At the beginning of February, I was supposed to have returned to Philly from visiting my family in Beijing, but all flights from China to the States were cancelled. The same day that travel restriction was announced, my family and I flew to Taiwan, with the intention for me to stay there for at least two weeks so that I could be cleared to fly to the States from Taiwan (even though my family had basically been unofficially self-quarantining for the entire month of January already, but let’s not dwell on that) (crossing our fingers that there wouldn’t be new travel restrictions from Taiwan to the States in that span of time).

Thus, I spent most of February in Taiwan. I don’t plan on making a travel post, so I want to focus my February recap on my time in Taiwan. I haven’t been up to too much since arriving back in Philly anyway, except for catching up with friends and settling back into a routine (yes, I made it back!).

So, ya know how I’ve been visiting family in China? And ya know about the coronavirus? It’s put me and my family’s plans all out of whack. We’ve been self-quarantining at home (my dad’s whole office is working from home, my mom has always worked from home, my brother’s school is giving classes online, and I’m just chillin’), which was fun at first, but then I started missing going out on my morning coffee runs. And I’ve also been missing ordering bubble tea deliveries on a whim.

We’ve been refraining from using food delivery services unnecessarily, because we feel bad for the delivery people. They’re probably working overtime (as I’m sure lots of people are self-quarantining and needing food delivered to them) and they’re also exposing themselves to potentially contaminated environments/people. In terms of food delivery, my family is only getting groceries delivered. My dad’s friend sent him a screenshot of the instant noodle category of some store/platform’s app and they were all sold out, which was kinda funny, albeit dark.

If everything goes according to plan, I should be back in Philly early February, as long as my flight doesn’t get cancelled and I don’t get quarantined woohoo. Fingers crossed. I feel like I just jinxed myself, welp. But anyways, before all the coronavirus stuff, I did manage to do some things the first few days of January…

Edit: All flights from China to USA cancelled… I won’t be giving regular updates about this because plans keep changing.

While putting together my various monthly and annual wrap-ups, I realised that many of my favourite moments of 2019 also translated into my favourite posts of 2019, so this year I decided to combine those wrap-ups in this one post.

I’ve been living the easy life with family this month. Taking it slow. Holding onto that December energy even though it’s already January. Feeling very zen about it. Not concerned by thoughts of catching up, getting back in the grind, or making big plans. Completely unbothered.

Was November?? Even a month??? I swear, it was Halloween and now it’s Christmas. It’s now cold enough that I can pull out my winter coat without feeling like a weakling and wondering how I’ll survive the dead of winter if I already need to pull out my winter coat.

(Y’all, it’s been so long since I’ve promoted a blog post on social media that I forgot how to get the WP shortlink for a blog post… I still haven’t figured it out, so I’d appreciate any pointers. I feel like such a n00b. I swear there used to be an obvious button for the shortlink toward the top of the dashboard, but I don’t see anything anymore. Maybe I imagined it.)

October was full of small, lovely moments. Of all the months, I wish this one was longest. It’s when everyone first gets excited for the holidays, revving up for Halloween and anticipating Thanksgiving and Christmas. (I’m not big on Thanksgiving myself, but I love the build up to Christmas.) I’ve been reveling in the spooky vibes and spooky books. As far as I’m concerned, November is October Part 2. I’m keeping on with the spooky reads and cosy evenings. Autumn is well and settled; I hope winter bides its time.