pandas

While Becky was here we went to the Panda Park in the city. Aaron and I have been holding off going to the park because it is most likely a place that we will go to over and over, if people come to visit. I thought the park was pretty well done and we got there early enough in the morning that the pandas were active. Apparently they are really lazy animals that just sleep and eat. If you get there around 8:30 in the morning though, they are just waking up and are getting fed.

They were pretty cute. I didn't think that I would think they were that cute. I was wrong.

What is a t-shirt quilt, you ask?

Only the coolest thing ever!

So semi-unbeknownst to me, my family went in on a t-shirt quilt for me and my mom brought it when she visited last week. This thing is WAY cooler that it probably sounds.

Think of it as a way to preserve and immortalize 20 of your favorite shirts all at once.

I now have the ability to give shout outs to the coolest things in the world all at once. See picture.

America? Check.
Chapel Hill? Check.
India, where I fell in love with my wife? Check.
Hansbrough jersey shirt retired? Check.
Recognition of the Krispy Kreme hot light being on in Greensboro? Check.
Cheerwine? Check.

The list goes on and on. Is it exhaustive? No. Is it awesome? Yes.

Thank you to my amazing family!

missing home

Aaron's mom came to visit! She wasn't able to stay long, but we are really thankful that we got to spend the time we did with her. While she was here we skyped home and Aaron's dad showed us the beach and the beach houses that Aaron grew up going to. When looking at the beach, Aaron said, "I want to go there." The beaches of Thailand that we visit can't compare to the beaches of home. I miss the humidity, the waves, the familiarity, the full length shorts on men and the tops on women, the mullets and farmers' tans donned in stars and bars, and the stars and stripes everywhere and on everything.

It was unbelievably hard when she left on Sunday. I spent Saturday night crying myself to sleep in anticipation of saying goodbye the next day. We have really enjoyed being in China so far, but we don't have plans to go home or see family for at least a year. I anticipated that Christmas would be a hard time to be away from family, but I didn't anticipate summer being as hard as it is. We miss home. I miss family and friends. I miss North Carolina. sweet tea and cheerwine, barbecue and cookouts, camping and fly fishing, Aaron's neighborhood swimming pool and Chapel Hill....the list could go on forever.

professional pics

You've been waiting for them. Here they are - or at least some of them.

We livin' life like a video

Hong Kong....what was it like?

This is not awesome:
1. That Krispy Kreme closed their stores in HK in 2008.....which we didn't realize until after we spent a good amount of time looking for Krispy Kreme.
2. Crossing the border from Mainland China into Hong Kong. I'm not sure what we did wrong. But we did something really wrong. On the way in we ended up at some "station" which was not a subway station and only had cabs into the city or buses back into China....and all of them only took Hong Kong Dollars (which we did not have at that time). On the way back - we thought we went the best way back into mainland China, until we ended up walking in the rain for an hour looking for buses to take us to the airport.

3. The size of our room. And the size of the bed, which was about 4 inches too short for Aaron's legs, and was up against a wall.....luckily there was a few inches not touching the wall that he could use to hang one foot over.

This is kinda awesome:

1. Frozen yogurt. I have been missing frozen yogurt and Hong Kong, like America, in the past couple of years has really gotten into the frozen yogurt fad. It wasn't Feeney's. But it'll do.

2. The world's longest outdoor escalator, which is like taking a conveyor belt through a delicious buffet of restaurants.  It is at the same time the best and the worst ride, because it makes it so hard to decide what you want to eat for dinner.

3. A statue of Bruce Lee. It was kinda awesome.

This is awesome:

1. Okay - so I didn't realize that Hong Kong was more than just a big city on a harbor. It's a bunch of islands! We went to the south of the island one day and I was blown away by how beautiful it was - mountainous islands over pretty blue water. I loved the south part of the island and Gwen, if I was rich girl, I would love to vacation at the south side of the main island instead of in the city.

2. The food. Barbecue, grits, thai food, tostadas, quesadillas, cottage pie. delicious and not available in the mainland....at least not that good anyway. We ate like fatties. Oh yeah - and the free flowing root beer, cream soda, ginger beer (which is like a stronger ginger flavored ginger ale), grapefruit juice.....(and by free flowing, I mean you could buy these things at convenience stores).

3. Movie theaters. With movies in English.

4. The ferry ride across the harbor. and the harbor at night.  Beautiful.

Calisthenics

In keeping with the theme of Aaron's last few posts, here is a sign that I saw in the airport on our way to Hong Kong.

Western toilets are for babies. Squatty pots will pump you up.

Delicious

I've heard about something like this... in my dreams:

You may notice a theme in my (Aaron's) posts...

Twin sisters

I'll be honest, I like her sister Wendy's burgers a lot better...

Personal pan?

I went to Pizza Hut yesterday by myself for lunch. Not feeling ambitions enough to eat a whole pizza alone, I decided to revisit the days of my youth and order a personal pan pizza - the thing childhood dreams were made of.

What happened next can only be described by this picture. [Note: no digital enhancements were made to the size of the pizza...]

 I was forced to rectify the problem with a simple solution: (commonly referred to as the "sounds nice, make it twice" solution...)

What Gary Chapman would say....

If all the people of China could sit down with Gary Chapman for a little one on 1.4 billion conversation, I think Gary would quickly observe that their two main love languages are gifts and physical touch.

If you have ever lived here, or have read someone else's blog who lives here you probably at some point have noticed that gifts are bound to be mentioned. The Chinese give gifts for every major holiday (Dragon Boat festival is June 6th, so my teacher gave me sticky rice - which is the gift that you give for this holiday). They also give gifts for birthdays, when you visit someone's house, and other special occasions (like when I left the country last time, I received a lot of gifts). Sometimes you'll receive a gift randomly, like Aaron did this week.

Both Aaron and I received gifts this week - Asian Kate gave me that shirt for my birthday.....and Aaron's teacher gave him a recorder. We're really not sure about that one. It was out of the blue. And it's a recorder. This gift led to an impromptu jam session and playing the game "name that song."

There is an etiquette to gift giving here - like you should give a gift back when someone gives you one on a holiday. You should also probably refuse the gift a few times (although recognizing you're foreign, they'll show you grace if you don't) and expect any gift you give to be denied a few times before being accepted.

sending you a sexy recorder gram

The other thing that is pretty common here is holding hands, hugging, leaning on each other, close physical contact between people of the same sex. It is completely normal to see two girls walking down the street holding hands, or to see two guys walking with their arms on each others shoulders.....I have seen a couple holding hands, while the girl also held hands with one of her friends.

As an American, it can be hard to get used to - when your friend trying to protect you, links arms with you and pulls you close, under her umbrella (protecting you from sun, not rain).

I think probably another love language of theirs that Gary missed is giving unsolicited advice.....but we can talk about that another day, like eventually when I have kids - because that apparently is when you get the most advice.