Kitty de Mama

So some of you might know that my (Kitty's) mom came for a visit last week. She was an awesome guest and I think we had a pretty good time. Here's a whole mishmash of our various activities:

We went up the mountain on an unfortunately rainy day. Of course, that didn't mean that there weren't plenty of Chinese people up there, and we got assaulted by kindness and Chinese-style curiosity. Also known as I almost killed some people because they just would not stop taking photos of us, for like 13 minutes, even after I repeatedly asked them to leave us alone... A few photos, fine! But what do you need more than 50 photos of some white people looking irritated for?

Mom thought that the "bamboo" and "tree stumps" that were actually made of concrete were pretty funny.

I can't remember what this girl's t-shirt said besides "caffeine crap". She is some kind of news announcer on the bus TV here. Bus TV is awesome! I've learned so many different ways to boil eggs from Chinese bus news.

Since us English teachers in China have barely noticed the recession that's ruining the rest of human society, I thought we could share some of our incredibly cheap luxuries with Mom. The best cheap luxury around here is the Queen's Spa that we went to for our birthday. Andy smuggled a camera in this time:

I think we're waiting for back massages. And the following picture has a classic Kelly photo pose. We smile at the camera for about 2 seconds, then promptly get into some kind of discussion and lose our photogenic smiles:

I don't know how many pictures I've seen of Mom with that same face. Also, I'm eating red bean & nut ice cream, which is possibly my new favorite flavor.

Here's the Rolls Royce that will pick you up and drive you to the spa for an extra $5:

Let's see... I've been fighting ordering bee (silkworm?) larvae at one of our local restaurants for the entire year, but Andy and Mom agreed that it was a great idea, so I was outvoted.

What an enormous plate of silkworms! And boy were they gross. Don't believe the look on Mom's face:

That's before she tasted them. Anyway, they weren't SO bad, but pretty much like you would expect larvae to taste. Not quite crunchy enough.

I'll probably make a separate post to cover all our antics. More Mom posts coming soon!