I’m spending quite a bit of time these days planning our travel for the next year. We have a calendar established, but can’t settle on what we really want to do. The two main holidays (October and February) are national Chinese holidays, so it’s best to be out of the country on those weeks to avoid the crowds. We learned that during our Yangtze River Cruise last year. We’re looking at Taiwan, Bali, the Phillipines, Harbin (ice festival), Shanghai, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Today, I meet the rep from our local travel agent. We’ve booked our travel back to the US for the Xmas holidays. She comes by the apartment to swap the fapaio (receipt) for the cash. We need the fapaio for Judy’s reimbursement from her school. A portion of the tax deducted from Judy’s monthly paycheck is available to her for travel, if it’s receipted correctly.

I get all the vegetables prepped I’ve been buying lately for another afternoon with the wok. One of the recipes I looked at used brown sugar. I tried it, and it was pretty good. I might have overdone it today. I managed to burn the brown sugar. It wasn’t so bad I couldn’t eat it, but it would have been better with a either little less brown sugar, or a little less cooking. I’ll continue experimenting as my stomach and patience allows.