February 2021

I’ve been back from my two-week Chinese New Year holidays for more than a week already but let’s admit it, the holidays could always be longer. This year, Chinese New Year was celebrated in my husband’s hometown, with a brief visit to a nearby city in Hubei province beforehand. The week post-CNY was spent in Guangdong province in the south, close to my hometown. Good company, good food, and good times!

Evening stroll along the river that runs through the urban centre of my husband’s hometown.

Abandoned shack in Xianning, a city known for its hot springs. The graffiti on the door says “Zhang Fengming is a pig”. Hmm, I wonder whom Zhang Fengming offended…

Plum blossoms in full bloom in Xianning! Didn’t have to go to the plum blossom gardens in Wuhan to see them this year 😉

We encountered the plum blossoms along the boardwalk that runs along the Crescent Bay in Xianning. ZJ was probably chewing a sugar cane slice (a whole bag in his right hand) as he commented on the beauty of the plum blossoms.

Whereas we were still in mid-winter in Xianning, we immediately entered what felt like mid-summer when we reached Zhuhai in southern Guangdong province. Sun, T-shirts, and iced bubble tea are preferred here! This rainbow staircase in the Hengqin district in Zhuhai further brightened our day!

Instead of plum blossoms, we saw these bright flowers in Zhuhai, tentatively identified as araguaney by a plant-recognition app. Too pretty – I am in awe!

Not smiling here as we were resting during a hike on Jiangjun Hill. It wasn’t a tall hill but there were lots of stairs going up and down and up and down and…up up up. Do not underestimate even the most gentle hills…!

View of Macau in the distance, from the top of Jiangjun Hill. I had been there several times but Jian hadn’t, and the original plan was actually to visit Macau, but with COVID restrictions, that had to be cancelled. So close, but so far away…

Highlight of any trip to Guangdong: FOOD!! From left to right, top to bottom – 1: stir-fried gailan with beef in Zhuhai; 2: steamed garlic oysters in Zhuhai; 3: Hakka-style chicken in Zhuhai; 4: deep-fried spare ribs with beefsteak plant in Zhongshan; 5: wonton and beef brisket noodles in Zhongshan; 6: clay pot rice with chicken and spare ribs in Zhongshan; 7: steamed chicken feet @ dim sum in Shunde; 8: pineapple bun with roasted pork filling @ dim sum in Shunde; 9: shrimp pork dumplings (siumai) @ dim sum in Shunde. This is my type of food – I MISS IT SO MUCH!!

In the last photo, I mentioned Zhongshan and Shunde (a district of Foshan), which are cities in Guangdong that we visited after Zhuhai but didn’t further show in the photos. These places, especially Shunde, are known as food havens in China and they did not disappoint. With limited time, we were only able to sample a small portion of the local gastronomy offered by Zhongshan and Shunde. This definitely wouldn’t be the last visit…I will be back!!!

January 2021

Happy new year…again?! Yep, it’s Chinese New Year in three days and we’re on holidays. It’s also been over one year since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and the initiation of Wuhan’s lockdown, and…how things have changed. This January has certainly been a lot livelier than the last, at least here in China. As usual, stay safe, everyone!

It’s sunset time again – this time across from the ancient city wall in Jingzhou, a city that holds an important place in Chinese history during the Three Kingdoms period.

I always find the patterns of branches fascinating and am often surprised by what awaits me when I look up during a walk through the woods. Though most of the branches are bare and leafless, they are such an intricate beauty!

You might think this is a work of Chinese ink painting and you’d be wrong. But it certainly is an amazing art of nature – these are actual shadows of bamboo shoots against a wall in the evening. When I saw this I literally said, “This is so beautiful!!” I had to walk through the bamboo bush to get close enough to the wall for the photo but I simply love how it turned out!

A visit to a museum (Wuhan Municipal Museum featured here) isn’t complete without some imitation art. Here ZJ is the live version of the heroic General Yue Fei – 80% resemblance, at least?

Crossing the Moon Lake Bridge from Hanyang to Hankou in Wuhan, on a lovely evening after a birthday meal for the husband…

…and this is the view of Moon Lake Bridge from the 24th floor, where we had the birthday dinner at a home-based restaurant. The view over the Han River is definitely one of the selling points of this small, cozy restaurant!

Happy birthday to my loveliest Mr. ZJ. Thankful for another adventurous year with you ❤

Another meal here, but at a much more local and down-to-earth restarant in Jingzhou. Piping hot dumplings in the midst of winter – can we dig in yet?!

Hello and meow. During my Wuhan coffee shop explorations I visited this chic shop, which sold an item named quinoa coffee. You can’t see it here but there’s actually quinoa at the bottom of the cup…definitely something new for me to try. And this little kitty seemed to want to join the coffee party 😉

Alrighty folks, time to truly relax and enjoy the long Chinese New Year holidays (it began four days ago for us 😉 ). See you in the year of the ox!

December 2020

Happy new year! Just like that, we left 2020 behind, for better or for worse, but we still gotta look back on the final month of 2020. Before that, I just want to present some brief stats for the blog: 9 entries were posted in 2018, 19 in 2019, and 38 in 2020 – a huge improvement! Looking back, there was a period of time when I had way too much free time on my hands because of COVID-19, and a lot of blogging happened then, mainly with the Japan and Norway series. These entries were of course not all posted at once, but they were pretty much written within the same period of time. One of the goals of 2021 is to blog more but I think that’s been a goal for the past few years…I mean, at least we saw some gradual improvement, right? Let’s try to do better than just posting the monthly summaries this year. First post of 2021, here we go!

Catching a fiery sunset in the quiet countryside of Hubei province. I love the silhouette of the trees and houses against the setting sun.

The moon was unusually round and especially bright on the eve of New Year’s Eve (yes, you read that correctly, December 30) and this photo doesn’t do it justice. Maybe even the moon was ready to say goodbye to 2020 for good…

I often take time during my lunch break to walk around outside even during the winter, and here is a random area beside a creek near my workplace. This photo was shot from an angle that makes it look somewhat clean and serene whereas in reality, the creek was full of trash and next to a road where loud trucks pass by frequently. But hey, you could always pretend or hope to be in a nicer place 😛

Headed to the Wuhan Garden Expo on a beautiful day with Mr.J, taking advantage of free admission until the end of the year. The Expo itself was nothing too impressive, but it was pleasant to spend a full lazy Saturday with Mr.J (no group meeting!) outdoors.

Our food explorations happen on a daily basis where every Friday I pick a new restaurant to try. This time we went for Japanese soy milk hot pot (tonyu nabe), which is something that I’d honestly never heard of but sounded great. With the soy-based hot pot we got a side order of fried shrimp and plum wine (along with other items not pictured here), all of which were lovely complements to the delicious hot pot itself ❤

Ohai. I don’t remember if Shanshan here has been featured on the blog before, but there’s always room for more cat photos. In fact I think I took too many photos of Shanshan that day from too many angles…

…and who is that behind the emoji pillow but yours truly?! There was a prize draw for the new year at the office and I picked up this guy from the draw – lucky me 😛

Went trampolining with some friends and one of the activities was wearing a sticky spider suit and jump-sticking onto the spider web…harder than it looks!! I didn’t manage to jump very high at all but Mr.J did pretty well. In fact, he seemed to enjoy his time on the web so much that I wasn’t sure I wanted to help him get down from there.

Happy husband, happy wife, happy to be healthy and with each other through thick and thin. Adios forever, 2020!

I’ve decided to revive Picture Worthy, which has been inactive since 2017, with a new series called “Alphabetical Cities”. Head on over and check it out, and don’t forgot to also take a look at The Food Gallery, which is updated on even-numbered dates. Till next post 😉

One year of marriage

Today is my one-year wedding anniversary with J and I am glad to say we didn’t rip each other apart during the past 366 days, yay! We spent the day in my hometown Guangzhou, where it all began – it was here two and a half years ago that J told me he loved me and we entered a relationship, which naturally led to marriage. Our wedding last October took place in France (where we met) and since then it had been heck of a year, what with COVID-19 and J developing anxiety (not related to COVID). Throughout our marriage, I am learning more and more about this man each and every day, and even though he has habits that annoy me to no end and make me want to kick his sorry ass, I am also completely aware of my own shortcomings, which are perhaps 1000 times more difficult to bear than his. Yet this man has managed to put up with me with his insurmountable patience and not get a mental breakdown from me being unreasonable most of the time, which impresses me and can only be explained by the magnitude of love that he displays on a daily basis. Every moment, I am grateful that God has allowed our paths to cross and I recognize how blessed I am to have J as my husband. The marriage is still young and growing, and both of us have unknown challenges that must be faced together and lessons that must be learned, I am sure. Most importantly, I am constantly trying to remind myself to learn how to love, not in a way that benefits myself only, but with the aim of supporting my husband and fortifying our relationship as a team. This won’t be easy and there will be hardship, but with you beside me and God above us, no fear can hinder us. All in all, every ordinary day has been an indispensable page in the journey of our marriage, and as long as I am with you, I can welcome each new page with joy and anticipation. Here we go, year 2!

Just one of the many days where I want to punch this man’s face… 🤔

August 2020

The coming of September means that there are only four months left in 2020 – what! Heck, what a year 2020 has been not only for me but for everyone in this pandemic-stricken world. Hopefully we are still keeping a positive outlook as we step into the final trimester of the year. August was also REALLY hot and I’m glad I survived another Wuhan summer…!

Leisurely cycling after dinner one evening after a short period of rain, a rainbow appeared above us. Nearly everyone stopped to take a photo and so did we – I think it was my first encounter with a rainbow after moving back to China!

We continued cycling and when we reached Yujia Lake, we saw fiery clouds in the distance that illuminated the dusk over the horizon, like an oil painting coming to life. Nature is too beautiful!

Photo taken at the exact same spot as the last photo, with the golden globe getting ready to sink into the horizon beyond Yujia Lake. Yep, we are frequent visitors to Yujia Lake, alright.

View from the bus from Hankou station as we crossed a bridge over the Han River (not the more well-known Yangtze, which also traverses Wuhan) on our way home.

Amazing cloud patterns seen outside my workplace as I was getting ready to go home.

Group photo after weekly gathering at my place – it’s great to finally be able to see friends face-to-face again!

Fooooooooooooood! Summertime (plus COVID) means that J gets a break from teaching and so we cooked a lot more at home in August than we’re used to. Apparently taking a photo of every home-cooked meal has become a habit and a ritual. I’m so thankful to have such an excellent cook as my husband! ❤

Despite cooking more, we still ate out from time to time, especially during our weekly date on Friday nights. Top left: pizza and curry chicken rice with friends; top right: sizzling-grilled steak with pasta and egg; bottom left: best beef noodles ever in Xiangyang; bottom right: Thai sticky rice with mango and coconut milk. Yum yum!

I usually end these monthly posts with a selfie of Mr. J and me and here we are – my husband is really the most adorable human being ever ❤ ❤ ❤

Other than my job (which I hate and can’t quit yet for not-so-obvious reasons), I dare say that I’m enjoying my currently lifestyle more and more – beautiful sceneries, amazing books (only thing not mentioned in this post), delicious food, and the best companion in life. Two milestones – ten-year anniversary of this blog and one-year wedding anniversary – are coming up and I plan to write corresponding posts reflecting upon these in the upcoming month – if I don’t become lazy or distracted!