When I left home to start a two-decade foray in Asia, all I owned fit in one suitcase.
I stood high on the sheer stone side of the canal-like river that runs through the long, thin park in my community, willing the ice to melt.
As the capital's residents shake off their hangovers following the holiday celebrations, some of the city's experts are chiming in with advice on how to beat the back-to-work blues.
For much of my married life, I have lived in Asia. When I'm alone, I'm one of the dark-haired masses until I open my mouth and, opportunist that he is, the watermelon guy increases his price by half. But when I'm with my husband, an American from the heartland of Ohio, broad shoulders, pale complexion and all, not only do the prices triple but sometimes I get the stink-eye from others, both Chinese and Caucasian.
I've been shuttling back and forth between my apartment and my office for the past several weeks and not doing a whole lot else, with this cold weather making a misery out of every minute spent outdoors.
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, an article by Amy Chua, a professor at Yale is suddenly everywhere.
As I was walking toward my bus stop after work, a taxi passed right by me, then another. I put up my hand before the third turned up and got into it.
The cinema always seems like an ideal choice around the holiday period, especially in the winter.
It seems like every season around the non-lunar New Year, Beijing starts doing what almost every smoker finds himself or herself doing - making a resolution for this to be the year when the city quits.
In less than a month, two students, a young woman and a man who were enrolled at Communication University of China, jumped to their deaths, one after another.
The name "Beijing" conjures up images of a sprawling city, miles of concrete and snarling traffic.
It's that season again in the UK. Snow and cold environmental factors have caused havoc across the entire country, resulting in significant numbers of the population not arriving for employment, key services and transport being disrupted and general weather-related mayhem.
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