Bittersweet Ending to Freedom

It is with bittersweet emotion that I must spread news of my new employment. My feelings of excitement and thankfulness are admittedly a little repressed by the remorse of no longer being free to do the following:

--Wake up at 7:45 am (a must, even though I'm not a morning person so that I'll be able to go to bed the same tame as K each night - if only he could stay up and play until midnight...)
--Roll to the couch and watch a Baby Story on TLC at 8:00 and 8:30. Tear up every time the baby is born on TV.
--Check E-mail and lolly gag around the house until 10:15. Change into biking clothes and ride bike while watching the View.
--Shower.
--Eat lunch, sometimes with fellow co-workers who tell me how much they hate their jobs. Reminds me to be glad I'm not where I came from.
--Run errands or lay out in the backyard with Abby until Ellen at 3:00.
--Oprah at 4:00.
--Frantically make bed and pick up around house at 4:30 before K gets home from work.
--Attempt to cook dinner.
--Try to be creative so I can come up with a good answer for when K asks, "so what did you do all day today?"

Now that my free time is coming to an end, I'm of course thinking of all the things I should've done over the past 2 months like organize the house, clean out the closets, finish the 3 books I'm in the middle of reading right now, etc. It has been a wonderful sabbatical and I'm hopefully able now to go back into a new position with a renewed energy and rested spirit.

What will I be doing come Monday? Working at Bank of Texas, aka the old Bank One. Have decided to go back to underwriting and credit analysis instead of sales. Many former colleagues that I have worked with in the past have transitioned to this company, including my old boss who left Chase while we were in China. God sure does seem to work things out for good. How silly I was to ever have a doubt in my mind!

The Grand Finale

I do not want to give Ryan and Leah, Jeff and Dana (AND their 2 children) the satisfaction of knowing I posted on my blog about the horrific event that they carried out recently at our house; however, what they did is KIND OF funny. I'm sure one day it will be REALLY funny, but there is still a slight bitterness inside of me mostly related to the fact that I was in a terribly tired and grumpy mood when we discovered their act.

As a brief background and true confession: a few weeks ago Kevin and I decided to wrap Ryan and Leah’s house for fun. After dinner and drinks one night we decided it would be fabulous to live in the moment instead of going home and going to bed like we usually do. We bought a huge pack of TP at Albertson’s, picked up another friend Dana on the way, and completely papered their trees and front lawn. It was a crappy wrap job, but probably still a pain for Ryan to clean up the next day - whatever.

Evidently, Dana’s hubby Jeff spilled the beans. Jeff - you suck. I will say that revenge is terrible. They completely covered the entire inside of our house with toilet paper while we were in China. I mean, it was hanging from the ceiling fans, woven in and out of the blinds, in our cups and pots and pans, all around the TV and doorknobs, in our refrigerator. Seriously. I was not a happy camper, especially after having travelled for the prior 24 hours from the other side of the world. THIS is what we had to clean up:






It is a good thing that our house did not catch on fire, because if that had been the case it would've been scorched and spread instantly with all the TP. All I have to say is Jeff and Dana - you better watch out...

China Top 10 - #9 and #10

9. Local Markets

LOVED the opportunity to peruse the local markets in all 3 places we went - Hong Kong, Xian, and Beijing. Negotiating is huge, and due to the communication barrier a typical transaction is carried out via calculator - punching in prices back and forth. They haggle like crazy to get you to come into the store: "HELLO - come have a look, hello." I typically offered 10-20% of their inital price, generating the disgusted response of, "No money, no money." Those that really wanted your business would chase you down the street. This typrically came after my smile and "no thank you" to their fake unwillingness to accept my discounted offer.

In Beijing, we went to the Wangfujing Night Market which offered not clothes and souvenirs, but food. Unique food for that matter - disgusting in my mind - including scorpions, sea horse, starfish, lizards. I stuck to a vegetable wrap followed by a late night bowl of noodles instead of splurging. The guys had scorpion, which they described as "crispy." Before being cooked, some were still squirming on the stick. Gross.






10. The People

Last but not least, the people that went on this trip were amazing. It was sad saying goodbye when we left. I felt a genuine sense of remorse inside knowing that my adventure with these incredible people had come to an end. We were all thrown into the situation together mostly without having had prior relationships, and through experiencing a foreign county together we all naturally grew to become friends. I am hopeful that our paths will all cross again in the future. Our China memories would not be the same without them.

China Top 10 - #7 and #8

7. The Great Wall

Words really can't describe the Great Wall. We went to the Mutianyu section which is about 2 hours outside Beijing. I found a private guide named Alvin Benton on tripadvisor.com who picked us up at 7:00 am and drove us around in his van the entire day.

To put it bluntly, the wall kicked our butts. We went as high as we could before turning around and hiking back to a toboggan run that we took to get down. The ups and downs were challenging, but so unbelievably worth it. The views were breathtaking, and it was hard to imagine what it might've been like back in the day when the wall was truly guarded by soldiers.






8. Temple of Heaven Park

We got up early, had breakfast at our hotel, and went to the Temple of Heaven on our last morning in Beijing. To get there, we had to cross through a huge park filled with locals. It was basically an outside retirement home for the elderly. There were groups of people playing cards, waving streamers around in the air, playing hackeysack, dancing, crocheting. It was such a true picture of their everyday lives. I took a video of a group of coreographed dancers. Perhaps it was really an aerobics routine? I'm not sure how they all knew the motions, but literally everyone was on cue and in sync with the instructor. I loved seeing this piece of the elderly's actual daily routine.

China Top 10 - #5 and #6

5. The Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Warriors were discovered in 1974 by a local farmer digging a well near Xian. Current numbers in the three separate pits containing the army estimate that there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits. I can't imagine the patience of the people who put these together. I mean seriously. You can see in the 3rd picture below that these figures are / were smashed and in shambles. It's like a never ending puzzle.

Like the majority of the architecture and sights we saw, it is hard to think back to what it was like back in the day when these were originally built. Such history and creativity in crafting and painting each and every single member, only to have them destroyed yet now discovered...

6. The Olympic Venues

When James, T and Victor suggested going to the Olympic Venues our first night in Beijing, I was not excited. Having seen these on TV during the games made me think that I wasn't missing anything by not going. How wrong I was!! This was surprisingly one of my most favorite sights we saw. Both the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were stunning at night, and the architecture was incredible. We weren't able to go inside, but still - seeing them from the outside was an awesome experience. Walking out of the subway station and walking towards them from afar totally rocked...

China Top 10 - #3 and #4

3. The Massage

Bing's family hosted a traditional Chinese dinner near our hotel the first night in Xian. Afterwards, we all went to get massages. There were about 15 of us, and we were split up into different rooms with 4 or 5 to a room. The massage lasted 2 hours, and cost 100 RMB or around $15 USD. Can you say cheap and amazingly relaxing??

It was not like a typical American massage - they massaged my eyeballs, stuck 2 fingers in my ears and stretched my head up, massaged my stomach, cracked my legs like a whip. One of Bing's friends, Sally, was in the same room and she served as our translator. Upon her lead, I decided it would be a good idea to partake in Chinese massage cupping therapy. My masseuse took 12 glasses, lit a ball of fire, put the fire into the glasses briefly, then suctioned the cups to my back. Supposedly this helps elevate pain, removes toxins and allows the body to feel free and rested. The glasses act as a vacuum and suck the extra heat thereby improving blood circulation. It is important to note that this type of therapy also leaves huge, round hickeys on your back that remain there for days:

I brought a halter top dress with no back for the wedding, which clearly was not an option. As a solution, I had a traditional silk Chinese dress custom made just for me in one day. The spots on my upper arms stuck out like 1/2 circles under the sleeves of my dress, which still was much better in my mind than revealing my spotted back.

The spa ladies like the color of my hair, so they also steamed my legs and used hot rocks as part of my treatment. Sally tells me they asked if I was a belly dancer because my legs were soft. Unable to find the correlation between the 2, I responded no with laughter. It took a day later for me to realize that I misunderstood Sally's accent and she meant BALLET dancer, not BELLY. Nice...

4. The Wedding

Scott and Bing's wedding was held in the Xian Room of the Shangri-La Hotel. The morning of, the guys went to her parents' apartment to "woo" Bing, as part of traditional Chinese custom. When they got there, they set off fireworks in the driveway to let everyone know they'd arrived. They had to bribe the family with gifts and get past 3 doorways to get inside. Scott gave little envelopes of money, etc. to convince them to let him in. Once inside the apartment, they had to find Bing. After finding Bing, they had to find her shoes. ??? After everything was "found," they had tea with Bing's parents, symbolizing that Scott could now officially call them Mom and Dad. Then they went to Scott's parents' hotel for tea, symbolizing that Bing could now officially call them Mom and Dad.

The actual wedding started later in the day with drinks and a violinist in the reception area. Bing wore 3 different dresses throughout the evening - one during the pre-wedding mingling, one during the ceremony, and one at the reception - all equally beautiful. Obviously I understood none of the wedding as it was all in Chinese:

After the ceremony, Scott and his best men - Matt and Jordan - with Bing and her bridal party had to visit each table and take shots with every one. If they took actual shots they'd likely die, so many of them were fake shots with water only. The liquor of choice was Mao Tai, or some form thereof, and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever had. It was a rice liquor that burned like crazy going down and was not flavorful or enjoyable at all whatsoever. The shots kept coming like nothing I've ever seen. As the night went on people were shooting wine, beer, Hennessy, Vodka. Seriously, there was so much alcohol that this guy passed out in his chair.

Chinese people do not stick around for weddings, so after dinner the place literally cleared out with the exception of the younger crowd and some of Bing's family members. For those at my wedding, you may remember "the guys" singing Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi and You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling. It was my favorite part of the entire reception:


Although there were much fewer than typical, they followed through with the tradition and sang to Bing. K had an amazing air guitar solo, and Bing's family loved the group singing so much that they performed not once but 3 times.

China Top 10 - #1 and #2

1. The Food

As a result of our stay in China, I now have a love hate relationship with chopsticks. Throughout our time there, we experienced some of the most unique foods I've ever tasted. Also some of the most weird, including: kidney, tendon, tripe, duck liver, jelly fish, soft-shelled turtle, and goat's blood (looks like black tofu). K ventured to try chicken feet and likely several other unique dishes that I avoided at all costs. We did have McDonalds and KFC a few times, mostly because we could point at a picture menu they had available and order from there. We had no way of ordering or even knowing how to read the menu for that matter at other traditional Chinese restaurants.

Every breakfast in Hong Kong we'd go to Cafe de Coral. They had congee, noodles, other random Chinese foods - but also traditional American dishes. We usually had ham and eggs. Some of our other delicious meals included dim sum, dumplings, etc. Definitely things that we could potentially find in the USA, but not to the caliber and taste of that in actual China:

My typical reaction (to soft shelled turtle in this instance):

Check out my amazing chopstick skills. Wow.

2. Sai Kung

Our second day in Hong Kong, we started out the morning with a visit to Wong Tai Sin Temple. Afterwards, we took a bus to a small fishing village called Sai Kung. It was unbelievable. Boats all along a pier selling everything from fish to seaweed to clams to eel. Bing negotiated with a local lady who took us on a boat ride to a nearby island. When we came back, we ate a restaurant that was basically "point and cook." There were 15-20 tanks filled with all kinds of live seafood - lobster, clams, cuddle fish, shrimp, etc. They cooked whatever we selected. It was so fresh and amazingly tasty.

Back from China!!

After an amazing 2 weeks, we are back from China!!! On the long plane ride home, I thought about the best way to go about blogging the highlights of our trips. Instead of one massive post, I've decided to create a top 10 list of our favorite memories. Each post will contain 2 memories each, for a grand total of 5 novel posts (6 if you include this intro).

As a brief summary - we were in 3 different cities over a time span of 2 weeks. The main purpose of our travels was to attend Scott and Bing's wedding. We started out in Hong Kong (where the happy couple live and work) and were there for 3 days, then flew to Xian for the wedding. The majority of the group went home after the wedding; however, K and I stayed in China for an additional 4 days and flew to Beijing with 3 of Scott's other friends originally from California - Victor, T and James.

After a 13 hour flight to Tokyo and another 5 to Hong Kong, we arrived and were greeted by Bing at the airport. We stayed at The Kowloon Hotel on Nathan Road - right near the harbor and shopping areas of the city. Sights we saw included the escalators, Sai Kung, Big Buddha, Victoria Harbor, shopping in Mong Kok, etc. [I've tried to create links for further explanation to those curious for more info on each sight.] Hong Kong itself is very western, and felt somewhat New Yorkish in my opinion. Very modern with beautiful skyscrapers and advanced public transportation.

To get to Xian, we took a bus to Shenzhen where we crossed the border in to mainland China before heading to the airport for our flight. Xian is much less advanced than Hong Kong, with a lower class population and people on bicycles everywhere due to lack of a subway system. Their driving is absolutely terrible and ridiculously frightening. White lines and stop lights mean nothing. It is unreal. Our hotel was beautiful - the Shangri-La Hotel - so I felt somewhat insulated from the true lifestyle of the locals. You can tell the city is really trying to ramp up tourism. Sights we saw included the terracotta warriors, Xian City Wall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Huaqing Hot Springs, Muslim Street, etc. The wedding was unlike any I've ever been to. More to come...

Our first night in Beijing was horrible. Victor, T and James took an overnight train from Xian, while K and I flew. We were able to take a bus from the airport to the Beijing Rail Station, where we were supposed to catch a cab. Once we got there, the cab drivers we talked to pulled out their cell phones to type in a price of 80 yuan to take us to our hostel - 5 minutes away. I knew from the hostel instructions that this was no more than 10 yuan, but we were unable to communicate which was the most frustrating thing in the world. It was freezing, I was crying, we had no idea how to get where we needed to be, then FINALLY we realized there was a group line for taxi's that we ended up taking instead of hailing one off the street. What a nightmare. Other than that, the city was fairly easy to navigate. Good subway system, English signs from the Olympics, great hotel location which made sightseeing easy. We saw the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, etc.

The time difference is 13 hours, so we are struggling to adjust back to real life. It was such an incredible journey, one that opened our eyes to a completely different world, and also brought us closer together as a couple. Memories surely to last a lifetime...