An American Expat in China

I had an itch to travel before our next vacation break.  I decided it would be fun to visit Bangkok for the holiday weekend.  It is my favorite holiday and I could not have found a better way to celebrate.  Our flight was delayed a bit because it was stormy in Hong Kong.  We left April 19th late at night and arrived in Don Mueang airport at around 00:40.  I had arranged a driver but they were nowhere to be found.  After waiting the requisite 20 minutes, and attempting to call the driver and service provider to no avail, we gave up and took a taxi to our hotel.  We stayed in the Urbana Langsuan.  My first mission of the evening was to find a store to score some of the delightful green stuff I came there for.  I took a taxi to the store and had them wait for me while I got what I needed.  We went to bed pretty late but slept soundly.   We woke up late the next day.  It was already afternoon by the time we woke up so we got b...

We went to Tokyo for the Qing Ming break.  It was both of our first times in Japan and it was outstanding.  We landed late on April 4th and used the monorail and metro to get to the Mercure Tokyo Hibiya. While it may have been late neither of us got dinner so we took a short walk to Yakiniku Toraji.  For those who don't know Yakiniku is fresh served raw meat that you cook yourself once it arrives at the table. The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel before checking out and leaving our bags at the front desk while we walked around town. First we went to Hibiya Park and then we took a long walk around the old Imperial Palace and Edo Period Castle Ruins in Chiyoda City Park. The Sakura (cherry blossom) flowers were beautiful.  There were lots of other flowers in bloom as well.  I found a lot of wild Brassica oleracea which is essentially the plant from which broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, gai lan, and collard gre...