Staycation

For the first time in five years, we didn't travel to Thailand for Chinese New Year. We stayed in China. In fact, we stayed in Shenyang. We haven’t left town since we arrived in August. Instead we had a staycation.

A staycation (also spelled stay-cation, stacation, or staykation is a neologism for a period in which an individual or family stays and relaxes at a hotel or motel close (~5 km) to their residence. Common activities of a staycation include use of the backyard pool, visits to local parks and museums, and attendance at local festivals.¹

That’s what we did.

We booked a room at the Holiday Inn and enjoyed downtown Shenyang. We roamed the empty shopping streets on Chinese New Year’s Eve, ate Pizza Hut with friends, learned about the blizzard in the US as we watched CNN, ate an awesome Western breakfast at the hotel, went swimming at a pool much warmer than any we’ve found in Thailand, and ate Dunkin Donuts while drinking Starbucks coffee. Then we jumped in the taxi and ~5 km later we arrived home.

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¹Wikipedia