I’m American. My hometown is Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve lived in Singapore since 2008, but sometimes I go back and visit the US.
In 2023, the memory of strict Covid travel restrictions was still fresh, especially at the beginning of the year. But as time passed, people in China (myself among them) were more encouraged (and more inclined) to go out and move around (and spend money).
Siqi and I went on two big trips in 2023: one to his hometown, and another one to my hometown, where we got married! 🙂
See below for an illustrated overview of where I went in Hangzhou, other parts of China, and the US.
Photos from my visit with my family include 21 images of cars, food, and natural and man-made scenery around my neighborhood. See below!
See below for 63 photos from a road trip my parents took me on from Atlanta to Nashville to Mammoth Cave (in Kentucky).
I bought these long ago on a Girl Scout trip, a kind of pilgrimage to the place where Juliet Low started the organization. See below for what I remember from that trip.
Continue reading Horse tails and horse tales from Savannah, Georgia
My trip to visit my parents in Atlanta looked like this, more or less. It took me over 24 hours to get there.
I watched two movies on the way from Singapore to Tokyo and another two and a half on the way from Tokyo to Atlanta.
I made the map using http://myflightbook.com.
My husband Aquinas and I flew to the US together for his brother’s wedding in Maine. We stopped overnight in Beijing on the way there and the way back to avoid the utter misery of traveling for more than twenty-four hours in a row. The weather for the wedding was amazing, and I enjoyed meeting and talking with the new in-laws of my in-laws. While in the US, Aquinas and I also visited some friends in New York, had a couple of nice dinners in Portland, and walked part of the Freedom Trail in Boston.
See below for a selection of 100 photos from the trip, including snapshots of NYC skyscrapers, empty Maine landscapes, and a spectacular sunset.
As is my habit, I brought back coins and bills from my trip.
I’m now only missing one out of 100 state quarters collected from circulation since 1999 (one for each state and for each of the two mints, the one in Philadelphia and the one in Denver). It was always harder for me to collect Denver coins when I lived in the Southeast and the Northeast, but unsurprisingly, in Denver there were a lot of Denver coins.
I made a bunch of squashed pennies in tourist machines in various places.
I traded with my mom’s friend who we were staying with to get money from Uruguay, Brazil, and several other countries.
I purposely did not go in any used bookstores while I was in the U.S. (though I admit I was tempted). Still, somehow I wound up returning from Denver to Singapore with these 21 used books. I bought them at two thrift stores where I went to buy pants. (Trousers? Whatever.)
These books cost me less than US$23.00 in total. (For the sake of comparison, note that the website of the most prominent bookstore in Singapore, Kinokuniya, lists new copies of the hardcover Four for the equivalent of about US$19.00.)
From a content standpoint, the book I’m most excited about is probably the psychology textbook. From a collecting standpoint, I’m most excited about Wolf Wing and the Percy Jackson books, because they match books I already own.
