Christmas in July

Our shipment arrived yesterday! Although it was exhausting unpacking 29 boxes on my own (Mike is in Beijing this week), it's nice to be surrounded by things from home. And it's not the stuff, it's the memories that come with the stuff -- the orange sweater my mom knitted for me to wear on cold San Francisco days; the quilt my aunt made for me six years ago that we cuddle up with on the couch; the Frenchie mixing bowls we received from our friends Nav and Ryan, our very first wedding present. Needless to say, I got a little homesick when putting things away (the sappy music I was listening to didn't help). And although the ugly lamps are still here, our place certainly feels a lot more like a home than a hotel room.  

Our Shanghai fridge with touches of home

As a reward for unpacking, rearranging and organizing, I got a mani/pedi today. I walked half a block down the street and turned right into an alleyway. Mike and I had walked by this place not too long ago to check it out, and it seemed clean and certainly more than adequate. There were no big massage chairs or piles of US magazines, but it was a nice, little space with three velour armchairs, a plant, and bottles of polish lined up neatly on two shelves on the wall. I managed to ask for a mani/pedi and color (colored polish requires more money), and even made a little small talk with the manicurist as she worked on my hands. I told her my Chinese is very bad, but I go to Mandarin school; I told her my husband (I wasn't about to get into the whole fiance/future husband thing) works and he speaks Mandarin and his parents are Chinese; I told her I was American; I told her my house was over there (and pointed). And that was about the extent of it. Not bad though, right?