Hey cool! I’m very pleased to have received the following blogging recognition:

To my utter delight, the post “Ten “Mainland Moments” in Hangzhou” was Freshly Pressed! It’s been exciting to both “meet” new readers and to be challenged to keep creating fun posts.

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Expat Lingo was featured on WordPress’s “The Daily Post” in “Focus on: Expat Life Blogs.”

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Expat Lingo is “highly recommended” on the well-established and fabulous site, Hong Kong Blogs Review. Read the full review here. Their essay-style blog reviews are a joy to read in themselves, so if you’re interested in Hong Kong take a look at HKBR.

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I was inspired to write the post, “Inspiration: tales of sleeping in haystacks with backpacks,” by Kristen at Expatially Mexico who nominated me for the Inspiring Blog Award.

In the weeks running up to her nomination, I was inspired by the following bloggers:

Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff, Blue Balu, and Zhongguo Jumble inspired me to get out and explore more. My settling-in period here in Hong Kong is over: time to hit the streets.

Lonely Girl Travels wrote a post on her complete medical check-up in Bangkok that, in addition to being hilarious, also inspired me to be more creative and detail-oriented when writing my own posts. Stupid Ugly Foreigner has also inspired me to up my writing game. See especially his very relatable post, Travel Partners, or, the Gentle Hate Cycle.

Finally, Building My Bento has inspired me to inspect or buy all kinds of oddly packaged Asian food products and has even tempted me to visit the infamous Chungking Mansions (as of yet on the “to do” list, as I’m intimidated as hell).

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My fellow Hong Kong blogger, Bluebalu, awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award. Please go and check out Bluebalu’s blog featuring pictures and descriptions of many of Hong Kong’s small corners, for example, she has some great posts about classic Hong Kong diners, “What is a Cha Chaan Teng?”, and “What to order in a Cha Chaan Teng,” as well as a beautiful photo post with evening/night shots of Hong Kong, “Picture of the Week: Hong Kong Impressions.”

Kristen at Expatially Mexico and Maggie at Fly Away Home honored me with the Sunshine Award.

Global Anni nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger Award.

Expat Alien nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award.

中国Jumble kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award.

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The Sunshine Award asks the nominated blogger to answer the following questions:

Favorite color: Red.

Favorite animal: Right now, the gecko. I could kiss my visiting geckos for eating up the bugs creeping around my house in the semi-tropics.

Favorite number: I seem to do things in threes. Three years in China, three years in the UK, three years in law school, etc.

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Coffee, coffee, coffee.

Facebook or Twitter: I like Facebook for keeping up with old friends and Twitter for finding new friends with similar interests.

My passion: Seeing new places and learning new things.

Giving or receiving: I’ll be honestly selfish and say receiving.

Favorite pattern: Save for a lovely Moorish tiled floor, I’m relatively anti-pattern.

Favorite day of the week: Thursday. I think I like anticipating the weekend more than the actual weekend oddly enough.

Favorite flower: Just one? I love springtime Oriental Poppies, summertime Hollyhocks, early autumn Brown Eyed Susans, and year-round Orchids from Ikea.

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The Versatile Blogger Award asks the blogger to  share seven interesting tidbits about oneself: 

1. When I was eight, I felt supremely cool when my family ventured out of Mazatlan, Mexico’s “Golden Zone” (i.e., the “safe tourist area”). We saw a butchered pig’s head! We saw food at a wet market! This trip was my first time on an airplane.

2. I was (am?) a lawyer and I don’t know what exactly I’ll do next. Never a law-firm lawyer, but more of a groovy public interest/international development lawyer. (i.e., the kind that makes a lot less money)

3. I am a statistics nerd who takes part-time classes via the Open University (in the UK and soon in Hong Kong too).

4. My parents married and divorced each other…twice… But since they originally married in the Mormon Temple, I think they are technically still “sealed for time and all eternity.” That will be awkward.

5. I use too many parentheticals.

6. My favorite movies are “Animal House” and “Lawrence of Arabia.”

7. My five-year-old daughter has celiac disease, which is manageable via a strict, life-long, gluten-free diet. This means no wheat, barely, rye or most oats. Sounds like it should be easy in Asia, right? All that rice. Except soy sauce, which is in everything, contains wheat. I blog about this aspect of my life over here at Gluten Free Kids Travel. (And, yes, five years ago, I was the jerk who thought that all these “funny eating requirements” were bogus. Ha! Joke was on me.)

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Under several of these awards, I’m to share some of my favorite bloggers with you! In addition, to the bloggers who nominated me and those I’ve listed under the Inspiring Blog Award, these are some funny expat women worth checking-out:

LostnChina This is such a funny blog about China, elderly Chinese-American parents, fashion mishaps, etc. I get giddy when I see there is a new post to read.

Expatially Mexico Another expat writing up funny stories of a life abroad: flooding condos, language snafus and talking your way out of traffic tickets.

Jadeluxe An expat stenographer living in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Loved her anniversary dinner pictures which noted Hong Kong’s “Earth Hour” failures.

Tales from Hebei What another funny woman? Who was that asshole male comedian who said women aren’t funny?

Outbound Mom Recently landed in Brazil and was crazy enough to let an unknown woman enter her condo and get a knife out of her kitchen drawer.