a taste of russia

yesterday, may 14th, was my first russian dining experience in harbin and a very cold day... for may! (i wanted to put my long underwear and winter coat back on!! ahh.. i wasn't too surprised or shocked by -30 weather in winter.. but winter clothes in may feels a little ridiculous.. i guess i'll have to wait til june for decent summer weather!)

anyways, back to the russian dining experience.. it was quite, interesting. (there i go again using that word haha). it was a nice cozy, grand, russian like restaurant with russian flag colors, russian diplomats pictures on the wall, random silver artifacts, lacy tissue boxes, huge ash trays, hearty russian cuisine, and not to mention pretty inappropriate russian music videos playing in the background (not a highlight of the night). overall, i think russian food is my kinda food. southern california should have more them around, i mean, since we got everything else to eat other the sun! russian food is essentially lots of potatoes, more potatoes, meaty stuff, and fried potato-meaty stuff :)

the schmidts outside the restaurant

check out the creepy silver finger proposal statue behind the guys :)

toothpicks, check. salt & pepper, check, check. lacy tissue box, check. huge ash tray, check!

patriotic lights to spice up the room...

yum! :D

interesting.

so, i realize i say the word "interesting" a lot. maybe too much. sometimes it has different meanings, but today was truly interesting (meaning the dictionary definition: concern, or curiosity is particularly engaged by something).

let me rewind to the past few days... weather=awesome. it's about a steady 69 degrees with sunshine, screaming bright green grass, cherry blossoms popping out of their blossom(?), water flowing in the lake, big puffy clouds, and a slight breeze every so often.... (see picture on left)

but that didn't last for long. i woke up this morning thinking it was the end of the world... or something like that. the other picture on the left is what i saw when i woke up outside my bedroom window. NICE.

it was like one of those scenes from a movie when comets come crashing down and you can't see anything. clearly, it's not the end of the world... more like a nice bad sandstorm that decided to visit Harbin and stick around for who knows how long!

here's a more current picture from this afternoon... not too shabby! ;)

oh, and it's may 12th (happy birthday janice!) and those are my indoor eskimo shoes that i'm currently wearing inside my apartment with wool socks (thanks sister joni and brother jonathan!)... it shocks me how long it's been cold (especially inside my apartment), i'm going to go into some serious culture shock when i wear shorts and flip flops again! haha