An American Teacher in Guiyang

I've been pleasantly surprised at just how little I've missed the things I took for granted in California, like decent Mexican food. There's one Mexican restaurant that I know of in downtown Guiyang, but it's not exactly up to the standards I have. They don't have soft tortillas for their tacos and their salsa isn't much better than the generic jars you get in an average supermarket in the US. I've not missed it that much, though. The local food here is outstanding, and I can't think of a bad meal that I've had. There's a tremendous variety of seasoned meat and vegetable dishes, noodle soups, dumplings, and hot pot cuisine. Guizhou cuisine is generally spicy in a flavorful and hot way rather than a painful and punishing one. Anyone who knows me well knows that I love spicy food, so I've felt right at home with the local eats. I still get a craving for tacos every once in a while, though. While I was in Hong Kong, I found a restau...

I've been a bit crap at the regular blogging thing, and I'm going to try to make up for it by posting something every day this week. I took over 1500 photos on my vacation and I've been steadily editing them down to the shots that are worth sharing. I hope to finish chronicling Hong Kong and Singapore this week, and talking more about Seoul on the weekend. Hong Kong isn't just a dense metropolis of skyscrapers and shopping malls. It's an island with some stunningly beautiful mountains, forests and beaches. I saw them on the taxi ride from the airport and whenever I looked over the island from the rooftop of my hotel. I appreciate nature from a distance. I'm a city boy, through and through. I don't feel the kind of pull towards nature that so many of my peers do, so I wasn't planning on spending much time outside of the city. The second day I was there, I met someone who lived near one of the beaches on the southern end of the island. She invited me t...

Yes, I'm cringing as much as you are over the title of this post. In my defense, my hotel was in Gangnam and I spent my first day exploring the area. Gangnam is primarily a business and banking district. There are a number of bars and clubs here too, and plenty of good restaurants but it's not exactly a tourist destination. I stayed at the Newv hotel, and I can definitely recommend it. It's about one block away from a subway station. Seoul's subway network is one of the best in the world, so getting around the city from the hotel is extremely convenient. The hotel's also close to several excellent restaurants and a couple of pubs. Rooms are clean and spacious, staff are helpful, and the dinner buffet is very good. I'm going to steal one of John Scalzi's regular ideas and show you "view from a hotel window:" It's not particularly inspiring, but it's the view I had. There's a lot of public art and sculptures in Seoul. The fir...

Yesterday I got to Changi airport at 0600 for my 0730 flight. I didn't end up on a plane until 2300. Why did I spend the entire day at the airport? It's actually a funny story about a stupid person: me. My original flight plan was Singapore to Ho Chi Minh, then Ho Chi Minh to Seoul. I would get into Seoul in the early evening and have some time to explore the neighborhood before settling in. I failed to check the visa requirements for Vietnam, though. I couldn't get a boarding pass, and the minimum time to process a visa application was 24 hours, so I was stuck here. The easiest solution was to book a flight to a country that didn't require an advance visa to visit. Luckily, there was a direct flight to Korea from Singapore. The catch? It left at 2315 at night. It was cheaper than rescheduling both of my original flights and paying for a visa, so I did it. There are worse airports to be stuck in than Changi. It's beautiful, clean, and there are plenty of sho...