The Harbin Ice Festival is currently the largest ice festival in the world. Located in northern China in a city that blends an eclectic mix of Russian, Jewish and Chinese heritage, Harbin is definitely a destination worth a visit — even when temperatures drop as low as negative 40 degrees, which is, interestingly, the one…
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*This article on my experience locating and purchasing a genuine Flying Pigeon bicycle in Tianjin, China was published in JIN Magazine‘s January 2014 issue, and re-posted on the government’s tourism site, exploringtianjin (dot) com.* (UPDATE: Upon review, it appears that the article has been moved to a new China Daily website, so I have updated…
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Last month, Sam and I visited the Yunnan Province in Southwest China. Our original plan was to fly into Lijiang, hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge, take the bus up to Shangri-La* before flying back out of Lijiang. (*Shangri-La, you say? Funny you should ask: the town of Shangri-La (formerly known as Zhongdian) is named after the mysterious place…
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View Larger Map News can be a bit slow getting here, but Sam and I have recently been informed of the category 5 cyclone (“hurricane” for Americans), Cyclone Ian, that hit Tonga’s Ha’apai island group on January 11 with winds of up to 178 miles per hour.
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This post will cover my experience applying to the Writer’s Digest Self Publishing e-Book Awards contest, along with the end result which I will get to shortly. But first, an introduction: Back when I was still in Tonga, I started a micro-publishing company called Penelope Pipp and published two works through the imprint: a memoir penned…
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It has been weeks since a post has gone up, mostly due to laziness, but also due to the strange clumps of vacation time Sam has had to fit in before the end of the year, lest he lose it. Solution? Plane jaunts to Shanghai and another to the Yunnan province in southwest China. Both…
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When Sam and I lived in Tonga for two years, part of his job was to see the Peace Corps volunteers who lived in Samoa as well. On two occasions, when his stay there was for a few weeks, I was lucky enough to go with him! Both times we stayed in downtown Apia (Samoa’s capital),…
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The Forbidden City, like the Great Wall or the Terracotta Warriors, is on every top-10-things-to-see-in-China list. Oh, fine. Probably not on every list, but close enough. I think the first time I was introduced to this landmark was when I saw The Last Emperor waaay back in the day. The scenes of the Forbidden City,…
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Natalie currently lives and works in China, but before that, she taught EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Romania for three years with the Peace Corps before serving as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Tonga! Teaching English in various capacities across three foreign countries over five years is no small feat, so I…
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Breand and her husband had the unique experience of living on ‘Eua island as part of their Peace Corps service. ‘Eua is a two-hour ferry ride from Tongatapu (Tonga’s capital island and where Sam and I lived during our two years in Tonga). It is also the oldest (30 million years older to be exact!) and…
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