beach living and other thoughts

last week's vacation in myrtle beach, sc, through photos...

brookgreen gardens:

beautiful old trees dripping with spanish mossspot the turtle in the photo above?we went on a boat tour of the creeks running through brookgreen. we spotted two alligators!

by the sea:

mom, reading on the balconydining al frescolook at the reflection in the sliding door!on vacation, i drank water from a wine glass, with a slice of lemon slipped in. such a small touch makes a world of difference. makes it feel special. ^_^imprints in the sandour outfits matched!

i leave for shanghai exactly two weeks from today. i think about it with apprehension. i am excited about the possibilities for adventure, getting to know the city intimately, seeing how i do on my own. at the same time though, i have no idea what to expect. that's part of the appeal, but it's also why this is so intimidating. there's the business component--operations, supply chain (in which i have no background, no classes)--and there's also the language component. i have no idea how my chinese will hold up, especially in a business environment. at this moment though, i'm more excited than anxious. a few days ago, or yesterday even, i was more anxious, less eager.

i watched scoop tonight (woody allen, scarlet johansson, hugh jackman) & enjoyed it. clever, charming~it had character, but nothing to take too seriously. debra messing's the starter wife series is premiering thursday & i want to see it.

my dad was in cleveland this weekend for a volleyball tournament, and my mom and i had a guest over for lunch today. my dad is usually the one who cooks, but since he was out of town, i made lunch. i woke up at 8 this morning to go to the store to buy cod for martha's lemon-parsley fishcakes. i also made roasted potatoes from one of ina garten's cookbooks, salad (with avocado~i love it in omelets too), and the raw blueberry tartlets i made for mother's day (the tart crusts turned out much better~they actually looked like tarts & the presentation was excellent). lunch was a general success (the fishcakes could be tweaked).

i'm going in for a wisdom-tooth-pulling consultation on wednesday. i don't want to have mine pulled~scary! nervous.

[btw, it turns out this blog can be viewed in china (at least for now), so i don't need to move it.]

anyways, good night.

the bottle tree

each time we're down here at myrtle beach, we always go to brookgreen gardens. it's composed of four former plantations that have been converted into gardens featuring american sculpture. i found the following sculpture strangely mesmerizing:


called the bottle tree, its story goes as follows:

this interpretation of the bottle tree honors an age-old tradition of the African American community of the Lowcountry. multicolored glass bottles hung on a tree attracted evil spirits that might have been lurking by the house. the bottles are slanted upward so that the spirits, mesmerized by the sunlit colors, are trapped once they have entered. as the wind blows across the mouth of the bottle, the spirits are heard to moan. the bottle tree has its roots in Africa and is a rare example of cultural transfer and survival.

i collect glass bottles. perhaps i could create something out of them~right now, they're just lined up along my windowsill.

magnolia blossoms

there are huge beautiful magnolia trees down here. i want to add them to the list of flowers i would want in a wedding bouquet: peonies, hydrangeas, tulips, and magnolia blossoms.

seascapes

the following set of photos were taken by my mother, whose propensity for photography we have just discovered: