Liralen's Adventures Through Life

We went to a reception for the wedding of one of John's high school friends, and it was pleasant. Second marriages for them both, so they asked that no one give them gifts, just be present, and it was nice. Since it was in the south end of Denver, we, of course, hit Ikea, just to look, and came out with a small armful of things. Went to H Mart and came out with a whole cart of food, including Jet's favorite meal when John's busy for an evening, grilled eel. They always remind me of Jin, in  Samurai Champloo trying to kill eels in the woman's cart.  We came home tired, had a quick dinner of BBQ chicken, wok-seared green beans, and chibata from the Farmer's Market with a quick dip of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a few fresh tomatoes from the garden. So good, so quick. And then we went swimming in the neighborhood pool, and it started raining as we walked, and droplets pocked the surface as we swam, quickening until the sky lit with lightning and the

The end of the Seattle trip has been kind of crazy. It started easy with Isabel for our last day, but things didn't turn out quite as planned with the Eurovan, and circumstances snowballed into one utterly insane day that could only have happened under the full moon.

We spent two shellfish and family packed days in Bellingham, WA, where we went to a hang gliding take-off point, a beach through the woods, and all around town (especially Mallard's Ice Cream). We stayed late on Friday to have dinner with Yuri and Emily, and then went to Redmond with John's mother, Isabel. From here we took Saturday to visit with the Gaynors, Sunday to visit Eastgate Congregational UCC and William and Jo in Ballard and meet with a bunch of Synarians at the Pellerin's for dinner. On Monday we took Isabel to the Great Wheel on the waterfront and Pike's Place Market, and then today we spent getting all kinds of stuff from Frye's, Ballard Bees (two medium supers!), and Trader Joe's. It's been kind of busy. It's also been kind of amazing realizing that I've been friends with Jim for more than 26 years, William for more than 16 years, and I'm not even going to be able to count years with all the people from Synario. Best of al

We spent a really great day on the eighth at the Lewis and Clark Caverns and the camping site that was just at the foot of the mountain that held the caverns. On the ninth, however, due to a series of unfortunate events, we ended up spending most of the day in Butte, Montana, waiting in car repair shops and getting ferried by various people as the Eurovan got carried by flatbed truck to said repair shops. What exacerbated the experience was the fact that Butte was having a festival and a rental car couldn't be had for love or money, and the guys at Car Tunes, where the Eurovan is now being repaired, did just about everything they could. We ended up staying the night in a Comfort Inn, taking advantage of the "stranded motorist rate", which I didn't know even existed until now, and being wished well by nearly everyone we met. That was pretty cool. So now we're another 700 miles to the West and a bit north, in a rental car from Enterprise. We went to Bellingham

The next morning dawned wet and drizzly, and we had to go through the routine of packing up all our suitcases early enough for the bellboys to get it all and pack it up to go to the airport. Our flight to Guilin was an evening flight, and we had the Wild Goose Pagoda and a visit to a jade store and climbing the Xi'an City Wall all scheduled for the day. It surprised me to learn that the Wild Goose Pagoda was actually the home monastery of Xuanzang, or Triptaka, also known in Japanese as Sanzo. *laughs* Yes, you Saiyuki fans might get to see some of the history behind the monk who went on the Journey to the West .

We're now 616 miles away from home. *laughs* It's going to get a little confusing as I'm still writing up the China trip, but these will be shorter, as there isn't so much that's entirely new to us. We're heading to Seattle, via our Eurovan, to visit with John's mother, Isabel, and we're doing our usual meandering thing on the way over. At the moment, we're in Big Timber, MT, having driven north through Colorado and into Wyoming on I-25. We took a left at I-90 and are a good ways into Montana.

The breakfast buffet in Xi'an was so long and so spread out that we took an extra fifteen minutes for breakfast. *laughs* I had a pumpkin congee, fresh longan fruit still in their shells (and peeled and bitten they looked just like the dragon's eye they were named for), an almond croissants, and one of the fruit yogurt cups that were designed for straws, not spoons. I was impressed to see sushi, grilled fish, various dishes, hot soy milk, and tofu gnar (tofu brains... *laughs* it's a very soft custard made from tofu that's good sweet or salty). As I was walking through, I heard one of our European friends exclaim, "Thank God they have museli! Prepared, even!" It had been pre-mixed with milk and served appropriately.

We got up, had our amazing buffet breakfast, and headed to the publishers next door the minute the porters had taken all our bags. It turned out to be a place called The Commercial Press which has been around since 1897 and focuses mostly on textbooks, references, and educational materials. Dad had a friend who always frequents the Shanghai branch of the house, and says that the brings a suitcase just for all the books he finds there. *laughs* We didn't do quite so much shopping, but we did find some treasures, including a bunch of good calligraphy books for me to use as examples, and several books for learning how to write Chinese for Jet. Dad found a few calligraphy books for himself, as well, so we were pretty happy when we met up with everyone in the lobby.