One Year Ago

One year ago, I arrived in China. I cherish the time that I spent there, and wish I had more time to spend there. Due to a number of issues that are beyond my control, the possibility of me getting back to China for any length of time in the future is greatly diminished. I consider several of the people that I met in China to be close friends of mine to this day....

14 Oct 2008 · 1 min · Gary Allen Vollink

30 Days

Haidian District Beijing, China To My Readers… I have not posted in 30 days. Sorry about that… For someone who reads my blog, but has not spent time in North America, something is missing. That person is without an understanding of the North American version of ’expected’. Many of my posts, especially my earliest posts, are written from a North American perspective on what is ’expected'. For those of you who actually know me well, I probably mentioned that I wanted to use this site to capture first impressions… things that I found interesting, because they are different from the way things are where I come from (the US)....

11 Dec 2007 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

YongHeGong, Lama Temple

Near ShangDi November 9, 2007 A very brave woman at work once asked me if she could show me around to some sights. So, this Friday we agreed to meet on Saturday morning, and she would show me around the area of the Lama Temple. Morning Meeting November 10, 2007 We agreed to meet at a KFC (not “the KFC”, but one a block away) between 10:30 and 10:45. She arrived about 10 minutes after I did apologizing that she was very late....

11 Nov 2007 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

Note on Photos

There are many pictures that I have posted to the photos site that are not visible to the general public. http://photos.vollink.com/ If I know you, you can sign up for an account, then Email me your login name. I will then enable your account to see the rest of the photo collections. This includes categories like, “Friends at Work” and “Friends at Hotel”. If I don’t know you, you can still sign up for an account, but you’ll get no benefit, and will have given your Email address to another random site on the internet....

11 Nov 2007 · 1 min · Gary Allen Vollink