A Woman's Worst Nightmare!

So women have many fears, whether it's the fear of the first winkle line showing up, or the fear of hideous bugs, or some totally ridiculous and random stuff. We have fears, no doubt about it! Among all the fears we could possibly have, one of the worst is to show up completely dressed-down while all your girlfriends looking gorgeous and glamorous.

My beautiful girlfriends stopped by today without much advanced notice. In spite of the great conversations and fun we had, I did experience those worst fear tonight, at least for the first 5 min upon their grand entrance. :)

Oh, come on! It's all Jasmin's fault! I got her message that the girls were hanging out tonight while I was heading out to get my nails done this evening, right after a nap after work and a shower.

While they totally looked like movie stars, I was in my jeans and sweatshirt, and no make-up!

Oh well... A moment of truth and being down-to-earth tonight. A great time and nightmare indeed! :)

Brown Rice Salard with Apple and Crab Meat

For something that's simple and yet creative, tasty, this receipe can be a good choice. Basically, you got the rice and add whatever you like for the salard.

The dressing is 3 tsb of oil oil, 1 tsb of mustard, 1tsb light myro, salt and pepper to the taste.

Voila! Simple, tasty, colorful and healthy.

For the record, here is the ingrdients used for this version -

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 small Apple, diced
3 or 4 roasted red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 bunch of chime, chopped
1 can of crab meat
Some flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 avocardo
some black olives
4 small ramon tomatoes
2 boiled eggs

Enjoying Being Mindless over the Weekend.

Who said we must be serious and uptight all the time?! This is the weekend that I had a great time catching up with my friends, watching movie, havig my finger-nails painted with light purple, and completely enjoying being mindless. :)

QingYan Historical Town of GuiZhou

Took a few interesting shots at QingYan historical town. I like the layered look of the roof top.

The stone sculpture used to decorate the old houses.

This one looks like the street from the Chinese KongFu movie set.

There is No End in Sight

I like this picture a lot personally. A road that has been walked on by generations of people...

Chendu Jinli Street

Dated back to Qin Dynasty, JinLi was in ancient times one of the biggest commercial streets in ChengDu. Nowadays, with many varieties of bars, restaurants, street-eats, stores selling antiques and local crafts, it has become one of the best-known tourist attractions in Chengdu.

It is absolutely one of my personal favorite in Chengdu. Cannot get enough out of it. So much to see and to play with.

Every time I visit ChengDu, it's a must-go place, and it seems that I never get enough out of the interesting stores and many variety of street eats.

Interesting local crafts.

Walking down the street, I felt as if my memory of the childhood got refreshed by the showcased handcrafts, such as clay figurines, paper cuts, sugar candy figurines....

I remember grandpa used to pay about 5 cents to get one of those figures made by melted sugar for me one the way back from the school. Now, my uncle had to pay for 5 Chinese yuan (100 times of price inflation from before) for a small figure so that I could take a silly picture with it.

My youngest uncle and me. He also teases me of being a unsophisticated peasant from the US and feeling curious about everything and anything.

Start 2011 with a 10K Race

Mark, Tim, Andrea, Mary and I try to meet weekly on Saturday mornings to run. Once we were supposed to meet at my home early in the morning. I did not even wake up until the gang rang my door bell, because I had too much to drink at a party of the previous night. I went ahead running that day with the gang in spite of a horrible hang-over, but surprisingly outperformed myself.

Then, as a result, Mark and the rest of the gang believed that alcohol, especially Champaign, does help me with running.

It's OK if they sometimes form a wrong impression of me, if they can keep it to themselves. However, it can be a bit problematic when apparently they have no problem of projecting that wrong image of me in font of others.

Like this morning, right there at the starting line of a 10K race, this is how the conversation went with Andrea.
Marsha:"Hmm...I am not sure I would do well in the race. I did not even work out during my trip in China. And, since you guys did not tell me about the race until yesterday at Mark's party, I just did a long run yesterday..."
Andrea:"Didn't you have enough to drink yesterday?! You will do fine."

Anyway, a great way to start a new year with a 10K race with a bunch of funny friends. :)