After twenty-four hours on the train I arrived back in Xining with just enough time to get showered up and have a nice Thanksgiving meal with my family and other fellow expats in our community.  It was perfect timing.  The irony is that my friends, J & J, left for America on a plane a few hours before I left Beijing on a train.  They beat me getting back home.

It was really nice having friends out for a visit before the holiday.  Their entire time here (other than an unfortunate incident with a KFC spicy chicken sandwich) couldn’t have been more perfect.  Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures from their visit (my camera battery died after taking just one photo of the Great Wall) but thankfully Jer took a few thousand photos and has promised to send me some for posting.

Some of the visit highlights which I am THANKFUL for:

• Climbing some small mountain-like hills behind our house in Jianzha
• Rat-hunting and making a "kill" with J & J
• Making the movie "Jianzha Cribs"
• Visiting Lobsang’s monastery and eating tsampa with him at his home
• Watching Hot Fuzz with the boys in Xining, "By the power of Grayskull…"
• Ticket to Ride with Christa, J & J.  Christa is still undefeated!
• Cereal time with Eugene-Jack in Jianzha
• Basketball time with local Tibetans
• Visiting the Great Wall (Simatai) in Beijing.  Five miles of unrestored brick ramparts and wall to hike.  We only saw about 20 or 30 people.  The "kung fu" shots were amazing.  You’ll see what I mean soon enough
• Eating at Li Qun’s Beijing Duck restaurant in a "hutong" district–with a freezer full of dead ducks hanging just over my right shoulder
• Visiting a local restaurant owned by a Chinese photographer and "translating" from Chinese to English and back between Jer and said photographer.  And no I don’t really know the words for aperture or exposure in Chinese.  We stumbled through
• Rory’s-esque time spent with J & J at the Japanese restaurant and the hostel’s cafe
• The red lever

I guess in some ways you had to be there.  But if you are in the Seattle/Tacoma area, I’m sure J & J would be willing to share some of the tales with you.

In any case, I hope you all have a wonderful turkey-filled Thanksgiving!  We are so thankful for each of you…

We’ll be back in J-town later today.  Peace, out.