18-04-2009 (Week 13-14) - United States

So these past two weekends I spend back State-side as I took advantage of one of my return trips. The first weekend I flew in the Denver, home of NBC's own Becky Ditchfield. For those of you who are slow, that's my sister, and she's a meteorologist in Denver. It was Easter weekend so it was nice to see the family as well as spend some time with some old friends (Matt & Nicole Wilson and Katie Little). I saw Becky's house for the first time, and it was very nice, as well as ate a ginourmous steak as soon as I could, considering that's what I had been craving for the past 13 weeks.

The middle of the week was spent in Wichita, riding my motorcycle as much as I could, eating more steak and fancy restaurants with Betsy, and trying to rest as much as I could (the jetlag back was very difficult for me). It was nice to make contact with some of my friends in Wichita over at Buffalo Wild Wings (Don't forget about me guys!). It was nice to eat some wings too.

But the real reason I picked this week to come back to the U.S. was my good friend Bolin Chen was getting married in Oakland California on the 18th of April. I was a groomsmen in the wedding, and of course was then obligated to come back to be in the wedding. Ironically there were 3 other groomsmen, and we came from New Jersey, Africa, China, and France to be in Bolin's wedding.

The actual wedding itself was not a wedding, but rather a tea ceremony. The best part of the tea ceremony was getting to the bride. By this I mean the bridesmaids set up a series of tests for the groomsmen to pass before they would allow Bolin to wed Jenny. These tests included:

-Drinking strange concoctions (soy sauce/coke or hot sauce/coke)

-Busting balloons using anything but your hands

-Dancing

-Rapping

-and flat out giving them cash

(See the video for more details)

After the tea ceremony we took some wedding pictures in the local rose garden before heading to the reception. And of course the reception was a blast. In case you didn't know, Bolin was a good college friend of mine, and if I do say so myself, my college friends and I travel well to events. And everytime we get together, it is like a mini college reunion.

This of course was no exception as we ate an 8 course chinese meal, made fun of each at every moment possible, drank strange drinks like Remy Martin, had a body roll competition, and went to an all black club in Oakland, CA.

I guess you could say we know how to have a good time. I need to warn you the video is very long (17 minutes or so), but I think I did a pretty good job editting it. So enjoy! and feel free to leave comments!

Pictures