LeahAndMark.com

We’re tired. Tomorrow we’re going to Happy Hour. Goodnight.

This may or may not look that great to you however - this sandwich was actually quite excellent. That’s not just chocolate - it’s Nutella: a creamy, chocolaty, hazelnut spread. If you’ve never had it, go try some - and you’ll kick yourself for having wasted most of your life without the greatness that is Nutella.

And if you think that it’s not healthy for you, you are completely wrong. Nutella is *everything* free and totally devoid of anything possibly bad.

Belly General Store

We went there early last Sunday and had a nice breakfast with coffee. It was early so there wasn’t really anyone in the place until we finished and started to leave. That’s when the other people started showing up and getting in line at the counter - but we’re used to beating others for breakfast.

We like Belly. It’s a nice change of pace from the many excellent breakfast spots and it’s just the beginning of mission to make our up and down Highland ave for breakfast - it’s one of the few areas nearby that we haven’t completely covered. Inman Park? Check. Grant Park? Check. Decatur? Check. The list goes on, but there are also many, many other places we need to check out - because food is good and good food is even better. Plus it’s nice to get out.

Ah.Here’s a short video of Leah that morning eating the umm… paper wrapping to my sandwich and dancing to disco music.

This is our new events calendar. We have it posted permanently up above on the “Calendar” page tab next to the about us tabs.

We’re testing this out, seeing how it goes and seeing if we feel like keeping it up. One of the reasons it’s here is to serve as a slight motivation to get out and do stuff - looking at a bare calendar with no events already makes me want to fill it in with stuff. So far we’ve added tomorrow night’s Yelp! Happy Hour @ Thinking Man, and then also the East Atlanta Beer Festival at the end of May.

Another sideways plus to having this is that maybe, just maybe other people will want to meet up with us for a sec or a drink at one of the things we’re attending and hangout. So if you’re ever looking for something to do/attend and have no one else to go with you, maybe we’ll be going too and then you can say hello!

GCRJ = Georgia Council for Restorative Justice

This is my GRA project, and to be honest, I hadn’t ever heard of Restorative Justice before meeting GCRJ’s director.  But I quickly read up on it, and while I have a LOT more reading to do, I know for starters that I’m intrigued.  I really like the concept, at least from my limited understanding.  Everyone knows our legal system (and school system, and welfare, and health care, and and and…) needs some serious reform, and this seems to be like a very good step in the right direction.  At least, in my kind of direction, which is putting a person’s best interests for healing and growth first, and working in a supportive manner to facilitate dialogue that leads to action that leads to positive change for everyone involved.

This is the short run-down version of me being fat, losing weight, and on/off obsessing about the whole thing. How I feel. How I look. How I can keep up the transformation (whatever it is this-go-’round). I was a fat kid throughout my childhood and then two months before graduating high school, I realized that I needed to change things.

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So, as you probably noticed from all the China pics (oh goodness, we still have sooooooo many to go through! But we’re sleepy! And busy! I do hope we get around to that, though. In little bits’n'pieces….tangent much? anyhow…) the best travel hairdo for me happens to be pigtail braids. Yes, they make me look 10 years younger and I already look waaay younger than my 26.666 years. But- they’re easy and they get all my hair out of my face and when my hair is all dirty and gresay, you can’t really tell. And unlike a ponytail, pigtail braids don’t make my head uncomfortable when I try to recline on long bus, train, or taxi rides. Ponytails always create a bump in the back, y’know?

Convenience and comfort will almost always win out over fashion and style with me. But I did get really tired of having the exact same hairdo every. single. day. Because I prefer variety to all things, even comfort! It’s not just the spice of my life…it’s like oxygen. I can’t live without it.

Okay- now on the school front. I received some très awesome news today! I’ve been offered a coveted GRA (Graduate Research Assistantship) which means that GSU will be paying ME to go to school there! And work on a really awesome project with the Center for Restorative Justice, to boot. No loans! No debt!! No worrying!!! There’s even a slight chance that in addition to the GRA, which will only be around 12-14 hours per week, I might also be hired to work additional admin hours for the project for even more income. If that happens, I won’t even need to look for part-time work anywhere. How fan-freakin-tastic is that?

Yeah. Life is so good right now I just can’t stop smiling. Time to wake my fiancé up and get some dinner!

(Fiancé….heehee….)

Okay, back in Atlanta and this weekend has been great so far. I want to post waaaaaay more about China, but I sort of have a wedding on my mind now. And Mark says I probably need to do a brain dump because there is all this stuff running through my head that I just never thought about before. I mean, I really haven’t ever truly thought about actually getting married and what the ceremony would look/feel/be like. I thought lots about BEING married, and having kids, and all that other stuff. I’m so excited about getting to celebrate our partnership and commitment to each other, and getting all our loved ones together for a amazingly fun shebang. But other than the overall idea of saying vows and having a party and spending time with our friends and family, I haven’t thought about a wedding and all the details involved.

Okay, that’s not totally true. In high school I took this elective called Family Relationships or something… it was basically a Home Ec type class. And one of our projects was to make a wedding book, where we cut out pictures from wedding mags and planned our dream wedding, tracking the budget or something… I think. I’m not really sure what the point of the project was, other than maybe to keep us busy for the hour and half that our block schedule classes lasted. And asking a relatively shy, somewhat insecure drama freak whose friends were all gay, single, or both and who had never been in a serious relationship or even had a serious make-out session and never had more then $150 to her name at any given time to plan a wedding from magazine pictures? Not very useful or practical. I don’t even remember what I chose for my fake wedding. I didn’t even think I’d been getting married. Ever. And my tastes have changed considerably since then, anyways.

And so now I’m doing all this reading- books, internet, etc. And I never realized how MUCH goes into a wedding. Granted, everyone’s wedding is/should be unique to them, and primarily centered around what the couple a.) wants and b.) can afford. I’m not stressed out or anything, it’s more that I’m just a little surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed. Not in a bad way, because it’s for a very happy occasion and I know we will have a wonderful and very special wedding no matter what. It’s just that there are so many more decisions to make than I anticipated. When to have the wedding, where to have the wedding, who to invite, what colors, will there be a bridal party, do I need to get a facial, when do I get my period, what vows do we want to say, do we want a live band, an open bar, a buffet, casual or formal or somewhere in between?

So … lots to consider. I am not-so-secretly hoping that we hire an awesome wedding coordinator to walk us through all this. I’ve never had a good eye for design- I’m much happier looking at other people’s designs and pulling what I like from that. But…there’s the cost issue. In the end, it might be worth it. Wedding planners have vendor relationships which usually lead to discounts. Plus, the time-saving factor. And obviously a wedding coordinator will have waaaaay more experience planning a wedding than me or Mark or even my mom. I am her only daughter, after all. But my parents are footing the bill (thank you times infinity, Mom and Dad!!!) and I don’t want to make any expensive requests. So I casually suggested the idea in an email to Mom and we’ll see if they go for it. If not, it’s okay. I can do this. We can do this. I’d just love a little direction or guidance, ya know?

I always meant to post these videos, but slow internet connections and editing always got in the way - so before we get even more caught up in our lives here in Atlanta, I thought that I’d post this set of videos from China, and then mostly leave it at that until I do some real editing and get streams of clips and photos ready for our house warming/China slide show party in July/August.

SO much to do, and just short of the time I would like to do it all in - the pace is just faster than I would like. Well, the pace plus it’s just a list of things I don’t want to really do however, it’ll be much quicker when I just knock them out instead of talking about, procrastinating about how I don’t want to do them. Mow the lawn. Spreadsheets for work. Stay awake and not take a real nap today to really combat the jet lag time difference (we stayed up ’til practically 4 am last night, although we are awake at 7am today.)

It’s Sunday. I have work and we have breakfast to go to - just us, but that’s all we need most of the time. Today’s breakfast - Belly General Store. Well. They have bagels or something. We’ll see. Until we get back. Here are some videos.

This first one is on the train we rode from Beijing to Guilin - 24 hours overnight. At some point, they stopped coming by with the drink cart so we went off in search for a bottle of water. We ended up going to the far end of the train. This is our walk back to our bunks and you can see the size of the space, the feet hanging off the beds, and just get a feel of how close the quarters are in there. We slept in the hard sleeper section which isn’t exactly hard - but it’s not soft. Open bunks three levels high. I think most travelers would recommend this level since you get your own space, but you’re also close enough that you really must interact with the other people near you. So rather than riding the whole time without meeting anyone - it’s an easy bet that you will.

This second one is when Leah and I met up with Amy - she’s an artist from Baltimore, MD and she was there in China working with our other artist friend, Alonzo Davis at that artists commune area on the far fringes of Beijing. She had been ‘on the reservation’ for practically the entire time she had been in country (she was working) so it was nice to be able to take her out and show her around - I do feel bad that on her back, things went horribly wrong with the bus route (they didn’t go back the way we came and had different stops) and I’m sure that it took HOURS longer for her to get back - I hope it wasn’t too bad. We had a lot of fun hanging out with her, exploring a few areas that we ourselves hadn’t been to yet.

The next two are just short clips, one of the Sichuan Opera (which is more like a variety show) and then one taken at a hot pot restaurant also in Sichuan. Sichuan food is pretty hot, as in Spicy. The stuff is good although I’m not sure I’d have it everyday. Still, it was a fun experience - much better than many hot pot restaurants where instead of cooking your food in flavored broths - you basically boil everything.

Now I need to get a full version of a video editor (hence the ‘trial version’ stamp at the top of that train car walk video) and then get to editing… of course, there’s so much else to do.

*looks like it’s going to rain most of today so thankfully, no lawn mowing will be going on (now I need to lower the shades so no one can see who lives in this house with the embarrassing overgrown lawn.)

Oh yeah - and one more. I know I know - but you have to realize that what we’ve posted here on our blog is only about 20% of all the stuff we actually filmed and photographed. There’s SO MUCH more - and fortunate as it is, our lives have already started moving on, and there is little time to reflect on the past month in China.

This last one is just one of the nights we spent at the hostel community room in Beijing. The Red Lantern House. The manager plays several instruments, including the Violin and Guitar - this is the erhu - a traditional Chinese string instrument.

Okay. I’m done. For now. Ha. But don’t worry, I have actual work to do today so you know that means I’m going to procrastinate and post other things on here.

So we’re back in the States. After a short flight to Seoul, Korea and then an overnight stay at the hotel that’s IN the international terminal, we hopped on one more plane and flew for 15 hours over the Arctic and eventually landed in Atlanta - only an hour after the time that we left Korea (we left Korea at around 10am Friday morning and landed in Atlanta around 11am Friday morning - it’s like magic.)

After having been through 8 airports in a month with a few repeats, I can only say that the airport screening process is still relatively a waste of time - well it would be if terrorists weren’t so stupid sometimes. Ah.. but at least airport security is just as irritating no matter what country you’re flying through (of course in others, it’s obviously more since they can take your stuff and basically coerce you into paying them to allow it to pass.)

I think I’ m doing pretty well with the jet lag battle - took a nap yesterday afternoon when we arrived - then FOUGHT to wake up - and then went to bed at around 1am and slept all the way through to this morning. I should be just as tired as usual for Monday morning.

So. Although I have plans to get back to the fitness regime and get back to where I was before I moved to Atlanta, that’s probably on hold until Monday. Yesterday, we went to Mellow Mushroom for a really great pizza, and then Thinking Man Tavern with our friends Anna & Chris for some dinner. And then for breakfast today, we went to The Flying Biscuit - Mclendon location because it’s the best and only one worth going to. So yeah, Mellow Mushroom and The Flying Biscuit - although it’s always an argument when discussing the best/most/worst/anything in regards to food in Atlanta, it was a nice change of pace from Chinese cuisine. We could’ve done much worse, and actually, these three outings where satisfying on all the right levels.

Breakfast

China seriously lacks a breakfast food culture. Aside from the steamed buns and a few other items on the morning street food list - the breakfast in China is considerably lacking. Especially when compared to a fully realized southern breakfast.

Omlettes the size of my head, full of cheese, meat, and bell peppers. Pancakes, grits, potatoes, toasts, and finally, an awesome biscuit. The kind of biscuit that they only seem to create in the South - that make other areas in the United States envious. Having eaten so many breakfasts at so many different restaurants around Atlanta, it’s always a hard choice (in fact, we haven’t been to the Flying Biscuit in a loooooong time) but even at a touristy location such as this - when you’re the first customer and they have to unlock the door for you, the service isn’t rushed, the food is timely, and the hour wait is non-existent. We love breakfast because we usually wake up early for breakfast, and brunch is always too far off.

Back to the ‘real world’.

It’s the weekend and we have all of today, and then tomorrow before we have to get back to work. ‘Back to the real world’ as most would put it however, saying that kind of bothers me. As if we left the real world. It doesn’t bother me that it seems to say that what we did for the past month wasn’t real, but that what we are coming back to is more real. And then the connection that this ‘more real’ life isn’t anything great - or it’s just… a negative connotation.

Especially when the trick to a trip such as the one we are returning from - is to come back having been changed. Or rather, to not come back and fall into the same old routines and more importantly, the same old mind sets that we were in before we left. Because the battle isn’t to sit in my cubicle and hate every moment of it simply because I’m not ‘out there’ - but it’s to make my life here in Atlanta as interesting, or exciting, or at the very least, have as much purpose and meaning. Because life isn’t all about traveling, but it’s not all about simply accepting your existence. And that’s why I don’t really like it when others negatively (with or without knowing it) state that we now have to return back to the real world. Because our real world is actually much more fluid, more flexible, and I dare say, more exciting than many other people’s - but only because we choose to make the attempt at living life deliberately.

So while this past month was quite awesome - it’s good to be back. Because our real world is quite excellent.

Our cats, One-Two and Three-Four are doing quite excellent and I know they’re happy to have people here with them, staying overnight. It’s awesome that Anna & Chris came over nearly everyday to feed and spend time with them, but obviously it’s not the same as sleeping here. Since our cats generally sleep on the bed with us (it helps a great deal during the winter - they help keep us warm.)

Unpacking still needs to be done, but mostly just dealing with all of the ’stuff’ we bought as gifts for people. We went to Wu-Mart and loaded up. In fact, we bought a new suitcase to hold everything that we were bringing back - and then some. Wu-mart rocks. We also each practically bought a new wardrobe of clothes - for the cheap - and then also a good share of dvds, and movies - but mostly series. Oh yeah, and I got a dvd player that can play most of the formats I download (not that I torrent anything illegal - cause that’d be wrong right?)

Let’s keep moving forward. There’s too much to do in the coming year. Fortunately, most of it is stuff that we’ve chosen as opposed to stuff that was thrown upon us. More and more that’s how it is these days. It’s not easy. Just a life lived deliberately and less ordindary.

I’m engaged!  Wow!  Haha, okay y’all already know, but it’s kinda still sinking in for me.  Thank you so much for all the sweet, wonderful comments.  It really touched us both.  It’s our last day in China and we have some shopping, eating and packing to do before we leave.  Busy day!

Love to all!!  Byeeeee!

First:

And now… just a few more pictures. We walked past the sign that clearly said, “No tourists beyond this point” which was there because we’re only supposed to climb the ‘reconstructed’ parts - which is like going to many of the sights in China - it’s ALL reconstructed (practically rebuilt from scratch) - and so we hiked a good bit past everything, away from any domestic tourists (which if you’ve been here, is no easy task.)

And then… we bought hats.

We leave China tomorrow night, have an 11 hour lay over in Korea, and then land in Atlanta on Friday sometime. It’s been insanely awesome here. And we have gigabytes more photos and video.

The pandas! We saw the pandas! They were soooooooo very cute and the research and breeding base in Chengdu is such a nice place, with plenty of space for the pandas to romp around and munch on bamboo. Luckily, when we were there it wasn’t packed with tourists, either, so we were able to get right up close to the pandas and watch them eat and play and nap. Cuz that’s pretty much what pandas do all day.

The baby pandas- I think I counted at least 6 cubs- were really adorable and so playful, wrestling with each other and splashing in water and climbing on the playground/wooden log setup. The older pandas just lolled around eating, but they were cute, too. It’s funny to watch them try to run- they aren’t the most graceful creatures and they do this weird, uneven ga-dump-a-dump gallop across the grass. All in all, it was a great morning.

-Leah

The best part of the Chengdu Panda Research and Breeding Center? The huge butterfly exhibit.

No just kidding - but they do have this incredibly extensive collection of butterflies from all over the world. You know, glass cases full of dead butterflies with needles stuck through the their middles. All perfectly preserved and dead. And then they have photos of famous or prestigious/important butterfly enthusiasts… which is kind of like having photos of famous stamp collectors. It was kind of weird to have this huge butterfly collection at the world famous Panda Place.

As part of our packaged deal with the Panda visit, we also went to the Sichuan Opera - and while I have some photos and even some video - it’s not for this post - because the camera is upstairs and we’re having breakfast.

-Mark