Magical day in the Kingdom

 I got up early today to meet my friends for coffee. It was a beautiful fall day.

The part of town where we met was full of coffee shops, restaurants, and art shops. I just love it here, and I don't know why I don't go more often. It is not that far from where I live really.

It's a trendy part of town. It wasn't crowded when I arrived, but when I left at lunch time it was so packed I could hardly get out.

Based on what I've seen on Facebook, cute food decorations are the "in" thing in the U.S. Seems they are popular here too. These are meat buns (or maybe instead of meat they have something sweet inside, but that is definitely steamed bread surrounding some kind of filling). They were for sale on the above-mentioned trendy street.

Here's my cup of coffee and one of my friends. Despite how it looks, the cup of coffee was not really bigger than my friend. When we finished visiting for a couple of hours at the coffee shop, I had to detour to go home, because of all the crowds. What a lovely detour it was, because if I hadn't taken it, I would not have discovered this:

Marks and Spencer!!!!!!! It's a British department store, in case you're not familiar. I LOVE this store. I used to make trips to Hong Kong, with visits to this store in mind. I can't believe one opened in my city!!!! It just opened. They have clothes that are normal sizes, unlike most stores in town that carry size zero as the largest size. I went in this store and I had to contain myself. I wanted to jump up and down like an excited 5 year old, but wisely and quickly determined it wasn't appropriate to display my emotion publicly at my advanced age. So I jumped up and down inwardly. You do remember last week I mentioned that there is nothing I like to shop for in this country? I so happily can take that back now.

Marks and Spencer also carries food items (lots of packaged goods, canned goods, coffee, etc.), and they are generally very good, cheap, and packaged beautifully. And they have a cafe too. The grocery section and cafe aren't opening until December though, but it will probably be my favorite hangout once it is open.

And you know what? They have a brand new Gap store here too, just near Marks and Spencer! (I took a picture of it, but somehow I lost it when downloading the photos). Gap has normal sizes too. I haven't seen a Gap store in China before, although I'm quite sure we are not the first city in China to get one. Beijing and/or Shanghai are usually always the first.

You probably can't imagine why clothing stores could make me so excited. So let me tell you. I am not trying to promote materialism; but I have for years lived under a certain kind of stress. I usually ONLY buy clothes when I am in the U.S. I would love to buy clothes here, but the size zero thing just makes it impossible. I have a great collection of shoes, socks, purses and scarves that I bought in China, but not clothes. When in the U.S. I have to buy 2-3 years worth of clothing, both under and outwear, and hope it will last. And I can't buy much because too much won't fit in the two suitcases the airline allows. All of a sudden, my clothes-buying-in-America intense pressure has been relieved. My life has changed, to tell the truth! I'll still buy stuff in America, but I don't have to depend on those infrequent trips to supply all my clothing needs. Wow, shopping has become fun again, all in the blink of an eye! I had to drag myself out of these stores today after I had looked at everything 2 or 3 times.

I was proud of myself too, because last night I went through my closets and threw away lots of old junky clothes. There's not much left in my closets; I bought one thing today to help re-stock it. (Yeah, after all that excitement and chatter, I just bought one sweater. I practiced self-control.) :-)

Then I went back to my place and went out for a jog as part of my SBP (shrinking body project). There's a beautiful, well kept park right next to where I live. It has a walking track with a soft track-like surface (that's it on the bottom left). I like how it has trees and bushes near the track so it feels more like a stroll in a park -- a football field track is a bit less enticing!

I made some new friends (a family) while I was jogging. (Yeah, they stopped me during my jog, so it interrupted my attempt to get aerobic benefits.) But I think it will be worth it. We exchanged contact information and I am happy I got a chance to meet them.

Later in the day, I got an email out of the blue from some former co-workers thanking me for helping them adjust to the culture when they arrived six years ago. They were laughing among themselves about their initial mistakes with the culture and decided to write and thank me. How nice of them to take the time to write!

And then my mom had a surgical implant procedure last week to relieve her back pain, and it worked! She is currently pain-free for the first time in recent memory (her pain was so severe before that she could hardly move/walk ... she broke a vertebrae last year). She and my dad are really happy (we all are)! Things are looking up, and that makes my heart glad.

Today gets an A+ in my book. From start to finish, it was a beautiful, perfect day. Thank you God for the gift of today.