pacific to get from MNL to USU (Busuanga) and then hop in a car to my final destination of Coron. And don’t worry, I’m not even attempting to drive here! The drivers are just as crazy as the mainland Chinese drivers I’m used to!

Today marks the one-year mark for arriving in China. Time does really fly by quickly; it does not seem like a year has past at all.

How has the year gone for me? Maybe the best way to describe that is to provide some lists on various topics. So here we go!

What’s good about living in China?

• Most everything is cheap! Take the cost of what something might cost in the USA and it’ll be just about 10% of that price here in China. There are some exceptions (especially clothing and wine/spirits) that do not apply, but paying $10 / month for my cell phone bill or $21 / month for unlimited at-home 1GB download speed internet is pretty amazing. Oh yeah, my bus fare to work amounts to $0.62 / day where as in San Francisco it was $2.75 each way!
• Manual labor is very cheap and very plentiful! I guess when you’re a country of 1.4 billion people, there are lots of folks around to do various jobs and usually for not a huge paycheck. My Ayi (cleaning lady) comes once a week to keep my place looking good and iron my clothes for the equivalent of $15.50 a week / $62 a month; taxi rides around the city are usually $3, unless you use Didi (the Chinese version of Uber) and then it’ll be $2, unless you use the “Black Car” version of Didi and then it’ll be $5; sidewalks are swept daily, handrails are cleaned multiple times a day, and public transportation (bus, subway) run very often throughout most of the day (but mostly not between 11pm-6am…).
• The high-speed rail system is amazing! Once at the train station, it takes about 25 minutes for me to get into the heart of Shanghai at the cost of $12.20 round-trip! If I don’t want to fly to Beijing, I could hop on the train and be there 5.5 hours later for $86 each way. Trains run north-south, east-west, and all over. There are even overnight trains with sleeper beds! And the best part of all: With trains running along the major corridors (Beijing-Shanghai; Shanghai-Shenzhen/Guangzhou, etc.) multiple times an hour, you never need to book your trips more than an hour or so in advance – unless it’s during the major holidays.
• China is very safe! Compared to where I last lived (San Francisco), Suzhou and Shanghai (where I’ve spent the most amount of time) are basically a garden of Eden before the forbidden apple was eaten: There is no trash on the streets, no public display of drug use, no graffiti, no cars with broken windows from smash and grabs, no muggings, no [reported] murders, and very few homeless people or those begging for money/panhandling. Neither I nor my friends (male and females alike) worry about getting home from a night out; leaving a bar at 9pm is just as safe as leaving one at 2am or later! You won’t be bothered one bit, even if walking alone.
• Paying for things is as simple as loading an app on your phone! WeChat and AliPay are the main ways you pay for anything in China. This could be your bill after a good dinner, sending money to your Ayi for that week’s cleaning, buying plane tickets via Trip.com, and even your bus or subway fare (though I still prefer a physical card for that last bit). China does not really have a long history with revolving credit (credit cards) so everything is done through WeChat or AliPay and hooked directly up to your bank account. While this is super convenient it does stink if you’re into collecting points via credit card charges. Sigh. That first class trip to Bali will have to wait a bit longer!

What are things I wish were better about China?

• The air quality. Lately I’ve been obsessed with measuring the quality of the air in my apartment and checking the reported values from the outdoor monitoring areas. I even bought an air purifier for my apartment which is working like a charm. A lot of times I want to leave work and go for a jog but those planes are stymied because the air is that bad. With the pm2.5 and pm10 particles suspended in the air coupled with the high levels of humidity (usually over 70%!) there is not much sunshine that makes it through to the ground. The best way to describe things is that lovely overcast grey sky of Seattle but without the drizzle. When the sun does come out, you feel totally rejuvenated.
• There is no real “beach scene” or “boating”. No one – at least that I’ve met so far – goes to the lake(s) to go swim when the weather gets really hot. And ooooh boy can it get hot here. Remember the posts from last summer when we had over two weeks of temperatures above 40C/104F? A lot of this past spring we’ve been above 26C/79F, with about half those days going above 30C/86F, and about 10 days above 35C/95F! Lots of multiple shower days were had and will be had in the future. Summers are long without swimming or going on a boat!
• Moving money out of the country. There is no easy and cheap way to do this, plain and simple. You either spend a long time at the bank filling out paperwork and having them review your tax certificates (you can’t launder money here, got to pay your income tax!) before you can wire money outside the country or you use PayPal and pay a 4-5% fee. Ugggh. I really wish the government restrictions here were much less stringent.
• While English is much more prominent here than you’d expect, it’s usually not enough for a non-fluent Chinese speaker to easily get by all the time. From trying to buzz your friends into your apartment via the intercom system, to figuring out how to control your HVAC system, to asking for directions or telling the taxi driver where to go, to wanting to know if certain meals have specific ingredients in them … it’s just not easy. I get it, I’m living in a land with a very different official language than what I grew up with and I’m not suggesting that changes, but rather I’m just making a statement! And yes, my Chinese is MUCH better than when I arrived but still has a long way to go before functional proficiency or fluency are had.
• Watching American sports is not easy. Yes, you can find them online or – if you’re lucky – at a sports bar being shown live, but because China is GMT +8 and the USA is GMT -5/-8 (-4/-7 during DST), it’s just tough. Most of the time when you are at home from work or out at a bar on the weekend you’ll see Australian sports (rugby, Aussie rules football, cricket) or, if you’re lucky, football (soccer) from Europe! When your home team affiliation is in the USA, it’s just hard to win here. Yes, you can record things and watch them later (if available online), but that takes some of the fun away from it. Also, it seems the national sport of choice here in China is table tennis. Sigh. I wish they could at least embrace baseball!
• Conference call times for work. Yep, most days out of the week my work day begins wearing PJs and a steaming cup of tea or coffee at 7am, sometimes 6am, as conference calls with headquarters in Redmond have to happen.  On rare occasions I even have a 7am Saturday call. Ugggh. Those are rare, but unfortunately not as rare as a rainbow unicorn running through a grassy meadow.

With 365 days under my belt here in the Middle Kingdom (中国) and both my work permit and resident permits being renewed, it’s likely a post from Day 730 will be drafted at some point in the future. Until then, thanks for reading!

And if you’re reading this, happy birthday dad!

Editor’s note: Before diving into today’s blog post, do remember to click the various links as they will provide more definition to some of the terms and conditions discussed in this post!

When I first got to China I was a bit obsessed about checking the air quality. You hear stories all the time about how bad the pollution is here and that no one leaves their houses without wearing a mask. To be honest, the air hasn’t been visibly that bad most of the days. Sure, there’s been a few days where I could not see the building across the street from me, but that was likely due to a combination of both the pollution and the fog. Seeing as there’s a lot of water (lakes, canals, rivers) that run through and around Suzhou, there is a great chance for advection fog forming, especially overnight. Between the fog and the particulate matter (pollution) being suspended in the air, visibility drops considerably.

I used to use a site called pm25s.com to check the air quality. This site provided accurate data using the Chinese method for determining air quality. That method is very different than the USA method, especially for values under 150. The 150 level is important as it is the cutover from “lightly polluted” to “unhealthy”. Generally I try and avoid the “unhealthy” air as much as possible, but you do need to go outside at times and there’s no getting around it, unless you wear a mask and then that only provides some relief.

Looking at the map of Suzhou to see where the air quality monitors are located, I noticed there’s a big hole over my part of the city with no coverage at all.

Without a scale on the map show indicate distance, it’s difficult to know how far away those air quality monitoring stations are. As a point of reference, if I go for a jog from my apartment across the lake just to the east of me (金鸡湖/Jinji Lake), that distance is about 3km (1.85mi). That means the closest air quality monitors are easily 6km (3.7mi) away, which is far enough to not be as accurate as one would like.

This lack of local monitoring made me a bit suspicious as to the exact quality of the air I was breathing. So what did I do? Yup, you guessed it: I bought a home air quality monitor. Not just any air quality monitor, but one that is connected to the web (the phrase IoT or “Internet of Things” comes to mind) so I can monitor the air quality inside my apartment any time and see some historical data on it as well. The company that produces the air quality monitor I purchased, Air Visual, has some pretty neat maps and education resources on their website to help you understand exactly what the various levels of particulate matters are and what exactly contributes to poor air quality. They even have an app that you can add to your mobile phone so you can track the air quality where ever you might be. (It uses existing outdoor air quality monitors and GPS to determine which data to show you.)

After using the air quality monitor for about three weeks now, there’s definitely one trend that is clearly visible — and it’s a trend that I do not like: the number of days when the air inside my apartment is in the “Excellent” category (depicted by green bars on the graph below) are far too few.

So what is a 老外 (foreigner) in China to do? Go buy a home air purifier, of course! There is no shortage of these, as you can imagine, but there is a drastic shortage of air purifiers that have English instructions, which means I’m buying a Chinese model. There is also an amazing price differential between going to a physical store to make this purchase (CNY3000-6000) and buying one online (CNY1000-1600). And that is for the exact same model!

This evening I decided to make a purchase via baopals, which is the “English wrapper” around the very popular online purchasing portal called taobao. Think of taobao as the Amazon.com of China and baopals as a way to see and interact with the online store in a language you can understand. Yes, using baopals does cost a bit more money — they have to pay for their site and the programmers who run it after all — but it does make things a bit easier to make such large purchases. I bought my air quality monitor from a supplier via baopals and was quite happy with their customer service. (The package was delivered to my apartment building but I received no updated shipping information except that the package made it to Suzhou. So I contacted customer service and they replied rather quickly — and in English! They indicated that my package was delivered to my building and I should go speak to the front desk/concierge. And yes, I live in a fancy dancy apartment with a concierge and a separate doorman; manual labor is cheap in China so why not?!

Once my air purifier arrives and is hooked up, I’ll likely write another post about how much better the air inside my apartment is once the horrible pm2.5 particulate matter are being removed!

But I don’t mean the kind of beautiful bikinis you might imagine women wearing at the beach. Instead, picture a typical Chinese man in his 30s or 40s who might be a bit too warm on a hot, humid day. He likely was doing some form of manual labor, likely for work, and is in search of some heat relief.

Now imagine that man is wearing a dirty wifebeater with the bottom of it pulled up to his chest, exposing his midsection. And yes, you guessed it: the midsection is sporting more than a few extra pounds, or should I saw kilos?

This phenomenon is colloquially known as the Beijing Bikini and doing an internet search for it will produce not only many images (click here for several examples) but also some insightful reasoning as to it’s origins.

With temperatures this week reaching the mid- and upper-30s (think 95F-100F), more and more of this fashion statement can be seen in and around Suzhou and other places within the country. It surely puts one into a mood while commuting to the office!

Personally I’m quite happy for this fashion phenomenon. And why might that be? Well it’s better than the alternative of the gentlemen going full-on shirtless…or worse! (Naked people in San Francisco’s Castro District comes to mind…)

So … apparently there is a bit more to the Qing Ming Festival / 清明节 / Tomb Sweeping Holiday than I previously wrote about. Not surprising as I’m am anything but well versed in Chinese culture. So consider this blog post as an addendum to the previous one!

It seems that, just like most cultures around the world, the Chinese have a traditional food component to some of their holidays. For Qing Ming Festival, that food component is called qing tuan (青团;qīng tuán) and it resembles a green, glutenous ball filled with black or red bean paste.

The kitchens at work today had a number of 青团 available on trays for us to grab and enjoy, and enjoy I did! These beautiful green balls of goodness reminded me of Japanese mochi, though the ones we had today were a bit wet or maybe even oily. (Pete, if you’re reading this, I almost used your favorite word, unctuous, but decided it wasn’t quite fitting as I enjoyed the treat!)

For those of you following along at home who like to cook, there are a number of recipes on the internet for 青团 so go ahead and make a batch or two and drop a comment in the section below to let me know how they came out!

If I’m lucky over the next few days I’ll find some 青团 for sale by street food vendors.

While China has over the past 60 or so years transformed from a largely rural agrarian society into an urban manufacturing powerhouse, the Chinese people still hold on firmly to a number of traditions. One of those traditions, the Qing Ming Fesitval (清明节 / Qīngmíng jié), is a time when families pay respect to their deceased relatives by cleaning up their burial grounds, presenting their deceased loved ones with their favorite foods and drinks, and also burning joss paper (金纸 / Jīn zhǐ) in hopes that the deceased will never go hungry or be without money.

For the foreigners (老外 / Lǎowài) that are living here in China, the holiday can be summarized as public holiday (no work!) nestled within a three day weekend. Depending on which day the Qing Ming Festival falls on (technically the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, so usually  April 4, 5, or 6) that three day weekend might begin on Thursday and extend through Saturday. What that really means is a really short work week (3 days) followed by a long one (6 days, Sunday through Friday). Ugggh. Working on a Sunday, who are these people?!

So what, you might be asking, am I planning on doing during this festival seeing as I don’t have any nearby ancestral tombs to sweep and I’m not really into the other traditional Qing Ming Festival activity of kite flying? I’ll be partaking in another “traditional” activity of my own: playing cards. A friend in Shanghai is hosting a three-day long poker match which should be pretty epic. Here’s hoping that I win some money instead of losing it faster than burning it like it is joss paper!

Ever visit the grocery store and find some weird fruit that you don’t know what it’s called, how to tell if it’s ripe, or what it might taste like? Add those three concerns together without being able to read the label on the shelf and BAM! You get 红肉火龙果 (Hóng ròu huǒlóng guǒ) or Red Dragon Fruit sitting in your shopping cart.

Dragon fruit, also known as pitaya, is the flowering fruit of cacti and originated in the Americas. Why it’s more popular in Asian countries and not in the good ole USA I have no clue, especially since this fruit is delicious, having a water content similar to watermelon, edible black seeds, and just a hint of sweetness. In a blender, this fruit would be a great addition for a smoothy any time day or night.

While I’m not sure how edible the outside skin of the dragon fruit is, cutting the fruit into pieces is easy to do with a sharp knife. Place it on its side and cut off the small “tips”. Cut the large body of the fruit in half and you’ll see the delicious “meat” of the fruit.

Turn those flat ends upside-down and cut each half along the its width producing four equally sized quarters. For each quarter, take the blade of the knife and slide it along the inside of the fruit between the meat and the skin. The blade should move quickly and without resistance through the fruit. Cut the fruit into pieces and enjoy right away or within the next couple of days.

I’ve seen this fruit in almost every grocery store or fruit stand in Suzhou and it seems to be available year round. Next time I’ll be looking for the white variety, which might be called 白肉火龙果(Báiròu huǒlóng guǒ); I’ve eaten it before and it is just a delicious!