BLUE HAIR

Suzanne went to the hair salon the other day and got her haircut and had parts of it colored blue. It was $18US and almost looked like it was going to be yellow or orange but thanks to 'Mother Mei' translating over the phone, everything turned out okay. Her mom still has to get her hair cut but probably without the coloring but we will get that some place else. This place wants $30US just to cut hers. Today was a very nice day after raining the last several days so we went out back of the building and played ball with the dog. Later I took a nap with the dog while the ladies went for a walk. They went this way and that for about 2.25 miles and after getting tired and lost, took a taxi home. Last night we fixed chili and this evening we baked brownies sent from home.

All together again and just in time.

Yesterday we took Destiny back to the hospital because her bronchitis wasn’t getting better. We had to take her to a place were they put an I.V. in her head with medicine and waited for three hours for all three bags. We had to repeat the same thing today and will have to do it again tomorrow. This is a less expensive way than having to stay in the hospital. There also wouldn’t have been enough room in the hospital for everyone that was getting medicine by I.V. There must have been over a hundred people getting an I.V. most of them were small children, so they had at least one adult with them. One of the teacher assistants from school helped us with the process the first time. The total for Destiny getting the medicine this way was around $80US. This hospital is the best in the city, so it is very popular and busy. By American standards it looked like an emergency room, with trash and medical waste everywhere on the floor. People sit in large waiting rooms or if they are lucky they get a room with four beds in it. You can tell some people do this on a regular basis because they bring their own stick to hold the I.V. bag high while they go down the hall. The schools director made the appointment for us to see the doctor, which is very busy. The doctor wanted to get an x-ray and one of my students father and grandfather works in the x-ray department, so we didn’t have to wait. The teacher assistant has a friend in the admissions at the hospital so they got our paperwork done quickly. They really are taking good care of us. Now that D.J. is getting better, Debora and I, who are also sick, can concentrate on getting better ourselves. We received a care package from home yesterday which had half chocolate for Suzanne and some other things for Deb and D.J. I picked up Suzanne from the airport today. She brought with her another care package from our friends and their church in Beijing. It had lots more things we can use for cooking that we can’t find or get very easily here. Thank you Mom, Jenni and BICF. The past week has had ups and downs and it is good to be all back together again.

Amusement park and zoo.

We went to the city amusement park and zoo today. It is about 2.5 miles away so we took a taxi there and back. We got to see parts of the city that we had not seen yet. On the way there we even saw a pink dog. Yes, someone had painted their dog pink. We came back a different way that took us in front of the train station. It was the busiest place we seen since arriving in China. It was $1.50 each to get in and the baby was free. Right after going into the park there are many rides which cost extra, none of which we tried. There are two Ferris wheels, one bigger than the other and located on top of a large hill. We didn’t go up the hill this time because we were a little tired from all the walking we had done the previous days. Instead, we circled around and went to an animal show that is included in the price of admission. Although most of the people found the show entertaining, we noticed that the animals really weren’t into putting on a show. We felt it might be more entertaining if the trainers didn’t have stick and whips. We wouldn’t wish anyone to get hurt but it just didn’t seem fair to watch the animals being forced to do something at threat of pain for our enjoyment. After we left the show we continued to circle around and looked at several animal enclosures. There was one with some bears in it and one had figured out that when it sees people that if it sat up people would throw food. He was a real ham. There is another section next to the park that has many traditional Chinese looking buildings we would like to go back to some time. When we bring Suzanne back we would like to go on top of the hill and maybe even ride the big Ferris wheel. It was a pretty windy day and the baby was getting tired of sitting in the stroller so we went home. On the way home we stopped at our favorite restaurant and had some fried rice.

Six mile hike.

We went back to the park they wouldn’t let us in yesterday because we had the dog. First we went to the market to pick up a few things and then across the road to another mall to order Suzanne a basketball hoop to put up at the apartments. The park was very nice and we all enjoyed it and the beautiful day. After seeing the park we walked back home the way we came yesterday except this time we took a detour down a small street that has lots of farm venders. We picked up some tomatoes on the way home and took the long way around the dividing bearer they have separating the directions of traffic. After stopping at the hardware store for a file to file my nutmeg and cinnamon, we went to another produce market to see if they had any other kind of lettuce except Romaine. We finally returned home after 6 ½ hours and 6 miles.

The park has a lake and canals. There are paddle boats, inflatable canoes and bumper boats. There are two manmade mountains, a waterfall and many pavilions. On our way out I took a picture to post of my first ‘Chinglish’ which is a bad translation of Chinese to English. It says on the side of the trash can, “Protect circum stance begin with me”.

Almost a day in the park.

Destiny has had bronchitis again but was doing well enough to get out today. This is the start of five days off for me, except for one hour Tuesday night. The weather is supposed to be rainy some days, windy some days and a little cooler some days after today. We took a long walk through the city to a park that we had not been to yet. The walk was nice most of the way because there is a long narrow stretch of park like pathway leading to the main park. You can see Deb, the baby and Spot walking along the path. Destiny likes to go for walks and usually finds them so relaxing she goes to sleep. Spot really enjoyed himself and behaved very well, even when approached by other dogs or people. Half the people are scared of him and the other half really like him. As we walk through the city some people will make gestures or comments about the baby, the dog or yours truly, the American ‘Buddha’. We have found that some people that normally would not hesitate to stop us to see the baby will think twice when they see the dog. When we finally reached the park we were turned away because there are no dogs allowed. We will return some other time without him. The flowers should be blooming then anyway. We came back home a different way than we went. We found ourselves in the middle of town with about a million other people. That amount is not just a figure of speech over here; it really was close to a million people. We fought our way to a street one block over where it wasn’t as crowded and bypassed the worst before heading on home. The statue is of Chairman Mao at the entrance to the park. I took this picture of a building because it looked interesting. I think it must be a preschool because on the first three floors I could see play equipment. You can also see one of the Rickshaws on the left.

Going solo.

Today was a historic moment. My little girl is turning into a young lady. Suzanne took her first trip on an airplane by herslef. She is staying in Beijing for a week with friends and attending a weekend church conference camp. WE LOVE YOU VERY MUCH SUZANNE. Have fun and come home safe.

Trip down memory lane.

I received a message on Facebook from someone I used to go to high school with. We went to Woodbridge American high school on RAF Woodgridge in Suffolk county, England. It was the sister base to RAF Bentwaters. We graduated in 1986 and I later found that the base had closed and for some time was being reclaimed by the surrounding forest. Now I have discovered it is being used in part by the locals for housing and in part by the British Army. There are several sites that talk about the Woodbridge Warriors. I had to leave behind my year book when I moved to China but can still recognize some of the names. When I think about Woodbridge I think of a quote that was used in one of my favorite movies, 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture', "It was the worst of times. It was the best of times."

May Day.

The comment was made that Labor Day is a long time to wait to enjoy the summer. It would be too late if I was talking about American Labor Day in September but I am referring to the Labour Day or May Day that the rest of the world celebrates on May 1. I hope this will help clarify the confusion.

At long last.

It has taken over a week of temperatures above freezing but all the snow is almost melted. The weather has turned from cold and white to cold and wet with scattered nice days. I didn’t like working inside all day at CMC when the weather was nice and all I could do was look at it through an open door. Here, I can work a few hours in the morning and still have the whole afternoon to enjoy it when the weather is a nice day. I am told the city is very lovely in the summer with lots of flowers. They have been planting in the parks and along the roads all week long. Labor Day weekend should be very nice and we will take full advantage of it.

Nice day to get out.

Suzanne won a bracelet at the mall arcade and Destiny wanted to try it out. She just wanted to try it out in her mouth. The only way we would let her play with it was if her pacifier was in her mouth. She hasn't figured out how to spit it out to get something else in.

It is supposed to be raining during the week, so we decided to take advantage of the good weather today and went to 'Xilin Park', just one block away from Ivy. There were many people out doing the same thing.

The tree Deb is holding up is very unusual with its extremely long branch being supported by concrete pillars that look like tree trunks. Here is also a picture of what looks like it used to be a church of some kind. It is located one block off the main road through town in a part of town that is a little run down. The street it is on has apartments, small businesses, pool halls, massage parlors and nice restaurants. It seems odd to see new mixed in with the old.

The next chance we will have to get out will be next weekend and the weather should be nice. It will be the first time I haven't worked on Labor Day that I can remember. In fact, I had forgotten that I get three days off for Labor Day until some other teachers were talking about what they were going to be doing on their three days off. With Susan going to Beijing, we are just going to stay here and explore the city and enjoy the parks.

Lots of walking means new shoes.

Debora took Suzanne with her to buy some new shoes after we had lunch today. After they found some Deb liked Suzanne bargained with them to get there price of 680RMB, a price equal to $100US, down to $15US. Then after work Deb went with me so I could get some new shoes. The first place had some that were not the right size so they went in the back and came back with the same shoe only with a different size sticker put over the original. I walked away from them and continued looking. I found some others and after trying them on began to haggle. They started at 580RMB which is $85US. This of course was too much so I made a counter offer of 30RMB or $4.50US. They laughed at this offer but as I started to leave they began to come down some in price. After they came down a little, I went up a little. I continued to walk away and they continued to lower there price to 140RMB. I saw that they were now serious about making a sale and I gave them my final offer of 110RMB. They countered with 120RMB and I dropped my offer to 100RMB. She finally agreed to sell the shoes to me for 110RMB or $16.50US.

After we walked home we took the dog out to the park to play ball. It was 50F and DJ had a good time until she got hungry.

Busy evening.

To celebrate Suzanne's improved math scores we all went out to the arcade at New-Mart after I got off work at Ivy. Also, Suzanne is going to a church youth conference weekend in Beijing in two weeks and staying with our friends there for a week. I picked up the ticket today and Deb will put her on the plane on this end and they will greet her on that end. Then reverse the whole thing a week later. The church is going to reimburse us for the tickets so long as we pay the 500RMB for the conference. I think she will have a wonderful time and maybe will bring us back some gifts for Mother and Father Day's. (Ha, Ha) When she comes back she has to take SAT's. I will be able to give them to her myself instead of paying for her to go back to the states just for this. DJ will finally be getting her six month shots on Wednesday, six weeks late because she had been sick.

Hey! What happened to the water?!

We started off the day pretty much normal. I looked out the window to see what the weather was like today and saw a neighbor out front doing Kung-Fu exercises with a sword. I made sure he was finished before I took the dog out just in case. Debora took a shower and just after she got out I found out the water wasn't working anymore. There was some sort of notice put up on all the apartment entrances that must have let everyone know the water would be shut-off. Of course it was in Chinese, so it was a suprise to us. Someone told me it would be off for 12 hours. I found out later that it was a city wide water outage and these are frequent when the weather gets warm. We have bottled water to drink and will just have to keep a look out for more notices in the future. We can put some extra water in the tub for washing dishes, bathing or flushing. When we went shopping this afternoon there were a couple of gentlemen watching us and pointing like they had never seen a fat American and his wife shopping before. To us what was really strange was as we were leaving we saw a dog wearing clothes and jewelry in a cart. The water did come back on and after letting it run for a bet, it seems to be back to normal.

Spring snow.

It started snowing yesterday and has snowed or rained since. If it was just snow it would be about 10-12 inches. Instead it is now about 2 inches of slush.

Relaxing day.

Today was just another Monday for everyone. Carl went to work at the public school and had classes until about 11:30am and then went and picked up some rice for our lunch like he does three days a week. On the way home, he found a place that sold cotten candy. That was a treat since we haven't had that since we've been in China. After lunch, Suzanne and I had decided to go to what we called a mall and heard it's actually a department store between New-Mart and Fu-Mart. He had been in it the other day and noticed that they had a lot of baby toys in there. We walked down to it, and found DJ two toys that she has been playing with and loves. While Suzanne and I were gone to do shopping, Carl, DJ and Spot stayed home and napped and relaxed.

It has been predicted that it was going to snow tomorrow and then again later in the week. The weatherman just forgot to tell Mother Nature that though, because it had started to snow and then rain some today. Tonight, Suzanne is fixing tuna casserole for supper and then we are going to watch a Easter church service online from the church in Beijing that TJ and Jenni attend.

Room for 4 and no more.

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.