You would think it would be easy....

After filling our tummies at Yih and Allen's place, we ventured over to Gu Lang Yu to meet up with friends and help the Mexican and his charming wife look for some small Chinese folding fans.

Next year is Alejandra's 15th birthday, and in Mexico it's a very big deal, something similar to our sweet 16th birthdays, but on a grandeur scale. The fans were to be in a specific colour, and though it sounds easy, since we live in the country where every women and most men have them, finding specific colours wasn't. I tried in Shanghai but no luck. Mark and I went over first and asked some friends but the colours were wrong, so we continued looking until we received a call from another friend to join them for a drink at a new bar. How could we refuse? Besides it was a nice break from the throngs of tourists.

Enroute to Gu Lang Yu

Hats for sale..Mark wanted to buy one

The Mexican met us later for a beer and then we continued looking for the fans. We called it a night as we weren't getting anywhere with finding the fans, because a couple of boys were starting to get hungry. Now the fun begins. Finding a taxi around 6:30pm is as bad as finding one at 4:30 when they change shifts. One very quick thinking Chinese decides he will offer us a ride for only 20 kuai. Yea, bud, don't think so. The guy's worse than the taxis in Guangzhou. We found one quick enough and made it to the Coyote where we met Stalin for dinner.

The Mexican, The Australian, The American, and The Canadian

The hunt for the fans are still on....

Time with the Mexican

Now that the Mexican has been over here working for almost 4 months, he decided to bring his wife and daughter over to Xiamen for a quick week. They get to catch up with their old friends from when they lived here; he gets to see his family and all that other good stuff...

Last Saturday we took Laura and Rene out to a new restaurant in town, Antoine's, which is a fine dining / jazz bar type of place. Very swanky for Xiamen and we had a good time enjoying some nice, albeit expensive, wine.

Laura and Rene

Later that night they picked up Alejandra, who had gone out to meet some of her old school friends, and we had a few drinks with them before calling it an early night and heading home.

Sunday whilst Rene was at work we tool Laura and Alejandra over to Coyote, the new Tex-Mex restaurant in Xiamen, and enjoyed their brunch menu and some margarita's.

Laura and Alejandra

Once Rene showed up it was a quick stop over to Me & You 2. We were going to take everyone over to the night market for dinner, but what with jet lag and just general tiredness somewhere around 18:00 we decided that we wouldn't make it waiting until 21:00 to eat.

It's been good to catch up with them, even if it is just for a short time. Tina played up a girls day out yesterday, going out for massages and then pedicures, so I'm sure they are enjoying it here more then they would be back in Seattle.

Coyote's First Anniversary Party

A few weeks back, our favourite Mexican restaurant had their first anniversary party here in Xiamen.

By the time Mark and I arrived, which was around 6:30pm the place was packed, so Mark and I stood by the bar where we met some of our friends. This place is very popular with the expats missing their burrito fixes, or more than likely their margaritas. Yea, it's probably the latter.

There were food and drink specials, baseball caps given to all of us, as well as games where one could win prizes. The highlight was the 1/2 price jugs of margaritas.

I was the the first lucky winner of the evening. I won a very lovely pair of sunglasses, (which I donated due to the fact that I can't see without prescription lenses), an adorable pencil case, and a cactus pen. Yea, I know you're all jealous!

Sarah

Sunglasses that were donated to AmyTone with her prize

Tony enjoying the evening Ron, the owner of Coyote, enjoying the prizes he gave away

Towards the end of the evening, a regular decided that he was going to pay for every one's bar bill up to that point that he made the announcement, and yes he was sober.

All in all a great night, and we wish Coyote many years of success in Xiamen.

Mexican Dining...

Last week the Mexican invited over to his hotel so that he could cook for us. He had been bragging about how good his shrimp is and of course we had to see for ourselves how good his cooking really was.

Preperation

Cooking

He cooked up a few kilos of shrimp and two red snappers, it was excellent and we managed to eat our fill...
Then this Friday the Mexicans wife flew in with his daughter to spend a week, so we will get to see Laura and Alejandra. It'll be good to get a chance to catch back up with them again...

Mexican Torture

As we mentioned earlier Rene was back in town and we've been enjoying hanging out with him these last few weeks, and we figured that we give him a chance to experience the full fun of China....

That's right, we took him for massage and cupping...

Mexican after the torture

He screamed like a little girl when the cups were applied. He actually snored during the massage, so that couldn't have been that bad.

Me, with my least amount of toxins ever...

Overall, we were all incredibly light, so we must not have had many toxins in us. Mexican says it's the tequila and we think that it's the week between drinking that bottle of tequila amongst the three of us and then having the cupping that pulls the toxins out...

Last weekend...

So in returning to talking about our regular life here in Xiamen, we will share with you the things that we have been doing. First, as we mentioned before we left for Xinjiang, our friend the Crazy Mexican - Rene, is back in Xiamen for a few months with work. Although it's not the same as when we would head over to the villa that his family was staying in last year, it's still good to catch up with him for a few beers or whatnot.

We took the Mexican over to the barber that I use so that he would look presentable when he was going to work.
Then last weekend over at Havana's they had a party to celebrate the Mexican independence day, September 16th. There was quite a crowd and too much tequila was drunk.
Yep, we were a little slow moving on Sunday and our plans for going to the local massage parlor for cupping were put on hold for a week. We are heading over to Me&You 2 now to meet up with the Mexican again and this week we will make it to cupping, and with a lot less toxins then the would have found if we had gone last weekend....

More of the same....

We've had a lot of nothing special going on lately, and they are only so many posts where we can talk about watching DVD's that anybody cares about. But, we are getting ready to get started on watching Battlestar Galactica series...

Last night we agreed to meet up with the Mexican so that he could drag us down to a Thai restaurant that he had found over by the university. We met him over at the Millennium hotel and then quickly hopped into a taxi over to the area where Tina has spend all that time a year ago playing student. This is when Rene lets us know his real plan, he wants to purchase some items from one of the low cost stores that caters to students and he needs Tina to act as his translator. After that we wander over to the Thai restaurant only to find it closed up, no signs so we aren't sure if it's normally closed Tuesdays or what.

Tina then decides that we can head over to Central Cafe, as their food is good and it's someplace that Rene didn't know about. A short taxi raid and then a 10 minute walk through Zhongshan park and we are standing outside another closed restaurant. Well, not closed really, but closed to the public for some sort of photo shoot.

From there we decided that we should just take another taxi and head over to the sisters restaurant, as we know they will be open and the food will be great.

Good fun, today we return to watching DVD's but you needn't worry too much. Tomorrow night we are on a plane for a long weekend in the Henan Province to see Shaolin temple and some other sites. That means that soon we will have more photos and stories to share with you...

A night with the Mexican....

Ah so our good friend Rene, or as we call him "The Crazy Mexican", is back in town for the month with his work and of course we spend our Saturday night out with him. We met him over at Me & You 2, which was much quieter then normal since we were inundated with the wind and rains from typhoon Morakot which had just pummeled Taiwan and was busy moving into China further up the coast. Yeah, beers and pizza in the wind and rain, good times, enough to bring out the devil horns in Jasmine...
From there we wandered over to the Key for more loud music but with dancing and without the rain. It was all good.
And with the dancing I managed to make some new friends which lead to much gambei-ing, your standard "Bottom's up" finish your drink - it's a good think the glasses are so small.
Luckily my new friend kept filling my glass with his beer so that I wasn't downing my vodka tonics again and again. I would have stayed drinking with him and talking to both him and his girl but Tina was nice enough to drag me away...And as an added bonus, due to the fun typhoon weather, the last few nights we have be subjected to some rather spectacular sunsets.

Farewell to the Mexican

Today was the crazy Mexican's last day in Xiamen, so last night we met up with him for a few drinks and to wish him well.

It was a nice day, Tina and I met up with friends Howard and Juan for yet another excellent dinner at Temptations and then the four of us wandered over to one of our favorite bars, My Way. We've mentioned My Way before, it's a tiny little pub with seating for about 8 people and when we got in there last night it was jam packed. Luckily, after standing cramped in the corner of the bar for about 5 minutes, the people sitting in the small room upstairs left and we wandered up there to sit and enjoy. Our friend 老Joe met us there and then about 20 minutes later the Mexican finish having his farewell dinner with other friends and he joined us.

Good times. It was nice to sit and reminisce about the fun and parties that we went to at the Mexican's house. The rest of his family had moved back to the states a few weeks ago and he was here just finishing up some final items, so he'll be glad to get back home and be with his family. Once home in San Diego he has to gather up the family and move them all up to Seattle where he's now been relocated. So, at least now we've got some good friends that we will be able to go and visit in Seattle....

Calm before the Storm

Mark and I were just told that not only is the Mexican and family leaving Xiamen very soon, so are Edlin and Jose. They will be departing China to go back to the U.S in September.

The move will be stressful for Laura, the Mexican's wife, as she, along with her three children, will be leaving one month before her husband, Renee, and will not only look for a new home, but. also a new school for her children. She is leaving in two weeks.

I decided that Laura needs a bit of a break. Consider it the calm before the storm. Laura and her daughter Alejandra, as well as Edlin, Giovanna, and myself planned an afternoon of indulgence.

First we met up for lunch, followed by a very nice, long, foot massage. Alejandra enjoyed it, considering the first time she had a foot massage, it was a little too intense. She got to watch some T.V show, while the rest of us enjoyed a glass of wine. We talked about the first time they landed in Xiamen and their reaction to China, and how life has changed so much for everyone. We discussed, what they will miss, what they wished they could have done or seen, and the memories that they will have of China.

Edllin, myself, Laura, and daughter Alejandra

It seems very strange, that both Edlin and Laura's families, were to be in China longer and now within two weeks, due to circumstances beyond their control, they both will be leaving within the next 8 weeks. They have become good friends and we will truly miss them.

We wish them the best!

Artists in China - Getting our portraits done.

A few weeks ago we had our portraits done, not be one of these fly by night Chinese artists that sit at all the crowded markets, but from one of our friend's children. That's right, when last we were over at the Mexicans their youngest, Pax, decided that he would do some quick drawings of us.

Here is the artist with the drawings that he drew of us, after he first presented them to us we had him sign them for us. We can see these being worth something once this child becomes famous for whatever it is he'll end up doing....

Not bad for a five year old child, no?

And, just because we know you are wondering, we scanned these drawings in for all of you to look at. I love how he truly captures the depth and color of Tina's eyes.....

His first born

Last week while we were celebrating the Crazy Mexican's birthday, he was thrilled to take the opportunity to show us his new baby.


This plant came directly from the U.S, and was brought over from his last visit. Yup, his first jalapeno pepper!

As you can tell from the picture, one very proud papa!

Crazy Mexican's day

Yesterday was the Crazy Mexican's birthday, and since all the birthday bashes are at his place, it would only be fitting that he too enjoy a party at his own house. Let's face it, he's the only one that has a house and a yard.

According to him, he was turning 35. Didn't buy it, but hey, it's his day.

Birthday boy, Renee, aka, Crazy Mexican

Naturally, being Mexican, the meal consisted of re-fried beans, tacos with some extremely hot sauce, and Spanish rice. Of course, the tequila came out, homemade margaritas were made, and cigars were smoked. Good times were had and I'm sure the tequila continued to flow well after Mark and I left.

Happy Birthday Renee!

Edlins Party at the Mexican's place

Yesterday was the day for Edlin's full afternoon birthday party over at the Mexicans. This time we had also invited Siew, Siewyih, and Siew's kids to come along with us as well, just to add to the group and to let the kids have fun playing on the big inflatable slide thing that the Mexican has for all of his kids to play on.

Unfortunately the weather didn't feel like playing along at all, and when we got up in the morning it was a dreary gray with a light mist. It looked like there were some spots that were clearing up but overall it didn't look like we would be having a fun barbecue. We stopped over to Temptations and pickup up a lemon tart, along with Siew and the kids before heading out.

When we were heading over it really started to rain, not good at all, as it just wouldn't be as fun for everyone to be crammed into the house. When we arrived we found that the Mexican had realized the same thing and had gone out earlier in the day and made some quick purchases so that everyone could enjoy an outdoor barbecue.

Yep, a giant tarp to cover the lawn so that we could all still sit outside. Rene Jr. was put in charge of coming out every 20 minutes or so and running all the water off from where it was pooling up in the tarp. There were a few leaks, and it was smoky underneath from the grilling, but it really was a perfect solution.
It was a fun afternoon/evening with lots of great burgers and chicken, a nice cake, lemon tart, some margaritas, wine, and daiquiris. The bottle with the snake was out on the table but only one of the guests tried any this time.