Where We’ve Been

China: Shanghai 3 days, Hong Kong 3 days, Yangshuo 2 days, Shenzhen 24 days

Highlights

World Cup, 世界杯: Finally, a sporting event the whole world agrees on. We enjoy immersing ourselves into the massive event that is the World Cup, and this year is no different. With friends from countries spanning the globe, it’s a rare night that there isn’t a party in a restaurant or bar to watch the Danes finally make it out of their group, or watch Iceland tie perennial favorite Argentina. The World Cup unites people like few other events do, and we’re happy to report that Shenzhen embraces the month of football wholeheartedly. Every restaurant with a TV becomes a defacto viewing area, plastic flags of the competing teams litter balconies and ceilings all over town. It’s a huge party and we’re all invited. The 10pm and 2am start times is less than ideal, but hey, it happens only once every four years.

Becoming Chinese: This month we found and shopped at our neighborhood wet market. And we visited a proper Chinese spa. On the scale of ‘Chinese things we’ve been hesitant about doing,’ buying food from shouting old women and getting massages in one of the biggest spas in the region have topped the list. There are just some things that take a little psyching up to accomplish. Or, if you’re like us, a full year of living in China. This month, armed with just enough language to be dangerous, we deftly navigated the wet market, tasting and buying veggies, wontons and rice noodles. At the spa, we had a couples massage and had an actual conversation with our masseuses about the size of American butts…in Chinese, of course. We’re making progress.

Lowlights

Typhoon Season: It’s back. Our first typhoon hit on the 7th of June, and now we’re in for months of severe storms, storm warnings and a city-wide text message system that mostly freaks us out beyond realistic levels. I think it’s just the word ‘typhoon’ that strikes fear into our hearts. They are really not that bad, plus this year we’re prepared with plenty of plastic shoes for wading through fast moving street water.

American Movie Blackout: It’s harsh to label the tight restrictions of American films in China an embargo, but I struggle to think of another word. Hollywood relies heavily on the Chinese audience for the success of many movies, and usually, there is about one film a week released in China from US film companies. Because we live across the street from a huge theatre, we see almost all of them. But in the summer the dribble of American movies slows to a trickle. This allows for Chinese blockbusters to have their chance with audiences, but it’s hard for us to face down a full month with no new movies and only this one on the horizon in a few weeks.

What We’re Loving Lately

Books: We’re halfway through the year, and I’ve been reading a ton so far in 2018. Here are a bunch of books I’ve loved: The Last Mrs. Parrish, The Rules Do Not Apply, Love Warrior, Little Soldiers, and Educated. Honorable mentions to: This is How it Always Is, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and The Versions of Us. I’m also this close to finishing the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude, and wow, it’s blowing my mind (in a good way).

Coming Up in July

We’re kicking off July with a long weekend in Yangshuo, a *small* city of 300,000 in Guanxi province. I’m writing this from our hotel room, in fact, and we just can’t say enough about the crazy landscape in this area. We also did a project with the Alila Yangshuo, which was just the push we needed to come to the area. We’re already plotting our return. (More to come on this, we’ve got tons of photos and film and all the rest, just sorting through it now!)

For the rest of the month, we think we’ll be hanging out in China. Maybe a weekend in Hong Kong, more World Cup, more typhoons, more visits to the wet market. The dog days of summer are upon us so we’re laying low. Hope the summer is treating you well where you are. Cheers!