Category: advice and tips

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advice and tips China Life Tips

China travel tips, 2026 edition

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(Working in progress as of 04-05-2026, soft launch for now as I expect summer travel to take off towards the end of May. Thought may be helpful for friends who have not visited China for a while)

I am learning from the one and only Apple in terms of their iOS new versioning convention – iOS26. Their new versioning scheme is not entirely ground breaking, btw. If you pay attention to the new cars in the USA (likely in China nowadays too), the new car model or next year model is usually available the year before. For example, right now 2026 Toyota RAV4 is already available. I was a car junkie back in the days – I could tell almost every car’s make and model on the highway when they drove by because I am a slower driver 🙂 But this is mostly useless knowledge too 🙂

Yesterday I came across 2 blog posts almost 20 years ago – More Shanghai travel tips and Travel tips for Shanghai. A lot has changed since then, this is obvious because not only because of the 20 years but also because of the smartphone revolution happened in last 15 years or so.

App, 微信支付 WeChat Pay

Let me give an example, I recall in March 2023, after a break of more than 3 years (2020, 2021 and 2022), I flew back to PVG and saw my parents again in Ningbo. At the KFC store, they already stopped taking orders from the counter, everything is done via app or via 微信小程序。I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know way before that, at a bank branch in Shanghai, I am supposed to take a number from the computer (printer), which is equivalent to the ticket dispenser here in the US. But I didn’t know and waited in line directly until I realized that I didn’t have a number. Anyway, at KFC, the cashier or 伙计 tried to teach me to download the KFC China app on my iPhone, and because my app store country is set to the USA, it could not find the app 🙁 She has to manually put in order for me, and I was able to pay via WeChat pay though.

Hotels

I wrote quite a bit of kids friendly hotels that I stayed in China: mainly Shanghai and Ningbo Beilun.

Eat

This is mostly for my own benefits 🙂

Shanghai: 台乡缘（2024）

文兴酒家久光百货店（2025）

桂满陇虹桥枢纽浙菜 (2025)

Ningbo:小鱼厂私厨 鄞州 (2025)

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advice and tips Saint Louis

I’m looking for a new gym and/or swimming pool

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And I am open to all suggestions 🙂

Some background – amid the most recent war and the turmoil in the middle east, I thought about quitting JCC earlier next year – I shared my thoughts here YT Video (in Chinese) a few days ago.

Now I think I may do it a bit sooner – the earliest time I think is starting next month May 2026. This is a bit like if people decided to move on from a relationship or a job, it doesn’t make much sense to hang around long, if they don’t expect things to change. In this spirit, I think about cancelling the membership at the end of April – before they start charging me the month of May membership. I know I had said a lot of good words for the J, the short name for JCC, over the years: including my blog posts over the years and this one in particular. Both my kids participated the Day Camp there in summer. But now I think it’s time to move on.

I am thinking about some alternative locations for indoor swimming, if I continue to do that. Another thing I like to have is an indoor walking track – West County mall is one option (in that case The Lodge at Des Peres may be fit the bill?). I like to walk outdoors. But here in STL, there are quite a few months in the year that the weather will be either be too hot or too cold to walk outside, or too rainy. And I can think of the below list. I will be taking time to decide my next move as I am not in a hurry. I would join the Olivette’s Five Oaks off Warson, the closest community center (walking distance from my home), if they have one of those. But it seems to me they only have work out (exercise) machines (treadmills, bikes, weight machines etc.), and pickleball and basketball court. I am decent on pickleball, but I haven’t been fully sold on that sport. Btw, about 2 years ago I poked fun at the pickleball here.

The list

Center of Clayton || Membership rates below (monthly), probably the closest among all the gyms.

 catergoryResidentCorporateNon-Resident
 Youth (3-17)$32$38$42
 Adult$47$56$67
 Senior (65+)$38$45$49
 Family $78 $90 $111

======

Maryland Heights Community Center: it looks like their rate is much cheaper than the J membership.

Prices below are listed as Resident/Non-resident

Adults (Ages 16-61):

  • 12 Months: $270/$324
  • 6 Months: $169/$203
  • 3 Months: $101/$115
  • 1 Month: $41/$49

======

Not too far from Maryland Heights CC, the YMCAs (Edward Jones branch)

Richmond Heights

Lifetime Fitness (this one is a bit more expensive; I feel it’s too expensive for my income or taste)

Forest lake tennis and swimming club (outdoor pool only): my younger daughter is already doing weekly tennis clinics there.

The Lodge (Des Peres)?

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips uber-and-side-hustle

Tax season

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Uber Driving

Noted this: why the Uber 1099-k includes gross income (google search). The important part is: You report the 1099-K gross amount on your Schedule C, then deduct the fees and commissions as business expenses to ensure you are only taxed on your actual earnings, notes TurboTax and Stride Health. (this is from Google AI overview)

Btw, I am not sure if this is new for this year (tax year 2025). I assume if one has tax professionals do the tax, they will catch it. For those DIYers, or people who don’t drive a lot for Uber, this heads up may be relevant. Personally, I added up all the money I received from Uber (at my bank website), and added them up, before comparing with the tax summary from Uber.

Update 03-07-2026: Filed via Turbo Tax e-file.

Update 03-10-2026: I realized I forgot to expense the Internet (Broadband) cost, as both my wife and I work full time from home. Well, if there is any other significant reason that I need to amend the return, I would include that change as well. Otherwise, I just make a note here for myself – don’t forget to expense it next year.

Update 03-15-2026: both federal and state refunds are in my bank account.

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advice and tips car kids Life Life Tips

Teach my older kid to drive

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I wrote this one too fast – Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays 🙂 This seems to be confirmed by this Yahoo article – Gen Z is slamming the brakes on getting a driver’s license.

话音未落，I started to teach my old kid to drive. We are already on the road, btw 🙂

We practiced on the parking lot 1st, but she got a bit bored of the parking lot, so last 2 days (I started writing this post in late Dec, FYI) I have taken her to quiet neighborhood, and she was practicing on the road. Note she is new on the road. And understandably sometimes she would get nervous if another car come by both in the front (opposing traffic), or behind. Today she almost panicked at a four way stop sign 🙂 But we survived.

12-31-2025 Today we got honked by people the 1st time, at the Hilltop neighborhood.

1-1-2025 We finally hit the real road, I mean the road with traffic lights (not just Stop sign). We drove at the Lackland near Westport, also from the Walgreens St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby) to home. Many years ago (confirmed by my wife) I taught her driving, at the industrial compound at Westport.

02-07-2026 We continued practicing on the real road, mostly on weekends.

02-10-2026 S8 drove from the St. Louis Premium Outlet Mall to home, via local obviously. She was fairly proud that she made smooth left turn from Chesterfield parkway to Olive. And re: Olive Road, she said she may miss it when she goes off to college. Other interesting facts she told me is an old story between her mom and her as her mom drove the similar route quite a few years ago – they were going to the mall as well.

Amother longer road (route) we drove recently: Olive west (from Warson), Clarkson, Manchester, and West Country Mall. She got honked when near the west county mall. There were quite a few cars because it was weekend.

Side note – Road Rage

Road rage (lu nu) is prevalent in the USA. Here in STL it’s not extremely bad, but from time to time you will see those impatient drivers or impatient people in general. Recently as I started teaching my older kid to drive, and also as I reflect on my own driving and so on, I felt I have a bit burden or worry when she eventually goes out and drives on her own.

In China people honk, here in STL people may not honk as much, but the road rage is definitely there. And in extreme or rare cases, it could turn out to be deadly (because of firearms aka the guns).

Nowadays I rarely honked at people, and I rarely honked back. I did some of that when I was younger and also when I am lacking sleep.

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advice and tips Life Tips

Apple Watch Sleep tracking

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Started this a bit over a month ago. Better late than never. I had Apple Watch since Jan 2017, and Apple Watch released sleep tracker in 2020.

Some observations

If the watch was taken off during the night, say 2 to 3 hours, the sleep tracking got reset – which means you will likely get a bad sleep number (low score).

Also, I am not sure how accurate the Apple watch does in terms of sleep tracking – I assume it measures the heart beat (from the pulse in the elbow). I had similar questions re: the Apple watch swimming tracking too. It seems to me they are rounding up the number there.

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advice and tips Life Life Tips Software development

My 2025 year end review

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New habits re: health and fitness

Swim:

Run: I didn’t run a lot. I did run a few races (for run): the Ladue Dogwood run, the ‘Due Run for Education (LEF) and Frostbite Run at Forest Park organized by the St. Louis track club (short distance).

No more alcohol 🍷

I started using Apple Watch to track sleep.

Other new adventure I decided to take on

Learn music, guitar and piano

Stocks

Need some more patience there. A good example may be $MDB at 04/04/2025: it was under $155 then. Today it closed at about $399.65.

Family and China Trip

Started teaching my older kid to drive

Realized that “Good habit is important – easier to correct in the beginning than to correct later on – similar for the music learning too”. Today 01-01-2026 she even drove from the Walgreens in St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby road) to our home – via Ashby road. I was the passenger. (Update 01-02-2026) Today’s practice route here.

Btw, I paused the Uber driving for now. It was fun ride to say the least.

YouTuber or creator instead of blogger?

Thinking I may archive this blog site and focus more on the video content creation instead. Haven’t made final decision yet but leaning towards this – it was a good 20-year journey but couple things made me to re-think about my blogging journey – very few people are reading my blogs these days, that’s probably true for other newspaper, magazine website too – people are mostly switching to video or short videos over the years due to many reasons. Video is more engaging, or much easier to absorb. Also, video especially short video is quite addictive. Other reasons are the cost of hosting this website, as well as the recent AI bots scanning my website continuously (they appear are from CHN).

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advice and tips Life Tips

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advice and tips DIY Life Tips

When should we stop doing yard work?

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I think it should be now.

Joking 🙂 I was thinking doing it until 60. But the other day, my piano teacher, who is probably 20 years older than me, told me he is still doing yard work. I am 54 btw. My younger daughter’s violin teacher who is 13 years senior than me, does yard work too. So music makes one younger – that’s one motivation factor that I am leaning music now 🙂

This morning (Saturday 2025-11-15) I cleaned up about half of the leaves 🍁 in the backyard. My joke of the day is: 前人种树，后人捡树枝和树叶🍂。

Btw, I do mow my own lawn since August 2019. I guess I will do the yard work until I feel not physically able to do as I age, or I really hate it. Hopefully I can do it for a while, at least. Right now, it’s still not too bad.

Cost associated with trees

Btw, over the years I realized there are potentially two risks involved with trees near the house.

One is the tree could fall, and it could hit the house or people. In fact, this happened to me (my house) twice. Once, a few years ago, in a summer, neighbor’s tree fell on our fence, in the process it broke the electricity wires, and knock off the power. Another time, a branch fell on our roof – for that one, I was sort of expecting it, but I was not proactive enough, to remove the dangling tree branch on the big, sweet gum tree in the backyard. One day, my neighbor emailed me and said you have a tree branch sticking into your roof. I immediately realized what happened. Btw, it’s the same neighbor – the first and the second incidents.

I consider the safety of human beings the top priority. That brings another point or cost associated with tree maintenance – removal of the dead tree. That’s not cheap either, especially when the tree is big. I had experience on this too: a few years ago, I had to call tree company to remove a dead oak tree, that tree is probably almost 60 years old, and was infected with some sort of galls – caused by gall wasps or more specifically Andricus kollari. The bill was about $2,200 (in summer 2022, to put things in perspective).

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advice and tips

Toyota Sienna 2012

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I owned it since summer 2013 and wrote my Toyota Sienna quite a bit over the years. I commented it on a YT video too.

我的2012年丰田Sienna：是2013年夏天买的旧车27,000 miles，一直开到现在。昨天开到了150,000 miles。

I debated a bit between Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey at the time, decided to go with Sienna because it appears Odyssey may have transmission issues as it ages.

Overall I am quite happy with my purchase.

Main repair costs

The rodents (squirrel): the main reason was I didn’t have a garage between summer 2013 and summer 2019. And I had to park outside: I usually parked at the same place, and on some work from home days, I didn’t move the car. It took me a while to figure out the rodents don’t like the orange smell of the “Bounce” dryer sheet, and I was able to use that to keep them away. I also moved the car around as needed.

The tires: which is not unusual. Because it’s a bit heavy. But proper tire rotation and balance, and wheel alignment will help too. It seems I usually got about 40 k miles from a set of tires.

Reference

YT: 2万美元二手日系8座MINIVAN厢型车——丰田塞纳/本田奥德赛/美国二手车/美国车价/汽车市场/车评/通病/体验。

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advice and tips Life Tips

Restart green tea and cut coffee consumption

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After quitting alcohol, I am substituting some of my daily coffee ☕️ with green tea 🍵. I tried to cut off coffee completely in the past too. But it seems coffee is a more addictive substance, at least to me, because I would get headache in the afternoon if I didn’t drink the morning coffee. So right now I am only moderating coffee consumption.

Also probably more importantly I believe longer term green tea will be better for my health.

As I read the benefits of green tea from food and wine magazine via Apple News: “

Turns Out, One Simple Drink Could Be the Key to Better Sleep, Sharper Focus, and a Happier Mind

According to new research, this centuries-old beverage supports long-term brain health by dialing down inflammation and balancing hormones, leading to better sleep, steadier moods, and sharper focus.”