Counting Down

The counting down starts. My heart is pumping faster. 8 more nights, we will be on the airplane, flying back to Beijing to visit my family and celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Baby, yeah, we are going to party like 1999 right in the heart of China. 🕺🏿💃🏻

To me travel is triple delight: anticipation, experience and recollections.

Personal vacation and family reunion are always the best when it comes to travel; but even business trip can be rewarding too. We all need to change the scene once in a while to get refreshed, learn new things and appreciate how sweet and endearing our own home is.

I didn’t realize this, but we haven’t celebrated the CNY with my family in Beijing for 8 years. As a Chinese living and working overseas, the CNY is probably the only festival/holiday that I try to avoid. I stay quiet and hope that day can sneak by as fast as possible so life can move on.

On that particular day, you miss home, miss parents, siblings, relatives and friends who live across the Pacific Ocean. You feel lonely and alone, no matter how much you are being loved.

It’s a sentimental moment.

Good news is this year we get to go back to Beijing to have the real deal. Steve often claims that he is half Beijinger and the homecoming makes him feel as excited as I am.

– We cannot wait to experience the crazy overnight fireworks and have our mouths wide open with the “woo ahh ohhh” as all kinds of colourful fireworks brighten the dark sky;

– We cannot wait to watch the 5 hour long CCTV new year eve gala while enjoying the Chinese feast, chit chats and laughs with the family;

– We cannot wait to go back to the Buddha temple that we always visit with my parents, followed by a traditional chinese meal at our favourite local restaurant at the corner of a HuTong nearby;

– We cannot wait to visit the Great Wall again, even if that will be the 100th times for me to climb up the wall. It’s one of the world wonders, so how can you get tired of being on top of it?

There are many more things that we cannot wait to see, to hear, to feel, to touch and to experience, but for now all we can do is to wait.

They say home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.

The trip will come and go, but the memories that we will create with my family will stay forever, and ever.