Dragonboat Holidays...

Current raves: vacation days, cool weather, World Cup madness, and friends. PLUS, my upcoming trip to Shanghai! The photo above is Pablo trying to recreate Atlas at 2 in the morning after Argentina's win over Nigeria.

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This past week was a blur--a slow and luxurious blur, but a quick blend of fun, friends, and food nonetheless. I usually don't remember what I've done unless there are pictures involved so it's a good thing I always have my camera ready. AHH! It just hit me. I only have 10 days left in Beijing. 3 of which will be spent in Shanghai this weekend when I head down to meet up with Justin & Co. for a nice little mini-vacation. I just had a four day vacation; now I'm going to recover from it by having a 3 day one. This is the best idea ever.

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Much of what has dominated my time this past week is watching 3 different World Cup matches a night. I know I don't care much for some of these teams, but I love seeing the players compete, their fans celebrate, and the general excitement that such a big sporting event creates. Plus, it has kept my mind off of what happened to my beloved Big 12 Conference. Something that we will not speak of ever again. And hey....Colorado and Nebraska? Good riddance, you fools.

There are so many places to catch games here in Beijing and thanks to the hard work of BeijingBoyce, you can read about them here.

Speaking of which, I got my act together and submitted my top 5 favorite bars in Beijing for the website. It's an honor to be on a site that I check daily, sometimes a few times a day. You can check them out here and make fun of me ... nowhere.

Uama Teppanyaki Beer Garden. The site of where we watched the US v. England game. Also, where we saw Green let the ball slip through his gloves. Beautiful. 1-1.

The Den. One of my favorite places in town for too many reasons to list. Always packed on a good sports night. Always a good time.

Pablo makes friends everywhere he goes. Funny story: we met this guy on the street. Stopped him and asked for a picture, and then we awkwardly followed him all the way back to his apt bc it turned out he & Pablo were neighbors. Awkward stalkers much?

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Also, as a quick foodie roundup because the food photos always get such rave reviews...seriously. I always appreciate comments on the blog, but they're always about the food photos and how y'all want more. Haha, so here you go. Top three meals of the week.

Smoked salmon pizza from Annie's. A close runner to the smoked salmon pizza from The Tree. Always a hit with tabasco.

Crab hot pot with Mei. Eat the crabs and the shrimp with gloves. Then they turn the leftover sauce and veggies into the stock for your hotpot. Brilliant. Delicious.


Stick food. Ma la chuanr? What is this called? I love it. Dearly. One of my favorite things to eat in China, hands down.

This just needed to be in here bc the Den does a crazy banana split. Not crazy good. Just crazy. Those are apples and pears on the bottom.

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Yesterday, I dragged myself out of bed to the flowers market on Nu Ren Jie (aptly named...it means Lady's Street) to go check up on flower arrangements and to check out the birds/fish/reptiles that I'd always heard about. Loved it! If you haven't gone yet in Beijing, you should. It's like a zoo/botanical garden/shopping district all in one! Here are a few thousand photos, carefully selected from the billion that are on my camera.

The entrance to the Flower Market.

This cute little guy has such a typical Chinese pose. Love it.

I don't find reptiles cute at all. Except for this lil guy! ;)

My grandpa used to have so many of these when I was growing up. I was known for pushing a chair up against the aquarium stand and sticking my hand in there and trying to catch them... when I was 3 years old. Not now. That'd be ridic awesome.

Ah, so Chinese! So Corny! So many roses!

Our beautiful roses in protective wrapping. This is more my style. ;)

This little guy got a little too close for comfort for me....he kept looking at my fingers hungrily.

I have always had a weird fascination with these types of killer plants such as venus fly traps. This one was sweet honey-ish type liquid in these tubes that attract the bugs. Then the lid on top snaps shut. Carnivorous plants. That's awesome.

So I was walking around and I saw a bunch of peacock feathers cascading to the ground. Then I looked up and saw these guys. Hello there.

I found the Tiffany lamp store and was in heaven. I absolutely love these things!

Really wish I had my own plane so I could ship these beautiful lamps back to my apt in the States....

Coolest fish ever followed by the cutest fish ever...I may or may not have named these fish. This one on top is Mo and the little guy below is Pancho.

I would have loved to have been there when they cut this rock open.

In summary, if you're looking for a laid back thing to do on some random afternoon, go to the Flower Market on Nu Ren Jie. It's the best free natural history museum I've ever been to. :)