Winter to Summer – this is a long one!
Chinese New Year holiday quickly followed our Winter holiday. We headed to Phuket. Dan wanted to go Kata Beach on the southern end of the island as it is known for beach volleyball and not far from where is the best kite boarding. I insisted we also go somewhere else as that area looked like it gets very crowded.
As it was Chinese New Year and there is a direct flight from Beijing to Phuket, everything was booked and priced at a premium. At last minute our AirBnB cancelled on us – as did the next one we booked! I have never heard of this before. Anyway, we ended up staying in what I believe was a small apartment building that a Russian man was building when Covid hit and now he is renting out small apartments to vacationers. He had his nephew running the place, who didn’t seem to be too interested. There was a beautiful rooftop infinite pool and a gym next to it.
Next to the gym I went to the bathroom. There were two stalls but not door between the stalls – which was very odd. I went to put my clothes in a locker and all the lockers were full of cleaning supplies. The shower also had buckets with mops in it and no soap or paper towels by the sink. A back door was open to a deck off the bathroom. I peaked out there before getting changed and there were staff asleep on cots. It was odd. But room was lovely and location convenient.
Next to the pool was room for pingpong. The owner of the hotel told us he takes pingpong lessons every day and invited Morton to join – which he did one day. Apparently there is an active pingpong community on Phuket – but Morton didn’t have time to join the local competitions.
One day we went Kayking and boating around the area.
One day we headed to a beach from which the boys kayaked and I swam to another little island. it was fun to get in a good swim. The beach was small and more secluded – which was lovely – and had a tiny hotel with a restaurant.
Morton liked the smoothies.
Before we left Phuket we had to play a round at the Dinosaur Mini Golf Course pictured below.
And Morton and Dan had to check out Thai Martial Arts. I passed on this experience.
After Phuket we went to the northern part of the island (Kata beach is on the southern part)
I had heard of a sport resort and thought that might be fun for us. Par for our course, it ended up being both lovely and a bit odd. Before Covid it had been thriving and at first sight it was still lovely but we quickly realized it wasn’t running at full tilt. Over half the resort was shuttered while the other part looked lovely. We went to the restaurant the first night and realized it was primarily serving as a cafeteria for the training olympic hopefuls who come to the resort to train in lieu of many vacationers – it didn’t make for an ideal eating experience. Attached to the resort was a K-12 United World College school which boards high-schoolers from around the world – many tuition free- including many war torn countries. We took a tour of the school – which was amazing. There were parents of some of the younger kids who work remotely at the resort cafe. The resort had beach volleyball courts that weren’t being used. A couple times we recruited one of these parents, a Russian man, to be our fourth. The outdoor pools were amazing – as were the tennis courts. There were many sport facilities but many were not fully functioning. We did take a couple yoga classes, play tennis a couple times and rent bikes and go for a long ride one day.
Soon after we returned from Thailand, on the evening of February 13th, we were sitting on the couch and the door bell rang -seemed very strange at that hour. Dan went to the door and said to Morton and me, “Come here”. We went to the door and the entryway was covered in hearts, many with cute messages on them, and a plate of beautiful cookies in the entryway – no people in site, no note. What a sweet Valentines surprise! Over the next few days I heard this happened to a few other neighbors. I thought it might be a girl scout troop that I know meets in our neighborhood – but the mom who leads it told me it wasn’t them. Later I heard it was a church youth group that go to ISB that decided to heart bomb a few homes. I need to remember to do this to someone sometime. It put a smile on my face for days.
The day after Valentines day we headed to Mutianyu – the part of the wall that has the slide down it. Morton wanted to take a picture of himself putting a golf ball on the wall wearing his Hartland Golf work t-shirt (where he loves working during the summer time).
Unfortunately I can’t get a video to attach here. As the golf ball picked up momentum and hitting all the uneven bricks of The Great Wall it bounced more and more, picking up speed until it bounced over the side of the wall, cascading down the cliffs, to who knows where. It was funny in how surprising it was but, fingers crossed, no one was below.
And of course we needed to take the obligatory slide down.
For my mom’s 87th birthday, Dan sent my mom this snuggly. I thought it was ridiculous but apparently it was a hit.
At the beginning of March, My friend Michael Cherney gave a talk about his art work at the Italian embassy. Afterwards we were invited to a dinner at the Italian ambassador’s home. Aside from the food being fabulous – the ambassador’s home itself was the most lovely embassador’s residence I’ve been to – I’ve only been to three – the U.S. Ambassador’s, the Israeli, and now the Italian – and it’s interesting how different they are. The U.S. is impressive and formal, the Israeli is in a small apartment building with the Ambassador living on the top floor and apparently the kids run from floor to floor – more communal – which I love . And the Italian – the most tasteful I’ve seen.
I have been working on a number of landscape artworks so wanted to look at more traditional Chinese landscapes. My friend HanBin saw there was a landscape show at the National Art Museum so we headed there – for my first time. The show was not great but afterwards we stumbled into the wing of patriotic art. HanBin just wanted to get out as it had more personal meaning for her – but I thought it was so interesting. Some of the works were just straight forward propaganda but the double painting below I really like and only seemed like propaganda in context of the room – and even then wasn’t so clear to me.
A couple days later my friend Gilli invited me to an art opening at a gallery in a complex by the capital airport. The space itself was interesting. Someone built a humungous complex out by the airport – very far from downtown Beijing – with a large hotel, crazy large outdoor pool, a bunch of businesses – including a lovely gallery space, restaurants – not sure what else – but it’s mostly empty. Obviously Covid has hurt the Chinese economy, but also it feels like people here have an idea for a business and then they just go for it – there often doesn’t seem to be a lot of research to see if there is a need before plowing ahead.
The middle of March brought Purim and in traditional Beijing Kehillat style, Ted Plafker wrote his annual contemporary version of the Passover Story. We then have a large Purim dinner with many people acting out the play. It’s always hysterical. I was Melania Trump as Queen Vashti, someone played Trump as Haman and Dan was Elon Musk as Haman’s henchman. It was quite hysterical.
Dan was called to Lausanne, Switzerland as a finalist for the Head of School for the International School of Lausanne so at last minute Dan and I flew off to check it out. It was a tough but also lovely trip. The flight was 11 hours and we went for under a week. But the city is lovely. It’s a beautiful old city sitting on an incredibly steep hill that sits on Lake Geneva and overlooks snow covered alps. Our first night there members of the school board took us out to a lovely restaurant overlooking the city. While there, we kept busy: Dan spent a couple days interviewing, community members gave me a tour of the school and city, we rented peddle assist bikes and explored the city and surrounding area, we went out with some friends who now live in Geneva, and I explored a couple local museums. The weather was lovely – which certainly helped our impression. We stayed in a funny hotel downtown. To get to our room we had to take the main elevator up a few flights, then walk way down two hallways, and then get on another elevator to get to our hallway. But the view was fantastic.
One day I went to a bagel shop and got us some sandwiches. I struggled ordering as the ladies working there didn’t speak English and my minimal school French is lost somewhere deep under Mandarin in my brain. The next day Dan asked if I’d pick him up another bagel sandwich as he didn’t see a break in his interviewing schedule. I walked into the bagel shop and the two ladies who had helped me the day before were speaking to one another in Mandarin. It was very funny. I preceded to order in Mandarin and chat a little with them. It was much easier.
Two days after flying back to Beijing I flew down to Hong Kong to meet my artist friend Wang Xin to check out Art Basel. It was more conservative than Art Basel Miami but it was fun to explore the show and Hong Kong with her.
Before flying out, Wang Xin wanted to check out the Picasso show at the M+ Museum. Picasso is always inspiring. She then ran to airport to head back to Beijing and I caught two other shows at the museum: Contemporary Chinese Art and the contemporary Chinese clothes designer Guo Pei – which was so fun!
Dan landed in Hong Kong that evening in time for us to make it to an ISB alumni event, and Morton arrived the evening after school got out for Spring break – so much traveling this spring!
Morton, Dan and I explored the city for a day and then they headed to the Rugby 6s and I explored the old jail that has been turned into a museum and the old officer’s apartments that’s been turned into a creative area with shops and cafes and such.
After the games, the guys had me meet them at a “Brooklyn style diner” that they found. Guess what it was called.
The next day while Dan was at meetings, Morton took me up what he learned on UTube to be the longest escalator in the world. Ends up being multiple escalators but going up the hills of Hong Kong, there is one elevator after another – with places for people to get off at cross streets. We must have been on an escalator for forty minutes. We continued to walk around the city and eventually walked to the cable car that goes up to Hong Kong’s Highest Point. We paid extra to go to the look out tower but it was in the clouds – so all we could see was white. Morton was excited to go to the Bubba Gump’s at the top though. A few flights down we were able to get a view.
That afternoon we headed to the New Territories, a much less developed part of Hong Kong that I heard was great for outdoor activities. We checked into a lovely hotel on the water in the town of Sai Kung.
The next morning we wandered into the tiny town and found a Chinese diner type restaurant to grab some breakfast. The people there thought it was amusing seeing white people coming in – it was mostly full of seniors who were holding very basic, inexpensive looking, golf bags. We later found out that we were next to the ferry dock where people catch a boat to an island just off the coast that had been turned into one big golf course. Anyway, after a bit of struggle (the Chinese in this area is not Mandarin or Cantonese but their own dialect) we got some breakfast. Afterwards we went to find our kayak guide and then spent the day paddling around the islands just off the coast.
That evening we went to a local fish restaurant. There were all these tanks where you could pick out the fish you wanted to eat and a woman climbed up them to pick out your choice.
The next day we headed to a National Park to do some hiking. We caught a Didi into the park and then started hiking. I had read we could hike from tiny village to tiny village and then take a boat back to where our hotel was. One of us checked the boat schedule as we were meeting up with a friend of Dan who was working not too far away. We started hiking and the boys were caught up in Geo Caching and I decided to continue on ahead. The path went through a couple villages – that were really just a restaurant and maybe two houses and a camping ground but the coastline was beautiful.
I came to the “village” where I thought we were going to catch the boat and figured I’d confirm the time and location. I saw three men standing by the water. Using my Mandarin, I asked them where I could get a ticket for the boat. They were quite surprised that I spoke to them in Mandarin. One of the men insisted on taking me to where they sold the boat tickets. I kept insisting I didn’t need him to accompany me. It became clear to me that we were having some miscommunication, but wasn’t sure what it was. When we got to the cafe where they were selling tickets for the boat, I found out the boat wasn’t coming hourly like we’d read but would only be returning late that evening – which would be way too late to meet Dan’s friend. The man who had brought me there wanted to share WeChat contact information – which seemed odd – but not that big a deal. Then he transferred me money. It became clear that he was also visiting from Mainland China. He had ordered a meal at this cafe but his WeChat didn’t work in HongKong. We all had that same problem – presumably because the Chinese government doesn’t want people transferring money out of the mainland. I tried to help him out, but also failed and then returned him his money.
I walked back on the trail a ways until I was able to get a signal to call the boys and explain to them the boat situation. They were just approaching an earlier village and there were told there was a boat leaving in an hour and asked if I could get back in time. I didn’t think we had much choice so I basically jogged up and down this mountain path to get back in time. I got there a little early and ran right into the ocean. Apparently everyone in the cafe watched with shocked awe. They all thought it was too cold and it was surprising to see this white woman coming out of no where and running into the water.
Unfortunately the time came and went and the boat didn’t show. Eventually it became clear that it probably wasn’t coming and we needed to hustle back to where we had been dropped off. I was pretty tired after all the hiking and jogging but we headed back in a hustle to our starting spot – no stopping to search for caches. When we got to the starting point there were a number of people there – all trying to figure out what to do as there was no reception and no cars. A bus was supposed to come at some point but what that point was, was not clear. We decided to just start hiking the road looking for a signal. Maybe a half mile later, we found one and then waited for the Didi.
We took quick showers and then headed to meet Dan’s friend. He had been a Head of School in Beijing the year Dan was there alone, but is now the head of a United World College high school there (the same chain we had visited on Phuket). This school is strictly high school. He gave us a tour, which was lovely, and then we headed to his house on campus to meet his family and then head out to dinner.
The next day Dan met up with a former student of his from when he worked in Beijing at School Year Abroad in the late 90s. This former student was taking him on a challenging hike and Morton and I thought we’d pass and went on a local hike and boat ride back.
We headed back to Beijing a couple days early to meet Dan’s parents who were coming in for a few week visit.
Herb generously joined me to look at a lot of apartments and houses as I was looking to move at the start of summer. Just before Herb and Fumiko were leaving for a few days in Japan, we were invited to a viewing of a documentary about the Chinese Consul General Feng-Shan Ho in Vienna during WWII who went against orders and issued visas to Shanghai saving tens of thousands of Jews. Once the movie started we realized the movie was in Mandarin and we couldn’t follow it. We were about to sneak out when the movie cut to interviews. All the interviews were in English with Chinese subtitles. We stayed and watched the film, understanding the interviews. On our way out, the producer of the film made a big deal of our being there – but we quickly left as Herb was coming down with a bad case of food poisoning.
Herb was quite sick for a couple days but luckily recovered in time to make their flight to Tokyo and for the family reunion there.
The Spring moved along quickly after that.
Morton and I spent a fun day checking out a photography mall. He wanted to get an old camera fixed that had been my mother’s brother’s, to no avail, but we enjoyed walking around. We bought lunch afterwards outside the mall from a cart and then headed out to a park to play Disc Golf. There were small boys who were throwing toy airplanes. The airplanes kept getting caught in the trees. Morton used many methods to retrieve the planes until we decided enough was enough and we’d continue on with our Disc Golf game – the boys weren’t learning.
The road which we take to ISB had beautiful willow trees all along it. One day at the beginning of May, I was headed to school and all of the trees were cut down. It was crazy. I heard rumors that some of the trees had a disease and they didn’t want the disease to spread. It was so sad! And crazy! I have never heard of anything so drastic being done to prevent disease spreading on trees.
The school year ended with lots of activities. Spring Fair, with Dan and Morton participating on opposite sides of Tug of War, and Dan doing his annual Dunk Tank shift. Lots of end of year tennis parties – the tennis players love to party. Dan and I were invited to an event at the Blue Note, which was super fun, and a friend’s annual party at their out of town, up by the Wall, house with live jazz music. Before the party Dan and I decided to take a hike up to the Wall in an area we hadn’t been before. Morton decided to sleep in and meet us at the party. We were dropped off at the wrong spot for the hike but thought we could walk to the path. We were dropped off in a little town. People were fishing there in a small stocked pond. Tons of fish were swimming in a circle and tons of people were surrounding the pond. It was a crazy sight. When people caught a fish, they brought it to a man who would slam it down on the road and kill it. The people would then go into the local restaurant and have that fish served to them. We didn’t participate – but it was quite a sight!
We passed through this town and headed uphill – looking for the path. We walked for over an hour on a very steep path – looking for “the path”. No luck . We turned around and back tracked. After about an hour and a half of difficult hiking we found our path – still a few hours straight up. Our legs were shaking; we were exhausted. Finally we made it to The Wall – completely late for the party and exhausted but were rewarded with an absolutely beautiful, unrenovated/reconstructed part of The Great Wall.
The big looming thing was our move and preparing the new house for our arrival – getting the house cleaned, replacing the two story floor to ceiling living room windows, reviving the garden, and having a bike/scooter storage shelter built. Apparently we made the mistake of having workmen who aren’t known by the complex we were moving into. They were stopped at the gate and not allowed in. Their drawings of a simple soft sided shelter was rejected, repeatedly – despite the fact that most of the houses there already had them. A Chinese friend who has lived in this community for many years helped as an intermediary. The management office don’t know this contractor and the relationships are not set, so they didn’t want him working on our place. What a headache. The work eventually got done.
The house doesn’t have an oven – typical Chinese kitchen. I ordered one on wheels to be delivered as there was no place to install one. It came and didn’t plug in – needed to be hard wired – which makes no sense to me – then why have it on wheels. After getting an electrician to come, it became clear that the house wiring couldn’t handle an oven. And to return it I needed to have someone build a new box. UGH! By this time I had left China and was negotiating this all from Boston where I was visiting Celia, my brother Elon, and Dan’s cousin Jane. Celia insisted that air fryers are amazing. I found someone online who was leaving China who was selling their air fryer cheap. I figured I’d try it out. I also found a microwave, and figure I’ll pull our barbecue to the back door. Hopefully between all these I’d be able to host a dinner party!
In Boston I gave Celia a skirt I embroidered for her before leaving China
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SUMMER:
Celia and I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – which I had never been to – and was amazing – just the building alone! Checked out a quilting show at the Boston Public Library, had dinner with Jane and walked a lot with Elon.
Ran down to NYC, had dinner with Mildred and Susan at Gertrude’s, a cute restaurant in Prospect Heights, spent a couple days seeing art with Chris at the MOMA – the Jack Whitten show, the Textile show and the Hilma Klint show were all great. Then we went to the newly opened and renovated Frick – which was so beautiful! – so many great paintings! And there we ran into a guy we lived with over two decades ago and hadn’t seen him since. It was pretty crazy to run into him while we were together! Caught up Leslie, Mitch and Leina for an early dinner, took a walk in Prospect Park with Roxanne.
And always a highlight when I’m in NYC to get together for an Art Luck lunch and drawing together.
Before jumping on a train to Philadelphia, I met up with Jeanhee to see the Amy Sherald exhibit at the Whitney – which I thought was really lovely – and was only topped by at the end of the show Jeanhee getting a call and being offered a job that she had been interviewing endlessly for (YEAH JEANHEE!!).
Meanwhile, Morton and Dan were finishing up school. Morton’s teacher sent me this photo of Morton making a Chinese pastry on his last day of Mandarin class.
Morton had an art opening at a gallery where a photograph of his was showing (go Morton!)
AND … Morton found out he and two other ISB students won a trip to Hokaido, Japan to take photographs with students from around the world at the end of August. So amazing!
I jumped on a couple trains to my mother’s. I spent the night, then loaded the car and she, Bev, and I drove to the beach – rushing to get there before Morton arrived. I had set up to have the local First Aid Squad meet us at the house to carry my mom up the stairs. That worked amazingly! They pulled in right behind us. It made it all go so smoothly. I am so grateful! My nephew Finn was already at the beach working at a coffee shop – school having gotten out May 1st. It was lovely having him around.
Morton and Dan landed in the U.S. and the next morning ran to the DMV for Morton to get his driver’s permit before he ran to catch bus to the beach and Dan ran out to Fire Island to see college friends.
After Fire Island, Dan ran up to CT to pick up a new boat he bought – I believe a 34 foot trimerand. He and his cousin Dave planned to sail it down to the beach. After many delays with getting it ready to get into the water, they finally got sailing. They had lots of wind and had a great wild sail down the coast.
While they were finishing up their sail down, I ran to NY to catch our friend Michael, from China,’s art opening in Manhattan. I got to catch Olav and Gilli – who were both in NYC visiting and we and Chris and Anita all had a lovely evening.
Ran back to the beach where Dan and his cousin Dave had arrived safely, and cousins Mitch and Leina came to meet them. Family friend Al came, made us some fabulous pineapple pancakes, and we all went out for a not very successful sail as Dan and Dave tried to figure out how to navigate a very busy inlet – but it was nice to get onto the boat and onto the water.
Other summer highlights:
The best bonus for me was that Judd was mostly at the beach for the summer – running back and forth to DC when needed, but mostly at the beach. His daughter came down for a good bit to work at Inlet Deli – where Morton worked the last couple years- and Tanya came down for a long weekend every weekend. Was super nice! And having Beverly at the beach all summer, taking care of my mom and spending time with us, was really great to have that time with her.
After planning for months, Morton met a Korean friend and his parents who he had known in China and who had moved to Detroit for their first New York trip. Morton was their guide – showing them all the sights. Sounds like it went super well. While he was there he met up with Celia – who was staying with her friend in Brooklyn on her way to the beach for the month of July. (Yeah!)
Celia returned to NYC for a weekend with Dan to also get her driver’s permit. Two learning driver’s – give me strength!
So many people came through – which was lovely! Aaron and Brigitta came through for five days, Elon and Anna came through for a week, Jeanhee, Luke and Chiara, Reid, Jenn and Bryce. Later in the summer Rohan and family came through. Was so nice!
Anita and I took what has become our annual Upstate Art Fair trip and this year Celia joined us – which made it extra special – and she got to do a bunch of driving practice. So much great art!
Anita left her luggage on the train up, so we stopped at a yard sale and bought her a wardrobe. Luckily a month later she got her luggage back!
We celebrated Anita’s birthday up there and I gave her this dress I embroidered for her of her making blueberry jam.
Back on LBI, at the end of July, Dan had to head back to China and Celia to Boston. Morton milked being an only child for all it was worth – getting me out to play disc golf a few times, once to search for a geo cache, and to Mustache Bills Diner before he finally took off to New York – for a day and a half of running around there before flying back to China.
Judd and I both played and won the club’s men’s/women’s doubles and then together in the mixed doubles tournament. It is always so fun to play together. It was too much tennis in one weekend though. We were too tired. The club needs to spread it out over multiple weekends.
The last few days before Morton left the beach he was planning for his friends to go downtown Beijing and play some hide and seek game called Jet Lag. He spent so much time planning it -and the day he landed at 6am he met up with his friends a couple hours later for a full day of Jet Lag – while I’m sure he had terrible jet lag. I am pretty impressed by the planning and execution. They spent the day running around downtown Beijing having a great time. Pretty great!
School started a couple days later.
Two days after school started Morton, two other students, and an art teacher, flew off for the photography trip to Japan they won. They met up with photography students from around the world, taking pictures, getting to know one another and trying to take the best photographs. Morton had a blast getting to know the other kids, taking tons of photographs and exploring Hokaido. Plus Morton’s photograph was chosen to be used for the Beijing poster!
Soon after the tennis tournaments I started my goodbyes. First to Judd and his family. Then the First Aide Squad came again, carried my mom down the stairs, and I drove her and Bev back to PA, unloaded the car, said more hard goodbyes, then jumped on a train to NY, where I made more quick goodbyes – catching a super fun Red Grooms show with Herb and Fumiko, a quick show at MAD museum and walk in the park with Manju, two evenings with Anita and then running to New Haven, CT to spend my last couple days with Celia.
Celia and I mostly walked around, ate great food, explored Yale and New Haven, and did some drawing before I caught a train back to NY and then went directly to the airport – returning to China for another year of adventure and missing you all. Xo
Final pictures from New Haven:
