Mid November update.

I have been busy the last month transfering our movie collection from DVD to an external hard drive for easier storage and use. It will be easier to carry a hard drive than a suitcase full of DVD's. Since we are adding to our collection all the time, I have also purchased a program to catalog our collection. I have also started looking for the next job. My contract here ends on the 19th of February next year. We know we would like to find a place were Deb and I both can work or at least a place that would permit her to tutor on the side. We also would like to move to some where that doesn't have such hard winters. We had our second snow the other day and more is expected tomorrow. We went to a birthday dinner for David, who turned 19, but forgot to take the camera. Everyone was there, including all the TA's and teachers. Everyone except Mei. Mei was in Beijing on business, but after she returned, she had a new teacher welcome dinner for all the Ivy staff. Again, I forgot to take my camera. Debbie's boys came over to our house while the teachers had their dinner. Last week, Suzanne home bleached most of the black out of her hair and then went to get it dyed blue. She came home with purple instead. DJ has been busy as usual playing until she drops and takes a nap. We are having a Thanksgiving / birthday dinner for Deb next week with a few friends. I won't forget the camera this time.

Two sisters at rest and play.

Have a drink, have some rice, go to the bathroom, enjoy the view and meet the newest teachers.

DJ likes to have some of our drink now every since she learned to drink from a straw.

She has found that she really likes cola.

If she can catch the straw.

Suzanne was having lunch and doing school work while Deb and I were gone to a lunch meeting at Sharon's. DJ was keeping her company sleeping at her feet.

"I can't find it, can you Spot?"

Actually, DJ had spilled her rice by accident on the floor and Spot was cleaning it up when DJ decided to help her big brother by getting down on the floor and licking it up like he was showing her.

DJ calls her pacifiers 'bofoes' and still needs them from time to time. She was having an especially bad day here, needing three.

All at once.

"Stop taking a picture and get me a magazine."

If you looked at some of the previous post, you would see how this was an old building that they tore down six months ago. They have been building a senior living center. The buildings in the foreground are two levels with storage on the bottom and apartments on top. The tall, long, brown and white building with the red roof is five floors. They are almost ready to have people move in.

These are the newest teachers to Ivy, Chloe and Adam. They had been teaching in Cambodia for nearly the last two years where his father is a missionary. He's from Florida and she's from Essex in England. They just arrived on Sunday and started on Monday. We took them around today to get money changed, phones and groceries.

One last Fall walk down to the river.

It was in the middle of the afternoon when we started our short walk down to the river and the light on the faux lighthouse was just right.

DJ and Spot both were getting apartment 'cooped-up-itis'.

Everybody took their jackets except Deb, but it really wasn't that cold. It was about 16 degrees C, but there was a moderate cool wind from the WNW.

DJ was really enjoying her stroller ride.

Spot loves going down to the river or the parks where he can roll around in the grass.

Friends on National Day.

Meet Winnie the DJ.

Roxanne, Archie, Suzanne and David.

David, Debbie and Carl.

 

Yesterday was China's National Day. The government offices are closed for three days and most people take off for the whole 'golden week', although most of the stores are open. We had Roxanne, Debbie, David and Archie over for the afternoon and evening. We had spaghetti, garlic bread and salad for lunch. After visiting and playing games we watched a couple of movies and brought back 'char'( meat on a stick) for dinner.

DJ and Suzanne.

DJ and Spot taking a nap on the couch.

DJ trying to escape.

DJ loves her big sister.

DJ's new winter hat.

Some old friends stopped by to say hello and give Suzanne some early birthday presents.

Suzanne loves her little sister.

Spot.

Do you remember 'Nipper', the RCA dog? He would sit and look down the horn of a Victor phonograph. I never understood how they got the dog to do that.

Spot does the same thing and nothing can keep him from his task, not even the second coming of The Lord. He MUST watch us eat to make sure we do it right and clean our plates.

DJ.

DJ is extra busy today with two phones.

All packed.

Ready to go.

DJ's new winter shoes.

Susan's new shoes.

Do you see me?

DJ's new dress.

Winter is just around the corner. Ivy is still working short handed with new teachers promised to arrive soon, whenever that is. Susan is finished with 10th grade and starting 11th. She will be 14 at the end of this month. We are still working out the details of what she will do for college, possibly after her 13th and final grade of high school. She has been doing a great job with her school work and helping out with her little sister and getting things done around the house. She really is a beautiful and bright young lady. DJ is getting into as much as she is permitted. After this last winter here, we all will look forward to moving further south where we will not be snowed in 5-6 months. We are also going to try to return to the states for a visit sometime next year depending on what kind of contract we get.

Staying out of and getting into: trouble.

DJ is starting to learn how to swing. Her big sister had a swing ever since she was a little baby.

As soon as sissy isn't around or watching, DJ goes into her room to play. I think we will need to get a lock her door at the next place, just to keep DJ out of trouble.

Don't be fooled.

She was faking.

This is the kind of trouble she can get into. She found a pen that was leaking in sissy's room.

Riding Spot.

Good doggy.

New swimsuit for Suzanne and new haircut for Deb.

This is almost the finished product of my cutting Debs hair. I thinned it out a lot and then cut it away from her neck and ears. 

We are going to go swimming next week and Suzanne needed a new swimsuit. 

DJ got some bubbles to play with. 

If you check last months, you will see an update for the building they have started putting up near our apartment. This is the latest update. Next weekend, they are going to switch off the power to our area while they connect to this construction. 

Baby tired. 

Dog tired. 

This is what Deb's hair looked like before I got started. 

A boy down at the river gave DJ this fan. 

 

 

Walking the river walk. 

 

 

 

 

We have some pics of this monument on the blog already from last year. It is a monument to the local people defending the city along side the soldiers during WW2. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A group of people playing croquet. 

There are several people growing gardens along the river bank. 

 

 

Odd how a lady in America is facing charges for growing a garden in her own front yard while people in China can grow a garden on land that isn't even theirs. 

 

 

This is a passenger train crossing the river. 

 

 

We got a taxi at the main road near our apartment and had him take us across the river to the north for a drive in the country. The plan was to go see a lotus pond I found on Google Earth. It was a nice drive in the country but the lotus pond wasn't in use. 

 

 

A 6 kilometer walk to the southwest side of the city.

We are getting out and exploring the city again now that summer is here. This is the Jiamusi Hotel. The name of the hotel is on the front in Chinese, English and Russian.

Many places of business start the day with the employees either marching, singing or dancing in front of the store or restaurant.

This is a restaurant across from No.1 high school.

This is looking east along a tree lines road.

Looking at the park across from the Jiamusi Hotel.

I thought I would include some pictures of some of the kinds of transportation they use around here. This is a motorcycle converted to act as a kind of small taxi. There is much government regulations on these so prices per trip are negotiable.

Here is another version that is a little longer.

There are also motorcycles that are converted to small trucks.

This a lady peddling a bike cart. It looks like she is selling baked sweet potatoes or something.

There are lots of city buses and tour buses around town. There are even some double-decker buses. You can get a better look at the bike cart in the foreground.

No.1 high school. The two colors of flowers are arranged to say something in Chinese. The way the public schools work in this city is that students are placed in schools according to their test scores. The better the score, the better the school. The students can be placed in the better classes in a school if their parents give money for placement preferrence. No.1 high school has the most students with the highest scores to enter college.

No.1 high school campus is really big and nice.

I don't teach at No.1 high school but I do have several students in a class at Ivy that attend No.1. They are the students we had over to the apartment last week.

A closer look at the motorcycle truck.

There are also pull carts.

You can see a small electric three-wheeled scooter. You can also see a worker waiting for employment. There are numberous places in the city where people who are unemployed wait with the tools of their trade or trades and signs advertising to passerbys what they can do in hopes for employment.

The only Good Year store we have seen here.

This is at the end of a road in a very nice gated community. The streets are lined with various shops.

Here are some ladys playing cards in front of one of the stores. Right next door to this store was a  Mahjong house.

This little boy wanted to pet Spot but the mother told him that dogs are dirty and he shouldn't touch. This is a commun view here.

This is looking back to the north along a very busy road on the west edge of the city.

Here is a big round-about at the southwest corner of the city.

You can just make out the mountains to the southwest through the city haze.

Jiamusi University is a large university and popular with locals and many foreigners from all over the world. The university is on the southwest side of the city. This is the university's football (soccer) stadium.

Another view of the mountain in the distance.

This hill is next to the stadium and part of the campus.

This is looking to the east along the northern edge of the university. You can see the guy on the scooter looking back at us. This kind of thing happens everywhere we go.

Deb checking out the stadium.

Spot was very tired after our long walk.

It was nice to rest at the park next to the stadium.

There were several students relaxing or studing in the park.

Construction is everywhere in the city, but especially in this part of the city. The area where all the cranes are building are shown Google Earth as nothing but old one level small homes.

Looking at the mountains from the pavilion on the hill top.

I would like to go visit the large building in the distance and find out what it is.

An armored car.

The government banned rickshas pulled by people except in high tourist areas, so now they are peddle powered. If you don't have your own car, there are four kinds of transportation available not counting bicycles: taxi, bus, ricksha or walk. How you get around depends of how far you are going, how much you want to spend, the weather, whats available and how much time you have. Many people will take a variety of modes of transportation. The rickshas are enclosed during the winter and have plastic to go over the tops during the rain.

Sometimes they actually use a motorcyle as a motorcycle.

I was this on top of a building a little over a block away and thought it was nice.

There are four christian churchs in the city. This one has sevrvices on tuesday, wednesday and friday with one of them in English. We have not been yet, but have gotten some dual language bibles for some Chinese friends from this church.

There are some horse or donkey pulled carts around town.

Because there are so many bicycles, you can find several places where people have set-up shop to repair bicycles.

At one point we had to go under the train tracks connecting to the northern part of the province from Jiamusi. We saw two trains while going this way, but didn't get a picture.

Here is a three-wheeled truck that is powered by a very unique engine that makes a noise that sounds like it is saying 'tug, tug, tug'. The "tug's" come in a variety of sizes and really are a workhorse.

This is the Chinese version of an 18-wheeler.

This banner shows what an area that is under construction should look like when complete, including a Wal-Mart.

Dinner at Nichole's.

How lazy is this? He has such a hard life here in China.

This is out back of our apartment. All three kids sitting and resting.

We went to dinner at a friends apartment on the southeast edge of the city. This is looking back to the north. You can see some of the low farmers housing to the left if you look closely.

The apartment where our friends live is right next to the toll gate for a busy road. Every city charges you a toll to enter or leave.

DJ and Harold get along great.

Nichole did a wonderful job preparing dinner.

DJ watched everything Harold did.

Then it was her turn.

Dead eye DJ.

She took us down one by one.

Not even her big sister was safe.

Look out DJ!

The apartment was a little smaller than ours but still nice for its age. They bought it when they got married in 1997 and in a few months they will be moving to Harbin where Nichole's husband is working.

This was just out back of the apartment. It is a local group doing organized dance marching to music.

The food was good. She cut some tomatoes for us to eat and asked if we wanted salt or sugar. I am glad she asked, because they never eat tomato with salt, only sugar. They also do not cook their rice with salt. I suggested she try it sometime.

Deb had bought me several games and we brought them with us to play. Harold and his friend wanted to learn how to play chess. It was nice to have someone to play with again.

After getting a good lead, I let them start to win a little. That was almost a mistake, because they were are both very smart. In the end they saw that I was not going to let them win.

Beautiful afternoon.

Suzanne bought a new guitar for the equal amount of $15US. She plans on taking guitar lessons.

This little boy was just outside when we were leaving to go for a walk down by the river.

DJ ran right up to him.

He was very fascinated by her too.

The corner store put these in last month.

Down by the river looking East.

This is the biggest boat we have seen on the river here.

It came just by us and then started doing all kinds of fancy moves.

This is a newer section of the boardwalk.

These are the tall apartment buildings just behind ours.

It was a great afternoon along the river.

This area is so new that the grass hasn't even grown out yet.

This lot is on the way out of our apartment area going to the main street. There was an empty building here two weeks ago. They tore it down and seperated out the metal, brick, and concrete to recycle all of it into the new building they are starting. This time next year there will probably be a 30 story apartment building here.

DJ was playing with Suzanne on the couch when she ran out of energy and decided to take a nap instead.

Play date for Suzanne and DJ.

This is Deb's friend Leann from the tuesday meetings.

This is Cindy and Alice. They are 'sisters'. They are probably just cousins. Because of the one child policy, many kids will call their cousin, brother or sister. Alice is Leann's daughter.

Cindy and Alice do not speak much English but I think they could all be good friends.

Leann is holding D.J. and the other woman is Kim with her little boy named Mike. Mike is about two months older than D.J.

D.J. was more interested with our guest than eating.

I fixed western omelets and toast for dinner. They had never had omelets before. Mike loved his so much that I had to fix him another.

Suanne didn't want omelets, so she had left-over cheesy pasta.

D.J. really took to Leann.

Mike was a little scared by everything new at first, but soon settled down.

Mike and D.J. were not quite sure what to make of each other.

You can see here that Mike is as tall sitting as D.J. is standing.

Kim was trying to get them to hug and he wanted nothing to do with it.

D.J. liked Alice too and was blowing her kisses during dinner.

D.J. even let Kim hold her for a picture.

Mike really liked D.J.'s singing, dancing goose.

Mike was even starting to make friends with Suzanne before they had to leave.

Suzanne was so good with him.

Mike was also starting to make friends with Spot.

I think if they had more time, they would have played for hours. Maybe next time.

He didn't want to go.

We gave him this little truck of D.J.'s. He seemed to like it and she didn't play with it much.

Once around the block.

DJ, Deb and I took Spot for a walk around the block.

This is some construction down by the river that was started last year.

This is a faux light house that was put up during the winter.

If you go back to April 8th's post from last year, you will see these apartments under construction still. Now they are all finished and people are starting to move in.

This building wasn't even started last April and is almost finished.

This is the main building to a large factory. It was already here when we arrived last year. I like the clean marriage of modern and traditional architecture.

This walk around the block was 5.5Km and towards the end, Spot was a little tired.

New hair look for the kids.

Destiny was complaining about her hair getting in her eyes.

Destiny's first hair cut.

Cutting her hair took away all her strength.

Susan's new hair.

Mostly black with a little purple somewhere.

This isn't really blonde as much as it is just bleached with a hint of green I think. She says they didn't have pink. It cost about $40 US.

The sisters playing a game in Susan's bed.

Forth day of the forth month of the solar calendar and Spring is coming.

DJ had a great time taking her new stroller for a ride.

DJ liked going for a walk in the park. It was her first time to walk on grass.

We went to a favorite restaurant of ours for lunch and DJ loved the noodles.

We ordered five dishes: beef noodles, boiled peanuts, beef rice, slices beef and curry potatoes with rice.

We even took Spot in the restaurant. We can take Spot into our local corner store or even some restaurants. Either people like Spot or they don't. There are other dogs and dog lovers in the city but most people don't have pets at all for various reasons.

The river is starting to thaw.

This is the park along the river. We can take Spot into restaurants but we can't take him here, unless we carry him through the park and down to the river.

This is a picture taken just outside a tire shop called V-Kool. The tire shop is at the first major corner between our apartment and Ivy. We pass by it just about every time we go to the river.

We were all tired after our long walk, even Spot.

Debora and I took DJ out again the next day to the underground and bought some new shoes for DJ that she loves and a couple pair of pants. Debora also picked up a new pair of shoes. I couldn't find any shoes for me that I liked that were in my size. I will have to keep looking.

Back to public school.

 

Suzanne went downtown the other day and got her nails done, ears pierced and bought some glamour glasses.

I vy English school will have seven teachers this year; Scott is from California.

Scott, George, the Alexander family and the four of us had to go register for our new resident permits a few days ago. Like most government things anywhere, it was hurry-up and wait.

DJ was so tired one day that she couldn't finish her lunch before taking her nap. She is really getting a good work-out pushing that stool around. And with both hands busy holding things, she will now stand for a short time and take a few steps, without holding onto someone or something.

Back to work.

The Spring Festival holiday is over and it is time to get back to work. We had Rita over for chili one evening. I found cumin already ground-up for the chili, but since I already had the mortar and pestle, I purchased the whole cumin. Next time I will buy the ground-up; cumin seeds are hard to grind by hand. I did go ahead and buy the chili powder instead of making my own. If you check the packet of chili seasoning mix, you will find that chili is not the only ingredient; here it is. I made the mistake of putting in the whole packet and it was too hot even for me. Rita ate a whole bowl. Other than the heat, it was very good and I will have to make it again. As usual, DJ enjoyed the company and had a good time. DJ took a bath and played with her toys after Rita left.

Debora had the social meeting again this week and will for the next two weeks before Sharon comes back to take over. One of the kids that came brought their dog to make friends with Spot. It looks like he had a great time. Another boy gave us a drawing he had done of Confucius. It is beautiful. And still another person gave us a special calendar that their grandfather does calligraphy for that is very beautiful. Our Chinese friends are so nice and special to us.

Like I said, it is time to get back to work. I went in on Monday to prepare for classes that started back yesterday. Andrea and David got their schedules. I had to cover for Connie's first two spoken classes, since she was still on a plane from Beijing, coming back from Canada. David just sat in on some classes, but Andrea was given a couple of George's classes, since he won't be back until next week. I also learned that we will be having a total of seven foreign teachers this year. The last teacher is arriving from America on Sunday. Mei is very excited that the school will have five teachers from America.

Yesterday and today.

Suzanne went over to some friends house yesterday and they went to a karaoke bar. Today we met with our new friends that are going to be teaching at Ivy. We had a good time showing them around a little and sharing time with them and their kids. Ori is 16, Andy is 13 and Tigh is 9.

Suzanne and a new friend names Alex.

Suzanne's friend Harold.

At the KTV karaoke.

Suzanne and Alex.

Tigh playing XBox in DJ's chair.

Ori and Andy looking at Suzanne's room.

Spot eating Ori.

French kiss.