It’s time to bid farewell to the Dragon, as the Year of the Snake comes slithering in. One of the 12 years of the Chinese Zodiac, which follows a lunar calendar, Snake years are said be a period of great change. It’s a time for shedding your old skin, shaking off what was slowing you […]
Festivals and Holidays
Holiday Tea at the Peninsula Shanghai
Even though we were happy spending a quiet Christmas at home in Shanghai this year, I still wanted to find a special way for us to celebrate the season. Last year in Hong Kong we enjoyed holiday tea at the famous Peninsula hotel. Since Shanghai boasts its own branch of this luxury brand, we headed over […]
Snapshot: Christmas in Shanghai
Last year we celebrated the holidays in Hong Kong and Macau. Having recently returned from Thailand and Vietnam, and with more trips planned for 2013, we thought a quiet Christmas at home in Shanghai would serve us well. This also gave us the opportunity to see how our adoptive city in the PRC handles a Western […]
Celebrating Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai
The Loi Krathong Festival is a celebration of Buddha that takes place all over Thailand, though Chiang Mai’s observance is perhaps the most famous. Images and video of the mass release of thousands of lighted paper lanterns have enchanted me for years so we planned our trip to coincide with the festival. As fate would […]
Celebrating Loi Krathong Festival in Sukhothai, Thailand
Loi Krathong is a festival celebrated in Thailand during the full moon of the 12th lunar month. We scheduled our trip to Thailand to be in Chiang Mai for the festival, during which thousands of paper lanterns are released into the sky. Loi in Thai means “to float,” while a krathong is a decorative vessel usually […]