Day 5 Chilled out.

Today this is what I saw on my walk to lunch. What a cute doggie, all dressed up for the cold. Otherwise I just chilled out and watched a movie that I couldn't understand good times.

Day 4 Continued

So this morning I woke up to snow, it felt like Christmas!! Turns out it was only some flurries, but now (10pm) the ground is white and I am going to bundle up and dance in the snow...

I did go outside and it was pristine white flurries ...that alone made my trip....it was like a blizzard (to me).. all the guys walking past me had no hats on and their black hair was white with snow...love it love it love it...(hey I'm a kid from Jersey who grew up with the stuff and moved before I had to function in it, and have since lived in hot a$$ places...so it still has that magical fun feeling for me)

Today: Massages ( I actually enjoyed it this time and can't wait to go back), Lunch and a visit with the tailor I can't wait for my items to be made and have a fitting on Sunday, we also went on a beer run, how Mr. Xu maneuvered down that alley is amazing, and majong! I won 2 games in a row, you can play that game for hours and not even know! I made a lovely dinner for mom and I and cookies and watched Milk.

PICTURES BELOW:

Day 4 snow

Day 3 the arm snatchers!

This morning my mom woke me up because we had to be ready in an hour to go shopping. Surprise surprise... what else do you do here!

I was of course hungry and ran to the kitchen to get a bagel cutting my finger with the large serrated knife (through the nail) and it turns out the bagel was pre-cut. DAMMIT!

We joined some of my moms friend for the pearl market where I picked out my pearls and some Tiffany& Co jewels. Then we went downstairs and I was looking at some belts, checking prices for a friend when the lady gave me an really high price so I said no thank you and walked away and the lady grabbed my arm and I released myself but she followed me and grabbed my arm again and I guess I was not convincing when I asked her to let me go so she had a really tight grip on my arm too tight for comfort and I honestly was afraid I would use too much force to get her off of me. (I wanted to punch her in the face but figured that wouldn't be the best move) I will admit that feeling of being grabbed was not pleasant in the least bit and shook me up some because no one wants to be violated while shopping. No incentive to buy.

Only a few floors down and more shopping calmed me right up. Here I feel so greedy it's like I buy buy buy and want everything...but it's a good price and you can never have too many purses scarves or jewelry right?

Came home to play majong and chill out now we are going to swim, I love this building!

It has been cold these past few day which is nice. Oh yesterday I had warm coke with ginger in it, actually really good.

Maybe Ill take a picture for later.

2 night pics

My mom and I later went out for a burger. The restaurant (Our waiters name was Rainbow Jerry, but he told us to call him RJ...at first I thought he was saying lambo...but when he said RJ it made a bit more sense...I love the "American" names they come up with here.) was located in a cool shopping center called the village and here were some of the cool things I saw:

2 down.

This morning started out with a work out, followed by a feast. My dad and I joined Mr. Xu (pronounced Shoe who is our driver) and his family for a lunch. We had some greens with almonds, broccoli with garlic, tree fungus wasabi, kung pao chicken, chicken dumplings, pork and fennel dumplings, pork and mushroom dumplings, and shrimp, pork,chicken and veggie dumplings and braised pork (which was really a ton of fat, and dissolved in your mouth). Here you don't get rice until you order unlike @ home. All was great and I ate too much and unfortunately I had forgotten to bring my camera with me, quite a shame because I had we then dropped my father off at the airport and it's really a cool looking building, a photo opp missed!

My mom and I joined her friends for some Majong fun...before we knew it 3 hours had passed. I won 6 games!



This is a Majong Win:

Day 1 Adventure with Dad

(bear with the weird formatting)
Happy Valentines Day!

My parents have left me for a ball at the Australian Embassy tonight and supposedly Jackie Chan is going to be there as well. My dad let me use his nice new camera to take pictures hahaha. I passed on that invite.

My mom got my dad some lovely horses made out of jade and my dad said "I thought we were over Valentine's gifts" so my mom went to get her nails done discretely(NOT) leaving her discount jewelery store card on the counter for my dad to take with us.

We first went to lunch at this place:



As you can see it is not cold here as I was hoping for, that vest and scarf was almost too much!








So we had some spinach with a peanut sauce that to me had a horseradishy taste to it:



















Then some Kung Pao chicken with peanuts which had a great flavor but was quite spicy, my coke did not help cut the heat. There were boxes of tissues on the table to use for our runny noses.



















Then for our "main dish" we had poached catfish in hot oil (I believe) which was another kind of hot. Different hot as in numbing hot, as in my dad made me chew on this little pod and my whole mouth went numb, it was such a weird sensation. That little thing on he side of the pot:








































We then proceeded to the jewelry store to get my mom some earrings. My dad bought me a rose from the street vendors and we stopped in the bakery to get some dessert and movies.

Not surprising that I am starving so am just waiting on my pizza and already ate my left over gnocchi and some cheetos...I have MILK, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEE'S, and DOUBT to keep me company.

OH this is a view out of the window.














to be continued...