from Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thailand welcomed us back in its usual style.

Upon arriving at our AirBNB, a locked gate greeted us. No one answered the numbers we'd been given.

Bewildered, we asked a neighbor  if she knew the caretaker. She invited us in while searching for someone to call him. We sat on the living room floor and watched The Huntsman: Winter's War --dubbed in Thai-- with her children.

She came back to cheerfully announce that Earth would arrive "in one hour." She offered to cook us dinner while we waited.

All told, we waited an hour and a half for Earth to arrive. He glanced at us to see if we were angry-- we weren't-- and then showed us around the apartment as if nothing had happened.

Oh Thailand, with its unprecedented sense of hospitality and punctuality!

Luckily, the daughter's English is far better than my Thai.

... from Xiamen, China

The one thing I know for sure about China is I will never know China. It's too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There's simply not enough time. That's for me the joy of China, facing a learning curve that impossibly steep. The certain knowledge that even if I dedicated my life to learning about China, I die mostly ignorant.                                                                          - Anthony Bourdain

I love China. And I hate China. Four months in, here's some questions I ask daily:

• What's that smell?
• Why does everyone stare? What do they think I'm going to do?
• Why won't my apartment complex open our beautiful pool? It's 100 degrees! 
• What do the dozens of strangers who've taken pictures of me (eating, in my swimming suit, sleeping on the train, when I'm about to cry, etc.) do with those pictures?
• Where's the soap? Seriously, schools and hospitals, soap!
• Where's all the obesity/crime/divorce/homelessness? 
• Why do I feel so much freer living in a "communist" country?

Tiny fish eating the dead skin off  Andrew's feet