It started off with a fire near where we lived. During our Chinese lesson, we noticed some billowing smoke off in the distance. If it was in America, I would have had no doubt in my mind that it was a fire, but in China, I’m so used to not believing anything I see. I didn’t believe it. So Tony and I decided to go check it out, and biked towards the smoke. Indeed it was a building fire, and while it was a spectacle to witness, it was sad to see so many homes up in flames.

Find Tony in this pic.

Seriously, those fire helmets looked like the came from a toy store.

Continuing with the theme, I had lunch with Tony, Jason and Kaila at a hot dog joint that Jason recommended called No More Bunz – Hot Dog. I didn’t know what to expect. Jason told us that their hot dogs were over a foot long, and were legit. Key word was “legit” so I had to check it out. Until this point, our hot dog fixes came from IKEA. Sad huh. Anyway, once we got there and saw for ourselves, Jason was not messing around. These suckers were huge.

Charlie, the guy working there, cooked us some good stuff. I got the large Italian and a “small” German (small is just a word at this place, and is not meant to describe the size of the hot dogs in any way). They should just change their sizing categories to “huge” and “MAAAD huge”.

Tony and his friend.

Jason and his friend.

Kaila and her friend.

Me and my friend.

This honestly made my day, and I’m so happy that it’s here. Thanks Jason, you’re a true friend.

Finally, as a cap to my “hot” themed day, here’s Jason in his shorts. People on the streets would look at him as if he were crazy. So he just hiked them up higher. Well played.

(I would just like to point out that I haven’t used the word “wiener” up to this point in the post, and have not tried to make any jokes relative to the word “wiener”. I should get some “wiener” award or something. Wiener)

Looking at the skies get increasingly orange and seeing the sun disappear behind the smoke was all incredible, disheartening, and scary at the same time. I can’t believe the fires are affecting even Brea. It’s not like I have any close connection with the city, but my mall is there son.

I visited a mosque today in Garden Grove. It was through my perspectives class that I’m taking, and we had the opportunity to see what a mosque looks like on the inside, observe a prayer, and listen to a lecture by Dr. Siddiqi. He’s pretty up there when it comes to the Islam community, and represented Islam in many inter-religious dialogues. Anyway, some things I learned about Islam today:

• Muslims believe in prophets throughout history, including Adam, Moses and John the Baptist. Muhammad being the last prophet, and his writings (given from god) are now the Qu’ran.
• Jesus is also considered a prophet, but they consider him a messiah, and is expected to return one day to bring peace on earth.  
• They don’t believe that Jesus was crucified.
• They include the Torah, Psalms and the 4 books of the Gospel as divine writing, however the Qu’ran is above all other writings.
• Mecca is the supposed location and the actual building that Abraham built as a place of worship for god.
• The term “allah” is just a general word equivalent of “god” in Arabic.  It is not a specific name since Arabic Christians would also use “allah”.

We also had a chance to observe their noon prayer. I got to admit, sitting there watching them stand in their straight lines shoulder to shoulder, occasionally prostrating themselves was kind of peaceful. I’m glad I had this opportunity to see a totally new culture and religion, and just be a learner.