Living in a concrete jungle where it snows 9 months out of the year leaves little room or time for trees, bushes, flowers, grass…ya know, that nature stuff…to grow.  But, Spring is here and our tiny rectangle of a courtyard has that green stuff growing in it along with a little pink and purple that smells so nice…I think those are flowers.

This was around Easter when things started blooming and we were all still in shock that there was actual nature in the city…

Here’s a close up of the flowers in our courtyard.

Spring also brings a bounty of all sorts of fruit and berries.  We love to eat all of them, but our favorite are mangoes.  Here is a shot of a girl in our neighborhood chewing on what’s left of one.  Her leggings are adorable.

We’re also enjoying the start of the summer movie season here.  We went to the theater with some friends to see Wolverine, which was ok.  I think it was more fun hearing some of the comments made by Chinese movie-goers.  One saw the Canadian Rockies and exclaimed, “Wow, those mountains are so tall!  Is that real?!”  Another was very moved by the scene where the elderly couple gives Wolverine their son’s leather jacket and said with much emotion, “Oh, that’s so good.”  Star Trek is showing now, so I think we’ll make time to see that this week.  It should be a good language learning time…after all, it’s very important that we learn how to say “Vulcan mind meld” in Mandarin.

I woke up startled this morning to loud popping and cracking and we found our floor tiles in the living room looking like this…

We have a carpenter friend who will most definitely be getting a call from us tomorrow.