Dukan – A Year Goes By in the Blink of an Eye!

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

One year ago this weekend was my 30th class reunion. A turning point for me.

One year ago yesterday, on Friday, August 5, 2011… I met with a fellow high school alum, John Geraghty to chat about steps to take to change my life. John is a life coach… to me, a life saver. The tools that John gave me that day were stored in my iPad memo section. Books to read, ideas that he gave me… sage advise. I admitted to John that I weighed 255 pounds. No one else knew. You can read more about starting my Dukan journey here and how I felt about my meeting with John.

The following night, Saturday, was the night of our big dinner. My dear friend Denise’s daughter Aleisha was our official photographer and took this picture that seriously changed my life…

Yes… that’s me in the purple.

When I saw this picture the following day, well I can’t even begin to tell you the myriad of emotions that it brought up… and still brings up.

And so my journey on Dukan begin… not quite a year ago, that anniversary is August 20th, but this weekend… exactly one year ago, changed my life.

With Terri and Michele August 2011

With Leslie – February 2012 – 50 pounds lighter! Half way there!

With Teri at my first 5K – June 2012 – 100 pounds gone!

With Denise, Bernadette, Jennifer and Kevin – June 2012

I consider myself very blessed to have the wonderful and amazing friends and family that I have! You all have made this journey much more fun! See you all in September!

And to all of you who follow this blog… THANK YOU… your support has been awesome! I love how supportive our community is 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 85 – Aussie Football Rocks

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wow… 85 days on Consolidation! And you know what… I’m sticking to the plan and my weight is stabilized… I will be in Consolidation for a total of 500 days so I’ve got 415 to go!
Since starting in Consolidation I went from 155 down to a low of 144. I have consistently been between 144 and 148 for nearly 2 months now. Awesome! This morning 146.

Breakfast: Cream cheese pancakes ** without syrup, not able to find sugar free here! Ate them in bed with a cup of coffee before getting ready for work.
This is Titters, my cat, wishing I’d share some of that pancakey goodness with him…

He put his back to me because I wouldn’t share!

Lunch: A yummy salad with red cabbage, cukes, tomatoes and bacon and edam cheese!

Before I carnivored it up 🙂

Afternoon Snack: 2 tea eggs
Dinner: Philly cheese steak without the bread and a small side salad.

Exercise:
Walked to and from work twice as I walked home for lunch.
Ran 5K in record time the night before… loving that I can breathe again. It’s been 12 weeks since my surgery and I’ve only been able to take full breaths for the last 2 weeks… general anesthesia is the culprit, me thinks.

After work I went with Vivien to an Aussie friends house to watch Australian Rules Footie… I am totally into it and the commentary during the game from those watching is great fun and instead of running 10 feet and having a time out, they just keep going and going and going… it’s going to be hard to go home to the States and enjoy the NFL… lol! The end of this game was AMAZING!!! Tom Hawkins (Tomahawk) #26, kicked the winning 6 point goal with 0 seconds left on the clock!!! Bringing them to their 9th victory in a row… I guess Cats really do have 9 lives! So, Rory, my partner in fun for the guest running blog I wrote a few weeks ago, presented me with my official fan Geelong Cats T-shirt! I totally feel like part of the gang now 😀 Thanks, Rory!

I AM A FAN!!

The Tomahawk

At the end of the night my local daughter, Vivien, walked me downstairs and I talked her into a self pic… lol… I’m going to miss this girl when I move home!

ViviMokaLaka – August 2012

I look a little different than I did a little more than a year ago when I took this pic…

ViviMokaLaka – April 2011

Ciao

**I bought the amazing cookbook from this blogger. Her recipes are awesome and easy to follow! I highly recommend the book and can’t wait to get in a REAL kitchen with a REAL oven and make more of the stuff in the book!

Running, blog stats and random stuff

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personal perspective. I set two personal records running in the past 3 days. The first was my fastest run at 8:26 avg. min/km or 13:34 avg. min/mile. This is a full 1 minute per mile LESS than before I had my surgery in May! The second was that I ran more miles in July than any previous month! Below is my RunKeeper stats…

The brick color is walking, the green is running and the purple is hiking.

I’ve either walked, ran or hiked 544 kilometers since March. That’s 338 miles 🙂 Woot!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! And I’ve logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many people have stopped by. I started regularly writing this blog in August to share my journey with family and friends and it has become so much more and that makes my heart swell with happiness!

And that leads to the awesomest things that have happened this week. Actually it happened today… 4 people that I personally know, all of us on 4 different continents, contacted me today (yesterday for some of you) to tell me they are starting the Dukan because they want to be healthier and they’ve seen my success. All 4 have read my blog and I only knew that one of them was. I wish all 4 of you luck!!! I know you will succeed because I know all of you put your mind to something and accomplish it! 4 amazing women… starting on this journey… Good luck and remember that I’m here if you need anything!

I’ll finish by saying that August brings in the last month of summer. It also signals that I have 51 days left in China. I can’t believe I’ve been here nearly a year already! I get one more trip to Guangzhou where I get to hang with my Int’l crew down there, Rose, Jenny, Liza and Dianna. And get to mentor a friend from the Middle East, Aisha! And then back to Hangzhou to finish out my contract… I’m going to miss my ViviMokaLaka so much! She’s the one that brought me here in the first place. I’m going to try to take as many photos as possible in the next 7 weeks.

But I miss home and my kids and my grandkids and my mom and my family and my friends and the beautiful sunrise over the Roosevelt Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home. I’ve had a fun 4 years living abroad 🙂 But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!

Ciao!

Guest post for AGoodRun

Posted on July 16, 2012 by flamidwyfe

My guest post on AGood Run… Check it out 🙂

A Good Run

Written by Sandi Blankenship

The past 11 months have been quite an adventure for me. Last August, I went home to the States for my 30-year high school reunion and met with a high school friend who is a life coach. I was living and working in the Middle East, had been offered a job in China and weighed 255 lbs. I completely changed my lifestyle a few weeks later, moved to China in September, started running in January and lost 111 pounds! I ran my first 5K on June 9th and came in just past the middle of the pack. I’m now training for a triathlon.

My Run:
I started my run at The Vineyard. A restaurant in the West Lake District that is run by an American chef, Reuben, who gets my diet needs. I am so thankful for the food I’m served there and the friends I’ve…

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Kindness, Kourtney, Divorce & Tom Cruise

Posted on July 10, 2012 by flamidwyfe

This should be a fun post 🙂

So for starters, this morning a post on one of the blogs that I follow was about kindness. What prompted the post was ugly comments written on another bloggers page. You can read A Beautiful Day kindness post here. This is the reminder she has there…

I’ve been thinking for a few hours about what this poster says. I’ve not been so kind this past week. I’m angry about a decision here at work that I wasn’t consulted on and I’ve been trying for 6 days to be more zen about it. The cool thing about the people here is that they don’t hold grudges… ME… I’m a GRUDGE holder and I own it 🙂 I just don’t get over things easily. I stew about them, work them out and then throw them out… but it takes me a while.

This morning, once again, something silly and non-evidence based practice came up in morning rounds. Sunday up on the mountain I PROMISED myself to stay zen, to stay calm, to practice breathing, to not care (although I totally do), to just let go. So the past 2 days when something comes up, I take a deeeeeeep breath, say the word zen, think of something positive and don’t comment on it… I’m a big under the breath commenter… sometimes inappropriate words (thank God most of the people here don’t understand English… lol). My personal assistant/translator, Vivi was with me. I went into the stairwell, took some nice deep breaths, said out loud, “stay zen, do not allow it in, meditate.” Vivi asked me if I was a Buddhist 🙂 It made me smile. I got over it pretty quick and continued on with my morning.

Then I started reading the Entertainment news on my morning break. I usually don’t follow Entertainment news… I don’t care what these people do in their personal lives, I want to be entertained by them. Two stories piqued my interest this morning.

First… Kourtney Kardashian had her baby girl. So, why would this pique my interest? Well, she was planning a home water birth and I’m a huge home water birth advocate… in fact, a water birth expert… so I was rooting her on. She had an “all-natural” birth according to her sister’s tweet, but no further info. I’m looking forward to the results… So what does this have to do with my Kindness post? Oh my… the UNKIND comments people made on the story. Calling her a whore and loser and a bunch of other names. How sad is that? Why do people even bother on commenting? I would say that for every 1 kind comment there were 10 or more UNkind comments. I personally like watching their show when I am at home in the States… I don’t have to think, they are funny to me and they have pretty much the same problems the rest do with life & relationships. Congrats Kourtney… I hope this child brings you as much joy as your baby boy has!
**On a side note, this article from Australia has nothing but KIND things… is it Americans that are so cynical and unkind?

And the next news item… Tom and Katie have divorced in just 11 days since Katie filed. I love Tom Cruise… I don’t care about what he practices spiritually… I seriously don’t… I love him as an actor. He always entertains me and I could look at him forever. His latest movie, Rock of Ages is hysterical and the man can sing! And oh what I could do to those gun tats on his err, um, lower abdominal area 😀 The soundtrack has all of my favorite songs from the 80’s and I walked out of the movie theatre HAPPY… HAPPY, with a grin on my face… I can’t say that about many movies. The high from being happy from the movie lasted for hours afterwards. OK… enough about that movie, hehe… The comments were SO UNKIND after the story that I just stopped reading. Again, why are people so unkind? What is the point of writing horrible comments. What cracks me up is that the people writing the comments write them as if Tom Cruise will actually read them… LOL.
You know what I say… good on them. I’m sure there was a prenup and things were hammered out quickly for everyone’s benefit… especially their child Suri. I think it was very grown up for them to handle things so quickly and without it dragging on forever.

And finally… as I was walking back to work after a yummy lunch at home, I saw this on the sidewalk, while listening to the Rock of Ages soundtrack and the song, “I Wanna Know What Love Is” was blaring in my ears…

Isn’t that what all of us want… a little heart? A little love? A bit of kindness? After seeing the leaf, I started thinking about writing this post. I then walked back a block to take this picture. I’m going to practice showing some love for the rest of the week… I’ll let ya know how that goes 😀

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 55

Posted on July 5, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I am really missing my daily blog posts! I still don’t feel like I’ve caught up from my vacation!

Daily weight: 147 lbs/66.8 kgs
Goal weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

Things weight and goal wise are going very well. I have to remind myself often that I am no longer in the Cruise Phase and can add a few things into my diet! Today (Thursday) is a PP day and so far I’ve stuck to that. On the Consolidation Phase (which for me will be 500 days long) you get to add some stuff back in to your diet, you get to have one celebration MEAL (not day) a week and you still have one PP day a week. Dr. Dukan suggests Thursday as that day, and I’m going to stick with that.

On Tuesday morning I got up early and went for a 2 mile run at sunrise. I then came back and did Chaz’s YOGAmazing 10 Minute Morning Flow workout. The combination of the two is a great way to start my day! Chaz has some amazing short yoga workouts that are easy to fit into your day and he also has workouts that focus on specific areas of your body, which I really love!

I then headed to work by walking and within the first hour was told I was being requested for a water birth. All day labor, difficult birth, as the baby was face up instead of face down, but this momma pulled energy from the universe and after nearly 3 hours of pushing had a gorgeous baby boy with a funny looking head… lol (it’s looking much better this morning!)

On Tuesday evening Alice came back for a night stay over. We went out to dinner with her son, Leon. Alice and I had the salmon with horseradish appetizer and we all three ordered mixed grill. The meat was DELICIOUS!

The waitress that took pics for us kept tilting all of our cameras… so none of us have a straight shot, lol!

Alice and I then headed back late to my flat and I was in bed at 1 a.m. (gasp!!! that is SO late for me!). And we were up at 6 a.m. to get a ride to the train station. Alice had a noon flight to Hong Kong.

Wearing Red, White & Blue on the train to Shanghai in honor of America’s birthday!

So off we went to Shanghai on Wednesday morning… the 4th of July. Not only is this America’s Independence Day, but it is also my little sister Nannette’s birthday!

Alice and I were suppose to be on the high speed train to Shanghai, which usually takes about 42 minutes, but we somehow got on the slow one… so between that and the subway ride on Line 2 from one end of Shanghai to the other to get to the airport, it was cutting it close… good Lord I was glad it was Alice traveling and not me, as we all know how bad my travel anxiety and time goes! We, of course, got there with plenty of time and from the pics that Alice posted on her Facebook wall of Hong Kong, she got there in one piece!

Bye Alice!!! It was fun hanging out!

I then got back on the subway and found my way to the grocery store that I shop at in Shanghai and found a restaurant that I hadn’t eaten in before. Sat down at a table with a lovely gentleman named Stern from New Jersey, in China teaching for a year, and had a wonderful conversation over lunch… we’re Facebook friends now 🙂 and then I got a little shopping done… mostly a backpack and sack full of groceries to sustain me through the week. I then took the subway back to the train station for the ride back to Hangzhou. I called Jerry, my driver (I love saying that… he’s a very cool dude!) and asked if he could pick me up… he said yes and told me to keep an eye out for the special way he was going to display my name at the train station…

You see MY driver uses an iPad instead of cheesy paper! 😀 Thank you, Jerry, for making me feel so special and important and for being environmentally friendly!

He then informed me that he was taking me to dinner to thank me for all the referrals that I gave him. He was taking me to the “best Chinese restaurant in town” and inquired about what foods I could and could not eat… the man pays attention! Too bad he’s married with a kid, lol! Just joking, his wife is one lucky lady!

So, he takes me to Nongtangli Restaurant near West Lake and he was not kidding… it was the best Chinese food I’ve had since I’ve been here! I decided right then and there that Wednesday, July 4th, was going to be my Celebration Meal of the week. Not that I ventured too far… I don’t do wheat, rice or potatoes… here’s what we had…

Spicy Black fungi and to die for pork… nommy, nommy pork, melt in your mouth, fall off the bone, better than sex pork 😀

And pumpkin with a creamed coconut sauce… now this was yummy!

And I had juice, which is something I haven’t had since August! It was fresh juiced green apple and grapefruit… cool and refreshing on this hot summer’s eve!

Awesome dinner, awesome dinner companion. Jerry then took me back to my flat and didn’t charge me for the pick up… such a great guy!

So my 4th of July food was:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, coffee at train station
Lunch: Salad greens and a poached salmon steak
Snack on the train: about 2 ounces of aged cheddar that was crumbly and sharp!
Dinner: See above… Yum!!
Snack before bed: FF Greek Yogurt with Splenda and flax seed
Water: About 3 liters
Exercise: 1 mile walk after dinner and 20 minutes of meditation

So how was everyone else’s 4th of July??

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 52 – Monday Weekend Round-Up!

Posted on July 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I can’t believe I’m already 52 days into Consolidation! My weight is holding steady and I’m super excited about that. I’ve not had a moment to breathe much less blog since I’ve been back in China. Here’s the stats…

Today’s Weight: 146 lbs/66.36 kgs
Goal Weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

Last Thursday my friend and fellow Florida midwife, Alice called and said she was still in Hangzhou… could she come hang out… ABSOLUTELY! Nothing like staving off the “just returned from home vacation” blues like having someone to hang out with on my after work hours! We’ve had a good time playing catch up and eating some yummy food. Alice follows a Paleo life style, so our foods work well together!

Friday food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, 500 mL water*, 1 oz of Edam cheese
Snack: 10 almonds, cup of coffee
Lunch: 3 slices of beef, 1 tea egg, 500 mL water
Snack: 500 mL water, a few more almonds
Dinner: Alice made a duck soup with: duck (duh), broth made from the bones of the duck, carrots, garlic, ginger and red cabbage… YUMMY!!!!!!!!! She also made a very delicious salad with red cabbage, cukes and apple slices! We also had a plate of duck meat.
Snack: FF yogurt with splenda and flax seed meal and a pinch of cinnamon
Exercise: Walk to and from work x 2 (went home for lunch) Total: 1 mile/1.5 kms
Neighborhood walk in evening: 1 km with Alice
**I put a packet of Crystal Light in my 1.5 liter bottles (1 pkt is suppose to be for 16.9 ounces) It helps me get all my water in!

Duck Duck Soup

Gorgeous Salad

So good!

My guest chef, Alice!

I worked on Saturday and had a pretty good day at work. They are trying to get me to come up with a plan to continue working here after my contract is up. So discussions about that a lot of the day.

Saturday food:
Breakfast: 2 tea eggs, 500 mL water
Snack: 500 mL water, 10 almonds, 1 ounce cheese
Lunch: Walked home and pan friend Tilapia coated with flax seed meal and Italian seasoning! Yummy! FF greek yogurt. 500 mL water and a Coke Zero (Alice is a bad, bad influence on me!!! LOL)
Snack: 500 mL water.
Dinner: Bus to the Mexican restaurant where I had a big bowl of guacamole mixed into my beef fajitas, minus the tortillas. Spicy as all get out tonite!
We then walked to 35mm Cafe for a cafe latte…

Mmmmm

We then had a nice walk back to my flat!

Sunday… off work and a planned run/walk with my friend Rory. I am writing a guest post on the blog AGoodRun, due July 16th and I needed to map it out and take my pictures for the post. Rory was kind enough to volunteer. We ended up not running at all, since it was 98F and 88% humidity. We had a lovely fast walk, with breaks to take pics and one break for water and refreshments at Starbucks… nearly 15 kms in 3 hours… it was AWESOME!

Hot but GORGEOUS day to walk along West Lake.

My walking buddy, Rory.

Bamboo forest… the point of A Good Run’s blog is to show thankfulness. So, You will see me holding a sign that says Thank You in both English and Mandarin.

This was the halfway mark… My goal was to go to the bull sculpture and back… and we did it!

We started and finished at The Vineyard, my favorite place to eat in town. I love it there because the chef Rueben a. Reminds me of my son, Nick and b. Cooks food to my order, so it’s gluten and sugar free… he’s awesome!

My favorite chef in Hangzhou!

I had a Chicken caesar salad without the dressing and some hot chicken wings, without flour and a gluten-free ranch dressing for dip… plus lots and lots and lots of water!

So, that’s my weekend round up! How did everyone else’s weekend go?

Ciao!

My How Your Gardens Grow

Posted on June 26, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Dukan stuff first…

I GOT MY SCALE… errrr, luggage delivered yesterday! So it was true… woo hoo!!!

Daily Weight: 147
Goal Weigh: 155

And now on to gardens… My friend Krystn posted this picture on Facebook this morning…

And it got me thinking… there are multiple gardens on my short, 1 mile walk, to work. So… I left early this morning and took pictures of my neighborhood… and how the gardens grow in this urban city of 7 million people.

These two pictures are taken from my kitchen balcony. I live on the 9th floor and this is on the roof of the 2 story structure in the front of and attached to my building…

When this first appeared, I thought it was a sandbox for the kids to play in… it’s a planter with a growing garden 🙂

I then bought my tea eggs and headed down the sidewalk that is on the street in front of my building. About 2 months ago, or so, some people set up a tent along this part of the land between the wall and the sidewalk… I had no idea what they were doing, but they were there for 4 days and were using a tiller… this is the result…

This is about a block down from my neighborhood… I think it’s pumpkin… maybe my gardening friends will know.

This next garden is wedged between a wall guarding a construction site and an alley. They’ve been growing stuff here all year long…

Corn and lots of greens

And finally these are 3 pictures from inside the walls that guard the construction site… there used to be a little village in here and the government buys them out, tears down the homes, sells the land to developers and the community is dispersed… it actually makes me really sad… BUT… the villagers continue gardening on the land until the construction takes over. They are building a mall on this property, but every night on my walk home I see the villagers in there tending their gardens and it’s a huge garden… often they come out with their veggies for dinner… it’s pretty cool to see!

You can see the cranes in the background… they are building the underground parking garage at this point. My guess is that the villagers will have 18 months to 2 years more with their gardens.

Lots of greens, garlic, onions and more.

Finally… I took two pics here at work this morning. One is my requisite monthly picture of me and Vivien, since it’s the 26th of the month and my 9 month anniversary of working here…

Vivien has on ridiculously high heels today!!!

And the second is the meal I ate this morning. It’s called Dragon Zongzi… it’s a special meal celebrating the Dragon festival from this past weekend. One of the doctors brought it in, and since I’m doing so well with my weight I decided to try it… O.M.G. was IT GOOD!

Dragon Zongzi… pork, sticky rice, peanuts and chinese dates… oh my!!!

Ooops and one more picture. My boss gave me this HUGE box of apples to celebrate the Dragon Festival. I had one this morning… good thing I ran this morning 😀

Locally grown apples…

How does your garden grow? Are the neighbors planting next to the sidewalk where you live?!?! I think it’s pretty darn cool!

Ciao!

Travel – Not Quite Back in the Groove

Posted on June 25, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Exhausted. Knackered. Achy.

Weight? Who knows, but the pants still fit… scale is missing in my “delayed” luggage. I did stick to my diet while on my vacation and since I’ve been back in China.
Exercise? Worry? Does that count? I can’t run, since my running shoes are also in my “delayed” luggage… along with clothes and underwear! I did walk all over Shanghai yesterday and to and from work on Saturday morning and to work, home for lunch and back to work so far today racked up 3+ miles.

That about explains the 3 ways I’m feeling right now. Even after having an 8 hour sleep
last night. Jet lag sucks… BIG TIME. So, I’m not quite back in my groove, but feel that an update is overdue, for sure!

I left Florida on Thursday morning at 1145 a.m. for a flight to New York’s JFK. As I blogged before, they actually have Wifi on flights in the States now… how cool is that? Nice 1.5 hour layover there then off to Beijing, except the flight is delayed and they are talking about me not making my flight to Hangzhou, blah, blah, blah… I actually said to the lady at the counter, “seriously, please don’t tell me that… I have travel anxiety related to timeliness!!!” I decided I was going to try not to fret over it… what will be, will be. They made up some of the time, but the transfer time was close in Beijing and I had to go through immigration, collect my bags and then recheck my bags and get on the flight. I had 47 minutes!

I sailed through immigration and went to the baggage carousel… one of my bags was the first one on the carousel!!! What luck! LOL… until after 25 minutes, the bags stopped coming and I realized that A. I had 15 minutes to haul my butt to my connecting flight and B. my 2nd bag was missing… PANIC set in. I ran to the missing baggage office and they put my baggage number in and found that my bag was still in New York… tears were shed, I’m a cry baby when I’m tired, and I ran to check my bag for the Hangzhou flight and actually made it on the plane… because it too was delayed.

I get to Hangzhou at midnight, collect my one bag and head to the lost baggage office to file a claim. It is now officially Saturday morning (I’ve missed all of Friday being in the air) and I have to be at work at 8 a.m. Through more tears I realize that the bag I have is NOT the bag with my clothes and my Brooks Addiction running shoes and MOST importantly MY SCALE… can anyone say MELTDOWN!?! She files the claim with the Air China office in New York and says, as she hands me the paper… it’s just “delayed” baggage, not “lost”… with the sweetest little smile. It’s hard to be angry with her 😦

I get a taxi home and fall into bed after loving all over Tits the Cat, who has apparently missed me immensely. He insisted I carry him around like a baby for half an hour! I got into bed at 3 a.m. and woke up at 558 a.m…. ugh! Made coffee, checked email and got ready for work… at work by 730 a.m. On my way to work I picked up tea eggs… I was so happy to see my favorite tea egg lady…

Those are the tea eggs in that ginormous crockpot!

I think the exhaustion hit me around noon. I felt like someone was sitting on my head! But I made it through most of the day. At 3 I decided to leave and called my friend Alice, a midwife from Florida who is visiting her son here in Hangzhou. They just happened to be at my favorite restaurant in town, The Vineyard, and I took a taxi there to meet them. It was so wonderful to see her. I think it’s been 15 years or so since I’ve seen her in person, but she is the one who inspired me to walk the Camino 2 years ago.

In bed Saturday night before 10 and up at 458… UGH! No problem, got up, made a breakfast of steak and onions and showered and dressed and headed out the door to get the train to Shanghai! A fellow blogger, Mona, was in China for a summer assignment and we were going to meet in person! How awesome is that? I love her photography on her blog and even though I was knackered as all get out, it was worth the trip to meet her!

Mona on the Bund… The Pearl in the background.

Walking to the Bund.

We met at her hotel and walked to the subway. We took that down to the Bund, which is the waterfront walk on the Pearl River. It was an overcast day, but we still had a good time! After walking the Bund we google mapped my favorite restaurant in Shanghai the Blue Frog. Unfortunately the address was incorrect and we ended up walking a heck of a lot more than we intended… no worries… the lunch and company was worth it!

On the walk we saw lots of cool things and some random things like the fresh piece of asparagus on the stairs of a walk over and this beautiful cherry in the gutter…

Cherry in the gutter… streets of Shanghai

After the trip back to Mona’s hotel, I taxied up to the subway and then took Line 2 to the Family Mart… the grocery store that I can get my Fat Free yogurt. Bought 8 containers and a few other items and then took the subway back to the Shanghai train station… it was a wonderful day!

Bye-bye Shanghai

Back to my flat… call to Air China “delayed” baggage office… “good news Ms. Blankenship, your bag is on the flight to Beijing! You should have bag tomorrow noon”… well, my assistant has just called and been told it’s still in New York… I’m trying not to panic. I’d like to have my clothes, my shoes and MY SCALE… my Vivien tells me it will come, “this is China, it’ll happen”… I take a deep breath, come back to my office and pray… yes… this is China… things do happen.

As I finish this post I am listening to the soundtrack of Rock of Ages… the music makes me HAPPY 😀 I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this movie. I know that it got crappy reviews, but they were wrong. It’s a funny, happy inducing movie and thinking of Tom Cruise (lovingly referred to as TC) singing and dancing “Pour Some Sugar on Me” gives this 48 year old giggles and smiles… If I was in the States… I’d probably have seen it 3 times already!

And now… Vivien has just walked into my office and said MY BAGS ARE GOING TO BE HERE, IN OUR OFFICE IN 2 HOURS!!!!!!!!!! OK, trying not to hold my breath, trying not to be too optimistic, but they asked her for directions to the hospital. Dear Lord, I pray it’s MY bag… lol.

With that… I’m outta here… if anyone has a secret to getting rid of jet lag quicker, I’d be ever so grateful!!!

Ciao!

“I’m hot sticky sweet, from my head, my head to my feet”… Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard… redone by the yummy TC 😀

Travel – Weekly Round-up!

Posted on June 11, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Well, what a week! Going to do a breakdown with pictures.

Current Weight: 149
Goal Weight: 155

Sunday, June 3 – flew Guangzhou to Hangzhou. Flew between the clouds…

Went straight to hospital and saw 3 patients, rushed home, had reunion with Tits the Cat…

threw clothes in washer, started to unpack, knock on door… It’s….
KITTY!!!

I also got to hang out with Velina, Robin and their gorgeous baby and show off the beautiful necklace that Sheila, Greg and Lily gave me…

Finished repacking, went to bed…

Monday, June 4
got picked up by driver to head airport. Hangzhou to Beijing, Beijing to JFK… Here’s a shot from over Siberia… It really is frozen tundra!

Get into JFK pretty much on time, only to wait 1 hour and 40 minutes for my bags. Major panic, get through customs, race to airport train to go to AA building, still need to check in, recheck bags, get through security and they are already boarding… Major panic… People get me through quick, I’m trying to breathe, and I get on 2nd to last… Phew! Then we sat on the Tarmac for one and a half hours! Argh! Finally up, up and away and this gorgeous sunset off the coast of NC…

Finally got to Miami and Miri’s smiling face there to pick me up!

Tuesday, June 5
Up before the crack of dawn and out for a run… I love my hometown!

Then I had a haircut and color…

And sushi with my niece, Amanda 🙂 Then off to visit the kids and grandkids, then a run/walk with Michele and Michael and dinner.

Wednesday, June 6
Up early, breakfast with Tiffany and then out to Okeechobee to visit my friend Julia, who is not only a super awesome friend, but is hands down the best massage therapist in the world! Two hours of myofascial therapy, craniosacral therapy and some lymph work. Lunch with her son at Golden Corral and then back to her office for another hour or so of traditional massage. It was all amazing. Then back to Port St Lucie to pick up Sydnie for the night.

Thursday, June 7
Breakfast with Sydnie…

And dropped her off to school. Then back to motel and Jenni, Sadie, Tiffany and Joey came over to spend time in pool with me. Wore a bikini, LOL… That seems weird to me.

I then headed 90 miles south to check out a 1973 Airstream Land Yacht… I bought it!

Then raced back up to home to pick up Sadie from camp so we could go to Jammin’ Jensen with my friends… Just writing this makes me feel like I haven’t had a holiday, lol! Here’s some pics from the awesome time I had with my friends…

Then over to our friend Denise’s house, since she had neck surgery and couldn’t come out to play, we took the party to her…

Then off to bed with Sadie, so I can get up early to head 5 hours north in the morning!

Friday, June 8
Up early, drop Sadie to her mommy and hit the road. First stop, 2 hour drive to Daytona to see Shauna, Mouna and Fiona. Lovely visit. Then another 1.5 hours to Ocala to register for the 5K and get my BIB… How exciting! My first BIB!!

Then another hour drive up to get my mom and an hour back to Ocala to meet my friend Teri, who came down to support me 🙂 Dinner Outback, visit with my nephew and his wife and kids and then to bed!

Saturday, June 9 – RACE DAY!

What a rush! My friend Gail told me I’d start out to quick and she was right… My first kilometer was in 7:12… I slowed my pace, walked some, ran, met a lovely lady named Trisha, picked up discarded cups (I know, I know) and finished. It was awesome.

Then breakfast and back to hotel to pack and hit the road… 9 hour drive to North Carolina with my mom to her best friend Sandy’s house. This is the lady I was named after 🙂

Sunday, June 10

Beautiful , cool, rainy morning in North Carolina. Mom, Sandy and I met Eric for breakfast and then Eric and I went for a hike up Mt. Pisgah.
Hike Statistics
Difficulty: Moderate
Total Length: 3 mi
Trail Tread Condition: Moderately Rough
Climb: Climbs Moderately
Lowest Elevation: 4980 ft
Highest Elevation: 5730 ft
Total Elevation Gain: 750 ft
Trails/Roads Used: Mount Pisghah
Hike Configuration: Out-and-back
Starting point: Mount Pisgah Parking Area, Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 407.6
How to Get There: From Asheville, take the Blue Ridge Parkway south to the Mount Pisgah Parking Area, on the left, at milepost 407.6. Park at the second parking area; the first is for the Buck Springs trail.
Great hike!