I’m in Vail Colorado at the moment, sitting by a fake fireplace that turns on with a flip of a switch, drinking hot tea. It’s snowing outside. The rest of the family is off skiing and I’m taking the day off to relax. Life is good.

I’ve been getting in a ton of good quality family time. Last night my sister Louise and I cooked noodles with peanut sauce and diced grill chicken as well as my grandma’s awesome steamed broccoli with melted butter. Roger cooked up a tasty potato cream soup. After dinner we played a really interesting board game called Settlers of Catan. I love playing family board games, especially with my dad involved. He is usually caught up with work, so it’s a rare opportunity to see him relax and laugh.

This time back at home in the US has been more mellow than usual. I have been spending a lot more time with family which I find really rewarding. Partly it’s because less of my friends are around; most of them aren’t students anymore so they have less vacation time. But also I’ve just made the point of hanging with the family more. It’s been great. I feel so much love from all of them.

One of my American friends has starting working at 88 club, one of the most popular clubs in Hangzhou. Eight or so foreigners work there. They all get free alcohol and are paid to dance and mingle. The patrons are generally young Chinese people, many of which are in Hangzhou on vacation and heard about the club because it’s a big chain (over 30 in China.)

The inside of 88 looks like a fancy saloon, and has tons of gaudy looking chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Like most clubs in China, entrance is free but people are “strongly encouraged” to buy a table, the cost of which includes a certain amount of alcohol. Some of the high roller tables cost a minimum of 10,000 RMB (US$ 1500).

It’s a cool place to party because the atmosphere builds as the night progresses. Everyone drinks hard until about midnight and then the place goes nuts. Some people pile on to the stage in the middle to dance, while others latch on to each other to form long trains that weave through the crowd. The club flips on a bunch of flashing lights, light sticks get passed out, and in between songs they put on live ramp performances.

The 88 club in Hangzhou has a particularly infamous reputation. A few months ago some local university students were killed there during a brawl with security guards. Apparently the students made some lewd comments and for whatever crazy reason the guards stomped a few of them to death. Violent crime is very uncommon in China, so the news shocked the community when it first came out. The club reopened recently, however, and the violent event certainly hasn’t hurt business. Even on a Monday or Tues night the place is packed.

I’m amazed my friend found this kind of job in the first place. When she first showed up at my house with 4 suitcases packed with party clothes I laughed, but now she’s actually using all that stuff.

I just got back from a 6 day trek through central Mongolia. What a different place than China! Click here to see pics. Mongolia’s population density is only 3 people per square mile! It’s practically all country and no people. Asphalt roads are almost non existent, so getting around was awfully bumpy, but the upshot of course is that bad roads disincentivize economic development and all the junk that comes with it. I saw tons of wild animals including horses, a fox, and even eagles! China ate all their wild animals long ago.

I went on the trip with an high school buddy, Brockett, and two other friends from Hangzhou. We stayed in yurts, which are kind of like tepees but they are bigger and round, with a metal stove in the middle for cooking and heating. Every day we’d drive a few hundred kilometers, and then settle at a new site. We saw some historic sites and did a bunch of hiking, horseback riding, and even camel riding.

One night we played a popular Mongolian game that is kind of like jacks. The pieces are made out of the ankle bones of sheep. Each bone has four sides that look sort of like a goat, a lamb, a horse, or a camel. You roll the bones and then try to flick the ones that match at each other. If you flick successfully, then you get to pick up those bones and keep going until you miss or there are no more matches. The rest gets picked up by the next player, who rolls the bones again. There are a bunch of other rules I don’t know.

The highlight of the trip was our last night on the trek. We’d been driving all day and pulled into our camp as the sun was setting. We soon discovered that the nomads we were planning to stay with had already left. Previously nights we’d had our own yurt to ourselves, provided by friends of our tour guide, but this time we were going to have to crash at a stranger’s yurt; it was too cold to simply sleep outside.

A woman and her 1 year old baby popped out of the nearest yurt and our guide quickly convinced her to let us stay. The four of us, along with another Argentinean guy that joined our tour, lined up like sausages on her floor to sleep, but not before being “forced” to drink copious amounts of vodka. 10 shots in, as we were dozing off, I decided to turn my body 180 degrees so I wouldn’t feel so cramped, but all the Mongolians immediately berated me for pointing my feet at the sacred back side of the yurt, smiled real big, and then proceeded to give me 3 penalty vodka shots. I slept like a log that night.

As we headed back to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, we saw a big asphalt road being built. We were told the Chinese are “helping” the Mongolians to build a central, north-south road all the way through Mongolia from China to Russia. Our tour guide, at least, wasn’t too happy about it. He’s worried about China’s tightening economic control over Mongolia and thinks that continued economic development will destroy Mongolia’s rural communities. Half the population already lives in Ulaanbaatar, and the city has doubled in size in the last ten years. Urbanization is in full swing.

A few weeks back I heard a knock on the door of my little home office, which is on the second floor. I opened the door and two little kids burst in wanting to play. This is one of them slung over my shoulder last Sunday. Now that the sun is out we have been hosting BBQs and inviting the loads of college kids that my brother and other roommate Jason teach. The highlight, for sure, has been the water balloons. I've also been working on my badminton game.

Wouldn't think the kid in green had just accidentally killed someone racing his car, eh? He seems way too relaxed. Then again, he's from a rich Hangzhou family, so he probably expects to get off easy. That's how the Chinese internet community interpreted this photo. Within hours, all of the kid's personal information was put online. His name, ID card #, address, school, cell phone #, etc., all probably pulled from social networking sites. It's an interesting shaming tactic that's becoming very popular in China. Check out this article for more info.