ByGD
In the original U.S. release of Studio Ghibli classic My Neighbor Totoro, makuro kurosuke were translated as “dust bunnies.” Dust bunnies, Nanny explains gather in unused houses and out of the way spaces. In Western culture, we expect to find dust bunnies under the bed. Nanny said that dust bunnies leave when people come back to live in a house and start cleaning. But this one just stayed and stayed.
ByGD
It’s a little-known fact that Seattle has a handful of dragon boat clubs. When I discovered this, I dragged the kids down to Lake Union for the Dragon Boat Festival. It was a bit of a surreal experience, because this particular August morning felt more like Lunar New Year. It was wet and freezing. We stuck it out for a little while, but headed home with numb ears and fingers before really exploring the rest of the festival.
Lately, they haven’t been able to hold the festival because there is too much traffic on the lake in August. In the future, they are hoping to reschedule the dragon boat festival for another month. Maybe it will be warmer?
ByGD
At Thanksgiving my family went to Hong Kong. Fortunately, our trip fell during a rare week of safe travel. We visited during a lull in protests after the local elections and before the pandemic. Even though the timing of our trip was lucky, getting to Hong Kong was hard.
ByGD
How do you have spring break when your kids are already not going to school, and traveling is not an option? That was the dilemma we faced after four weeks of pandemic homeschooling. Naturally, I had a plan. Naturally, no one followed the plan. Here’s how our pandemic spring break really went.
ByGD
In December of 2015, the ski season in Washington had just gotten started. We spent the holidays in Arizona, and on that trip visited Chiricahua National Monument in the southern part of the state. Imagine our surprise at finding almost as much snow on the ground just a few miles from the Mexican border as we had just a few miles from the Canadian one.
Despite the snow, it wasn’t particularly cold, and the sun was shining. Our group ranged in age from 7 to 70-something, so we didn’t pick anything too challenging. But we still had a couple of really nice hikes in the desert. With snow.