Beautiful Guilin

Li River Cruise

Moon Hill in Yongshuo

Moon Hill view from Yongshuo Village Inn

Yulong River biking and bamboo raft

Buddha Water Cave mud bath

Longsheng Rice Terrace fields from Ping An Village

Normal? Goodbye?

Some very dear friends who we have made lifetime memories with will be leaving this month. I have learned that making friends and living as an ex-pat is a fantastic experience but it is so hard to say goodbye! Many friends I spend time with on a daily basis will soon live a long (or not too long) airplane ride away. America, Europe, Australia, Asia are pretty far apart, but at least with the computer we can keep in touch easily. Thank God for technology!

Normal....what is normal? Saying goodbye is just another piece of the "normal life" as an ex-pat.

Normal....what is normal? Daily life in Portland Oregon is so drastically different than my life in China is hard to explain. Some of my "China normal" daily, weekly or monthly...

• fruit and vegetable market (usually twice a week because the produce doesn't last too long, it is so fresh!)
• butcher- my favorite one is clean! (they keep meat in the refrigerator and the floor doesn't have blood and guts)
• bakeries (usually two or three different ones)-good variety but need to go around town to get our favorite whole wheat bread, baguettes, hamburger buns, and dinner rolls. Of course different bakeries are best at different things.
• Deli - sandwich meat and cheese
• import store for specialty food
• Chinese grocery store for flour
• relax, read, study or talk on the phone sitting in the car being driven (company pays for car and driver for our family)

We head back to America for a month vacation soon. My "normal" has changed a bit....I will soon:

• drive myself in my own car on safe roads to a store for "one stop shopping" where sometimes people even bag your groceries
• appreciate public bathrooms with toilet paper
• enjoy the quiet, lack of fire-crackers, constant honking of horns
• smell the clean air and not miss the sewer, fish, stinky tofu and pollution smell here
• go back to cleaning my toilets, floors, kitchen and washing laundry again

Summer vacation is almost here and we will miss school, especially fun days like "Crazy Hair Day". (this is not Nicole and Trejan's "normal")

Beijing girls weekend

My favorite afternoon was biking through hutongs (neighborhoods with arrow alleys). This little boy with his grandfather were so cute.
I also loved biking around Beihai lake and Houhai lake where we could have spent hours wandering in and out of funky restaurants and small shops.

That evening we ate at the Saddle Cantina in the Sanlitun shopping area and found that it has delicious guacamole and margaritas. One of my favorite meals of the year!