Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! I hope you’re all having a wonderful (and safe!) celebration.

I was hoping to join some friends out in Dongcheng tonight, which  has a much larger expat community than Changping, but alas I’m not feeling well… again. I’ve come down with the same mystery ailment as last year. Damnit! We even planned on having an American vs. the British battle of the drinks. To be fair, there were 3 Americans versus 1 Brit, so I guess my illness did him a favor, because we would have surely won that war- history repeating itself. 😉

Anyhoo, I’m hoping to make it out to Hong Kong tomorrow to visit a doctor to find out what the hell is going on. I’m at a loss, as since that previous post I’ve been exercising, eating healthy(ish), cut down on drinking significantly, and am drinking tons of water. My remaining guesses are 1.) allergic reaction; 2.) body succumbing to pollution. Hopefully I’ll find out the cause soon. At any rate, I’m really looking forward to going back to Seattle’s fresh air- although, I’ll miss China’s awesome cost of living. 😉

I need to post pictures of my 30th bday and my sister’s trip to Hong Kong and China. We took a ton of photos (thousands, in fact!). This morning J whittled it down to a little under 800. Still a lot of photos to surf through, but I promise to get them up in a chronological-ish order soon.

Charming, no?

For now, here’s a snap of a gift from my family. It’s a charm bracelet from Pandora. The charms are a plane, stars, an elephant, and a panda. So cute! If you’e wondering why there’s no cat on my wrist it’s because Pandora’s selection of cat charms is pretty weak. If I saw them, and even I don’t like them. I know!

Also, happy birthday to Dr. Cocktor!