Today is a good day to get married.

There were many people gathering outside our bedroom window in the courtyard this morning at 6am. We continued to try to sleep even when there was a great deal of shouting going on at 6:15. Just as we were getting to sleep good again at 6:45, there were tens of thousands of firecrackers going off in the courtyard. When we looked out the window we could see many people standing around dressed in black and more shiny cars with red ribbons parked outside than we have ever seen. There was one of the entrances to the building behind us decorated in an arch of pink and white ballons and flowers. We watched as the people all filed inside and then shortly came back out only to get in their cars and wait. Finally the bride and groom came out. We had been watching the beginning of a Chinese wedding. All over the city today there were many such events taking place. First the groom would do firecrackers at his home to chase away evil spirits and then go to decorate the bride's home. After negotiations with the bride's friends and family he would set off more firecrackers and share tea with the bride's family before taking her to his family's home. There would be many dinners over the next three days as part of the wedding ceremony. It seems that there are not as many days in the 2010 lunar calendar that the stars are right for weddings as there were last year. Today is the 26th day of the 2nd month of the year 2010, or February 26, 2010 on the lunar calendar. Here are some links to some information about Chinese wedding traditions and someone elses observations of a different wedding.

Food for thought.

Some people have asked me about the Great Wall and if we have seen it yet. It is a dream of ours to visit the Great Wall and have a sandwich while setting there, looking out and drifting back in time. We were only about 20 something miles from the wall when we were in Beijing but it was too cold then. The nearest section of the wall to us is the most Eastern part which is 700 miles to the Southwest from Jiamusi and 170 miles East of Beijing. You can see on the map of the wall that it has many different parts. The other map shows what was Manchuria which is the part of China we live in. We are 190 miles Northeast of Harbin.

Deb gave Destiny a pickle for her to teeth and she really enjoyed it. If anyone has any questions about anything please write and let me know. I am more than happy to share our life in China with you.

Afternoon walk.

We all took a walk this afternoon to a park about two blocks to the East of our apartment that I saw on Google Earth. At the front of the park is a large rock formation you can see Suzanne standing on and the sidewalk going under. There were many people in the park doing all kinds of different things. The first thing we were drawn to was someone playing a musical instrument and people singing what sounded like opera. Not far from them were some people practicing their Kung-Fu with swords. On down the path were many people dancing to music. When we stopped to watch them they all stopped and came to watch us because we are a very rare sight to see around here. They were fascinated with the baby of course, Suzanne because she made a choice to where shorts and they had never seen a dog like Spot. After we pushed our way through the crowd we walked on to see other people doing another form of Chinese stretching and exercising. It had warmed up to nearly 50F today but there was a strong cold wind so we kept moving and headed back home. We took a little detour down a side road to the river and took a picture of the boat building and the new construction that is always going on. Everyone enjoyed the walk including DJ and Spot but I think the Chinese who stared at us as they walking by, looked out windows or drove along side enjoyed our walk even more. I can only imagine the blog they would write about seeing us. Every time we get out we are more a tourist attraction than tourist. We could just about set-up a tent and make a living charging admission.

Shopping.

We had to go shopping again and this time I remembered to take my phone out and get some pictures. After working all morning from 8:20 to 11:30 I felt like taking a nap after lunch before going shopping. Usually if we wait to go shopping until late afternoon the store is very busy. Today there was only two or three thousand Chinese shopping instead of the normal ten or twelve. After you come in the entrance and take the moving sidewalk underground into the store you must first place any purses or other bags into a security bag with a lock the store puts on the bag which they remove when checking out. The first part of the store is all the clothes and things that are not food. Each different department of the store has a place where your selections are weighed and price tagged. The hardest place to get around in the store is the produce section because of this system. The meat department doesn't sell meat in packages. Instead the meats are slaughtered fresh daily right behind the counter for all to see and the different cuts placed out front for everyone to look at using tongs. They do grind some meat up before putting it out or you can ask for a roast you select to be ground. Then they 'bag it and tag it'. The different kinds of meats such as poultry, beef, pork or other small animals like lamb, are kept seperate from each other. The fish and seafood section has too many types of fish and seafood to name and is all fresh. There is also a section that sells dried fish. There are sections that sell spices, nuts, candy and dried goods. There is a large bakery and seperate stalls that sell fresh cooked foods ready to eat. For right now we generally steer clear of the traditional Chinese foods since we don't know what they are and they don't look or smell good to us. We did pick-up some roast chicken, or maybe it was duck. Either way it was very good. Something that we have had that wasn't any good is corn on the cob. It is not the same as in the states. It is very firm and wax like in texture and flavor. There are isles of food including one whole isle for dry noodle soups but not many canned foods. After you check out you leave by passing many booths trying to sell things. I am very proud of myself that I was able to tell the taxi driver where we live without him having to read the little card the school provided me.

Getting around.

Now that the weather is starting to get warmer we will be walking more rather than taking a taxi. For where we live and where we go it is only 5rmb or $0.75US for a taxi to take us. The cars are all small or smaller and there are different prices. There are taxis that are very dirty and barely held together and then there are newer taxis that are cleaner and a little bigger. It is 5rmb for the first 2km for any taxi and after that it varies in price from 1.3rmb to 1.6rmb for each additional 0.5km I think. There are buses as well but we haven't tried them yet. There is no subway in Jiamusi but there are rickshaws. The rickshaws are usually only 2 or 3rmb. The rickshaws are three wheeled bikes with an enclosed seat for two on the back. The drivers sit out front and control their own prices. I don't think the rickshaws are company owned like the taxis. Traffic lights have countdown timers on them showing how long before it changes to either green, yellow or red. Even with the lights I haven't seen any order to the traffic other than to keep moving. It seems the bigger you are the more right of way you have. Everyone uses their horns alot to let people or other motorist know they are coming. It is a lot like when in baseball two outfielders are going to catch the same fly ball and the one who calls out first that they got it is the one who tries to catch the ball. We have been in taxis that have turned left from the far right lane. The roads are marked off in three lanes each way with a bearier between directions. Cars, buses and bikes all share the road with people walking along the side and crossing anywhere. Even though the lanes are marked cars weave from lane to lane or even straddle the lines sometimes going five wide in three lanes or at lights six or seven wide. At the lights the taxis try to time it so they are already half way through their turns by the time the light turns green, like someone stealing a base in baseball. We haven't seen any accidents but I have heard of one. We have seen an ambulance get held up at a light because nobody wanted to move even with its lights and siren going. We have also seen police out at lights but do not know what they are there for. I have seen police going down the road with lights on and getting passed and cut off by taxis. People are a little more courteous with cars that are black, especially when they have dark tint. These cars are usually owned by people with money or power or both.

Cookie

We started this Monday by putting Destiny in her Easter dress for a picture and to talk to her grandma over Skype. This morning Deb and Suzanne went out for a walk in the snow and this afternoon I went to visit my friend George. After eating this evening Destiny wanted to practice with the spoon like she was feeding herself. TJ and Jenni had sent us a cookie mix from Beijing in a care package we got last week, so today we borrowed a toaster oven from George and Suzanne and Deb fixed one big cookie. It turned out very delicious. Thank you TJ, Jenni and George.

Just another day.

Christina came to see our apartment and visit with Suzanne yesterday. Today was just another day teaching at Ivy. I did pick-up some suckers for the kids and told them how today was a special day in America. I explained that it was Easter Sunday, a religous holiday and also that parents gave the kids candy. This was innocent enough and the little kids really didn't care all that much anyway. All they knew was they were getting candy. It snowed about three inches today with the first inch melting as soon as it hit the ground. The weather is slowly warming and it is snowing less and less often. At least this snow covered up all the dirty snow and ice that had not fully melted yet. China as a whole gets most of its energy and heat from burning coal. There are many coal mining towns in China and Jiamusi is one of them, so there is soot everywhere, especially during the Winter. Destiny was playing with Spot on the couch this evening while I was fixing homemade mashed potatoes and hamburger steaks. Poor Spot needed to be cleaned up after because Destiny spit-up on him. Suzanne just happened to have the camera out take the picture before. I have a full day off tomorrow because of Qingming but I still haven't prepared my lesson for this week. Maybe I will prepare next weeks lesson too. We will also gather around the computer and attend Easter Sunday church service from the BICF website. We visited the church with TJ and Jenni in Beijing when we were there.

Google Earth shots.

This is an overhead view of the city. You can see the river to the North and the airport to the East. Across the river is what the locals call Willow Island. The city has around two million population. It doesn't look that big on the map but most of the buildings are eight floors high and most of the downtown buildings are 20 to 30 floors high. In the zoomed in picture you can see a marker labeled 'starting location'. This is the city center square which is on top of 'Fu-Mart'. 'Fu-Mart is the single biggest underground market and is the center for the entire underground shopping. The underground stretchs in all directions for nearly three blocks. Our building, which is #4, is eight floors high; ten seperate entrances, called gates, access the building. Our gate is #5, and there our are two apartments on each floor of each gate, and ours is #2. I figure there is an average of five people on each floor of each gate. That makes 400 in each building. Our community has 12 buildings for a total of 4,800 people. There are communities like ours all around us. That makes close to 50,000 people living within one square mile.

Almost a day off.

The public school where I teach during the week was testing today so I only had to go to Ivy and teach my Tuesday, Friday 5pm class. From right to left; Christina, Anthony and Martin also have a class on Fridays at 5pm. George who is the head teacher was at the school waiting for a meeting with the director, Mrs. Mei Han. From outside the teachers lounge window behind George you can just make out the mountains through the haze. Two students were late and didn't get in the picture. Daisy is a part time teacher assistant and does a wonderful job with so many young and energetic kids. Sometimes they are hard to control but they are always better than most of the older students I teach at the public school. During the day Deb and I went shopping and I purchased a digital watch I needed. They wanted 65rmb and I paid only 20rmb or about $3 US. This was the first time I have been able to talk them down in price. Next I will try my shopping skills at some hair cutting shears and some shoes.

PAY DAY!

It has been three months since I last got a paycheck. It feels good to be making money again instead of spending it. We still have some savings and shouldn't need to touch it again for some time. Since China is mostly a cash based country I get paid in cash. We will keep the cash under lock and key and spend it as sparingly as possible. This first pay is for five weeks work at an average of 31 hours each week. The contract is for 26 hours per week and 6,000RMB per month. I received 25 hours overtime pay but that is only at 50RMB per hour. We get paid less for overtime per hour than we do regular. This first paycheck was for 7,070RMB and included five weeks instead of four. The school really got thier moneys worth. In the states you are under salary or hourly, not both. The hours are figured weekly and then we are paid monthly. It will all work out in the end. Of course the school also spent a good deal of money getting our house set-up for us before we arrived. The only thing we had to pay for out of this pay is 300RMB for our new local phone cards and 180RMB for water. Next month we will pay for the electric which is billed on the 4th, 8th and 12th months.

Lazy day.

Now this is how to relax on a saturday. With working every day and always having something to do, it seems like we do not get much time to just relax. When we have to do something we have to either take Destiny or deside who is going to stay with her. This wouldn't be all that bad if we had just one whole day to do things. Summer will be different because I will have at least one day off. For now Destiny will have to take it easy for all of us. She fell asleep in her stroller while Deb was on the computer and later had a meal served to her on her pallet. The meal is what looked like 'corn flakes' on the outside of the package; they call all cereal "oatmeal" and is served hot. It is very small corn flavored oatmeal and comes in individual servings. It's a good thing Destiny likes it because the rest of us don't.

Eating Dinner.

We finally tried the food court at New-Mart yesterday for lunch. First you purchase a card for a 10rmb deposit and load it with money. Then you go to the various booths around the central eating area that fix different foods and select what you want. They swipe your card subtracting the amount of your purchase. Deb and I had the same thing; some skillet fried potatoes, onions and liver; a large meatball with a sweet sauce; and some honey BBQ glaze chicken nuggets. I think this is the best thing we have eaten since arriving. Suzanne had some noodle soup. After you finish your meal you take your card back to the cashier to get your balance and deposit. We all ate for less than $8 U.S. Suzanne and myself are starting to get the hang of eating with chop-sticks. If Deb remembers she brings a fork. Tonight I fixed a pork vegetable stew with potatoes, onions, carrots, tomatoes, corn, bell peppers and celery. YUM!

Weekend.

These are most of the kids from the four classes I have on weekends at Ivy. I have each of these classes on Saturday and Sunday. I have one more class at Ivy during the week on Tuesday and Friday. Suzanne fixed a kind of spaghetti with spiral pasta for dinner tonight. It was pretty good.

Shopping, shopping and more shopping.

While I was teaching Saturday, the family went shopping and Suzanne purchased some boots in the underground. After school, we all went out to buy some groceries at Fu-Mart. We went into New-Mart, accessed the underground there and only went half a block before we were lost and came up to see where we were. While waiting for Suzanne to finish here ice cream we got in the underground, there were two Chinese ladies that came out of the underground, looked around and then went back in, as though they were lost and were trying to find out where they were just like we had done. They say the U.S. is very service centered. This city in China seems to have mostly two things that drive the economy, selling things and buying things. In the downtown area in the building my school is in there is a six story mall including a supermarket in the basement. The mall is called New-Mart and from the basement you can go through tunnels into the underground which goes in all directions for a radius of three city blocks. The whole underground tunnels are filled with stalls selling everything. I saw a section as big as a super Wal-Mart back in the states selling nothing but shoes of all kinds. One block away from New-Mart is an underground store called Fu-Mart with a bigger market that we like to go to once a week. After we got our bearings, we headed back into the underground and crossed under the busy road to come up again. This time we stayed above ground. All along the streets are vendors selling all kinds of things including food. If you look in this first picture; we are at the NW corner of New-Mart and to the right is a KFC and across the road is another KFC. Fu-Mart is across the road and to the left.

There are also department stores and small shops everywhere along the streets and alleys. We went into the building with all the pictures on it that you see in the first picture. It is another huge, five story mall. That makes three large shopping areas in a radius of one city block, all surrounded by smaller stores and shops, with the streets above lined with venders and tunnels below filled with stalls. If people aren't working at one of these places selling something, they seem to be buying stuff from another place. Of course there is the food stalls and venders that are mixed in everywhere. This second picture is from the top floor of the other mall we found.

Just another fun day in the snow.

There isn't alot going on today and we are starting to all feel better so it was a good day to play in the snow while it is warmer and the wind isn't blowing to bad. It is going to be windy Sunday and maybe snow some more on Monday. The public heat is supposed to be turned off at the end of the month.

BBQ.

Suzanne wanted to share her room. She put up some posters she packed and now it makes her feel a little more at home. We went to the Korean BBQ place tonight were they didn't speak English and of course we didn't know enough Chinese. We ordered from the picture menu. I picked steak, Suzanne picked what looked like chicken and Deb picked octopus. The steak was awesome. The chicken was mostly gristle and the octopus was chewy but good. They cooked the food at our table over coals. We also ordered some side dishes. One was something very blad and dry. The other was a fruit salad with thousand island dressing. It was different but not bad. We were afraid we might have a repeat of our first dining experience in China but it proved to be much better especially when they actually brought the correct drinks we ordered. DJ was the center of attention as usual and enjoyed it very much.

Afternoon out.

Deb went out yesterday morning with one of the other teachers that has been here for over a year and was shown where a local store was that sold some foriegn foods. That afternoon Suzanne and Deb went back to that store and got 'Honey Nut Cheerios' and 'Fruit Loops'. This afternoon Deb took me to see the store and then we took a walk along the Songhua river. We saw a big statue at one spot and after walking West along the riverfront park we found another monument. Just past the monument there were several barges and boats stuck in the river ice. We turned to come back uptown and saw a TCBY. After some Cappuccino and a banana split we went into the underground to get out of the wind. There are more stores and people under ground than above.We were getting a little turned around so we came up to see where we were only to find ourselves just in front of New-Mart which is where we wanted to go and buy some more baby food. We are getting out this evening to go to a nearby Korean BBQ place. The weather is usually about ten degrees Celcius warmer but should finally get above freezing maybe tomorrow.

Flowers, birds and a dog.

Spot is here and Spring is on the way. The flowers are blooming in a classroom at the public school and on the way into the school I heard the first birds since our arrival in China. There is a holiday coming up in the middle of April which is similar to America's Memorial Day. Hopefully all the snow will be melted by then. Spot had a pretty rough trip. He got locked in a cage and dropped-off at an airport and after a long trip to Beijing was left in a freezing warehouse for a day and a half. Then he was taken to quarantine where they barely fed him and never let him out of the cage. Finally he was placed on another plane and put into the trunk of a taxi before he finally got to be released from the cage and saw his family again. He was very dirty and tired besides having lost some weight but at least he is home and we all feel better now that he is.

Somebody saw their shadow!

It snowed three inches Friday. We went shopping over the weekend. DJ got a little better. We watched some movies. Monday arrived with more snow. six or seven inches in the last 12 hours and it hasn't stopped yet. It should all be melted in time for next Winter. This may delay Spot's arrival but he has been released from quarantine.

More snow.

It is nearly the middle of March and it has snowed close to two inches in the last seven hours. It is supposed to get in the middle -20's Celsius tonight and then slowly start warming up again. Destiny saw a doctor today and has some medicine for bronchitis. Just like the Winter keeps dragging along, so does our colds. Classes are going better but it is a lot like getting the mill lined-out when I worked there; some days go pretty smooth and others are real rough; you just have to stay with it. We are ready to get this weekend over so we can have our family complete again with Spot arriving Monday. He doesn't like the cold but might enjoy playing in it, especially with his snow suit and boots.