I love this city and this country. Between dogs in strollers, pink buses, amazing architecture, yummy food, fascinating history, an entire village of pottery, random shrines, silly cartoon characters showing up in endless ways, and cheerful people...what’s not to love? I was in a 7-Eleven with my son, Lex when I noticed a girl no older than four clutching a milk cartoon, handing money to the clerk. I looked around for a parent but saw none. The girl carefully counted her change, pocketed it, and waited for someone to open the door before she headed out to the street. I went after her just to watch as she toddled down the busy sidewalk. “Lex! This little kid is all by herself!” “Yeah, Mom,” he said. “Happens all the time. There’s no crime, no boogeyman, kids are taught how to navigate the city.” 

This is one of the safest places in the world, and you sense it: there are no pickpockets, no thugs. It is a major city filled with alleyways overflowing with delicious aromas of frying chicken, soup broth, bread baking, five-spice powder. This is a city of small shopkeepers with tiny, personal establishments and windows displaying fashion trends with humor. There is a bustle no matter the time of day. It is multilayered with skyscrapers beside two-story structures, narrow lanes connecting to major freeways, a public transportation system that rivals any in the world. You’ll never go hungry, as there is every conceivable food on every single block. I have yet to see a homeless person or beggar. This city is eye magic and sensory nirvana.

Downtown is dominated by the iconoclastic 101 Building right beyond our Airbnb door. Ablaze with lights at night, stately during the day, it’s a building with character, with good luck engineered and designed into the structure. It’s far more that a staggeringly high skyscraper. In the basement is a sprawling food court, anchored by Din Tai Feng, arguably the best dumpling restaurant in the world. By 11 in the morning until 10 at night, there is at least an hour or two wait to snag a table. Guys in white coats, gloves, and face masks methodically, at a pace that defies imagination, crank out hand-rolled, filled, and sealed dumplings in bamboo baskets piled a dozen deep.

We’ve been having a very leisurely vacation—the eye in the storm prior to me heading back to Amsterdam and the bureaucracy of closing on my house, getting residency, opening a foreign bank account. We laze around, work on jigsaw puzzles, eat terrific meals, try to cook with two burners, two skillets, and two pots. We hiked the majestic, mystic mountain, and my calves burned for two days but I felt great as I made it to the top for the first time. We walk the city for hours, endlessly exploring, talking, laughing, and thoroughly enjoy our time here. There’s not much better in life, no matter where you are.

I send you wishes for the best of New Year and for celebrating life each day, each meal, each glance at some wonder created by mankind or nature. Big hugs, good health, good wealth, and always tell those you love how much you love them. I love you.