our water guy

this past year, we were not able to drink tap water, so we had to call and have some spring water delivered about every two weeks. we got to know our water guy pretty well over the course of the 6 months we knew him. we would see him on the street a lot, he would come over for short english lessons, we would give him little gifts from the places we traveled and he even brought his daughter over one time.

well, the night before we left, we got an unexpected knock on the door. who was it, but ding wen cheng, our water guy. he was so happy that he caught us before we left, and said he had a present for us.

he had this russian guy who lives across the street sketch his portrait for us, so that we would never forget him. isn't that the sweetest thing ever? now i know i will always remember him

also found this pic of my feets on a rainy day in berkeley, circa feb, 2008:

welcome to the neighborhood part II

meet my new best friends.

there is a restaurant around the corner that serves great la mian and the owners have these two adorable little boys!

i like them because they don't ignore us like our downstairs restaurant owners' daughter.

so they spend most of their time running around the restaurant and shooting each other with guns made out of cardboard. sometimes the chef guy (who i think is somehow related to all of them, and wears home-made spongebob shorts) plays with them outside. anyway, i gave them some little toy cars the other week because every little boy should have toy cars to play with! so now we are like best friends.

fruit man

this is our cute fruit man.

he sells all kinds of fruit in our driveway.

he's there aallll day.

at first we thought he was really sad because he would just stand forlornly next to his cart. but then we started waving to him and now we wave or smile at each other every time we pass. this morning he said "HI!" very excitedly. so that's fun

and sometimes a lady with vegetables joins in, and then we get to have adventures in the kitchen.