According to the news, some people felt the earthquake in Guangzhou, but not me. It was about 700 miles north of us. So stop sending me worried messages. Please and thank you.

I got my dress and it is beautiful and I love it. I want to wear it everyday. I'll put up a picture on Facebook for your enjoyment. I look HOT.

What hasn't happened since I last wrote?

We have a new person in our little group and we all have matching braclets. We'll call him Camp for the purposes of this blog. He's English, that way Sneaky doesn't feel so alone.

I just got back Monday morning from Xiamen, China, on the East coast on the Taiwan Strait. It was really fun. We had four days off for Chinese Labor Day. At first we were all going to go to Hong Kong, but the closer it got, the less I wanted to go to Hong Kong. I told Sneaky this and we decided to go somewhere else. I knew that if I went anywhere with her, we would have fun. We tried to get tickets to Zhangjiajie, a really pretty place about fourteen hours to the north of Guangzhou, but there were no tickets available. Sneaky was a champ, though. She did not stop looking for a place for us to go. I did absolutely nothing except give her the money so that we could book the tickets. She finally found a sleeper bus to Xiamen and we said, "Yes, please!".

The thing was, though, that it wasn't leaving until a little past seven on Thursday morning. I suggested that we just stay up all night. She agreed. Baaad idea. We tapped out around 4AM and decided to have a little nap. It did not go well. We had agreed to meet in the lobby at 6:15AM. She called me at 6:08 asking if I was up. I was not. I hadn't even packed yet. I got up and threw some things in a bag to haul them downstairs. We made it, got on the bus, and got on our way to Xiamen. (Let me just say that the sleeper bus is the way to go. I slept so well on the bus. It's quite a narrow bed, but it works). On the way Sneaky made friends with some Chinese people who helped us find our hostel. They were quite nice. At the hostel we met our new best Chinese friend, Kenny.

Kenny: Where are you from?

Me: America. Where are you from?

Kenny: China

Me: Where are we? (Important to know that I was holding a map of the city at the time)

Kenny: Xiamen

Kenny is great. He's like Chuck Norris. Women ai ta. (Chinese for "We love him") We spent all day Friday with him on the island a ferry ride from the mainland. The island was nice. We got lots of nice pictures and lots of Chinese people came up to Sneaky and I to ask to take photos with us. It made me laugh every time. The ferry ride there was ridiculous. There were so many pushy people. Watching the gate close was scary. I thought someone would be crushed.

We met some other foreigners at our hostel from London named Len and Rob. They were quite fun. We spent all afternoon Saturday with them because they bought a guitar. Sneaky and I were both quite content. The two Londoners were quite the musicians. One is part of a group that composes music for British TV and documentaries. The four of us plus Kenny ended up going to the waterfront to hang out. I didn't go back to the hostel until 5AM. I had a really great time that I will remember all my life.

Sunday was the one-year anniversary of my last day as an employee of GTCCF and it made me sad.

I had keys to DPH's and TDJersey's apartments so when Sneaky and I got back Monday morning we went and ninja spooned them. It was the best idea ever. Monday night the new boy, Camp, had a house-warming party and it was well fun. He should do it again.

Yesterday we went to the fabric market and ordered dresses to be made for us. It's really exciting. I made the dress from my own head and I'm going to look HOT. Then the five of us got dressed up and went to dinner at the Brazilian steak house and it was so good. I'm excited for tonight, Jane (the Canadian) is singing at Hooley's open mic night and I'm going to watch!