The Last Few Days...

Soon I will be leaving for Beijing. After I pick up my parents at the airport we will enjoy the cool weather of Beijing, check out some of the good places and head for Vietnam. After Vietnam we will fly to my "hometown" in China-Wuhan! My friend invited me to her home for the Chinese New Year. I am very excited for that. It means I have about 1 1/2 weeks to get my parents comfortable eating with chopsticks. :)

After Wuhan we will jump on a train and head to southern China. Tour around there for a while, then fly off to Shenzhen. Shenzhen is close to Hong Kong. We will enter Hong Kong and hang out there for a few days. Then, my parents will fly back to the States and I will stay there and wait for Melissa to come. Crazy few weeks, huh? I'm packing today and I realized I have to pack for weather from 8-90 degrees! Yikes!

Before I leave, I've been spending some time with friends. The other night a friend (Edward) came over to cook. He wanted to make us fish. Edward and I went to the veggie market (which is also a butcher/fish market) and bought some fish. They were swimming when we bought them, but not when we got home. Wonder what happened...

It was time to cook the fish and Edward asked me to come to the kitchen. He said "Jess... the lady we bought it from never took out the insides." I turned and said, "Nicole, we need you in here!" Yup, Nicole saved the day. She put on some plastic gloves and cleaned out those insides! I'm very thankful she was able/willing to do that. :) Here's some pictures of her "working".

See how happy she was to help out!

Here is a close up of the fish she gutted. Hope you don't have a weak stomach.

Then she decided to have some fun and make the fish talk. Oh Nicole...