Early Saturday morning subway rides through a slowly awakening city

Joining/leading our InterSport Running Crew for team training

My girlfriend Guilin accompanying me by bike during long runs along Shanghai’s East Bund

All you can eat at Lakeside Veggie on weekends

Fried rice

Steamed buns

Guilin’s tomato tofu

Pink’s “Fuckin’ Perfect,” my go-to karaoke song

Gym training with Andy

Mandarin lessons with QianQian

All those long, leisurely strolls around Disneyland with Guilin–only 17 subway stops from home

Tron

Pirates of the Caribbean

Soaring

Peter Pan

Winnie the Pooh

The Castle, the largest at any Disney park

Realizing again and again how blessed this whole adventure is

This life in the East

Hearing Mandarin spoken all around me

Training with students on our soft rubber track

Hiking through centuries old “water town” villages with Guilin, sampling green tea from freshly picked leaves

Running the Jade Road in Dali

Cycling hard and fast through mountain ravines in rural Guizhou province, transitioning to running with my partner Leigh–and pushing into a Top 5 position

Rappelling over the side of a bridge, into the Chi Shui River valley

Lazy evenings before bed watching my go-to movies–“Step Brothers,” “Super Bad,” shoot, I’m forgetting my collection now…my never planned Chinese dvd collection rebuilt from the ashes of my Bronx collection (some films saved from the Purge of ’17)

The Veggie Gather family–welcoming me, feeding me, teaching me Chinese for over 2 years now

The awkward English translations

The shockingly innovative usage of English in Chinese clothing design

Beer Plus vegan pizza with Guilin

If Vegan

Aurora Art Gallery

Vegan Runners and Century Park

Generosity

Free food!

Tea shops

Inexpensive new release films at theaters, even in the fancy parts of town

Cheap high speed train tickets to just about anywhere

Japan, Korea…a hop-skip-and jump away

Being called “shu shu” (uncle) by young kids who don’t even really know me

Being welcomed into the Chinese culture

Fragrant flowers of spring

Witnessing how this damn virus can be controlled when employing discipline and rational thought (not everything is perfect, and sometimes individual freedoms must be curtailed, but there’s no denying how effective Chinese measures have been)

Guilin scratching my back

Guilin hugging me

Holding hands

Kisses

…..

Dreaming, of China