Saturday with Aiyun

I had to go nearly six weeks without seeing my girlfriend. Too long for that. Aiyun met me at the airport when I returned so we could spend the weekend together.

The jet lag is a real thing. I've commented that the trip back west hasn't been as bad, but the last two days I've had a hard time staying awake late enough and woke up at 3:00am yesterday, then 4:00am today. I'm slowing adjusting.

We watched day three of the Knoxville Nationals sprint car event and then went to the closest mall. We did something I wanted to do, and then we did something that would be fun for Aiyun. That would be some shopping after grabbing lunch.

We had lunch at a Korean restaurant. They're very popular here in China. In each Korean restaurant they always bring out some small appetizers before your meal. The spicy cabbage and turnip soaked in a sauce have been consistent. This restaurant also brought us some quail tea eggs and a pumpkin pudding. The pumpkin was very good. Not too sweet, delicious. Our waitress brought us more after noticing it disappeared so quickly.

The main courses were rice mixed and other items. The first one was seafood and some other random things. It's above on the right. After the waitress returned to stir it up for us it had a very different look (below left). We also had two other dishes. A rice/beef/onion bowl and rice balls that were mixed with ham. The rice balls were served with a strip of seaweed for picking them up and eating by hand. Great stuff. I could eat a ton of rice mixed with other stuff.

I'm going to meet Aiyun's mom in a couple of weeks in Shanghai. I told her I would like to buy her dinner, but first we needed to go shopping to buy her a new dress. After choosing a store she modeled several dresses.

I had a tough time choosing my favorite, but we both agreed the third one above was the winner. I think her happy smile in the second picture made it tough for me to choose. She really liked the traditional Chinese style of the third one.

We returned home and crashed on the couch to watch some movies. A walk would have been nice outside, but 90+ degrees with insane humidity killed that idea.

Knoxville Nationals final today. Try to stay awake later in the day, and then back to work Monday to meet the new staff members. I believe the plan Monday is the same as it was last year. Get put into a group. Go buy groceries together. Cook a meal together and eat. Looking forward to it.