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Beijing's hutongs are disappearing at a rapid rate, but for now, they're still great places to go for an inexpensive and filling meal. We stop at a noodle shop where the chef was ouside shaving knife-cut noodles, or dao xiao mian.

On our way to buy subway passes yesterday, Jacob and I passed a woman making jian bing, one of Beijing's many common snacks sold on the street. Not hungry but unable to resist the aroma, we stopped and bought one for 2.50 yuan (35 cents US). Jian bing is a crepe-like snack typically found only in the north. The jian-bing-maker first pours small amount of batter onto a hot griddle, and smoothes it out with a metal spatula. She then adds egg and scallions, flips it over, brushes on hoisin sauce and chili paste, and folds it up. Most vendors, like the one we bought from yesterday, will also add a large piece of fried dough in the middle. Crispy, savory, and warm - all good qualities for a cold weather road-side snack.

At a restaurant in Zhongshan, China we were introduced to a fried dessert the size and shape of a helium balloon. Watch as the cooks ever-so-delicately fry them in a wok, making them perfectly round. Bonus: footage of a fish flopping out of a bucket.For a full description of the dessert and restaurant, go to indietrekker.com.

As promised, the video of the big fried balloon-like puffs at Zhongshan's Shiqi Lao. Bonus: a fish flopping out of a bucket.

Hong Kong recently introduced plastic currency in an effort to make bills more durable. For now they only have plastic $10 bills ($1.29 USD at the current exchange rate), but they're fun to play with and are even see-through.

Shanghai's Yuyuan Bazaar is best known as a marketplace for all the souvenirs and tsotchkes you could want. It is also a haven for street food: soup dumplings, sweets, even birds-on-a-stick. Weekends are especially crowded, when even neighborhood grannies and little kids jostle with tourists to be next in line.

Our journey from New York began on July 31st. After spending a frenzied month packing, giving away 90% of our posessions, and saying good-bye to friends and family in New York and Boston, we hopped on a train bound for Florida, the first destination in our passage to China. The decision to leave was not an easy one. After all, we had only been in our nice new apartment for 10 months, just settling in. Better professional opportunities were beginning to present themselves. New York was home. So, then, why leave? The dilemma we faced is a common one shared by many 20- and 30-somethings who are still young : to settle into a niche that is comfortable, or to abandon comfort in favor of an exciting, though terrifyingly uncertain path. Plenty of people lead wonderfully rich lives without ever living abroad. I was already in an ever-changing and ever-surprisingly city. A city full of amazing people, culture, and food, and enough material for any budding writer to fill up a lifetime s worth of books. The fear that haunted me for over a year was that if I left, I would miss out on New York. Then another realization fought back, and won. If I stayed in New York, I would miss out on the rest of the world. And so the adventure begins.

On Jacob s to-do list before we left New York was to ride the Cyclone at Coney Island, the world s oldest wooden roller coaster. (Get there quick, kids. The Cyclone will still be up after they tear down Astroland, but riding in against the backdrop of luxury condos will be kind of lame.) The sea of people on the ground were there for M.I.A. at the Siren Music Festival.

A month ago while visiting Scandinavia, we took a two day detour to Lübeck, Germany, a stop on many bike tour maps. Jacob, ever-restless, began hopping over bike racks. No bikes were harmed in the filming of this piece.

To go from Lübeck, Germany to Copenhagen, we took a train that had to cross water. Being naïve, we thought that either there be a bridge, or passengers would disembark the train and get on a ferry. Little did we know the entire train would just roll onto the ferry. The Europeans onboard gave us a look that read, Vat? read more

In the Willamette National Forest (and scattered around Oregon and Washington) are random patches of prehistoric lava rock. We pulled off the side of the road (yup, they re that easy to find) and spent some time climbing around.

We gear up for the college party season with State Department warnings, voluntourism, the International Cricket Championship, top ranked nude beaches and beer drinking pigs.

Yes, the sun does come out in Oregon. Once in a while. Taking advantage of the good weather, we took the top down in our rented convertible (that gets good gas mileage!) This video was shot in the Willamette National Forest, where we drove from Cougar Hot Springs up, up, up to the snowy Santiam Overpass and Sahali Falls.

Hong Kong's Central district has a large open-air market that stretches for blocks and blocks. We head towards the egg stand and try the Thousand-Year-Old Egg, a duck egg that has been preserved in clay, ash, salt, lime, and tea. Oh, and the name is a bit of an exaggeration.

Qingdao, China, home to the Tsingtao brewery, is also where the 2008 Olympic sailing events will take place. In this short intro to Qingdao, we visit a beach full of shell collectors, a park with Japanese cherry blossoms, and streets with German-style architecture. Then we hike up one of Qingdao s numerous hills to the former German radio tower that s shaped like giant bubbles.

Think Hong Kong is all skyscrapers and crowded streets? On the southwestern coast of Lantau, one of Hong Kong s outlying islands, is a fishing village called Tai O. It s one of the last remaining fishing villages with stilt houses built hundreds of years ago. read more

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, a Lion Dance troupe makes the rounds in Boston s Chinatown, hitting every dim sum restaurant. Boston s Chinatown is smaller than New York s or San Francisco s, but never fails to deliver this yearly tradition. This short video was shot at Hei La Moon at 88 Beach Street in Boston.

On a 19 degree F day, we trek over to the west side of Manhattan and play with ice on the banks of the Hudson River.