First it was a very big and memorable day for me! That was the reason we celebrated it!  I’m sure there are a few or some very important days in each one’s life.  In my life June 30th  worths me remembering for ever. I should say it was one of the turn points  of my life,  as my friend Jonlyn called it “milestone “. Yes, she was very right!

Second I didn’t post any photos on the first entry. I took some pictures that day and I enjoyed them. For a better memory I would like to post some here.

1: The place we dined.

2: The dish I liked. It’s called “Mushrooms with fresh crab meat”! And beer is always for my man…lol…

3: The pretty lady Vanessa! haha …

PS: I only had one sip of that beer. Now my 8th anniversary post is complete! Thank you for all your comments and good wishes!

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Actually it was the first time ever in my life to see the real fire in person. I only saw fires on TV or films before.

Nobody knew what caused the fire.  It was very damaging  even the fire trucks all came not long after the fire.

As people say “fire and water are ruthless”! Yes, they may cause very devastating losses.

The following are some pics I took .

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I should force myself to insist on doing something with strong  resolution. Action is much more important than words. I should  understand it even better now !

Come back to my today’s topic, it was the eighth anniversary  my love and I met since 2002! I had a post last year about our 7th anniversary.  I cooked a good meal last year, but we would go out to eat this year. I got a lot of beautiful wishes from people who read my blog last year, I hope it would  be the same this year as well.

“How many 7 years are there in our life?”  It was what I said last year!  I should say how many 8 years now! We should all cherish our love, our life and our happiness. Only when yourself care and value it others may wish you! I think so!

Well, we have gone through a lot in life same as everyone else’s, sad and  happy, bad and good, but they are all good memories to look back now! Once you experience you should learn to value — that’s my slogan.

Good luck to us and wish we will have a beautiful dinner together!

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At that time I only had simple styles comparing I have “mature ideas” now… lol… , but to be honest with you, the more complicated styles I have the more expensive they are!

I didn’t have my nails done much during the whole winter.  Well, seasons are in returns. Spring is here now and Summer is following… I do mean I will have my nails done much more than the Winter time.

Here are some of them. Hope you will enjoy as I, myself, really like them.  I even had some of the styles done twice…

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I worked for DLA Piper - a law firm and JDSU- a communication products company and met some new friends: Sandeep, Kiera, Eric and Carlos from those two companies.  Both of them are big companies with representative offices or  branches all over the world.  If you by any chance need any legal advice or communication-related stuff I strongly recommend them to you.

Just like what I said in the title “every experience is treasure” indeed I learned some new things this time as well.

I enjoyed the work!  Most of the time I interpreted for Sandeep. He offered to write me a reference letter if I ever need for my next project. I was so happy to hear that! He was one of my great bosses even I only worked for him for 4 days.

I will stay in touch with them . Good luck to them all!

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I checked it on-line and  it said that White Day is popular in  Japan and Taiwan etc.   White Day(WD) is the continuity of Valentine’s Day (VD).  On VD that men give flowers or other gifts to women and on WD women should buy chocolate or some gifts for men.  haha… it’s fair exchange .

I also found other funny  and so- called different ” Valentine’s Day” of the year. No matter it’s correct or not it’s just for fun. See the following:

Jan 14th,  Diary Day                                               ?????
Feb 14th, Valentine’s Day                                    ?????
Mar 14th,  White Day                                             ?????
Apr 14th,  Black Day                                              ?????
May 14th,  Yellow &Rose Day                            ?????
Jun 14th,   Kiss Day                                                ?????
Jul 14th,   Silver Day                                              ?????
Aug 14th,  Green Day                                             ?????
Sept 14th,  Music &Photo Day                            ?????
Oct 14th,   Wine Day                                               ??????
Nov 14th,  Orange & Movie Day                        ?????
Dec 14th,   Hug Day                                                 ?????

Hope you will enjoy it when you read this entry.

PS: Somehow, my blog doesn’t recognize Chinese characters… I’m so sad!!! It’ll be so grateful if anyone knows how to change  it. Thanks!

Isn’t it cute! I love it!

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Some people politely say ” Happy Ladies Day” instead of  Women.  Some companies give a day or half a day off to female on Women’s Day in China. Lucky women can receive gifts from their boyfriends, husbands or male colleagues.  It is a festival for women only.  It’s great!

I saw some pictures on chinadaily.com about “Ways of celebrating Women’s Day“.

Wish I will get some gifts on the next one!

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We eat a kind of food called “yuan xiao ” or “tang yuan ” in Chinese. It’s made of glutinous rice and other ingredients such as sesame seeds , chocolate, peanuts etc. Well, it’s just like rice ball filling with other stuff. You can boil or deep fry. Actually I was told that to deep fry “yuan xiao ” and to boil “tang yuan “, but to me, they are the same ha ha ha …

Here they are:

On lantern festival there is always a riddle-guessing game/ contest. Riddles are written on the lanterns and anyone can attend the contest. You may win some gifts by guessing the riddles. It’s always fun, but I’m not good at it.

There are different games and food in different part of China. I’m from the north, so I only introduce the traditions from the north.

Happy Lantern Festival to everyone!

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There are some local traditions on weddings in my hometown.

I’m going to mention a few important ones.

Normally in the morning the groom comes to pick the bride at the bride’s place or hotel, if they live very far away
the bride and her family will stay at a hotel.

My brother-in-law came to a hotel where we stayed for a night to pick my sister, our family and our friends.

1st, when the groom arrived, he bowed to the bride and gave a bunch of flowers to her. It was the ritual.

2. The groom put a “flower badge ” on for the bride. The badge was made of a piece of red silk and a flower on it as well and written “bride” in Chinese. The groom, the bride, the best-man and the bridesmaid wore one each with their “titles” written on.

The four of them! hehe….

3. The most important part was the bride’s shoes were hidden and the groom had to look for them and then put them on for the bride. It took some time for the groom to look for the shoes though. It wasn’t an easy part, but a very fun one.

4. Next move was the groom carried the bride to the car. Well, my sister was a bit heavy for the groom to carry all the way from the room to the car. haha …so he only carried for a bit. I didn’t catch any picture of that part. I got one before they got into the head car of the wedding car group.

5. It was about one hour’s drive we arrived at the groom’s place. Due to the cold weather and other reasons I didn’t stop to take any pictures of the wedding cars and so on.

The first thing was the bride had to wash face again, just pretending to wash as she got make up on. It was the tradition was to do so. To wash off all the dust and so on because she would start her completely new life from there with her new family. There were four coins in the water. The bride had to put them on the four corners of the bed after she washed her face. All for good luck, fortune and heath.

6. This one was a very new one to me. A senior female from the bride’s side had to do it under instructions of the officiate at the marriage. hehe… She made a pair of scissors with red string and did something around the bride’s face. Oh she also said something meanwhile but I didn’t hear. No matter what the traditions are they all for one purpose that’s the good luck and heath for the the new couple.

7. There were too many things to do so the bride hadn’t eaten anything yet. The last part of the traditions was the bride had to eat an egg before the modern wedding ceremony started.

The wedding combined both traditions and a modern ceremony. The modern ceremony started after all of these traditions. It was great.

The modern ceremony is just the common procedure. I’m not going to write anything about it.

The last picture of this post is the beautiful bride and her sister Me!

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Chinese nian is on the 31st of December of the lunar month. It varies in the solar month. You may not have lunar calendar, so it’s a bit hard to explain.

Nian is the biggest festival in China. We have a long holiday during the spring festival time.

In the legend “nian” is a ferocious animal and it eats human. It says that in the ancient time “nian” intruded the village again and saw the red color and fire at every door and heard a thunderous sound so it was frightened away.
To celebrate the great victory people pasted red paper couplets on the door panels, lid red lanterns, beat gongs and drums, let off fireworks and firecrackers all through the night. And it continues to now… so we have “nian” now.

It’s just a legend, but we love “nian” as it’s also the time for the family reunion. No matter where people are, on this specific day “chun jie “all want to be with family. Only with family we can feel happy!

“Happy New Year”! “Xin nian kuai le”!
2010 is the year of tiger!

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