红酒·绿茶 / Red Wine & Green Tea / Vin Rouge et Thé Vert

Our last two members arrived at Christmas night. And I enjoyed the hot tub in our house. Relax in Style Originally uploaded by nuance1979 , courtesy of Bin. We went to Keystone together in the morning. Skiing in group was different from skiing by yourself and it was good to have a change. Besides, after my last day of crazy skiing, I could only have some "family fun". We waited and talked and laughed at each others' falls. Our final program was a race for three pairs of ski socks. It would have been more competitive if we had ten people as planned. Nevertheless, I could only finish fourth. Thanks to the kindness of Shuxin, our champion, I shamelessly accepted the prize of socks. :) Quiet Mountain Town Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . And that was it. A six-day trip cut short by the mother nature. The important thing was we made the best out of it despite the negatives. C'est la vie!

Denver International Airport Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . We took a ride by Colorado Mountain Express to get to the house we had rented. It was originally for ten people but four of them had cancelled their trips and another two still to arrive. That night we went to Keystone for night skiing. Didn't enjoy it too much because not many trails were open and it was much colder at night. Besides, I was exhausted. The next day on Vail was the best day of my trip. We finally got to enjoy the good part of the blizzard: Great snow! I quickly realized the best powder was on the top so I didn't bother with the trails below the mid-mountain and enjoyed those blue/intermidiate trails as much as possible. My favorite trail was one called "Cappuccino", which was short and bumpy, with deep powder and a few trees. It was very interesting but not physically demanding, exactly the type of slopes I liked. People were very creative about the names of the slopes. An &qu

Determined to get out of Cincinnati that day, I got up early, went to the airport and put myself on the standby list for the earliest Denver flight. It was too late. Eighteen people were on the list and I was number twelve. In the end, the first five were the lucky ones. And my attempt to reduce my three-leg flight to Aspen through Minneapolis and Salt Lake City into two-leg wasn't successful, either. After arriving Minneapolis, I anxiously checked the status of my next flight. Thanks to Murphy's Law , I wasn't surprised at what I saw at all: The flight was delayed for more than a hour so that I would miss the next flight from Salt Lake City to Aspen unless it was also delayed as long as one hour. I immediately responded to secure a backup flight from Salt Lake City to Aspen the next morning and was a little bit relieved knowing Salt Lake City was a big hub for Delta. By the time I got to Salt Lake City, the last Aspen flight had already gone, as expected. Then I made a rig

Never in my life did I care about weather so much and find the Weather Channel not boring. I watched those who stranded in Denver airport and felt better by knowing that I was not alone. I talked to my friends on the same trip and we comforted each other by saying that the storm was great for skiing. Next morning before rushing to the airport, I checked the flight status and learned that Denver airport was closed for the whole day. With no point going to the airport, I decided to visit Cincinnati downtown for a day. (It would turn out later that the decision was sub-optimal and I should have gone to airport to put myself on the standby list of the Denver flight next day before visiting the city.) Ohio River in a Rainy Day Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . As expected, Cincinnati wasn't exciting to visit but I did enjoy the Contemporary Arts Center as well as the view of Ohio River. It would be a nice walk on the Taylor Southgate Bridge from Cincinnati to Newport, KY in

Our expertly-planned, carefully-coordinated and highly-anticipated Christmas ski trip to Denver took a bumpy start: We totally underestimated the time we needed to pass airport security during the holiday travel season. As a result, I barely made it to my first flight to Cincinnati and my friend missed it. So he got rerouted to another flight to Atlanta and we were supposed to meet in Denver that night. Having landed in Cincinnati, I was told due to incoming severe weather, my flight was the only one to Denver which didn't get cancelled. I felt so lucky, having no idea that a nightmare was about to unfold. After being airborne for about an hour, our pilot told us that Denver airport was closed due to a major blizzard and we had no choice but returned Cincinnati. That was the beginning. Because we wasted our time flying, we found ourselves in a very bad position of rebooking flights to Denver: Almost every seat was gone by the time we got back. After wasting time with the two poor

My local PBS channel, Maryland Public Television , was broadcasting "The Tank Man" , a great documentary on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 again. It's the second time I watched it but fresh as first. It provided a clear and solid rebuff to those who defended the Chinese government on the ground of the incredible fast growth of Chinese economy in the past 17 years. In the past I have also enjoyed "Warplane" , a four-episode documentary on military aviation and "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" , another interesting documentary.