On Seeing the Pandas

Somehow, we have managed to live in China for 9 years without seeing the famous Sichuan Giant Pandas. Thankfully, this summer, we were able to rectify that. The Pandas are great! We got up early so that we could see them before they fall asleep around 10am. They are so cute and funny. We enjoyed seeing the adults play around on their "playground" equipment. We also saw a baby who was still in an incubator. We ended with an incredibly graphic informational movie about how pandas mate and give birth (probably wouldn't take Ellie and Sara to see that again, but we had no idea how much information it was going to give). We also saw the lesser known "red pandas". The poor red pandas - they look more like racoons than bears. I'll post a picture so you can see our family with the Giant Pandas.

Learning another language

We've been here almost 9 years, but I'm still learning Chinese. I am happy to say that I have continued to progress each year that we are here, but sometimes I am overwhelmed by all that I don't know. Today was a good day. I felt very efficient. I was working with a real estate agent on finding an apartment for friends of ours that are coming soon. I actually was able to say all that I needed to say - which almost never happens. The only word that I needed to look up was "mold". Living in this dry climate, we don't have much reason to use the word "mold" often. But, this apartment has some and I wanted it cleaned up before we rent it. So, now the word "mold" - fa mei - is imbedded in my mind. Language is funny like that. The weirder the word, the more chance that you will remember it. So, now the word "mold" can be added to my ever-growing list of strange words that I will remember forever like: gu piao (stock certificate), tang shi (Tang dynasty poetry),zheng rong (to have a face-lift)

Starting again...

We have not been writing on this blog for almost 2 years, but I hope to get it up and running again. Hopefully, you will be able to check back every week or so and see an update!

International Children's Day

June 1st is Children's Day here in China, as it in most of the non-American world. Because Sara started to attend the 幼儿园 you er yuan (Chinese kindergarten) for the spring semester, we knew that she would probably need to be involved in a program. Ellie was in a program at the same kindergarten a couple of years ago, and dressed up like a frog for her class. I remember that day being very hot with nowhere to sit and including a lot of speeches as are prevalent at all Chinese functions. Also that the sound system wasn't working. Anyway, this year I went with rather low expectations...


So you can see - Sara's class was dressed like soldiers. Well at least part of the class was. For some reason another part of the class got to be dancers... I'm a little worried that between dressing up like she is in the Red Army and all of us singing the Chinese national anthem together that we might have accidentally done something to lose our American citizenship. I guess we will find out next time we return to the US. (Which BTW is fairly soon, as we have just found out that Laurel's brother, James, is finally engaged and that his and Emily's wedding will be taking place in October. Congratulations James and Emily!)

The morning went about the same as last time, but at least we got there early to get a front row spot to watch from. Laurel was smart and had us bring our own folding stools this time. It didn't really help, though. Poor Ellie was almost crushed from all of the people trying to see. I didn't have room to unfold my chair, and Laurel's broke in the middle of the performance. My favorite part of attending these programs is watching the parents get so involved in taking pictures and video of their children that they actually are out in the middle of the stage area getting close-ups and struggling for the best picture taking spots. Parents are the same all over the world, I guess. At least if they have enough money to afford a digital camera...

I don't really know yet if Sara will be one for public performances. She didn't seem to get into it very much as her class marched on stage and pretended shooting their guns. But of course she is in the youngest class at the school, and none of the kids really looked like they wanted to be there. Some of them had to be forcefully drug kicking and crying to their teachers to perform. At other times Sara has definitely been the showgirl of the family. This particular day her favorite part was the snacks and yogurt.

Dolphin Bay, Feb 07

Some video from our week of vacation this past February. We stayed at a place called Dolphin Bay which was a family resort on the Gulf of Thailand just south of Hua Hin. Lots of kids there. Lots of swimming. And lot of fun.

My wife made me wear the dork helmet while we rented motorcycles. And yes, I am not that proficient on one, although I quickly figured out what I was doing.

Seeing the pink dolphins really was pretty cool, and very unexpected. They were much more impressive than the monkeys.

I got to play golf one morning, and we had massages one afternoon, but other than that it was all swimming and beach time. And we ate a lot of seafood.

Ocean Park HK video

Ellie had to have a little bit of minor surgery done while we were in Hong Kong, so her reward for being so brave was a day at Ocean Park. We debated about going to Hong Kong Disney, but after reading about some of the problems they have had there, as well as the long lines, we decided against it. I think we made the right choice, because we definitely couldn't have had a better day. We had a blast! We rode the Log Jam ride, a roller coaster, ferris wheel, and a bunch of other kid rides. We saw otters, seals, fish, and more. Beautiful day as well...

Winter & Spring Pics 2007

Here are some pics from January in Qinghai and February while we were on vacation in Hong Kong and Thailand.

Ellie eating roasted mutton on a skewer in the tents that the local people set up every night

Our dinner sometime next year...

Sara bundled up for the Qinghai winter.

One of the few times you will ever see Ellie not smiling in a photo. Must have been a long day.

Playing on one of the ice sculptures in front of the Culture Park near our home.

Taking the ferry from Shenzhen to Hong Kong - Sara stretched out sleeping.

The entrance to Ocean Park in Hong Kong. We had a wonderful day there at the end of Jan.

Ellie's first roller coaster. She was a centimeter too short, but they let her ride anyway...

Laurel in the tram at Ocean Park looking out across the bay.

Some people at our hotel in Bangkok were doing a photo shoot - with our kids right beside.

On vacation at the beginning of Feb. with friends in Thailand.

Kicking back out on the boat. We saw pink dolphins on this ride...

We also went out to "Monkey Island". The dolphins were a better show...

One of the better photos I've ever taken (in my opinion).

The most common thing to see in Thailand... stray dogs. They seemed to like me.

Ellie at dinner after a long day of swimming.

The beach at the hotel. It was a wonderful place with great swimming pools, decent food, very family friendly, and fairly cheap!

Normal life clothes

This past week, I was in charge of our annual foreigners clothes-swap. The clothes-swap is a great thing - because on the first day, we turn in all the clothes that our kids have out-grown or that we adults have gotten tired of. Then, on the second day, everyone comes back to choose clothes for their kids or themselves. It is very difficult to get American/European style clothing here, so this helps everyone outfit their kids in styles they prefer. Unfortunately, this year, there was very little in the older childrens sizes. Ellie was a little sad that I couldn't find much for her, but I did get her one skirt and for her, that was better than a roomfull of pants.

This year, the women's room was the most popular. I think everyone gets tired of the clothes they bring over here - so we swap! It is funny to walk around town and see another foreigners dressed in the clothes that you previously were wearing.

At 11am, all the foreigners are welcome to invite their househelpers to come and choose clothes. For many househelpers, this is a highlight of the year. Several days before the swap, my househelper told me all the things she was going to look for at the swap. Her son, sister and husband had all put in orders for things that they wanted her to look for. Her son is especially fond of the American tennis shoes that she has found for him in the past. My househelper later told me that when she got home from the swap, she was surprised to find her son was waiting eagarly by the door to see what she brought him. (I guess he is usually out playing basketball on Saturday mornings- not at home waiting on his mom.) At the end of the morning, the left-over clothes are gathered up and given to poor people in the countryside.

All in all, the clothes-swap may sound a little funny for those of you who can run out to Old Navy to buy clothes, but over here, where there is no Old Navy - it certainly is a fun way to get bigger sized clothes for our kids and different clothes for ourselves.

--Laurel

Down time

Well, our Kiwi friends have all departed. We had a wonderful 10 days together and can't wait for them to come back again. More on their visit hopefully soon...

We leave Monday for Xi'an, China and then Tuesday we will head to Hong Kong. Hopefully there will be no problems with the flights, as the New Zealanders had quite a lot of trouble with theirs.

And I also hope that the internet is working a lot better in Hong Kong and Thailand then it is up here in Xining. It is maddening. Anybody currently trying to send us email please know that it might not be received for quite a while. I found a great article explaining what it has been like for all of us China netizens. Check it out for a laugh.

Our old laptop finally died. I needed it to last just one more week so that I could transfer all our docs to the new laptop before we travel, but of course it didn't make it. So I took the hard drive out to put it in our portable hard drive case. I was able to get most of the data over, including our Outlook files, but some of it seems corrupted somehow. Another task to waste time on...

It was great having a team here in January, although a little cold. Normally we are just waiting to be able to go south for warmer weather, but this year we were very busy. Perhaps we should schedule visitors every year in Jan.

Mid-January Already

Well, internet traffic is still sporadic at best. If you can manage to stay up late enough it gets better early in the morning, but it's not worth it. I had planned to post a video from Christmas morning with the kids opening packages and other pics from Christmas, but it just doesn't feel right anymore...

We will be busy the next 10 days or so because we will be hosting several friends from New Zealand, including our business partner. We have many exciting things set up to do, including some English teaching and sight-seeing. But the main thing is that we are hosting a seminar out in one of the counties on how to start a small business. We are excited because we hear that over 100 people are interested in attending.

Shortly after they leave we will be heading out of the country for vacation and seminars. We will try to blog when we can.

This picture is from Christmas day... It is a tradition here in Xining for all of the expats to go to the park on Christmas afternoon to skate and sled. This year they had drained the lake in the park so we had to go to the river. Here in Xining they have these chairs on rails that you can rent along with mini-ski poles so you can slide around on the ice. It's a lot of fun and we have never missed a year. This year some friends loaned us skates so Ellie and Sara both tried ice skating for the first time as well. Though I think it was difficult enough for them that it won't happen again anytime soon.

Internet trouble

Sorry for the lack of posts lately... The earthquake in Taiwan has really messed up the internet traffic all over Asia - even in northwest China. It's been difficult to check email, surf the web, chat on Skype, or anything else. They say that it will take up to 3 weeks to get service back to where it was, but that it will get a little better each day. Hopefully "they" are right. Then we will be able to post Christmas pics and other fun stuff.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season...