Now back to good part

Aaron says that I must be getting bored with the blog because I haven't posted in a long time.  In actuality I put this pressure on myself to have something interesting to post about and most days I think, "that wasn't that interesting."  OR we travel as much as we have in the last two weeks and then it makes posting a blog the last thing on my to do list, because i play catch up on other areas of my life when we get back home (like studying for that Chinese exam we had on Wednesday this week).


The last couple of weeks have been really good - despite the busyness of travel.  Aaron and I feel like we're learning a lot in this stage of life and the trips that we've taken have helped spur on some of that growth.  A few weeks ago we went and visited some friends who live in a small city in southern Sichuan province.  We stayed up late eating shao kao one night (shao kao is grilled meat or vegetables on a stick.  it's a low cost, favorite late night snack of locals), went to some hot springs (read: natural hot springs that had been diverted to be the source of what looked like normal hotel pools), spent some time in the sunshine by a lake, and were encouraged by the conversations we had with friends over the weekend.

Pretty much straight from there we spent a week in Hong Kong and got some time of rest, refreshment, and got to hang out with our friends James and Laura!

Next stop: Kunming to say goodbye to Daniel as he heads home to get married!!  Also - I'm going to learn a bit about video editing :)

He went to Hong Kong again

I got to get some more hang out time with Asian Kate, as she let me know when her husband was going to be gone again.  Unlike last time where we made dumplings together, this time we ventured outdoors - to the peach blossom festival.

The peach blossom is a beautiful blossom.

However, this peach blossom festival takes that beauty and puts tents on and around them (literally some of the tents had the trees inside of them) while the vendors sells chinese snacks, and tea so people can enjoy playing mah jong under the trees.

Aaron got invited on this outing, and we found out once we started going that this trip was less about the trees and more about a photo shoot.  Kate brought her friend, and a change of clothes and the two of them took turns taking pictures of each other doing different poses.  I heard her friend say at one point when Kate was a taking a picture of me and Aaron, "foreigners just stand in a line when they're in a picture."  She was noting it as odd, because I don't think there was one time where the two of them just stood still while taking pictures.

Learning how to pose and not just stand in a line.

Those are actually rapeseed flowers behind us - what we get Canola oil from.

We took off early from picture taking when we saw that is was about to downpour on us.  I wonder what we'll get into the next time he takes off for Hong Kong.