Hello 2019!
Dear 2019,
We’re a week late with a little howdy to our internet friends, but we’ve been hunkered down with family and are just now coming up for air. My UV-protecting glasses designed for digital screen wear that I got for Christmas (Drew rolls his eyes) are on which means I’m serious and ready to work. And I’m dressed in actual clothes before noon. You’re welcome.
Last year around this time I regaled you with a month-by-month breakdown of 2017, its highs and lows and all the in-betweens. It’s here if you care to take a look. This year, I’m not really in the mood for that kind of calendar excavation, so instead, I wanted to share some of our favorite DOTL photos from the year and down below, some of the things we’ve got planned for 2019.
2018 in Photos
Cocktails in tropical locations are always a good idea. This one was in Bali, watching the sunset in Canggu. This trip was a bit rough for me, since I sprained my ankle pretty badly which required us to alter our plans a bit, plus I wrapped up our time in Bali with some food poisoning. But hey, the cocktails were tasty!
Camping on the beach in the Philippines was so memorable and fun. Toby and Thelma’s Camping in Palawan was one of our top travel highlights of the year. It was perfect stretch of remote beach that we shared with a handful of other guests and we never more than a few feet from this view, whether we were eating, drinking, or sleeping. It had some of the most beautiful water we’ve experienced, and the unique accommodations made it feel all that more special.
Our favorite spicy wonton dish from Din Tai Fung. Everyone talks endlessly about the soup dumplings (xiaolongbao) from Din Tai Fung, but we love the spicy wontons even more. We ordered this a bunch in 2018 and it made our list of best meals of the year!
The Great Wall 长城. Little known fact: the top of the Great Wall is not flat. The three hour hike from Simatai West to Jinshanling with Great Wall Hiking was full of stairs and steep ascents. It was beautiful AND a good way to burn off all of the Peking ducks we ate.
Brunch in Maine, at our favorite breakfast place, Hot Suppa. We try to visit Maine once a year and breakfast at this spot is a top priority, along with trying the newest and best restaurants in a town overflowing with good food.
Our favorite hotel experience of 2018 was the Alila Yangshuo. A funky, modern facility that was converted from a sugar mill and is surrounded by the jagged karst mountains of Yangshuo. Or maybe it was because of this pool?
My favorite photo of Drew of the year from a dinner in Galway during our Irish road trip. It looks like he really loves the person who took the photo, right? That would be me.
A partial family photo from my sister’s post-wedding brunch. Missing a few members, but a fun afternoon of too many cocktails and plenty of laughs.
A funny moment captured by Drew when a very aggressive monkey tried to get in my bag. The monkeys at the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur are notorious for being a bit grabby, especially with any food. Thankfully, I didn’t pack any snacks, so the monkey left me alone. However, a few minutes after this photo was taken, we witnessed a monkey steal a whole bag of candy from a baby. Insert joke here.
2018 was a busy year with a lot of change. We moved to Shanghai and I took a new role in my company. Drew got involved with two non-profit roles, first in Shenzhen and now in Shanghai. We gradually found our footing in China, became comfortable(-ish?) with Mandarin, and have worked really hard to settle into life here. Tennis meet ups, dinner groups, book clubs. It feels less and less foreign than it did in January 2018.
So, what’s on the docket for 2019?
My powers of future telling are terrible if the past few years are any indication, but let the record show that we plan on staying in Shanghai this year. We’re both happy with our professional work, and we’re diligently building friendships and a community in a new city.
We will visit at least a few new countries this year (Laos and South Korea are already planned) and are on the lookout for new and exciting places to explore. We are looking forward to welcoming another new niece or nephew to the family this spring, which means another visit home. Perhaps that will morph into an extended US road trip…who knows.
This little corner of the internet continues to be a source of pleasure for us (most of the time, save for that nasty hack that we had to deal with a few months ago!), and it’s a great place for us to document our life abroad. It’s like the photo album of the future or something. Anyway, Drive on the Left is staying put. Long gone are the days when we stick to a strict uploading schedule, so you’ll see things flow naturally here when we feel like it, basically. In the next week I’ll finally post about my amazing trip to India last month, and at the end of the month we’ll be on another tropical holiday because Chinese New Year is right around the corner.
