C A L I F O R N I A

 

There is just something so fun about piers. I wish I lived close to one so I could watch the sunset from them and ride their Ferris Wheels all night long. From the fresh seafood restaurants to the men fishing and drawing caricatures, they are a crowd favorite. Santa Monica is the all time best in my opinion. The only thing that would make it better would be fireworks :)



We tried to go whale watching the night before we left, but we only made it 20 minutes out before the fog made us go back to the port. We smooth talked our way onto the next boat in the morning. While I didn't see any whales the size of school buses or sharks (shark week starts August 5th!), we did see PLENTY of dolphins, which apparently are a type of whale. They really should advertise that on their whale guarantee. It was really fun to go out on the ocean and use all of my oceanography knowledge, or the lack there of, I mean it was freshman year after all.

R A C H E L ' S G A R D E N P A R T Y

^^ On each plate was a "He said / She said" game, and a goody bag stuffed with lemon cookies.

^^ We did find time to pin the mustache on Rachel's groom Kyler.

^^ Chantelle made these perfect looking, and even better tasting 

strawberry whip cream cupcakes.

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.