Insight into Nina’s Life

I met someone very cute and sweet yesterday, even brought him home…. Well, it’s not what you think.

I was very lucky yesterday and managed to sell myvold, hard-tail mountain bike to a friend of mine. In fact I was thinking of putting the bike to on sale at eBay but things worked out better than well.

As soon as my bike deal was closed, I rushed to REI Seattle store and bought a new friend!
My new friend is full suspension, black Marin East Peak. The bike has medium size frame, Shimano Deore and LX parts, Avid Juicy hydraulic disc brakes and Fox Float rear suspension.
What a pleasure to ride this bike even though it is heavy compared to hard tails.

Some pics of the baby below:

The fall is definitely coming since I have started to think about candles, hot chocolate and home decoration things on rainy evenings.

Home decoration took a step finally yesterday – thanks to Labor Day sales ads….! I went to the local Lazyboy store and bought new sofa and loveseat. Too bad that I need to wait for the new furniture but better late than never!

This morning was not as much fun but definitely an interesting one. I was riding my bike in the morning on one of the smaller roads near home.

An SUV driver was apparently hurrying to work and passed me very close. Thanks to the reckless driver, me and my bike ended up to make friends with the ditch.
Driver did not stop, and actually only another biker stopped and helped me to fix a broken tube.

Anyways, there are no new dings on my bike and I am doing well. Nothing broken and the rest can be fixed with band aids and advil!

Now you know why I buy Costco packages of band aids……

Here is the picture of my new loveseat, sofa willbe same color.

China trip was a success – I had such a good time there. And I definitely did learn a few very good lessons.

First of all, it is very useful to be able to read a few Chinese characters. Especially in the countryside and outside Beijing you can expect to see restaurant menus only in Chinese and in some cases without any kind of pictures.

It helps quite a bit if one can understand at least basic categories such as chicken, meat and seafood. Another very helpful skill is to know the difference between laowai (foreigner) and local chicken dishes. The Chinese way to cook chicken is to chop the whole bird into the pot and the end result includes both the meat and chicken.

We, western foreigners, are not used to this specialty, that’s why the boneless chicken is called laowai chicken and sorry my Chinese friends but I can’t eat it either.

I also learned to carry toilet paper and baby wipes with me everywhere. In most places it is just waste of energy to expect seeing a western type of toilet and toilet paper.

Chinese bathroom experience consists of a hole on the floor and toilet paper holder – with no paper!!! So never go out without your own paper; T.Y.O.P. – take your own paper; a very good thing to remember in China!

Some toilet pictures below. More China reports to follow still …..

After enjoying the Chinese breakfast for a few days, this morning’s breakfast experience was a nice change.
Skinny latte and a croissant were a good combination

The trip is going well, I have had a blast – seen lots of very interesting things, learnt about Chinese culture as well as caught a word or two here and there.
And of course I have done some shopping; a lovely tea set, chopsticks and so on….. And of course done gifts for friends!

But now back to the adventures! Wedding update and more travel experiences will be coming.

The perfect wedding is definitely a universal thing for all girls. I am here in Shangdong province, near Qingdao, celebrating my friends’ wedding and today I have spent a good part of my day by seeing how to make it all to be perfect and ready for tomorrow.

Candies, cakes, cookies and decorations – they all are ready, the family is all excited about the big day and bride&groom are happy and probably a bit nervous. Oh well, so am I since I have promised to take pictures here and there!
So keep checking the blog, I hopefully have some Chinese wedding pics online tomorrow night.

Other than the wedding fever, I was shopping a bit and now have a bunch of new chopsticks as well as an authentic, traditional Chinese teaset. The bargaining is definitely one form of the art – my friend’s wife-to-be spent five minutes by negotiating the price of my teaset, and the price dropped from 588 yuan to 300 yuan which equals approximately to $45. Pretty awesome deal! Another mission for following days is to find some quality teas to take home with me. Since Chinese love tea, this is a rather easy task to complete. The only problem will be with the selection for only the sky is limiting different tea types and flavors.

Local cuisine is something worth mentioning too. So far I have seen worms and scorpions at restaurants, all kind of seafood from the seaweed to fishes that I have never, ever seen before. Later this week I will tell more about the meals, as well as upload some pictures. However, the food is delicious and definitely different from what we eat at home.
There was a time when I thought the seafood in Seattle was something very special and kinda “strange” but I have to admit that I have changed my view quite a bit. Seafood back in the States is very normal compared to all the creatures served here.

Oh well, time for the beauty sleep, more news to follow!

P.S. I did not try worms or scorpions.

Greetings from China! My long flight went well, and after traveling for a bit over 20 hours with all lay overs, I finally made it to my final destination – Qingdao.
The Olympic fever has taken over this country, and everybody seems to be excited about the Games that are bringing all the nations together. On my flight from San Francisco to Beijing I still saw some US Olympics team members, and at the passport check in Beijing I was sharing the line with Korean athletes.

The best welcome to Beijing was wished by two Games’ mascots, Jingjing The Panda and Beibei the fish at the airport. Other three mascots are Huanhuan, the Olympic Fire, Yingying, the Tibetan Antelope and Nini the swallow.
If you put together the names of these mascots, you’ll get a sentence “Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni” – Welcome to Beijing

More updates to follow – stay tuned

Beibei the Fish

Jingjing

Not exactly …. The 747-400 is still boarding so it will take a while before we get airborne. And then it is nearly 12 hours of flying over The Ocean.

Well, well, well ….. It’s time for another adventure. I am writing this note at the San Francisco airport.

My day started early in the morning by flying from Seattle to here. And in a couple of hours I will turn my nose towards the west, or east. Over the Pacific Ocean in any case.

I am taking off for China, not for the Olympics but friend’s wedding and some adventure in the old world.

I will keep you posted about the trip.

It was another adventure weekend for me and Tassu. This time we headed to Wenatchee National Forest, trying to find solitude. The mission was successful – we didn’t see a single person on our hike along the Scatter Creek towards the Scatter Creek Pass. 

This area is near Sal de Sac, about 70 miles east of Seattle. 

Views were awesome, we walked through the old forest, had a good uphill workout and enjoyed awesome meadows, flowers and butterflies. As well as mosquitoes. Deet is a very good friend of mine, and Tassu’s as well. However, spots without Deet were definitely found by mosquitoes – even though I was wearing a normal t-shirt and had backpack, I still got a few bites on my back. So cortisone is highly appreciated now when we are at home; makes wonders to the itching. 

Along our way, we also saw a baby bird that had fallen from his nest. Tassu was naturally eager to help but every time that dog amazes me what comes to his obedience. He may act like a silly puppy at home but he also listens to me, and this let the bird be while I was thinking what to do. 

So we ended up to help the bird back to its nest – I dragged a log under the nest so that I was able to reach it when I was standing on my toes. Then I took my surgical gloves (yeah, I am prepared for medical emergencies while in the woods), picked up the baby bird and managed to reach up enough to get him back to the nest. 

I was using gloves because I didn’t want the bird to get contaminated by human smell, Deet and beef jerky… Baby bird apparently survived very well from his little adventure because when we were coming back from our hike, the daddy was singing on a branch and mommy was probably in the nest. 

Other than that, we just enjoyed awesome, wonderful sunny day. It was actually warm enough to go swimming, so when we got back from the woods, I decided to dip into Tucquala Lake. All the campers were gone by that time, so I just jumped into the water in my Patagonia underwear. Very refreshing experience, it has been a long time since I have been swimming just for fun, and not laps for a triathlon race or training. 

Another awesome weekend is behind, and now looking forward to my upcoming vacations! 

Here are again some pictures of our adventure. Too bad that I had only a small camera with me – next time I will definitely take my SLR with at a couple of lenses.

Tassu and I did another adventure trip on Sunday, and headed to Tatoosh Wilderness on the south side of Mt Rainier, in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We were lucky to have an awesome day; so sunny and warm. The temperature was close to 90 degrees, blue skies and simply a gorgeous day! 

Even though our 8-mile hike turned out to be 12 miles …. NO!!! I did not get lost. You, who know me, know for sure that there is no way I could get lost in the wilderness; only my street navigation skills suck occasionally. 

Tatoosh Ridge’s trailhead was well hidden along one of the forest roads. I don’t usually hesitate what comes to the off road driving but this time we had to leave Audi about two miles from the trailhead. After cutting one tree and carrying a couple of trees away from the road, I didn’t want to try my luck on a pothole road where I would have been hesitating even with a Jeep. 

The real work started at the trail head – first two miles were just plain uphill. I didn’t even realize how steep it was until when we were coming downhill on the same route. However, I learned to appreciate water, energy bars and my hi-tech day pack that has a cool ventilation thing in the back. And nothing beats Under Armour’s HeatGear t-shirts – look hot and sexy but feel so cool. 

We didn’t see other people at all, so I let Tassu to run off leash all the time. He behaved very well, didn’t change anything but got frozen when he saw a deer. I have to admit, the deer scared me too, suddenly he just was there, on the path. For a second I thought Tassu will start the beagle barking/howling or starts to chase the poor deer but actually he just froze and stared at the deer. And when I asked, he kindly walked next to me and kept staring at the deer though. I was kinda proud of my little beagle. 

We drove home through the Mt Rainier National Park – enjoyed the beautiful landscapes and winding roads. On days like this I definitely should have a convertible or motorcycle….

Some pictures from yesterday: