Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

What wasn’t spent with family was spent with friends.  And we finally confirmed that Nadia is a crazy cat lady.  Strays flock to her.

Kamma destroyed yet *another* pillow.

And that was June!

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Yeah…. probably my second least favorite author ever.  I have tried to read some of Mr. Palahniuk’s works, but have never been pleased with the results.  It has been suggested to me that I try some of his earlier works as they might be more to my taste.  Guess this is a sign I should give that a go…

Flowers started to bloom on the rose bush.

I finally got back into the kitchen.  I had taken such a long break because of all the places I had been traveling. 

Sarah and I tried to recreate some of our favorite dishes from our trip to China.  You would be surprised how hard it is to find dried chilies in Blount County!

We had more fun and fellowship with the Young Adults.

I got a new lens for the camera and bribed my favorite models into posing for me.

And probably the most exciting event of May 2010… my Aunt Donna got married.  That’s right folks, I have had a family member get married in March, April and May (spoiler alert – no one gets married in June).

Hope you enjoyed May!

Brooke, Dave and my darling niece and nephew came for a visit.

Kamma destroyed another pillow (I think this was his third this year).

My cousin Elisia got married… and the only picture I took was of the food! I am a bad cousin…

Piper had a Chili Cook-off and Blazing Saddles screening.

And the Young Adults ladies had dinner at Jessica’s place.

And let me apologize for the poor quality of pictures in this post.  Every single picture you see here was taken with my Blackberry Tour!

Sometime at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010, my friend Sarah asked me if I wanted to go with her to visit some friends in China.  Never one to turn down a free place to stay in another country, I jumped on the opportunity.  It was only a couple of short months later that we had our visas in hand and hopped on an airplane for what ended up being one of the longest flights I had ever been on.  But it was all worth it.

We arrived in Shanghai, but quickly made our way to the bus stop so we could be transported to the regional airport to catch our flight to Beijing.  Of course, no trip to China is complete without the most important beverage made in any Asian country:

Milk Tea!

Oh I could wax poetic on the joys and pleasures of milk tea. But I won’t.  I will tell you this, I ended up checking luggage (gasp!) for the flight home so that I might transport 6 bottles of this stuff back with me to America.  Seriously, I love it!

After a brief bus ride, we made it to the regional airport and boarded what would be the first of a handful of regional flights.  Flying foreign airlines always makes me a little grumpy.  US airlines nickel and dime you for everything, but foreign airlines pamper you with food on the shortest of flights. With real utensils too! But I digress.

In Beijing, Sarah and I enjoyed the wonders of the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, a Beijing Opera and the Great Wall.  We discovered sweet taro pies from McDonald’s and Szechuan peppercorns. We were traumatized by co-ed dorms rooms that included a bathroom with only a half door and a wastebasket for your toilet paper!

After a few nights in Beijing, we boarded an overnight train (Sarah’s first) and headed to Xi’an and took in the majesty of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

After Xi’an, we made our way south to Guilin and Yangshuo to bask in the beauty of the karst mountains by bamboo raft and mountain bike.

With another regional flight under our belts, we finally arrived in Hangzhou to stay with Sarah’s friends Juliane and Stan.  We ended up enjoying the company of many other people who went to the same undergrad the Sarah and I went to.  We had sushi, went to a night market, visited West Lake, rode in a rickshaw, ate a durian and enjoyed the tulip garden.

Finally, we made a quick trip to Shanghai before riding the Maglev train and boarding another long flight back to America.

There it is! A very brief look at my trip to China!

The sushi was pretty decent too.

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