my parents came to visit in the afternoon before taking me back to belmont for some leftover hot pot action. the streets were awfully quiet and many stores and restaurants were closed. around the neighborhood, cars clustered around houses for holiday parties. though technically a white christmas, all that dirty frozen snow covering the sides of sidewalks probably wasn't what most people had in mind.

my parents may be going to asia at the end of winter so i was doing some research for them on the following topics: lion versus tiger, ladakh, alexandra david-neel, high altitude sickness, dartsedo, kashmir, arunachal pradesh, aksai chin, kashi.