The girls

Last month Alli, Cori, and Christine came to visit us in Lijiang. They were only able to stay with us for 36 hours, but it was well worth it on our end. We showed them around Old Town and took them to some of our favorite restaurants in town. The next day we hired a van and drove to Tiger Leaping Gorge, arguably the deepest gorge in the world. Though their stay was short, it was so refreshing to have friends from home enter our Chinese life. Thanks girls for coming! And this is the only picture I got of all three of them (I didn't even get a picture of all 5 of us together!). Laura and I are not great picture takers.

the Kingdom of Thailand

We just got back from 2 weeks in Thailand. We spent 5 days down in the islands, 5 days in Bangkok, and the rest of the time in Chiang Mai. We had an absolute blast. We went snorkeling down in the south, watched movies and ate tons of western food in Bangkok, and gallivanted on a motorbike in the North, showing Laura where I used to live. All-in-all it was a trip to remember. We spent lots of time with new friends, and we got to re-live some memories with old friends. Here are some pics: