it's a small world after all (even in China)

For some awesome reason, I seem to have this ability to make the world a tiny tiny place.

One of my favorite ways is to play the "do you know" game and connect to a person by someone else-i'm pretty great at it if i may say so.

A not so great way is if i were to be talking about someone, then unavoidably they always seemed to be right there

And the greatest way is when you run into people who against ALL odds you shouldn't have.

ex. 1 my cousin in Shanghai

ex. 2 the teachers and one of my students from my Ningbo school in Xiamen at a random temple.

Caroline and i decided to go see the University (where we were surprise videoed for a birthday party) and then we walked through a temple where you try to get coins into the statue (behind me in the above picture). I was just being my normal competitive self trying to get the highest, when someone groped me into a hug and I could see Caroline so I knew it wasn't her (plus my family isn't really one of the hugging families...)

And who was it?

Angel my coordinator from Ningbo. Against all odds I tell ya.

This Day

This Temple

This EXACT time

5 million people

...i'm just happy i didn't spend more time at the turtle pond

life you're pretty great.

An arranged marriage

Today we yet again went to the tailor where he asked if I had a husband and then offered his apprentice to me. My husband could make all my clothes for me, what could be better?
We're the same age and i'm single, so in his mind it's perfect.
What do you think?
The tailor (whom we have yet to give an English name to) started talking so fast neither of us could catch his Chinese so we called a translator and she said he asked if we would stay and hang out with him. So the apprentice gave us a cold strange drink and after drinking it, very hesitantly though, apprentice brought out the red bull can with three times as much energy as American ones.
Guess we'll see if I can sleep tonight...
So we stayed and watched him sew and he took pictures with us and then we talked about the electronics, some nice girl talk while we sewed.

Mr. Miyagi

After a great Subway Relief Society lunch we went to the fabric market and hung out with Mr. Miyagi and his apprentice while they sewed. We bought some really "nice" Hawaiian fabric and had Mr. Miyagi make the boys surprise matching shirts. He pulled up some chairs and faced the fan directly in front of us while we chatted. Then we ate at Chairman Mao's with the visitor from Utah and took the ferry to Gulong Yu to see the Island with all the lights

on Thursday we go to the market-

A man from Lifetime was visiting so we decided to give him the classy local Xiamen tour and take him down the market and to Zhongshan Lu. I will miss these markets so much- pure entertainment.

ex. Today one of the ducks was making his last attempt at escape and was flying all over and landing in the fish water and getting the sellers all wet, while we sat there laughing so hard and trying to get a picture (fail).

Seconds later his life was ended in front of our eyes. (This is not the entertainment portion) I usually try to avoid these events and move on to animated chopstick sellers.

Earlier in the day we went to the art market, where our best friend hand paints us pictures and sells them to us for pennies pretty much. Seeing as it was hotter than .... he closed the door and turned on the AC (very very kind of him) and he typed in his computer and it translated into English for us and then we used our very small amount of Chinese to chat with said man.

Then we took photos with him and he insisted that we emailed them to him that instant.

Secretly I hope when we bring our family back next week and he's painted a picture of us and has it hanging in the shop.

That would be some serious laughs.

Guest Post: Selina Gomez and Justin Beiber

A beautiful empty beach.

Caroline and I laid out our sheet (since we only have two towels and they don't air dry fast enough to use for non bathing activities), for a normal day at the beach. 

BUT

We forgot that we were celebrities.

The way people stared and took pictures was like it was US Weekly Magazine sneakily taking paparazzi pictures of JB and Selina in Mexico.

and...

I think a crab bit my foot while I was standing in the water.

So it was an awesome day to say the least.

Especially when we topped it off with night badminton-we had to add a harder element because our skill was increasing too rapidly. And then our little hole in the wall dumpling guy who walks around bare foot-wearing a swimsuit-while cooking- and walking around an inch of water on the floor.

Sorry for making you turn the computer, or your head. But it's worth it.

This is my amazing ability at putting sunscreen on.

Just like my mama always said:

Sunscreen works.

Pretty Proud of ourselves

Me and Caroline were up for an adventure so we took a bus over to the new Westin plaza

We decided since we were foreigners, even though we were under dressed they wouldn't mind us seeing the lobby. We literally stood staring at the ceiling taking in the smell, the glorious non Chinese food smell for a solid three minutes. Until the manager came and asked if we were staying there to which we said no, and he then took us on a tour of the entire beauty. Me and Caroline were pretty pleased with ourselves and knew Matt would be jealous until ten minutes later he called and said "Hey on Friday do you want to go on a tour of the Westin," welllll we just did that actually.

Then we walked over to a soccer stadium and found these boys playing soccer with a tennis ball as part of their training. We also found a gymnasium, driving range, soccer field, basketball courts, and tennis courts. 

This is where all the children prodigies go.

Then me and Caroline decided to be domestic and made homemade tortillas with taco meat and salsa.

Matt claims it's one of the best meals he's had of Carolines, so we think we did pretty well for having to use a cup as a rolling pin. The creative thinking i'm learning here is unrivaled by any I tell ya.

The Modern Toilet was our next adventure of the day- where you sit on toilets and eat your food/ice cream out of a toilet or squatter.

Looks appetizing? It was.

Our bathtub banana split

To whom we were high maintenance and had them get an English speaker so we could ask if that was Mocha or Chocolate.

Shout of to Tina Fey's book Bossypants who makes a hilarious reference to this restaurant.

This weekend:

I landed in Xiamen, the Chinese preffered vacation spot, where my brother lives.

 Down a street market

 On Friday I finally got to see Hunger Games, with some of our Chinese friends!

An awesome mango ice Serendipity-but-Chinesey hole in the wall place where we cooled off from this 90 degree 90 percent humidity.

The coolest containers on top of one of the forts at the fortress

I shouldn't have played this, we began the day by dripping with sweat.

A traditional war performance at the fortress

The girls.

We've had a blast all weekend, i'm sad to see Abby and Caitlin go home

I rescued Caitlin's sunglasses after they dropped in the ocean, wave after wave, but I finally got them.

I did leave the seat on the bus very wet, i'm deeply sorry to the unfortunate Chinese who decided to sit down after me.