Have a Holly Jolly!

It's Christmas! We just want to say that we are so thankful for the support of our families and friends on this adventure abroad. That's the best present we could ask for.

So, we wish you the merriest.

Before the fun of this holiday, I have to tell you about the not so fun stuff that we had to deal with on Friday: our trip to the bank.

Banking here is a bit funny. Everything is in paper, and it seems like every move needs to be observed by a manager. We count ourselves lucky that our bank speaks English, but we were a bit annoyed on Friday when our simple task of converting RMB to USD and then wiring it to the US took almost three hours. Not that we were working on paperwork. Just that we sat there.  Like this:



At least we got to go to Morton's afterwards. :)

Saturday, we got to see some Christmas cheer at the fake market:



Anywho, on to our actual Christmas Day:



Kayaking!!

Here's a secret: Mark and I can't paddle the kayak straight to save our life. We would have been shark bait in seconds if it came down to it.









Back to the room for a nap!



Only to wake up with some lovely sunburns.
Nuts.

That's going to make the next few days of island hopping not as comfortable. :(

Oh, well. At least this resort is keeping us very well fed! I haven't eaten this much in quite some time!
I'm going to look like a tomato before long.

Thinking of you and looking for aloe,
Jessi and Mark