One Year of Marital Bliss …and Change

June 16 marked our first wedding anniversary. What a year it has been! In the past 14 months, we sold Karl’s house in San Diego, bought a house in Palo Alto, moved Lila from Sunnyvale, got married with the most amazing wedding (ok, we’re biased :)), had job changes for both of us, and moved to China. It has been a wonderful and amazing journey for us.
We decided to take a weekend away to celebrate. About 2 hours outside of Shanghai is a town famous for its tea, lake, and beauty. Even Marco Polo is said to have commented on Hangzhou’s beauty. You’d never guess this town of 6M people would be so pristine and relaxing!
Although it was a rainy weekend, there was some occasional sunshine. We started with the Tea Museum, which was fascinating. As all good museums, it ended in the store – but not before a bit of tea tasting. During our honeymoon stop in southern China, we really enjoyed tea tasing –and were thrilled to try again. We settled our belly full of tea with a local meal out of someone’s house before continuing on to the Silk museum. The afternoon ended with Karl’s driver Peter dropping us off at the hotel for the night. After some relaxation, we ventured out for dinner. We were so excited to say enough basic things in Chinese that the wait staff understood us! The famous dishes were river shrimp in tea, beggars chicken (even Lila liked it), and a pork dish. Dinner was followed by a long walk around the city and a few mosquito bites, before returning to the hotel for a fabulous 2 hour massage.
Early Sunday morning, we went biking for ~3 hours around the lake and into the tea field countryside. The lake is gorgeous with bridges, pedestrian walkways, lily pads & lotus ponds, little islands, tai chi & dancers. It was so much fun! Our hotel package included a 30min massage – which was just long enough to be a refreshing end to bike ride. After brunch, driver Shen picked us up. On our way out of Hangzhou, we stopped in the old town with a visit to the Chinese Medicine Museum (absolutely fascinating with the history of medicinal cures based on plants and weird animal parts!). Hangzhou was great - we will definitely be back.
While we were away, our drivers and Ayi (maid -3x/week) kept our Shanghai life on track - dropping off dry cleaning, picking up our artwork that was being framed, buying groceries, etc. This is especially helpful given 2 careers + Lila’s 2 hour commute each day + Karl’s customer meetings. We find we have more time together living here. With all the changes, we’ve had to depend on each other more. We are exploring, learning, and growing together. It’s been an adventurous first year of marriage – and a very special one at that! May it be followed by many, many more. J