I forgot how gross bile tastes :(

Two weekends ago it was Scott's birthday. We all celebrated by getting food poisoning. And we still don't know for sure where/how, because while most of us got sick, not all of the people at the party got sick.


Here are a few photos taken before our bodies turned on us:

Tino presents the carnation to a "thrilled" Scott.

A nice photo of some of the girls: 

Live, Victoria, Me, Tiffany

Reblooms: Tropical Pillow Covers

My ma makes these nifty pillow covers from vintage Hawaiian shirts, and she's been working real hard on a creating an etsy shop, Reblooms, to sell them in. Check it out!

"I have been noticed u..."

Brady, a teacher at one of the Yancheng colleges, seen here,

Received this hilarious message from a mystery person, one night at dinner:

It never even occured to me!

This Saturday, my throat was soar and my sinuses were a little clogged. But my body didn't feel sick. And because I can't remember ever experiencing this before, it wasn't until late in the day when it dawned on me what the problem might be. See if you can guess...


Here's a photo of the usual view out my office window:

The usual view on a nice day.

And here's photo of Saturday's view:

Sorry the angle is slightly different.

You can't see beyond two blocks, and even thought blocks in Yancheng are big, some of those buildings in the first photo are, like, seven or eight blocks out.


The smoke from the fields in the county was so bad that it affected me, and I don't have a history of lung-related issues! It was so bad, that when Tiffany and I walked into a mall*, it looked like this:

Hand to god, there was no manipulation of this photo.

Out of curiosity, I looked up field burning and Eastern Washington (I know! I forget it exists, too!). Turns out, you have to have a permit to burn your field, and whether or not you're given that permit depends on things like the weather, and who else is already scheduled to burn. Because, "By burning only on days with good ventilation, people are less likely to smoke out neighbors and other people."


Good call.





*Yes, that's correct, not "the" mall, but "a" mall---one of many already built, being built, or planed to be built in the one city. They build malls like we build stripmalls. Also, they build stripmalls.

And this is *after* it rained all day.

A few Saturday evenings ago, we all went to see the apartment Sam-from-Australia and his wife saved up and bought in (new) south Yancheng. He's on the very top floor, so I was trying to get some night shots of the city around his building, like this:

But that's the only good one I ended up with. All of the rest turned out like this:

 
and this:

You know what all those stupid spots are? Dust. And not on a window either. I was taking those photos from the balcony. That is all dirt in the air. 


My camera's flash is very strong, so it isn't unusual to have dust motes appear in photos taken in poor lighting. See the one in this photo of Sam, for example:

That, or a lot of ghosts hang around me.

But oh my god!!!!
Good thing I have strong lungs. Imagine breathing that in. Every day.

All Glory to the Internets: Chinese Gagas sing Gaga

Maybe you've already seen this silly video, since it's viral now:

But what you might not know (spoilers!) is that the singers aren't actually singing Bad Romance. They're singing a parody version about being old, which works because, as this kind blogger explains, "gaga" in their local dialect means "grandma." The blogger also wrote up a translation of the lyrics.

Gross.

Guess what kind of meat-that-I'm-super-ethnocentrically-negative-about is served in this restaurant?

Dog. The signs reads "Hua River Dog Meat." 

The really weird thing is, there's a dog salon two shops down.

Yippee! I've been dying to find one of these!

A Chinese knock-off Apple Store!

The small black print translates directly into "sell from experience center," which I'm having trouble shaping into a pertinent, meaningful English phrase. Thoughts?

The hit-and-run death of a decorative melon parrot

He was just left lying in the road...

(Tilt your head to the right if you can't "see" the parrot.)

Well lookie what we found scattered around downtown!

I'm litterally garbage. 

Get it?! Get it? Litter-ally! Get it?!

;D