it's picnic time . . . sort of

It hasn't all been work and study around here. In fact, we've had some enjoyable times around here lately. We spent last weekend in Beijing with some friends from Lawrence who have been living in Japan this year. (more on that later) And yesterday afternoon, we got together with some friends for a Let's Welcome Summer picnic.

Well sort of.

The weather has been completely summery all week long, sunny and humid, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 80's. But then, around 1:00 yesterday afternoon, just a couple hours before we planned to start our picnic, the temperatures just suddenly started dropping, the wind started blowing, and the rain clouds started gathering.

On the one hand, it was a real relief that the temperatures dropped. Ben and I have been putting off turning on the A/C because it uses so much electricity, and we don't want to have to go buy more electricity units before we leave in less than two months, but our apartment has just been sweltering for the past couple of days. That kind of muggy heat makes it hard to study, hard to eat, hard to sleep--basically hard to do anything. On the other hand, our picnicking plans were threatened by the stormy skies.

Threatened, but not ruined entirely. Instead of going out to picnic, we decided to have an indoor picnic, at our friends Miguel and Xiaoyin's house. Everyone brought a little something to contribute (we brought my new favorite cookies--peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip--yum!), and Miguel cooked up some hot chicken and cheese sandwiches to share. We munched, chatted, looked at photos, and watched Miguel teach our Chinese teacher to dance.

The great feast

Miguel teaches our teacher to dance like a Colombian



Ben and Lawrence eating the last cookie




Good times!




Who's the man? Inhye's the man.