The weekend

The weekend passed uneventfully. This is the first weekend since Stella's mom came to visit. The weather wasn't great. It rained a lot, but fortunately, not at the time when we exposed ourselves to the open sky.

Friday, a couple got married. Both are Stella's friends. They planned to have their wedding in China, so all they did here in Seattle was just getting a certificate. I didn't go to the city hall to witness the procedure but Stella did. Apparently a girl among the guests (there weren't many of them) bursted into tears when the couple were signing the documents. It was obviously a special moment for the couple, even though they had been together for quite a while, and their life would stay the same for quite another while. I guess that their union would not affect the rest of us either, since we all have long assumed that will happen one day or another. Yet somebody cried. That is the power of this man-made moment of significance. Just like the Valentine's day.

Saturday I took Stella and her mom to the Snoqualmie fall. I had been there once about 7 years ago when I came to Seattle for an interview for my current job. The place has changed a lot. They built a nice walking corridor and an observation deck on the side of the cliff. So instead of grass and trees, now you can have handrails in your pictures of the beautiful fall. Fortunately the old trail that leads you to the bottom of the fall still exists. That hasn't changed much. At the end of the trail, there was another new observation deck and a huge sign which says something like "Do not climb over the deck." But so many people did anyway, and from there, you can walk down to the river beach. The sign probably just worked as a reminder of their success in challenging the authority. Nevertheless, it was a slippery and difficult way down once you climbed over. Although the view down there was much better, I thought we should not do it because of Stella's mom's age. But she herself was no wuss. She wanted to join the kids. With a little help from us, she climbed down and walked as close to the fall as possible. We took some nice pictures.

After our relaxing walk, we went to a shopping mall in Northbend. It was not a huge place as I thought. But we loved the price. Stella's mom was impressed too. She thought the price there was even lower than that in China. We came back with a couple of handbags, shoes, sunglasses, etc. Most of them are made in China. It is totally silly that they sell for more in China. Unfair trading, I say.

We didn't spend a lot of time in the mall, because we had to meet with a bunch of friends for dinner. Stella introduced her mom to our friends. After exchanges of hello around the table, I wasted no time in digging into the dishes. Stella was the usual herself. Her mom did not have appetite as good as ours, but she did find some interesting topic to talk about with a couple of friends at the table. I think all of us had a good time.

The dinner pretty much concluded our Saturday expedition. It was encouraging in terms of me practicing my communication skills with the older generation. So Sunday we went to the Bite of Seattle. This is a yearly event at the Seattle Center. Restaurants around Seattle would set up stands selling all kinds of food. I wasn't sure if Stella's mom would enjoy any food unless it closely resembled Chinese, but I thought it's not a bad idea to let her see this unique Seattle culture. Two other girls came along. It didn't rain but it was very muddy in some part of the lawn. There were a lot of people. We happily wandered from this side to the other side. The food was pretty much what you would expect. A lot of BBQ, some Mexican, some Thai, Philipino, Hawaii, New Orleans, Russian, and so on. Stella's mom wasn't keen on trying exotic food. Stella and I didn't feel like eating too much either. The only thing we tried that is worth mentioning is the durian (榴莲) ice-cream. For those of you who don't know what durian is, don't try. It's gross. Stella insisted that it's OK but she made me to finish it off.

A girl who came with us won a hula hoop competition. It is not that she's good. She's pretty bad, but the other two competitors were horrible. She got a shaver as prize. They were also distributing a lot of free stuff there. We each gathered a bunch of jelly, smoothie, dried fruits, and so on. Everybody was happy.

After we took our bite in the event, the other two girls went home. We went to the Pike's place market. It was already kind of late (~5PM) so a lot of stands were closing. We didn't spend a lot of time. Everybody was a bit tired, so we headed home for a nice dinner, which means I wasn't cooking.

It was a good weekend even though we didn't do a lot. Stella's mom is changing our everyday life. Now Stella has to get up early (haha) and we all have to drink a lot of water and eat fruits. Not that is bad, I'm just not used to drinking a lot of water. I prefer to drink something else. Other than that, everything has been pretty pleasant so far. That is why I still have enough energy in this Monday morning, writing such a long blog in English.