The Snail Shell

- if your bus ticket has an assigned seat, it usually matters. Just sit there. If your seatmate is loudly coughing and loogying into a plast...

I walked up a "Red Stone Mountain" (small mountain; 1hr walk. Still, definitely red stones.) and wandered back the stupidest way p...

Alternate titles: An introvert's nightmare, Friend-breaking-up is hard to do, Americans are like _this_ and Chinese are like _this_ So ...

The Mojave Phone Booth: a rando phone booth in the desert. This guy got obsessed with it, eventually found where it was, made a website for ...

This trip has been a little unusual, because I haven't brought a computer and I just use my phone for everything. Which is neat, for a f...

As I write this, a group of mostly middle-aged ladies are doing a synchronized dance with fans outside the apartment complex where I'm s...

When we were getting to Chengdu, our first Chinese big city, I was wondering, is this going to be like Seoul or Delhi? I think my answer is...

Chengdu is super nice! We are staying at a lovely Airbnb near People's Park. People's Park, as its name suggests, is a park where pe...

I used to care more about being a budget traveler. Now I think it's pretty clear that I'm not, which leaves me with mixed feelings: ...

We've been staying in a bunch of great places. With utmost thanks to those of you who gave us money as wedding gifts, we apologize that...

About a week ago, we met this guy Jimmy on the bus from Shangri-la to Daocheng. He told of us his plans to hitchhike up to Litang and Sertar...

Because my blog had been more neat insights but y'all facebookers might be wanting to know, where are you going and what are you doing? ...

(DGTTB is the name of a game that my friend Aaron made once. Unfortunately, it was renamed "Gotta Go!" before final production.) ...

Uppers: 1. Tea, of course. Always green tea, served by default with almost every meal. Usually really weak - kinda like flavored hot water....

Ok, so Tibetan Buddhism. I've got a bunch of math questions. You always hear stuff like "praying in an auspicious time is worth te...

Look, this whole trip was totally great, but I've been allergic for the past 4 days so my brain is half there and it's hard to writ...

I've been thinking a lot about what I've been calling "retail" experiences - like the kind you get at Starbucks or Target ...

1. Internet. Hah! By the way, there are no roads here. 2. Red Bull. I think we are even beyond Coca-Cola, but there's plenty of Red Bul...

1. Every table has a bubbling red spicy oily sauce in the center. People dip food into the center. Before we could order stuff, the waiter ...

OK, this felt really good: we finally got Tati on a VPN. Warning: what follows is a long and nerdy story, with a small payoff. As mentioned...