Jamie came. She saw. She conquered.

Jamie left for Korea at the beginning of October last year. Though we talk damn near everyday (via email or skype), when she finally got to come visit, we hadn't actually seen each other for almost a year. This marks the longest amount of time we've ever been apart in our 28 (almost 29) years of existence. You could say that Rory and I were excited. We went to the giant supermarket in town and loaded up on cheese(s), champagne, beer and snacks; and we actually did a pretty thorough cleaning of our room to prepare for her visit. We secured a spot for her in our dormitory--on our same floor, even!--and I arranged to only teach about 6 hours the entire week she was here. We also made a funny sign to hold up at the airport, because there was no chance in hell that anyone would understand it. The final two days before she arrived became a countdown of hours, and there was no way to predict how I was going to act once I actually got to see her.

Rory and I arrived at the airport with an hour and a half to kill; the airport was actually about 45 minutes away in Wendeng, but it was a cheap shuttle ride from a downtown hotel. We had a little time to kill, but there was nothing to really do at this tiny airport out in the middle of nowhere, so we drank a few beers, got stared at and did madlibs (an amazing investment, even though they're way too hard for any of our esl students).

It was raining a little bit, but that didn't delay any of the flights at all. Initially we were a little worried about the weather conditions, considering there were typhoons in Southern China and in S.K., but for the most part weather was great. Finally Jamie's flight came in, and seeing her walking amongst all of these short, (mostly) Korean men was really surreal. We hugged, and it was an emotional moment, but I tried to hold it together, because there was so much we had to talk about. We hopped back on the shuttle bus to ride back to Weihai, showing each other phones and cameras and purses and catching up on everything. It didn't really feel like a year had passed.

We hopped off the bus a little before downtown to try to get a taxi back to Daguanghua, which has proved relatively difficult when it's raining (waited for an hour once), but this time we didn't wait long at all. Headed back to the room so she could unload her stuff and we could work out dinner plans. We drank some beers while waiting for Rebecca to call--she wanted to treat us to hotpot, because Sunday night was her only free night, and she really wanted to meet Jamie. At the hotpot place--"The Little Sheep"--we drank champagne and showed Jamie a proper Chinese meal. You can't go wrong with hotpot.

We called it an early night and went back to the room to watch funny stuff on the computer. It was great. The next day we had dedicated entirely to shopping.

Monday morning, after a brief run-through of the neighborhood market, we headed downtown to get fitted for some custom-made silk garments. I think that one of the first words I learned in China was the word for tailor, because I knew I would be getting clothes made at some point. Jamie opted for a standard Chinese dress that she will actually wear, and I opted for a floor-length robe that will probably be framed and put on a wall when I get back to the States. It's gorgeous, but it's not really a practical item of clothing.

We did a lot of shopping--everything's so cheap!--and went back to meet Rory for our dinner date. We eat at a neighborhood barbecue restaurant fairly often, and they were anxiously awaiting Jamie's arrival. They were even making a special menu for us. Even though we had eaten hotpot the night before--and it's legit Chinese food--we wanted to show Jamie the dirtiest locale we eat at, and really it's the only sketch place we go to anymore (since the food poisoning). We would stop going to this place, except that it has the best barbecue in town, and the people there love us. It's a shame that their bathroom is just a drain on the floor.

When in China, it's custom to order way too much food. So we did, and all of it was delicious. The mom and pop who run the joint have a really cool little dog, too (he does tricks), and he came and sat in a chair at our table with us. He's just so cool. While we were finishing eating, we saw the waiters and waitresses setting up chairs near our outside table. It was time for the photo shoot!



After taking a bunch of pictures, we went back to the table to give Jamie her first taste of baijo. I think this particular batch was full of "snake and penis and mushroom and weird shit and death" (Rory). It was full of at least 3 of those things, anyway.



We hadn't planned on going to any of the clubs in town (all two of them) until the next night, but after our friend Simon told us about a special show at "7", we couldn't resist. Turns out there was a midget show going on. Yup, midgets. Or little people or dwarves or whatever the hell they're supposed to be called. Anyway, the lead midget sure could wiggle. He came out with a normal-sized lady who was singing, and he had on a gold, floor-length robe. He looked like a little Chinese pimp. But together they looked straight out of "Willow." It was all too funny. The main midget danced around on stage, but he saw that he was getting a pretty awesome response from us, so (with a little help from a "7" waiter)he hopped up on our table and started wiggling his hips some more. It was amazing. In this picture, keep in mind that the little guy's standing on a platform and Jamie is standing on the ground.



After the main guy was done singing and dancing, it was time for a skit. This skit involved a female midget and two male midgets. The premise of the skit isn't important, but let's just say it was pretty vulgar. The lady ran out and squirted fake breast milk all over the dancers and whoever else was in the audience. It was like on Saturday Night Live when there's a skit that involves puking--they have the fake puke tube--except this was fake breast milk.

The next day was pretty low-key. Jamie came to three of my classes, my two favorite classes (with my really little kids) and my Korean class that I really don't like. They are just a rude group of kids. Jamie used her Korean to put them in their places. It was awesome.

Reba is my newest first-grader:


The plan was to go back downtown to go shopping, but let's just say that some of previous evening's reveling caught up with one of us (Jamie), and it made shopping downtown in the heat a pretty miserable experience. We watched part of a movie, napped, and then we went on a taxi ride along the coast. We were worried that it would rain the next day, so we wanted to make sure that Jamie got to see some of Weihai's famous beaches while it was dry.



Then we went downtown to eat pizza. After pizza we opted for the other club, "2046", and we only stayed long enough to see some Chinese rapper with cornrows, a trio of men break dancing (sort of) and some of the club's resident female dancers doing what they do best. There was some sort of festival going on during this time, so this particular club (much larger than 7)was packed full of folks. We called it an early evening and went back to Daguanghua to sleep.

The plan for the next morning involved checking in on our dresses and checking out a few more clothing shops. Jamie got a really nice coat for super cheap, and it came with a free comforter (which we are now using. Thanks). After that we headed to Licoshan, a mountain near our school that has a really nice restaurant at the base of it. They serve predominantly organic food, and the atmosphere is incredible. There is a courtyard that looks like it is straight out of a ninja movie.



As soon as we walked in, the owner of the place took hold of Rory's arm and escorted us a separate room to pick out our meal. We walked into a room full of meat and vegetables and dead, dried chickens hanging from the ceiling. We picked out vegetables and meat that we wanted and told the chef how we wanted it prepared. Pretty cool.

There was some kind of strange beast dead on the floor. We weren't quite sure what is was. We know that it is quite common to eat dogmeat over here (mostly at Korean restaurants, actually), but it didn't really look like a dog. Rory asked the man what is was. The owner told us that we didn't want to eat it, which we knew, but we just wanted to know what it was. The man grabbed Rory's bicep to indicate strength and pointed to the mountains. He told us in Chinese what the animal was, so we looked it up in our dictionary. It was a freaking wolf! Evidently, if you are really rich, you can eat some wolf meat and it's supposed to make you strong. That's big over here--if you drink baijo with penis in it, you'll be virile; if you eat noodles at the end of a meal, it signifies long life because noodles are long, etc. Everything means something.

As we were finishing our meal, a Chinese man came into our dining room. Each of us had seen him on three different occasions when we went to the bathroom. He came to our room to invite us to his room to drink with his boss. So we went, and even though our Chinese isn't the greatest, it's enough to sort of figure things out in a conversation. The boss was actually Taiwanese, and he wanted Jamie to be his pretend third wife, telling us he "ha[s] a wife in Taiwan and in China, and now he need[s] and American wife..." I think Jamie ended up dancing with him, too.

We left Licoshan and headed back to the downtown area to pick up our dresses. They were gorgeous.



The next day was the last day of the trip. Jamie's flight left at 10:50 in the morning, and appropriately, it was raining. We sat at the little airport restaurant, trying to keep it together while we waited for boarding to start for her flight, getting stared at by the other tables of people. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's really annoying. Little kids always have my permission to stare and gawk, but the wrong kind of staring from adults just makes me angry sometimes. But that's just one of those things you learn to deal with.

When it was time for her flight to leave and she had to check in, that's when I actually lost it. I mean, I could still see her on the other side of the glass, checking her luggage and everything, but that's when it hit me that she was leaving, and I didn't know when I got to see her again. When Jamie left last year, it was really hard on me. We have lived in different cities before; when she was in Texas my dad and I made plenty of trips down to visit her. But when she moved to Korea, the months after were really hellish for me. At the airport, it was the same feeling all over again. Granted, we're closer in proximity now than we were when she was in Texas, but it was still almost a year before I got to see her again. I cried the whole bus ride home. It was horrible.

But let's not end on a bad note. It was great to see her, and hopefully she can visit again around New Year's. We can get some more silk dresses made and get stuck in the snow on a bus. Yeah!