Gyeung-Ju, Korea (captions coming soon)

So I've talked a lot about getting my hair "treated" lately...so yesterday I happened to have my camera at the salon and Bret and Kevin took this picture of me. Yup...my hair is deep conditioned, pinned up, saran-wrapped, and then covered with this crazy shower-cap like thing that is attatched to a hose and machine that steams my head (you can see the hose in the mirror behind me). We decided I look like some kind of Star-Trek alien or something. And now imagine me sitting with this for like 40min-1hr. Yeah, i'm super cool. Yesterday, I finally remembered to bring my Chinese text book so I studied while this was being done...and all the girls/guys that work at the salon thought that was AWESOME! They all came over and would look at the book, read some phrases, make me repete them, giggle, and then continue working.

Good times...and like Clayton said last night: What did we do for fun before I started going to the salon all the time?? It's awesome that we have Chinese friends who ONLY speak Chinese to us!! :)

New friends, new fun, and new hair color

Lately we have been leaving our apartments more often and finding fun things to do in Qufu! I attribute our new social lives to the fact that the weather is improving super fast (it's been beautiful and warm for the past few days) and the fact that if we spent another semester spending as much time in our apartments as we did during winter, we might go insane! :)
We are also spending more time with cool new/old Chinese friends and practicing speaking Chinese much more!! So far this semester is off to a rocking start!

food at one of our favorite restaurants in town: "BB@" fish, fried manto, gung bao ji ding, and green veggie!! mmmmmmm

Bret, Clayton, and Kevin

Opening Night at the new Qufu bar...i'm such a superb dancer that they put flowers on me! :)
(others got to wear the flower too...i didn't get to keep them for long)

Me, Jeff, Kevin

Out with Aiyi (my hairdresser-new Chinese friend!)
Pictured Left to Right: Jim (Jeff's Chinese tutor), Aiyi, Me, Maggie (Bret's Chinese tutor), and Bret

This one came out a little smokey...gotta love China and the fact they can smoke ANYWHERE :(
Jim, Aiyi, Me, Maggie, Clayton, Bret, and Jeff

Me and Aiyi



Now, I also recently dyed my hair...it was a slight disaster...but i've grown to like it ok. It came out a little more gold than natural blond, and the highlights were a little more streaky than they appeared on the box. :) But lucky for me natural blond is not a color that you see often and i get stared at anyway, so it's not a huge change :)