circumventing legal adoption laws

have i really not posted a picture of a fantastic fat baby's adorable face yet?

i now pronouce you Barb and Nick

I spent the better part of yesterday morning in a wedding photo studio slash salon as my host sister's boyfriend's cousin got her makeup done. The shop is filled with books (above) that serve as samples for the kinds of photos you can take with your newly-husband that will later hang all over your newly-house walls and become two oversized glossy albums on your newly-coffee table. Most of them have truncated and mangled strains of english song lyrics or things that are supposed to pass as poetry and decoration. The wedding pictures are all very similar to the girlied up portraits that every single 20-ish city-lass in china has had done. I flipped through the book of shots of the bridesmaid while we sat around her house later, and will never forget her "Bland Smile".

"just when you thought it couldn't get any stinkier"

eli, i challenge your manhood.

this is what a water chestnut looks like pre-showing up in your stir fry at Double Happiness Golden Jade Garden Dragon Palace! did you have any idea? The literal translation of the name (mati) means horse-hoof. eaten raw (sold on the street from big carts peeled and bagged by the hawker) they taste chalky and gross, but host mom boiled them and you can eat the outer skin also and they are crisp and sweet.

i don't think these are for eating, but i wouldn't bet money on it.

Man with double sided bunny rack.

Koreans aren't the only ones

who appreciate a lean slice of dog loin. Bring the whole fam down to "Guizhou Dog Meat Chain Restaurant", set - as truth in advertising insists - by a serene lake in the pastoral Swiss Alps.

how many partners have *you* had?

Finding my lunch

and then losing it, at the free specialty ear "scooping" stand on the street.

if ever my blog did have a mission statement

fashion corner

matchy matchersons, Hair McBalloonpants, Dancing Santa-Mixed Race, and all the cropped pants + tall boots combinations you could ever wish for. also popular in china: anything shaped like a balloon in the sleeve or knee region.

My friend has been trying to get me to try these fried rice noodles (the extra gummy kind, in a thin but exciting large triangluar shape) forever, and I only wish she had tried harder and earlier so that i could have added them to my regimen. they have more of a -what I imagine to be, in my limited asian outside of china travels - malaysian flavor, and they kick ass. we were an awful addition to their clientele as we shouted in our meager explanatory chinese that one dish wanted no meat, yes spice, one wanted yes meat, no spice, and one wanted both (unless the meat was pork) and wanted the strip-like noodles instead of the triangles. we had to send one back to get the spice that was left out in the confusion, but then it was almost unbearably salty and just got picked at. we forgot to ask for light on the oil, but it still was awesome.

comfort foods

that should have been more delicious than they look, but since they were purchased at a food court, it's understandable:

"fresh milk rice (powder) pudding", actual rice pudding made with condensed milk posing as coconut milk and goji berries, and tapioca with large chunks of taro and a stingy dash of real coconut milk.

where you go after you Eat Kunming

This is a pay toilet. I did you the courtesy of not photographing directly into the poo canyon or the waste paper basket.