a fresh february weekend

This weekend we headed to IKEA to get some homey- goods: Rug for the living room, and these awesome bed trays for 39 rmb! ($5.70 usd) They are much bigger than laptop stands, fold up, and have cup and pen holders. This is great since it'll have space for my tablet/mouse/snack on the side.


And no, I did not eat all those meatballs by myself. Timon helped. He was surprised there were no vegetables on my plate.... The Ikea in Shanghai has an upper floor restaurant that stretches the entire length of the building, so there's a narrow seating area like a mile from the cafeteria in a nook where most of the custormers are just hanging out, playing board games, reading, or gazing out the panoramic window.



One day outside our apartment complex we saw a pink car. Correction- a pink Cadillac. "Who would EVER want their Cadillac to be pink??" Timon said. We agreed it was probably a Mary Kay or Avon car or really rich Chinese person. (The only other pink car we've seen here was a bubblegum pink mini van, for English first)

So on our way to Ikea, (Yi ja = Righteous Home) we saw a whole lot of pink cars. They were having some Mary Kay event at the indoor stadium.

Then it rained a lot, and there was 50 people in line for cab sat Ikea, so I said, "Lets muscle it on the qing wei" (Above ground metro- could you call it a superway? So we picked up either end of our rolled up rug and bags of pans, cassarole dishes, and bed trays, and trotted off into the sunset. Getting it up the stairs was a bit tricky, it was really wet out, and the rug (2 x 1.5 meters) was in a plastic bag and slippery. And it was cold. My hand was frozen! We made it home wet and full of excitement!!

How sweet of you; thanks for the duck stomach!

Went on a business trip last week, which included a road trip. Stopping off at a gas station, my colleague ran to grab food while others used the restroom and I help down the fort. When we all reconvened, dinner had been purchased, the 棕子 (zong4 zi) [rice and stuff wrapped in leaves and boiled] and a plastic bag with a dark squishy thing- the duck stomach. They said it was really delicious, too bad the 棕子 filled me up too much to eat any more. So I just put it in my pocket for "later". I didn't take a photo, because I didn't think anyone would want to see it.



Here's a pic of the 棕子 I pulled off the internet instead.

Camera: image taker, memory keeper

Cameras can do amazing things. (The above pic, we rented a waterproof camera)
People can also do amazing things. (Like be clumsy and break things)



Sigh. My trusty Canon SD450: You have saved me so many times, and record so many important sights and sounds. From taking video at 3am in Korea, to being my breadcrumbs in China, you have helped me get through design school, capture great memories, and help me get home.

I'd take photos of street signs, for streets I liked to shop, pictures of addresses & vegetables in Chinese from my laptop to show people to ask questions, countless maps to refer to later.

My screen got cracked between the wedding and the honeymoon, so we coudln't use the trusty x-shot my mom gave me, sadly. It still takes photos, but, can't use the back screen. Its harder to "sneak" photos now, and I have to really have to gauge myself when it will run out of batteries.

Will be shopping around for a new camera soon. Any recommendations for a convenient point-and-shoot?

Jimbaran Bay: Sunset dinner

Our last dinner in Bali was spent at Jimbaran Bay, watching the sunset.


We swam in the warm waters, and T lost sunglasses,


listened to a group of Korean travelers sing "How great thou art,"


enjoyed BBQ'd red snapper and shrimp


It was beautiful.

Pics from Bali!

Finally, what you have all been waiting for.... honeymoon photos!

We flew into Bali from Kuala Lumpur... from Shanghai, from SFO...

Bali, an island in Indonesia, is home to a large Hindu population- a minority in indonesia. They rely heavily on the tourism industry, about 80% of the Bali workforce is in Tourism. Beautiful beaches, Floridan climate, and cheaper doodads than China (surprisingly). Now, onto the photos:

Below, at the coffee plantation where we tried Bali coffee, ginger tea, lu wak coffee (from animal droppings)
Delicious, but a bit expensive.


And here is Mt. Batur, an active volcano, with a lake at its base, Lake Batur, with hot springs we got to swim in. What was really amazing was how people managed to farm the land around the volcano- basically volcanic rock, as far as the eye could see. Piles of huge charcoal like rocks, with patches of grass sprouting up and bright red tomatoes popping.


We also hit the zoo for a very awesome tree-walk [ropes course] $10 for about an hour in the trees doing a very challenging obstacle course plus 4 or 5 zip lines zig zagging across the river. This was not the type of river you'd want to fall in! On the first tremendously long zip line, Timon lost his shoes! He hit the net at the other end so hard, his shoes just went flying off- only a few feet from the river we'd just crossed. Close one!

Then it began to get dark. It was late afternoon now and we still hadn't gotten to see the zoo part of the zoo. It was sprinkling and misty and the animals were hiding, and then suddenly, "BOOM!" A Thunderclap! "We'd better run for it-" before Timon could finish his sentence, buckets upon buckets began to pour on us poor ill prepared tourists. The zoo was a singular direction path, so it was forwards or backwards. We ran forwards down a path through the Bird Section (they had roofs, so it seemed safer) and we got startled by a roaming turkey (I'm not sure who was more scared- him or us) and hit a chained off area. We ran backwards for about 5 minutes to the zoo cafe, totally soaking wet! Although lousy, they did bring a few critters out for us to hold and pet, like the below gator ("Are you going to put something over his mouth?" Haha! No, he won't bite people...) We managed to get off without a scratch. : )



Black sand beach.


Our roof of our villa.


View from our villa at Bali Masari, about 5 minutes from Sukawati Art market. It was a lovely place with a large swimming pool, very quiet, and our own private pool and outdoor shower. We were of the few foreigners in the rural area.

Little gifts: Customized

Since we got married just a few days after Christmas, I didn't have a lot to invest into Timon's Christmas present. No handmade scrapbook or Kindle eReader. I gave him a rubber stamp book plate.



T has quite a collection of books, right now two cases full, not including the nightstand pile and all the ones he's lent out. Books about business, China, theology, self-help, and more. We'll be chatting with some friends, and someone will say, "I really pondering [insert deep thought here]," and T will jump up with: "Ooh! I have a book you might like!" And he'll grab the book and scribble his name and phone number in it and hand it to them. He's had this pattern for a quite a while, so I thought it'd be handy to just have a stamp, instead of handwriting in the cover of every book.

When I asked him if he preferred stamp or sticker for his design, he said, "Oh! Am I supposed to have a bookplate made for your too? Wait- what is a book plate?" I'm guessing he thought it was a pre-marrying tradition, or Christmas tradition, or something, but I thought the comment was cute. I did the artwork in illustrator, and then emailed to a company in Malaysia that made it, along with our wedding stamp, and a stamp for my mom.



It was about $5 for the stamp unmounted, from eBay I think they make great gifts. I know when I was little, I loved putting my name on everything!!




I thought I'd also include a snap of some of the hand delivered invites to our friends in China. The envelope looked really empty without a colorful postage stamp, so I doodled one up and added this photoshopped postmark that I found online. That's my designy post of the month.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

hi!

SFO > shanghai > hangzhou > Kuala lumpur > ...... Bali!!!





Here we are at the airport, downloading apps and podcasts for our next flight out.
From chilly Bay Area to cold shanghai we are finally in tropical muggy florida- malaysia.

There was a terrific breafast buffet at our hotel: complete with siu mai, corn beef hash, brie, strawberry lassi, and curries!!!

Its beautiful and green here. Can't wait to sight see here on our way back, when we et to see my friend from school, Jix.



Its been a whirlwind, packing and packing and packing from home to the apt to here. I have no memory of what I brought where, but that God is sovereign and whatever belongings we have in our bag with have to do!