Staycation – Triangle, NC (1)
After I have moved around a lot, I don’t feel the need of rooting at a particular location as home anymore. From time to time, I go somewhere afar to live for a while, from 1 week, 1 month to several months, and experience the life like locals. I call it “staycation”. As I am getting older, I quite enjoy “staycations” this lifestyle. It is full of warmth, life and vibrancy compared to traveling, where we are busy catching up with many tourist sites on a packed agenda. I shop at the local grocery stores and sometimes cook at “home”. I jog around the neiborhood and sometimes go to the gym or swimming pools. I go to restaurants and local markets to find good eats. I meet up friends for concerts, events or bars. Sometimes I meet my colleagues for work related matter, or take my kid to some agenda. There are also days when I just wonder in the streets and book stores or relax at home reading.
One or two years ago, one of my best friends in graduate schools moved away from midwest and settled in Triangle, NC. She invited me to live with her for a while to check out if I would be interested in moving there. Triangle is hot and humid in summer, but you can stay outside for activities almost year around as their winter is quite mild. I heard that the school calls off even with just a little bit snow 🙂 When I just arrived from midwest, I was spoiled by many trees and green here. Triangle has high housing prices especially in good school zones like Cary. From Cary, you can drive to Raleigh, Durum, Chapel Hills in 20-30 minutes. The area has good hospitals like Duke, UNC hospitals, and good K-12 schools like Cary Academy (private). There is even a Chinese school which offers good Chinese curricular in weekends. The kids can speak Chinese whole day in their summer camps. There is a famous green way that connects different residential areas that locals like very much. You can find the entries in just a few minutes away from your house, going for walk, running, or meeting your friends in the parks on greenways.
A beautiful summer day when I was there is that waking up in my friend’s spacious 4-bedroom house, chatting with my friends, and swimming in their free swimming pool, walking around their neiborhood, going to nearby grocery stores, or big Chinese grocery stores, or eating at a very good local restaurant that can’t be possible 😀 in midwest like Asian Kitchen 蜀湘春.
We had so much fun going to Harris Teeter. It is nostalgic, as this is a grocery store we must go during our graduate schools but I haven’t had a chance to visit it since I left the east coast of US.
