Love is in the air. Ooooh, and free stuff, too!

I have been waiting for the fireworks to die down so that I can hear myself type up a blog post about the Chinese New Year celebrations. We are eleven days into the Year of the Rabbit this Valentine's Day, and the boom! bang! crack! sizzle! fizz! whirrrr! and pow! of explosions are still going on outside my windows at all hours of the day and night. So, posting about Chun Jie is delayed.

Bam! But, do I have Good News to share with you today! That is capital "G," capital "N."

I won a weekend ski trip to China's WanLong Ski Resort compliments of Beijing's Travel-Stone travel agency! Thank you, Travel-Stone and Emilie who called me this morning with the exciting news!

- - - - - waiting for irony to sink in - - - - -

What's that? You know I don't ski? (Are you still laughing as hard as I am?) You can't possibly fathom how I ended up with a free ski trip (deep belly laughs, right?)?

I dropped my name and number in the "Win a Free Trip" bin the travel agency had posted at my local supermarket a couple of weeks ago. Duh! Of course! I was staring at the wall of overpriced wines when a woman behind me at a makeshift table from the travel agency asked me if I'd like to try to win something. Sure. Why not? I've never been skiing (oh, wait, there was that one time when I was 15). It's not like I'm going to win anyway. Hah!

Love is in the air. The love of all things new, exciting and free!

To preview my upcoming ski trip let's take a look at the snow (snow!) outside our apartment. Can you believe it snowed here, finally? Can you believe I won a free ski trip? Can you believe I'm going skiing? In the snow? In China?

There's a first time for everything this winter season!